History

[laodicean]

Frequent/Important Terms:

Daemonblight: Sort of sickness that affects those with trauma/negative emotions as a result of the influence of Malevolence. Turns these humans into beings known as daemons, who are then shunned or killed by the towns and Exorcists, basically. These daemons can have various forms, such as animals, or more human-like in appearance such as Velvet and Rokurou. The only way to cure this is through the Silver Flames, or otherwise known in the later events of Tales of Zestiria, as the Flames of Purification, wielded by Laphicet through his connection with Innominat.

Malakhim: Spiritual beings whom only certain humans used to be able to see, those who had high enough resonance (like a sort of spiritual sense) to see and hear them, until the Advent occurred. Now everyone can see and hear them. They are pretty much slaves, their free will taken from them in order for them to work with the Exorcists to fight for them. Can be a case of always being a malak, or a human reborn as one, and their age can vary from there being child makakhim and adults. Like the seraphim in Zestiria, they get more power through prayer and worship from humans. This is particularly important in Innominat's case, given Artorius has pretty much the whole world worshipping Innominat as a god.

Exorcists: Those with the power to fight daemons. They also wield the power to tether and control malakhim to their will in order to use them for various tasks, mostly to fight and if necessary, sacrifice themselves in battle. The Exorcists are the ones who give malakhim their true name when they get one to make use of, in order to tether the malahim to them. Late into the game they also gain what is known as the power of Armatization, the ability to fuse with their malak and make use of their artes and healing. Though this is dangerous since it is still an experimental arte in Berseria's timeline, unlike the later events of Zestiria. The Exorcists belong to an organization called the Abbey, which focuses on learning more about malakhim and artes in ways to take advantage of their abilities they bring to their tethered Exorcists.

The Advent: The night three years ago where Artorius, the leader of the Exorcists, opened the gate between their world and the other, spreading the ability of Exorcists in being able to see and hear malakhim, and more encounters with daemons. This happened as a result of him sacrificing Laphicet Crowe, Velvet's younger brother, on the Scarlet Night - the night the moon turns red and the path to the other world is easier to open to allow this to happen.

Empyreans: Basically, the greater four -- or in this case, five Lords, the more powerful seraphim (malakhim, in Berseria) that are considered powerful enough akin to being gods during this time. These being:
Eumacia , the seraph of the Earth element.
Amenoch, the seraph of the Water element.
Musiphe, the seraph of the Fire element.
Hyanoa, the seraph of the Wind element.
And Maotelus as the fifth, as leader. Maotelus was preceded by the seraph/malak Innominat, however, who is the one of importance in Berseria's timeline.

The Abbey: The organization bringing together Exorcists, those with the power of resonance to be able to work with and tether malakhim to them. Led by Artorius Collbrande, and instructed under his teachings.

Therion: A particular type of daemon in Berseria. A therion feeds off of other daemons, providing Innominat with power as a result, so long as they remain at their specific points in connection to the earthpulse. Each therion is usually attributed to a particular emotion which causes them to turn to a daemon from the effect of the Malevolence. Innomiat needs eight particular therions in theory - eight different types of Malevolence from them in order to awaken, this includes hatred, despair, greed, conceit, obsession, lust, cowardice, and selfishness. In Velvet's case, this is her hatred and despair, through her having already consumed Seres prior to escaping the prison Island at the start of the game.

Malevolence: Also known as 'impurity', translated to Malevolence in the localization of the game of Zestiria and Berseria. Appears as a sort of purple cloud spreading from characters or animals it affects. Malevolence is basically like the manifested negativity and impurity of humans changing them to hellions or 'daemons' as they are called, in Berseria. Malakhim like Laphicet can also be affected, which is why they need vessels like the Exorcists to protect them from being affected. When this happens, the result for malahim is that they transform to become a dragon, like with Eizen in Zestiria.

Shepherd: In Berseria this is a title given only to one specific person - Artorius Collbrande. In this timeline, rather than it referring to Sorey and his journey to purify the people and land from the Malevolence, Artorius instead is called this - the Shepherd, as the leader of the Abbey and the Exorcists, who all generally serve that same role as Sorey did in Zestiria's events. In Berseria this is accomplished though the Exorcists working together under Artorius's command and teachings, having more of them in comparison to Sorey being the only one in Zestiria. Just like Sorey, these Exorcists and Artorius can form pacts with malakhim/seraphim and later in Berseria's events, even start to figure out how to armatize with their malakhim. One big difference with the Exorcists and Artorius is they don't use the Prime and Sub Lord system that Zestiria uses with Sorey and his seraphim though. The Prime Lord being the first seraphim that Sorey made his pact with, and others that follow pacting with Sorey through Lailah.

The Opening: A red lunar eclipse called the Scarlet Night, occurs every few years. Said to be a gate that connects their world to another. The 'Opening' specifically, is the mentioned and later shown Scarlet Night during which the pregnant Celica is sacrificed, leading her and her unborn child to be reborn as malakhim. This starts the scene for Artorius's later attempts to use this and not let it be in vain through Melchior plotting with him regarding awakening Innominat and using this particular Empyrean's power to restrict the people's free will and thus in theory avoid Malevolence.

Earthpulse - An area of the world where mana is highly concentrated. Mana being akin to something like a power source that characters using magic tap into.

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This particular 'Laphicet' never really had the chance to live, having been ultimately sacrificed before he was born. His mother, Celica, the elder sister of Velvet and Laphicet (Laphi, Velvet called her younger brother), was in a relationship with Atrorius Collbrande. He was a stranger who wandered to their hometown of Aball and she took a shining to him. Time went by and at one point, on one particular Scarlet Night which only happens every few years, daemons showed up. Celica ran, telling Artorius to leave and make sure Velvet and Laphicet were alright. Artorius fights to defend them and keep her safe, defiant, but ultimately, she falls down the cape, her and her unborn child sacrificed under the red moon.

Then, he was reborn as a malak, working under one of the praetor (lower) Exorcists, Teresa Linares. With her, his will was sealed away to make him obedient to her orders. And this means any orders, even such that he would fight and sacrifice himself if she told him to do so. He spends his time following her orders, traveling with her and making use of the library of books the Exorcists have access to while with her.

--

When he encounters Velvet, he instinctively heals her and the others she escapes prison with even though he wasn't ordered to. The fact he initially steals their compass is also a clue to his curiosity about traveling, though he does return it, apologizing for taking it without asking them first. This indicates even amid his sealed free will, he does have some sort of an innate sense of right and wrong.

He ends up getting dragged with the main party when they are trying to escape and steal a boat, Velvet and the others having already been attacked by him at Teresa's orders. Velvet uses this against her, ordering him to attack the Exorcists or she would devour him. He obeys, and is brought with them onto the boat as they flee.

Velvet seems to tolerate him well enough with him initially obeying her every order, to the point of almost endangering himself for not speaking up when he was almost attacked. Things between them improve over time to the point where she decides he needs a name and calls him 'Laphicet' since she is reminded so strongly of her brother with the malak's appearance and personality at times. Laphicet is thrilled at this, the start of becoming his own person in having an actual name. Even if it initially came about with him endangering himself with going after the compass once he dropped it near a monster, causing him to almost fall off a bridge in his rescue attempt of the item. Velvet panics and calls out to him, reaching to save him from falling, before they jump back down from the bridge to the ship to flee once they opened the gates to progress to the capital


They travel towards the capital, Loegress, in Velvet's search for Artorius in getting her revenge. This involves teaming up with a group of pirates to work together to open a gate to get access to said capital, which is how they end up meeting Eizen, the reaper malak and work with him. Once they do get to the capital, Velvet comes close to just outright attacking Artorius in hearing him talk as the new Shepherd about peace and order, but they manage to hold her back from it and instead try to figure out more about the situation, about Artorius and what he had been up to. Hence they find Tabatha Baskerville, a woman running a tavern who is also the leader for a group of, well, merceneries called the Bloodwings, doing all sorts of jobs in exchange for money. Or, in our groups case, information on Atrorius and Eizen and the pirate's Captain who has gone missing.

Given his immediate and obvious fascination with the compass, the group allows him to navigate their way as they travel on missions from Tabatha, burning some stores of medicine the church was selling when they knew it was addictive, or finding someone who had gone missing that was being made to mine the ingredients for that same medicine. Their missions all linked somehow. And that was when and why Tabatha shared more news regarding Artorius and his plans.

They hear information that Artorius is heading to his Throne, so the group head there to confront him with Velvet. Only, this doesn't quite go as they expect, even with Laphicet continuously healing her to keep her going in fighting him. Reinforcements show up to support him, including Eleanor, an Exorcist they encountered earlier who was already beginning to question the Abbey and her role as an Exorcist. Teresa also shows up, furious at Laphicet, and orders him to kill Velvet. He refuses, somehow then tapping into Innominat's power to get them out of there, though trapped in the earthpulse until they find a way out. He's exhausted from this, and starting to be affected by the Malevolence so Velvet reluctantly agrees upon encountering Eleanor that she would help by becoming his vessel. They manage to get out of the earthpulse and rest before continuing on.

Along the way with their travels, they find a particular book Laphicet fixates on and takes from the library of the capital, which turns out to have information around one of the Empyreans, Innominat. They need help translating it, since it is in one of the old languages not really used anymore, so they go to find one of Magilou's friends for help, a Normin malak named Grimoirh. She helps translate it and teaches Laphicet to as well, since it is one he found and he seems so interested. They translate part of it, which talks of Innominat as a dragon with multiple heads, being connected to a therion at each of these points at the earthpulse, consuming their Malevolence to awaken himself. Basically, the therions, Velvet included, while she was in prison for three years following the events in Aball, would devour daemons, and Innominat would then tap into that subsequent energy and Malevolence for himself from this, so long as the therions stayed in that particular area.

So, as these guys are not the most Goody Two Shoes bunch, they head off to each of these points under Laphicet's guidance with his compass, defeating these therions and kidnapping them to their base so they can't be used to awaken Innominat. This does cause the problem of the Malevolence no longer being contained or siphoned off to Innominat, which causes the citizens of that area to be overwhelmed by the Malevolence and turn into Daemons though. But Velvet does not care because this is still messing with Artorius and his plans so she considers this worth it. Even if Artorius might have noble intentions of trying to help humanity, they cannot abide by the methods he's doing it - in suppressing humanity's free will in order to maintain peace. And well, Velvet still is kind of furious so she still wants to kill him anyway.

During this, they realize that they needed to use the Exorcists in order to use them as vessels in awakening the Four Empyreans. Specifically, Oscar, Shigure - Rokurou's brother, Melchior - the mastermind behind it in teaching and encouraging Artorius, and Teresa - Oscar's sister. Unfortunately, Teresa becomes a therion in her protectiveness and desire to help her brother, Oscar. But Velvet still devours her, both of them, to maintain their power she will need to awaken the Empyreans.

On the way, they are affected by another of Melchior's illusionary artes. A cruel one revolving around Velvet's brother and the rest of her village still being alive. This both upsets and enrages Velvet when she finds out, more so when she's treated to seeing events of the actual past around how Celica met Artorius, how her brother offered himself to Artorius to help awaken Innominat, knowing he only had maybe two years left to live at that point. This pretty much breaks her, and when confronted by Innominat in her brother's body, she seems resigned to being devoured by him. Except that Laphicet protests, clinging to her arm to keep her to him, yelling at her to help her snap out of it, causing her to fall out of that state of despair.

But they do their best even after this, heading to face down Artorius and find their way to him for a proper confrontation, once they do their part in attempting to awaken the Empyreans besides Innominat. The group are still resolved to do their part to help Velvet, for various reasons, so they face off against the Shepherd, who uses the arte to armatize with Innominat in battle against them. But this isn't enough to deter or defeat the group. The party is resolved to finish this and manage to take him down, Velvet dealing the final blow before dealing with Innominat. Innominat can't handle being free, without a vessel, and she and the rest can't outright kill him without risking Laphicet, given the two are connected, so Velvet seals herself away with him. Reunited with her brother once more, sharing her Malevolence with him from her demonic arm to nourish him and keep him somewhat contained.

Unfortunately, this also means there needs to be a replacement for Innominat, the Four Empyreans explain, once they awaken finally, and they say only a particularly strong malak would manage it. Laphicet thinks, debating what Velvet told him about wanting him to live, against the need to help and offers himself up as a replacement instead. This causes him to awaken as an Empyrean in dragon form, the one known as Maotelus, granting the world the gift or blessing of his 'Silver Flames', otherwise known as the Flames of Purification, in order to help give the world, the daemons and therions, a second chance. However this comes at the cost of lowering the level of the humans resonance, so now only those with particularly strong resonance can see and hear daemons or malakhim. He decides that Laphicet doesn't fit with his new status and appearance, so asks to now go by his True Name that Eleanor gave him. The one with the same meaning as 'Laphicet' but in the Ancient Tongue - Maotelus, 'One Who Lives'.