Baldr

Player: Yew
Age: 34
Contact: PM/thornmarch
Current Characters: N/A

Character: Baldr
Canon: Tales of the Rays, Last Cradle (Arc 4) Chapter 18
Age: 25


Background Information:

Game wiki for the crossover jamjar setting of Rays. For Baldr's background:

• Baldr, born a commoner, grows up as a childhood friend of crown prince Woden of Bifrost. Woden personally elevates Baldr to knighthood, and Baldr swears unwavering loyalty.
• Woden declares war on the rival kingdom of Sellund to stop them from performing possibly world-destroying magic. Though Baldr fights in the war as per orders, he repeatedly tries to convince his friend to find another way to end the conflict.
• Sellund mirrists Gefion and Phillip develop the Kaleidoscope, a destructive weapon on a massive scale, in revenge for Bifrost's attack on their home. Baldr is killed in battle by the Kaleidoscope while trying to protect a young enemy combatant.
• Bifrost is completely evaporated into dust by the Kaleidoscope, and due to side effects, most of the rest of the world follows. It's then glued back together again. Badly.
• Baldr spends ten years in the Void, an empty plane of perpetual cold and darkness and pain, populated by all of the people killed by the Kaleidoscope.
• Princess Mercuria, Woden's younger sister and one of Bifrost's few survivors, decides to attempt necromancy to bring back her homeland. For her "Living Doll Plan" she pulls Baldr's soul back from the Void and puts it in the still-occupied body of Flynn from Vesperia. She brings back Woden in the dead body of Ray's protagonist Ix's clone progenitor, and Woden takes on the name ‘Nuadha'.
• Baldr, disagreeing with Mercuria's Living Doll Plan, approaches secondary protagonist Mileena and becomes a spy for her side. He helps her team rescue a number of their friends from Imperial control.
• Baldr makes one last attempt to convince Nuadha not to fight Mileena. He doesn't succeed, but Nuadha tells Baldr that he knows about the spying and he approves of what Baldr is doing. While Nuadha goes off to fight, Baldr joins the heroes and ultimately returns to the Void as part of his plan to save Ix and seal the Void again.
• Baldr spends a few months in the Void before Mercuria's friend Junior pulls his soul back again because Mercuria is in danger from the Asgard Empire. Baldr is put in a temporary storage vessel, unable to do much but offer advice without a physical body of his own.
• After the combined efforts of Ix, Mileena, Nuadha, and friends rescue Mercuria, Nuadha forms the Paladin Order of Bifrost, a resistance group against the Asgard Empire. Baldr is an active (though still incorporeal) member. After being given an illusion body by Nuadha he sets about finding ways to make himself useful, providing strategy and planning insight and regularly joining missions and reconnaissance.
• The god Balor decides he can make use of Baldr's desire to save the people of Bifrost who are still trapped in the Void, so he resurrects Baldr's physical body. The favor comes in exchange for the understanding that he will later use Baldr as his "vanguard" as a channel to rescue the other dead from the Void. What this actually means is that Baldr gets bodysnatched by a minion of Balor's and used to attack his own allies in pursuit of Balor's goals.
• Nuadha uses a secret technique to connect his soul to Baldr's and boot the possession right out of him. Baldr currently has his body back, but it's unclear to him if it's still possible for Balor to do something similar again.

Personality:

Despite not being born to the rank, Baldr is in many senses the storybook ideal of a knight. He's kind, patient and honorable, quick to jump to the defense of anyone he perceives as being in need. Though skilled at combat he dislikes conflict, and he's (almost) always ready to try to find common ground even with enemies. Possibly his mild and diplomatic personality is precisely because he wasn't born into nobility. His position in Bifrost's society attracted a great deal of jealousy, and Baldr had to adapt in order to navigate it with grace. And even that challenge pales in comparison to growing up beside Bifrost's prickly and emotionally difficult crown prince. Through necessity Baldr has become skilled at reading people and taking even the most unmanageable situations in stride. He's the designated people-wrangler of the Bifrost Paladins because of his ability to get along with just about anyone, and even Nuadha—the most frequent victim of said wrangling—expresses admiration of how well Baldr understands others.

That deep empathy is put to the test by the war, Baldr's subsequent death, and him spending ten years in a timeless purgatory of constant pain where he can hear all the people he'd failed to protect suffering around him. It comes out mostly intact. Baldr is able to aggressively compartmentalize his past trauma and work alongside former enemies when he believes their current actions are right. But some of his experiences definitely left their mark. When Phillip's partner Marcus is questioning Baldr's intentions, Baldr outright states that if he let his hatred win, he would have to kill Phillip; then he follows that up with a clear threat that the option is still on the table if he ever became a danger to Nuadha again. Beneath Baldr's serene exterior is some very deeply buried hatred and pain that he doesn't let anyone else see. He takes the losses of the war intensely personally, and clearly feels a heavy burden of guilt not just for Woden, but all of the dead on both sides. When Balor makes his initial deal with Baldr, he notes that Baldr is easier for him to reach because of Baldr's strong desire to live. Baldr's longing to help the others in the Void is even stronger than that.

Baldr is someone who had an oversized sense of responsibility in life that only seems to have intensified after death. Between the combination of post-revival survivor's guilt and the desire to make up for what he considers his past failures, he puts an immense amount of pressure on himself to be of use to everyone around him. As happy as Baldr is to be alive again, he's also grappling with a lot of inner turmoil about what he should be using that life for. Baldr's oaths of loyalty to the Bifrost Imperial family are deeply important to him; they're not, however, sufficient unto themselves. Baldr is strong-willed and has a moral compass all his own, and as a result he frequently overextends himself physically and emotionally—to the extent that even notably awkward Nuadha notices it and chides Baldr to "know [his] limits. Wanting to save everyone is no more than hubris." It's not a trait of Baldr's that's ever likely to change, but the bigger issue is how bad he is at communicating to others when it's becoming a problem. Baldr practically habitually takes all burdens on himself in order to present a reassuring and smiling front to the people around him. Even he's aware of how terrible he is at asking for help from others, and he's shown getting a little frustrated with himself at his inability to raise the subject when he has the chance.

Of course, thanks to how good he is at burying all those problems where no one can see them, what most people get to know is the caring and outgoing side of him. Baldr is someone who just likes people and isn't shy about making that clear. He's approachable and open, quick to make friends and ready to trust. His experience as a knight makes him someone who's constantly aware of his audience and how he's presenting himself to others—he codeswitches readily between "polite and proper" with strangers or while on duty and "unrestrained gremlin" with friends, often even within the same conversation. Baldr has a playful streak that manifests as teasing of all sorts, and a lively sense of humor that no one close to him is safe from. He can also be just a little too expressive in his warmth and come across as excessively flirty. Particularly with women, who he considers "beautiful, strong, sublime goddesses," but no one is exempt from his effusive way of expressing himself when he gets going. At least Baldr is always sensitive to the reactions of others; he'll ease things back in a heartbeat if someone seems uncomfortable, and he readily accommodates himself to what he thinks someone needs. As a result Baldr can get along with nearly anyone, and he certainly tries to.

A Baldr personality section probably wouldn't be complete without pointing out the one glaring exception to Baldr's naturally easygoing personality: Nuadha and Mercuria are Baldr's absolute bottom line. Baldr doesn't tolerate anything that poses a threat to either of them. While he can very easily forgive someone that's harmed him in the past, the same really can't be said for harm done to them. He's very protective of both of them, though that doesn't by any means translate into coddling. Nuadha is almost the only thing in the universe that can make Baldr lose his cool, whether it's getting upset at Raven trash-talking his prince, or dropping the polite retainer act altogether to ask Nuadha if he's "completely taken leave of his senses" when he thinks Nuadha is being a stubborn idiot. Nuadha is living(?) proof that Baldr is even capable of getting wound up if pushed hard enough, though it takes extraordinary external pressure.

Abilities & Inventory:

Baldr is a swordmaster and martial artist specializing in the use of two katanas and bare-handed combat. His full list of artes is here, but the general gist is that he can use an assortment of wind and earth elemental strikes to enhance his attacks. He also has Harubizakura, a light heal that affects the area immediately around him.

For inventory, he'll be bringing in his paired swords Yamato and Hayate, and his non-functional mirrage communicator that would normally function like a magic walkie-talkie.

Suitability & Plans:

Baldr is a man who's lived almost wholly defined by what he can do for others. He's going through something of a crisis over it at his current canonpoint as he grapples with what his role is after being brought back to life, and what that means for the choices open to him. Songerein's setting offers him something he's never had in his own world, which is a low-stakes environment to do a little self-reflection and consider the possibilities. For the first time Baldr can just relax a bit and get to hang around a world in the process of being built up rather than burnt down. Possibly he'll even learn how to take a vacation! For at least the first little while in the game I want Baldr to get to enjoy exploring without feeling like he has a duty to fulfill. He's naturally inquisitive, driven, and helpful, so he's an easy kind of character to make CR with and get involved in events as he gets settled.

The setting also seems like a great chance to play with a lot of the problems Baldr has been bottling up. The dreamwalking and emotional energy components give good outlets to force him to come clean about some of the negativity he's been shouldering by himself and not admitting to anyone. For longer-term goals I'd like to use that to push him towards the character growth of getting to admit that he needs support sometimes too, and to actually deal with the idea that he can want things for himself.

Test Drive Sample: TL here!

Questions: N/A