OOC: Profile Meme
[Character Name] Kefka Palazzo
[Canon] Final Fantasy VI.
[Point Taken from Canon] Shortly after absorbing of the Warring Triad in the beginning of the year before the part of the game taking place in the World of Ruin.
[Age] 35. But he rarely acts it...
[Gender] Male.
[Sexual Orientation] Eh, honestly, I don't think he cares as long as he gets mind-games in there somehow.
[Eye Color] Very pale blue-grey with darker blue rim.
[Hair Color] Blond with a slight reddish tint.
[Height] 5'6” / 167 cm.
[Other] Wears way too much jewellery, beads, ribbons and jester makeup. Good at creepiness.
[Clothing] Considering the amount of different designs, I'm going to do a little mix and match to what he's wearing currently. Red cloak with gold and red high collar, long green vest with gold piping, a lace shirt, one purple and one yellow arm warmer, a red sash around his waist, white trousers with black stripes and purple boots with a slight heel on them. Also, a ton of beads and ribbons attached at random. Imagine a Christmas tree with ADHD.
[Background]Kefka was the first magic-user to exist in thousand years. The culmination of the experiments with Magitek, the ability to fuse magic into technology, and eventually into humans, Kefka wields a power few other does. However, since the scientists were doing this through new technology they had no real idea what would do, at some point, something went wrong, and the strain on Kefka from the magic infusions caused his sanity to shatter.
The Emperor Gestahl, who had ordered the infusions, made Kefka his court mage and defacto second in command. Partially because his powers were unparalleled, partially because he wanted to keep an eye on him.
We're not really given much information about what Kefka was doing up until the start of the game. We do know that the Empire poisoned the King of Figaro about ten years before, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kefka was involved in that, considering that the Figaro people clearly have had unpleasant dealings with him before. He was also at some point given control over Terra, and presumably taught her about her powers somehow. Eventually, he enslaved her with a Slave Crown, which robbed her of her free will. At one point, he had her kill a lot of soldiers using her powers for his entertainment.
At the beginning of the game, Kefka sent Terra to retrieve a frozen Esper, but she never returned, having been rescued by the Returners, a rebel faction. To get her back, he took a troop of soldiers to the desert castle of Figaro, which he set on fire to have the King return Terra to him. Once more, they eluded him, and the castle sunk beneath the sand. Kefka then proceeded to head to Doma, a castle under siege by the Imperial Army, and get rid of the commanding officer there, General Leo, before poisoning the water supply of the castle, killing both the Domans and those of his own troops that were captured. Then he headed for Narshe, where the frozen Esper was, but got defeated by the party, largely due to the magic-absorbing sword of Celes, one of the Returners.
After this, Kefka returned to the Imperial capital Vector, where he spent some time in the Magitek factory, draining Espers of their power and discarding those they no longer needed. While there, he encountered the party of heroes again, and sowed seeds of doubt between them by implying that Celes, a former general of the Empire, was still as spy and a traitor to the party, but she eventually helped the party escape by teleporting herself, Kefka and his troops away. Kefka tried to stop them by sending the factory's mechanical guardians after them, but they are defeated.
However, it was partially planned, and Kefka followed the party to the Sealed Gate to the Esper world, hoping to capture more Espers to help him achieve his goals. He got a little more than planned, though, as the Espers were furious about the fate that had befallen their friends.
Seemingly seeing the error in his ways in face of the Espers' revenge, the Emperor imprisoned a very pissed off Kefka and sent his best troops with the party to go negotiate peace with the Espers in the town of Thamasa, where magic still runs in the bloodlines. Again, though, that turned out to be another Imperial trick, and as the party returned from finding the Warring Triad, god-like beings of great power, and from making a truce with the Espers, Kefka showed up with the Imperial Army and proved that his powers were a little more than it had seemed at first, using illusions to trick and kill General Leo, though not before playing with his mind a little, and destroying the Espers to force them into their more useful form, Magicite.
Kefka then left the unconscious pary behind and went after the Warring Triad with Emperor Gestahl. There, they were confronted by the party, and tried to sway Celes to their side, as she, like Kefka, had magic infused into her, but she answered by stabbing Kefka. Furious, Kefka took his revenge by reviving the Warring Triad, against Gestahl's wishes, as he only wanted to control the world, not destroy it. By upsetting the balance, Kefka took control of their powers, used them to destroy Gestahl, and, after handling a little intrusion from the party, proceeded to break the world, ushering in the era known as the World of Ruin.
This is pretty much the point I'll play from.
(After that, he ruled the world through fear from his really freaky tower for a year, destroying towns from a distance with his massively destructive Light of Judgement, had his own cult and generally turned a lot more nihilistic, as though something happened in that year to change his perception. How about a year in a dream world?)
[Personality]Kefka is more than a little insane, but it has to be said that there's layers to his insanity. With the way he dresses in bright, clashing colours and paints his face, he makes himself seem less lucid than he truly is. It's hard to say where the theatrics end and the insanity begins. It's quite possible that Kefka himself can't really tell anymore. Because of his insanity, he often seems a little out of synch with reality, and his way of behaving and talking reflects that. He's capable of going from polite to rude within a single sentence, and occasionally expresses himself in terms that seems utterly unrelated to the situation.
As a general rule, Kefka is quite outgoing. He doesn't really like people much, and he's not exactly friendly, but he enjoys talking to people, especially when he knows he's creeping them out. He's remorseless and rather cynical, and seemingly have no ethics or morals, generally acting out of an idea that something will be entertaining or valuable later. In addition, though he generally dislikes people on principle, he can hold some very strong grudges towards people who give him a reason to hate them personally. Kefka is the kind of person you can, if you can put up with his odd ways, talk to for a very long time only to walk away realising you know nothing about him at all.
However, Kefka is also quite intelligent, though many people fail to see it because of his bright and dazzling display of his insanity, using it as a mask. Though impulsive, he can still make plans that take a long time to culminate, as he did when he claimed the Warring Triad as his own, and he's extremely observant, good at finding weaknesses and picking at them like they're scabs, never letting them heal. Also, because he's flaunted his madness for so long, most people will let him get away with things because it's so obvious he's crazy, which he had planned all along, of course.
Of course, his insanity is also his biggest weakness because he sees things out from his reality, not the one others see, and as such, it's not always the truth he sees. His hunger for power comes as a close second weakness.
Kefka is pretty quirky by any standard. Besides the fact that he wears his face painted like that of a jester, he also loves playing with dolls, which explains a lot about the Slave Crown and Terra, and he has a fascination with mirrors. He also has a great love of beads, feathers and flashy jewellery that he often wears on his mismatched outfits and in his hair. He's extremely easy to amuse and can laugh for long periods of time at things only he knows. He's a bit of a pyromaniac and a sadist, and few things makes him happier than making other people suffer.
He also has a huge god complex, but it is somewhat deserved considering that's what he effectively is.
[Specialties/Abilities] Well, Kefka is, due to having absorbed the powers of the Warring Triad, very powerful indeed. However, the sudden influx of powers didn't sit well with his already fractured mind, and he doesn't really know much about it yet because of this. Even if he did, he'd be hard pressed to use those powers without the anchoring ability of the Triad's statue forms. If he did, it'd be likely to shatter him further. At least that's my way of limiting his powers here. As such, he has the powers he showed in Thamasa, which is mainly elemental spells of various strength, basic healing spells and some poison and illusionary magic. He's also immune against poison, presumably due to the poison magic in is system.
Though he's magically very strong, he's far from physically so. Though he masters melee combat if he has to, he really doesn't like it and will take any opportunity to relocate to somewhere he can use his magic instead. As he's relatively short and skinny, heavy weaponry and armour is right out for him, though he's rather quick and can use that to his advantage. If given any choice at all, he prefers making someone else do the fighting. And then put them all on fire from a safe distance. If he had to, he could probably take someone's eyes out with his claw-like nails, but that'd be an absolutely last resort.
He might be able to manifest his wings, or one of the pairs anyway, for short periods of time, but only if it seems necessary, as it's an instinctive action in his current state, not a conscious one.
[Affection] Kefka has a pretty strange view of affections. Though he isn't, by nature, affectionate at all, he'll gleefully be very tactile with people if he knows it angers, annoys or unsettles them. He's far more obsessive than anything, but if he should get to a point where he's obsessing over another character, chances are he'll allow them to touch him far more than he'd allow anyone else. He's really not romantically minded at all, though.
[Fighting] Eh, Kefka is a god of magic. Picking a fight with him isn't a smart idea, even though he's been severely limited for the sake of the game. If someone does pick a fight, his reaction is likely to be based on whether or not he thinks he can win. Chances are he's going to use every trick at his disposal to disorient his opponent just to disappear somewhere and wait it out, or retreat to a high and unreachable place to toss fire at them. He can be injured, but he's pretty damn hard to kill, because part of the magic that flows through his veins tend to try resurrecting him, unless you have a lot of ultima spells at your disposal, even then, it's hard. Basically, you want to fight, inform me and we'll work something out, but Kefka hates fighting fair and will cheat. Just a friendly warning. * grins*
[Other Permissions] Telepaths might be able to read his mind, though eventually, he'll learn to shield. However, they might not want to, considering his erratic nature and insanity. Some fourth-walling is all right, just don't overdo it.
[Other Facts] Kefka is left-handed, strongly dislikes being referred to as effeminate even though it's true and enjoys drawing things, though his pictures never quite match what is actually there.