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saudade_apps) wrote2014-04-27 02:07 am
saudade_apps) wrote2014-04-27 02:07 am
Entry tags:
[Standard] Chrono Trigger - Magus / Janus of Zeal
PLAYER
NAME: Mary
CHARACTER
NAME(S): Birth: Janus of Zeal / Taken: Magus
AGE: ~28 ...and here's how I arrive at this, as we're never told. Guile in Chrono Cross was actually supposed to be Magus, but due to the 40 collectible characters, his back-story was dropped. Until the Dream Devourer sequence, fans only had Gil in Radical Dreamers to connect Magus to Guile (aside from the green eyes, purple hair, and affinity for powerful shadow magic, that is). I choose to connect the two and see Guile as how Janus would be if he'd never become Magus. Guile has no memory of his past and his age is listed as 26, however since he has no memories, he can only guess at his own age.
CANON: Chrono Trigger
BACKGROUND HISTORY:
Chronopedia: A Chrono-verse Wiki
Note: I refer to Lavos as a female while a number of fans of the series refer to her as a male for one specific reason. She spends most of the game pregnant, giving birth sometime around 2300 CE. While it can be argued that Lavos is of a species that reproduces asexually or have the males carrying the children, I take the route where Lavos' reasons for going to the world and taking what she needs from it to give birth to her spawn is a natural biological thing for her. It's another point in the game where evil and good aren't really either, it's just our perspective that makes it so.
Janus was born nearly 10 years after his sister, sometime before the palace of Zeal was moved to the sky. Janus is compared to his mother as being cold and aloof, whereas Schala is kind and caring. It's likely that before the King of Zeal died, Schala was in a more loving environment. I tend to assume that the King's death was yet another thing orchestrated by Lavos, who used the Queen's grief to get what she needed from the humans.
It is implied that those who can use magic are from a separate tribe of humans that kept to themselves in 65 million BCE. Lavos controlled evolution from 65 million BCE, so it's likely she made them magic users.
With Lavos having taken control of the Queen, everything changed. Those capable of using the magic Lavos helped them access and augment (without Lavos' assistance, almost everyone lost the ability) were put in a city in the sky while those who could not, the Earthbound Ones, were forced to remain below in an ice age (given that it ends after the city falls back to the earth, it may have been caused by Lavos or by the magic keeping the city in the sky).
Enough years went on like this that children of the Earthbound ones don't remember anything but things the way they were. Most of the people of Zeal don't seem bothered by it and only one of them comments on it, more or less calling it the natural course of things. Schala, however, remembers well and goes between the city in the sky and the home of the Earthbound Ones. Janus follows her down there at times. We see him there one time when she's being abducted and it seems too coincidental that this would be the only time he ever followed her.
Note: During the course of the game, Crono & his friends end up in 12,000 BCE and witness the end of Magus' childhood. It's shown that what we see of Janus in 12,000 BCE is altered from what Magus lived through, due to the presence of Magus and Crono & his friends. There was no group in Enhasa that Janus met and the Gurus were not locked away. There was also no Prophet.
The Queen began construction of the Undersea Palace, a palace designed to be the new home of the Enlightened Ones as close to Lavos as possible. Many Earthbound Ones died in the construction and the Enlightened Ones, now well under Lavos' control, felt they should be honored to even see it. Schala was the most able to use Lavos' power (although it is stated that Janus, who never uses magic, has more power and ability than either his mother or his sister and Magus is, during the first battle, only able to be physically harmed by the same weapon that broke the Mammon Machine) and she was the one the Queen chose to power the Mammon Machine, the machine which harvested the power of Lavos and allowed then to commune with her, despite the fact that it would end up killing her if she brought it to full power.
The day that the Mammon Machine was to come online was to be a great one for the Zeal Kingdom. The Queen called the three Gurus and Schala down to see the magnificence. The Gurus warned that it was dangerous to bring it online, that the power was unstable. Janus, having sensed the Black Wind - the signal that death was approaching to kill one of the people it surrounded (it was around Schala at the least, likely most of Zeal, although the only person Janus comments to is Schala so he knows it's around her) - followed Schala down to the Undersea Palace. When the Mammon Machine destabilized, time portals opened all through the Palace.
When the portal opened again, Janus was deposited circa 600 CE. Ozzie was in the clearing Janus was deposited in. His first move was to send his imps at the boy to kill him. Humans, which Janus very clearly was, are food to the mazoku (the term means 'demonic or magical being' and is the term from the original Japanese; the English version use Mystics and Fiends, neither of which I find apt). Janus managed to survive using magic he had neither used in years nor used without Lavos' help. Ozzie, who had been banished from his rule of the mazoku, believed that Janus was the golden child prophesied (this prophecy is alluded to by one mazoku in 1000 CE) to bring about the domination of the mazoku. They had originally been brought into the humans' dimension through the power of Lavos as servants for the Enlightened. Clearly, they never forgot this and, as learned in 1000 CE, mazoku don't forgive easily.
Ozzie used Janus' presence to get back into his rule of the mazoku, although before too long it was clear that the people were following the boy. Janus spent the next 20 years studying magic, making deals with demons, and doing whatever he needed to in order to summon Lavos to himself, kill her, and find a way to save Schala. It was a complete and utter obsession. He studied the history of his own time to learn how to go about doing what he needed to. During this time, the war with the humans (which had started before Janus' arrival and ended with the mazoku failing and their driving Ozzie out) rose and Janus - who abandoned his name taking on his title, Magus, as a moniker - promised the mazoku everything they wanted. The humans would be destroyed, just leave me alone and let me do what I'm doing. The mazoku will rule all, just leave me alone. Eventually he told them that if he could summon Lavos, he could destroy all of the humans. Ozzie, Slash and Flea - his top generals - took main control of the war.
Ten years after his arrival, Magus and Ozzie journeyed to Denadoro Mountains to the cave of Masa and Mune. Before they were able to get there, Cyrus - a Knight of the Guardia Kingdom - and his dear friend Glenn, found them. Cyrus had the Hero's Medal and was questing for the Masamune. Magus was likely there to find Masa and Mune, as they were from his time. Cyrus, beaten back by Magus, sacrificed himself to try and save Glenn. Magus burned Cyrus alive and, at Ozzie's prompting, turned Glenn into a frog-man. (This doesn't mean that he wouldn't have done something similar to Glenn, but it is also a step more toward showing that he cares at all about Glenn's existence - even in a negative fashion - than he really did. This was pre-hatred, after all.
After ten more years, the mazoku started to gain the upper hand when Crono's group fought through the front lines and made it to Magus' castle. They fought through Ozzie, Slash, and Flea to make it to Magus. They interrupted him during the final part of his summoning and fought him. Glenn - now going by Frog - had gained the Masamune and nearly killed him with it. The battle - or Magus' lack of concentration - destabilized the power bringing Lavos close and nearly woke her. In the tradition of villains, Magus gave them something of a monologue about how he did not create Lavos and how in 1300 years she would rise to take over the world. A massive portal opened beneath them, throwing Crono & his friends to 65 million BCE and Magus back to 12,000 BCE.
He used his knowledge of his past to manipulate his mother into believing he was a prophet. He used this to get close to her. He warned the Queen that a group of meddlers would soon arrive. He knew that Crono and the others would eventually arrive in his true time if they were really planning on trying to kill Lavos. Sure enough, they arrived.
Things had already changed from what he lived through, however. The Queen had the three Gurus locked away, possibly from the Prophet's warning, and Janus met Crono's group. He captured Crono and his friends and forced Schala to open the time gate they came through and then seal it once they were through it. He had wanted to kill them, but Schala objected. With Schala's objection came Janus backing her up and Alfador going over to him. In order to keep himself from being recognized and ruining everything, he spared them. He likely recognized that they might be useful to him at some point.
During the activation of the Mammon Machine, Schala was nearly killed by the power back-washing and it was the only time he publicly faltered in his image; he called out to her in concern. When it destabilized again, portals again opened under Janus and the three Gurus, despite their being nowhere near the Ocean Palace this time. A rift opened, allowing Magus to face Lavos and nearly be killed, himself. Crono sacrificed himself to save the others and Schala, using the last of her power, sent the survivors to safety.
Twenty years of struggle came to nothing.
Realizing he couldn't kill Lavos on his own, he went with Marle and the others to find a way to save Crono. They needed a doppelganger doll to do it and, sadly, the one who could make them had seen Crono before but not Schala. After saving him, they bounced around time to do various things. One of these things was traveling back to 600 CE and kill Ozzie, Slash and Flea. After everything, they faced down Lavos and killed her.
PERSONALITY:
Magus has been an extreme introvert since childhood. His only friends at that time were his cat and his sister. He's very much like his mother at this point, as well. He looks down on others and is cold and aloof to everyone else. He looks on the Earthbound Ones as cretins because they live in filthy hovels and are poor, magicless people. He looks at the Enlightened Ones as cretins, as well, because everyone is a cretin.
To say he dislikes most people is an understatement. There is no one, other than Schala, that he has ever cared about. He uses Ozzie so that he can get more powerful and defeat Lavos, only to discard him once the fight happens. And when confronted, his reaction is simply "Oh, how dreadful". Cretin is about his favorite term for people, second to 'fool'.
He is a broody character. He's spent his time in the Middle Ages (about 20 years) trying to get more and more powerful so that he could destroy Lavos and return to his time to stop his sister from meeting her fate, which he believes isn't death. Most of his broodiness comes in the form of more thoughtful/head bowed poses for his sprite. His thoughts are always on his sister and how to save her and undo the past.
On those same lines, he is a rather gloomy person. Nothing really matters except his sister and no one's life matters, not even his own. This goes for allies and enemies alike. He also regards bright and shiny things as being drab and likes his dark, closed off spaces (at least he doesn't wear eyeliner and write bad poetry).
Those aside, he is a very potent and ambitious man. As a child in the Magical Kingdom of Zeal, he showed no magical talent. Yet when he appeared in the Middle Ages, he was able to use previously untapped wells of magic to fight off the imps under Ozzie's command (although, given his dislike of people and his disdain for them, he may simply have had no desire to show off any magical skill). When Ozzie took Janus in as the golden child and savior of the mazoku (note: this is one of a few fan theories as to why Ozzie took him in), Janus used that to study his own history closely and to learn every bit of magic he could so that when the time came, he could destroy Lavos.
To achieve this goal, Magus was willing to do whatever it took. And his great disdain for everyone else left him uncaring about the war between the mazoku and the humans. This would not further his goal and was, thus, unimportant. His need to obtain more and more power and to find Schala is obsessive. There's no bordering on here. It's his driving force in life. When Schala tells him that he can’t save her the way he is, he cannot handle it. If he cannot save her, what is the point of existing? In the darkness between worlds, he erases his memories and his powers - but even this can't rid him of his obsession. He will always search for Her, even if he doesn't know who She is.
He did find her in the past and he was just as cruel and cold to her as he is to everyone. It wasn't a matter of disliking her, and I assume it hurt him to be like that with her, but he needed the right moment to save her or else it would all be for naught. That he will be like this with even the woman who he loves more than his own life (and I feel it necessary to point out that this is NOT sexual or romantic love in ANY sense of it) and is obsessed with saving speaks volumes to the sort of man he is.
He's independent, simply because he doesn't like others and he looks down on everyone. Because of this, he tends to be very reticent to the point of being laconic. When he does speak, it's often something as short as 'hmph'. Occasionally, his dialog is reduced to "..." because he's just silently staring at the speaker. When he does speak more than that, his words are sometimes preceded by the ellipsis. He also doesn't care if his words piss people off. He told Marle that Crono was a fool just after his death and that he brought it on himself. It didn't bother him how that would upset her.
All of this aside, he is very loyal, but only to Schala. He tried to go to her as a small child because he knew someone was going to die that day and the black wind was howling for them. When Dalton, his mother's supporter (until he could take over), tried to hurt Schala, he tried to attack Dalton. To save her from her fate, he was willing to put aside his sheer hatred for Frog and work with him to destroy Lavos.
Magus' fears, unsurprisingly, center around Schala. He fears never finding her again, never saving her, never having enough power to save her. Should he ever find her, his fears will shift. Can he protect her? Will she be lost to him again? Will someone try to come between them? Will he have the power to keep her with him always?
Anything he ever fears will be related to her. He's never considered it, but should it be shown to him that she would hate what he's become in order to save her, he'll begin to fear that hatred, although that will not slow him down or make him change his ways. Only Schala, herself, can do that.
If Obsessive Love could be diagnosed as something other than a sexual obsession, it would be Magus and his feelings toward Schala. She is his reason for living, for fighting, for learning, for everything. He goes on a straight path toward getting her back without even a thought for the damage he causes in the meantime, to himself or others. It's generally thought that the reasons for his physical changes (darker hair, red eyes, pointed teeth) are from his exposure to demon magics and probably deals with demons. There is nothing he would not do, no price too high, if it means Schala.
Outside of his obsession there, he has a low tolerance for alcohol because he never drinks. He does not want to be out of control of himself for a moment. That moment that his mind is clouded might be the moment he needs, that one moment where he learns the secret he needs for finding her, saving her, having her back.
He's never been in an intimate relationship; he wouldn't form one even if he had people skills. To love another is to admit that he can never have Schala back, to admit that she is lost to him, or dead. He cannot do that. What would his life mean? What would be the point? To that end, the more someone seems to be interested in him, the worse his attitude toward them will become. It's not just childish balking; it's his obsession.
He is not-so-secretly a cat person. While he might not show anything toward the cat around others, he prefers them to anyone (except Schala) and is not above petting one if he's alone and it's within reach. If no one was around, he might even be tempted to help a cat in need. Might.
CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS:
[Note: The headcanon for how I see his relationships is something I will, of course, discuss with any potential canon mates. While it is how I see things, I'm 100% willing to come to some middle ground if potential canon mates do not see things the same way.]
Schala: His only friend (outside of Alfador). The only person who means anything, the only one who matters. The only person he loves. No price is too high if it means keeping her safe. Only her hatred would hurt him, only her love would move him. She is his only reason for living. Learning that he can't save her the way he is drives him instantly into a suicidal state.
Alfador: His only other friend is his cat. Alfador likes no one else (although he follows around a refugee child after the fall of Zeal) and will run straight to him. Magus doesn't show any real affection toward the cat, at least not where anyone can see, but he does care about the cat. It was his only companion, outside of his sister.
King Zeal: King Zeal is dead by several years by the time of canon. The Kingdom of Zeal was a very different place when he was alive. There was no magic from Lavos, no segregation of Enlightened and Earthbound. The Queen was sane when he was alive and it's possible the death of the King unhinged her or drove her to make a pact with Lavos. I envision that Janus' life was a little more normal when his father was alive.
Queen Zeal: He hates his mother. She gave up everything to Lavos for power. He is, although he doesn't see it, very much like her. He feels she stopped being his mother when he was a small child and lost her soul. When he comes upon her after joining with Crono and the others, he tells her she's a 'pitiful fool, duped by Lavos' and that he will put an end to her. Part of his hatred of her stems from the fact that she brought Lavos on them. She is why he was separated from Schala and why Schala was absorbed by one of Lavos' spawn.
Dalton: Dalton worked alongside the Queen to bring Lavos to the surface. He was only waiting to take over when something happened to her. Dalton assaulted Schala at one point and forcibly dragged her back to the Ocean Palace. He did this in front of Janus, using his own power to knock the child out. As with any slight against his sister, it's something he never has forgotten.
Melchior, Gaspar, Belthasar: They are the three Gurus of Life, once advisors to the Queen and King of Zeal. He seems to actually have some level of respect for them, or at least for Gaspar, the Guru of Time who shows them how to save someone from their fate. The Gurus are responsible for a lot of the advances that came about during his mother's rule (despite being lost with the quite literal fall of the Kingdom of Zeal).
Ozzie & Slash: Ozzie is older than Magus. Old enough that he is an adult and a failed ruler by the time Janus appears in the clearing. While Ozzie took him in and in a sense raised him, Magus has no love for his caretaker. Despite being two of his top generals, he sees them both as tools, means to an end. He sees to their deaths and while this isn't out of anything more than they're angry he betrayed them, he shows no hesitation with it. He has a special hatred for Ozzie in particular. Not one he would vocalize ever, but it does burn hotter than his hatred for Slash or Flea.
Flea: The third of his top generals, Flea (according to a fan theory) is either younger than or around the same age as Magus. He dislikes Flea just as much as Slash. Flea is the closest he's ever come to an intimate connection. Flea has a love and thirst for power. Trying to get in that part of Magus' life would help that, whether it's a means to an end or whether he really developed feelings for his once king. Whichever it was, it didn't affect Magus enough to spare Flea.
Crono & Ayla: These (along with Marle, Lucca, Robo , and Glenn/Frog) are the heroes of the game. He doesn't really like them but he is willing to work with them. He stays mostly aloof from them, remaining independent and working alongside but not with them (as shown by the lack of double and triple techs). While they have meddled in his affairs in the past, they also tried to save Schala and kill Lavos. They may be the only people he can actually work with.
Lucca & Robo: Like with Crono and Ayla, Magus doesn't really like them. As with the others, he's willing to work with them and use them to achieve his own goal. Unlike Crono and Ayla, however, he is willing to work with them. He has a triple tech with Marle & Lucca, and a second with Lucca and Robo. It's possible that he sees them as kindred spirits, even if he doesn't like them. The two of them are strange in the eyes of their peers. Lucca is something of a mad scientist who knows she can do great things, but often ends up blowing things up. Robo likes humans and is nearly killed by the other robots of his time.
Marle: As with Lucca & Robo, he may see her as something of a kindred spirit even if he doesn't like her. She is seen as strange by the royal court. She runs off and meets a commoner (Crono) and just disappears with him. She isn't delicate and demure the way a princess is expected to be. Moreover, Marle possesses his sister's necklace. It has been passed down through her family for 12,000 years. While it's stated that the line goes from Ayla (65 million BCE) to Marle (1000 CE), it's implied that Schala is in between them in 12,000 BCE. She is also quite similar to how Schala appears as a blonde. Magus isn't stupid; if the pendant has been passed down through the line of what was a matriarchy, Marle must be descended from Schala. While he doesn't like her, that at least makes her worth something more than the others.
Glenn/Frog and Cyrus: He hates them about as much as he hates anyone who isn't Lavos. While Magus was in the Denadoro Mountains, likely to seek out Masa and Mune, magical creatures from his home time who form the spirit of the Ruby Knife/Masamune, Cyrus and Glenn accosted Magus and Ozzie. Cyrus was damned and determined to master the Masamune, which is the only weapon that (before Magus' powers were drained by Lavos) could hurt Magus. Magus killed Cyrus and, at Ozzie's prompting, turned Glenn into an anthropomorphic frog. Frog went on to master the Masamune and nearly killed him with it. So he killed Glenn's best friend and turned Glenn into a frog. That was 10 years ago. To Magus it wasn't important, so it's not important.
STRENGTH OF HEART MOMENT SUMMARY:
The Final Battle with Lavos.
For over 20 years, he has been trying to become powerful enough to kill her. She is the source of all the pain in his life, the thing that took him from his sister and sent him to 600 C.E.. He's had to work with others to get to this point and, while he doesn't like it, he understands that he needed to in this thing.
The dark pride he felt at seeing Lavos fall would have been enough to call to the darkness. His heart isn't evil per se, although to an outsider it would certainly appear that way. He isn't concerned with Good or Evil, and from his perspective his heart is grey.
POWERS
SAMPLE - THE AWAKENING:
Darkness.
He did not mind it, nor did he fear it. The world began and ended in darkness, did it not? He had lived it in for most of his life. It was familiar. Comfortable. And with Lavos dead and Schala...
Schala...
His eyes opened in the darkness. Had it been lulling him to sleep? Trying to keep him within itself? He struggled in the darkness and felt himself falling through it. If his fate was to die, so be it, but that did not mean he would go passively.
Magus was barely aware of the light below him until his boots touched down on the stained glass floor, his cloak fluttering in the wind that existed only around him. Out of the darkness, he looked around him. No way up, no way down, and only the glass. The glass showing a woman in deep purple robes with bound, softer purple hair and a man behind her covered in a blue cloak. Schala and himself. Off to the side, almost as though she were looking at them, were smaller circles showing Crono, Marle, Lucca, Frog, Robo and Ayla.
They were not his friends but they had been...
...useful.
So much to do, so little time... Take your time.
He looked up from his examination of the glass beneath him. Whose voice was that? Was it the Entity the others had spoken of? But whoever it was, they were not showing themselves. He stepped away from the edge. The words from the voice seemed almost mocking.
The door is still shut.
"What door?" he asked aloud but there was no reply from the voice.
What sort of door? He saw none, so that eliminated the obvious. And what would happen when the door opened? And did it even matter?
A light shone down from the darkness, from a point that his eyes could not find, and three pedestals rose from the glass. They were dark things, radiating power, each with an object hovering over it. The first one had a set of armor shimmering like the moon; the second had scythe with a jagged blade; the last held an orb of darkness with a fire burning within.
Power sleeps within you. If you give it form, it will give you strength. Choose well.
So. This voice from wherever was offering to open more power within him. Whatever it was, he knew what that would mean. There was always a price, always some cost. But for more power, to be that much stronger to save Schala, it was worth it. It always was. He stopped in front of the burning orb and touched it.
The power of the mages. Inner strength. An orb of wonder and ruin. Is this the power you seek?
"Yes." There was no hesitation, no thought. Magic was the power he needed.
The orb vanished in a flash of light and he felt power coursing through him. It wasn't enough, he knew that. If it was enough, he would not still be in this... place. He would be back where he should be. He would never call it 'home', not even to himself, unless he was at Schala's side.
What will you sacrifice?
There was no surprise on his face, only a curious glance at the other two items: armor and a weapon. So by taking the clearly magical item, he gained magical power. He was being asked, then, to sacrifice defense or strength? That seemed logical enough. He touched the armor.
The power of the Guardian. Kindness to aid friends. Armor to repel all. Is this your sacrifice?
He sneered. 'Kindness to aid friends'? 'The power of the Guardian'? These were things he did not need. He had no friends to aid, he had no one to protect. Unless he found Schala, and then his power would protect her and aid her.
"Yes."
The armor vanished and he looked at the scythe. Might and magic. While he never focused on might, there was more than brute force to it. This was his path. This had always been his path.
You have chosen the power of the mages. You've sacrificed the power of the guardian. Is this the form you choose?
He scowled up at the light. Clearly if the voice had a source, it would be up there somewhere.
"Yes."
He hated fools. He had made his decision and stated it. He did not need to repeat himself. But as soon as the word was past his lips, the pedestals crumbled to dust and the glass began shaking. He levitated above the glass, watching as it began to break apart. The glass shattered, the image of Schala breaking into millions of pieces.
The darkness swallowed the shattered glass and the light above him. He could see it swallowing the space around him and when it pulled him back in, he went easily enough. It would send him where he was to be, or wherever it wanted him to use the power it had granted him.
There was always a price, and it wasn't always simple.
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
Magus choose Artificer.
[Magic]
He is the most powerful wizard in his world. Unlike the other mages of his time, he taps into his own power rather than Lavos' power. Most of his magic is Shadow based. Shadow in his world is a combination of Fire, Ice/Water, and Light. While he does show an affinity to all forms of magic, he pushes himself into Shadow because it is the most powerful.
With the path of the Artificer, he will do exactly as he has been: trying to gain more and more power. With his base magics being Fire, Ice, and Lightning (all three effecting all enemies near him), he would learn Fire, Blizzard and Thunder as far as he could. With how Water magic is linked to Healing magic in his world, he would stay away from those two as they aren't useful to him.
As higher level magics become available to him, he'll focus on the ones that are more useful to him and he'll leave the ones that are Light innate or less useful to him. As he 'levels up', I'll keep track on his journal as to where he is magically. Some things, like Cure and Astro, he won't bother with. Shadow spells, like Obscuro, and status effect skills will be what he focuses on.
Eventually, he'll want to lean (meld) Dark Matter again. It is his ultimate attack.
[Canon Magic]
The canon spells he knows (as a play character, not as the computer controlled boss):
Lightning 2
Ice 2
Fire 2
These three cast one element and attack every enemy in the area. Game mechanics made it impossible to target allies, but Magus wouldn't care enough to bother if it was a difficult thing.
Dark Bomb attacks a group of enemies with Shadow magic. They must be closely grouped.
Barrier creates a magic-resistance barrier on one ally.
Dark Mist creates a fog of Shadow magic that harms every enemy it touches as it passes.
Black Hole creates a black hole and sucks an enemy into it. Insta-death (if it works, which is usually doesn't for me). Doesn't really matter for this game though.
Dark Matter is his most powerful attack. It attacks with shadow and light, pretty much tearing a rip in space for extra damage.
[MP]
From his own world, he has 99 MP. His more basic skills take 8 MP per cast, his intermediate take 10 MP per cast, and his most powerful skills take 15 per cast with Dark Matter, his ultimate attack, taking 20. I'm going to use that as a base line for how magic in Saudade drains his mental stamina.
[Innate Magical Skill]
Levitation: Magus does not run; he levitates. He can fly using the same ability. It is such a basic skill for him that it doesn't drain his MP at all. It's very likely related to the wind that always seems to surround him.
Teleportation: He is able to teleport to places he knows. He can, for instance, teleport to the North Cape when he knows Marle and the others arrive but he cannot teleport to another world in the KH universe. There is no given limit to how far he can teleport nor does it have any obvious MP drain to it. For purposes of game, the further he teleports, the more MP it will take. He won't be able to teleport to another world, however.
Black Wind: He is able to feel the Black Wind and has been able to since he was a small child. It seems to be a family trait. The Black Wind is the wind that blows when someone is about to die. It surrounds them. If it's not certain who in a group will die, it will surround all of them and he will be unable to pinpoint who exactly will die.
[Weapons & Armor]
He is capable of using a scythe to attack, however as a mage his physical strength isn't the highest. He can do about the same damage as the typical RPG healer girl. It is his last offensive move if he runs out of MP.
If he's to that point and the enemy still isn't dead, he's pretty much screwed, but he'll still fight. He has no desire to learn any other weapon or to learn how better to use a scythe. Learning that takes away from his time studying magic.
He wears leather armor. As with a lot of RPGs, he can't go above leather. It's too restrictive and the metal armor interferes with magical powers. The armor he wears has been enchanted through dark rituals.
INVENTORY:
Doom Scythe: A scythe wielded by the dwellers of darkness.
Gloom Helm: A helm empowered through dark rituals
Gloom Cape: Armor empowered through dark rituals
Schala's Amulet: An amulet Schala gave to Janus to keep him safe. In his world, it prevents status effects. I am more than willing to dial this back so he can be effected. I'd still like it to protect him ~50% of the time.
NOTES/ASPIRATIONS
Magus is not a people person. He does not play well with others. He will be very interested in the darkness. He will not make a good Finder, although he will be willing to force guarded alliances with those who prove useful to him.
The last time I had him in a Kingdom Hearts type game, he gave his soul to Hades in return for power over the darkness. If it means saving Schala or even could possibly do it, it is worth it. That's all he'll be working to unless something manages to pull him off of that.
It will be interesting for me to see how I can get him ICly involved in plots. He's already proved that he is independent and capable of surviving even in darkness (or among people who used to think he was food), but he hasn't really been forced to grow emotionally.
Character growth is what I'm seeking. The only way he gets it in canon is to wipe his memories.
Previously Played Thread [TW: Character Death]
Here is a link to everything he did in that game while I was there. The thread link I provided was his entrance, so he was canon fresh
very small revision request to please adjust inventory to better reflect Awakening choices. armor and weapon removed.
NAME: Mary
CHARACTER
NAME(S): Birth: Janus of Zeal / Taken: Magus
AGE: ~28 ...and here's how I arrive at this, as we're never told. Guile in Chrono Cross was actually supposed to be Magus, but due to the 40 collectible characters, his back-story was dropped. Until the Dream Devourer sequence, fans only had Gil in Radical Dreamers to connect Magus to Guile (aside from the green eyes, purple hair, and affinity for powerful shadow magic, that is). I choose to connect the two and see Guile as how Janus would be if he'd never become Magus. Guile has no memory of his past and his age is listed as 26, however since he has no memories, he can only guess at his own age.
CANON: Chrono Trigger
BACKGROUND HISTORY:
Chronopedia: A Chrono-verse Wiki
Note: I refer to Lavos as a female while a number of fans of the series refer to her as a male for one specific reason. She spends most of the game pregnant, giving birth sometime around 2300 CE. While it can be argued that Lavos is of a species that reproduces asexually or have the males carrying the children, I take the route where Lavos' reasons for going to the world and taking what she needs from it to give birth to her spawn is a natural biological thing for her. It's another point in the game where evil and good aren't really either, it's just our perspective that makes it so.
Janus was born nearly 10 years after his sister, sometime before the palace of Zeal was moved to the sky. Janus is compared to his mother as being cold and aloof, whereas Schala is kind and caring. It's likely that before the King of Zeal died, Schala was in a more loving environment. I tend to assume that the King's death was yet another thing orchestrated by Lavos, who used the Queen's grief to get what she needed from the humans.
It is implied that those who can use magic are from a separate tribe of humans that kept to themselves in 65 million BCE. Lavos controlled evolution from 65 million BCE, so it's likely she made them magic users.
With Lavos having taken control of the Queen, everything changed. Those capable of using the magic Lavos helped them access and augment (without Lavos' assistance, almost everyone lost the ability) were put in a city in the sky while those who could not, the Earthbound Ones, were forced to remain below in an ice age (given that it ends after the city falls back to the earth, it may have been caused by Lavos or by the magic keeping the city in the sky).
Enough years went on like this that children of the Earthbound ones don't remember anything but things the way they were. Most of the people of Zeal don't seem bothered by it and only one of them comments on it, more or less calling it the natural course of things. Schala, however, remembers well and goes between the city in the sky and the home of the Earthbound Ones. Janus follows her down there at times. We see him there one time when she's being abducted and it seems too coincidental that this would be the only time he ever followed her.
Note: During the course of the game, Crono & his friends end up in 12,000 BCE and witness the end of Magus' childhood. It's shown that what we see of Janus in 12,000 BCE is altered from what Magus lived through, due to the presence of Magus and Crono & his friends. There was no group in Enhasa that Janus met and the Gurus were not locked away. There was also no Prophet.
The Queen began construction of the Undersea Palace, a palace designed to be the new home of the Enlightened Ones as close to Lavos as possible. Many Earthbound Ones died in the construction and the Enlightened Ones, now well under Lavos' control, felt they should be honored to even see it. Schala was the most able to use Lavos' power (although it is stated that Janus, who never uses magic, has more power and ability than either his mother or his sister and Magus is, during the first battle, only able to be physically harmed by the same weapon that broke the Mammon Machine) and she was the one the Queen chose to power the Mammon Machine, the machine which harvested the power of Lavos and allowed then to commune with her, despite the fact that it would end up killing her if she brought it to full power.
The day that the Mammon Machine was to come online was to be a great one for the Zeal Kingdom. The Queen called the three Gurus and Schala down to see the magnificence. The Gurus warned that it was dangerous to bring it online, that the power was unstable. Janus, having sensed the Black Wind - the signal that death was approaching to kill one of the people it surrounded (it was around Schala at the least, likely most of Zeal, although the only person Janus comments to is Schala so he knows it's around her) - followed Schala down to the Undersea Palace. When the Mammon Machine destabilized, time portals opened all through the Palace.
When the portal opened again, Janus was deposited circa 600 CE. Ozzie was in the clearing Janus was deposited in. His first move was to send his imps at the boy to kill him. Humans, which Janus very clearly was, are food to the mazoku (the term means 'demonic or magical being' and is the term from the original Japanese; the English version use Mystics and Fiends, neither of which I find apt). Janus managed to survive using magic he had neither used in years nor used without Lavos' help. Ozzie, who had been banished from his rule of the mazoku, believed that Janus was the golden child prophesied (this prophecy is alluded to by one mazoku in 1000 CE) to bring about the domination of the mazoku. They had originally been brought into the humans' dimension through the power of Lavos as servants for the Enlightened. Clearly, they never forgot this and, as learned in 1000 CE, mazoku don't forgive easily.
Ozzie used Janus' presence to get back into his rule of the mazoku, although before too long it was clear that the people were following the boy. Janus spent the next 20 years studying magic, making deals with demons, and doing whatever he needed to in order to summon Lavos to himself, kill her, and find a way to save Schala. It was a complete and utter obsession. He studied the history of his own time to learn how to go about doing what he needed to. During this time, the war with the humans (which had started before Janus' arrival and ended with the mazoku failing and their driving Ozzie out) rose and Janus - who abandoned his name taking on his title, Magus, as a moniker - promised the mazoku everything they wanted. The humans would be destroyed, just leave me alone and let me do what I'm doing. The mazoku will rule all, just leave me alone. Eventually he told them that if he could summon Lavos, he could destroy all of the humans. Ozzie, Slash and Flea - his top generals - took main control of the war.
Ten years after his arrival, Magus and Ozzie journeyed to Denadoro Mountains to the cave of Masa and Mune. Before they were able to get there, Cyrus - a Knight of the Guardia Kingdom - and his dear friend Glenn, found them. Cyrus had the Hero's Medal and was questing for the Masamune. Magus was likely there to find Masa and Mune, as they were from his time. Cyrus, beaten back by Magus, sacrificed himself to try and save Glenn. Magus burned Cyrus alive and, at Ozzie's prompting, turned Glenn into a frog-man. (This doesn't mean that he wouldn't have done something similar to Glenn, but it is also a step more toward showing that he cares at all about Glenn's existence - even in a negative fashion - than he really did. This was pre-hatred, after all.
After ten more years, the mazoku started to gain the upper hand when Crono's group fought through the front lines and made it to Magus' castle. They fought through Ozzie, Slash, and Flea to make it to Magus. They interrupted him during the final part of his summoning and fought him. Glenn - now going by Frog - had gained the Masamune and nearly killed him with it. The battle - or Magus' lack of concentration - destabilized the power bringing Lavos close and nearly woke her. In the tradition of villains, Magus gave them something of a monologue about how he did not create Lavos and how in 1300 years she would rise to take over the world. A massive portal opened beneath them, throwing Crono & his friends to 65 million BCE and Magus back to 12,000 BCE.
He used his knowledge of his past to manipulate his mother into believing he was a prophet. He used this to get close to her. He warned the Queen that a group of meddlers would soon arrive. He knew that Crono and the others would eventually arrive in his true time if they were really planning on trying to kill Lavos. Sure enough, they arrived.
Things had already changed from what he lived through, however. The Queen had the three Gurus locked away, possibly from the Prophet's warning, and Janus met Crono's group. He captured Crono and his friends and forced Schala to open the time gate they came through and then seal it once they were through it. He had wanted to kill them, but Schala objected. With Schala's objection came Janus backing her up and Alfador going over to him. In order to keep himself from being recognized and ruining everything, he spared them. He likely recognized that they might be useful to him at some point.
During the activation of the Mammon Machine, Schala was nearly killed by the power back-washing and it was the only time he publicly faltered in his image; he called out to her in concern. When it destabilized again, portals again opened under Janus and the three Gurus, despite their being nowhere near the Ocean Palace this time. A rift opened, allowing Magus to face Lavos and nearly be killed, himself. Crono sacrificed himself to save the others and Schala, using the last of her power, sent the survivors to safety.
Twenty years of struggle came to nothing.
Realizing he couldn't kill Lavos on his own, he went with Marle and the others to find a way to save Crono. They needed a doppelganger doll to do it and, sadly, the one who could make them had seen Crono before but not Schala. After saving him, they bounced around time to do various things. One of these things was traveling back to 600 CE and kill Ozzie, Slash and Flea. After everything, they faced down Lavos and killed her.
PERSONALITY:
Magus has been an extreme introvert since childhood. His only friends at that time were his cat and his sister. He's very much like his mother at this point, as well. He looks down on others and is cold and aloof to everyone else. He looks on the Earthbound Ones as cretins because they live in filthy hovels and are poor, magicless people. He looks at the Enlightened Ones as cretins, as well, because everyone is a cretin.
To say he dislikes most people is an understatement. There is no one, other than Schala, that he has ever cared about. He uses Ozzie so that he can get more powerful and defeat Lavos, only to discard him once the fight happens. And when confronted, his reaction is simply "Oh, how dreadful". Cretin is about his favorite term for people, second to 'fool'.
He is a broody character. He's spent his time in the Middle Ages (about 20 years) trying to get more and more powerful so that he could destroy Lavos and return to his time to stop his sister from meeting her fate, which he believes isn't death. Most of his broodiness comes in the form of more thoughtful/head bowed poses for his sprite. His thoughts are always on his sister and how to save her and undo the past.
On those same lines, he is a rather gloomy person. Nothing really matters except his sister and no one's life matters, not even his own. This goes for allies and enemies alike. He also regards bright and shiny things as being drab and likes his dark, closed off spaces (at least he doesn't wear eyeliner and write bad poetry).
Those aside, he is a very potent and ambitious man. As a child in the Magical Kingdom of Zeal, he showed no magical talent. Yet when he appeared in the Middle Ages, he was able to use previously untapped wells of magic to fight off the imps under Ozzie's command (although, given his dislike of people and his disdain for them, he may simply have had no desire to show off any magical skill). When Ozzie took Janus in as the golden child and savior of the mazoku (note: this is one of a few fan theories as to why Ozzie took him in), Janus used that to study his own history closely and to learn every bit of magic he could so that when the time came, he could destroy Lavos.
To achieve this goal, Magus was willing to do whatever it took. And his great disdain for everyone else left him uncaring about the war between the mazoku and the humans. This would not further his goal and was, thus, unimportant. His need to obtain more and more power and to find Schala is obsessive. There's no bordering on here. It's his driving force in life. When Schala tells him that he can’t save her the way he is, he cannot handle it. If he cannot save her, what is the point of existing? In the darkness between worlds, he erases his memories and his powers - but even this can't rid him of his obsession. He will always search for Her, even if he doesn't know who She is.
He did find her in the past and he was just as cruel and cold to her as he is to everyone. It wasn't a matter of disliking her, and I assume it hurt him to be like that with her, but he needed the right moment to save her or else it would all be for naught. That he will be like this with even the woman who he loves more than his own life (and I feel it necessary to point out that this is NOT sexual or romantic love in ANY sense of it) and is obsessed with saving speaks volumes to the sort of man he is.
He's independent, simply because he doesn't like others and he looks down on everyone. Because of this, he tends to be very reticent to the point of being laconic. When he does speak, it's often something as short as 'hmph'. Occasionally, his dialog is reduced to "..." because he's just silently staring at the speaker. When he does speak more than that, his words are sometimes preceded by the ellipsis. He also doesn't care if his words piss people off. He told Marle that Crono was a fool just after his death and that he brought it on himself. It didn't bother him how that would upset her.
All of this aside, he is very loyal, but only to Schala. He tried to go to her as a small child because he knew someone was going to die that day and the black wind was howling for them. When Dalton, his mother's supporter (until he could take over), tried to hurt Schala, he tried to attack Dalton. To save her from her fate, he was willing to put aside his sheer hatred for Frog and work with him to destroy Lavos.
Magus' fears, unsurprisingly, center around Schala. He fears never finding her again, never saving her, never having enough power to save her. Should he ever find her, his fears will shift. Can he protect her? Will she be lost to him again? Will someone try to come between them? Will he have the power to keep her with him always?
Anything he ever fears will be related to her. He's never considered it, but should it be shown to him that she would hate what he's become in order to save her, he'll begin to fear that hatred, although that will not slow him down or make him change his ways. Only Schala, herself, can do that.
If Obsessive Love could be diagnosed as something other than a sexual obsession, it would be Magus and his feelings toward Schala. She is his reason for living, for fighting, for learning, for everything. He goes on a straight path toward getting her back without even a thought for the damage he causes in the meantime, to himself or others. It's generally thought that the reasons for his physical changes (darker hair, red eyes, pointed teeth) are from his exposure to demon magics and probably deals with demons. There is nothing he would not do, no price too high, if it means Schala.
Outside of his obsession there, he has a low tolerance for alcohol because he never drinks. He does not want to be out of control of himself for a moment. That moment that his mind is clouded might be the moment he needs, that one moment where he learns the secret he needs for finding her, saving her, having her back.
He's never been in an intimate relationship; he wouldn't form one even if he had people skills. To love another is to admit that he can never have Schala back, to admit that she is lost to him, or dead. He cannot do that. What would his life mean? What would be the point? To that end, the more someone seems to be interested in him, the worse his attitude toward them will become. It's not just childish balking; it's his obsession.
He is not-so-secretly a cat person. While he might not show anything toward the cat around others, he prefers them to anyone (except Schala) and is not above petting one if he's alone and it's within reach. If no one was around, he might even be tempted to help a cat in need. Might.
CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS:
[Note: The headcanon for how I see his relationships is something I will, of course, discuss with any potential canon mates. While it is how I see things, I'm 100% willing to come to some middle ground if potential canon mates do not see things the same way.]
Schala: His only friend (outside of Alfador). The only person who means anything, the only one who matters. The only person he loves. No price is too high if it means keeping her safe. Only her hatred would hurt him, only her love would move him. She is his only reason for living. Learning that he can't save her the way he is drives him instantly into a suicidal state.
Alfador: His only other friend is his cat. Alfador likes no one else (although he follows around a refugee child after the fall of Zeal) and will run straight to him. Magus doesn't show any real affection toward the cat, at least not where anyone can see, but he does care about the cat. It was his only companion, outside of his sister.
King Zeal: King Zeal is dead by several years by the time of canon. The Kingdom of Zeal was a very different place when he was alive. There was no magic from Lavos, no segregation of Enlightened and Earthbound. The Queen was sane when he was alive and it's possible the death of the King unhinged her or drove her to make a pact with Lavos. I envision that Janus' life was a little more normal when his father was alive.
Queen Zeal: He hates his mother. She gave up everything to Lavos for power. He is, although he doesn't see it, very much like her. He feels she stopped being his mother when he was a small child and lost her soul. When he comes upon her after joining with Crono and the others, he tells her she's a 'pitiful fool, duped by Lavos' and that he will put an end to her. Part of his hatred of her stems from the fact that she brought Lavos on them. She is why he was separated from Schala and why Schala was absorbed by one of Lavos' spawn.
Dalton: Dalton worked alongside the Queen to bring Lavos to the surface. He was only waiting to take over when something happened to her. Dalton assaulted Schala at one point and forcibly dragged her back to the Ocean Palace. He did this in front of Janus, using his own power to knock the child out. As with any slight against his sister, it's something he never has forgotten.
Melchior, Gaspar, Belthasar: They are the three Gurus of Life, once advisors to the Queen and King of Zeal. He seems to actually have some level of respect for them, or at least for Gaspar, the Guru of Time who shows them how to save someone from their fate. The Gurus are responsible for a lot of the advances that came about during his mother's rule (despite being lost with the quite literal fall of the Kingdom of Zeal).
Ozzie & Slash: Ozzie is older than Magus. Old enough that he is an adult and a failed ruler by the time Janus appears in the clearing. While Ozzie took him in and in a sense raised him, Magus has no love for his caretaker. Despite being two of his top generals, he sees them both as tools, means to an end. He sees to their deaths and while this isn't out of anything more than they're angry he betrayed them, he shows no hesitation with it. He has a special hatred for Ozzie in particular. Not one he would vocalize ever, but it does burn hotter than his hatred for Slash or Flea.
Flea: The third of his top generals, Flea (according to a fan theory) is either younger than or around the same age as Magus. He dislikes Flea just as much as Slash. Flea is the closest he's ever come to an intimate connection. Flea has a love and thirst for power. Trying to get in that part of Magus' life would help that, whether it's a means to an end or whether he really developed feelings for his once king. Whichever it was, it didn't affect Magus enough to spare Flea.
Crono & Ayla: These (along with Marle, Lucca, Robo , and Glenn/Frog) are the heroes of the game. He doesn't really like them but he is willing to work with them. He stays mostly aloof from them, remaining independent and working alongside but not with them (as shown by the lack of double and triple techs). While they have meddled in his affairs in the past, they also tried to save Schala and kill Lavos. They may be the only people he can actually work with.
Lucca & Robo: Like with Crono and Ayla, Magus doesn't really like them. As with the others, he's willing to work with them and use them to achieve his own goal. Unlike Crono and Ayla, however, he is willing to work with them. He has a triple tech with Marle & Lucca, and a second with Lucca and Robo. It's possible that he sees them as kindred spirits, even if he doesn't like them. The two of them are strange in the eyes of their peers. Lucca is something of a mad scientist who knows she can do great things, but often ends up blowing things up. Robo likes humans and is nearly killed by the other robots of his time.
Marle: As with Lucca & Robo, he may see her as something of a kindred spirit even if he doesn't like her. She is seen as strange by the royal court. She runs off and meets a commoner (Crono) and just disappears with him. She isn't delicate and demure the way a princess is expected to be. Moreover, Marle possesses his sister's necklace. It has been passed down through her family for 12,000 years. While it's stated that the line goes from Ayla (65 million BCE) to Marle (1000 CE), it's implied that Schala is in between them in 12,000 BCE. She is also quite similar to how Schala appears as a blonde. Magus isn't stupid; if the pendant has been passed down through the line of what was a matriarchy, Marle must be descended from Schala. While he doesn't like her, that at least makes her worth something more than the others.
Glenn/Frog and Cyrus: He hates them about as much as he hates anyone who isn't Lavos. While Magus was in the Denadoro Mountains, likely to seek out Masa and Mune, magical creatures from his home time who form the spirit of the Ruby Knife/Masamune, Cyrus and Glenn accosted Magus and Ozzie. Cyrus was damned and determined to master the Masamune, which is the only weapon that (before Magus' powers were drained by Lavos) could hurt Magus. Magus killed Cyrus and, at Ozzie's prompting, turned Glenn into an anthropomorphic frog. Frog went on to master the Masamune and nearly killed him with it. So he killed Glenn's best friend and turned Glenn into a frog. That was 10 years ago. To Magus it wasn't important, so it's not important.
STRENGTH OF HEART MOMENT SUMMARY:
The Final Battle with Lavos.
For over 20 years, he has been trying to become powerful enough to kill her. She is the source of all the pain in his life, the thing that took him from his sister and sent him to 600 C.E.. He's had to work with others to get to this point and, while he doesn't like it, he understands that he needed to in this thing.
The dark pride he felt at seeing Lavos fall would have been enough to call to the darkness. His heart isn't evil per se, although to an outsider it would certainly appear that way. He isn't concerned with Good or Evil, and from his perspective his heart is grey.
POWERS
SAMPLE - THE AWAKENING:
Darkness.
He did not mind it, nor did he fear it. The world began and ended in darkness, did it not? He had lived it in for most of his life. It was familiar. Comfortable. And with Lavos dead and Schala...
Schala...
His eyes opened in the darkness. Had it been lulling him to sleep? Trying to keep him within itself? He struggled in the darkness and felt himself falling through it. If his fate was to die, so be it, but that did not mean he would go passively.
Magus was barely aware of the light below him until his boots touched down on the stained glass floor, his cloak fluttering in the wind that existed only around him. Out of the darkness, he looked around him. No way up, no way down, and only the glass. The glass showing a woman in deep purple robes with bound, softer purple hair and a man behind her covered in a blue cloak. Schala and himself. Off to the side, almost as though she were looking at them, were smaller circles showing Crono, Marle, Lucca, Frog, Robo and Ayla.
They were not his friends but they had been...
...useful.
So much to do, so little time... Take your time.
He looked up from his examination of the glass beneath him. Whose voice was that? Was it the Entity the others had spoken of? But whoever it was, they were not showing themselves. He stepped away from the edge. The words from the voice seemed almost mocking.
The door is still shut.
"What door?" he asked aloud but there was no reply from the voice.
What sort of door? He saw none, so that eliminated the obvious. And what would happen when the door opened? And did it even matter?
A light shone down from the darkness, from a point that his eyes could not find, and three pedestals rose from the glass. They were dark things, radiating power, each with an object hovering over it. The first one had a set of armor shimmering like the moon; the second had scythe with a jagged blade; the last held an orb of darkness with a fire burning within.
Power sleeps within you. If you give it form, it will give you strength. Choose well.
So. This voice from wherever was offering to open more power within him. Whatever it was, he knew what that would mean. There was always a price, always some cost. But for more power, to be that much stronger to save Schala, it was worth it. It always was. He stopped in front of the burning orb and touched it.
The power of the mages. Inner strength. An orb of wonder and ruin. Is this the power you seek?
"Yes." There was no hesitation, no thought. Magic was the power he needed.
The orb vanished in a flash of light and he felt power coursing through him. It wasn't enough, he knew that. If it was enough, he would not still be in this... place. He would be back where he should be. He would never call it 'home', not even to himself, unless he was at Schala's side.
What will you sacrifice?
There was no surprise on his face, only a curious glance at the other two items: armor and a weapon. So by taking the clearly magical item, he gained magical power. He was being asked, then, to sacrifice defense or strength? That seemed logical enough. He touched the armor.
The power of the Guardian. Kindness to aid friends. Armor to repel all. Is this your sacrifice?
He sneered. 'Kindness to aid friends'? 'The power of the Guardian'? These were things he did not need. He had no friends to aid, he had no one to protect. Unless he found Schala, and then his power would protect her and aid her.
"Yes."
The armor vanished and he looked at the scythe. Might and magic. While he never focused on might, there was more than brute force to it. This was his path. This had always been his path.
You have chosen the power of the mages. You've sacrificed the power of the guardian. Is this the form you choose?
He scowled up at the light. Clearly if the voice had a source, it would be up there somewhere.
"Yes."
He hated fools. He had made his decision and stated it. He did not need to repeat himself. But as soon as the word was past his lips, the pedestals crumbled to dust and the glass began shaking. He levitated above the glass, watching as it began to break apart. The glass shattered, the image of Schala breaking into millions of pieces.
The darkness swallowed the shattered glass and the light above him. He could see it swallowing the space around him and when it pulled him back in, he went easily enough. It would send him where he was to be, or wherever it wanted him to use the power it had granted him.
There was always a price, and it wasn't always simple.
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
Magus choose Artificer.
[Magic]
He is the most powerful wizard in his world. Unlike the other mages of his time, he taps into his own power rather than Lavos' power. Most of his magic is Shadow based. Shadow in his world is a combination of Fire, Ice/Water, and Light. While he does show an affinity to all forms of magic, he pushes himself into Shadow because it is the most powerful.
With the path of the Artificer, he will do exactly as he has been: trying to gain more and more power. With his base magics being Fire, Ice, and Lightning (all three effecting all enemies near him), he would learn Fire, Blizzard and Thunder as far as he could. With how Water magic is linked to Healing magic in his world, he would stay away from those two as they aren't useful to him.
As higher level magics become available to him, he'll focus on the ones that are more useful to him and he'll leave the ones that are Light innate or less useful to him. As he 'levels up', I'll keep track on his journal as to where he is magically. Some things, like Cure and Astro, he won't bother with. Shadow spells, like Obscuro, and status effect skills will be what he focuses on.
Eventually, he'll want to lean (meld) Dark Matter again. It is his ultimate attack.
[Canon Magic]
The canon spells he knows (as a play character, not as the computer controlled boss):
Lightning 2
Ice 2
Fire 2
These three cast one element and attack every enemy in the area. Game mechanics made it impossible to target allies, but Magus wouldn't care enough to bother if it was a difficult thing.
Dark Bomb attacks a group of enemies with Shadow magic. They must be closely grouped.
Barrier creates a magic-resistance barrier on one ally.
Dark Mist creates a fog of Shadow magic that harms every enemy it touches as it passes.
Black Hole creates a black hole and sucks an enemy into it. Insta-death (if it works, which is usually doesn't for me). Doesn't really matter for this game though.
Dark Matter is his most powerful attack. It attacks with shadow and light, pretty much tearing a rip in space for extra damage.
[MP]
From his own world, he has 99 MP. His more basic skills take 8 MP per cast, his intermediate take 10 MP per cast, and his most powerful skills take 15 per cast with Dark Matter, his ultimate attack, taking 20. I'm going to use that as a base line for how magic in Saudade drains his mental stamina.
[Innate Magical Skill]
Levitation: Magus does not run; he levitates. He can fly using the same ability. It is such a basic skill for him that it doesn't drain his MP at all. It's very likely related to the wind that always seems to surround him.
Teleportation: He is able to teleport to places he knows. He can, for instance, teleport to the North Cape when he knows Marle and the others arrive but he cannot teleport to another world in the KH universe. There is no given limit to how far he can teleport nor does it have any obvious MP drain to it. For purposes of game, the further he teleports, the more MP it will take. He won't be able to teleport to another world, however.
Black Wind: He is able to feel the Black Wind and has been able to since he was a small child. It seems to be a family trait. The Black Wind is the wind that blows when someone is about to die. It surrounds them. If it's not certain who in a group will die, it will surround all of them and he will be unable to pinpoint who exactly will die.
[Weapons & Armor]
He is capable of using a scythe to attack, however as a mage his physical strength isn't the highest. He can do about the same damage as the typical RPG healer girl. It is his last offensive move if he runs out of MP.
If he's to that point and the enemy still isn't dead, he's pretty much screwed, but he'll still fight. He has no desire to learn any other weapon or to learn how better to use a scythe. Learning that takes away from his time studying magic.
He wears leather armor. As with a lot of RPGs, he can't go above leather. It's too restrictive and the metal armor interferes with magical powers. The armor he wears has been enchanted through dark rituals.
INVENTORY:
Doom Scythe: A scythe wielded by the dwellers of darkness.
Gloom Helm: A helm empowered through dark rituals
Gloom Cape: Armor empowered through dark rituals
Schala's Amulet: An amulet Schala gave to Janus to keep him safe. In his world, it prevents status effects. I am more than willing to dial this back so he can be effected. I'd still like it to protect him ~50% of the time.
NOTES/ASPIRATIONS
Magus is not a people person. He does not play well with others. He will be very interested in the darkness. He will not make a good Finder, although he will be willing to force guarded alliances with those who prove useful to him.
The last time I had him in a Kingdom Hearts type game, he gave his soul to Hades in return for power over the darkness. If it means saving Schala or even could possibly do it, it is worth it. That's all he'll be working to unless something manages to pull him off of that.
It will be interesting for me to see how I can get him ICly involved in plots. He's already proved that he is independent and capable of surviving even in darkness (or among people who used to think he was food), but he hasn't really been forced to grow emotionally.
Character growth is what I'm seeking. The only way he gets it in canon is to wipe his memories.
Previously Played Thread [TW: Character Death]
Here is a link to everything he did in that game while I was there. The thread link I provided was his entrance, so he was canon fresh
very small revision request to please adjust inventory to better reflect Awakening choices. armor and weapon removed.