![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
   THE KNAVE Fourth of the Fatui Harbingers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PERSONALITY (click!)
(yanked from app... I'll streamline this someday)
“Father,” orphanage director, diplomat, assassin, spymaster, Fatui Harbinger — Arlecchino juggles many roles with ease. Commanding, manipulative, and elegant, she is always in control. She begs for no favors, instead taking or negotiating for what she wants. Her ruthless, driven nature makes even her colleagues wary of her, and her disinclination to explain herself against rumors has resulted in a reputation for madness and treachery.
In truth, Arlecchino prefers to be misunderstood. The less information others have on her, the better — especially as she gains more information on them. She finds great advantage in lurking and gaining strength until it’s time for the fatal blow. It doesn’t mean she’s weak or cowardly; just the opposite, her fighting ability ranks just below godhood, and she believes in bold conviction. She’s ruthless when she decides to take action, and relentless until her mission is fulfilled.
Arlecchino’s demand for precision and discipline stems from a curse that awakened in her at a very young age. It granted her the ability to wield a “strange fire” even without the use of a Vision. In exchange, it would swiftly attempt to consume her whenever her emotions could not be kept in check, starting as a blackening of her skin from her fingertips and working up her arms, aiming for her heart. As a child, she was forced to suppress unstable emotions like anger and sorrow for the sake of survival. As an adult, she’s mastered control over her emotions; even to the emotionally sensitive, they feel as featureless as still water. Much of what she displays for others is performative, designed toward achieving some goal. She conducts herself without excess, always mindful that a failure to maintain herself could result in her death.
Her exterior is cold and manicured, but Arlecchino does have a capacity for normal emotions — though she often nips those in the bud, or carefully processes them into something more neutral. This is most evident in her relationship with the House of the Hearth, the orphanage she directs that doubles as an intelligence-gathering organization. Having been raised in the orphanage herself in harsher times, and having experienced the atrocities the children were once subjected to, she has a great softness for children, especially the disadvantaged. Despite stating that she is a “strict and unfeeling ‘Father,’” she loves her children unconditionally and gives them as much space to be happy as their roles will allow. That said, she is in fact very strict with them, as their work puts them at real risk of death. To subject children to such work is cruel, she knows. To Arlecchino it is evil, but a lesser evil than the abandonment, exploitation, and experimentation they would have suffered under a different director. She uses the children to collect information, especially regarding the corrupt and powerful, especially where child exploitation is involved, and conducts the downfall of those individuals behind closed doors — sometimes getting her own hands dirty. With the funds she acquires this way, she will in turn take in more orphans. This is justice in her eyes, as complete as she can administer in the Nation of Justice where she was raised.
Because she loves her children, she is especially strict with them to ensure that they’re prepared to deal with a world poised to take advantage of them. She demands that they also master their own emotions while on missions and personally teaches them to fight. Some are terrified of her overwhelming presence, while others revere her — but to all of them she is trustworthy and dependable, and always honest where other adults might lie to them. Even so, she keeps them at arm’s length emotionally so that she will never become too soft with them, and to prevent others from targeting her children in order to get to her. Nearly everything she does is in service to the safety and prosperity of the House of the Hearth, whether it be their everyday needs or their long-term survival.
Removed from all outside influence such as her ambitions and responsibilities, Arlecchino is actually calm and somewhat reserved, tolerant of most personalities outside of the hypocritical and self-serving. She is patient, content to watch others — while also making a skilled conversationalist, well-armed on a wide variety of topics from the artistic to the technical. She considers herself technically easy to get along with... while also understanding that others see her as scary and unapproachable. Luckily, she feels no need to be understood, nor to connect with others on a deeper level. The looming danger of her curse has given her a keen sense of mortality, driving her to prepare for the future rather than idle in the luxuries of the present.
ABILITIES
- Arlecchino has three sources of fire:
1. Balemoon Bloodfire. The fire running through her veins, granted by her curse and lineage. It can be directed at will, acting as consuming flames or condensed into more solid objects like her scythe, silken threads, and even a throne. She can also manifest a wing and glide at high speed for a short time. Typically used in a localized manner, but she can also summon spikes through the ground at a distance. People consumed by this flame leave “afterimages” around Arlecchino that can manifest sporadically as memories, colors, voices, and occasionally vague entities; as the number of people consumed has become large, Arlecchino has become plagued by “screams, wails, and hurled recriminations” that disturb her sleep. It is implied that others can see and hear these afterimages, as the children of the House of the Hearth have the impression that they’re sometimes haunted. By some unspecified secret process, Arlecchino can also bottle her flames; when drunk, they burn away memories concerning herself and the House of the Hearth.
2. Pyro Vision. (Inactive in The Diadem.) A jeweled amulet which grants the ability to wield fire. Arlecchino rarely draws upon her Vision since she primarily uses her bloodfire; it’s used as a supplement, in a performative manner, or when she needs “normal” fire.
3. Pyro Delusion. (Not possessed in The Diadem.) A different jeweled amulet bestowed upon her by the Cryo Archon. It amplifies her bloodfire greatly, increasing the range and capacity of its manifestations while allowing for pinpoint precision. Going by her boss fight, she can fill an arena roughly 50 yards in diameter with spikes, missiles, threads, etc. as well as fire laser beams and pillars of flame. Extended use by normal people typically has serious side effects in the user such as loss of vitality; it isn’t explicitly seen in Arlecchino when she uses hers, but I’ll assume it affects her to some degree with overuse. - Inhuman strength - She possesses great strength due to her curse, capable of kicking a human up by several stories or catching attacks in her hands without effort.
- Her eyes – By making eye contact, she can draw a person into a mental landscape of broken earth studded with crimson spikes, with herself backed by a crimson moon dominating the horizon. A power used sparingly; for the purposes of The Diadem, it will be treated (with permission) like a hallucination that can be dispelled with a touch to the affected party. (Here's the full clip!)
- Expanded awareness – Not very well explained, but Arlecchino is shown to know things she shouldn’t, even if they happened outside of her supposed hearing. For example, after Arlecchino walks away, the Traveler attempts to release a bird to warn an ally about her; later, it’s revealed that Arlecchino not only knew about this, but that she managed to capture the bird before it could fully fly away, all without the Traveler noticing. She also regularly walks into conversations as if she’s been listening for a time already.
INVENTORY
• Clothes
• Pyro Vision (non-functional; only contains her "ambition")
• Pocket candies
• Genius Invokation TCG deck
• Motorcycle (bbl with a photo ref)
• Small red cellphone
MEDIA
• Character teaser: Sleep in Peace. A crash course on her methods and motivations.
• Character demo: Lullaby. Combat and animation showcase.
• Animated short: The Song Burning in the Embers. Details childhood and ascension to Harbinger.
• Boss fight magical girl transition.
• Boss fight ending cutscene. Showcases more of her fighting ability and "eye powers."
• Boss fight in-game animations.
