Soren

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Snarky
Contact: plurk: wildzubat ; aim: sargentsnarky or gentlesnarky
Age: 24
Current Characters: also apping Homura Akemi


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Soren
Age: Unknown. Despite appearances, he is likely somewhere between 20 and 23.
Canon: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Canon Point: After the victory over Ashera, when the Griel Mercenaries are on their way home but before he and Ike have set off on their journey (... assuming A supports through both games)

Background:
Path of Radiance brief summary
Radiant Dawn slightly less brief summary
wiki page on Soren, giving a summary more specific to him but lacking in any detail about the plots of PoR and RD

Also, I’m going to put up a few important definitions here, because they will come up in his personality section and are mentioned on the history pages. Also they are terms that he might wind up using in game, so having them here makes for a reference for other players I guess?

Bearoc: In the world of Tellius, the correct term for what we would regard as ordinary humans is ‘Bearoc.’ Anime hair aside, that is really all they are. It is considered somewhat derogatory for a laguz to call a bearoc ‘human.’

Laguz: The other sentient race (for lack of a better term) of Tellius, the laguz are people who not only bear animalistic features (such as tails or wings) but also can transform into animal forms. There are three main groups of them - beasts (cats, tigers, lions and wolves - generally have ears and tail in human form; sometimes other markings), birds (ravens, hawks and herons - have the wings in human form; sometimes other markings), and dragons (red, white or black dragons; only really seem to exhibit some unusual markings and maybe pointy ears). The other main feature to note is that they have longer lifespans than Bearoc, by and large, with herons and dragons seeming to have the longest. It is derogatory for a bearoc to call a laguz ‘sub-human.’

Branded: Also known as ‘Parentless’ among the laguz, the Branded are people who are descended from both Laguz and Bearoc, shown via a mark or brand somewhere on their skin. Any child that is the direct product of such a union will be Branded, but if a Branded person goes on to have children with Bearoc, their descendants may not always themselves carry the Brand. It could even skip enough generations for the legacy to be forgotten about, until it surfaces again in some unfortunate child down the line.

Branded live longer than normal Bearoc, though generally not as long as the laguz, and they sometimes have powers that Bearoc do not or otherwise have a higher than average aptitude. However, they lack any of the transformative abilities of the Laguz or the animal features.

They are widely persecuted, as they are regarded as an abomination and a crime against the Goddess. (This is actually based on a lie, but well… the damage has been done by now….) The Laguz generally pretend they do not exist - sometimes even pointedly ignoring a Branded right in front of them, though they have also been known to deliberately hunt Branded. Moreover, all laguz can sense something different about Branded, though not all of them recognize what it means. The Bearoc, meanwhile, tend to treat them violently when discovered, though generally the Branded are able to live among Bearoc more easily. Often they either hide their brand or pass it off as the mark of a Spirit Charmer (someone who has made a pact with spirits in order to gain great power; this also results in a mark on the skin symbolizing the pact).



Personality:
On the surface, Soren is cold, cynical, anti-social and often brutally honest, and he usually makes little effort to hide his opinions — unless of course it suits him to do otherwise. If he needs to, Soren is quite capable of being polite or even sweet talking or otherwise being nice — though he certainly does not go out of his way to make any friends. Not that many people have seem interested in being his friend, given the way he keeps people at arms length with his icy demeanor and scathing words. However over the past three years he has thawed somewhat. Though still not fond of other people as a rule and still relatively withdrawn (he’s not opening up to strangers any time soon, that’s for sure), Soren is much more at ease around people than he used to be - perhaps because, having once admitted his past trauma and secrets to Ike and found nothing but acceptance, he no longer feels he has any reason to fear being rejected and without a place.

After all, Ike is Soren’s most important person. The one person Soren truly considers a friend, and the one person to whom he is devoted and utterly loyal. Indeed, even if Soren and Ike do not end the second game with maximum support relationship, Soren’s solo epilogue ending states that he never puts his strategic talents to use for any other commander. Ever. Soren’s trust in Ike is absolute, and although he is never shy to offer his opinion or disagree with Ike, he will nevertheless always defer to him. Moreover, his care for Ike as a friend, rather than merely a commander, is aptly demonstrated by, among other things, the way he intervenes to help protect Ike from Aimee, one of the merchants who travel with them to sell them supplies and who is enamored with Ike. On multiple occasions during both wars Soren distracts and misdirects Aimee on Ike’s behalf - and even teases Ike a little bit over it. The reason for this singular devotion stems - like Soren’s trust issues and cynicism - from his childhood, which we will get to in a moment.

First… all that said, it is also important to note that as a tactician, Soren is meticulous and thorough, preferring to plan and act logically without letting emotions clutter things — and survival (particularly survival of those he works with/for) is paramount in his plans. A noted example of this is when the Princess Elincia pleads with the mercenary company he is a member of for aid, Soren’s advice is to turn her over to Daein (the invading country) as this would ensure the company’s optimal chance at survival and continuing to gain a living. He refuses to let sentiment or morality, for that matter, get in the way of thinking and planning clearly. What is Good or Bad will always remain of secondary concern when survival is at stake.

That is not to say that Soren is without any concern or emotion for people besides Ike or for people in general. As Titania observers, Soren is actually surprisingly empathetic. He has seen a great deal of suffering, and he knows what it’s like to experience it. It’s just where some characters who have had miserable lives are left sympathetic and try to reach out to others, Soren by and large is the opposite.

Which brings us to that childhood and its profound impact on Soren. Growing up, Soren never really experienced love. He went from a horribly abusive caretaker to slightly less abusive caretaker interested more in passing on knowledge than in his pupil’s well being to being a homeless child who, although he could read and write quite well, could not talk. He had never had a need to learn. Though at the time he did not realize that the mark on his forehead meant he was a Branded, the people of the country (called Gallia) that he was currently in did. The Bearoc generally treated whim with violence and disdain, chasing him out of villages and so on, for Gallia is a Laguz-ruled nation, and the Bearoc who lived there were therefore more aware of the signs of a Branded. Besides, they had no desire to risk upsetting the Laguz. And the Laguz, meanwhile, treated him as if he did not exist. Both these experiences burned into Soren a dislike for other livings and a particular resentful hatred for Laguz. He could understand hatred, but to him, to be utterly ignored was worse. To be made to feel as if he should not exist at all…

Soren very nearly starved to death - and would have, if not for a chance encounter with a young Ike, who gave Soren food and invited him back to Ike’s home. Suspicious of trickery, Soren did not follow, but he always remembered that boy’s genuine kindness — the first Soren had ever received. Thereafter he proceeded to search for Ike, wanting to meet him again. And at last in his wanderings and struggles to survive, he left Gallia and entered Crimea. There people were more apt to mistake his mark for that of a spirit charmer, and Soren was able to take refuge for a while in a monastery where at last the priests there taught him how to speak. Unfortunately, whatever kinder treatment he received there was too little too late to really assuage his bleak outlook of humanity - and Ike remained his sole example of a person he considered truly worthwhile, even though when he found Ike again, Ike could not remember Soren. But it didn’t matter - Ike gave Soren a reason for existing, for living, and that was enough and remains enough. … though as a Branded, Soren will far outlive Ike. This is, however, a matter which he seems to be ignoring for now.

He does not, however, ignore what he is. He found it out while researching in a library during the Mad King’s War, and the revelation devastated him. He had long internalized the idea that something was Wrong with him, from his childhood, and his lack of normal aging had not escaped his notice. But to finally have an explanation and have the explanation be that only further cemented his negative self image and amplify his doubts and fears that he was replaceable and that perhaps if Ike knew, Ike would have found him repulsive and turned him away. Many of those doubts have since been assuaged, for Ike doesn’t really care that Soren is Branded. To him, Soren is Soren is his best friend and essential to their company, and that’s all there is to it. And knowledge of this acceptance and support, while not wholly eliminating Soren’s inner conflicts, goes a long way towards helping him deal with them. Ike’s presence and fair treatment of the laguz, too, both pressures and helps Soren into letting go of some of his hatred for them (even if he probably will never be wholly comfortable around cat laguz in particular).

So in short, Soren has a cold, brusque exterior hiding a vulnerable, deeply scared self. A brilliant mind for tactics and organization and a strong talent for magic, but not very good at dealing with his own emotions or at social interaction.


Abilities:
Soren is a mage and fits very nearly in the archetypes that implies - namely, excellent at magic does anyone ever use him and not see his magic stat get capped, good at defense against magic but is otherwise fairly squishy and not physically strong. However, he does have the added perk of generally at least in my playthroughs of the games though of course RNG can screw you over… being pretty speedy and evasive. In more list-friendly form and with added skills and explanatory stuff…

+ Anima Magic: Soren is quite a competent and powerful mage. His speciality is wind magic, though he is quite capable of wielding lightning and fire magic. Additionally, he is capable of using healing magic, and pretty well at that because of his high magic stat.

++ on offensive magic: Now, in Fire Emblem games, magic tomes are required to cast magic using the power of spirits, and each tome has a limited number of uses before it breaks. … but in battle animations at most the mages are simply holding the books rather than reading from them. And in those two cutscenes, Soren and Micaiah (another mage unit) are seen to be verbalizing the spells. Micaiah is simply holding her book and reciting a spell, while Soren has his open and seems to be actively reading from it. But hold on a moment! The sage who did his best to pass on decades of knowledge to Soren in like two years never taught Soren to speak - only read and write. This implies that speaking spell words is not necessary to casting them. So how do they work?! We just don’t know.

++ on healing and other stave use but lbr Soren isn’t bringing the entire convoy with him : To heal, units use a staff and seem to channel the healing through that. . . . like ever other “weapon” in Fire Emblem (except certain unique blessed ones), staves have limited uses. Presumably this is because the magic burns them out somehow?

Please see ‘Questions?’ for my question on how this should work here….. Anyway onto other innate abilities!

Adept: Allows user to perform a consecutive attack. Inside the game, this means that Soren has a chance of double casting a spell when attacking an enemy. Outside of game mechanics, this just means that sometimes he’s able to get two spells off back to back, either due to speed or skill.

Flare: Negates the enemy's Resistance stat and allows the user to recover HP equal to damage done to the enemy. In game, this means when this activates, Soren’s spells will totally ignore any innate resistance and then also drain health away from the enemy and give it to Soren. Outside of the game, how this should probably function is that from time to time, when concentrating, Soren can effectively weave a spell through the enemy’s defenses and drain energy away to divert it into healing due to skill. (… the spell is activated based on skill stat so, I mean… it fits)

+ Also somehow people he forms a “support” with can gain a small boost to avoidance and attack power when nearby! . . . presumably in game this would simply be good synergy in battle or something. . . .. . . this also requires Soren to bond with someone. He’s not good at that.

+ Tactics: Soren is a master tactician who has strategized his way to victory in two wars, now. He’s very smart and very good at planning, and he can also come up with plans pretty quickly.


Other:
Soren will bring with him one physic staff (a healing staff with some range to it) and four books: one rexcalibur (powerful wind magic), one elwind (middling wind magic), one elfire (middling fire magic), and one elthunder (middling lightning magic). He likes to be prepared.


⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
First Person Sample:
Test Drive: Discussing the world below
Test Drive: Flowers aren’t worth his time ok

Third Person Sample:
Different test drive: forced social interactions. eew
different test drive: Missing people who aren’t here

Questions:

Ok! So about those magic tomes and staffs…. there are a couple ways we can work this, and I wanted to know which you guys would prefer!

Option 1: The books & staff act as normal and eventually break with sufficient wear. Like with cell phones and whatnot, there is not direct world replacement - there aren’t books and healing staffs that function the same way. Therefore, Soren would have to either craft replacements himself (it’s quite likely he knows how to make magic books and at least the theories of how to make a magic staff) or come up with an alternative channel for his power such as using the elemental cores (something he will probably research anyway).

Option 2: The books & staff don’t wear out or break by use (though obviously the staff could get snapped in half or the books torn apart or something) but do lose potency over time and can be recharged by Soren re-imbuing them with power. (I believe something like this is sort of how magic books functioned in one of the older Fire Emblem games, but don’t quote me on that.) Or with elemental cores.

or if either one is fine, that’s cool too!