OOC
Player/Contact: Teej; probabiliteej @ plurk
Other Characters: N/A

IC
Name: Emet-Selch
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon Point: The end of Shadowbringers main story quests (5.0), immediately following his death.
Age: At least 13,000? We pretty much only have a minimum on age here. Physically, his body's roughly in its 40s.

History/Personality:
wiki link!

On a personality note, the wiki description sort of implies Emet-Selch being the same after his death as he was before the Final Days happened; this leaves some things out, considering all the millenia he spent both working on the Rejoining and living various mortal lives. I generally go more with the interpretation that he's able to be more like his old self, but you don't really just throw thousands of years of experience with destroying worlds/being tempered and living various mortal lives out the window, and everything he was in Shadowbringers wouldn't just disappear. He's had practice in adapting himself to other personas and situations as needed, putting on different fronts (no wonder he developed a taste for the performing arts). Also, you know, there's the millenia of melancholy mixed in there that he's had to live with before eventually accepting his death. This is all more likely to be relevant in a game situation like this, as opposed to in canon where he primarily comes in contact with his old friends following his death and is only very briefly seen speaking to anyone else.

As a history note: I play him as knowing the default Warrior of Light rather than a specific player character.

Would you consider your character to be heroic? Why or why not?: In a sense, yes. He's presented as a tragic hero figure (the hard version of his boss battle is directly described as "a requiem for a hero fallen") and a contrast to the player character: from his perspective, his efforts in destroying other worlds were in service to his people and home, something necessary in order to save them and restore the world to the way it once was. Emet-Selch does what he feels is necessary, and he seems to have even arranged his own death in the end, knowing he would never be able to stop unless he were killed: later in canon, when his original self learns how his Ascian self dies, he outright says that he invited his own downfall. Either he'd succeed in killing the player character and no one would be left who could stop him-- or they would put an end to it all. The fact that he prepared for Elidibus' death to follow his own also speaks to him managing to lay the groundwork to help end the work of the Unsundered, in the event that he was successfully killed.

He would almost definitely do everything over again if he had to. Given the ability to go back, there's no other choices he could really make to try to save the world-- he is someone who'll take on whatever burdens he needs to, to fulfill what he considers to be his duty. The whole 'destroying worlds and killing millions of people on them' thing is likely farther than he'd have gone were he not tempered, and the tempering served to make it easier to see those people as not being alive, but ultimately the terrible things he did still came from a desire to right what he saw as a wrong.

Very much a case of "cool motive, still murder" though.

Powers/Abilities: the wiki has failed me so here we go.

Soul Sight- Emet-Selch has the capability to see souls, as well as magic (including the flow of magic in his world); each soul is distinct, and their color can be used to identify a person. This power is tied in with a link to the Underworld in canon, where he has the ability to pull souls from it. In practice, this will come with a permissions post & won't be used on characters whose players would prefer not to have their soul identified, and the rest I figure might not be relevant due to how deaths work here. It's here for the sake of inclusion.

Sorcery- He's an experienced mage with both offensive and defensive magic, just as capable of fighting with a large sword and backing that up with spells as he is when wielding a staff and purely using magic. Examples include illusions, magical projectiles, barriers, levitation, and teleportation (the last of which will not be functional per the nerfing rules.)

Creation- As an Ancient, he has their inherent talent for creation magic, the ability to make creatures and objects out of magic. It cannot be used to make something with a soul on purpose, and requires concentration and focus; if interrupted, it's easy to get distracted and make something unintended (i.e. accidentally making something child-sized if distracted by a kid.)

HOWEVER this is still potentially game breaking in the sense that it could trivialize things pretty easily if someone can just go around making whatever, so I'm fine with reducing the capability or removing it if you feel like that's necessary!
-I'd specifically like to keep the capability to create a mount (listed below) and just count it under the 'one summonable creature' rule so he can't make other creatures, and to keep something of the ability in general since I think it'd be fun to play with this power going wrong around the ruins & incense. Try to make something helpful and oops, it's dangerous or a monster.
-Keeping the ability to create a weapon would be good, and could probably be restricted to only having 1 at a time for his own use.
-In general I'm open to any limits you feel would need to be placed on this-- not creating things that don't work within the setting, maybe (so no making guns or bullets or tech components,) or size limits on what can be made, etc etc.

Transformation: He has the ability to take on a second form, which essentially amplifies his powers. It's large, and it's considered taboo in his society to transform around others... so there's unlikely to be a reason to actually try to use this except around the ruins & incense, where it won't work properly. It's primarily here because I'm interested in pulling traits from it for incense effects-- I'm planning to just consider it nerfed otherwise because he already has plenty of powers. Also when I say big I mean he's Big so we are really best off without this one.

Inventory: A red and white mask. If he's able to keep the capability, a summonable creature in the form of this flying mount which he's created previously in canon.

Coterie: Salamanders.

Samples: other game threads:
thread 1
thread 2