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★ Character Information ★

Character Name: Taion
Character Age: 18 (probably the second half of 18) physically; chronologically, 8 and a half or so, With Added Reincarnation Complications
Character Species: Human (Agnian soldier) - supplemental canon indicates that he's intended to be a blade eater which is a kind of magically enhanced human but this isn't super relevant aside from him having a core crystal in his chest
Current Health: Healthy
Outfit: Business, and stupid scarf, as usual. Under the jacket is a black long-sleeved turtleneck.

Character Canon: Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Link to History: the game is too new for me to trust the wiki so bear with me.

I am a collapsible header so no one gets spoiled by accident! Click me!

Thousands of years ago, one world split into two. And, slowly, the two worlds moved together again - threatening to annihilate each other, like matter and antimatter. A plan was hatched, for the two worlds to each create a piece of a machine called Origin, which would safeguard the digitized versions of their worlds so they could be restarted.

At the moment of 'impact,' an entity called Z took over the systems of Origin, and created a third world, trapped in an eternal present of never-ending war. That world, Aionios, is where XB3 takes place.

Taion is a soldier of the country of Agnus, which means that his soul is one of those from the original worlds, which has been recycled over and over again for well over a thousand years of war. The current Taion is in his ninth term - that is, eighteen, and in his ninth of the ten years of life allotted to the soldiers of Keves and Agnus - when a strange mission to destroy a target from an unknown third side to the war becomes even stranger still. On that mission, Taion, Mio, and Sena, and a three-man squad from Keves become Ouroboros - the enemies of Moebius. who oversee the world and control the two warring countries.

Thus a typical JRPG party was formed. Over the course of their adventures, Ouroboros freed a large number of colonies from Moebius oversight and the war, and assisted them in learning to live without it - things which they were still learning for themselves. They made their way to the City, home to the humans who live normal life cycles, outside of the control of Moebius. Taion himself confronted his past - the colony and Commander he fled from out of guilt and trauma over the death of his mentor, Nimue, and eventually Nimue herself, in a manner of speaking - reborn back in her original colony without memory of the past.

They staged a prison break at the heart of Agnus territory - and that's where it all went wrong, as the High Consuls, N and M, confronted them, and were revealed to be alternate incarnations of Noah and Mio. N had the party thrown in prison without their powers for a month, to wait out the clock on the end of Mio's life, to force them to witness her Homecoming. And there it was revealed that the 'Mio' who died was in fact M - M, who chose death over her eternal existence as Moebius. M, by sharing her memories with Mio, gives the party a lead to the hidden true Agnian queen, Nia, who in turn tells them the Deep Lore and how to defeat Z for good and restart the original worlds.

They descend into Origin and defeat Z, overcoming the fear of change that keeps the eternal now running by acknowledging it head-on - and so the two worlds separate again, returning to the moment that was suspended in time where they met, but with a promise to meet once more, someday, somehow.

Canon Point: Ending, specifically after the land separates but before the credits roll
Canon Iteration: Canon

★ Folkmore Roles & Attributes ★

Skills: Taion's primary training is as a tactician and support role. His greatest asset is his mind, which is tuned for strategy, analytics, and planning. While his personality is cautious, his plans often aren't - particularly when the chips are down, Taion is the type to find a completely wild, high-risk, out-of-the-box solution and manage to pull it off somehow. He's also typically the first to notice inconsistencies in a story or set of numbers, and generally also falls into the role of 'detective' within the group.

Outside of this, he can make a nice cup of herbal tea and a technically edible meal. He's physically capable, though not especially strong. (Notably, he takes the longest to subdue his guard at the beginning of Chapter 6, and is the only one who could be considered to struggle with them.) He has a wide knowledge base for a colony soldier, particularly about medicinal herbs and the like (tea-brewing is a practical hobby!) and appears to have some skill at the sort of 'make you look elsewhere while I do something somewhere else' manipulation that's critical to good sleight of hand.

His time in the survey corps isn't really explored in game, though Eunie does at one point outright call him a spy. From this we can probably assume that he's decent at getting around unnoticed and similar skills. Canon gave me this and I'm running with it.
Canon Abilities:

This is long so it's in a collapsible header! Click me!

Iris: A computer-adjacent implant that seemingly everyone in Aionios has from birth. Being Agnian, Taion's is in his left eye, and it glows a dim gold when active. The Iris can be used for both a combat HUD visual overlay function, and as a communication device for text, voice, images, and files. It also seems to be linked to some kind of extradimensional space transportation ability, because it can be used to send physical items to other soldiers from half the world away through the Collectapedia Cards. Also, this is pure headcanon, but the Iris corrects for vision problems in whatever eye it's in (meaning that as long as it can activate, Taion technically only needs his glasses for one eye).

Blades/Hammerspace: This is a catch-all term for the summonable glowy Tron-aesthetic weapons used in Aionios. Most people can only use one Blade at a time, and changing it is an undertaking that requires a great deal of training. As an Ouroboros, Taion is exempt from that particular restriction, and can shift between a number of weapons picked up from allies in the course of the group's travels. Blades can be used to channel Arts (JRPG special abilities.) The hammerspace used to store them is also presumably capable of storing other things, because no one ever carries physical supply packs and the like.

The Mondo: Taion's default Blade is an odd control bracer for a veritable army of origami-man-looking weapons collectively called the Mondo. The Mondo is his 'reflexive' weapon and the one that is linked to his Ouroboros form; it's also the one that he has the most practice with. Technically a Healer's weapon, the Mondo are the most versatile Blade in the entire game, capable of creating energy-wall type shields as well as long range atttacks in the form of a swarm of paper men. It/they may also have some rudimentary consciousness of its own, since individual Mondo will 'misbehave' independent of Taion's control during relaxed scenes, especially in the early game. They also have some level of sensory-perception ability that's more detailed than a human's, which is Not Explained Sorry.

Ouroboros/Interlink: Taion is Ouroboros, which is a shorthand for 'the rules of his world are slightly broken for him personally.' The most obvious manifestation of this is called Interlinking, which is a fusion dance into a super form (also called Ouroboros). During Interlink, partners share a single body with one in control of the form (though both are capable of speech). In this state the partners not only can but will share thoughts, memories, and emotions (think Pacific Rim drifting). Each partner manifests a different form while 'driving' and the two can switch back and forth between the two forms freely.

Ouroboros forms are close to immortal - in-game they don't have an HP gauge, and we see in cutscene that they can survive having their limbs cut off and the like without permanent harm of even slowing down particular hard. As long as their core is intact, they can reform their lost limbs as long as they have energy remaining to do so. When energy and time begins to run out, the Ouroboros form begins to literally heat up, glowing red and emitting an annoying alarm noise that alerts the pair that they need to end their Interlink very soon Or Else. (What's the Or Else? ...Uh, so you know how matter and antimatter annihilate if they come in contact? It's That.)

Taion's personal Ouroboros form is technically a Healer, but most effective at applying debuffs to enemies and controlling the field. His ability to both control and produce Mondo is massively expanded, and he can create illusions of objects (including himself) using them as well as their usual uses in attacking and defending. He can also turn the Ouroboros form just entirely into a cloud of Mondo and reform it a short distance away. His interlink partner is Eunie, and neither of them can access the Ouroboros transformation without the other within (roughly) arm's reach.

Role: Legend
Role Qualities/Attributes: You know the "wings but they're made out of sheets of paper" aesthetic? Leaning heavily on that here - paper is already Taion's motif, and for the most part his Legend role will manifest into paper headwings (look Eunie we're matching). It's the "hideable" type because they're not literal flesh wings, and contrastingly the can be made bigger and more impressive, but that's the 'default.' Maybe also an echo of his Ouroboros-form's halo (which is actually a giant ring around his neck at a tilt - see image in abilities section) sometimes.
Role Reasoning: The thing about Taion is that although he's very much used to being a part of the group that the hope of the world rests upon... He doesn't associate that with heroism or being 'good.' A hero, to the mindset of a colony soldier, is someone who dies saving their comrades - that's basically the only time the word 'hero' is ever used. And as for good and evil... While he would acknowledge if forced to choose, that the Ouroboros are more good than Moebius, the battles they thought were ultimately for two competing, selfish desires - to change and to stay the same.

However - I specifically don't want to play him as a Familiar, because I think that what Taion needs to develop the most is the realization that he does have the potential to be a leader rather than a follower, and to learn to trust in his own decisions with less second guessing them (which is a continuation of his canon arc). And I think that rather than changing his moral character, the 'good'/Legend role will force him to come face to face with different kinds of good that are outside his experience.

★ Personality ★

OPTION 2 QUESTIONS (PICK 4-5) 100-300 WORD LIMIT EACH:

What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them? There's two nominees for 'most traumatic,' but I'm going to talk about the older and more formative one. Several years prior to the game, Taion, as a tactician-in-training, was asked to put forward a plan for combat against a Kevesi colony. Against his gut, he succumbed to peer pressure and put forward a plan without enough precautions built in. In the course of executing that flawed plan, his personal mentor, Nimue, sacrificed herself to give him enough time to escape with his life - making Taion one of the only survivors of that operation.

This incident was a heavy blow to Taion's confidence; he developed fairly severe anxiety, specifically related to confidence in his own ideas and plans and sharing them with others. At the beginning of the game, he is indecisive despite his obvious intelligence, and hesitant to take the responsibility of making the final call even when it's a situation he has the best knowledge of, because what if he screws up again. This is emphasized when Consul J targets him specifically by forcing a situation explicitly modelled off the mission on which Nimue died, and Taion outright freezes when pushed to make a call about the situation.

Following that incident and the immediate aftermath, where he was pushed into taking responsibility and succeeded instead of failing, Taion becomes increasingly confident in his plans through the rest of game . However, it's an issue he's actively wrestling with, and one he will probably continue to do so for the duration of his time in Folkmore.

What experience challenged your character's core beliefs? How did they handle this or change from it? Taion's recent history is just an 80-hour series of these moments, starting from that very first key moment - not so much the becoming Ouroboros itself, but the immediate aftermath. Returning from a mission gone strange, a mission his small unit barely survived, to discover that their entire colony viewed them as enemies (literally - it was an alternation of both their vision and mental state through the Iris), and being thus driven back to the arms of the Kevesi trio as their only allies. People they had fought against, fought to kill, only the night before - it's no surprise that Taion was the Agnian-side character most against this arrangement.

And yet, before too long they become tight comrades regardless of their differing origins - origins that are in some ways an artificial creation to fuel the endless war. The differences between the two sides are as superficial as the difference between headwings and cat ears. And once you've erased that line for three people, it gets easier and easier to erase it for everyone - to behave without a care for what side of the war someone's on. Overcoming that indoctrination was no small task, and it's left Taion with a keen awareness that people are just people wherever you go, more similar than not. Accordingly, he makes a conscious effort now to judge people simply by their actions.

What is the most important and defining relationship(s) in your character's life and why? It's Eunie, obviously. You don't just mind-meld with a complete stranger, cross the world with them living out of each other's pockets, go through your Personal Hells And Some Special Bonus Hells, and come out of it with her NOT being your Number One. Especially when you're teenagers. Especially when you're Taion, who wasn't close to anyone but his direct mentor (dead now) and his commander (held at a distance because of Nimue's death).

The thing about Taion and Eunie is that - their relationship changes the most, and in some ways is the most work, out of the Ouroboros pairings. The other pairings start with some degree of common ground (Noah and Mio are both off-seers and the team leaders; Lanz and Sena are both the Beef and have similarly easygoing attitudes); Taion and Eunie literally react to the idea of being matched with "Ew, you? No way!" They're opposites - Eunie is rough in manner, outspoken, prone to throwing herself into things, while Taion is overly cautious, reserved, and very particular about the way he does anything.

And yet by the end of the game they have the tightest bond, if you measure it by how well they can predict what the other is like and what they'll do. Eunie is the first person Taion really opened up to, being the one without strong connections to the any of others, and she returned it in kind, confiding things in Taion she didn't in Noah or Lanz. And so even beyond the fact that they've literally shared thoughts and memories, Taion and Eunie build their relationship from the ground up until they're deeply in sync. Rather than being opposites, they become two sides of a coin - confident and cautious, pantser and planner - with an implicit unconditional acceptance of each other.

Is your character capable of forgiveness or will they hold a grudge until they die? Would anything ever make them change their mind? Taion occupies a middle ground when it comes to holding grudges - he's the sort of guy who isn't going to forget what you've done even if he does decide to give you a second chance (or, more likely, got talked into doing so by Noah or one of the others). If you've truly turned over a new leaf, then that new leaf is what he'll judge you by - but until he sees for himself through actions rather than just pretty words, he'll retain his suspicion and memory of your previous actions. (Truthfully, this applies to people he's meeting for the first time as well - Taion is more than a bit suspicious by nature, though less so at the end of canon than he was at the beginning.) And if you haven't turned over a new leaf, then he isn't particularly surprised nor unprepared for it. So while he isn't exactly carrying grudges - and he's far from the sort of person who would kick off a revenge escalation - Taion calibrates his expectations of each person based on their actions, and it's difficult to get him to reconsider those calibrations.

★ Player Information ★

Player Name: Nael
Pronouns: he/him
Are you over 18?: i turn 30 next year champs
Contact(s): starcrossedsky#0506 @ the disco, starcrossedsky
Who Invited You?: Mod invite here.
Current Characters: N/A
Permissions: someBODY once told me
Writing Samples: you'll take my fanfic and you'll like it (spoilers to chap 6) a thread and a toplevel