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tritoch · 1 year ago

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fuck it. have an enormous oc lore dump. this is the "canon" wol oc i conceived as part of my personal preferred approach in some games to take the game's text as presented, not headcanon away any elements, and, as much as possible, adhere to whatever "definitive" canon as best as can be discerned from what's given as an option. as a comedy bit, I also wanted to make a Warrior of Light who does everything you can do in canon, like an omnijob level 90 did all the raids did all the beast tribes caught every fish did all the relics did every hildi questline kind of WoL. Someone who really does mostly communicate through nods and punch gestures and only says the specific lines you can say in game (except for the scenes, increasingly common in later expacs, where they let you imagine a conversation). I just think it's funny to take an approach to the game that is at once fairly restrained (no elements beyond what is already presented in the lore) and extremely maximalist (yes, he one hundred percent did steal those pants). spoilers through stormblood under the break.

Wolund Anadezhda (not his real name) was born in Bozja in the year 1533 of the Sixth Astral Era to a young gunbreaker in Bozja's army and her husband, a foundling adept of the Verdant Path and fellow soldier. Resolving that their son would not grow up in the shadow of war, the Hrothgar couple resolved to have him sent out of the country shortly after his birth. He grew up instead under the care of his father's adoptive sister, a master of the Verdant Path in her own right, who left Bozja some years prior under uncertain circumstances after a serious injury left her unable to return to the front lines.

The sister (a Sea Wolf Roegadyn) had through various adventures found herself running a Dalmascan caravanserai, a walled inn a day's travel west of the city of Rabanastre. There, she raised Wolund both to run an inn and in the forms of the Verdant Path. Though not a warm woman, she did her best to raise Wolund carefully and lovingly, and honoring her brother and sister-in-law's wishes, tried to shelter him from the horrors of the world. He, in return, idolized her. He received sporadic letters from his parents, at least until Bozja fell. Their ultimate fates are unknown, though Wolund believes that even if they didn't die during the course of the war, they likely died as part of the resistance or in the Bozja Incident.

In the year 1547, 6th AE, Dalmasca is invaded by the IVth Legion. The caravanserai is close enough to the border for the Garlean line to advance past it fairly quickly, and Wolund chooses to remain with his aunt in order to protect her from the occupation as best he could. As Wolund has grown, his aunt has told him stories of the devastation war had wreaked in Bozja, and of the losses she still grieved. She explained to him that students of the Verdant Path such as herself had been targeted by the IVth Legion to be brought in dead or alive in a bid to control their knowledge and break Bozja's ability to resist, and that she had fled the country at her brother's behest to preserve the school's knowledge for future generations. Chafing under Imperial rule, Wolund aspired, at the time, to learn as best he could from her, follow in her footsteps, and do his part to maintain the lineage of the Verdant Path school.

In my conception, the Verdant Path, as a multidisciplinary school that teaches (at least) spear, greatsword, katana, and unarmed combat as part of its tradition, encompasses more of a martial philosophy, conceptual approach to space, and footwork system than a specific set of techniques for various weapons. This is a key element of why Wolund, in order to adhere as closely to the maximum extent of the available canon as possible, can pick up like 19 different martial disciplines, sweet Mary Sue that he is.

As he aged into his late teens and early twenties, Wolund was settling into his role as his aunt's chef, handyman, disciple, and likely future replacement innkeeper, as her war injury made physical labor increasingly difficult. Also around this time, Wolund has a brief engagement with a Keeper of the Moon Mi'qote merchant, part of a tribe of several Keeper families who operated a caravan which plied a route between Rabanastre and Martrvje in Bozja. At her behest, largely as a practical matter on her end though not without some romance, they had a child together, with the intent that, as in most Keeper families, she would raise the child herself, though he would, by grace of the caravan's route, have periodic contact with them both.

Before the child's birth, however, an imperial recruiter looking to fill a quota came through town. And so in the year 1556, 6th AE, at the age of 23, Wolund was conscripted and assigned to the VIth Legion, then a corrupt and disorderly force occupying the relatively peaceful southern coast of Ilsabard. A far cry from Emperor Solus's disciplined armies, the VIth Legion then was scarcely indistinguishable from a private mercenary group answering to local colonial governments.

Wolund struggled after his initial conscription, seething at the prospect of two decades under the Garlean Empire's yoke, fell into despair, and tried to emotionally withdraw. Since he was a quiet, disciplined conscript as well as a young and fairly imposing Hrothgar, his Garlean officers read in him the ready Garleanization that they wished to see. His practiced prowess in the training hall further contrasted his "bestial" appearance in the eyes of the bigoted Garlean officers. In Wolund, they saw a useful tool and status symbol for their occupation.

Consequently, while Wolund's time resembled the expected conscript experience in many respects, it was also marked by unexpected success in the unusual, corrupt environment of the VIth Legion. He spent plenty of time in his first couple of years on hard, undesirable labor, as any conscript would: digging ditches, building infrastructure, policing occupied populations, and, in the singular case of open conflict breaking out, serving on the front lines. However, he stood out from his peers, and he found himself frequently serving as a sort of exotic trophy or bodyguard for increasingly senior officers or local bigwigs. Eventually, he found himself attached to the staff of the legion's 10th Cohort as vexillarius, or standard-bearer, for the cohort's pilus prior. This turned out to be, given his centurion's corruption and close links to the local colonial government, merely a slightly more elevated form of his old work serving as muscle and an imposing presence behind preening dignitaries.

At this point, about six years into his two decades, Wolund's conscription seemed on a steady path to eventual citizenship. For his part, he remained as emotionally disengaged as he could manage, materially secure in his position in the 10th Cohort. The insulated world he built came crashing down in his sixteenth year of service, when crown prince Varis yae Galvus sent his close friend and confidant Regula van Hydrus to reform the corrupt VIth Legion. Many senior officers, including Wolund's centurion, were executed by firing squad for their abuses and indiscretions, with still more clapped in irons and hauled before military tribunals. Efforts to reform the legion's reputedly undisciplined soldiers saw Wolund, like many other conscripts, detached from the VIth in the hopes that reassignment to a more disciplined legion could salvage the conscripts that, in Regula's eyes, the VIth had nearly wrecked. Wolund found himself assigned to the VIIth Legion in 1572, on the eve of Carteneau.

Of Carteneau itself, there is little to say, and what few coherent memories Wolund may have had were taken by Louisoix's magic, along with Eorzea's Warriors of Light. Wolund crawled out of the catastrophe and butchery of the Seventh Umbral Calamity to find himself one of the VIIth's few survivors. Reassigned to the Vth, he served out the rest of his term quietly, though nightmares of Carteneau continued to plague him. While serving in the Vth Legion, he served as a quartermaster and honed his skill in both literacy and sums.

In year 4 of the Seventh Umbral Era, Wolund completed his term of conscription. Engraved and sealed legionary diploma in hand, he made his way to Garlemald itself, where his paperwork was verified and his name added to the citizen's registry. He returned to the caravanserai outside Rabanastre as Wolund pyr Anadezhda. There, he found his aunt, now some 20 years older, and her unexpected apprentice as innkeeper: his own daughter, now a 20-year-old woman and soon to be running the place herself.

For about four months, Wolund tenuously reinserted himself into the daily life of the inn while attempting to form a connection to his daughter and reconnect to his aunt and his daughter's mother. His efforts to begin his life again were cut short when soldiers came sniffing around the caravanserai on the order of a local magistrate, a former officer of the VIth Legion who sought to employ him as a trainer to his household guard. Recognizing that he would not be able to live a life free of the Garlean Empire's boot so long as he remained within their lands, and not wishing to endanger his daughter or aunt by enlisting them in his decision, Wolund simply skipped town one night. He left behind all his possessions except for enough money to see him safely overseas, as well as a letter that stated tersely that he did not wish to be followed. From the caravanserai he made his way by horse to Rabanastre and then to Valnain, where he caught a ride on a merchant ship bound for Hingashi, and from thence to Limsa Lominsa, where he arrived in year 5 of the Seventh Umbral Era.

Upon arriving in Eorzea, Wolund, leaning on his most recent skills in math and reading, as well as his admittedly rusty knowledge of trade goods from his time at the caravanserai, applies to work at the Arcanist's Guild. Everything proceeds as it does in the game from there.

All this is in service of a couple things. First of all, honestly, giving him a big backstory where various bad things happen to him over the course of a long time is primarily in service of dealing with what I think is one of the shakiest scenes in the game: the moment where Fordola accidentally uses the Echo on you and is shocked to her core by the scale of the tragedy you've overcome. I just don't think this makes a lot of sense for the WoL based just on what's depicted in-game, as sad as the events of the Banquet and Haurchefant's and Ysayle's deaths and Minfilia's sacrifice are. Giving him a comparable backstory to Fordola as a legion conscript does a lot, in my book, to smooth out that scene and make its emotional weight land better in my head, as do elements like the death and destruction he witnessed at Carteneau and the stuff about his daughter.

Secondly, in addition to that scene, this is just supposed to help set up a lot of stuff about the WoL I find a little clunky, particularly earlier on. Why does everyone in the Scions immediately glom on to you and decide you're their hero? Well, maybe the WoL is a stoic and outwardly emotionally reassuring older man who's conveniently older than the oldest of the Scions by more than a decade, and he can fill the Louisoix-shaped hole in their hearts that each of them except maybe Y'shtola very obviously has. How are you simultaneously everyone's favorite guy and also a story non-entity? Maybe he's nice and kind to people but very bad at handling and leading them initially (as evidenced by letting Alphinaud sleepwalk you all into a trap at the Banquet), in part because he spent the better part of two decades playing the part of mute imposing muscle for aristocratic officers. And maybe the fact he's consciously silenced himself for 20 years plays into the fact that the Warrior of Light becomes chattier throughout the expansions. Maybe he knows how to wear Garlean conscript armor and operate magitek because he was once a conscript himself. And so on and so forth.

Third, playing by my dumb "canon" rules, the WoL has to come from outside Eorzea. You're arriving by ship or cart and you're clearly unfamiliar with the city-states by the text. However, you also can't come from a lot of known places, since then you're bumping up against the issue that those places will also treat you like a stranger when you arrive in-game. There's no Bozja dialogue for being Hrothgar, but 1) to them it's not weird they'd have no reason to mention it and 2) this is why he isn't culturally Bozjan. Linking the WoL to Dalmasca solves this issue because the only Dalmascans you meet would have no reason to know a random Imperial conscript, you have no real time with them to shoot the shit about culture, we will not go to a functioning Rabanastre ever, and there is no reason you would have wanted to share all this with anyone on board the Prima Vista. Fourth, the WoL is a person of many talents and skills. Chalking up his weapon skills to the Verdant Path and his conscription, and linking his DoH/DoL skills to his upbringing, goes a long way towards helping ground some of that (as much as delightful nonsense can be grounded). Fifth, I think it's really funny to make the Warrior of Light a deadbeat dad. Final Fantasy is so full of bad sad dads already, WoL should get to be one. Lastly, I'm jealous that 1.0 players got to be at Carteneau and I want to bite their style but I refuse to break canon to do so, which means conscript it has to be (since being from a Free or Grand Company would contravene the earlier point about having to be new to Eorzea).

(A note on timelines: ARR begins in the year 5 of the Seventh Umbral Era, which would have been Year 1577 of the Sixth Astral Era. Per the wiki, Bozja is noted to have been invaded some fifty years ago, suggesting a war that begins in 1527 or so, but its conquest is described as happening "over thirty" years ago and multiple places note the campaign as grueling, so I think part of the idea (which gels with the trenches we see in the southern front) is supposed to be that the Bozjan campaign was a brutal and grinding one for the IVth Legion, or that after seizing Bozja proper it still took a long time to stamp out all resistance. Dalmasca was invaded 30 years ago in 1547, also by the IVth Legion, presumably fairly soon after stabilizing their grip on Bozja. I don't think there's any time given for when Regula goes to the VIth and reforms it, but since they only clear their tainted reputation in the succession war following Solus's death, I figure he can't have been there that long and he makes a convenient reason to move Wolund around, so five years approximately concurrent with the 1.0 to 2.0 timeskip seems like a decent timeline for his reform.)

#lions and lily flowers #that'll be his oc content tag #from a line from james elroy flecker's the great gates of damascus which i like for a couple reasons #in the first place its from a stanza about wandering past the edge of the known world to see wild and wondrous things #lion bc hrothgar and he uses lion imagery where possible in his glams #lily flowers for nymeia lilies since survivor's guilt is a huge wol thing. and--ah dang i only said through stormblood spoilers up top.#okay so endwalker spoilers here that you should absolutely not look at if you haven't played it #but anyways the warrior of light is closely linked to the traditional use of nymeia lilies in funeral rites #look up the quest methods of mourning #it's one of the coolest canonical notes about the warrior of light and basically no one talks about it #wol: zodiac brave story

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ryuzakemo128 · 1 month ago

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Omegaverse headcanons

CW: dark stuff mentioned.

In the same universe as my omegaverse parts

Pairing: Poly141 x female reader. With Nikolai included to a degree.

Omegaverse Parts: Part One + Part Two

One. You don’t get it when someone wears denim jeans into the desert. “What the fuck is this?” you asked, borderline annoyed. Your frustration showing this time, “Soap, march up there and get changed, you’ll sweat up a fucken storm. We’re going into a desert location, not fucken fashion week.”

Two. You have a bath at eleven o’clock regardless of time zone or location. In hot weather it's a cold bath and in cold weather. It's a reasonably hot one. A creature of habit is what Price loved to call you. Even if you bit him on the hand once.

Three. You never miss a training session. Ever. If they thought they can get you to skip it? They’d be told, ‘I’m sleeping on the couch tonight’. And not, ‘You’re sleeping on the couch tonight' because what’s worse than a partner who only won’t sleep in the same bed as you. But also won’t fuck any of them during that night either.

Four. You hate when people don’t eat breakfast. It’s like not having ammo in your pocket before you go out on a mission. Sure, you might not need it, but if you do, you’re fucked. And no, a black coffee doesn’t count.

Five. You hate when people don’t clean up after themselves. You don’t live in a barracks anymore, you’ve got a penthouse in the city now, but that doesn’t mean you can throw your socks anywhere. You’ve got a basket, use it. And for fuck’s sake, don’t leave your gun on the coffee table.

Six. You have an ever-growing collection of knives, from bone knives to Damascus steel knives. They all have stories. They're all displayed neatly in a glass case in your penthouse. Price has made a habit of not asking where they came from. Fully aware of where the bone knives came from.

Seven. “No, Price, I don’t care. If Nikolai isn’t living here, you can’t fuck him here. End of story. Good night and go fuck yourself.” you reprimanded from the master bedroom ensuite. “In the grace of my good will, you may stay over his place and nothing more, nothing less.”

Price wasn’t terribly happy with that, but he knew you were right. If they wanted to mess around with someone who isn’t living there? They better do in their house, under their roof and in their domain. The only strict rule you enforced quite well. For a good reason too. Their nests were in here, and you didn’t want anyone else’s scent mingling with yours, except for those who lived there permanently. Plus, you liked your privacy.

Eight. Your back tattoo is still something Price and Ghost love staring at, “The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labour lies.”

The words etched into an archway, 'The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:’ and the words, ‘But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labour lies.’ is etched into the open gateway, gilded in gold and silver. As if thunder and lighting struck down onto the pavement leading into a ‘heaven’.

If there even was one? You don’t know, and you don’t even want to pretend to know if there is one, too. You’ve seen enough shit to fill a library with horror books. Enough to know some questions just don’t have answers or have answers you don’t want to hear.

Nine. You love lavender cigarettes over cigars, tobacco, chewing tobacco, normal cigarettes. Vaping was fine, but you liked the raw taste of the cigarette in your mouth, the way it burned down your throat and into your lungs. You'd sit on the balcony with the cool breeze, watching the city lights twinkle like distant stars, a cigarette dangling between your lips.

Herbal cigarettes and vapes were common for you, a way to keep the inner ‘beast’ in check without the use of sex, raw meat or a cage fight. Lavender is said to soothe the ‘savage beast’ according to your mother. But you liked to think of it as a way to keep the peace, to keep your mind from wandering to places you’d rather keep locked away.

Ten. You've got a thing for rain. It's like your inner wolf comes out, yearning for the wet fur and the smell of damp earth. You'd sit by the windowsill, letting the droplets kiss your skin, the smoke from your cigarette curling around your form. Sometimes, when the weather is just right, you'd go out onto the balcony and let it soak you.

Price eventually found you outside in the rain one afternoon on the balcony, vaping a strong lavender-scented electronic cigarette. You were wearing a black men’s shirt with a double-sided dragon graphic print on it. Draping over her, large enough to swim in by the looks of it. One of the men’s shirts she usually bought for herself.

Eleven. You eventually showed the four of them around your walk-in closet, “Thrifted or bought impulsively.” you told them. “Take a good look.”

And Price has seen the large collection of men’s shirts, jackets, and hoodies you have. It was a walk-in closet with a collection of dark clothing far too big for you. But you loved how comfortable they felt on you. How the fabric hung off your shoulders like comforting armour.

Twelve. You wear men’s deodorant, which Soap finds to be rather amusing. “You know, darling, there’s stuff for females, too.” he teased one morning, holding up the stick deodorant he found in your drawer.

“But do they have any smelling like lavender & cinnamon or dark chocolate or leather & cookies or coconut & black pepper?” Soap looked at your Lynx body sprays which you usually put on after a shower. Which for the rest of them?

The large bottle of body wash in your shower is a mix of both types. The lynx Dark chocolate, the ‘golden temptation’, which is a molten chocolate blended with fresh citrus and smoky amber. Along with goat’s milk body wash, which is more for sensitive skin, sometimes even your scent can be overpowering to the alphas.

Thirteen. Cartoon movies like Anastasia, Care Bears, The Wild Thornberrys, Teenage Ninja Turtles, Rugrats, and SpongeBob were your guilty pleasure. You could spend hours watching them, even if you've seen them a hundred times before. You liked the simplicity of them, the way they made you feel like a kid again. You felt complete, perfect, right to watch them.

Fourteen. You cook with slow cookers a lot, Gaz saw you use four at once one afternoon when he came from his solo missions. Two for wagyu beef stew and two for salted caramel fudge. You were busy since four in the morning, and you were having a nap by seven in the morning as they slowly cooked.

Fifteen. You have a pet wolf named 'Mona Lisa' because she smirks when she's being cheeky, and she's got a penchant for stealing socks. You found her as a pup when you were on a mission and smuggled her back home. Now she's got her own room in the penthouse, filled with plush toys and a giant dog bed that she rarely sleeps in, preferring the floor beside yours.

Price came face to face with the wolf pup, Mona Lisa, a northwestern wolf with deep piercing copper eyes, staring at him intently. He'd never seen such a creature so close, especially not in the penthouse. “I take it she's yours?” He questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“As much as she wants to be.” you replied.

Price leaned down, looking into her eyes, “What does that mean?”

“I don't own her, just as much she doesn't own me.” You said, stroking her fur gently. “We're just roommates who share a very complicated relationship. She's got free rein of the place, does whatever she wants, and I don't question it.” You couldn't help the fond smile that played on your lips as Mona Lisa leaned into your touch, her tail thumping against the floorboards. “And much like other wolves of her species, she is territorial and defends her territory against intruders.”

Price chuckled, “So she's the unofficial security system, huh?”

“More like a bodyguard, but that works too.”

Price laughed, his eyes lighting up as he watched you with Mona Lisa. It was a strange dynamic, but it worked. The wolf had taken a liking to you from the moment she was brought into the penthouse. And she was as protective of you as any of the guys were, maybe more.

Sixteen. You were not an alpha, you were certainly were no quivering omega, and you are not even a fucking beta. What in the name of a metaphorical god are you? With no conclusive, definitive answers to who or what you are. You were left to wander the expanse of earth. Alone. For a time before they came into the picture. You were harsher than the winds of the desert sandstorm, colder than the snowy Ural Mountains, and more elusive than a ghost in a haunted mansion.

You had no pack, no back-up, and with absolute certainty? No way of knowing what you are that made you seem so unapproachable by everyone around you. You didn’t know what made you monstrous to those who had trained you. Whatever it was? They refused to make a lick of sense over it. And before you know it, you were left to rot in the middle of nowhere.

You have a heat cycle which is both intense at times and “Her scent is sweet, tooth rotting levels of sweet, think candy bars and cotton candy. There’s some spice to it, like cinnamon or pumpkin spice in those pumpkin spice lattes Gaz likes to have every Halloween.”

Though there are times when you were in heat, and you barely noticed. Either it was very faint or you were too distracted to particularly pay extra attention.

Your heat is either in intense or faint, it was always a coin flip between the two. Perhaps this is another reason why you don’t fall into any of the three categories of Alpha, Beta, or Omega.

Price caught you looking up quizzes like ‘What wolf are you?’, ‘Are you a true loner?’, ‘Are you an Alpha, Beta, or Omega?’ and ‘Where are you on the omegaverse hierarchy?’

You were still fighting the military to get them to give you your medical results, it was an uphill battle with no mountain to fall onto.

You threw your hands up, exasperated, “Why is it so hard for them to just hand me my own fucking medical records?” You sighed, slumping into the chair at the dining table.

Price shrugged, sitting across from you, “Maybe they think you’re a danger to yourself and others if you find out what you are. Or maybe they just lost it.”

“Their minds or the records?” You quipped, eating a slice of apple from the fruit salad you made for breakfast.

Price chuckled, taking a seat beside you, his gaze lingering on your flushed cheeks, “Could be both, knowing how the military loves to keep its secrets.”

“Like a whore who keep all tips for herself,” Soap grinned, sauntering into the kitchen. He had always had a knack for making everything sound like a double entendre.

“Or CEO of a billion-dollar company who refuses to pay it employees livable wages.” you quipped.

Seventeen. You were meticulous in your guns, specific about certain things like the cleanliness of your rifles, handguns and organising them by type, calibre, use, and then by the date of purchase.

The ammunition is given the same treatment, even if there was back-up stored away somewhere. They were neatly organised too.

You had a knack for knowing where everything was without looking. It was like a sixth sense. You could be in the middle of a conversation and point to the exact spot where a gun was kept. It was unnerving at first especially your memorisation process is basically staring, touching and then memorising the layout. You had a way with the weapons that was almost sensual, a dance of precision and power.

Even the gun oils you used were separated, one for rifles, one for handguns, one for magnums and another for pistols. You had a scent to each of them, and you knew the smell of each like the back of your hand. It was almost a comforting scent, one that filled the air when you were in the penthouse armoury. It smelled like home, like the smell of your mother's kitchen when she was cooking up a storm.

Dividers Credit: @cafekitsune + @strangergraphics

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