Cloud of Darkness - FFIII [A]

[Deleted]

Name: Cloud of Darkness

Age: Unknown (looks 28-ish but she's been around for forever, so no one really knows how old she is...)

Gender: Female (although some would argue that she is more of an 'it', for all intents and purposes she's a she)

Species: Unknown but Humanoid

Alliance: Lawful Evil

Powers / Abilities:

Particle Beam: Long Range - A long range, homing line of vertically-firing beams of dark energy. Maintaining the range of the attack consumes energy, and the longer she extends it, the weaker it becomes. Deals medium damage.

Particle Beam: Anti-Air - An anti-air attack utilizing four long range beams fired vertically from points around her location. They do not move, and thus are easily avoided. Deals minimal damage.

Particle Beam: Wall Burst - A wall of energy that moves towards the target (only for a short distance (2 meters maximum)). Consumes a fair amount of her energy, requiring a refrain from her Particle Beam attacks. (Cool-down: 3 posts). Deals medium-high damage.

Particle Beam: Aura Ball - An exploding ball of Dark energy. Multiple balls can be set afloat like mines (max. 5). The more spheres she sets, the more of the Cloud of Darkness' energy is consumed. (Cool-down: 2 turns if more than two spheres are set, 3 if all five are set). Deals medium damage.

Pain and Suffering - Pain and Suffering also have their own abilities; Pain will sometimes use Lightning (Cool-down: 2 posts) (a Thunder-element Black Magic spell stronger than Thundara but weaker than Thundaga) while Suffering can cast Esuna (Cool-down: 2 posts) and Haste (Cool-down: 1 post). Pain and Suffering also extend to about 4 meters away from Cloud of Darkness' current position, and can attack physically (albeit weakly). Magic cast by Pain and Suffering does not detract from the Cloud of Darkness' own reserves, as they are indeed separate entities and have their own reserves of Magic energy, the amount of which is lesser than that of the Cloud of Darkness herself.

Dark Corridors - As an evasive maneuver, she can disappear into a Dark Corridor and reappear anywhere within 4 meters of her original location during battle. When not in battle, the Dark Corridor allows her to travel anywhere that Darkness can take her. As the Cloud of Darkness is a being not of the Realm of Light (presumably), she does not have to wear a Black Coat to avoid the corrosive effects of Darkness.

Heartless Control - As an entity that is heavily aligned with Darkness and who is completely evil, she can control the Heartless to an extent (shall we say up to Large Body/Defender sized Heartless? Although not too many of those at one time). She can, however, control many smaller Heartless at once. In the presences of other formidable residents of the Realm of Darkness, she may lose control of he Heartless she summons.

Weakness: Balance - The Cloud of Darkness is especially weak to attacks that have a balanced amount of Light and Darkness backing them up, as it is essentially the same energy as her own. Depending on her incarnation, Dark or Light attacks will also be more effective than the opposite, but still less effective than a balanced attack.

Weapons: Dark Energy; Pain; Suffering

Appearance:

The Cloud of Darkness wears a long, billowing cloak that fades from red at the top to black at the bottom; the inner surface is totally black. She also has two long, yellow tentacles with mouths. These are semi-sentient. Pain, on her left, has eyes and Suffering, on her right, has blade-like frills. Her hair is silver and explodes out in various directions in locks (no individual strands), and her irises are red. Her skin is a pale cream color, with swirling red and black designs that are made of tentacles, making her clothing in some places (such as her breasts and her groin). She stands at about six foot five, but floats at about six foot eight.

Personality:

As a major starting point, the Cloud of Darkness only talks about herself in the plural (ie. she uses "We" instead of "I"). This behavior comes from the fact that she treats herself and her tentacle-minions (Pain and Suffering) as a single entity (ie. one body), but separate personalities (ie. three minds). When fighting, she prefers to stay at a distance and attack the enemy with her Particle Beam attacks, opting to have Pain and Suffering beat away people who get to close, or use Anti-Engagement Particle Beams (such as her Wall and Anti-Air particle beams).

She has great fears of any individual or group of people who are balanced between Light and Darkness, as it is only through a combination of both that she can be defeated. To this end, she seeks to eliminate any and all beings she deems to be a threat, such as persons who are strong, but have no affiliation to either Light or Darkness. Her primary goal is to "return all worlds to the Void", a directive that no one quite understands and is assumed to be a primitive instinctual need, much like the need for Heartless to consume Hearts.

She is unused to working with others, and treats nearly all beings as inferior due to her perceived seniority (given that she is, at the very least, about 1050 years old by now, probably even older) and her status as the only being (usually) inhabiting the Void. However, she has been known to cooperate with or ally herself to other powerful forces of evil.

Original World: Crystal Tower (specifically, The Void)

Current Location: Traveling

History:

The Cloud of Darkness has been around since the dawn of time, rearing her head every time the balance between Light and Darkness tipped. 1018 years prior to World Destiny, she attempted to engulf her home world in a nothingness she calls "The Void". Four Warriors of Darkness stepped forth and defeated her, beating back the overwhelming flood of Light that the Cloud of Darkness (then the Cloud of Light) threatened to unleash.

One thousand years later, or five years prior to Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, it was now Darkness that threatened the world. The Cloud of Darkness took control of an evil sorcerer named Xande in order to blanket her world in Darkness, thus stopping the flow of time and tipping the balance of Light and Darkness. In an attempt to assure her victory, the Cloud of Darkness sent out powerful and evil monsters to destroy the Four Crystals. These Crystals held the power of Light within them, and held the Cloud of Darkness at bay. Four new Warriors, this time Warriors of Light, were chosen by the Crystal of Wind to fight this new terror; Luneth the Ninja, Arc the Magus, Refia the White Magician, and Ingus the Onion Knight. Together, they were able to force her back into the Void and save the world of Crystal Tower. However, this was a Pyrrhic victory, as the Cloud of Darkness will always exist in some form or another.

During the events of Birth by Sleep, the Cloud of Darkness was stirred from her slumber by the actions of Master Xehanort. The events following Birth by Sleep and leading up to the climax of Kingdom Hearts only served to further draw out the Cloud of Darkness from her hibernation. Though balance was restored at the end of Kingdom Hearts, the events of Kingdom Hearts II only served to aggravate things, and eventually, the Cloud of Darkness was reborn.

Now, with tensions rising between Dark XII and Organization XIII, she has sensed the growing power of Darkness and returned from the Void, now eagerly searching for power to consume so as to destroy Light and return all worlds to the Void. She has decided that this time she must find allies, so as to prevent a third defeat at the hands of new Warriors.

Recently, she antagonized a group of people in Traverse Town, seeking to consume them. Though she was held at bay, she considers the battle a net gain, as she was able to expose one of the combatants to the corrosive influence of Darkness.

RP Sample:

The Cloud of Darkness looked down on the Dark City. A place born from the lost hopes and broken dreams of a million devoured worlds... It stank of delicious Darkness, but she was not yet powerful enough to consume an entire world, let alone deal with the two factions at war on it.

On one side were a group of husks-- beings who were, like herself, born of the Void-- attempting to open a gateway into the supposed "heart of all worlds". What an inane goal. What good were hearts, even if they were the hearts of worlds? She had seen the core of a planet, and it served her no good to consume it. Now these beings... They were a curious lot. Their goal after finding this doorway and opening it was to become "whole" again. As if being a Child of the Void was anything akin to being incomplete. Ruddy red lips curved downward further in disdain at the thought.

Children of the Void are just as whole as the little vermin scurrying around any number of worlds, she thought. What you are made of is of little consequence in the end. The Void consumes all, without prejudice.

On the other side of the civil war were beings made from the purest, most unfettered and unspoiled Darkness that the Cloud of Darkness had ever smelled. They each smelled like an all-you-can-eat buffet, and she wanted a taste... However, there was the caveat that each was insanely powerful. To even attempt consumption of any one of them would be a suicide mission (unless handled properly, and even then, there was a very slim chance that she'd get anything more than a nibble for a more than likely hard beat-down). The Cloud of Darkness had been out of practice for too many years, and it was showing.

These new beings are much stronger than We are... How did this happen?

It would do no good to just sit here and ponder how out of practice and out of shape her Millennial Slumber had made her. The Cloud of Darkness needed to take action. She needed allies. People (or, beings, at any rate) who she could align herself with in order to gain the upper hand against threats like these...

But first we must feed...

Questions/Comments/Concerns:

Edited, and hopefully more in line with Canon expectations...

[Zephiris]

K, you've got limits for your powers, now give me drawbacks. Exploit big weaknesses (logically, the largest would be Light). Every character on WD should be able to be defeated in some way.

For personality, you mention a lot about what she does, from which one could infer much about a person, but little of why, her thought process, or personality. She treats people as inferior. So what does she view herself as? Why is she trying to return worlds to the Void? Perhaps it's me being picky, but I'd like some depth.

To be honest, I haven't a clue what to say to you about the main structure of your character. It seems a bit of a stretch, and I'll have to discuss this with some other staff members.

I consulted, and apparently the History is as fine as it's gonna get. FFIII didn't give you much to work with.

Go ahead; 3 days to edit.

[Deleted]

I apologize for the lack of integrity when it comes to her Personality section. I've played more Dissidia: Final Fantasy than I have FFIII, so that may have muddled my attempt at constructing a canonical persona...

At any rate, I have edited, and I now await feedback. =D

[Zephiris]

- Please clarify general amount of damage dealt by the particle beams.
- Mention that Pain and Suffering have energy/magic reserves of their own that limit their abilities, lesser than CoD's herself.
- You brought out her weaknesses in her Personality. I suggest adding them to the Abilities section as well; that's where a RPing partner would likely look if you get into battle.
- I disliked the part where you said something along the lines of "she can be defeated - if only temporarily'. No characters on WD can be invincible, including the Cloud of Darkness, so you may want to make some edits with that in mind. I'm thinking that the 'Void' may not exist in any other world (the Realm of Darkness being something different), so if she is defeated, she'd have nowhere to fall back to - and may be permanently destroyed.

Looking good - 3 days

[Deleted]

Modified~!

[Zephiris]

Alrighty, buddy. Accepted. ;] You're good from here.