Zy-Dur and Brightshadow, An Aspirant Knight and Their Apparatus

 Zy-Dur and Brightshadow, Aspirant Knight and Their Apparatus

Zy-Dur is young but gifted qy, trained as an aspirant knight avowed to the cause of Qy Court itself.  The expectation had been for them to join a squadron of Court Dragoons on attaining knighthood, but at the last minute they were instructed to join their current mixed Nexus as an emissary instead.  Although obedient to the Court, Zy-Dur has also sworn the traditional vows of the Aether Knight and regards them as inviolable.  To date no complications have arisen due to these dual loyalties, but the time may come when the young knight must make some difficult decisions.

Like many qy, Zy-Dur comes across as cool and calculating on first meeting them.  This isn't wholly an inaccurate description, but anyone who knows the young knight for long will realize that there's one subject that they aren't calm about at all.  Zy-Dur loathes the oghdra for what the creatures have done to all qy, and to Eskhara Herself.  They'll take any opportunity to battle oghdra and will always push their Nexus to accept quests aimed at both oghdra remnants and the mad cultists of the Chitin Conclave.  It's one of the few things the otherwise restrained qy is emotional about, although they're usually ashamed at their "irrational behavior" after the fact, no matter how heroic it may have been at the time.

Visuals: Zy-Dur is a slender young qy organic, barely old enough for their medial limbs to have fully formed.  When outside of a tether pod it favors loose-fitting hooded white robes marked with simple geometric patterns in shades of blue.  Like many of its kin, Zy-Dur is something of a arcanotechnophile and is usually festooned with gadgetry tucked away in concealed pockets or disguised as rings and other ornaments.  In personal combat the young knight relies on elegant fighting knives balanced for throwing and aether-bound to return to the hand on command, but occasionally carries a bulky personal cannon for long-range work.

Zy-Dur's 'Ratus Brightshadow is a gleaming mirror-bright figure of polished chrome and metallic cyan blue.  The graceful war-machine has been entrusted to Zy-Dur by the Qy Court and the youthful qy takes pride in the Dragoon frame's pristine condition.  They spend a great deal of time in the maintenance bays after any battle, ensuring any damage is fully repaired.  Brightshadow is armed with a slender rapier-like sword and a potent longarm caster.

 

Knight: Zy-Dur     Kin: Qy     Frame: Dragoon     Moniker: Brightshadow

Stone	Flux	Aether	Hearth
13	14	10	9
Energy	Armor Die	Damage Die	Nexus Die
10	D8	D8	D8

Augments: 

• Koradium Heart (Machine Soul) - When you roll despair on a test, you may choose to reroll that test but must take the second result.

Boons:

• Summon Fissure - As an Interaction, create a temporary Aethereal fissure at your location.  Roll your Nexus die.  At any point, you and any engaged knights can travel back to the location of the fissure.  The fissure fades away after you teleport this way or after you use this boon again.

Frame Abilities:

• Aetherwind Form - As a Maneuver, shift into Aetherwind form.  You become aloft.  In addition, while aloft you have favor on tests made to avoid attacks and may move an additional span while shifting, but also reduce your damage by -2.  End this form and the aloft condition as a Maneuver. 
• Relentless Charge - If you take a Maneuver and Strike in the same turn, deal +2 damage.

Kin Ability: 

• Bend Aether - As an Interaction, roll your Nexus Die and choose one of the following effects:  Grant another knight favor on their next Aether or Hearth test, or mark a foe.

Nexus Surge: 

• Fissure Phase - You and each engaged or adjacent knight may phase.  If you do, until the end of your next turn you take no damage or conditions from foes, and inflict no damage or conditions in foes in return.

Weapons:  

• Blade - Deal critical damage on rolls of 1 or 2.
• Caster - If you destroy a foe, deal any excess damage to a foe engaged with it.

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Design Notes:

This Dragoon build will be focusing on mobility and utility early on, staying on the move as much as possible to get the big damage bonus from Relentless Charge.  Getting aloft and staying there makes this easier, and dealing with other flying foes should be a priority.  Having favor on defensive tests will help your durability a lot, although your armor's not bad either.  Machine Soul will largely prevent you from rolling despair, making it safer to operate in skyborne terrain and improving all your tests a bit.  Summon Fissure can be used to either to provide a getaway route if Zy-Dur gets overextended, or to ferry slower allies around by flying to a key location, opening a fissure, then sprinting back to meet the ground-bound knights and teleporting them en masse.

Ranged combat will be the order of the day while aloft, but there will be times when staying on the ground for the increase damage output may be a better choice.  Your kin ability will mostly be useful for marking foes (usually for other knights with higher damage output), although any round you do so you'll lose out on Relentless Charge.  Once the AP start coming in your options will expand some, but at this point it's mostly fly-and-shoot, fly-and-shoot with the occasional big repositioning trick.  No other frame and precious few foes can match a Dragoon for speed, so exploit that when you can.