Vyse the Blue Rouge

[Name]: Daimon
[Age]: 26
[Contacts]:
♦ DW: N/A
♦ AIM: yazooairspace
♦ Plurk: yazooairspace
[Timezone]: MST/MDT
[Other Characters]: N/A



[Name]: Vyse
[Canon]: Skies of Arcadia
[Age]: 17
[Gender]: Male
[Canon Point]: Right after getting the Purple Crystal

[History]: Wikipedia's plot summary
Skies of Arcadia world info on the SoA wiki
[Personality]:
"Impossible is just a word to let people feel good about themselves when they quit." ~ Vyse

The three main facets of Vyse's personality are his optimism, charisma, and honesty, and the above quote is one of the best indicators of just how optimistic this young man is. He truly believes that there are very few, if any, impossible tasks existing in the world, and that anything deemed ‘impossible' clearly hasn't been tried hard enough or done correctly. This is a teenager who, after his father and several close friends are kidnaped and taken to what amounts to a maximum-security prison, makes a plan to go save them, believing he'll get to them and they'll be just fine. He encounters a giant maelstrom thought to be the ‘edge of the world' that thousands of people have failed to sail through, hears stories of those who have failed, and proceeds to sail into it anyway because he wants to see what's on the other side. He gets stranded on a deserted island in the middle of absolutely nowhere after a shipwreck and isn't despondent, angry, or even frustrated. He's simply grateful he's not dead and considers it an unplanned vacation.

All of these endeavors succeed, partly due to sheer luck and partly because Vyse will not give up once he has a plan. This is where his charisma and honesty come in. Most of the things that Vyse accomplishes, he has help of some sort with. He has the ability to rally people of most ages, genders, social statuses, and personalities to his cause just by talking to them and telling them his story. Even people who dislike him or his profession hold a certain amount of respect, admiration, or fascination with him and are willing to aid him.

It’s probably best to say that Vyse is charismatic because he’s honest. He’s a normal human being, so he’s not above lying when the situation calls for it--such as a scenario where telling the truth would make a situation worse--or if he simply wants to avoid offending someone. But if questioned about his goals and plans--save for minor details--he’ll normally explain just what he thinks should be done or what he plans to do, no matter how crazy or hopeless it seems.

Which is what makes Vyse so fascinating to people. They want to see if he’ll succeed at what he claims, and some want to see him succeed enough to help him out, at least a little bit.

However, in terms of goal honesty, Vyse is often very vague about exactly how he intends to accomplish something, not out of malice, but simply because he himself doesn’t know yet. Battle plans tend to be along the lines of ‘let’s see what the enemy can do first, then retaliate’, trip plans to any destination can be summed up as ‘we’re going here, prepare for anything to happen on the way’. For example, his plan to deal with the storm marking the ‘edge of the world’ is to reinforce his ship as best he can to withstand strong winds...and then sail into the storm.

He strongly believes that rules exist for a reason and laws are meant to be followed, but is not opposed to bending the rules slightly on a fairly regular basis, as long as nobody gets hurt, and tends to throw rules out the window if people are getting hurt. His solutions to problems tend to skew towards what’s moral or ethically best for everyone. Basically, he likes to make people happy with as little bloodshed as possible.

Vyse is a self-proclaimed gentleman, treating most ladies he meets with the utmost level of politeness and refusing to do such things as rifle through a girl’s underwear drawer. He’s also shown to be slightly uncomfortable when hanging out with a fellow pirate who dislikes the idea of settling down with a single woman for the rest of his life. This may be part of the reason that he attracts so many admirers of both genders, including a set of triplets who threaten to kidnap and marry him if he ever loses to them in a fight and an old man who offers Vyse a large amount of money in exchange for companionship. Unfortunately for everyone, Vyse is both terrible at flirting and not actually looking for any romantic relationships, possibly ever.

So far, most of Vyse's personality has been that of a nice boy, not exactly the personality of a pirate, as is his profession. But as stated before, Vyse believes that rules can be bent in some situations, and he, along with his family, feel that armed merchant ships are one of those situations. He belongs to a faction of pirates called Blue Rogues, which are the ‘good' pirate counterparts to another faction called Black Pirates, the former of which are like Robin Hood in that they will help out unarmed ships being attacked by larger ones or even attack larger ships as long as they're armed and can actually fight back if engaged in battle. Blue Rogues will loot the ships, keep some of the loot for themselves, and give or sell the rest to others who need it. Vyse agrees with and follows this philosophy.

Also in contrast with his ‘nice' personality is that success sometimes goes to his head. If, for example, he successfully wins several fights or receives praise from an unexpected source, he sometimes gets overconfident and has to be told to calm down before he does anything stupid. It also means that he’s not above bragging when the opportunity presents itself--he’s modest most of the time, but sometimes he just can’t help pointing out his achievements. Which actually happens fairly often anyway, due to his optimism telling him he can do anything, prompting him to do things that are viewed as stupid (like breaking into and out of prison, twice).

He’s also constantly looking for excitement and slightly reckless. When he first sets out at the beginning of his adventure, he decides he won’t stop traveling until he sees every part of the world he can possibly see. He’s willing to traverse dangerous terrain to explore whatever he can, and when he’s first introduced, he jumps from the crow’s nest of his family’s ship to the deck of the ship next to them, seemingly uncaring that he could miss the second ship and fall to his death.
[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]: For starters, Vyse practically lives and breathes sailing. As a pirate in a world where most of the travel between countries is done via some sort of sailing vessel, he’s expected to know his way around a boat, and he does. He can pilot most types of sailboats, unless they’re really strangely configured, and is able to quickly determine a ship’s weakness is when it comes to fighting against others’ ships.

He also likes maps a lot--navigational, topographical, astronomical, you name it, he probably has at least one of any given kind. He collects them and also makes them for his own or others' use, though most of them seem to end up on the floor of his room.

In canon, though it’s not of much use outside of the world of Arcadia, he’s shown to know enough about warships to identify a handful of different classes of naval warships in addition to the ‘normal’ types of sailboats.

Going back to the ‘pirate’ part of Vyse’s life a bit, Vyse is also a skilled swordfighter, wielding a blade in each hand (though the left blade is held in a reverse grip, as it’s used primarily for blocking). He’s a bit on the slow side, and short for his age, but makes up for it by being fairly acrobatic. He’s also stronger than he might look, being able to lift an ammunition-filled box nearly as big as himself and carry it up a flight of stairs.

[Limited Powers]: His magic and Super Moves. He won’t have access to his magic in the game, as the spells’ power are entirely dependent on the presence of Arcadia’s six moons. He won’t have access to a couple of his Super Moves, mainly Rain of Swords and Pirate’s Wrath, because those use magic. Skull Summon will still be available to him, able to absorb an attack’s worth of damage to Vyse and any designated allies.

[Other Important Facts]: Being from a world where large bodies of water are extremely rare, it’s entirely possible that Vyse doesn’t know how to swim. He does visit an underwater cavern at one point, but he and his party are wearing weighted diving suits at the time, and don’t actually need to swim at any point.

Also, he was a captain of his own ship back home, so he might try to reassemble a crew or start a High Seas chapter of the Blue Rogues in-game.

[Samples]:
♦ Thread: Route 29 Intro
♦ Post:
Wooow...

[There is a kid standing at the edge one of the town’s docks, leaning on one of the endposts. He’s never seen so much water in his life, not even when he’d gone to visit Yafutoma, and there was water everywhere there. Here, it just stretched out as far as he could see, and then further.

This was different, and...kinda awesome.]

There’s so much water here...I can’t even see to the next island. I wonder if this is part of the lands under the Blue Moon. Probably. [Someone hasn’t figured out he’s not in Arcadia anymore.] But I thought we’d seen all of that already...and I’m stuck here without a ship...

[He frowns for a second, crossing his arms.] I’ve got to get my hands on a ship somehow. I’m not going to get anywhere asking myself a bunch of questions I can’t answer. This town’s big enough that it probably has a Sailor’s Guild I can visit.

[And then the frown is gone. Vyse doesn’t do sad for very long.]

Most of the time, Vyse had some of the best luck in the world. More or less literally. After all, one doesn't accomplish everything he has on just skill alone.

And then sometimes, Vyse had the worst luck in the world. Especially with the bounty list. It's one thing when a pirate becomes infamous for being ruthless or destructive, it's another when they're being a pain in the ass or just plain weird. Like the Larso clan or the old Yafutoman guy who used to hang around the Lands of Ice (and gave the Delphinus' crew a good run of the 'emergency evacuation' joke).

It's yet another thing when the bounties are just crazy. Crazy and potentially dangerous--she'd sent Black Spots to more pirates than anyone could count, mostly male--calling herself the Pirate Witch. She held the highest monetary reward for her capture, but curiously, the longer she stayed on the bounty list, the less people seemed to want to go after her. Whispers of a monster posing as a human woman and a human with otherworldly magic traveling from port to port were the likely cause.

Vyse eventually found her. And discovered why so many had failed to do anything about her. If she wasn't defeated in battle, the loser was killed. If she was defeated, the victor was spared, but was cursed if there was something the Witch disliked about them. Much like many of the other bounties, she took a liking to Vyse, but not to his female companions, who he wasn't about to part with for any reason. Vyse's team won, but the Witch fled before she could be captured.

"If I'm not allowed to have him, no other female should either!" Vyse had collapsed immediately after she left.

A day passed, and it seemed like the rumors of odd magic were true. While Aika and Fina had expected illness, or loss of body parts (Aika helpfully suggested that), Vyse seemed completely fine.

Except he had become 'she' overnight. Or mostly, at least, as Vyse wasn't about to admit that he looked female up top and mostly male below the belt.

"Hey, it could be worse. You could be bedridden, or dying!"

"Yeah, but it's still weird. Why didn't she do anything to you and Fina?"

"I dunno. Maybe she thought you'd snap and kill us. Don't ask me!"

Fast forward a week. After several days of research and talking to some of the people spreading the Witch rumors, mention of the existence of a plot point magic-nullifying plant came up. Of course, it was extremely rare and possibly extinct, but some claimed to have seen it recently, on a tiny island near the Dark Rift.

Fast forward again to the present. Vyse huffed and lowered the map he'd been studying for the past minute. He was sure he was in the right place--they were at the coordinates he'd been given, and the landmarks nearby matched. The island was too small to dock even his small sailboat, so he'd taken a lifeboat to it instead. It had a small, flat, rocky area that led into a cave--from the outside, the whole island looked a bit like a shell. He'd told Aika and Fina to stay on the ship, in case anyone attacked it.

Like the giant squid. Vyse wasn't too happy about having to poke around in the squid's territory. Even if he'd only seen one in his life, that didn't mean there weren't more hiding somewhere.

Into the cave he went.

(Ooc: I apologize, this turned into a Terrible Fanfic Plot about halfway through.)