Adol Christin

[Name]: Belmont
[Age]: 36
[Contacts]:
♦ DW: n/a
♦ AIM: MadeofNguyen
♦ Plurk: draculabackwards
[Timezone]: EST
[Other Characters]: n/a



[Name]: Adol Christin
[Canon]: Ys series, also augmented by the Ys I and II OAV series
[Age]: 19 (from the canon point I'm taking him from)
[Gender]: Male
[Canon Point]: Post Ys: Oath in Felghana

[History]: The history of the Ys series is lengthy and also still being written. To sum up, according to the overarching series, Adol Christin was an adventurer that lived to a ripe old age and seemed to travel all over the world. So far his travels have been contained to an alternate universe version of earth, specifically to Europa (Europe) and northern Afroca (Africa). However, as narration suggests Adol wrote travelogues of more than 100 volumes, the guy got around! His narratives are described as lively and timeless. On the other hand, because of the kind of upheaval at the core of his adventures, alternate points of history point to Adol being an agent of Chaos, causing unrest wherever he went.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys_(series) – there's a listing of games down the page with separate links to each
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys_(anime)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIoix1sAlwc – Also helpful if you want a prologue to the adventure I'm taking Adol from

Note: the anime series mostly augments the story of the first two games. Also, since Adol is a mostly silent protagonist (his actions are narrated to say things like “Adol explained what had happened to their new party member” or “Adol nodded his assent to Dogi.”), the anime gives him more character that is reflected in future games. He also talks!

[Personality]:

There's a scene in the first OAV series that encapsulates Adol perfectly.

A young Adol is reading an adventure story illustrated with a picture of a lone knight confronting a dragon. His dad comments on how enthralled he is. Adol asks his dad if dragons really exist. His father, humoring him, says yes, but they're in far off lands. Lands where dragons, witches and monsters bring suffering to people. Adol, believing this to be true, comments they must be in real trouble. His dad, now being serious, says “That's true.” Then he adds, “Maybe they're waiting for you to save them.” Adol, brimming with hopes and dreams of youth, says he'll slay some dragons. His father says back that that's a good idea, since he's such a brave boy.

Adol Christin is a man who lives to fulfill his simple boyhood wish of traveling the world and slaying any metaphorical (or otherwise) dragons that oppress people. He left his home at 16, ready to make his way in the world and seek out adventure. Everything is so bright in his world, until the reality of meeting face to face with the kinds of monstrous forces that oppress people slaps him in the face. Then it's not so much fun as reading a story when you're the one who has to travel dangerous lands in search of help for the next leg of your quest. Having had to take a crash course in Adventuring 101, Adol got most of the naivety beaten out of him in the first few battles trying to solve the mysteries of the land once known as Ys.

However, unlike some people starting off a life of adventure, Adol isn't a cocky sort. He's smart enough to know when he needs help or when he needs to learn how to overcome the next obstacle. He started off not even being able to get to the land of Ys as it was across a bay and no ships were willing to sail over. Instead of whining about it, he took a job working for a captain of a ship in the town of Promarock, loading endless supplies and learning all the intricacies of sailing. Because he never gave up his wish to sail across the bay, the captain rewarded him with his own little sailing vessel to start off his adventure.

Because he's willing to listen to what people have to say, Adol tends to find allies and friends easily no matter where he goes. Even if it's just some townsperson wanting to comment on the weather, Adol will stop to listen, absorbing what he hears like a mental sponge. In later adventures, this manifests the willingness to perform quests to help out random people, be it finding rare seeds or taking out giant monsters threatening towns.

If you looked up “determinator” in the dictionary, there really should be a picture of Adol there. Even in the thick of some seriously insane adventures, be it at the top of a tower of demons to fight a demonically possessed sage or an ancient ark threatening to wipe out civilizations with tidal waves, Adol does not give up. If there's anything he can do, he will do it. If there's any way to lend aid to allies and friends, he will ascend towers, sink below the ocean and sail across the sea to accomplish his goals.

With such an attitude, he tends to inspire the people around him to greater acts. It was his arrival into the ancient land of Ys that prompted descendents of the sages to begin to really work together to combat the evil threatening it. It was his actions on the closed off islands of Canaan that earned the respect and an ancient sword of a very prickly tribal chief who usually hated all other humans.

The most unintentional and far-lasting result of Adol's determination to succeed was how it affected the life of a simple thief. In his first adventure, Adol fell into a trap inside a tower, but was freed by a thief named Dogi who broke through a wall with his bare hands. Adol had only met Dogi's acquaintance briefly before, but at the conclusion of his Ys adventure, Dogi gave up his thieving ways and traveled wherever Adol went. They became the best of friends. It was something Adol had never asked for in his life of adventure but now couldn't imagine his life without Dogi.

As close as they are, they're not into each other in a sexual manner. Each adventure manages to bring the pair into contact with new allies and new lady friends. Adol seems to enchant at least one female per adventure, yet he never follows through with maybe getting to know them better. His first and best love is adventure and exploring new lands and given the choice between settling down and courting a woman and taking a trip to a new land, Adol will pick the trip every time. He's quite the chaste fellow, although in his Ys adventure, he grew quite close to a girl named Feena, later revealed to be one of the Goddesses of Ys. They have a sorrowful parting and although Feena never spits out how she feels, at the end of the game, Adol stares off to where both the Goddesses now live, to prevent evil coming back into the land. He never speaks about her after this adventure.

Adol manages to both create and solve whatever problem happens to be plaguing whatever place he's in at the moment. It's never what he or Dogi sets out to do. What they want to do is explore every country they possibly can just to say they're there. While doing so and learning about the people and making friends, they get caught up in their problems. Now knowing there's a huge problem -- be it monsters, a corrupt governor or an island surrounded by a vortex -- Adol, Dogi and whoever they ally with will find a way to help their friends and bring peace to the land. In later years, Adol and Dogi are quite well-known adventurers and their reputation is what ends up getting them involved in the plot of the seventh game. Via the KING of the nation they're staying in, so they aren't just your garden variety adventurers.

As long as there's just another new country begging to be explored, Adol will follow through on his boyhood dream and see just what's beyond the horizon. Whether he meets dangerous enemies or makes lifelong friends like Dogi, Adol accepts it all as the price of a life of adventuring.

[Abilities / Strengths & Weaknesses]: EDITED FOR MODS!

Having traveled great distances in his three years of adventuring, Adol has great survival skills, being able to hunt and live off the land. He can plan accordingly no matter if he's climbing a mountain or slogging through a wetland. He's adept with a sword and shield, no matter that he's self taught.

For all the traveling he does, he's mastered the art of making friends quickly. As he's generally a friendly person, when he's in a town and wanting information or just to see what's going on, people can't help but gravitate toward him.

The man possesses a will of iron and if he's in the middle of an important quest especially for someone close to him, he will not give up. As he's a determinator, he will push himself until he's about spent.

This is also an unfortunate weakness to having that kind of iron will. Adol really doesn't know -how- to give up, even when it would be quite sane of him to do so. Massive injuries and near-fatal encounters are just some of the things he's suffered in the name of fulfilling his quests. In addition, because he's so good at achieving impossible goals, people tend to keep throwing them at him. Adol is very reluctant to fail people he's promised to help so it in turn fuels his need to not give up because God forbid he break a promise without doing everything physically possible. It's difficult for him to say no to the people he cares about, even when it puts him in life-threatening situations.

He's still fairly naive, inclined to believe the best of people until told otherwise OR when it's probably obvious to most people that there's something off about this person. For example, in Oath of Felghana, Dogi gave Chester a chance to stop his evil plans and Adol let him do it. They were friends and Adol wanted to give Chester a chance. Instead, Chester stabbed Dogi and Adol was forced to give Chester magical items that ended up enslaving a castle full of people. Oops.

Because of how far Adol travels and the kinds of things he stumbles into changes countries and lives, he doesn't display a lot of sympathy for the -many- lives, kingdoms and even countries he's thrown into chaos. Although it's (mostly) done for the greater good, that doesn't mean anything to the poor townsfolk whose lives were altered or some cases put in physical danger because of some mission Adol happens to be on.

It's rare but Adol does have a temper. It usually comes into play if by some chance he's managed to fail someone or fail in his quests. Then God help you if you are anywhere near him. His determinator status flips to being completely heedless to personal safety as he goes after whoever caused him to fail, such as in the Ys II OAV.

In spite of being able to know how to sail, bad things tend to happen when he does with alarming regularity. If he's not shipwrecking on the coast of Ys, he's getting blown off a ship by an enemy fleet.

Having left home at 16 to make his fortune and not sticking around to learn a trade, Adol isn't an intellectual paragon by any means. Sitting inside and learning from a book is boring. At the same time, if it's something relevant to where he's going, like sailing, he'll be patient and take the time to learn the skill.

[Limited Powers]:

Although Adol is just a vanilla human, he tends to have the ability to use magic or special abilities in the course of his adventures. It comes from the use of items like wands, rings or magical swords, but he's fairly adept in using magic. So if he picks up some magical treasure, he might have some fun with it, within bounds of the game of course!

[Other Important Facts]: Adol has the tendency to start a lot of his adventures crash-landing or shipwrecking somewhere as a result. Not sure if this might affect whatever crew he happens to be on, but it's an amusing side note.

Adol is often called Adol the Red because of his hair. However, as Adol doesn't refer to himself like this, it might not be mentioned very much.

The chronological order of the series is I, II, IV, III, V, VI and VII in that order. However, as the company is constantly tweaking the older games, which version of what game is canon keeps changing. All the games are self contained, except I and II which are bundled together. Although game IV is before Oath in Felghana, the newest version of IV – Memories of Celceta – was just released two months ago so there's not too many videos to review the game. Each game can be played in any order and basically understood. The characters just might make mention of a previous adventure but not to the point where you're like “what the hell is going on?” Just so if you're wondering why I picked the end of the third game for my canon point.

[Samples]:
♦ Thread: http://reallybadeggs.dreamwidth.org/4314.html?thread=2710490#cmt2710490
♦ Post: Audio
[Before Adol had so abruptly arrived here, he'd been starting a book of his adventures in Felghana. It needed a good title and he really needed Dogi here to collaborate with him. But with that being a bit impossible and with new adventures already upon him, it seemed a good idea to start keeping track of what he found on each new island.]

Today our crew found a new island! We're not sure how big it is yet, but the cove we're staying it is amazing! The water is so deep and blue and there's a waterfall up above that's just the right height to still be safe to jump off. [pause] Not that I was going to.

It's also the fifth day of this journey and we haven't run aground or crashed the ship into anything. [Given his track record, any day not wrecking a ship is a day worth celebrating!]

There are these trees and they kind of sing in the air. No, not sing, but the leaves are like fine crystal and they make a little noise when the wind blows and...argh. This doesn't sound interesting at all! [In his future, Adol ends up writing more than 100 travelogues of his adventures. However, he's still working on that skill at this point.]