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[sullenstallion]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Rune
Contact: ForestTemple
Age: Older than 21.
Current Characters: N/A


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Gaius Worzel
Age: 17
Canon: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
Canon Point: Prior to meeting with Rean in Trails of Cold Steel II

Background:
References: Here, here, here.

Gaius Worzel was born and raised in the Nord Highlands in a small nomadic settlement. Being raised there, he learned everything there is to know about the highlands. He was raised to be religious, believing in both the goddess Aidios and the wind. He knows just about everything there is to know about raising horses and livestock. Like the Nord warriors before him, he was also trained in the use of a cross spear. He was never given a formal education aside from a traveling priest who often visited the settlement; without him, he wouldn’t have had the knowledge required to keep up with the academy later.

One of the biggest moments of his life was when he rescued Sechs Vander, an Erebonian military leader, while riding on horseback near the military base at the edge of the Nord Highlands. Because of this moment, he was recommended to Thors Military Academy on scholarship; it wasn’t because he saved a man’s life, but rather that his strength impressed him. Another big event was that the faculty decided that he’d be placed in Class VII—the first class consisting of both nobles and commoners. These events would drastically change his history forever.

In Trails of Cold Steel, Gaius' own personal arcs are relatively minor—his character growth is about him growing as an outsider to accept the Kingdom of Erebonia as a second home. Along the way, he interacts and learns about as many cultures within the country as he can while growing close to others. He grows especially close to Rean, who he considers to be like family by the end of the second game.

The first game consists of field studies/excursions that have the students of Class VII split up and visit different areas of the empire. In chapter 3, he’s asked to lead his group to Nord which is a fair distance away from anything else in the chapter. The party for that chapter consists of Rean, Alisa, Jusis, Emma, and himself. Sharing his homeland and his customs with his classmates is obviously something of huge importance to him, and during the chapter he ends up investigating an attack on the watchtower in his region. The sight of airships circling the Highlands he called home was ominous and chilling, but he was able to solve the incident with his classmates.

The final big event for Gaius comes at the end of the first game (for his current canon point). In each chapter, they visited the ruins of an old schoolhouse, moving deeper and deeper, floor by floor. No one knew why the ruins were there or why, but before the school festival the school lit up and emitted light to the sky and he investigated with the other students. At the bottom of the ruins, he and the others were teleported to a strange otherworld where they battled and defeated a giant shadow monster. He didn’t know it at the time, but he became a secondary contractor to Valimar, the Ashen Knight, in the process, while Rean became the pilot of Valimar himself.

Personality:
Early to bed and early to rise makes Gaius...well, it makes him at one with the wind, apparently. To most who meet Gaius, he comes across as intimidating and hard to approach. He’s tall and quiet, and it’s noted by someone early in the game that he doesn’t appear to be friendly. He has a darker complexion, so some even liken him to a barbarian or foreigner without thinking much of it.And part of this is true. Gaius is a quiet and reserved individual who doesn’t always emote strongly to things around him. He doesn’t speak except for when he needs to, and he definitely strikes an intimidating figure. Even then, those are just first impressions.

And Gaius is much more than that.

Born and raised in the Nord Highlands, Gaius spent most of his life living simply and isolated from the world. As he notes to his classmates, he’s from a place where the skies are endlessly blue, the plains are beautifully green, and mountains surround him and his family on all sides. To say he’s a hick wouldn’t be far from the truth—he admits with a laugh that there are more sheep in his homeland than there are people. This shaped Gaius’ personality in a number of ways, even in his day to day life. Gaius is a hard worker who never complains about what needs to be done. He rises early and focuses on each task at hand, he relishes each opportunity to learn about the world around him. Part of his humble upbringing has also left him as a pious individual. He makes sure to pray everyday both to the Goddess, Aidios, and as per the customs of his tribe, the wind.

Yes, the wind. Gaius will mention the wind at every opportunity. He uses it describe movements around him, he uses it to describe fate. It’s almost always accompanied by a warm chuckle and a smile, but it doesn’t change the fact that he mentions the wind a lot to the point where others might think it’s ridiculous. It’s important to him, and it’s something he can feel with all of his being.

As someone who was raised in such a small settlement, for a long time his education had been lacking. Each month a traveling priest would visit the Nord Highlands to teach the children. Without this, he’d never have been able to adjust to life in a military academy, and even then there were large gaps in his education that he needed to fill (and he does so successfully, getting the 20th best exam scores in the school). He also learned while living in the Highlands plenty of skills. He’s a sporty individual who loves to fish, loves to swim, and loves to ride horses. He also knows how to raise livestock, cook their native cuisine, and fight with the traditional weapon of the nomadic people, the cross spear.

But growing up there surrounded by nature and a lovely family also affected his personality in other ways. Never wanting for love, Gaius grew to be patient and calm at all times. He’s noted to be a dependable individual by just about everyone who meets him; he’s the kind of guy everyone can rely on because he always gives his best for his friends. He does his best to listen to others and reach out when they need him, but he also knows when to give someone their space and let them figure things out on their own.

Another big part of Gaius’ personality revolves around his inexperience with the world. While he loves Nord and eventually comes to call Erebonia his second home, during the first parts of the first game he has no idea what culture outside of his nomadic settlement is like. That’s right. He’s lived nowhere else than in the middle of the mountains, but he attends a military academy just so he can learn what life outside of his bubble is like. This is in part because of his own worries. After learning from the traveling priest, he realized that as technology continued to grow, the world would continue to shrink. The Nord Highlands that he loves so much would not always be left alone, and that’s enough to inspire him to leave and learn everything he can, so that he might be able to connect with his land and the world in the future, and so that he might be able to protect his friends and family as well.

Though a not as pronounced part of his personality, Gaius also has the soul of a warrior. Upon seeing Brigadier General Bardias, a descendant of Nord people who lived in Erebonia, and witnessing his aura, he admitted to Rean that he wanted to be a strong warrior like his father and the general. It’s a lowkey desire that burns in his soul—he wants to use that power to protect everyone he can. It was also because of his courage and skill that he was allowed to attend the academy. He was riding on horseback and rescued a General that was surrounded by monsters by fighting them off with his spear on horseback. His classmates remarked that it was a very Gaius thing to do. He might not be bloodthirsty, but there’s a part of him that loves sparring and getting stronger.

Gaius also isn’t without his flaws. Even if he’s usually calm or in a pleasant mood, he wears his emotions on his sleeve. He believes things will work out for the best, but when he’s visibly shaken, he’s visibly shaken. There’s a moment where he discovers a path in the Nord Highlands that hadn’t existed before, and the audio clip that plays is of him being breathlessly and audibly uncomfortable. He also snaps at a Noble during a sparring session where he was called a barbarian, telling him “Where do you get off?” to treating others like he had been. His anger and his disturbances might be calm compared to others, but they’re still there, he’s not infallible. The first time his homeland is threatened, he even tries to dismiss his friends from helping him and head into danger himself. They refuse to let him, of course, but it shows that there’s a side of him that’s rash and panicked beneath his cool exterior.

In a nutshell, Gaius is a nice, polite young man from the middle of nowhere who wants to learn more about the world around him and is willing to put his culture aside and his life on the line in order to do so. He loves his family more than anything. He never misses a day of church, and he does this while trying all sorts of new things, whether it’s joining the art club or playing the bass guitar in the school festival. He’s certainly not the loudest member of Class VII, and being a part of that class is the event he considers to have changed his life the most, but he’s always there. Not far from everyone else is Gaius, ready to support and help and lend his spear for his friends. All they have to do is say his name to the wind and he’ll come running.

Abilities:
Gaius has what I like to call “JRPG” strength, meaning he’s an average human but he can also swirl his spear so fast that it creates wind or leap into the air after pulling a second spear out of nowhere. Gaius also has an ARCUS unit—because his ARCUS unit is reset between game one and two as a gameplay mechanic, it’ll come equipped with quartzes that are more advanced than his current canonpoint. It allows him to use arts (basically magic) in battle while also allowing him to combat link and raise his abilities with other people who have one that he shares a bond with. His ARCUS will be equipped as follows:
Master Quartz:
Falco (makes Gaius ‘Insightful in battle’, raises his evasion, increases his critical rate, gives access to spells Shining, Recuria, and Air strike)
Line 1:
-(wind mandatory) Holy Breath (heals for people within a radius)
-Attack (boosts his strength to help explain why he might be stronger than the average Joe)
-(wind mandatory) Wind Bell (decreases delay after using his wind arts)
Line 2:
-Petrify (his spear has the chance to petrify enemies; in game, it’s 10%)
-Grand Press (creates an earthquake for a radius that damages people caught in it)
-Speed Breaker (a successful attack may further slow an enemy)
Line 3:
-(earth mandatory) Adamantine Shield (creates a physical barrier to repel an attack once for people in a radius)
Line 4:
- Crescent Mirror (creates a barrier that reflects magic damage).

While some of these abilities are based on Gaius’ EP or Mana, he does not have a lot so he can’t cast endlessly. Gaius can also ‘sense’ things with the wind anime-style. He can sense monsters, chests, and even things really far above him. Only skilled warriors are able to hide their presence from him in-game.

Alignment: Sosyne; Gaius is almost always calm and accepting, though when he isn’t it’s to be unsettled or furious.

Other:


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
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