Emet-Selch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unsundered) wrote2019-09-27 08:12 pm
unsundered) wrote2019-09-27 08:12 pm
Application
Player Information
Name: Siren
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
blackbirding
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Emet-Selch (also known as Solus zos Galvus), real name: Hades
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon Point:Around the questline "The View From Above", i.e., before the heroes enter Mt. Gulg. Updated October 2020 to the end of patch 5.3
Age: Extremely old. Easily well over 10,000. Probably not 100,000, but somewhere between those two.
History: here
Personality: On first impression, Emet-Selch is casual, irritable, and with a flair for a cruel sort of theatricality. If he has nothing to gain from being polite, he won't bother, and even when he's trying to be helpful, it's usually with an air of smugness. His best attempts at fellowship don't go over terribly well, as he is an Ascian (a kind of immortal ghost, and the primary antagonistic group of the game thus far), and the heroes regard him with suspicion or outright hostility. Emet-Selch presents himself as someone unconcerned, yet very clearly dangerous. His mannerisms are often slow, languid--he tends to slouch slightly, his pace is measured.
He is also completely and utterly exhausted. Ever since the doom of Amaurot and the sundering of the world, he's lived only to bring everything back to the way it was, to restore his god, to revive the people he loves--even if it means sacrificing millions of lives in the process. He is miserable and he is tired, and he is unable to walk away from his duty. Unable to give up or move on from the past, to see the broken lives on the current Source as anything but malformed creatures. He misses his Amaurot more than anything, presents it as a genuine utopia (which it might actually have been--or at least, as close to one as is possible), so surely he was more satisfied in the past?
Yet Emet-Selch does not seem the kind of person capable of happiness. In what little we know of his history (before the fall of Amaurot), he was still grumpy and irritable, treating at least one of his close friends as though he was mostly a bother. It seemed like he held people at a distance, and possessed some measure of self-destructive tendencies. Even so, he still cared. And in the present day--thousands of years removed from that idyllic time--those same traits are still present, only turned pathologic. While he always had a lower amount of energy, and limited motivation for things that don't interest him, he has nothing left to give at this point. His irritability has an edge of despair to it now--anger and his sense of duty are the only things that keep him moving.
Even if what he wants is impossible, and that it wouldn't make him happy anyway.
That's not to say Emet-Selch is incapable of being polite, or even a bit personable. He was charismatic enough to unite the Garlean peoples into an actual nation, and seemingly a popular enough emperor. He's been involved in any number of similar schemes in the past, able to play the part that's required of him. In his interactions with the heroes while he's trying to get on their good side, he's actually fairly polite. He still has little patience with being bothered for no reason, and will leave the group whenever their task becomes too boring, but he's reasonably thoughtful otherwise. He doesn't threaten or belittle them, and even offers sympathy when one of the party was believed to have died. While he was clearly not emotionally affected in their possible death, he manages the sort of condolence you'd expect from an unrelated party.
And there's also no sign that Emet-Selch's efforts weren't an honest attempt to get to know the heroes. He does recognize that they are genuinely kind and selfless people, the few in the new world who would risk themselves to save another. But that only means that they're momentarily interesting--perhaps even a little charming--and it all collapses by the end when they try to equate the value of their lives with those of his people. This is an absolutely intolerable insult; Emet-Selch is completely unable to accept that anything in the current world is worth even a fraction of what he's lost.
It's not as though he hasn't tried to move on, either. This wasn't his first attempt to get to know the sundered races, to live their lives, to experience their struggles. But each time it's failed. Their lives are too short, their ambitions selfish. He's disgusted by their pettiness and propensity for violence--for every noble individual, there's a thousand cruelties. And even the kind ones die, far, far too early, and all of their souls are hideously malformed to his eyes. Indeed, Emet-Selch can't even consider them as being truly alive (and therefore, feels no guilt at killing them by the thousands). In the end, they're worth being fodder for Zodiark, and little else.
Having been tempered by Zodiark probably doesn't help his mindset. Emet-Selch is completely open about his status of being tempered, of having his soul colored by Zodiark's darkness. He shows no sign of resenting it, and feels that Zodiark is entirely worthy of devotion (perhaps understandable, considering that the primal did save the world). Because of the mental effects tempering can have, however, it's difficult to tell how much of his gratitude is his own, and how much is the result of Zodiark's influence on his soul.
But: if Emet-Selch had been capable of forming bonds with the new races, or if not, if he had just given up on the world to the point of not taking a new body, remaining adrift on the tides of the Underworld--what would that have meant to Zodiark? Without his effort, Zodiark would not be revived. It's entirely possible the primal is preventing Emet-Selch from giving up or moving on, no matter how much it breaks him in the process. It's not even necessarily deliberate on the part of the primal (as others have been shown to not temper deliberately, and still end up with followers devoted to their preservation), and we've yet to hear anything from Zodiark directly.
But regardless of the source, the emotions Emet-Selch has are still real, and his dismissiveness of mortals remains constant.
Apart from--for a brief period--the Warrior of Light. It doesn't come from nowhere, as the Warrior possesses part of the soul of someone from Amaurot. Someone that Emet-Selch knew.
It's unknown what sort of relationship they had, but it's implied that they were, at least, close friends. This explains somewhat Emet-Selch's behavior towards them--that he's willing to give them far more of a chance than anyone else, that he has higher expectations of them, that he even starts to believe that they might be strong enough to withstand the trials ahead. He starts to hope.
And then the Warrior of Light fails. Emet-Selch's reaction is one of disappointment and disgust--even if, in failing, it meant that his plans for the Rejoining were right back on schedule. The hero's failure meant victory, and he was only irritated. At them, at himself--for daring to believe, if only for a little while.
Of course, the hero endures, and at the very end does get the ability to control the power that was threatening to overrun them and turn them into a mindless abomination. And when that happens, for a moment Emet-Selch sees the image of the Amaurotine that he knew--the person the Warrior used to be. He refuses to accept it, to risk trusting them again; they were a broken shell, nothing else. They couldn't be the person that he once knew.
The inevitable confrontation leads to Emet-Selch's death. He meets it with a calm sort of acceptance, asking only that his people be remembered. And it's only when dying that he finally appears to relax.
Abilities & Skills:
· Immortality. Of the "won't die unless killed" variety. And Ascians are notoriously hard to kill, as their soul needs to be weakened, trapped, and hit with an extremely powerful burst of light/energy before they can escape. As a note, this only applies to their soul--their physical bodies are quite mortal and can be killed easily enough if they're not paying attention. If that happens, Emet-Selch would probably want to get a new one.
· Possession. As insinuated above, Ascians can forcefully possess the bodies of other living beings and control them. As they no longer have physical bodies of their own, they have to take possession of others in order to really interact with people. The process is usually irreversible. And while most Ascians tend to keep the appearance of whoever it is they've possessed, Emet-Selch does not, and chooses to twist their shape into the form he's used to. But unless his current body dies, he wouldn't try to jump to anyone else's--as the process is apparently quite tiring, and he dislikes the effort. As a side note--Ascians can also possess corpses just fine (and the weaker Ascians are limited to the dead, for that matter), but where possible they tend to prefer the living.
· Teleportation. You rarely see an Ascian walk anywhere; they teleport a lot. They can also take others with them. Possibly related to this is the ability to fly/hover.
· Creation. Emet-Selch can create almost anything that he wants to, provided he has the motivation. This has included an entire metropolis, from memory, complete with shades of its original inhabitants (Granted, said inhabitants were fairly limited, incapable of understanding what they were (apart from one), and existing in a brief moment of time. Also, we can't enter most of the buildings, so it's possible their interiors are not quite as detailed, but still! An entire city!). He also recreates part of the same city in its final hours--complete with functional beasts and abominations.
While the process of creation has to be deliberate (as in, you can't be casually thinking about something and accidentally create it), it's also not perfect--as distractions and stray thoughts can change the outcome from what was intended. Also, if the concept behind the creation isn't well-considered, the result can be flawed or non-functional. Additionally, truly living entities cannot be made--as souls are the one thing they can't create.
· Dark Magic. The typical Ascian toolkit, all of his spells would be considered dark-elemental. Emet-Selch is definitely a mage, and any combat with him would be magical in nature. Various blasts of darkness, exploding shadow spears and arrows, shields to protect himself, that sort of thing.
He also has a much stronger, much larger, much less human-looking form. He uses it by tapping more fully into his connection with the Underworld, allowing its power to flow into him. His strongest abilities would only be available while in that state (Various types of damage-dealing and restraint.).
· Soul Sensing/Connection to the Underworld. Emet-Selch can see people's souls, recognize them even when fragmented, and is extremely sensitive to spiritual disturbances. While this is something many people in his original society could do, he's stated to be exceptionally good at it, to the point of being considered a 'denizen of the Underworld' (something that didn't have a negative connotation in his time). It doesn't seem to be something he can really turn off (only try not to focus on), so to him, the world is full of flickering lights, being pulled in an endless cycle between life and death. A fair portion of his disgust with the current post-sundered world comes from his vision only able to see fragile, malformed souls twisting about in the air. He can't help but be constantly reminded of the ruined state of things.
As part of his connection to the Underworld, Emet-Selch was capable of retrieving one character's soul + body after it had gotten lost within the Lifestream (Likely connected to/another name for the Underworld.). Doing so was even considered a simple task.
· Ascian Ascendance. The ability to create more Ascians. While Emet-Selch, Elidibus, and Lahabrea are the only members of the Convocation whose souls are intact, the shards of their brethren exist across the sundered worlds. To fill in the rest of their number, the unsundered Ascians can find one of those shards and elevate them back to their former position. They would still be at a fraction of their original power, but their devotion to Zodiark would be restored. It's apparently possible for a non-Convocation member to be raised into an Ascian, but they prefer not to do so (as their loyalty to Zodiark would be inherently weaker than someone whose soul has been indelibly stained by him).
· The Echo. "The power to break down the barriers of existence". A vague power that is generally demonstrated by the protagonists, but the Ascians possess it as well (in a more complete form). It's possible many of the abilities listed above are ultimately forms the Echo takes.
Other Echo abilities include: seeing parts of another person's past, immunity to tempering, universal translation.
Inventory/Companions: Only the clothes on his back, no artifacts or weapons. Also his physical body, if that counts as 'inventory.'
Choice: Witch
Reason: He is absolutely a mage in canon, his abilities are all magical in nature, pretty much everything he does is related to magic in some way.
Sample:
here
Name: Siren
Contact:
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Emet-Selch (also known as Solus zos Galvus), real name: Hades
Canon: Final Fantasy XIV
Canon Point:
Age: Extremely old. Easily well over 10,000. Probably not 100,000, but somewhere between those two.
History: here
Personality: On first impression, Emet-Selch is casual, irritable, and with a flair for a cruel sort of theatricality. If he has nothing to gain from being polite, he won't bother, and even when he's trying to be helpful, it's usually with an air of smugness. His best attempts at fellowship don't go over terribly well, as he is an Ascian (a kind of immortal ghost, and the primary antagonistic group of the game thus far), and the heroes regard him with suspicion or outright hostility. Emet-Selch presents himself as someone unconcerned, yet very clearly dangerous. His mannerisms are often slow, languid--he tends to slouch slightly, his pace is measured.
He is also completely and utterly exhausted. Ever since the doom of Amaurot and the sundering of the world, he's lived only to bring everything back to the way it was, to restore his god, to revive the people he loves--even if it means sacrificing millions of lives in the process. He is miserable and he is tired, and he is unable to walk away from his duty. Unable to give up or move on from the past, to see the broken lives on the current Source as anything but malformed creatures. He misses his Amaurot more than anything, presents it as a genuine utopia (which it might actually have been--or at least, as close to one as is possible), so surely he was more satisfied in the past?
Yet Emet-Selch does not seem the kind of person capable of happiness. In what little we know of his history (before the fall of Amaurot), he was still grumpy and irritable, treating at least one of his close friends as though he was mostly a bother. It seemed like he held people at a distance, and possessed some measure of self-destructive tendencies. Even so, he still cared. And in the present day--thousands of years removed from that idyllic time--those same traits are still present, only turned pathologic. While he always had a lower amount of energy, and limited motivation for things that don't interest him, he has nothing left to give at this point. His irritability has an edge of despair to it now--anger and his sense of duty are the only things that keep him moving.
Even if what he wants is impossible, and that it wouldn't make him happy anyway.
That's not to say Emet-Selch is incapable of being polite, or even a bit personable. He was charismatic enough to unite the Garlean peoples into an actual nation, and seemingly a popular enough emperor. He's been involved in any number of similar schemes in the past, able to play the part that's required of him. In his interactions with the heroes while he's trying to get on their good side, he's actually fairly polite. He still has little patience with being bothered for no reason, and will leave the group whenever their task becomes too boring, but he's reasonably thoughtful otherwise. He doesn't threaten or belittle them, and even offers sympathy when one of the party was believed to have died. While he was clearly not emotionally affected in their possible death, he manages the sort of condolence you'd expect from an unrelated party.
And there's also no sign that Emet-Selch's efforts weren't an honest attempt to get to know the heroes. He does recognize that they are genuinely kind and selfless people, the few in the new world who would risk themselves to save another. But that only means that they're momentarily interesting--perhaps even a little charming--and it all collapses by the end when they try to equate the value of their lives with those of his people. This is an absolutely intolerable insult; Emet-Selch is completely unable to accept that anything in the current world is worth even a fraction of what he's lost.
It's not as though he hasn't tried to move on, either. This wasn't his first attempt to get to know the sundered races, to live their lives, to experience their struggles. But each time it's failed. Their lives are too short, their ambitions selfish. He's disgusted by their pettiness and propensity for violence--for every noble individual, there's a thousand cruelties. And even the kind ones die, far, far too early, and all of their souls are hideously malformed to his eyes. Indeed, Emet-Selch can't even consider them as being truly alive (and therefore, feels no guilt at killing them by the thousands). In the end, they're worth being fodder for Zodiark, and little else.
Having been tempered by Zodiark probably doesn't help his mindset. Emet-Selch is completely open about his status of being tempered, of having his soul colored by Zodiark's darkness. He shows no sign of resenting it, and feels that Zodiark is entirely worthy of devotion (perhaps understandable, considering that the primal did save the world). Because of the mental effects tempering can have, however, it's difficult to tell how much of his gratitude is his own, and how much is the result of Zodiark's influence on his soul.
But: if Emet-Selch had been capable of forming bonds with the new races, or if not, if he had just given up on the world to the point of not taking a new body, remaining adrift on the tides of the Underworld--what would that have meant to Zodiark? Without his effort, Zodiark would not be revived. It's entirely possible the primal is preventing Emet-Selch from giving up or moving on, no matter how much it breaks him in the process. It's not even necessarily deliberate on the part of the primal (as others have been shown to not temper deliberately, and still end up with followers devoted to their preservation), and we've yet to hear anything from Zodiark directly.
But regardless of the source, the emotions Emet-Selch has are still real, and his dismissiveness of mortals remains constant.
Apart from--for a brief period--the Warrior of Light. It doesn't come from nowhere, as the Warrior possesses part of the soul of someone from Amaurot. Someone that Emet-Selch knew.
It's unknown what sort of relationship they had, but it's implied that they were, at least, close friends. This explains somewhat Emet-Selch's behavior towards them--that he's willing to give them far more of a chance than anyone else, that he has higher expectations of them, that he even starts to believe that they might be strong enough to withstand the trials ahead. He starts to hope.
And then the Warrior of Light fails. Emet-Selch's reaction is one of disappointment and disgust--even if, in failing, it meant that his plans for the Rejoining were right back on schedule. The hero's failure meant victory, and he was only irritated. At them, at himself--for daring to believe, if only for a little while.
Of course, the hero endures, and at the very end does get the ability to control the power that was threatening to overrun them and turn them into a mindless abomination. And when that happens, for a moment Emet-Selch sees the image of the Amaurotine that he knew--the person the Warrior used to be. He refuses to accept it, to risk trusting them again; they were a broken shell, nothing else. They couldn't be the person that he once knew.
The inevitable confrontation leads to Emet-Selch's death. He meets it with a calm sort of acceptance, asking only that his people be remembered. And it's only when dying that he finally appears to relax.
Abilities & Skills:
· Immortality. Of the "won't die unless killed" variety. And Ascians are notoriously hard to kill, as their soul needs to be weakened, trapped, and hit with an extremely powerful burst of light/energy before they can escape. As a note, this only applies to their soul--their physical bodies are quite mortal and can be killed easily enough if they're not paying attention. If that happens, Emet-Selch would probably want to get a new one.
· Possession. As insinuated above, Ascians can forcefully possess the bodies of other living beings and control them. As they no longer have physical bodies of their own, they have to take possession of others in order to really interact with people. The process is usually irreversible. And while most Ascians tend to keep the appearance of whoever it is they've possessed, Emet-Selch does not, and chooses to twist their shape into the form he's used to. But unless his current body dies, he wouldn't try to jump to anyone else's--as the process is apparently quite tiring, and he dislikes the effort. As a side note--Ascians can also possess corpses just fine (and the weaker Ascians are limited to the dead, for that matter), but where possible they tend to prefer the living.
· Teleportation. You rarely see an Ascian walk anywhere; they teleport a lot. They can also take others with them. Possibly related to this is the ability to fly/hover.
· Creation. Emet-Selch can create almost anything that he wants to, provided he has the motivation. This has included an entire metropolis, from memory, complete with shades of its original inhabitants (Granted, said inhabitants were fairly limited, incapable of understanding what they were (apart from one), and existing in a brief moment of time. Also, we can't enter most of the buildings, so it's possible their interiors are not quite as detailed, but still! An entire city!). He also recreates part of the same city in its final hours--complete with functional beasts and abominations.
While the process of creation has to be deliberate (as in, you can't be casually thinking about something and accidentally create it), it's also not perfect--as distractions and stray thoughts can change the outcome from what was intended. Also, if the concept behind the creation isn't well-considered, the result can be flawed or non-functional. Additionally, truly living entities cannot be made--as souls are the one thing they can't create.
· Dark Magic. The typical Ascian toolkit, all of his spells would be considered dark-elemental. Emet-Selch is definitely a mage, and any combat with him would be magical in nature. Various blasts of darkness, exploding shadow spears and arrows, shields to protect himself, that sort of thing.
He also has a much stronger, much larger, much less human-looking form. He uses it by tapping more fully into his connection with the Underworld, allowing its power to flow into him. His strongest abilities would only be available while in that state (Various types of damage-dealing and restraint.).
· Soul Sensing/Connection to the Underworld. Emet-Selch can see people's souls, recognize them even when fragmented, and is extremely sensitive to spiritual disturbances. While this is something many people in his original society could do, he's stated to be exceptionally good at it, to the point of being considered a 'denizen of the Underworld' (something that didn't have a negative connotation in his time). It doesn't seem to be something he can really turn off (only try not to focus on), so to him, the world is full of flickering lights, being pulled in an endless cycle between life and death. A fair portion of his disgust with the current post-sundered world comes from his vision only able to see fragile, malformed souls twisting about in the air. He can't help but be constantly reminded of the ruined state of things.
As part of his connection to the Underworld, Emet-Selch was capable of retrieving one character's soul + body after it had gotten lost within the Lifestream (Likely connected to/another name for the Underworld.). Doing so was even considered a simple task.
· Ascian Ascendance. The ability to create more Ascians. While Emet-Selch, Elidibus, and Lahabrea are the only members of the Convocation whose souls are intact, the shards of their brethren exist across the sundered worlds. To fill in the rest of their number, the unsundered Ascians can find one of those shards and elevate them back to their former position. They would still be at a fraction of their original power, but their devotion to Zodiark would be restored. It's apparently possible for a non-Convocation member to be raised into an Ascian, but they prefer not to do so (as their loyalty to Zodiark would be inherently weaker than someone whose soul has been indelibly stained by him).
· The Echo. "The power to break down the barriers of existence". A vague power that is generally demonstrated by the protagonists, but the Ascians possess it as well (in a more complete form). It's possible many of the abilities listed above are ultimately forms the Echo takes.
Other Echo abilities include: seeing parts of another person's past, immunity to tempering, universal translation.
Inventory/Companions: Only the clothes on his back, no artifacts or weapons. Also his physical body, if that counts as 'inventory.'
Choice: Witch
Reason: He is absolutely a mage in canon, his abilities are all magical in nature, pretty much everything he does is related to magic in some way.
Sample:
here