Vastion

"I'm not sure a demon is a creature as much as it is a state of being."
Vastion is a well-known character in Ankaa and Worlds Collide. His design originated before Ankaa or even Sollius (though he only made a brief appearance in late Sollius) was made, and it continues to evolve over time. In the Ethona universe he was praised as a abused and sad character. Having been an unwilling puppet of the sinister villain Velcan, who forced him to commit disturbing and sick tasks such as murdering children. In Ankaa Vastion seems to have more control over his life, but has a more mysterious back story that hints at possibly even more terrifying events. He is one of Tokromar's signature characters, alongside others like Tokromar the Orc.

Personality
Outside of battle Vastion is very shy and evasive. He hates eye contact and large crowds of people make him uncomfortable. Having the social skills of a child, he often says or does things that would make the average human uncomfortable. He's the kind of guy that might start a campfire on your lawn without meaning any harm. He often speaks more bluntly than he needs to, unintentionally offending the people he converses with in the process. His tendency to take things literally also causes some trouble, as he often misunderstands what other people try to tell him. This leads some people to believe that Vastion is a bit 'slow', but in reality he is anything but. He has an uncanny sense of perception when it comes to certain matters, and can usually catch on to things before others can.

Vastion's understanding of things like friendship is sketchy and full of guesses. This is somewhat understandable since no one besides his lost mentor Xerxes has ever bothered to try to get to know him, his reclusive lifestyle making it very difficult to do so. Still, despite living a socially deprived life, he is capable of performing acts of awe inspiring kindness. Due to his moral conviction, Vastion is willing to even forgive convicted murderers for their misdeeds, and is willing to protect complete strangers from the various dangers of Ankaa.

Vastion has an incredible amount of patience. He is capable of staying in the same spot for days at a time if he feels he needs to in order to accomplish an objective. He also rarely is offended by anyone, holding true to his belief that letting anger control one's life leads is sinful. On the off-chance that someone manages to anger him, though, it really shows.

Despite Vastion's social ineptitude, he has an intense desire to learn how normal people behave and act. Vastion hopes that in doing so he may come to understand society and learn how to act more normal himself. He attempts to teach himself by following people around and seeing what they do. Stalking people isn't above his moral code, since he doesn't believe it harms anyone.

Having spent most of his living years in the wilderness, Vastion knows quite well how to survive in it. Creating campfires, building shelter out of wood and other materials, and finding his own food are all skills he gained from living so close to nature. He even knows how create herbal medicines and poisons. He actually does better job at surviving in the wilderness than than he does trying to survive in cities filled with grocery stores and water fountains.

Design and Concept
Many of Vastion's mannerisms are derived from social disorders such as asbergers syndrome, and his character is somewhat symbolic of the condition. Vastion himself, does not have asbergers or anything related to the autism spectrum, and some of his more subtle mannerisms reflect that. Overall, he's symbolic of the condition, but does not bear it himself.

Like many characters, Vastion was designed to be a character full of mystery. As the story of Ankaa has moved forward, more and more connections to other Ankaa characters and lore have been revealed, and his origins are slowly becoming more and more clear. The idea is that as this process continues, it will become easier for other players to sympathize and understand his oddball character.

More design notes will be written as the story of Ankaa marches onward.

Stats and Abilites


Vastion has great speed, strength and willpower, which alltogether makes him a very good offensive character. His agility also helps him defensively, as he can simply dodge most attacks and avoid taking damage altogether. Vastion is capable of several athletic feats, such as flipping over opponents and attacking them in the air.

Vastion's abilities are quiite deadly and serve a variety of different purposes. His Ki Detonate ability (a technique known and presumably taught by his foster father Xerxes), can cause anything he grazes with his greatswords to explode in with a charge or orange-colored Ki, disintegrating enemies in the range of the blast, as well as the grazed object. The explosion itself, when looked at closely, is somewhat odd. Rather than appearing as a cloud of bright white, the orange-tinted explosion sharply spikes out in several locations like a group of crystals. Vastion also has an ability that allows him to freeze a single enemy's limb in place by stabbing it, filling with Ki, and solidifying said Ki into a crystal-like state. Vastion can also use Ki to temporarily boost one or more of his stats by charging up a parts of his brain or body with Ki, allowing him to release certain safeguards that the brain imposes on the body, or harden his own body structure. Which stat is effected depends on which part of Vastion's brain/body he decides to power up with Ki.

All these abilities are powerful, but his most powerful ability, and by far the most unusual, is his Infinite Generator, an ability which prevents him from ever running out of Ki as well as allows him to never get exhausted during a fight, allowing him to fight at peak capacity until death. Even if Vastion's loses a limb or obtains some other grevous injury, he will be able to fight on as if he was never even hurt. So far, no one has been able to figure out how this ability exactly works. Not even Vastion himself has a clue. Several people have suggested their own theories on how it works, but none have been proven. For now, Vastion has decided to leave the science of it behind and simply focus on other, more important things.

History
Vastion had a rather odd, obscure childhood. He was raised raised by an old warrior-hermit named Xerxes, who taught him as soon as he became a toddler how to use a sword. He was also told several survival skills, like finding food in the wilderness and how to start a fire. But most importantly, he taught Vastion right and wrong, a concept that all too many people have forgotten. Xerxes, though he was rather cold and strict, cared a great deal for him. He was well aware of the several inhuman traits Vastion carried, such as his horns and animal behavior. It didn't matter to him. He was still a living being with a heart and a conscious. However, he knew not everyone would be that way, so he imprinted upon Vastion's mind the desire to help those who hated him.

A few months after Vastion turned 8 years old, Xerxes disappeared without explanation, leaving Vastion to fend for himself. At first, Vastion couldn't comprehend the fact that the only person he had ever met had basically left him to rot and instead assumed that he would come back someday. He never did, though. Eventually, Vastion decided to move forward, and carry on his life on his own. He held true to all the virtues and teachings that his master taught him, continuing to improve in every one of them.

Since his entire childhood was spent in isolation, Vastion had difficulty even attempting to making contact with people at first. However, as he grew older, he grew more curious of the workings of human society, and began stalking people at a distance. Eventually, he was led to a large city in the northern region of Ankaa. Before Vastion could even enter through the front gate, however, he was chased away by a bigoted couple of guards who noticed the horns on his head. From that moment forward, Vastion realized he would have to be discreet and not draw attention to himself if he were to try to gain access to a city like that again. He managed to do this by tailoring himself a turban, which he still uses today to hide his heritage from the public.

Once Vastion was finally able to gain access to the city, he found the crowds of people bustling in the streets too intimidating for himself to handle. It wasn't until several years later that he learned to overcome his fear of crowds. Even today, Vastion dislikes being amongst large groups of people. Despite Vastion's innate fears though, he found himself enthralled by his own curiosity. He had to learn how these mysterious 'normal' people behaved and acted. He's still learning the basics of it, even today.

Theme Song
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