#florian would only do shit like that for his best friend. naielle would do that for damn near anyone she trusted

[isaacathom]

on naielle odelia, florian de kasimir, and the idea of sacrifice

naielle is a celestial warlock. she's a backliner, a combination support and damage.

florian is a man at arms, a soldier, armed with sword and shield. a front liner, a tank, a consistent damage dealer.

being in the front lines means risk is always present. and florian considers it his duty, his obligation, to remain. he considers the idea of fleeing first to be a violation of his job.

he is deeply afraid. he always is. but he has to be the first and final line of defence.

when he was killed, time froze, and he saw the state of his friends, battered and near death. he saw the monster that stood before them.

he had once taken great umbrage with a man who had made an ill-thought out deal with the devil.

and when push came to shove, and the devil held out his hand, florian took it. because if he didnt, his friends would die. it wouldve been a waste.

naielle's devil hangs over her head, a sword of damocles. you are a healer, aren't you? the front line will fall without you. you must run in, and you must help them.

her devil is not her patron. her devil is herself.

florian is constantly aware of the danger he is in, and considers himself illsuited to all of it, and simultaneously suited to nothing else. all he can be is a sharp object pointed at a villain. when mauled near death, watching the party's witcher fall, he ordered the retreat, and unable to stand still tried to protect the party doctor's spirit.

naielle forgets her own risk. she sees the threat posed to someone else, the blood that issues forth, and she sees the solution held in her hands. she would be a failure not to administer it. withholding the cure from the dying would go against everything she tries to believe and hold herself to. she does not balance it with the idea that her premature death might leave things worse. its the now, now, now.

she'll defend the man defending her, even if he says she shouldnt.

when the mission came down to it, and the devil's plans laid bare, florian considered it his moral duty to lay down his life. he could not stomach to kill the woman who had brought him here, to betray her so utterly. but for the party priest, he paused. because to give up himself, to act as Emelia's final defence, he would doom the priest. The two would either die at the traitors hands, or by a devil collecting on unkept promises.

he couldnt sacrifice himself to doom another, to doom a man in service to a woman he hadn't met and owed no alleigance too. florian could not demand that of him, and thus could not give of it himself, much as he wanted to.

he was forced to live, and to see her die, and to know he'd failed.

naielle hasn't reached that crux yet. the mountains peak lies high above, and many descending tracks offer solutions from this vantage, though they may lead simply to deep ravines.

for her to give herself to her patron, to play the numbers game, she would save many. she would damn herself, damn her sister, damn her twin brother, her wife, her mother, her father. all the people she's met and known, ill and well, would be hurt. depending on the relationship, on the timing, she might even kill them.

but naielle would play the numbers game. its an easy game at that scale - a world, or an elf? she'd like both. but maybe her goal, to do good, necessitates giving up the opportunity to see that good done, and only to know it was.

after his betrayal, he heads north. he has loose ends to attend to. peoples lives to try and fix. a war to join. he expected to die in that war, as he expected to die in that manor, as he did in that forest, as he thought the griffin might, like the previous war had thought to.

he doesnt die. the war spits him out, like it had before.

and he stands on a rural farm, holding out tools for the farmer reparing the fence, and he wonders:

why did he always try to throw it away?

[isaacathom]

i had an (unintentional) week off from my ttrpgs, so i havent been like. deep in the space of my ocs. but i am doing my little red string connections between them and going man. i love the variety of their moral vibes and how "good" they are.

like, naielle wants to be a good person, and do good. And she's so intent on that goal, and so sure of what being good means (even if she couldnt define it for you) that she's extremely critical of whether her actions measure up. In her measure, she doesn't, because she focuses on her failures. And like, yeah. She has a streak of being almost maliciously petty re: what she perceives as a significant betrayal, and her circumstances make her have to sort of "stoop" to the level of the fuckers she deals with. but she cannot recognise her kindness and the care she shows for the people around her. Like... she's friends with the most other pcs, and I know that she's one of the people that the Commodore trusts a LOT, and that she has earned it. she doesn't! she won't! she's great!

There's nothing interesting to say about Zimri, except that they're basically like... a lot more blase about ends justifying means. despite that, they've probably done Less Fucked Up Stuff than naielle has??? which is very funny. Zimri's not consumed with a desire to be good, only to do right - solving problems they have the power or obligation to deal with (ie one they created). So the whole business with ~the fucker~ is an obligation, with some side objectives, and it might be Good, but. yknow. im fixing something. good arises from a solver problem.

Florian is where the contrast is fun. Because Florian thinks he's a bad person. He's been painted as something like a brute his whole life, his primary skill is simply Hitting Shit Hard, he's not the kind of son his family would want, whatever. He's not worth it. He's good at his one thing, and maybe he can do good using that skillset, but he's just trying to survive. And he's wrong!!! He's a good person! He's fiercely protective of his friends and of people he views as innocent (especially children). He presents himself as motivated by practical concerns, but he regularly intervenes for other reasons. Like, he fucking volunteered the group to fight two fucking cyclopses, because they'd been terrorising a town. my guy.

the sort of vibe of the contrast between him and naielle, particularly, is that the one most concerned with doing good is the one struggling most with it, both because she simply has access to Too Much Fucked Shit, and because she really can never live up to her idea of what a good person is. Her journey is doomed to fail in that way, because it won't ever be enough. And Florian, who outwardly claims to not give a fuck, and certainly has no qualms with getting his hands dirty and fucking up people, has such a strong moral centre that he's basically immune to giving a shit about it, and is doing GREAT. if he fucking. reflected on himself for a second, instead of offhandedly rejecting any compliment or statement about his leadership made by the party, he'd KNOW that. but he told himself he wouldn't care YEARS ago. and that's been surprisingly liberating for him.

Similar to Zimri, I guess? When an overly critical concern over 'goodness' is ignored in favour of Getting Shit Done, it lets him. yknow. actually do more good? i guess? as a character. i am not making blanket statements about morality.

its just a funny comparison! naielle cares so much and she'll never win, and that traps her in disappointment. florian cares so much and knows he'll never win, and that enables him to just do his best.

its so good. i love these dipshits