Player: Chips
Age: 20+
Invited by: Mich
Contact: DM
Current Characters: N/A

Character: Emet-Selch
Canon: early Endwalker (6.0)
Age: Outwardly late 30s/early 40s, but actually more than 12,000 years old

Background Information: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Emet-Selch

Personality:
1) Tell us about who your character is and what someone’s first impression would be upon meeting them.

Emet-Selch is, at first glance, a stern-looking, no-nonsense individual. The sort to not appreciate a good joke or to ever be in good humour - and for many people, this holds true. They may never see past this irritable facade.

However, Emet-Selch IS capable of other emotions. The harshness is a cover for a man who is surprisingly empathetic towards others, who perhaps uses his prickly nature to keep others away precisely because he knows that if he allows himself to care then he will care too much. In the World Before, he once had exactly two close friends whose antics he tolerated, but he was also known by a surprising amount of people as a dependable and reliable man. Their recommendations were how he came to be named Emet-Selch in the first place.

As the centuries and millennia passed though, Emet-Selch grew disillusioned with the current state of the world. Mortals showed themselves to be violent, corrupt, greedy, and every other vice one can think of. Their memories were short, lives fleeting, and he lost faith in their ability to govern the star towards a better future. Thus did he commit fully to Zodiark's cause and seek to bring about calamities for his god's Rejoining. He instigated wars, encouraged genocide - yet whether he enjoyed any of it is debatable, as he displays a very different character depending on who he's speaking to. To those he is deceiving, he is theatrical and dramatic; to those he is trying to persuade, he is more subdued and sardonic.

Which is the real Emet-Selch? Given how his personality used to be in his early days, it's safe to say that the drama is all a front and something that he has cultivated as a result of the trauma of the past twelve centuries he has been forced to endure.

2) What is a driving force your character has? What goals do they have, what motivates them, etc?

Emet-Selch's primary goal is to see the restoration of the star and those who initially gave their lives to save it. This motivation is powerful enough to carry him through some twelve thousand years of plotting and the instigation of horrific deeds against the mortal races. Arguably, one could say that he has also been seeking proof amongst mortals that they deserve to be given custody of the star. However, he has been disappointed so many times that this has never stopped him from continuing to craft plans for the next Rejoining.

That said, Zodiark's influence on his decisions cannot be ignored. Although it's unclear how much sway it has over his decision-making, it's fair to say that it biases his judgement towards the idea of 'salvation' and locks him into nostalgia over the world that once was. Yet, even under Zodiark's influence, he has enough agency to plan for his own death as well as lay the groundwork for another's demise. This suggests that either Emet-Selch's will is simply that strong or that Zodiark's influence does not operate in the same way that mortals have so far experienced. (Hydaelyn seems to be similar in that she doesn't seem to influence her subjects.)

3) What are their flaws as a character? What is something they've messed up, or have done that they regret?

Stubbornness. Unwillingness to compromise. Single-minded focus. These qualities are helpful when not in isolation but when exaggerated become a hindrance. Emet-Selch is difficult to work with as a result and he is reluctant to compromise on his own vision of how things should be done. On the other hand, it means that he is a dedicated worker and will always finish what he has started - even if it takes thousands and thousands of years.

It's difficult to say whether Emet-Selch has "messed up". After all, the themes of XIV are such that both antagonists and protagonists are faced with heavy choices, neither of which yielded ideal results, but were necessary in order to keep their star intact. One could call his and the Convocation's choice to sacrifice half their people to summon Zodiark a 'mistake', but is it a mistake if it was necessary to ensure that the star did not die? One could say that it was a mistake for him and the other Ascians to pursue Rejoinings (and thus calamities) rather than leave the star sundered as fourteen pieces, but if you see a broken teapot then wouldn't you naturally want to fix it? The thought process of someone like Emet-Selch is alien to a mortal as he thinks on a greater scale than one, and mortals really are, to him, an aberration of life compared to what he used to know. As he so succinctly put it: it's all moral relativism.

However, as far as Emet-Selch's regrets are concerned: yes, he has plenty. He regrets letting his friend join the massive sacrifice to bring about Zodiark. He (likely) regrets letting Azem step down and leave after disagreeing over Zodiark's summoning. But it's important to note that he does not regret the choices he made over the course of trying to restore his people. His conviction on this point is unassailable. He believes he did what was right and he believes he did everything he could with what he had available. Even though he failed in the end, that is simply the nature of conflicting wills: the victor writes history and the loser becomes its villain. Had we (the player) not triumphed over him, Emet-Selch would not have failed his own people.

4) Optional: What is something unique and interesting about them, or what is a fun little tidbit that sets them apart from the crowd?

He was technically the very last of his people before his canon death. He's unique only because the mortal races don't have abilities that come even the slightest bit close to his own. To a mortal, he would functionally be god-like.


Abilities: Emet-Selch possesses a number of powerful abilities as he is a member of an ancient race who were functionally akin to gods (relative to our definition of a human being).

CREATION
Emet-Selch - and his people in general - possess the power to create almost anything they can visualise. Physical objects, living creatures - anything is possible, although the 'living creatures' they create are arguably not truly alive as they lack a soul. Though the power to create is incredibly potent, it can easily go awry if the wielder loses focus right before the creation manifests. Emet-Selch is not immune to such mistakes even if he does not commit them often.

THE 'POWER OF THE UNDERWORLD'
This refers broadly to the ability to utilise the power of those who have passed on. In a sense, something like a spirit medium but with complete agency over the dead. Emet-Selch seems to be able to manifest keep these souls within him as well as manifest spirits in the physical realm. He can also make limited use of the abilities those souls wielded in life.

SOUL-SIGHT
This is a passive ability Emet-Selch possesses wherein he can keenly perceive the nature of someone's soul and also use that unique 'appearance', so to speak, to locate them even from a great distance. It has no benefit beyond allowing him to immediately identify who or what he's looking at (and could actually be a detriment if someone were to blind him with a plethora of magic).

TRANSFORMATION
Emet-Selch has an additional form he can freely transform into. Arguably two. Technically, transformation is an off-shoot of creation magicks in that the user can mould their form into whatever appearance they like using aether, so the appearance itself does not matter. Regardless, this is an advanced form of magic that Emet-Selch is able to perform and it allows him to make full use of his natural strengths.

GENERIC MAGIC
Emet-Selch is first and foremost an adept sorcerer. He can wield all sorts of magic native to his star.

LONGEVITY
He has a functionally infinite lifespan as long as he does not succumb to deadly sickness or is outright slain.

WEAPONSKILLS
Considering his long life and the occasional necessity of having to pass as a mortal to further his goals, Emet-Selch likely has a jack-of-all-trades understanding of most types of weapons. Most recently, he was emperor of Garlemald, a people whose primary weapon of choice is the gunblade. It stands to reason that he would be far more comfortable with the gunblade than other weapons at this point in time.

(As a note: he seems to have an uncanny aim: evidenced by how he managed to shoot someone mid-incantation and incapacitated them without outright killing them.)


Inventory:
Nothing besides the earring he was wearing as 'Solus' before he died.

Although I initially put Emet-Selch down as a 'corsair', upon reflection it is difficult to pin him down to either armada. So instead, I suppose I'll put it to the mods and let you decide.

CORSAIR - Emet-Selch is very much individualistic, although he does also believe in acting for the good of the community. He is heavily resistant to change or attempts to cajole him into acting a certain way, preferring to do as he pleases when he please (IF he pleases). Though he has no interest in the coarser side of piracy, at the point of time in canon that he's at, he HAS developed a small taste for uncharted travel as a way of reminiscing about an old friend.

PALADIN - Emet-Selch is a very principled man and prefers his routine and life to be orderly. He has a looser idea of what justice and order entails after seeing the worst sides of humanity across the past twelve thousand years. If he sees someone acting in a way that would disturb the community and he feels in the mood to deal with it, he can be strict at upholding his own standard of 'peace and quiet'. As mentioned above, he has developed a taste for travel, and part of it could arguably be to record new, unexplored places in order to leave behind something for a certain friend to find later.

Test Drive Sample: top level.

Questions: None.