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judgmentbolts) wrote2024-04-04 06:45 pm
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About 6', dark hair and green eyes. He's got broad shoulders and a narrow waist, though he's started to soften up around the middle. (He's 44 he's not maintaining abs are you kidding—) Cid is well-built and has more than his share of faint sword scars; it's easy to identify him as a fighter.
He's almost never wearing short sleeves, but if his left arm is visible you'll be able to see the damage from the curse. Guess who's slowly turning to stone — it's this guy.
Usually wearing leather pants and a dark linen shirt with long sleeves and a deep plunging v-neck. He'll often wear a leather jacket overtop when it cools down in the evening, or sometimes a scarf to keep the sand off. His arms are almost never uncovered regardless of the weather. If there's any part of his clothing that needs to be fussed into behaving, you can assume that he hasn't bothered.
Despite coming from 20+ years of military background, it might be hard to tell just by looking at him that Cid was ever a military man. He has a confident swaggering gait and is prone to gesturing with his hands when he talks. He tends to come across relatively friendly and easygoing, if sometimes overbearing. It's clear he knows his way around a sword whenever he has one in-hand, and isn't particularly troubled when he doesn't. If your character is keen on these sorts of details, they might notice that he occasionally favours his left hand/arm, and will sometimes rub his wrist or rest it against whatever weapon or item he has strapped to his hip.
He's voiced by Ralph Ineson so Cid has a deep rumbling voice and an obvious (fantasy) Yorkshire accent.
Bitter tobacco and clove smoke from his cigarillos tends to drown out everything else and cling to everything he's wearing even when he's not smoking. Otherwise, it's just leather and nothing particularly unusual. He keeps relatively clean, but isn't otherwise fussed. The exception would be if he's just used his powers or if your character has a particularly keen sense of smell, there may some lingering scents like ozone or blood.
Cid commanded Waloed's naval fleet for nearly two decades; as Lord Commander, he answered only to the king. He's rarely interested in talking about this time in his life, but suffice to say that he he's an excellent fighter, strategist, and sailor.
While investigating the origins of the blight that ravaged Valisthea, Cid drafted plans for a ship's engine that would be fast enough to ferry the people to safety should the land no longer be habitable. After learning that the blight was the price of using magic, he set about inventing non-magical alternatives to necessary devices in the hope of showing people other ways to live and giving them a way to survive in a world without magic. These devices were also a necessity for day-to-day life in the blighted zone where his Hideaway was located. While Cid is a gifted engineer in his own right, he tends to prefer working on things that are useful and necessary with a focus on easing the burdens of those most in need.
Principled and pragmatic, Cid believes that everyone deserves the chance to live and die on their own terms -- but he's well aware of the fact that this is easier dreamed than done. For the last few years, he's been the de facto leader of a group of formerly enslaved Bearers and those who sympathize with their plight, working to free those they can and provide them with the means to live together, hidden away from the Empire.
Rather than trying to do all of this himself, Cid was able to bring together his allies to help build the Hideaway -- a purser to handle the coin, a merchant to acquire supplies, a cook, a blacksmith, etc... Cid has a good head for logistics, but he's best at managing people and earning their trust.
While Cid would much rather come to a peaceful resolution whenever possible, he's highly mistrustful of governments, and willing to take extreme measures as a very last resort. After he discovered that the Mothercrystals were the cause of the blight, he set about preparing to destroy them, an act that would (and later does) have profound repercussions, plunging the world into a nearly apocalyptic event. In his own words, he had already spent the better part of twenty years trying to convince people of the dangers of magic and the possible alternatives. He felt that there had to be a world left to save for there to be any kind of future for Bearers.
Cid is able to wield lightning-aspected magic by drawing in ambient aether from the world around him and turning it into electrical attacks that stun or kill enemies. The most powerful of these attacks is his Judgment Bolt, which allows him to call a bolt of lighting down from the heavens, usually to devastating effect.
Cid's status as a Dominant means he can fully or partly transform himself into the god Ramuh. This is called a "semi-prime" or "prime" respectively, and allows them to draw on vastly greater power by either partially or fully transforming.
When semi-primed, Cid's hair turns white and his eye, as well as the veins on his face, begin to glow blue. He's wreathed in lighting that seems to spill out of his body. In this form, has enough power to take out large monsters and gains superhuman speed, strength, and durability.
When fully primed, he transforms into Ramuh, a giant... old man... with a staff that allows him to temporarily manipulate the clouds above and draw levin from them as well. Ramuh can also fly and teleport, or at least move fast enough that he appears to do so.
However, since Cid gave Ramuh to Clive in his final moments, he doesn't have easy access to his more advanced powers anymore. He can still semi-prime or prime if he pushes for it, as other Dominants are shown to do this after Clive takes their Eikon, but it would be far more difficult and physically taxing for him, and runs a risk of him losing control of Ramuh if he were to fully prime.
- Spends much of his time trying to aid the impoverished by distributing food and coin or aiding with repairs. Cid always looking for people who are willing to offer coin for small favours or even work contracts that he can pass along to those who are most in need of it.
- Frequently seen around Rio Enterprises, Cid is rumoured to be working on a project to generate energy without the use of magic
- Anyone who was present for the God AU event might have heard him called Ramuh by his followers, though most will only ever have known him as Cid
- Sarstina Inn & Tavern where he lives and drinks regularly with the locals and Summoned alike
- Rio Enterprises where he works, usually in Cadens
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- When using Abraxas magic, Cid's hair turns white and his eyes glow blue.
- Ramuh's Staff - Cid can summon Ramuh's staff for about one minute per day, allowing him to use his canon lightning powers for the duration without any of the curse's usual ill effects (ie. coughing up blood, turning to stone). The staff disappears after a minute, and is only effective as long as he's holding on to it. Additionally, the staff disappears more quickly if he attempts to semi-prime, and immediately if he attempts to fully prime into Ramuh. It can't be used by anyone else.
- ✔ Physical Affection
Casual contact like friendly pats on the back and general well-intentioned roughhousing are all a-ok. Cid is very physical and will often initiate that sort of thing himself. More personal/intimate kinds of affection (eg. prolonged hand holding, cuddling) would require close CR.
✔ Physical ViolenceSparring and that sort of thing are a-okay. Totally fine to keep going if a thread heads in the direction of a real fight too, but shoot me a DM if it it comes up unprompted. Cid doesn't have any qualms about fighting but generally prefers to avoid it if there's no real purpose.
✔ Telepathy/Mind PowersGo for it! He doesn't have any particular defences. For mind control stuff, please shoot me a DM if we haven't discussed.
✘ RomanceCid is still in a position where he doesn't see much of a future for himself what with being dead back home, so he would be highly reluctant to get into a heavy romantic relationship. I'm not saying it can't/shouldn't/won't happen, just that it would be a slow burn to get there. At the moment, he prefers a lot of close-knit friendships that are somewhat undefined, and whether or not sex is involved is mostly irrelevant.
✔ SmutMuch more likely than romance. Cid is pretty easygoing about this kind of thing, and will readily fall into bed if there's a spark of mutual interest and they seem like decent people, as long as it doesn't look like things will turn romantic (he's not here to lead anyone on). It's very unlikely he'd go for anyone younger than mid-20s or so — he generally prefers people closer to his own age or older — but otherwise he has no strong preferences in terms of orientation.
✘ DeathHe's already dead leave him alone :(
FFXVI engages with a lot of heavy topics, including but not limited to: systemic violence and oppression, fantasy dehumanization, fantasy slavery (based exclusively on whether or not the character bears magical abilities), and references to severe abuse (physical/emotional), neglect, trauma, and death.
While I'm not going to spring this sort of thing on anyone unprompted, it's not really possible to divorce Cid's character from these topics entirely as his role in the game means that he's heavily engaged with these ideas (as a character who is pushing against them). Please DM this journal if you'd like to opt out, no questions asked (unless you want to clarify/discuss)!