[Profile Meme]
[Character Name] Ryu
[Canon] Breath of Fire IV
[Point Taken from Canon] Just after Ryu gains the Kaiser Dragon form.
[Age] The first part of him appeared several hundred years before the start of the game, and the other half appeared right at the start of the game. Several hundred years or less than one year old. Take your pick. He looks like he's in his late teens/early twenties, though.
[Gender] Male
[Sexual Orientation] ... Well. In canon Fou-Lu, his other half, shows... attachment if not attraction to a human woman (Mami), so... attracted to females but could also be attracted to males. He's... probably not picky. Though honestly he's too derp to really get into that stuff.
[Eye Color] Blue usually, green in his hybrid form, variable in full form
[Hair Color] Blue-green normally, white in his hybrid form
[Height] 172 cm (5'5")
[Other] His 'Dragon's Eye' (he only has one, which seems unusual, though it's not explicitly mentioned in canon), when active, looks kind of strange, so there's that.
[Clothing] Ryu is the blue haired dork in this picture.
[Background]
To understand Ryu, one must understand first a bit of the history of Fou-Lu. Fou-Lu was an emperor, the first of the Fou Empire, and he ruled with strength and an iron fist. It is said that before he died and was laid to rest in his tomb hundreds of years ago, he predicted his own resurrection.
Ryu was “born” when an empire called the “Muuru” found a way to summon dragons, though it was imperfect. One such dragon was the Yorae Dragon, and Ryu was one half of this great dragon, sent through time separate from his other half. The other half was Fou-Lu, still sleeping.
Ryu attacked a sandflier in the desert by accident, and then was found by Nina, one of the people riding the sandflier. Nina and Cray (the other person on the sandflier) were searching for Nina's sister Elina. Ryu had no memory of who he was or where he came from, and didn't even have any clothes on at first. He joined Nina (after finding some clothes) in finding parts for her sandflier while Cray stayed with the craft so it wasn't stolen.
Nina and Ryu headed to the city of Sarai, where they were told where they could find the parts. However, Nina was harassed by a member of the Imperial Army, and Ryu attacked them in order to get them to leave her alone. They escaped Sarai, picked up parts in Sandflier Valley (but not the right ones), and went to a town called Chamba, where they were escorted through the poisoned city by a mysterious person in armor named Ershin. Around this time Ryu gained his ability to shift into dragon form.
The three reunited with Cray, and after a strange shared dream from Ryu, they went off to search for Elina more. They ended up in the town of Synesta. During this time Fou-Lu had awakened and was searching for Ryu. The party left Synesta and went to the border town of Kyojin, where they were captured by the Imperials and were returned to Windia, where they were guarded by a mercenary named Scias, and had an audience with the king, Nina's father. They were told to seek the Wind Dragon, and after they freed Cray from where he was being held, they found the dragon. The Wind Dragon told them of Ryu's dragon heritage and warned them that there would be grave danger if he and Fou-Lu were to meet.
The group then traveled to the village of Chek, where the Abbess confirmed that Ryu was indeed a dragon, and explained a little more about what that meant. They were informed that Ershin was also a dragon, and the incomplete summoning had trapped her in the armor. Ershin's spirit was transferred to a medium, and the group sought the advice of the dragons, who told Ryu to find their human forms around the world and they would give him power to help him stand a chance against Fou-Lu if the two should meet. They moved to an Imperial town on the western border, and were captured. Ryu fought against the Imperial forces, lost control of himself, and transformed into the Kaiser Dragon, his most powerful dragon form. He obliterated the soldiers standing against them, and then fell asleep.
[Personality]
Ryu has a generally pleasant personality. He doesn't talk a lot, unless you start talking to him first, and does have a fun-loving side, as demonstrated by his love of fishing. All this cheerfulness does hide another side of himself. If he's in one of his dragon forms, he's more likely to go berserk and attack things indiscriminately, and the stronger the dragon form the more likely this is. He's still very unsure of his purpose, and mentioning “purpose” to his face might get him to stop and think for a moment, and maybe wonder what he's intended for.
While wandering around during the course of the game, he doesn't have any memories at all, and so doesn't know very much of the world outside of what he's seen directly. His main motivation is more clearly stated in the manga, where he speaks more, and his dreams are shown where he is chasing after an unknown figure (which he later learns is Fou-Lu). He's even asked who this person is and what kind of person it is, and even where this person is, but he just doesn't know. All he knows is that he has to meet this person, because he's “always felt him calling”. Since he doesn't really know who or where this person is, he travels with Nina and Cray to help them find Nina's sister. Nina is a very close friend to Ryu, able to calm him down from even a blind frenzy, but he holds no romantic feelings for her. She likes Cray, and Ryu wouldn't ever want to do something that makes his friends upset.
Emotionally and mentally, he's like a child. He knows the difference between right and wrong in a vague sort of sense - basically, killing people is wrong unless absolutely needed - but doesn't completely understand concepts of appropriateness like “don't peek around the rock when the girls are bathing”, “watch where you put your arm when you fling it out”, and “people get embarrassed/frustrated/flustered/angry when you don't put clothes on”. He rushes into things, even going so far as to jump off a cliff to try to save Nina (and landing face first) because he didn't realize she had wings that she could float down on. Most of his expression is in his body language, so even if he doesn't say that he's, for example, upset or angry or something like that, it's fairly obvious from how he stands, because he doesn't really bother to hide his feelings. He doesn't really see a need to, since lying isn't something the really occurs to him. Tact is also not his strong point, for the same reasons.
He probably doesn't even understand the concept of how babby is formed.
... tl;dr DERP DRAGON IS VERY DERP.
[Specialties/Abilities]
Okay, here we go.
Being a god (or half of one at least), Ryu is... rather powerful, or at least has the potential to be.
Ryu has lots of skills and abilities which are gained throughout the game.
Ryu has the ability to turn into dragons. At this point in his canon he only has the Aura and Kaiser forms. The Kaiser is the most powerful of these. He doesn't have access to all of them right away, though, but gains them through the course of the game. Ryu has access to many abilities in his dragon forms, ranging across the elements as well as including some healing and revival magic, as well as (eventually) calling on aid from other dragons. (For Somarium purposes he will not be able to call on the aid of these dragons, though at this point in canon he would most likely have only one of the 'summons' anyway.)
Also... those dragon forms can fly. However, all of them, besides the Infini/Yorae form (final form in the game from BAD END), are only seen as full dragons during breath attacks or other such cutscenes. All the rest of the time Ryu is just in his hybrid form.
For clarification purposes, his dragon form's abilities:
Aura Dragon:
(Cost: 1 AP/level. Decent increase to HP, bit of an increase to attack and wisdom, slight increase to defense.)
- DragonBreath (no AP cost; type: breath; six non-elemental hits, divided among multiple enemies if applicable; affected by defense)
- Flame Strike (2 AP; type: melee/fire; physical fire attack)
- Hwa (1 AP; type: fire; level 1 fire magic on one target)
- Rejuvenate (9 AP; type: holy; medium healing of one target)
- Barrier (4 AP; type: lv. up; magic damaged halved for 3 turns; also reduces the effect of healing spells and stat-boosting spells)
Kaiser Dragon:
(Cost: 2 AP/level. Excellent increase to HP, good increase to attack and wisdom, decent increase to defense and agility.)
- KaiserBreath (no AP cost; type: breath; sixteen non-elemental hits; depends on current HP)
- Aura Smash (3 AP; type: melee; a critical hit that ignores defense)
- Hwajeh (3 AP; type: fire; level 3 fire magic on one target)
- Ahryu P'ung (3 AP; type: wind; level 3 wind magic on all targets)
- Patoh Pah (3 AP; type: earth; level 3 earth magic on all targets)
- Resurrect (30 AP; type: holy; revives an ally with full HP)
- Sanctuary (13 AP; type: holy; removes ability boosting spells on all foes -and- allies)
* His Kaiser form is currently uncontrollable, and as such would only be used in absolute dire emergencies.
(Obviously I understand that this will be toned down in Somarium, but I figured canon stats might be helpful.)
Maintaining a dragon form comes with an initial ability point (basically mana) cost, and an additional deduction each turn. Also if a dragon form is reduced to no health, he automatically transforms back to human, and can either keep fighting that way or change to another dragon form. The forms can have their health replenished by using a particular (rare) item, gaining it back slowly by walking around, or by resting at an inn or at camp.
In game mechanics terms, he can't learn magic in his human form at all, only “skills” which are, for some reason, different from magic. Go figure. He learns skills from studying monsters, learning from masters, or transferring them from other party members.
Ryu is skilled with a sword... and as far as weapons go, that's pretty much it. He does have the “Dragon's Eye”, which occasionally grants him with prophetic dreams (which won't happen in Somarium), and a innate ability with animals, letting him tame things that aren't normally tamed (though if they're very wild he wouldn't be able to). He can also sense (vaguely) where Fou-Lu is in his world, though nowhere specific, just a direction at the most, as well as if another Endless is approaching.
Also, until the (good) end(ing) of the game, he's technically immortal. Supposedly. ... Maybe. Though he can still die in battle due to game mechanics, so maybe not quite so immortal. ... Not really immortal. Hooray for revival skills I suppose?
For Somarium purposes, the damage to his body will carry over between forms (so he can't just keep fighting like he normally does). In addition, all AP costs will be doubled (essentially taking more out of him), and any move that has a description stating that it's not affected by defense actually will be in Somarium. His magic-based attacks will essentially be knocked down a level or two (mostly in his Kaiser form) for a damage cap. His Kaiser form breath weapon will be capped at the same number of hits as his Aura form, so basically it'll just be a more powerful version of his other breath weapon. He won't have any prophetic dreams (unless an RP game plot calls for them I guess, but then it wouldn't be a special power unique to him?) and he can't tame any ghosts or... other Somarium beasties.
[Affection] Nina's hugged him before, but kind of in a friendly/sisterly way. Attempts at flirting will most likely go completely over head. So uh. Anything past hugging would probably have to be run past me, otherwise he'll either not get it or react badly.
[Fighting] Fighting is a go! Just... keep in mind that he's very strong and tough even without turning into a dragon form. He probably won't - oh who am I kidding. He'll start fights if he sees someone being bullied/pushed around, especially someone he cares about.
(Please note: in canon 'caring about' seems to translate, for him, to 'this person is nice and I have known them for about three days or maybe even fewer'. :|b )
[Other Permissions] Ehh... reading his mind might be a bit hard, due to him being a god and all. He's pretty derp, but he's a godderp. Fourth wall... I'd rather you not? If you want your character to find something in the libraries about his world... uh. I'm pretty sure that's a mod check anyway but I'd like it run past me too, please. :3
[Other Facts]
His energy is kind of... blatantly powerful, to those who can sense it. It's more easily described in the game's own words, so I'll let it do it.
Abbess: "Why... You're the Yorae Dragon, aren't you? Which god has guided your path to our humble village?"
Nina: "The Wind Dragon said that we should come here."
Abbess: "P'ung Ryong told you to come here? That would mean you must be from Wyndia, yes? Oh, I'm sorry--my eyesight isn't what it used to be. Oh, I can see you just fine... I just can't tell what you look like, that's all."
Abbess: "I know that might not make much sense, so I'll try to explain it. You see, each of us has a powerful force inside of us... Those attuned to it can see it... to us, it looks like a pillar of shining light. Each person's light is different... Its color, size, the way it glows... All these depend on the person."
Abbess: "This pillar is each person's life stream, the path their life will take--their lifeforce itself."
Abbess: "When people come together, their streams intermingle, join together, and that in turn creates a another new stream."
Abbess: "Now, the stream of one of The Endless is very large, very powerful... So powerful, it can affect the stream of the world itself."
Abbess: "Any stream that gets close to such a large and powerful stream gets caught up in it, affected by it, changing its original direction."
Abbess: "The largest of these streams, the ones that can affect all the others, these are what we call gods."
Obviously this will be toned down a bit in Somarium, but just so you know. /o/
I HAVE A CANON SHARING POST FOR HIM. That would be here.