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[character history / background]:
Firstly, an explanation on some of the mechanics of the world on which Tales of Vesperia is set. On the world of Terca Lumireis, people use ancient technology called blastia for various functions as part of their everyday lives: powering waterways, street lights, heat, electricity, protecting cities from monsters, etc. Blastia are the remnants of technology developed by the Krityans, a race of humanoids known for their intelligence, their optimism, and their tendency to say what they think.
All blastia are made of two primary components: a body, which helps direct the blastia's energy, and a core, which serves as a power source and on which is inscribed a formula. This formula directs how the blastia draws on aer, a form of matter that permeates Terca Lumireis and is only visible in large quantities. There are points in the world known as aer krene, and they're springs of aer, natural springs from which aer spurts forth from the planet. Aer is like any other natural component--it's absolutely necessary for life, but too much is deadly. An overabundance of aer can poison humans, cause plants to grow like a thing on steroids, and drive animals and monsters insane.
Most living things can't detect aer until it's visible, by which point it's basically a run for your lives, stupid mortals, before you all die sort of situation. However, there is one race of beings who can: the Entelexeia, super-sentient monsters of great power. Entelexeia come in all shapes, sizes, colors, breeds, and sexes, and can not only detect aer, but absorb it, process it, digest it, and regulate its flow. When they die, the aer within their bodies condenses into a crystal called an apatheia, which is a source of unimaginable power and is also used to create blastia cores. Entelexeia consider themselves to be something like the preserves of the world's natural order and work behind the scenes, out of sight to the point that they're considered mere myths. However, great numbers of blastia draw on a proportionate great quantity of aer, and soon the planet begins creating and releasing more aer than its ecosystems can handle. The aer flow goes completely wack, and there aren't enough Entelexeia to handle it. Ergo, too many blastia means the end of the world.
Nineteen years before the game, Judith was born in a Krityan village called Temza, built atop a mountain of the same name situated on the desert-bound Desier continent. Her mother is never named, but her father, Hermes, was a blastia researcher, and Judith was terribly fond of him. As a little girl, Judith came into contact with Ba'ul, a young Entelexeia living on Mt. Temza's summit. Most of the villagers were frightened by Ba'ul, but Judith, unafraid, began to talk to him. She became close friends, and even introduced Ba'ul to her father. Ba'ul took Judith and Hermes on trips across the world, and though it's not outright stated, Hermes likely taught Judith how to wield a spear at this time.
However, Hermes had a very avid interest in blastia and was researching new blastia formulas that would process aer more efficiently. The result were the Hermes blastia, which certain did what Hermes wanted, but they devoured massive quantities of aer at the same time. Alarmed, the other Entelexeia saw no other course of option but to attack Temza and destroy Hermes's blastia and his research. The Empire intervened, and the Great War broke out. Caught amid the chaos and destruction, Judith was about to die when Ba'ul saved her; both her parents perished.
The Krityans brought Judith to their only other home, Myorzo, a city floating in the sky and suspended within a giant jellyfish Entelexeia called Krones. Judith remained in Myorzo for a short time, no longer than a few years, before departing with Ba'ul. On Brionac, the spear she had inherited from her father, Judith made an oath to destroy all of the Hermes blastia. For the next few years, hidden completely by body-encasing armor, Judith traveled the world on Ba'ul's back, following his sense of the flow of aer and going wherever he sensed a disturbance; there, Judith would destroy any Hermes blastia she found. Her mission brought her into contact with the game's hero, Yuri Lowell, and his companions Repede, Estelle, Karol, Rita, and Raven. First they stumbled across the mess she left at Ehmead Hill; later, at Capua Nor in the governor's mansion, Judith and Ba'ul crashed through the window to destroy the governor's blastia; at Caer Bocram, she interrupted a confrontation between the heroes and a guild of monster-hunters to destroy a blastia containing the Entelexeia Gusios.
Then Ba'ul sensed a disturbance in the aer at the city of Heliord. But what he and Judith found there wasn't a Hermes blastia--it was one of Yuri's companions, a girl, Estelle. Never before had she or Ba'ul encountered a human that could cause such a disturbance in the aer. Judith withdrew; she decided to leave Estelle be while she contemplated a course of action. As she considered this problem, Ba'ul sensed another Hermes blastia in the city of Dahngrest, where the guilds are headquartered. They arrived just as battle between the Empire and the guilds seemed imminent. The source of the aer disturbance was Barbos, the leader of the Blood Alliance guild, who wanted to seize power of the Union, the guilds' governing body. Judith destroyed his rifle, but he activated his chainsaw sword and used it to fly away. Judith prepared to take off after him, but Yuri approached her and asked her to bring him along. Wordlessly, she let him climb onto Ba'ul's back, and the two chase Barbos to his desert tower Ghasfarost.
When they reached Ghasfarost, they found it encircled in a sandstorm barrier powered by a giant blastia. Ba'ul charged his laser and fired multiple shots, but the tower shot back and they were knocked onto its roof; Judith and Yuri were captured, but Ba'ul managed to get away. Yuri and Judith were thrown into prison, and after Judith shed her armor, they became acquainted with one another. On Yuri's prompting, he and Judith staged a mock prison fight to induce the guards to open the door, and then the two turned on the guards and pounded them. After their prison break, the two were joined by Yuri's companions, rounding the Vesperia party up to its full roster. Yuri told Judith to keep her blastia-destroying habits a secret for simplicity's sake, and also to keep from pissing off Rita, the group's mage and a blastia philiac researcher. The group climbed to the top of Ghasfarost and confronted Barbos in a heated battle, which they, of course, won.
Afterward, Judith said her goodbyes to the group and met up with Ba'ul. During her time with the others, she'd had a chance to meet and interact with Estelle, which only deepened Judith's conflict. Estelle seemed to be a good, kind, normal girl, massive quantities of aer use aside. Blastia were nonliving tools made from apatheia, and while neither good nor evil, they were dangerous. Blastia destruction was excusable; killing in self-defense was excusable; killing nasty scumbags (re: Barbos) who had it coming was even excusable. But killing an innocent girl who clearly had no idea what she was doing? It was something Judith considered, and she would do it if she had to, although it didn't sit well with her.
It was then that Phaeroh, the strongest of all the living Entelexeia, appeared in Dahngrest. Alone, Judith entered the outskirts of the city as Phaeroh attacked Estelle, calling her "the insipid poison of the world." He seemed to know what Estelle was, but Judith was still not in favor of killing her without consideration. Communicating mentally, she struck a deal with Phaeroh: he would grant Judith some time to personally determine how much of a threat Estelle posed, and if that threat was too great, Judith would kill Estelle herself. Phaeroh withdrew and left Estelle in Judith's hands. Conveniently, Yuri, Estelle, and Karol passed Judith on their way out of Dahngrest, and Estelle insisted on Judith coming along.
With the Imperial Knights chasing after Estelle, who was the princess, they retreated a safe distance from the city before taking a break. It was then that they formed a guild. Yuri had been considering it for a while, and Karol desperately wanted to, so the two of them and Judith founded Brave Vesperia, named for the brightest star in the night sky. Together they swore to uphold the guild laws: all for the guild and the guild for all; do justice and punish the unjust.
For their first job, Brave Vesperia took up the task of protecting Estelle (which they were already doing anyways) as she journeyed to seek out Phaeroh and discover more about herself. Judith integrated herself seamlessly into the group, and before long they were back up to a full roster. They gained a ship at Capua Torim and set out across the ocean to the Desier continent, where, Judith told the group, she once saw Phaeroh during her travels. On the ocean, they encountered a ghost ship and picked up a clear ciel crystal that had been intended for the town of Yormgen.
When they reached Desier, they made port in the coliseum city of Nordopolica, ruled over by the guild Palestralle and its Duce, Belius. Raven attempted to make contact with Belius on behalf of the Union, but was turned away and told that Belius only sees guests on the night of the new moon. With the full moon just passed, Brave Vesperia decided to head further inland towards the desert, where Phaeroh is supposed to live. But before they could leave the city, Regaey, the leader of the blastia excavation guild Ruin's Gate, tricked Yuri into fighting his best friend, Captain Flynn Scifo of the Imperial Knights, in the coliseum, then made off with the clear ciel crystal. Brave Vesperia chased Regaey to the Weasand of Cados, where he was revealed to actually be Yeager, one of the group's recurring enemies. Repede retrieved the clear ciel crystal, and Yeager escaped.
After leaving Cados, Brave Vesperia continued on to Mantaic, the small oasis town that served as a gateway to the desert. Mantaic was under the governorship of Cumore, a captain in the Imperial Knights and a regular pain in Brave Vesperia's side. The group stayed the night in Mantaic, and Judith had the innkeeper make preparations for them to travel into the desert in the morning. The innkeeper could offer no information, though--the entire town was under martial law, the towns people locked within their own homes, except the merchants, who were placed under guard. When the innkeeper was alone, however, he explained that the Imperial Knights were searching for Phaeroh, and the road to Norodpolica was being closed down. The Imperial Knights intended to arrest Belius on charges of conspiracy, for helping to start the Great War. This was shocking news to everyone, Judith included.
As they prepared to leave the following day, however, they ran into some knights trying to apprehend two small children. Estelle intervened, and the knights, recognizing the princess, left. The children explained that they were going to go out into the desert to look for their parents. Cumore, the children said, was rounding up anyone who displeased him and sending them into the desert to search for Phaeroh. Judith ordered the children to stay home, and offered on Brave Vesperia's behalf to search for the parents. The rest of the party agreed, and they set out into the Sands of Kogorh.
The trek across the desert was long and blisteringly hot. Partway through, they rescued the children's parents, and continued on to the exit. However, when they reached the end of the desert, they were attacked by a powerful, monstrous entity. The group fought, but passed out from exhaustion. When they came to, they were in a quaint little town called Yormgen, the same one for which the ghost ship's cargo had been intended. When they visited the sage's house to deliver the Clear Ciel Crystal, they found a mysterious man named Duke in the sage's place.
Mistaking Duke for the sage, the group gave him the Clear Ciel Crystal, with the assumption that he intended to use it to make a barrier to protect Yormgen. Duke explained that he was not the sage and that the Crystal is something known as an apatheia. Then, before Yuri could take the Crystal back, Duke took out his sword and used a technique that caused the Crystal to vanish into thin air. Duke told Brave Vesperia that Yormgen had no need for a barrier, but Estelle protested that the town wasn't safe with monsters like Phaeroh nearby.
Duke reacted to this, indicating that he knew Phaeroh somehow. Estelle begged Duke for information, telling him that Phaeroh had referred to her as a "poison," so Duke explained that there is a being known as the Child of the Full Moon, who has a power the Entelexeia despise. After that, however, Duke would say no more, and he insisted that the group leave. Unable to pry any more information out of Duke, Yuri gathered the guild and its clients, and they set back out for Mantaic.
They reached Mantaic just as a wagon was preparing to leaving town, loaded with more innocents who had displeased Cumore. Karol sabotaged the wagon, and just then the Flynn Brigade arrived to liberate Mantaic. Brave Vesperia collected their payment from the rescued family and returned to the inn for the night. But Yuri was not content to leave the matter of Cumore in the Empire's hands, knowing full well that Cumore would use his rank and political clout to lessen his sentence. So after everyone else had gone to sleep that night, Yuri killed Cumore.
The next morning, everyone woke and regrouped to decide what to do from there. The full moon was approaching quickly, and they had not yet found Phaeroh. But with the newfound knowledge that Belius had had a hand in the Great War, as well as their own personal desire to meet the Duce, Brave Vesperia decided to return to Nordopolica for the time being and secure an audience with Belius. They doubled back on the path to Nordopolica, slipping past the blockade the Imperial Knights had set up in preparation for a siege of the city.
Brave Vesperia reached Nordopolica just in time for the full moon, and Natz, Belius's lieutenant, granted them an audience on the condition that they would never speak to anyone of what they saw or heard. A little on edge from the ominous warning, Brave Vesperia wasn't sure what to expect as they proceeded into Belius's inner chambers.
An Entelexeia definitely wasn't even on the list.
Belius welcomed her human visitors with grace. Raven delivered to her a letter from Don Whitehorse, the leader of the Union and an old friend of Belius's. As the group conversed with Belius, she began to make clear a number of things. Her role in the great war was not that of mastermind, but only so much as her duty as an Entelexeia required. Then, unprompted, Belius began to explain about the Child of the Full Moon--but was interrupted by Natz, rushing in to raise the alarm.
Nordopolica was under attack from the Hunting Blades, Karol's former guild and a group of fanatical monster hunters. They despised Pallestralle for keeping monsters for sport in the Coliseum rather than just eradicating them, and they knew the Duce was an Entelexeia. Belius confronted the Hunting Blades to protect her city and her guildsmen. By the time Brave Vesperia fought their way to Belius, she was severely wounded. Estelle, ever the compassionate cleric, rushed forward to heal Belius, disregarding Judith's and Belius's cries to stop.
But Estelle's healing artes triggered some sort of negative reaction in Belius. Her pain seemed to double, but her strength became immense, and she lost control, attacking everything in sight and begging Yuri and the others to kill her before her mind disappeared completely. They had no choice. After a difficult battle, Belius was mortally wounded, and lay dying. Rather than cursing Estelle, she urged her to hold onto that kindness and compassion that made her heal and help others without thought. Then, glowing with aer, Belius disappeared, leaving an apatheia in her place. Her voice echoed from the apatheia, asking that it, the Cyano Ciel Crystal, be delivered to the Don.
With the apatheia safely in their possession, Brave Vesperia fled Nordopolica, dodging the Hunting Blades, Imperial Knights, and Flynn. They made it to their ship and charged the Imperial Naval blockade of the city. But something seemed to be wrong with the ship. It was going too fast, the blastia powering it was overheating with energy, and the Cyano Ciel Estelle held in her arms began to glow. Judith heard Ba'ul's voice in her mind, warning her of the danger. So Judith did as she had done so many times before--she plunged Brionac into the core of the blastia, destroying it.
Only this time she wasn't wearing her armor.
Amidst Estelle's cries of shock, Rita's screams of rage, and everyone else's quiet surprise, Judith leapt onto Ba'ul's back and flew away.
[character abilities]:
Judith is a strong, fairly well-rounded melee fighter. Compared to the rest of the party, her strength, defense, and agility are about second- or third-tier. Her weapons of choice are polearms, and she uses boots as sub-weapons. Her footwork is absolutely astounding, though. Judith's attacks are best used against aerial enemies and many of her skills and abilities are specifically designed to help her boost enemies into the air, where she can dish out twice or three times as much damage.
Tales special attacks are called Artes, and Vesperia's are classified according to strength/type as follows: Base, Arcane, Altered, Burst, and Mystic. Burst and Mystic Artes can only be used in Over Limit, a type of special Limit Break mode, if you will. Mystic Artes are also the strongest killer moves any character can access. Base, Arcane, and Altered Artes can be chained together. An exhibition of all of Judith's Artes can be seen here.
Her idk bff space whale can fly (but not swim), consume aer (of which there shouldn't be any in the City), and fire blasts of energy from his mouth. He's roughly the size of a large horse (or a small whale!) and is capable of evolving into a form three times the size of most sea-faring ships, although should he be allowed to come to the City, he would never do so here. Judith is the only one who can communicate with Ba'ul as he has not mastered human speech, and Krityans are special in the head that way. Their range of communication is fairly large--Judith is seen attempting to contact an older, more powerful Entelexeia known to live two continents away--so she and Ba'ul would probably be able to pick up service from opposite ends of the City or while one of them is below ground.
[character personality]:
Krityans are curious, intellectual, scholarly, and uniformly strange; they are, as Judith says, "dreamers and optimists, for better or worse." Judith's got the curiosity and the strangeness down pat, but she's less of a bookworm than her brethren. She's not unintelligent--far, far from it--but she'd much prefer to get down, dirty, and hands-on (in a decidedly violent way) than sit back with a dusty old tome; she's physical rather than intellectual.
Judith doesn't seem like a very complex person, if outward appearances are anything to go by--and there's a lot of Judith's outward appearance to see, with how little her clothes cover her skin. She's confident in her body and casual in her manner. She's coquettish and a flirt, and she loves teasing her friends and the people she meets. Almost nothing seems to disturb her calm, placid attitude, and there's really nothing she enjoys quite as much as a good fight. She's also very straightforward. But despite all this, there really is more going on with Judith than there seems to be. In spite of her provocative appearance, she's mild-mannered and speaks modestly. Not only is she comfortable with her body, but she's aware of the affect she has on men in a mildly uncaring sort of way. She probably wears what she wears because Judith just has a very....unique sense of style.
Her calm demeanor makes her one of the most rational members of the team. While Rita, Karol, and even Estelle are likely to jump at their emotions, Judith considers situations in the most logical way, and when her friends are freaking out, she'll lightheartedly bring them back down to earth through teasing, or more seriously with pointed criticism, to get them to listen to reason. She's extremely perceptive--able to guess at a person's feelings and personality when they're not letting those on--but not overly so. Multiple times she states that she's not a very good liar, which is true in an Obi-Wan sort of way. She's not good at lying because she's too straightforward for it, so instead she omits and twists the truth while never quite making it untruth. Until she comes clean with the party, she keeps much of the truth to herself and only drops the barest bones of knowledge when they're pertinent.
Because of the path she's chosen to walk in life, Judith has difficulty trusting in other people. It's not a matter of believing they'll always betray her or let her down, but rather that, as far as people are concerned, Judith knows that they always act in a certain way. Greed, ignorance, and stubbornness are things she expects from people, no matter how kind and good-hearted they are. She's as calmly accepting of it as she is of everything else and she doesn't dislike people any less for it (although she will remark on it). As she gets to know the members of Brave Vesperia and their hangers-on, she trusts them to amuse her, to help others, to protect her back in a fight, but she doesn't believe them capable of understanding the path she's chosen--at least, at first. As she grows closer to them and sees the very extent of their determination and their desire to do what's right rather than what's easy, she begins to think that maybe these people--these friends she's made--will understand her reasons. Without realizing she even has anything to do with the deeper situation, Brave Vesperia--as well as their meeting with Belius--convinces her to put her faith in Estelle, Yuri, and humans in general.
Brave Vesperia has a profound impact on Judith. Before she met them, all she had was her mission, and that made life very simple for her. She didn't need to think about anything more complicated than that, and she remarks that it was a very easy way to live. But part of her does want something more than that. She talks around the truth, but she doesn't outright lie, so when she tells Karol and Yuri that she's joining the guild because she wants to, because they make it sound like fun, and because they interest her, she's being honest. Brave Vesperia has a way of grabbing on to people and not letting go.
More than anything, Judith values her relationships with others. At first it was her father, then Ba'ul, and finally Brave Vesperia. Her relationship with Ba'ul is particularly significant to her, because for a very long time, he was her only friend. He is someone who risked his own life to save hers, and she would protect his no matter what it cost.. Judith swore on Brionac that she would destroy all the Hermes blastia, and she considers the spear to be tangible proof of her relationship with Ba'ul. He and the spear are her only remaining connections to her past, and to her father. Her memory of Hermes is entirely fond, but she's very aware of the mistake he made in developing his Hermes formula. She knows that if he were alive to know the problems Hermes blastia were causing for the world, he'd be heartbroken and ashamed, and she also knows that the nature of people would make them vilify Hermes for his creations. It's to protect his memory, rather than to protect the world, that Judith made her oath.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]:
After Belius's death, when she leaves the party.
[journal post]:
You know, Ba'ul, this may be the first time you've flown us anywhere in your sleep.
[A chirping, whale-like sound of indignation, followed by a giggle.]
Now, you know I didn't mean it like that.
[Another whale cry, this one insistent.]
I haven't got a clue. But is there really any other answer?
[A cautious moan.]
Oh, you're right. If Yormgen was an illusion made by Phaeroh... Perhaps we are caught in his power again. Then the only thing to do is look for an exit.
[third person / log sample]:
The cold wind in her face was a sensation Judith relished about flight. She was reunited with Ba'ul again, after the longest separation they had ever endured. Settled astride her old friend's back, with the full moon glowing overhead, the air chilling her bare skin, and the black-blue-white-yellow of the ocean racing beneath her, Judith should have been at ease for the first time in weeks.
But she wasn't. She couldn't get the looks on their faces out of her mind. Estelle's trembling voice and Rita's angry screaming kept ringing in her ears. Yuri had certainly asked why just before she disappeared.
And she had yet to clean Brionac of Belius's blood.
Seeing such a majestic being as Belius reduced to the state Estelle had put her in... It made Judith feel as if an iron band was wrapped around her heart. She thought of Ba'ul in that same position, the aer overloading his body, poisoning his mind, and the band squeezed tighter. She thought of the expression that Estelle would have on her face, and the pressure in her chest nearly made breathing difficult. Ba'ul made an audible moan of sympathy and dropped a few meters.
Judith smiled and stroked his head with a gloved hand. Thank you, old friend, she said, using their particular, inaudible way of communicating. I'm fine.
There were still too many questions left unanswered, and Belius had been her one great hope. Judith knew she was on the verge of something. She had felt it during her time with Brave Vesperia, that strange and particular sense of belonging. It was a feeling with a ghost in her memory from the time before the Great War. She felt like a family with them. The closer they had come to Phaeroh, the fonder Judith grew of them, and the more she had dreaded the moment they would meet with the leader of the Entelexeia. It would mean Estelle's death, and Judith didn't want Estelle to die.
Ever since Ghasfarost--no, since before that, at Heliord--she had been thinking, for the first time in almost ten years. The pattern of living had been repetitively soothing until then: they found a Hermes blastia and destroyed it, and they subsisted from day to day. The world had felt like such a small place, just clusters of buildings on dirt and rock, with water in between.
On that cold, rainy road between Dahngrest and Heliord, she had felt a real desire to do something for herself for the first time since the War. Karol's energy and enthusiasm had caught her up in it. Suddenly the world was an immense place, and her identity had expanded with it. She had always been Judith, the Krityan, Judith, Hermes's daughter, and Judith, Ba'ul's friend. But now she was Judith, a member of Brave Vesperia.
Brave Vesperia, the brightest star in the night sky. Brave Vesperia, whose members had made solemn oaths to do just and punish the unjust. Her right hand tightened its grip on Brionac. She knew all about solemn oaths. You don't break them.
But hadn't she found her answer after all? Belius had said that she wasn't wrong to trust in Estelle and Yuri. Estelle's power might be the world's insipid poison, but her gift was her kindness. Estelle's whole heart was open to the world. She had been kind to Judith even when Judith had chastised her harshly, looking for some flaw of character that would present Judith the excuse she needed to take a life. Instead, all Judith had found was someone who was innocent and honest and wanted to do good.
Killing Estelle wasn't justice. There had to be another way.
Ba'ul knew her feelings, and Judith could feel his silent acceptance--no, his approval. He would support her, as he always had. He trusted her to make the right decision.
"Thank you," Judith said, her words swallowed by the wind. She knew Ba'ul could sense what she meant to say.
But first, they had to get back to Temza. This was getting bigger than her, Ba'ul, and Hermes's memory. The Hunting Blades would be after Ba'ul's life soon, and Brave Vesperia would be after her. She had to be ready.
Firstly, an explanation on some of the mechanics of the world on which Tales of Vesperia is set. On the world of Terca Lumireis, people use ancient technology called blastia for various functions as part of their everyday lives: powering waterways, street lights, heat, electricity, protecting cities from monsters, etc. Blastia are the remnants of technology developed by the Krityans, a race of humanoids known for their intelligence, their optimism, and their tendency to say what they think.
All blastia are made of two primary components: a body, which helps direct the blastia's energy, and a core, which serves as a power source and on which is inscribed a formula. This formula directs how the blastia draws on aer, a form of matter that permeates Terca Lumireis and is only visible in large quantities. There are points in the world known as aer krene, and they're springs of aer, natural springs from which aer spurts forth from the planet. Aer is like any other natural component--it's absolutely necessary for life, but too much is deadly. An overabundance of aer can poison humans, cause plants to grow like a thing on steroids, and drive animals and monsters insane.
Most living things can't detect aer until it's visible, by which point it's basically a run for your lives, stupid mortals, before you all die sort of situation. However, there is one race of beings who can: the Entelexeia, super-sentient monsters of great power. Entelexeia come in all shapes, sizes, colors, breeds, and sexes, and can not only detect aer, but absorb it, process it, digest it, and regulate its flow. When they die, the aer within their bodies condenses into a crystal called an apatheia, which is a source of unimaginable power and is also used to create blastia cores. Entelexeia consider themselves to be something like the preserves of the world's natural order and work behind the scenes, out of sight to the point that they're considered mere myths. However, great numbers of blastia draw on a proportionate great quantity of aer, and soon the planet begins creating and releasing more aer than its ecosystems can handle. The aer flow goes completely wack, and there aren't enough Entelexeia to handle it. Ergo, too many blastia means the end of the world.
Nineteen years before the game, Judith was born in a Krityan village called Temza, built atop a mountain of the same name situated on the desert-bound Desier continent. Her mother is never named, but her father, Hermes, was a blastia researcher, and Judith was terribly fond of him. As a little girl, Judith came into contact with Ba'ul, a young Entelexeia living on Mt. Temza's summit. Most of the villagers were frightened by Ba'ul, but Judith, unafraid, began to talk to him. She became close friends, and even introduced Ba'ul to her father. Ba'ul took Judith and Hermes on trips across the world, and though it's not outright stated, Hermes likely taught Judith how to wield a spear at this time.
However, Hermes had a very avid interest in blastia and was researching new blastia formulas that would process aer more efficiently. The result were the Hermes blastia, which certain did what Hermes wanted, but they devoured massive quantities of aer at the same time. Alarmed, the other Entelexeia saw no other course of option but to attack Temza and destroy Hermes's blastia and his research. The Empire intervened, and the Great War broke out. Caught amid the chaos and destruction, Judith was about to die when Ba'ul saved her; both her parents perished.
The Krityans brought Judith to their only other home, Myorzo, a city floating in the sky and suspended within a giant jellyfish Entelexeia called Krones. Judith remained in Myorzo for a short time, no longer than a few years, before departing with Ba'ul. On Brionac, the spear she had inherited from her father, Judith made an oath to destroy all of the Hermes blastia. For the next few years, hidden completely by body-encasing armor, Judith traveled the world on Ba'ul's back, following his sense of the flow of aer and going wherever he sensed a disturbance; there, Judith would destroy any Hermes blastia she found. Her mission brought her into contact with the game's hero, Yuri Lowell, and his companions Repede, Estelle, Karol, Rita, and Raven. First they stumbled across the mess she left at Ehmead Hill; later, at Capua Nor in the governor's mansion, Judith and Ba'ul crashed through the window to destroy the governor's blastia; at Caer Bocram, she interrupted a confrontation between the heroes and a guild of monster-hunters to destroy a blastia containing the Entelexeia Gusios.
Then Ba'ul sensed a disturbance in the aer at the city of Heliord. But what he and Judith found there wasn't a Hermes blastia--it was one of Yuri's companions, a girl, Estelle. Never before had she or Ba'ul encountered a human that could cause such a disturbance in the aer. Judith withdrew; she decided to leave Estelle be while she contemplated a course of action. As she considered this problem, Ba'ul sensed another Hermes blastia in the city of Dahngrest, where the guilds are headquartered. They arrived just as battle between the Empire and the guilds seemed imminent. The source of the aer disturbance was Barbos, the leader of the Blood Alliance guild, who wanted to seize power of the Union, the guilds' governing body. Judith destroyed his rifle, but he activated his chainsaw sword and used it to fly away. Judith prepared to take off after him, but Yuri approached her and asked her to bring him along. Wordlessly, she let him climb onto Ba'ul's back, and the two chase Barbos to his desert tower Ghasfarost.
When they reached Ghasfarost, they found it encircled in a sandstorm barrier powered by a giant blastia. Ba'ul charged his laser and fired multiple shots, but the tower shot back and they were knocked onto its roof; Judith and Yuri were captured, but Ba'ul managed to get away. Yuri and Judith were thrown into prison, and after Judith shed her armor, they became acquainted with one another. On Yuri's prompting, he and Judith staged a mock prison fight to induce the guards to open the door, and then the two turned on the guards and pounded them. After their prison break, the two were joined by Yuri's companions, rounding the Vesperia party up to its full roster. Yuri told Judith to keep her blastia-destroying habits a secret for simplicity's sake, and also to keep from pissing off Rita, the group's mage and a blastia philiac researcher. The group climbed to the top of Ghasfarost and confronted Barbos in a heated battle, which they, of course, won.
Afterward, Judith said her goodbyes to the group and met up with Ba'ul. During her time with the others, she'd had a chance to meet and interact with Estelle, which only deepened Judith's conflict. Estelle seemed to be a good, kind, normal girl, massive quantities of aer use aside. Blastia were nonliving tools made from apatheia, and while neither good nor evil, they were dangerous. Blastia destruction was excusable; killing in self-defense was excusable; killing nasty scumbags (re: Barbos) who had it coming was even excusable. But killing an innocent girl who clearly had no idea what she was doing? It was something Judith considered, and she would do it if she had to, although it didn't sit well with her.
It was then that Phaeroh, the strongest of all the living Entelexeia, appeared in Dahngrest. Alone, Judith entered the outskirts of the city as Phaeroh attacked Estelle, calling her "the insipid poison of the world." He seemed to know what Estelle was, but Judith was still not in favor of killing her without consideration. Communicating mentally, she struck a deal with Phaeroh: he would grant Judith some time to personally determine how much of a threat Estelle posed, and if that threat was too great, Judith would kill Estelle herself. Phaeroh withdrew and left Estelle in Judith's hands. Conveniently, Yuri, Estelle, and Karol passed Judith on their way out of Dahngrest, and Estelle insisted on Judith coming along.
With the Imperial Knights chasing after Estelle, who was the princess, they retreated a safe distance from the city before taking a break. It was then that they formed a guild. Yuri had been considering it for a while, and Karol desperately wanted to, so the two of them and Judith founded Brave Vesperia, named for the brightest star in the night sky. Together they swore to uphold the guild laws: all for the guild and the guild for all; do justice and punish the unjust.
For their first job, Brave Vesperia took up the task of protecting Estelle (which they were already doing anyways) as she journeyed to seek out Phaeroh and discover more about herself. Judith integrated herself seamlessly into the group, and before long they were back up to a full roster. They gained a ship at Capua Torim and set out across the ocean to the Desier continent, where, Judith told the group, she once saw Phaeroh during her travels. On the ocean, they encountered a ghost ship and picked up a clear ciel crystal that had been intended for the town of Yormgen.
When they reached Desier, they made port in the coliseum city of Nordopolica, ruled over by the guild Palestralle and its Duce, Belius. Raven attempted to make contact with Belius on behalf of the Union, but was turned away and told that Belius only sees guests on the night of the new moon. With the full moon just passed, Brave Vesperia decided to head further inland towards the desert, where Phaeroh is supposed to live. But before they could leave the city, Regaey, the leader of the blastia excavation guild Ruin's Gate, tricked Yuri into fighting his best friend, Captain Flynn Scifo of the Imperial Knights, in the coliseum, then made off with the clear ciel crystal. Brave Vesperia chased Regaey to the Weasand of Cados, where he was revealed to actually be Yeager, one of the group's recurring enemies. Repede retrieved the clear ciel crystal, and Yeager escaped.
After leaving Cados, Brave Vesperia continued on to Mantaic, the small oasis town that served as a gateway to the desert. Mantaic was under the governorship of Cumore, a captain in the Imperial Knights and a regular pain in Brave Vesperia's side. The group stayed the night in Mantaic, and Judith had the innkeeper make preparations for them to travel into the desert in the morning. The innkeeper could offer no information, though--the entire town was under martial law, the towns people locked within their own homes, except the merchants, who were placed under guard. When the innkeeper was alone, however, he explained that the Imperial Knights were searching for Phaeroh, and the road to Norodpolica was being closed down. The Imperial Knights intended to arrest Belius on charges of conspiracy, for helping to start the Great War. This was shocking news to everyone, Judith included.
As they prepared to leave the following day, however, they ran into some knights trying to apprehend two small children. Estelle intervened, and the knights, recognizing the princess, left. The children explained that they were going to go out into the desert to look for their parents. Cumore, the children said, was rounding up anyone who displeased him and sending them into the desert to search for Phaeroh. Judith ordered the children to stay home, and offered on Brave Vesperia's behalf to search for the parents. The rest of the party agreed, and they set out into the Sands of Kogorh.
The trek across the desert was long and blisteringly hot. Partway through, they rescued the children's parents, and continued on to the exit. However, when they reached the end of the desert, they were attacked by a powerful, monstrous entity. The group fought, but passed out from exhaustion. When they came to, they were in a quaint little town called Yormgen, the same one for which the ghost ship's cargo had been intended. When they visited the sage's house to deliver the Clear Ciel Crystal, they found a mysterious man named Duke in the sage's place.
Mistaking Duke for the sage, the group gave him the Clear Ciel Crystal, with the assumption that he intended to use it to make a barrier to protect Yormgen. Duke explained that he was not the sage and that the Crystal is something known as an apatheia. Then, before Yuri could take the Crystal back, Duke took out his sword and used a technique that caused the Crystal to vanish into thin air. Duke told Brave Vesperia that Yormgen had no need for a barrier, but Estelle protested that the town wasn't safe with monsters like Phaeroh nearby.
Duke reacted to this, indicating that he knew Phaeroh somehow. Estelle begged Duke for information, telling him that Phaeroh had referred to her as a "poison," so Duke explained that there is a being known as the Child of the Full Moon, who has a power the Entelexeia despise. After that, however, Duke would say no more, and he insisted that the group leave. Unable to pry any more information out of Duke, Yuri gathered the guild and its clients, and they set back out for Mantaic.
They reached Mantaic just as a wagon was preparing to leaving town, loaded with more innocents who had displeased Cumore. Karol sabotaged the wagon, and just then the Flynn Brigade arrived to liberate Mantaic. Brave Vesperia collected their payment from the rescued family and returned to the inn for the night. But Yuri was not content to leave the matter of Cumore in the Empire's hands, knowing full well that Cumore would use his rank and political clout to lessen his sentence. So after everyone else had gone to sleep that night, Yuri killed Cumore.
The next morning, everyone woke and regrouped to decide what to do from there. The full moon was approaching quickly, and they had not yet found Phaeroh. But with the newfound knowledge that Belius had had a hand in the Great War, as well as their own personal desire to meet the Duce, Brave Vesperia decided to return to Nordopolica for the time being and secure an audience with Belius. They doubled back on the path to Nordopolica, slipping past the blockade the Imperial Knights had set up in preparation for a siege of the city.
Brave Vesperia reached Nordopolica just in time for the full moon, and Natz, Belius's lieutenant, granted them an audience on the condition that they would never speak to anyone of what they saw or heard. A little on edge from the ominous warning, Brave Vesperia wasn't sure what to expect as they proceeded into Belius's inner chambers.
An Entelexeia definitely wasn't even on the list.
Belius welcomed her human visitors with grace. Raven delivered to her a letter from Don Whitehorse, the leader of the Union and an old friend of Belius's. As the group conversed with Belius, she began to make clear a number of things. Her role in the great war was not that of mastermind, but only so much as her duty as an Entelexeia required. Then, unprompted, Belius began to explain about the Child of the Full Moon--but was interrupted by Natz, rushing in to raise the alarm.
Nordopolica was under attack from the Hunting Blades, Karol's former guild and a group of fanatical monster hunters. They despised Pallestralle for keeping monsters for sport in the Coliseum rather than just eradicating them, and they knew the Duce was an Entelexeia. Belius confronted the Hunting Blades to protect her city and her guildsmen. By the time Brave Vesperia fought their way to Belius, she was severely wounded. Estelle, ever the compassionate cleric, rushed forward to heal Belius, disregarding Judith's and Belius's cries to stop.
But Estelle's healing artes triggered some sort of negative reaction in Belius. Her pain seemed to double, but her strength became immense, and she lost control, attacking everything in sight and begging Yuri and the others to kill her before her mind disappeared completely. They had no choice. After a difficult battle, Belius was mortally wounded, and lay dying. Rather than cursing Estelle, she urged her to hold onto that kindness and compassion that made her heal and help others without thought. Then, glowing with aer, Belius disappeared, leaving an apatheia in her place. Her voice echoed from the apatheia, asking that it, the Cyano Ciel Crystal, be delivered to the Don.
With the apatheia safely in their possession, Brave Vesperia fled Nordopolica, dodging the Hunting Blades, Imperial Knights, and Flynn. They made it to their ship and charged the Imperial Naval blockade of the city. But something seemed to be wrong with the ship. It was going too fast, the blastia powering it was overheating with energy, and the Cyano Ciel Estelle held in her arms began to glow. Judith heard Ba'ul's voice in her mind, warning her of the danger. So Judith did as she had done so many times before--she plunged Brionac into the core of the blastia, destroying it.
Only this time she wasn't wearing her armor.
Amidst Estelle's cries of shock, Rita's screams of rage, and everyone else's quiet surprise, Judith leapt onto Ba'ul's back and flew away.
[character abilities]:
Judith is a strong, fairly well-rounded melee fighter. Compared to the rest of the party, her strength, defense, and agility are about second- or third-tier. Her weapons of choice are polearms, and she uses boots as sub-weapons. Her footwork is absolutely astounding, though. Judith's attacks are best used against aerial enemies and many of her skills and abilities are specifically designed to help her boost enemies into the air, where she can dish out twice or three times as much damage.
Tales special attacks are called Artes, and Vesperia's are classified according to strength/type as follows: Base, Arcane, Altered, Burst, and Mystic. Burst and Mystic Artes can only be used in Over Limit, a type of special Limit Break mode, if you will. Mystic Artes are also the strongest killer moves any character can access. Base, Arcane, and Altered Artes can be chained together. An exhibition of all of Judith's Artes can be seen here.
Her idk bff space whale can fly (but not swim), consume aer (of which there shouldn't be any in the City), and fire blasts of energy from his mouth. He's roughly the size of a large horse (or a small whale!) and is capable of evolving into a form three times the size of most sea-faring ships, although should he be allowed to come to the City, he would never do so here. Judith is the only one who can communicate with Ba'ul as he has not mastered human speech, and Krityans are special in the head that way. Their range of communication is fairly large--Judith is seen attempting to contact an older, more powerful Entelexeia known to live two continents away--so she and Ba'ul would probably be able to pick up service from opposite ends of the City or while one of them is below ground.
[character personality]:
Krityans are curious, intellectual, scholarly, and uniformly strange; they are, as Judith says, "dreamers and optimists, for better or worse." Judith's got the curiosity and the strangeness down pat, but she's less of a bookworm than her brethren. She's not unintelligent--far, far from it--but she'd much prefer to get down, dirty, and hands-on (in a decidedly violent way) than sit back with a dusty old tome; she's physical rather than intellectual.
Judith doesn't seem like a very complex person, if outward appearances are anything to go by--and there's a lot of Judith's outward appearance to see, with how little her clothes cover her skin. She's confident in her body and casual in her manner. She's coquettish and a flirt, and she loves teasing her friends and the people she meets. Almost nothing seems to disturb her calm, placid attitude, and there's really nothing she enjoys quite as much as a good fight. She's also very straightforward. But despite all this, there really is more going on with Judith than there seems to be. In spite of her provocative appearance, she's mild-mannered and speaks modestly. Not only is she comfortable with her body, but she's aware of the affect she has on men in a mildly uncaring sort of way. She probably wears what she wears because Judith just has a very....unique sense of style.
Her calm demeanor makes her one of the most rational members of the team. While Rita, Karol, and even Estelle are likely to jump at their emotions, Judith considers situations in the most logical way, and when her friends are freaking out, she'll lightheartedly bring them back down to earth through teasing, or more seriously with pointed criticism, to get them to listen to reason. She's extremely perceptive--able to guess at a person's feelings and personality when they're not letting those on--but not overly so. Multiple times she states that she's not a very good liar, which is true in an Obi-Wan sort of way. She's not good at lying because she's too straightforward for it, so instead she omits and twists the truth while never quite making it untruth. Until she comes clean with the party, she keeps much of the truth to herself and only drops the barest bones of knowledge when they're pertinent.
Because of the path she's chosen to walk in life, Judith has difficulty trusting in other people. It's not a matter of believing they'll always betray her or let her down, but rather that, as far as people are concerned, Judith knows that they always act in a certain way. Greed, ignorance, and stubbornness are things she expects from people, no matter how kind and good-hearted they are. She's as calmly accepting of it as she is of everything else and she doesn't dislike people any less for it (although she will remark on it). As she gets to know the members of Brave Vesperia and their hangers-on, she trusts them to amuse her, to help others, to protect her back in a fight, but she doesn't believe them capable of understanding the path she's chosen--at least, at first. As she grows closer to them and sees the very extent of their determination and their desire to do what's right rather than what's easy, she begins to think that maybe these people--these friends she's made--will understand her reasons. Without realizing she even has anything to do with the deeper situation, Brave Vesperia--as well as their meeting with Belius--convinces her to put her faith in Estelle, Yuri, and humans in general.
Brave Vesperia has a profound impact on Judith. Before she met them, all she had was her mission, and that made life very simple for her. She didn't need to think about anything more complicated than that, and she remarks that it was a very easy way to live. But part of her does want something more than that. She talks around the truth, but she doesn't outright lie, so when she tells Karol and Yuri that she's joining the guild because she wants to, because they make it sound like fun, and because they interest her, she's being honest. Brave Vesperia has a way of grabbing on to people and not letting go.
More than anything, Judith values her relationships with others. At first it was her father, then Ba'ul, and finally Brave Vesperia. Her relationship with Ba'ul is particularly significant to her, because for a very long time, he was her only friend. He is someone who risked his own life to save hers, and she would protect his no matter what it cost.. Judith swore on Brionac that she would destroy all the Hermes blastia, and she considers the spear to be tangible proof of her relationship with Ba'ul. He and the spear are her only remaining connections to her past, and to her father. Her memory of Hermes is entirely fond, but she's very aware of the mistake he made in developing his Hermes formula. She knows that if he were alive to know the problems Hermes blastia were causing for the world, he'd be heartbroken and ashamed, and she also knows that the nature of people would make them vilify Hermes for his creations. It's to protect his memory, rather than to protect the world, that Judith made her oath.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]:
After Belius's death, when she leaves the party.
[journal post]:
You know, Ba'ul, this may be the first time you've flown us anywhere in your sleep.
[A chirping, whale-like sound of indignation, followed by a giggle.]
Now, you know I didn't mean it like that.
[Another whale cry, this one insistent.]
I haven't got a clue. But is there really any other answer?
[A cautious moan.]
Oh, you're right. If Yormgen was an illusion made by Phaeroh... Perhaps we are caught in his power again. Then the only thing to do is look for an exit.
[third person / log sample]:
The cold wind in her face was a sensation Judith relished about flight. She was reunited with Ba'ul again, after the longest separation they had ever endured. Settled astride her old friend's back, with the full moon glowing overhead, the air chilling her bare skin, and the black-blue-white-yellow of the ocean racing beneath her, Judith should have been at ease for the first time in weeks.
But she wasn't. She couldn't get the looks on their faces out of her mind. Estelle's trembling voice and Rita's angry screaming kept ringing in her ears. Yuri had certainly asked why just before she disappeared.
And she had yet to clean Brionac of Belius's blood.
Seeing such a majestic being as Belius reduced to the state Estelle had put her in... It made Judith feel as if an iron band was wrapped around her heart. She thought of Ba'ul in that same position, the aer overloading his body, poisoning his mind, and the band squeezed tighter. She thought of the expression that Estelle would have on her face, and the pressure in her chest nearly made breathing difficult. Ba'ul made an audible moan of sympathy and dropped a few meters.
Judith smiled and stroked his head with a gloved hand. Thank you, old friend, she said, using their particular, inaudible way of communicating. I'm fine.
There were still too many questions left unanswered, and Belius had been her one great hope. Judith knew she was on the verge of something. She had felt it during her time with Brave Vesperia, that strange and particular sense of belonging. It was a feeling with a ghost in her memory from the time before the Great War. She felt like a family with them. The closer they had come to Phaeroh, the fonder Judith grew of them, and the more she had dreaded the moment they would meet with the leader of the Entelexeia. It would mean Estelle's death, and Judith didn't want Estelle to die.
Ever since Ghasfarost--no, since before that, at Heliord--she had been thinking, for the first time in almost ten years. The pattern of living had been repetitively soothing until then: they found a Hermes blastia and destroyed it, and they subsisted from day to day. The world had felt like such a small place, just clusters of buildings on dirt and rock, with water in between.
On that cold, rainy road between Dahngrest and Heliord, she had felt a real desire to do something for herself for the first time since the War. Karol's energy and enthusiasm had caught her up in it. Suddenly the world was an immense place, and her identity had expanded with it. She had always been Judith, the Krityan, Judith, Hermes's daughter, and Judith, Ba'ul's friend. But now she was Judith, a member of Brave Vesperia.
Brave Vesperia, the brightest star in the night sky. Brave Vesperia, whose members had made solemn oaths to do just and punish the unjust. Her right hand tightened its grip on Brionac. She knew all about solemn oaths. You don't break them.
But hadn't she found her answer after all? Belius had said that she wasn't wrong to trust in Estelle and Yuri. Estelle's power might be the world's insipid poison, but her gift was her kindness. Estelle's whole heart was open to the world. She had been kind to Judith even when Judith had chastised her harshly, looking for some flaw of character that would present Judith the excuse she needed to take a life. Instead, all Judith had found was someone who was innocent and honest and wanted to do good.
Killing Estelle wasn't justice. There had to be another way.
Ba'ul knew her feelings, and Judith could feel his silent acceptance--no, his approval. He would support her, as he always had. He trusted her to make the right decision.
"Thank you," Judith said, her words swallowed by the wind. She knew Ba'ul could sense what she meant to say.
But first, they had to get back to Temza. This was getting bigger than her, Ba'ul, and Hermes's memory. The Hunting Blades would be after Ba'ul's life soon, and Brave Vesperia would be after her. She had to be ready.