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[cspd]

APPLICATION

Player Name/Handle: Sam
Plurk Handle: atkascha
Preferred pronouns (optional): she/her
Player Status: new
Other characters: n/a
Invited by: Korel

Character Name: Lloyd Bannings
Fandom: The Legend of Heroes: Trails series
Character Journal: cspd
OU, AU, CRAU, Canon OC, or OC? OU
Canon point: In between Trails of Cold Steel 2 and Trails of Cold Steel 3.
Age: 19
PB: n/a

SETTING BACKGROUND
Trails takes place in a fantasy world that's currently going through an accelerated kind of industrial revolution. Since the discovery of orbal energy, generated from a mined mineral called septium, technology on the continent of Zemuria has zoomed forward over the past fifty years, from a basically medieval world to one that's tinkering with a developing internet. As a result, the tech level can be hilariously hodgepodge, with people living all over the spectrum.

Crossbell, the state Lloyd's story is primarily concerned with, is a small buffer state between two large feuding nations, the Erebonian Empire and the Republic of Calvard, and beholden to both, as it's considered to have both Erebonia and Calvard as suzerain states. While its position has made it a hotbed of technological development and the most important trade center in West Zemuria, Crossbell also suffers from corrupt government and the pressure of two nations determined to take full control of it (and its economic potential). On top of that, there's a shady secret society pulling strings behind the scenes, with unclear motives and a keen interest in ancient artifacts with the power to change the very fabric of the world...


PERSONALITY
Having grown up in the shadow of a talented, outgoing brother, Lloyd is used to comparisons. In fact, he makes a lot of them himself. A lot of characters in Crossbell knew Guy, and a lot of conversations open with "oh, Guy's little brother!" Ilya actually nicknames him "little bro." On some level, Lloyd is probably always going to be Guy's Little Brother, and it's a good bet that fact bears at least some responsibility for how Lloyd turned out - a little more quiet than his brother, a little more serious, and possessed of a tendency to frequently question whether he's doing the best job he can do.

Where they're alike, though, is in a mutual refusal to give up no matter what the odds. As an old foe tells Lloyd when they're imprisoned together, Guy wasn't the best at a lot of things. There were smarter people in the force, people better at spotting the small clue, or asking the right question to get a suspect to cave - but where Guy excelled above all others was in sheer persistence. When he was on a trail, he never let go (and he was on the trail of the conspiracies Lloyd winds up unraveling, and stopped only by his death).

Lloyd listens patiently, thanks his old enemy, and then tells him to hit him, so they can fake a fight to get their cell door open and he can fight his way out of jail with a pair of pipes as makeshift tonfa.

So there's more of Guy in him than one might think. Randy observes near the end of the first game, that despite seeming calm and serious, Lloyd is actually a seriously hot-blooded guy. And while he favors rational action in most cases and we usually get him being the straight man and voice of reason to his more outlandish co-workers, when he decides that drastic action is the only way out, you better look out, because he plows straight into things like a bulldozer and doesn't stop.

It's worth noting here that this is sometimes to his detriment: most notably, before KeA changed the timeline, Lloyd led his team in after the big bad and all of them were killed. Lloyd is smart, and usually makes reasonable decisions, but he has failed, and failed badly. He doesn't always manage to keep his party together by sheer conviction; Noel initially sides with the government in the independence crisis, and Lloyd has to win her back over. Randy initially ignores Lloyd's protag here-for-you crap and goes out to try and settle matters with the Red Constellation on his own (and gives Lloyd an earful about the recklessness of Lloyd leading the team to chase after him).

What helps is that he's good at recognizing when he's done badly and where he can improve. He does have confidence in his abilities and he isn't selling himself short - but he also recognizes where others are better at something or where he can still improve, because it's important to have a realistic grasp on your abilities.

He's sharp and observant about most things, but he is incredibly dense in one particular area, and that area is women. Romantic entanglements aren't high on his priority list, and while he's not oblivious to female charms, he doesn't always seem to realize how he's coming off in response. The problem is that Lloyd is extremely earnest most of the time - his teammates regularly hassle him about his cheesy inspirational speeches, which he always makes with utter sincerity. As such, Lloyd's problem with women seems to largely stem from the fact that when he gets really earnest about their friendship, and how he's there to support them, and the like - it frequently can read as a come-on, even if he just about never actually intends it to.

His earnest desire to Do Good is sometimes a little bit over the top, but his eyes aren't closed to the evil in the world - while Lloyd makes the greatest efforts to bring the masterminds of the conspiracies he foils alive and in one piece, he doesn't get into heroic dramatics about how killing them will make him Just Like Them. (Rather, he wants to bring them in alive so they can stand trial and have all their misdeeds and corruption exposed, which is idealism of a different sort, really.) He's pretty chill about eventually winding up working with yakuza and assassins to end the chaos in Crossbell. While he does take some heat from other characters for being idealistic, Lloyd is more realistic than he's sometimes given credit for. He knows the system has a lot of problems, but he still believes he can do good within it, and maybe be a force for change instead of another cog in a corrupt machine.


CANON POWERS
The Trails brand of JRPG Magic™ is known as orbal arts, and can be used via a device called an orbment that is set with some combination of quartz - the combination determining the spells usable, and also having effects like boosting stats and doing random shit like improving the minimap or changing the probable results of an attempt to cook. Naturally, the setting change will reduce his fancy magic-summoning device to a snazzy paperweight.


POWER SELECTION
POWER TYPE
Magic!

GAME POWERS
Magic: Seer

Detect Magic: When this spell is cast, Lloyd will perceive enchantments in effect as a glowing aura around nearby objects in a twenty-foot radius. He'll also be able to tell in general terms what kind of magic they are - i.e. which mage archetype the spell is from, for in-setting magic, or if they're from outside the setting completely. (Leveling the spell will let him further refine his ability to perceive the actual effects of the spell at level two, and the identity of the caster at level three.)

Undo Magic: Enables Lloyd to undo illusions or unenchant objects. He can undo magic of a similar level to the spell without ill effects; he can try and sometimes succeed at undoing something larger, but the bigger the spell he's trying to undo, the greater the chance of magical backlash in the process. (Kind of like pulling on a rubber band; if he pulls too hard and it breaks, he's likely to hit himself in the face with it. Hard.)

Compel Truth: Can be cast on an individual to compel them to speak only the truth for twenty minutes (time of effect lengthens as the spell levels). Nebulous answers or answers that are technically true but potentially misleading are still possible, but outright falsehoods will die before they leave the target's mouth.


ABILITIES
- Lloyd's a normal guy, but he's in good physical shape and a capable fighter. His preferred weapon is the tonfa, but the presence of a punching bag in his room suggests he knows something about hand to hand.
- He's a trained detective, so he both knows the law (...of his own world, anyway) and knows how to reason through a situation and pick up on small clues.
- For some reason his cop training apparently included survival training, of the "get dumped in the woods with almost no supplies and survive for a week" sort, which is questionably useful when your beat is Crossbell City, but yeah, that happened.
- He has learned how to drive! This is worth mentioning since it's not yet a common skill in his canon; cars are still fairly new and it's a big deal and a sign that the SSS has finally been Accepted when they're assigned their own patrol car.
- He's a good fisherman, a pretty decent cook, and plays a mean game of Puyo Pop.


SAMPLES
Network Sample
one and two from a previous game!


ADDITIONAL INFO
Two possessions he would have on him, that I would like to retain:
- His notebook. It's a pretty normal notebook! Just has a lot written in it, and a couple of family photos shoved in the front.
- His tonfa. They're not magical; there is a mechanism that can be activated to put a jolt into a strike (kind of like a low-power taser built into the tips), which would not work in-game at least initially but he might try to see if a magical equivalent can be worked out, given enough time. (Doesn't even have to succeed, honestly, I just think it could be an interesting point for the magical nerds in the party to play with!)