WHAT IS THE PRICE OF BEING A GOOD PERSON?
...The Warrior of Light, Azure Dragoon, 'Hero', First and Only Friend, Enemy, Ally, Weapon, Scion of the Seventh Dawn...
MEDRAUT is my Final Fantasy XIV player character. I've been playing FFXIV on and off since early 2021 I believe. Even though I take extended breaks from the MMO, I spend a lot of time thinking about her!
- MEDRAUT KANSHI.
- she/they, auri raen
- early 20s (a realm reborn) - late 20s (as of post-endwalker)
Standing somewhere below the average height for most female au'ra, the Warrior of Light gives little impression on first glance beyond a casual but reserved veneer of cautious politeness. Usually seen with a small, introspective smile on their face, Medraut is quick to take favors on and ask for little in return. In some instances they may even come across as shy, though this is usually quickly dismissed when their eagerness to help is made apparent.
- KEY TRAITS include... Personality dysphoria. Hypocrite. Passivity in the face of the narrative. Distant. Selfishness under politeness. Pliability to any situation.
- CHARM POINT: Nose-bridge scale in the shape of an upside-down heart
Heralding from a small underseas bubble village beneath the waves of the Ruby Sea, Medraut grew up living a quiet, normal life with her relatively well-to-do merchant father. In the comfort of the underwater village, Medraut was left with few people her age and even fewer friends, a fact they would come to be grateful for when they realized they yearned and craved for things no one was supposed to. In childhood stories, tales of violence and bloodshed captivated them. They were interested in the quivering body of a fish, dying on the sand. When Garlemald encroached on the world, stories of soldiers, wounded, dead, or dying, captured them. When she was old enough to hunt herself she realized how much fun it was for her; and not for the sake of the hunt. Desperate to put this deviance to use, Medraut turned her focus to disguise. People need adventurers to kill beasts for them, to scare off the Garlean soldiers who encroach on their personal territory. And so she took to Eorzea to make herself useful and refusing to deny herself the truth about her personal path to happiness lying in bloodshed. And yet she knew no one could know or she would be hated and thus turned into a villain...
- LIKES... Looking cute, bloodshed, overly-accessorizing with trinkets, cutting their own hair and bangs, cleaning their weapons, cleaning their wounds, birds, an excuse to get dressed up, parfaits and floats and excessive-looking treats.
- DISLIKES... Obligation, 'ideals', all politicians, fancy etiquette meals, having to put her own wants 'second', cold weather, cooking (is notoriously bad at it).
- HABITS... Selfishness under a disguise of kindness, blinking too slowly, smiling too much or not enough, losing themself in battle.
- COMBAT PREFERENCE... is melee-based. As a dragoon and reaper, Medraut loves to get their hands dirty. They are secretly competitive. Has the agility of a ballerina in combat, generally quite graceful.
- FASHION STYLE... is at odds with fantasy and reality. Medraut loves lace and frills and anything 'cutesy', neon and pastel. But the reality is that they often dress modestly to protect their body since they are a melee combatant and in toned-down color schemes based on the availability of browns and grey dyes, as well as the ease of which those clothes can be repaired.
CONCEPT. A player character whose arc can go terminally unfulfilled to stay perpetually in the role of protagonist forever ; Disenchanted fairytales where the hero is more disgusting than anyone is ever allowed to know ; Knowing of the self as a curse rather than a self-enriching cycle ; A protagonist who only cares for being liked and being seen as a good person without any care for the steps it takes to get there ; A weapon that is fine with being liked for being a weapon as long as it isn't expected to uphold any sort of obligation beyond the job its nature requires of it ; No question of "who am I?" is applied here--the protagonist already knows. It is simply a matter of making sure no one else knows.
...Upon arriving in Eorzea, Medraut quickly caught the eye of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and was recruited for her notable prowess in slaying. Eager to put her disgusting traits to good use, Medraut befriended the Scions, only beginning to quickly resent them when the roots of hero worship began to embed themselves into her persona. She knew better than anyone she was no hero, she knew it was the facade that fooled her companions. But with no other self-serving moral code other than a desire to be considered 'on the right side' Medraut continued to help them dispatch primals across Eorzea, legend and reputation growing all the while, with Hyadelyn Herself granting Medraut permission for being 'what' they were when She gave them the Echo.
Medraut cares little for ideals, notions of heroism, or anything except for being the person that gets the OK from the world to kill and hurt things. If she could, she would give up the title of Warrior of Light and trade it for days of quiet beast-slaying to help a farmer keep their crops safe. But now they are too strong to be satisfied in that way, with too many people she cares about left to judge her and forsake her if she ever quit.
And if Hydaelyn told Medraut they were wrong, they would just kill her; who needs a god when you have friends who will promise you you can do no wrong?
Medraut takes excessive inspiration from BROTHER NIER, Anthy Himemiya, Rei Ayanami, Rika Furude, Lady Amalthea, Mima from Perfect Blue, Amelie (somehow), Isabelle Adjani characters, and Shannon from Umineko. The reason for her name is simple, I stole it from The Winter Prince because I was reading it when I started playing and liked how it sounded. I find this has worked out really well with my interpretation of Medraut's dynamic with the WoL's mirror, Ardbert, with Ardbert's name giving a similar name-impression to King Arthur. Mordred ('Medraut' in Welsh) is typically the one to kill him in most interpretations of the myth.
Beyond that I simply wanted to make a character that was wholly indulgent in things I liked or used-to-like; back before I was concerned with the early internet sin of making a Mary-Sue etc. I was very into the trope of tiny anime girls with weapons twice their size a la Black Rock Shooter; I love the look of cherub-y anime angel wings fitted to a girl's head, I love the look of mecha musume girls and especially Fiora in Xenoblade, I love a berserker who can't control themself in battle. Since I was hopefully going to play as Medraut in FFXIV for years on end, I didn't want her character to stop feeling like something I could be interested in or like her story could ever be resolved with me being left to find a way to try and force her characterization into being congruent with the story. So: pure indulgence is the antidote, with the framework of a Yoko Taro character applied to the protagonist to keep her unhappy, forever. Beyond that, the rest just kind of came about as I was playing.
- DESIGN SENSIBILITIES INCLUDE... desaturation and low contrast; their skin, irises, and hair should all be similar in tone to make her scales, limbal rings, and clothes pop (if the artist chooses to draw her in 'cute' clothing, that is, otherwise the clothing too should be desaturated)
- Her main hairstyle--or at least the way I draw it--is shamelessly stolen from Rei. I'll probably top off my time when the Evangelion raids drop with the hopes that there there will be (finally) a Rei-unlockable hairstyle in there. The color of her hair can vary depending on the expansion or whatever I feel like drawing with, although lately I default to a blue slightly deeper than her skintone and a desaturated brown (her natural hair color). Originally her hair was pink then platinum blonde during Heavensward...I change it up a lot.
- The majority of her body is covered in scales, including claws. The point of this is to replicate the look of mecha musume girls where the majority of their body is covered in machinery--think Aigis from Persona 3.
- Her face is heart-shaped. Their mouth is small with lips resembling a heart. She has an upside-down heart nose scale but I'm too lazy to learn how to edit textures so it can only be reflected in art and not her in-game model. It's all about the heart when drawing Medraut--literally.
- Regrettably FFXIV has very little in terms of body customization; she's meant to be pear-shaped, with a smaller chest. Training as a dragoon has given her very powerful thighs and strong shoulders, but they have more of a lithe-muscular physique like a ballerina. Her tail is also meant to be quite long and chunky in comparison to the rest of her body but I don't have the best reference images for that.
- Since I mostly draw them in clothing I find cute but wouldn't wear myself, I draw her in a lot of neo-Medieval inspired looks and 2010s OTT jfashion. Mod silhouettes have become common, although the clothing itself usually ends up looking too different to fall under that category. Pink, orange, and bright purple (not lavender or plum) tend to feature the most. I am very inspired by FKA Twigs's fashion when I draw them, especially from this shoot by orograph. Shells, pearls, armor, chiffon, tulle, organza, raschel lace, nylon stockings... Medraut would be a huge fan of MA*RS and DaTuRa or really anything that would feature in Ageha.
AND BLESSINGS..
Medraut's key relationships are with HAURCHEFANT GREYSTONE and ZENOS YAE GALVUS, which probably comes as no surprise if you play FFXIV.
Haurchefant, effectively, is the one who got away. Their relationship is flavored heavily by approaching Haurchefant's characterization through the lens of the short story Vows Unbroken. As the first person in the narrative who is excited to just kind of be buddies with the WoL, he and Medraut get along swimmingly and Haurchefant, due to his own particular flavor of bloodlust, manages to parse through Medraut's veneer in some ways without being surprised or put off by it. Nevertheless, Haurchefant is someone who strives to be a good knight and to be someone who upholds values like chivalry and bravery, and Medraut is not--so when he dies for the sake of being a good knight, Medraut only goes more headfirst into refusing to fight for anything as nebulous as ideals or virtue, only doing what the Scions tell her to do without thinking about it any further than that. (Key song, ...I actually don't have one yet orz)
Which brings them to Zenos, who does not extoll about fighting for ideals, who sees something like that as a fast track to death which can only be death and nothing more and it's foolish to see it any other way (which Medraut is inclined to agree with). Zenos is someone who only sees the WoL as someone who can push him to his limits to help him feel alive, a feeling he is desperately chasing after; Medraut finds Zenos a particularly interesting opponent due to his overpowered nature, but has no particular feelings about 'feeling alive'--all she cares about is killing. Zenos, as someone who is more or less ascribed as evil by everyone Medraut knows, is simply on the wrong side of the battle, so he's the perfect person for her to express herself with. Zenos knows this and is fine with being used for a good fight because it means he can get what he wants out of it too. His only frustration is Medraut's clinging to their mask and self-ascribed semblance of morality for the sake of being liked. (Key song, UNLOVED by HEALTH)
COCTEAU TWINS / BLOOD BITCH. MASSIVE ATTACK / DISSOLVED GIRL. ANDROID LUST / THE WANT. ETHEL CAIN / NETTLES. CHELSEA WOLFE / THE LIMINAL. LINGUA IGNOTA / I AM THE BEAST. CRUSH OF SOULS / PURE WEAPON. COLD CAVE / CONFETTI.
Medraut also has some additional verses for Fire Emblem Three Houses and REDLINE but they largely exist for roleplay purposes and are more secondary to their character(ization).