Memepatheias

Player: Laena
Age: 38
Invited by: Me
Contact: laenavesse and discord
Current Characters:
Cidolfus Telamon | ramuhs
Aranea Highwind | draganea

Character: Rokurou Rangetsu
Canon: Tales of Berseria; post end game
Age: 22

Background Information: wiki and my write-up.

Rokurou is the sixth and youngest son of the Rangetsu clan, a family renowned for their masterful swordsmanship, duty, and commitment. The Rangetsu clan was founded when their ancestor came to the continent from a foreign country and was helped by a noble family, the Capaluses. Since then, the clan has served the Capaluses, assisting them as bodyguards, assassins, body doubles—whatever is called for them. It is because of this past that the family, and Rokurou in particular, holds the following creed: "Always return that which you've borrowed, even if you must repay it with your life." So how did someone from a prestige lineage fall into a daemon?

For most of his life, Rokurou has always trained and therefore competed against his oldest brother, Ichirou. However, Ichirou was basically a natural genius and Rokurou always lost against him no matter how hard he trained. This fostered what would become a deep intense hatred, and once Ichirou became the head of the family (now called "Shigure"), Rokurou set to seek his own personal revenge and kill him. It's kind of what the Rangetsus do; strange warrior family. He created a lie to justify his attempts to execute Shigure, but ultimately failed and humiliated himself. Sentenced to essentially life in prison (500 years), Rokurou's intense hatred, anger, shame, and jealousy ultimately drives up his malevolence and transforms him into a yaksha—a war daemon. All at age 19.

Three years later, another daemon named Velvet Crowe would break out of her cell and incite a riot prison, allowing him to escape. After informing him the location of his sword, Rokurou vowed to follow and help fight alongside her in repayment of his debt and following his family's creed. Since then he's followed Velvet through her journey of her own vengeance, gathering others along the way. Rokurou himself is able to gain help from the daemon blacksmith, Kurogane, to forge various swords to fight against Shigure. But it would ultimately be Kurogane forging himself into the blade Kurogane's Stormquell that allows Rokurou to beat and kill Shigure in their final battle. He then continues to help Velvet finish her own goals, and with everything more or less "settled," he goes off on his own way to continue his journey to become the strongest swordsman.

Rokurou still has a long path to go to actually surpass the skill and talent of his brother, but at least he's found some peace after finally connecting with him and can properly go on his own personal journey to be the strongest daemon.


Personality: More detailed write-up can be found here.

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

Rokurou is actually a pretty simple guy ever since becoming a daemon. For the most part, he's chill, easygoing, considerate, honest, friendly, and at first glance you honestly wouldn't be able to tell he has a dangerous, daemonic side to him. As a daemon many of his old human emotions have become muted so he doesn't feel as deeply or worried about things as often as humans do, and that just lends to his easygoing nature. But he's still a very energetic and happy-go-lucky, carefree kind of guy, usually looking at things in a positive light. He's also usually the one trying to pull people back down if they go to extreme, and he can be very understanding, usually taking things objectively.

Regardless of being a daemon, he still holds his family's values close to heart, which follow very similarly to the samurai bushido codes. He'll remain steadfast, loyal, protective, and will repay any debts owed. He also is very proud of his family heritage, and anyone who besmirches a family member's skill, even if it's Shigure, will incur his wrath. Despite whatever insecurities or jealousies he has over his brother or anyone else who may happen to fall into a similar position, that doesn't blind him to the fact that they are worthy of respect and admiration. He also holds very true to his honor and values, sometimes to a fault.

However, he's not completely a "blind follower." He may help others and can be selfless, but he's actually quite selfish in his goals and motivations. He'll even work around and make loopholes to get out of any of his previously placed debts when he had been human, saying that now he's a daemon it doesn't really matter as much, anymore. He's a very "go at his own pace" and independent kind of guy, doing whatever he feels like and following his own path. And while he will help others, if it starts moving against to what he wants to do, it's not impossible that he will also turn around. Fortunately, such circumstances will only really come about if it involves anything with fighting.

Overall, he holds a very "individual" identity, his "catchphrase" encapsulating him well: "That's just the kind of daemon I am."

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

As a war daemon, he really, really likes fighting. And swords. One of his main catchphrases is, "my sword is my life" and it's a reflection of his life as a swordsman. As a daemon, this lifestyle gets kicked up several notches to the point of obsession. Get in the way of his fight, then friend or not, he'll turn on them. That said, it should be noted that's more of an unconscious, "natural" side of him being a war daemon. He'll apologize and try to warn people beforehand to try and not have people get unwittingly dragged in, but after that all bets are off. So he's a nice guy, but with extreme bloodlust.

All of this goes to his desire to become stronger, and he will seek out any enemy and any path to get there. He won't necessarily cheat his way—he wants strength by his own hands. He has a lot of pride in who he is, and that pride is what allows him to retain a lot of his "human" self. Although he'll do almost anything to get stronger, he doesn't want to become a mindless monster. Instead he prefers and takes great pride in his ability to maintain his reason despite being a daemon.

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

His biggest flaw would be everything surrounding his older brother, Shigure. It was his lies and actions that led him to his ultimate humiliation and shame and sent him to prison, and there his anger, jealousy, insecurity, and the other negative feelings culminated to become a daemon. His intense hatred and anger consumed him so much that it blinded him, and even after turning it can cloud his judgment and become too reckless or overconfident. This is especially so around anything with Shigure, but even a prospective challenging fight or anything he can become particularly emotional or passionate about something. Then he'll lose his cool and become a brash hothead, even turning against his allies if in the heat of the moment he determines they are in his way.

However, this only happens on occasion. Perhaps as a price of becoming a daemon, most of his emotions are tempered so he's actually a lot calmer and rational. His current canon point in particular has him reach a point where he's faced his flaws and has come to an understanding, so while they still exist, he's working on them more. And no, he does not regret his past actions as despite it all, it allowed him to become who he is now and he is proud of that.

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

Rokurou loves alcohol, and as a daemon, he can actually drink quite a lot. He could even live off it since his dietary needs also changed upon changing. The downside is it goes to his head a lot faster. so if he doesn't pace himself he'll get drunk quick. Because of this, he always carries of a jug of sake with him, which is a common trait often used for the samurai trope which Rokurou also follows.

Last fun tidbit is when it comes to cooking, his knifework is impeccable, but he also has a habit of slicing things too thin. So thin he could actually turn it into juice.


Abilities & Inventory:
Although a daemon, Rokurou doesn't have any true "supernatural" powers as all of his skills come from what he trained when he used to be human. He's an expert swordsman, capable of using both dual short swords and the greatsword. However, due to his upbringing and personal preference, he mainly fights with the dual short swords and reserves the greatsword for more punishing moves and finishers. Thus he'll be coming in with his short swords and his greatsword, Kurogane.

He can also perform more elemental focused hidden artes call "Form Seals." These involve moving his blades in certain formations to activate the arte rather than attacking directly. It's just as quick and instantaneous, with the more advanced artes packing a lot of damage. A compilation of all his artes can be found here.

Because of the style, he is very agile and quick on his feet, capable of crossing distances in a short amount of time, sometimes even seeming to "teleport." He signature moves involve countering, where he'll change stance so that he can parry and appear behind his opponent for the counter attack. This can allow him to chain more attacks which can eventually lead to some of his more powerful Mystic Artes.

While he won't need a tattoo to execute the non-elemental sword techniques, he won't be able to execute the other artes without the tattoo. Since he'll be tied to one element (fire), the attacks with the other elements will be modified to fit the element.

Becoming a daemon has also heightened his senses and increased his strength, but not overly so. He still trains everyday as he wants to rely on his personal skill rather than just the bonus daemon strength. Although sometimes not immediate, he is capable of sensing whether someone is human or not, as well as recognize fellow daemons (demons) or spirits. He is also more resistant to temperatures and illnesses, finding extreme heat or cold not a problem and incapable of catching common diseases like colds. He can also withstand injuries and have a higher tolerance to pain, but he's not immortal.

His malevolence, which is essentially manifestation of negative emotions based on sins and vices, will still be a thing, but fortunately he keeps it under wraps so no one should be affected by it. It would only ever be a problem if he somehow completely lost his sanity and went berserk. He can also be influenced by exterior influences if there is a lot of negative energy, but he's otherwise good at resisting it. But some more details on how he'll work can be read here.

Traditionally, only those with high spiritual sensitivity or resonance would be able to see Rokurou's daemon markings or tell he's not human. However, for ease of play, this restriction won't be a thing so anyone will be able to see him for who he is.

Corsair! With his personality and having been on the wanted list as well as part of a pirate's crew before, it's really the best fit for him.

Test Drive Sample: TDM

Questions: Third time's the charm—