#tomorrow...nettie! in half an hour...hyrule warrior

[romijuli]

Goswin intro...redux!!!!

Once upon a time Chel made a one-off lad for a fic. He was supposed to be a joke, a butt monkey. Something went wrong; I’d like to say it was dnd but tbh I liked him before that. Now he’s here. Get ready for a doozy; he’s arguably MOST in need of a redo and also he gets an extra section because I have lost control of my life.

DQXI Spoilers abound, baby!

PROLOGUE

Cities rarely fall with all of their citizens still within their walls, and this rings true for Zwaardsrust as well. The king fell, because monsters with a leader often beeline for whoever’s in charge, and the knights fell, laying down their lives to protect His Majesty and whatever civilians they could, but a number of nobles and commonfolk alike escaped the crumbling walls into the vast unknown.

Goswin knows nothing of this, because Goswin was not yet born when Zwaardsrust fell, but it haunts his parents, haunts his older sister, and somehow still haunts him and his younger sistes, as so many tragedies haunt those left behind.

Goswin was raised within the walls of Sniflheim, studying in the academies that dot the city, aiming for the kingdom’s greatest university. With a keen eye for learning and a deep-rooted love for the many mysteries surrounding Erdrea, he was considered a shoe-in for any academic program he had his eyes set on, even if his nervous, quiet demeanor made him a target for the crueler children.

And then, one fateful day not long after his fourteenth birthday, one of the aforementioned crueler children picks the wrong moment to mess with him, and suddenly Goswin’s mind is clouded with an unfamiliar, genuinely-terrifying rage. And while the bully is quickly scared off by Goswin’s sheer anger—not to mention the swirls of strange red energy creeping up his arms—it leaves the little researcher boy himself more than a little afraid.

No amount of research turns up anything to explain whatever that rage was, and as time passes it only grows stronger and stronger. He enrolls in university at age eighteen, makes it to one class—and is suddenly overcome with a rage so strong he drops out entirely, setting out on the road to ensure he can’t hurt anyone else, especially those he cares about. Perhaps the world outside of Sniflheim will provide him the knowledge he seeks…or, at the very least, something interesting to research.

And so, after a year or two on the road, he finds himself in the tourist town of Phnom Nonh with nothing but an axe (for protection!), his many notebooks, and the clothes on his back, seeking out the source of their prized mural’s power. And when a certain little girl approaches him, claiming that she too dealt with rages like his only to be cured by the mural’s power, well, perhaps that’s the solution he was looking for!

WITHIN THE PARTY

As luck would so have it, his visit to Phnom Nonh coincides almost perfectly with the arrival of a certain Luminary in the town, looking for any sort of lead in their orb search. Not long after his run-in with Dora, he runs into Eleven and company, who lost track of her while looking for her parents. As anxious as he is about dealing with people, especially with his…condition…he agrees to team up with them to search, leading them into the mural’s chambers and, inevitably, transporting them into the Other Side.

Perhaps because of the party’s presence, or because he’s not an idiot, Goswin resists whatever weird compulsory-worship nonsense Dora-in-Grey exudes and proves himself to be a worthy ally in combat, even if he is a bit…overzealous at times. With Dora dispatched and the discovery that Goswin’s last hope—er, research has been destroyed, he decides to come along for the ride for three reasons: one, that whatever turned Veronica into a child is certainly a valuable substitute; two, because Eleven’s Luminary powers definitely qualify as Cool Research Material, and three, because Eleven is nice and Erik is pretty and Goswin is a gay disaster.

(And four, because they’re strong enough to take him out, should his mystical rage overtake him. But he won’t say that. And besides, his rage seems to be sated by monster battles, so he’ll likely be fine.)

Most of their journey is relatively peaceful (well, comparatively so, anyway), before they enter the First Forest and his rage fails to calm after a fight, leading to him turning on his party members. When confronted, he tells the party of his particular problem, and they promise to help him find the solution as soon as the Lord of Shadows is taken care of.

Guess how THAT goes.

Goswin finds himself in Gondolia, helping to solve their fish issues (fish-ssues?) in the wake of Alizarin’s sea tyranny and attempting to subdue his rage before he hurts more people. The party (read as: Eleven, Hendrik, Rab, Sylv and I guess Terra) winds up picking him up before heading to Zwaardsrust, where the rage becomes stronger and stronger…

Searching the ruins, since this is where his family lived and perhaps they could trace the source to that, they discover a mural (of course) detailing a long-passed encounter with a particularly powerful monster that, with its dying breath, cursed the bloodline of the knight who defeated it. Their lead acquired, they find the lingering spirit the monster left behind, slaying it for good and…not freeing Goswin from the rage so much as allowing him to control it, not unlike Jade’s Revamp ability.

Honestly, the jump back in time doesn’t affect his story too much; sure, the party is far less surprised at his inability to calm after that fight in the First Forest, and they have an inkling on where to go, but much like the Gloomnivore fight, it’s kinda…the same, if a bit Nastier on the monster’s end.

As an aside: if this were Definitive Edition and you chose to shack up with Goswin, his Tor cutscene would be very explicitly romantic, because Goswin is a gay disaster and if you chose to live with him you are both aware and on board with it.

MONSTER SQUAD:

In a different world, Goswin got there a bit too early, swept up into Dora’s mural and inevitably rescued by Team Luminary. Who get promptly scared off by Doroterra, thus ruining his chances of More Sweet Research. Despite his frustration, and his immediate fright at her hands, he ends up traveling alongside her (and the teacher who insists on babysitting them).

The specifics of his particular story, honestly, play out largely the same, just without being there when Yggdrasil dies. It’s about the found family and the interpersonal relationships. Besides, that’s probably not what you came to this for, given that a) it’s mostly detailed in Terra’s anyway and b) the next section exists.

GOSWINARY:

Perhaps, in a different life, the Luminary was born in Zwaardsrust, and perhaps that Luminary survived and was found in Cobblestone. Perhaps, in that universe, Dundrasil survived, with its crown prince thriving in the palace, visited at least once a month by his older-sister-in-spirit, the Princess of Heliodor.

A princess who is slowly becoming very suspicious of her father, just in time for said Luminary to arrive to present himself to the king.

She recruits Dundrasil’s Prince Eleven, as well as a thief named Erik with a supposed destiny to find and help the Luminary, to help her find the poor boy before he gets himself thrown into the dungeons. And thus, country boy Goswin gets thrown into the wildest ride of his life.

They were told there’d be a lot more lightning, but all he get really do is go into some sort of magically-charged rage state, and even that isn’t really controllable. There are more than a few mysteries to this particular Luminary…unfortunately, you have to wait until I actually make it to Goswinary. My apologies. If it helps…non-sexyfied Jade, not-villain Jasper and yes-villain female OC?

COMBAT:

Goswin would really rather not fight unless he has to—at first, anyway—but he does have weapons to use: axes (finally, another axe-wielder) as well as his notebooks. (This game doesn’t have enough joke weapons.) Erik also teaches him boomerangs!

As far as magic goes, Goswin has none; whatever magic he would have is fueling the rage thing, augmenting his natural strength at the cost of rational thought. He can do cool things with it, that’s for sure, but most of that comes after his arc is finished.