Contact info & Marno's Bio
PLAYER
Name: Jade
Personal Journal: http://belladonna12.livejournal.com
Contact Info:
E-Mail: sakurachino200@yahoo.com
AIM: Lashpawnaga (Rarely used.)
CHARACTER
Name: Marno Ar
Fandom: Baten Kaitos Origins (Video Game)
Canon History:
(Note: All of this character’s history is based on the game Baten Kaitos Origins, so events involving the same character in the game Baten Kaitos Eternal Wings and Lost Ocean have not yet occurred.)
For the most part, Marno has forgotten much of his own history. He couldn’t tell you the date he was originally born, things that were common knowledge when he was growing up, and is even unsure of his own appearance at times. Marno Ar is technically a dead man. Or God, depending on who is asked and the time period. Nothing of this truly matters to him, because he considers how he ‘lives’ now to be a more important life.
The Marno currently in existence’s complete memories span aproximately fifteen years, and are closely linked to his Maledieter Sagi, who’s heart he shares. They are both the product of an experiment with the shattered and twisted bodies and souls of the original Marno and his siblings, called Afterlings. Merged together as one being, they were believed to be a failed attempt at recreating the mythical beings known as Spiriters. Left in the care of Sagi’s mother Gena, the two developed in an unusual way for a Maledieter and Afterling pair. Most Maledieters hate the Afterling implanted within them, and the Afterling itself seems to be little more then a brute beast incapable of communicating with anything but rage.
However, Sagi and Marno are the only pair that were merged when the Maledieter was nothing more then an infant. When Marno first manifested to Sagi, the boy accepted him as a guardian spirit. Confused and disoriented, knowing nothing about himself or what he really was, the Afterling accepted the term and came to fiercely believe that he was indeed a guardian spirit. Though she worried about her son, Gena could do nothing about Marno but keep up the fiction that he was a guardian spirit, and pray that the Afterling did not manifest itself violently. And for a long time, Marno didn’t, instead acting as a passive teacher and enhancement for Sagi’s fighting skills. After finding the machina Guillo, Marno for a time was sullen and distant, wanting the thing to go away. Why he at first disliked and feared Guillo around Sagi would become clear much later to all of them, but at the time it seemed only that he was jealous of losing the only person who could see and talk to him’s attention.
Sagi eventually left home to join the Dark Service, which meant that Marno went where his ‘Spiriter’ went, and Guillo, after being told to shut up and act like a normal paramachina, followed. To the country island of Hassaleh boy and companions, the island of Alfard was a tough place. Ridiculed for talking to air, since no one else could see Marno, in a land filled with people who believed even less in Spiriters then their home, who considered the Wings of the Heart an outmoded idea and promachination the greatest thing ever, Marno and Sagi came to rely more closely then before on each other and Guillo. Until the plot to assassinate the Emperor backfired in their faces and got them blamed. Forced to flee, they encountered a hideous black monster, unbeknowest to the three of them another Afterling.
The fight was nasty, and it took them some time and tricks to win. However, at the end of the fight, to Marno and Sagi’s confusion, Guillo went berserk, ruthlessly tearing the creature apart. It’s death shocks tore time temporarily, bringing Marno, Sagi and Guillo back to the past. Finding themselves amongst a strange group who saw Sagi as Marno and referred to him as their brother, the Maledieter and Afterling followed them, finding themselves staring at the sickening truth of the mythical ‘War of the Gods’. People reduced to nothing but pure Magnus energy, living shadows of life, no longer touching the living world.
Suddenly finding themselves snapped back to the future, Marno and Sagi found themselves on the run, and abruptly introduced to Millarde, Milly for short. She inserted herself rudely into their party despite Guillo and Marno’s protests, and proceeded to make an annoyance of herself. Returning to Hassaleh, the party found themselves with another problem. People had disappeared, and their investigating it led to another Afterling, and another trip back in time, Milly coming along for the ride. Finding out more of the past, they set out with the group, who seemingly did not see Milly or Guillo, to Cujam to talk to the being known as Wiseman and beg him to leave their people in peace.
Again, they snapped back to ‘their’ time, and eventually found themselves working for Quaestor Verus to investigate the happenings around the Empire. Marno disliked the Quaestor, who claimed to be a Spiriter as well, but couldn’t put his finger on why, so to speak. Brought to the Lava Caves following the terrorist Bein, he berated them for serving the Empire and its desires, for helping to crush the people. To the group’s shock and horror, Bein lost control, reforming as one of the hideous monsters they had been fighting. Though they tried to spare his life, Bein was killed before them, and yet again they found themselves tossed back in time. This time, they fought with Wiseman, but failed to defeat him. With the people of Cujam failing to listen to them about Wiseman’s intentions, the group returned to Naos.
Back to the ‘present’, with Marno beginning to have a sickening feeling that things were going desperately wrong. Against the next Afterling, the royal knight Celsica of Diadem, they again tried to spare her, and again were foiled. In the ‘past’ the group returned to Naos, to find the people massacred. With Marno’s oldest ‘brother’ Seph’s fiancee dying in his arms, no matter what healing spells his ‘sister’ Pieda tried. Her heart had been torn, and she effectively no longer existed, as did most of their people. In a blind fury, following Seph, the siblings turned for Zaurak Keep, leaving Sagi, Milly and Guillo no choice but to follow.
The present again, and being led to battle an Afterling that had possessed an animal while they tried to stop the promachination of Sadal Suud. The beast was slain, and again they found themselves in the past, in Zaurak Keep. Making their way through it, they fought the Dark Brother Rudra and defeated it, and Seph asked for the power of the Dark Ones to defeat Wiseman, offering as payment his life, body, and soul. The Dark Ones refused. All must pay, or none would gain power. Seph began to back down, not willing to risk his brothers and sister, but one by one, Thoran, Pieda, and Ven agreed to the price. The last thing Marno, Sagi, Milly, and Guillo heard during that time period was Marno’s own voice, the echoes of it ringing as they found themselves in the future again. ‘I accept the price. I’m with you.’
Becoming frightened, dealing with bits and pieces that were beginning to make a sickening sense to him, Marno retreated from Sagi. Questions began to plague him. Was he really a guardian spirit? What was he seeing in the past? Could he have actually… such questions were put on hold when the next Afterling attacked in the Celestial Tree’s Veinroots, and for once, the group succeeded in their goal, leaving the Afterling battered, bruised and beaten, but alive. For all of five minutes, until the other foe they were dealing with, Valara, killed it. By now, the time warps were getting to be an old hat, and the group didn’t panic much as they pursued Wiseman to the Battlefields of Atria. However, before they reached him, they found themselves again in the future, Marno becoming more and more sure that something sickening had happened back then, and something else was happening now. Sagi, meanwhile, was furious at Marno, screaming at him for not being able to help Sagi save the Afterling, for not giving Sagi enough of his power. With silent anger boiling between them, as well as guilt and fear, they returned to Alfard, in time for the crowning of the Emperor Baelheit. And things went south in a bloody, blinding rage.
Baelheit had brought Sagi’s mother Gena forward as a prisoner. Forced to spread her wings of the heart, Sagi, Marno, Milly, and Guillo watched in horror as they were ripped from her back, crippling her forever. The rage, fear, anger, and guilt that had been building in both Sagi and Marno focused down to one point. Ignoring Milly’s cries to Baelheit, who she revealed to be her father, and Guillo, the two charged, attacking without thought, with nothing save hatred and bloodlust in their combined minds. And the Afterling’s form appeared, leaving a swathe of destruction before it was stunned. Again they awoke in the past, to find that, possessed by the Dark Ones, the brothers and sister who had named their group Malpercio, the name of the Wicked God in legend, had slaughtered the mind controlled people of the battlefield.
Before the siblings had much chance to react to the horror of what they had done, they were assaulted by two mages of the tribe called the Children of Earth. Using two Godcraft puppets, the Children of Earth killed Marno’s siblings, and then set the last puppet, hauntingly familiar, on the group. Guillo itself had torn Marno’s heart out almost a thousand years ago. In the present, Marno and Sagi came to with the combined voices of the Children of Earth in their ears. ‘Marno Ar, Accursed One, thy life must end.’ Finding themselves back in the present, Sagi confronted Marno in their prison, and Marno could no longer lie about the truth, even to himself. He was part of the god Malpercio, a being cursed and considered souless and vile, jealous of the joy and life mankind had.
However, things had come to a head, and he and Sagi had two choices. Marno could envelope and consume Sagi’s soul, reverting to the beast he had been before Sagi treated him as another living being, or Marno could yield and continue to serve and protect Sagi as part of him. To Marno the choice was obvious. Sagi was all but a twin to him now, and he had given up everything for his family before. He willingly chose to become a part of Sagi, granting him greater power and strength then before. They fought Shanath, who had been the one to frame them for the Emperor’s murder, and returned to Hassaleh. To learn Gena was in a coma, and would most likely die without the extinct plant heartsease to heal the spiritual wounds she has suffered. By using the old clocktower in Hassaleh, which happened to be the clocktower of Cujam, Marno, Sagi, Milly and Guillo attempted to travel back in time yet again under Marno’s own power.
Things have gone wrong, however, and he’s woken up in Jigoku. Just one fifth of a wicked god’s bad luck striking.
Personality: For a being that is one fifth of an evil god, Marno is actually a very nice person. Almost the youngest of his siblings (only Ven is younger then he), Marno is quiet and reserved, almost shy. He’s been accused by his brother Thoran of having no sense of humor, but it is more that Marno doesn’t get very subtle jokes and such. He’s far more curious about people, and while not the most outgoing of his siblings, Marno likes to be around people. He’s prone to using his wings of the heart to help express his emotions, and will mantle them in different ways to express curiousity, anger, fear, etc. He likes to pratice and compete against others, and is said to be the most skilled swordsman out of his siblings with the possible exception of Thoran. Meeting him at first, many sensitives find it horrifying that such a sweet and gentle young man can have such a blackened and monstrous aura.
However, Marno lives up to being part of Malpercio when he’s angry. If he doesn’t like you in the first place, he can be cold and cutting, and will do his level best to drive you away. Infuriate him at your peril, because when the darkness takes him and he loses his mind, he is cruel and brutal, and will not hesitate to try and kill you. Hiding until it smoothes over is usually a good strategy with Marno, he’s more likely to go after the targets he can see then the ones he can’t. While he prefers swordsmanship and is the least skilled in magical arts of his siblings, Marno is still capable of wielding light based spells (Yes, he is aware of the irony, thank you very much.) with skill and precision, though much of his power is bound up now in either the End Magnus that contains part of his body or in protecting Sagi.
Marno also hates to be alone. He is, however quiet normally, a social creature raised in a large family. Having lost them due to the battle at Atria, and having his own body and soul torn apart and kept alive in a twisted mockery of life has reinforced that. He has tight bonds with Sagi, and with Milly and Guillo through Sagi, and loathes being without at least one of them in sight for him, even if they can’t see him. The odds that he will panic if left alone are high, and he will tend to gravitate to others if he thinks that they’re nice. Don’t mistake this for easy to manipulate, though. Marno’s no fool, and he doesn’t like people who try to play him for a puppet.
Biggest Fear: Marno’s biggest fear, or fears, are an intricately tied knot of three things. He fears being locked up, because of the End Magnus that locks him to the spells that keep the islands safe from the taint of the War of the Gods, he fears being alone because of losing his siblings and being locked away, and he fears losing Sagi, because Sagi is the only person other then Milly and Guillo who has treated him like a human in ages.
Powers:
Wings of the Heart: Marno can maifest a set of wings from his ‘heart’ that resemble a falcon’s, complete with the tail feathers. Though they look like energy, they are quite solid to the touch, and Marno is fiercely defensive of them as losing them would be a crippling if not killing blow to his psyche. He primarily uses them to help express emotions, though he can also use them to fly short distances or straight up for a bit, but it tires him quickly and he has to rest. They also stir up the ghosts a little.
Swordsmanship: Marno is a fighter, and the only people whose style closely resembles his are either dead (his siblings) or not there at present (Sagi). While the sword may not be much use against ghosts, it can deter some of his apartment buddies, and who knows, maybe it will come in handy for something.
Magic: Most of Marno’s magic is jointly linked to having Sagi around, especially his most powerful spell, the Godling’s Rapture. However, he can coat his blade in light based magic to give a nasty sting to things more of the dark then the light, and target opponents to get them to back off. Doing this stirs the ghosts up like throwing a steak in a tiger pit, however, and Marno doesn’t like to do that.
SAMPLES
Third person: Marno had rapidly come to the conclusion that something out there hated him. He was, according to legend, part of a wicked god who had tried to destroy humanity, never mind the actual facts behind that stupid story. Instead of ending up in the past like he’d been trying, he was in some filthy looking place. Marno half expected to find static shrooms growing from the bed. Or something worse in the corners. He brought his legs in close to himself, sucking on the cinnamon candy in his mouth. Pieda had always given him and Ven similar ones for treats, and the unexpected memory it triggered made him extend his wings of the heart and then wrap them around himself. It was cold here, but that was familiar. It was always cold and rainy in Naos. If it was hot he’d start to worry.
Sagi wasn’t here, neither were Guillo or Milly. Though he wasn’t too sure how he’d feel about being alone with the Dingbat or the Wench, Marno was willing to admit he’d be glad to see them. Anyone was better then being alone in this place. Sagi would be the best to be with, since Sagi could see and talk to him, but even the others would be nice. And who knew, maybe this place would let them see him as well. Marno absent mindedly crunched the candy, playing with the hilt of his sword as he calmed a little, dismissing his wings again. His Magnus cards had disappeared, so he couldn’t store the blade as he normally did, but that was okay. Marno wasn’t going to let his weapon out of his sight in this place.
Now, if only he could figure out what that roll of red tape was for…
First person:
[The communicator turns on, revealing an about eighteen year old boy with slightly longish blue green hair and wild looking brown eyes. He doesn’t seem to notice the communicator, looking about warily.]
Seph? Thoran? Pieda? Ven? Brothers? Sister?
[His voice starts to quaver a little, and he begins to look panicked.]
Guillo? Milly? Sagi? What’s going on? Where is everyone?
[His head jerks around, and all of a sudden long falcon wings, almost a translucent blue, spread out. He mantles them like a frightened bird, watching the ghosts banging on the windows.]
What went wrong? Where am I? This isn’t Cujam! Sagi? Sagi!
[The last call is almost a scream, it’s clear that unless someone can calm him down he’s going to panic. And given the way the ghosts are increasing their presence the louder he gets, they really want that to happen.]
Notes: Marno’s age isn’t officially listed as far as I know, but his younger brother Ven appears between 16 and 17, while Pieda, the next oldest after Marno is about 20 to 21, leaving Marno most likely at about 18 to 19. Also, in the cutscenes at the beginning of the game, when he and his siblings are seen fighting the Children of Earth and the Godcrafts, he is shown with longish hair peeking out from the sides and back of his helm, so I’m going to stick with that, and the armor he’s seen wearing there as his clothing.