RO Contest: Auden

For 's RO contest!

Name: Auden (age 20, hometown Izulde)

Level: 72

Class: Paladin

Personality: Auden means well but that doesn't make him capable of doing the right thing all the time. He comes off as a weak-willed person due to the fact that he doesn't voice what little opinion he has. He is a very thin skinned individual when it comes to receiving criticism or generally negative remarks from others; but at the same time if he is praised or complemented, he becomes eager to do his best and prove his worth (but this is all proportional to the standing of the person saying this, ie: another Paladin's words mean much more then say that of a random child). However, because Auden does not excel in many things, he has come to think the worst of himself and the best of others. Essentially he has trapped himself in a cycle of self-doubt and flickering hopes of attempts to redeem himself. As a result of this, he usually shies away from other people and only interacts with them at the most basic and formal levels (such as talking with shop keepers and the like).
The heavily muddled pecopeco that follows him around is the closest thing to a permanent source of motivation for him. Auden often takes on random, odd jobs in order to earn money to feed the pecopeco and himself. Even though it follows him around loyally, it will only sporadically and whimsically follow anything Auden tries to make it do, such as letting him ride on it. The pecopeco was given to him by his mentor under the basis of "You truly are the worst student I have ever taught, but I have the vaguest sliver of faith in you. Go out into the world and become someone. If you can care for yourself and that steed until that time, then I will consider you my teacher."

Additional Info: Auden's goal in life is to have some sort of accomplishment to be proud of (it would mean he could be accepted by his peers). Despite this, he has done little and gotten no where in terms of that goal. He also lives under a rock in terms of politics and generally what is happening in anywhere but where he is currently standing. He tends to just daydream if there are no pressing matters (or mischevious pecopeco) to attend to. He is very simple minded and wants nothing more then for things to be "normal", but sadly understands that sometimes things don't turn out how they were "supposed to".

Build/Battle: Auden is a very defensive fighter, so he focuses on shield and support skills. He can surprisingly endure a lot of damage but takes exhorbant amounts of time to dish out any sizeable offense consistently. He has a basic sword and shield. If he could afford it, he would carry around two shields (in the fearful case that the one he used broke).

Brief History (wasn't sure if this was needed, so I'm tagging it on anyway!): Auden comes from a large family who is proud of their chivalry and lineage of the sword-mastering class (swordsman, crusader, knight, etc.). He was pressured into "continuing the tradition" and ended up picking crusader (now paladin) for the sole purpose of avoiding disappointment with his family. Another reason would be because it was the only job he did not outright fail at when he was applying for it. From his family's overzealous ideals, Auden has many chivalrous codes and ethics engraved into his poor mind even though he does not have any real interest in knightly behavior, or in his specific case, acting as a warrior of God.

lawlz, people who watch me should have seen this coming. damn is it LONG.

Paladins are hard to draw, GAH- DETAILS!! I found the greys/reds color scheme to be the "best". The pecopeco was ok to draw, the hardest part was finding a reference (WHICH I COULD NOT FIND) so I ended up using the sprite itself. As for the color, believe it or not it is a grey + yellow. And for clarification, RO Auden is slightly different from Advocate Auden (given that RO Auden WAS based on Advocate Auden, I seriously made a pally o_o), the most apparent being that one is... gifited with holy "magic", a pointy object, a shield, the gift of higher angst, a more subdued demeanor (serz!!) and the fact he can take a real beating. The other is a painfully weak human...who wears a lame uniform -andprobablyhasthewordBAITonhimsomewhere- yeah that's about it.

design basis: it's hard to noticably edit something that looks so tediously complex, ie: anything wearing ARMOR. peco peco was a lightened color version of what the ACTUAL sprite looked like when I made the pally somewhat close to the color you see in the pic. I don't know if it was a color glitch, but it looked cool.

image by me
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