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PLAYER
✧ NAME: Gene Karma
✧ LJ USERNAME: magicgenetek
✧ CONTACT (EMAIL, AIM, MSN, PLURK, ETC.): plotdesigner @ gmail, aim, plurk
✧ CURRENT MUSE LIST: n/a
CHARACTER
✧ NAME: Kefka Palazzo
✧ SERIES: Final Fantasy VI
✧ HISTORY:Once upon a time, in a world the gods of magic blessed with magic and war thousands of years ago, an evil empire was trying to take over the world. A way of pulling magic from sentient magical beings (“espers”) and sticking it into humans was devised by said empire and they made Magitek Knights with this. The first one of these knights, Kefka Palazzo, had something go horribly wrong with this and he slowly turned violent, mood-swinging and pun-happy. The Emperor, who could recognize a golden opportunity when he saw one, turned Kefka into his dirty-work minion and sent him all over to do his, well, dirty work while prepping him as a scapegoat and using him to scare the army into behaving. Kefka wasn’t too happy about being a minion, but recognized that working for the Empire was the only way of attaining the goal he’d found when the magic infusion went wrong: find the gods of magic and join them.
So Kefka went on his merry way, sucking the life out of old espers for more magical power, brainwashing young women with science (Terra), arguing with one general about the ethical use of magics (Leo) and adoring the other for being a magical warrior of death (Celes), pushing scientists in banana suits who did experiments on espers to do even more experiments to get more magic out of them (Cid), terrorizing populations and being unpleasant in general until the game started.
Kefka’s young brainwashed woman vanished while on a mission to capture a new esper, and reports had her fleeing to join the rebellion against the Empire’s imperialistic goals (the Returners.) Kefka was sent to go bring Terra back, which mostly amounted to him whining about how his job sucked, threatening royalty unless said Terra was returned, and then setting the royalty’s castle on fire when nothing else was working and dancing in the flames. At this point, the castle unset itself on fire by sinking underground, Terra got away with the rebellion, Kefka’s minions were killed and Kefka was left to yell futile epithets at the desert.
The next plan went a little better. The Empire was caught up in a battle with Doma, originator of the Returners, but the Esper was in Narshe. The Emperor figured they’d need to go get that esper from Narshe with troops needed in Doma, so he sent Kefka to Doma to end the war fast while luring the more pacifistic General Leo away. Kefka won the war by poisoning the entire damn castle of Doma, including imperial POWs and civilians, although not before having his nose almost punched through his face by a monk who showed up out of nowhere. Also around this time, General Celes decided that an empire that poisoned everyone was not one she wanted to work with and defected.
And having finished all the things, Kefka got an army and marched on Narshe to get that esper. And when he got there, so was Celes and the Returners, and he was happy that he’d be able to drag that traitor back to the Empire until his army was wiped out and his ass kicked, at which point he fled while screaming more epithets.
And when Celes and the rebels snuck into the Empire’s evil labs to save the Espers, Kefka attempted to stop them and succeeded in making them think Celes was double-crossing them to the Empire, but then Celes teleported Kefka and his new minions away and the ‘murder the rebels’ plan fizzled. Kefka managed to sic some cranes on the escaping heroes and their stolen imperial espers, but the Returners defeated the cranes and so his life was terrible.
The emperor sent Kefka to follow the Returners when they headed to find the hidden home of the Espers, because apparently the entire plan was for Terra to join the Returners and find the hidden home. Kefka did what he was told and prepared to fight the Returners to get into the secret home, only for the sheer power of the enraged espers within to stun him into a panic, then get blown off a cliff. By the time he dragged himself back to the Empire, the espers had pretty much nuked everything except the Imperial Palace and the Emperor and Kefka was placed under arrest as a scapegoat for all the Empire’s crimes. He spent the next few days sulking in prison and complaining about how bored he was to anyone who got in earshot.
Of course, once the Emperor got the Returners to go get the remaining espers to not blow up the rest of the world, Kefka was let out of jail to go kill and power suck said espers. It went just as planned: Kefka killed his rival Leo and power-sucked the espers and threw a burning a town to ashes party, then helped the Empire yoink up a Floating Continent with the gods on it so they could take over the world! And he didn’t kill the Returners at the burning town party because…uh. He was under orders to spare Celes for the Empire’s creepy plans and saved the rest because he couldn’t bother to kill such weak people. Yes.
The Returners followed them again, of course. Celes showed up to try and stop her ex-countrymen once and for all; the Emperor offered her a chance to return, at which point she stabbed Kefka and told them both to jump in a lake. Kefka freaked out and demanded that the gods let him join them, and the Emperor decided to cut his losses and kill Kefka before he ruined the take over the world bit by destroying said world. Kefka responded by having the gods mortally wound the Emperor, then punted him off a cliff, then start powering up the gods, at which point the Returners split up-a ninja stayed to try and stop Kefka while the rest got off the Floating Continent before Kefka blew it up. This failed.
And so Kefka became a god and blew the world up. The continents were rearranged and plants and animals died whenre they weren’t warped with magic. Humans lived on, although some despaired and others lived happily just to spite Kefka. And Kefka lasered a few towns but mostly sat around on his Tower ruling and chilling out with his minions.
Eventually, the Returners teamed back up to take him down since that would fix the world, killing off everything in the Tower until they got to Kefka, at which point:
Kefka: Hi everyone I’m so happy to see you and I knew you’d come so I wrote a speech
Returners: stop being evil plz
Kefka: nnno life has no meaning because everything dies so you should die now k
Returners: but life is awesome and killing is nasty!
Kefka: prove it
Returners: FAMILY FRIENDS AND HAPPINESS
Kefka: ….ARE YOU FROM A JRPG OR A SHOJO ANIME destroying is the only meaningful thing TIME FOR YOU ALL TO DIE WITH YOUR STUPID SAPPY MEANINGS OF LIFE
Returners: /kill Kefka
Day: SAVED
Game: WON
✧ TIMELINE: Post-death/post-game
✧ PERSONALITY: Kefka Palazzo has one person he takes orders from and that is Kefka Palazzo. Kefka is priority number one and although there are some things he’ll put above his own personal safety, they number in the single digits and most of them involve him benefitting in the end. He’ll run from a fight if he thinks it’ll be better for him in the long run, even if it makes him look bad; he’ll cheat as much as he can if he can get away with it; there is no mercy for the enemy unless they’re too weak to even bother caring about. He’ll fight and lose if it’ll help the plan, but he’d prefer to fight and win and kill the enemy horribly. He likes control, and he hates taking orders, but if it benefits him in the end, he’ll roll with it. For now. There are very few lows he will not stoop to in order to win.
And if he has a chance, he will flaunt that he’s different and powerful. That’s what the clothing and make up is for-a magi’s garb. Kefka’s garb. He is the important one, the one to fear, the one that is special. If he must be bothered, it should be for a damn good reason because he hates it when worthless things take up his time. And if he wants time, it is because he has a damn good reason and he should be paid attention to or he will be rightfully mad and rightfully punish whoever is not paying attention to him. If he is working for someone, he better get the proper respect or someone is getting cliff-punted. This can bite him in the ass when he deems the wrong thing unimportant.
There is one exception to this, and this is a person Kefka Likes. These persons are few and far between, on account of Kefka hating almost everyone he meets and having ridiculous standards, but they do exist. People who have managed this are usually 1. Warriors 2. Magical 3. Loyal to him 4. Want to destroy everything 5. He’s sure aren’t going to backstab him. 3 and 5 are similar because they are that important. He needs reliable types! In canon, the only person who manages to fit some of the criteria is Celes, and Kefka tries to lure her back to the Empire or kill her for leaving the Empire and just focuses on her in general out of all the rebels. And going through with his plan of becoming a god and destroying everything after she stabs him. He doesn’t take rejection well.
(On a similar note, this is why Kefka’s Tower is full of palate swaps of monsters from the Empire and the Magitek Labs. As much as he hates Gestahl and Leo, he does have some fondness for his fellow soldiers and monsters of his country. They can all kill everyone together! And live in a Tower and proclaim that they’re better than everyone and kill whoever doesn’t agree! Best plan ever.)
When Kefka feels an emotion strongly, he feels it really strongly. Hate, rage, smug satisfaction-he’ll revel in it, every motion he makes showing how he feels. When he’s mad and fighting, he’ll fling himself at the enemy even when it’d be safer for him to stay back and cast magic. When he’s raging, he shakes his fists in the air and yells ridiculous metaphor-laden insults at the enemy and even hops around. The laugh takes up all of his body in hysterics. When he’s happy, he’ll babble ridiculous metaphors and make things up and be all smiles.
However, Kefka is very capable of feeling things in a more muted way or not feeling anything at all, and that will become more evident as canon progresses. He goes from tantruming at Figaro Castle to being a cool, collected god at the end (albeit, one who gets angry after several minutes of arguing with the heroes on whether life is worth living, but it takes a lot longer to piss him off than it did before) and he does have points in canon where he’s very calm, very collected and very deadly.
Despite how he sometimes acts, Kefka is smart. You don’t become a general, a court mage, a magitek knight and a god without being smart. He knows lore about the Warring Triad, he knows about magic, he hangs around Cid’s lab to see what’s going on, and he knows enough about machines on his world to ride magitek armor, although he prefers not to. He likes learning about things and will devour what knowledge he can get, but anything deemed useless will be promptly forgotten. He’s decent at manipulations and tricks team good twice in game, but he has an advantage for those (imitating someone he’s known for years and convincing team rebellion that their defector isn’t) that he won’t in the comm. He also likes wordplay and puns, although his often are on the cheesy side.
Kefka thinks the worst of people, and is delighted when he’s right. People who are outstandingly virtuous piss him off, confuse him and disgust him, and he’ll try to kill them or corrupt them if he gets the chance. He won’t mind as much if they’re outstandingly virtuous in order to protect him, though. He’ll just. Use them. And if he gets bored of people, he’ll annoy them or ignore them-if they’re not any good to him, why bother with them? Or would they be useful as tools?
Regarding the subject of Kefka being mentally ill-I’ll be playing him as having mental issues from the magitek infusion, which is canonically stated to have warped him, rather than as having an rl mental illness. This is partially because the game says outright that the magic did it and partially because people with mental illnesses, in general, don’t act like Kefka.
Kefka’s mind being warped by magic was caused by the magitek infusion and pushed Kefka into increasing violence and instability. This is mentioned by one NPC in the party’s first visit to Vector: “That guy Kefka? He was Cid's first experimental Magitek Knight. But the process wasn't perfected yet. Something in Kefka's mind snapped that day...!” (SNES quote, alas)
In the game, it is implied that magic makes whoever and whatever it touches more aggressive-random encounters are magical and attack, Terra’s magical form is summoned by her rage when she fights Humbaba, the espers destroy Vector in an uncontrollable rage-magic and anger are connected.
Magic also seems to pop up stronger with strong negative emotions. Phoenix activates when Locke feels deep sorrow for not being able to bring his girlfriend back to life; Terra’s other magical freak out happened when she was confused and upset about finding out her esper side; Wrexsoul the magical ghost boss monster wants to eat Cyan’s soul because it’s full of sorrow and rage, as do the Three Dream Stooges. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be fairly common, so I think it’s fair to extrapolate that magic is attracted to and is strengthened by negative emotions and thus would cause them more.
These effects of magic, then, would push Kefka’s personality changing to be more aggressive and a lot more prone to anger and other negative feelings and feeling them strongly. It’s also given him an obsession with gaining more magic. I’d say that part of this is biological and part of this is …well, magical.
(It doesn’t help that his job is, pretty much, “kill as many as enemies as possible without getting killed.” Give how Nazi-esque the Empire is, I’d imagine the taboo on horrible mass murder is much less. Although he’s well aware that killing is a Bad Thing in general, he does it because not only does it make him happy, but it’s culturally acceptable and he’s getting employed for it! If there was more of a taboo, he’d be more likely to go around killing wildlife and, say, running a clothing shop, but since there isn’t in the Empire and people telling him ‘killing is bad’ isn’t going to change that his job is to horribly murder people, he’ll stay a horrible murderous thing.)
(And as a god, his job is to do whatever he wants, which is why he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. He is doing things! Just not where team good can see.)
Kefka also has some issues with depression and has had them before the magic changed him, but these are unrelated to the magic’s changes. For him, life feels like it has very little meaning except for magic and destruction and so he pushes himself into those whenever possible. When not utterly focused on destruction or caught up in an emotional fit, he feels like he’s in a grey blah. He is not suicidal or self-harming, although he may discuss issues concerning that given his fixation on destruction and death, and so I’ll ask the mods and put up a warning beforehand if those seem likely to come up.
Kefka’s understanding of this is-well, I imagine that his world’s understanding of mental illness is somewhere in the mid-19th century, but he thinks about himself using terminology from the War of the Magi; he identifies as having ‘melencholia,’ which in the context of his world would be ‘an affliction of brilliant magi, a hazard of creativity and thinking,’ from texts dating back to the Wars of the Magi. He is aware that the magic has changed his brain chemistry and his personality, but believes it is an acceptable exchange for gaining magic. He’s not aware of how drastically his personality has changed.
✧ ABILITIES/POWERS: Kefka is a god of magic and a skilled mage. Since he’s not on his world, his god powers will not be there except for battle and only on special occasions.
Standard Magic:
Fire/Fira/Firaga: Summon fire or fireballs at three different strengths
Blizzard/Blizzara/Blizzaga: summon ice or ice spikes at three different strengths
Thunder/Thundara/Thundaga: summon electricity at three different strengths
Poison/Bio: poison biological matter at two different strengths
Doom: doom an opponent to die in one minute. Only works occasionally. Blocked by instant death protection.
Meltdown: hit everyone with a fiery wind…including himself and his allies
Tornado: grievously injure everyone with a wind that takes people down to 6.25% of their health…including himself and his allies. Blocked by instant death protection.
Quake: the earth crumbles and injures everyone on it in a small radius…including himself and his allies
Flare: attack one target with pure magic energy
Meteor: attack all enemies with meteors and magic energy
Float: float above the ground
Confuse: confuse the enemy so that they can’t tell the difference between enemy and friend
Slow: Slow down enemies
Drain: injure opponent to heal himself
Osmose: steal mana from opponent to gain more for himself
Rasp: destroy mana in opponent
Imp: turn opponent into small animal
Arise: bring one mortally injured person to full health
White Wind: heal self and companions with enough HP as he has
Mighty Guard: cast Protect, Shell and Float on self and companions
1000 Needles: shoots 1000 needles. Cannot be blocked by armor.
Trine: cause temporary blindness and muteness, sometimes.
Razor Wind: Attack all targets with wind
Illusions: Kefka can magically mimic other beings and some objects. For him to do it accurately, he needs to know the person/object well, and he can only use the power for so long before he exhausts himself. Any uses of this power will have to be ok’d by the mun of whoever is having it used on beforehand.
Power Theft: Kefka can steal powers. (He does so to a zillion espers and several of his minions in game.) I’ll be portraying this as a version of Blue Magic, which is, in Final Fantasy, a type of magic that copycats the magic of monsters. Kefka’s is different because it 1. Steals normal spells and not just monster spells 2. Seems to boost his stats as well as teaching magic 3. Is often fatal to whoever got power-sucked.
It’d be boring if it stayed horribly fatal since that’d mean Kefka couldn’t steal from PCs easily and anyone he power sucked would die. So, for the game, these are the requirements for Kefka’s power theft: 1. PERMISSION FROM THE OTHER MUN 2. Kefka can have at least a minute or so of touching the theftee 3. And the theftee is exhausted afterwards 4. As well as Kefka.
…it’s still easier than the blue magic in FF9.
Godfse: Kefka transforms into a ten-foot tall purple angel with six wings. This requires time and energy and he can only do it for a limited amount of time. There are certain magics he can only use in this form. ANY GODFSING WILL BE WARNED FOR FIRST AND ALL POWERS NEED PERMISSION TO HIT
God!magic:
Heartless Angel: Takes target’s HP to one.
Forsaken: Blasts all opponents in the area with pure magic energy. Requires time to cast.
Southern Cross: hit targets with ice spikes, then encase them in it so they can’t move
Ultima: attack all targets with pure magic energy, requires time to cast. Cannot be blocked by armor.
✧ TIME OF ARRIVAL: night
✧ MASK DESIGN: Kefka’s mask is white with red stars around the eyes, gold filigree on the edges and blue eye covers. It’s made of a firm fabric. It can be flipped around to an all-purple mask with pink eye covers.
✧ PLACE OF SOLACE: The Tower of Kefka, a tower with another tower inside it and filled with random encounters. The Tower was made from the ruins of Kefka’s hometown, Vector, and is populated by monsters created from the remaining inhabitants of Vector after the apocalypse and being esper-nuked. Which includes ninjas, scantily clad healer women, malboros, behemoths among other kinds of monsters, which will just attack people and be annoying for now. Kefka thinks they think, but they will only attack if approached by others. (Though in his presence, they’ll chill out and watch.)
SAMPLES
✧ FIRST PERSON: Welcome, friends! I knew you were coming, so I wrote a speech!
…wait, no. That was earlier, wasn’t it? Or later. Later, earlier, we’re all going to die so it doesn’t really matter. Does it? All things crumble to dust in the end, so why do we care?
I think I care about this bed, though. It’s very comfortable. I’d remember having such a bed before! You, this bed I am on, why am I existing on the bed and not not existing? I arranged that very nicely so that things could cycle and re-cycle. The bed exists, and like a raven and a writing desk, it’s kind of shiny at the edges! Also like those, it shouldn’t be here. I destroyed all the beds with all the people! And became a god! It was thrilling. Is thrilling? Why am I not dead?
✧ THIRD PERSON:
[[pulled from the Drama Drama Duck app:]]
Kefka weighs the book in his hand, turning it over every now and then. It’s as light as a book of it’s size should be, well-bound, the leather…
Well, he thinks he should have noticed the faint buzz of magic on the book’s leather sooner. It’s very faint, smells like ozone when he brings it to his face, makes his fingers tingle. When he’d first found the book in his tent, he’d been too pleased that his old journal had been replaced to really focus on his surroundings, nor to notice that the book translated his coded shorthand to a normal longhand.
Stupid stupid stupid-
But right now, he needs to focus on the book. A monster book, most likely, a book that wrote back and talked back and occasionally flashed images on it’s pages and spoke of worlds beyond his own, and demons who lived in books were known liars who lied and ate whoever was stupid enough to try and keep their book around. It was the only logical explanation.
But. But but but. Monsters who live in books came for the art; they lust after beauty, just like the monsters in paintings or the monsters in music records. And this book is blank. Was blank. Is mostly blank save for his handwriting and the monster handwriting and the arcane symbols decorating in decadent silver.
In the pursuit of magic, Kefka has seen plenty of impossible things. He’s done them. He is the first magi in a thousand years, after whom all others in the Empire are modeled; he has found magical artifacts called impossible by historians and the Empire has made more and even wears some now, a ring that keeps the endless apathy and the boundless rage from eating him and a cloak that turns his movements swifter; he will find the gods, knows where they are and how to summon them, knows the secrets of their lands, knows he is one of them and will join them once he finds them and they shall become the Warring Triad Plus Kefka and he will not be that crazy clownface or that expendable general or stupid sucking scapegoat-
And he can risk believing in another impossible thing. If nothing else, if the book really is a lying monster demon in a book, he can give it to Dr. del Norte and they can figure out how it’s done and start a demon monster book science program and kill enemies of the empire with literature. Glorious beautiful perfect!
“So,” Kefka says, humming as he opens the book, speaking directly to it, “you claim that this Drama Drama Duck is real? And that all the worlds with it exist?”
He laughs, a jittery smug thing, like a smirking spider on roller skates.
“Prove it!”
[[ alternatively, here is Kefka being eeevil and goddish. With some gore, be warned.]]
✧ NAME: Gene Karma
✧ LJ USERNAME: magicgenetek
✧ CONTACT (EMAIL, AIM, MSN, PLURK, ETC.): plotdesigner @ gmail, aim, plurk
✧ CURRENT MUSE LIST: n/a
CHARACTER
✧ NAME: Kefka Palazzo
✧ SERIES: Final Fantasy VI
✧ HISTORY:Once upon a time, in a world the gods of magic blessed with magic and war thousands of years ago, an evil empire was trying to take over the world. A way of pulling magic from sentient magical beings (“espers”) and sticking it into humans was devised by said empire and they made Magitek Knights with this. The first one of these knights, Kefka Palazzo, had something go horribly wrong with this and he slowly turned violent, mood-swinging and pun-happy. The Emperor, who could recognize a golden opportunity when he saw one, turned Kefka into his dirty-work minion and sent him all over to do his, well, dirty work while prepping him as a scapegoat and using him to scare the army into behaving. Kefka wasn’t too happy about being a minion, but recognized that working for the Empire was the only way of attaining the goal he’d found when the magic infusion went wrong: find the gods of magic and join them.
So Kefka went on his merry way, sucking the life out of old espers for more magical power, brainwashing young women with science (Terra), arguing with one general about the ethical use of magics (Leo) and adoring the other for being a magical warrior of death (Celes), pushing scientists in banana suits who did experiments on espers to do even more experiments to get more magic out of them (Cid), terrorizing populations and being unpleasant in general until the game started.
Kefka’s young brainwashed woman vanished while on a mission to capture a new esper, and reports had her fleeing to join the rebellion against the Empire’s imperialistic goals (the Returners.) Kefka was sent to go bring Terra back, which mostly amounted to him whining about how his job sucked, threatening royalty unless said Terra was returned, and then setting the royalty’s castle on fire when nothing else was working and dancing in the flames. At this point, the castle unset itself on fire by sinking underground, Terra got away with the rebellion, Kefka’s minions were killed and Kefka was left to yell futile epithets at the desert.
The next plan went a little better. The Empire was caught up in a battle with Doma, originator of the Returners, but the Esper was in Narshe. The Emperor figured they’d need to go get that esper from Narshe with troops needed in Doma, so he sent Kefka to Doma to end the war fast while luring the more pacifistic General Leo away. Kefka won the war by poisoning the entire damn castle of Doma, including imperial POWs and civilians, although not before having his nose almost punched through his face by a monk who showed up out of nowhere. Also around this time, General Celes decided that an empire that poisoned everyone was not one she wanted to work with and defected.
And having finished all the things, Kefka got an army and marched on Narshe to get that esper. And when he got there, so was Celes and the Returners, and he was happy that he’d be able to drag that traitor back to the Empire until his army was wiped out and his ass kicked, at which point he fled while screaming more epithets.
And when Celes and the rebels snuck into the Empire’s evil labs to save the Espers, Kefka attempted to stop them and succeeded in making them think Celes was double-crossing them to the Empire, but then Celes teleported Kefka and his new minions away and the ‘murder the rebels’ plan fizzled. Kefka managed to sic some cranes on the escaping heroes and their stolen imperial espers, but the Returners defeated the cranes and so his life was terrible.
The emperor sent Kefka to follow the Returners when they headed to find the hidden home of the Espers, because apparently the entire plan was for Terra to join the Returners and find the hidden home. Kefka did what he was told and prepared to fight the Returners to get into the secret home, only for the sheer power of the enraged espers within to stun him into a panic, then get blown off a cliff. By the time he dragged himself back to the Empire, the espers had pretty much nuked everything except the Imperial Palace and the Emperor and Kefka was placed under arrest as a scapegoat for all the Empire’s crimes. He spent the next few days sulking in prison and complaining about how bored he was to anyone who got in earshot.
Of course, once the Emperor got the Returners to go get the remaining espers to not blow up the rest of the world, Kefka was let out of jail to go kill and power suck said espers. It went just as planned: Kefka killed his rival Leo and power-sucked the espers and threw a burning a town to ashes party, then helped the Empire yoink up a Floating Continent with the gods on it so they could take over the world! And he didn’t kill the Returners at the burning town party because…uh. He was under orders to spare Celes for the Empire’s creepy plans and saved the rest because he couldn’t bother to kill such weak people. Yes.
The Returners followed them again, of course. Celes showed up to try and stop her ex-countrymen once and for all; the Emperor offered her a chance to return, at which point she stabbed Kefka and told them both to jump in a lake. Kefka freaked out and demanded that the gods let him join them, and the Emperor decided to cut his losses and kill Kefka before he ruined the take over the world bit by destroying said world. Kefka responded by having the gods mortally wound the Emperor, then punted him off a cliff, then start powering up the gods, at which point the Returners split up-a ninja stayed to try and stop Kefka while the rest got off the Floating Continent before Kefka blew it up. This failed.
And so Kefka became a god and blew the world up. The continents were rearranged and plants and animals died whenre they weren’t warped with magic. Humans lived on, although some despaired and others lived happily just to spite Kefka. And Kefka lasered a few towns but mostly sat around on his Tower ruling and chilling out with his minions.
Eventually, the Returners teamed back up to take him down since that would fix the world, killing off everything in the Tower until they got to Kefka, at which point:
Kefka: Hi everyone I’m so happy to see you and I knew you’d come so I wrote a speech
Returners: stop being evil plz
Kefka: nnno life has no meaning because everything dies so you should die now k
Returners: but life is awesome and killing is nasty!
Kefka: prove it
Returners: FAMILY FRIENDS AND HAPPINESS
Kefka: ….ARE YOU FROM A JRPG OR A SHOJO ANIME destroying is the only meaningful thing TIME FOR YOU ALL TO DIE WITH YOUR STUPID SAPPY MEANINGS OF LIFE
Returners: /kill Kefka
Day: SAVED
Game: WON
✧ TIMELINE: Post-death/post-game
✧ PERSONALITY: Kefka Palazzo has one person he takes orders from and that is Kefka Palazzo. Kefka is priority number one and although there are some things he’ll put above his own personal safety, they number in the single digits and most of them involve him benefitting in the end. He’ll run from a fight if he thinks it’ll be better for him in the long run, even if it makes him look bad; he’ll cheat as much as he can if he can get away with it; there is no mercy for the enemy unless they’re too weak to even bother caring about. He’ll fight and lose if it’ll help the plan, but he’d prefer to fight and win and kill the enemy horribly. He likes control, and he hates taking orders, but if it benefits him in the end, he’ll roll with it. For now. There are very few lows he will not stoop to in order to win.
And if he has a chance, he will flaunt that he’s different and powerful. That’s what the clothing and make up is for-a magi’s garb. Kefka’s garb. He is the important one, the one to fear, the one that is special. If he must be bothered, it should be for a damn good reason because he hates it when worthless things take up his time. And if he wants time, it is because he has a damn good reason and he should be paid attention to or he will be rightfully mad and rightfully punish whoever is not paying attention to him. If he is working for someone, he better get the proper respect or someone is getting cliff-punted. This can bite him in the ass when he deems the wrong thing unimportant.
There is one exception to this, and this is a person Kefka Likes. These persons are few and far between, on account of Kefka hating almost everyone he meets and having ridiculous standards, but they do exist. People who have managed this are usually 1. Warriors 2. Magical 3. Loyal to him 4. Want to destroy everything 5. He’s sure aren’t going to backstab him. 3 and 5 are similar because they are that important. He needs reliable types! In canon, the only person who manages to fit some of the criteria is Celes, and Kefka tries to lure her back to the Empire or kill her for leaving the Empire and just focuses on her in general out of all the rebels. And going through with his plan of becoming a god and destroying everything after she stabs him. He doesn’t take rejection well.
(On a similar note, this is why Kefka’s Tower is full of palate swaps of monsters from the Empire and the Magitek Labs. As much as he hates Gestahl and Leo, he does have some fondness for his fellow soldiers and monsters of his country. They can all kill everyone together! And live in a Tower and proclaim that they’re better than everyone and kill whoever doesn’t agree! Best plan ever.)
When Kefka feels an emotion strongly, he feels it really strongly. Hate, rage, smug satisfaction-he’ll revel in it, every motion he makes showing how he feels. When he’s mad and fighting, he’ll fling himself at the enemy even when it’d be safer for him to stay back and cast magic. When he’s raging, he shakes his fists in the air and yells ridiculous metaphor-laden insults at the enemy and even hops around. The laugh takes up all of his body in hysterics. When he’s happy, he’ll babble ridiculous metaphors and make things up and be all smiles.
However, Kefka is very capable of feeling things in a more muted way or not feeling anything at all, and that will become more evident as canon progresses. He goes from tantruming at Figaro Castle to being a cool, collected god at the end (albeit, one who gets angry after several minutes of arguing with the heroes on whether life is worth living, but it takes a lot longer to piss him off than it did before) and he does have points in canon where he’s very calm, very collected and very deadly.
Despite how he sometimes acts, Kefka is smart. You don’t become a general, a court mage, a magitek knight and a god without being smart. He knows lore about the Warring Triad, he knows about magic, he hangs around Cid’s lab to see what’s going on, and he knows enough about machines on his world to ride magitek armor, although he prefers not to. He likes learning about things and will devour what knowledge he can get, but anything deemed useless will be promptly forgotten. He’s decent at manipulations and tricks team good twice in game, but he has an advantage for those (imitating someone he’s known for years and convincing team rebellion that their defector isn’t) that he won’t in the comm. He also likes wordplay and puns, although his often are on the cheesy side.
Kefka thinks the worst of people, and is delighted when he’s right. People who are outstandingly virtuous piss him off, confuse him and disgust him, and he’ll try to kill them or corrupt them if he gets the chance. He won’t mind as much if they’re outstandingly virtuous in order to protect him, though. He’ll just. Use them. And if he gets bored of people, he’ll annoy them or ignore them-if they’re not any good to him, why bother with them? Or would they be useful as tools?
Regarding the subject of Kefka being mentally ill-I’ll be playing him as having mental issues from the magitek infusion, which is canonically stated to have warped him, rather than as having an rl mental illness. This is partially because the game says outright that the magic did it and partially because people with mental illnesses, in general, don’t act like Kefka.
Kefka’s mind being warped by magic was caused by the magitek infusion and pushed Kefka into increasing violence and instability. This is mentioned by one NPC in the party’s first visit to Vector: “That guy Kefka? He was Cid's first experimental Magitek Knight. But the process wasn't perfected yet. Something in Kefka's mind snapped that day...!” (SNES quote, alas)
In the game, it is implied that magic makes whoever and whatever it touches more aggressive-random encounters are magical and attack, Terra’s magical form is summoned by her rage when she fights Humbaba, the espers destroy Vector in an uncontrollable rage-magic and anger are connected.
Magic also seems to pop up stronger with strong negative emotions. Phoenix activates when Locke feels deep sorrow for not being able to bring his girlfriend back to life; Terra’s other magical freak out happened when she was confused and upset about finding out her esper side; Wrexsoul the magical ghost boss monster wants to eat Cyan’s soul because it’s full of sorrow and rage, as do the Three Dream Stooges. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be fairly common, so I think it’s fair to extrapolate that magic is attracted to and is strengthened by negative emotions and thus would cause them more.
These effects of magic, then, would push Kefka’s personality changing to be more aggressive and a lot more prone to anger and other negative feelings and feeling them strongly. It’s also given him an obsession with gaining more magic. I’d say that part of this is biological and part of this is …well, magical.
(It doesn’t help that his job is, pretty much, “kill as many as enemies as possible without getting killed.” Give how Nazi-esque the Empire is, I’d imagine the taboo on horrible mass murder is much less. Although he’s well aware that killing is a Bad Thing in general, he does it because not only does it make him happy, but it’s culturally acceptable and he’s getting employed for it! If there was more of a taboo, he’d be more likely to go around killing wildlife and, say, running a clothing shop, but since there isn’t in the Empire and people telling him ‘killing is bad’ isn’t going to change that his job is to horribly murder people, he’ll stay a horrible murderous thing.)
(And as a god, his job is to do whatever he wants, which is why he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. He is doing things! Just not where team good can see.)
Kefka also has some issues with depression and has had them before the magic changed him, but these are unrelated to the magic’s changes. For him, life feels like it has very little meaning except for magic and destruction and so he pushes himself into those whenever possible. When not utterly focused on destruction or caught up in an emotional fit, he feels like he’s in a grey blah. He is not suicidal or self-harming, although he may discuss issues concerning that given his fixation on destruction and death, and so I’ll ask the mods and put up a warning beforehand if those seem likely to come up.
Kefka’s understanding of this is-well, I imagine that his world’s understanding of mental illness is somewhere in the mid-19th century, but he thinks about himself using terminology from the War of the Magi; he identifies as having ‘melencholia,’ which in the context of his world would be ‘an affliction of brilliant magi, a hazard of creativity and thinking,’ from texts dating back to the Wars of the Magi. He is aware that the magic has changed his brain chemistry and his personality, but believes it is an acceptable exchange for gaining magic. He’s not aware of how drastically his personality has changed.
✧ ABILITIES/POWERS: Kefka is a god of magic and a skilled mage. Since he’s not on his world, his god powers will not be there except for battle and only on special occasions.
Standard Magic:
Fire/Fira/Firaga: Summon fire or fireballs at three different strengths
Blizzard/Blizzara/Blizzaga: summon ice or ice spikes at three different strengths
Thunder/Thundara/Thundaga: summon electricity at three different strengths
Poison/Bio: poison biological matter at two different strengths
Doom: doom an opponent to die in one minute. Only works occasionally. Blocked by instant death protection.
Meltdown: hit everyone with a fiery wind…including himself and his allies
Tornado: grievously injure everyone with a wind that takes people down to 6.25% of their health…including himself and his allies. Blocked by instant death protection.
Quake: the earth crumbles and injures everyone on it in a small radius…including himself and his allies
Flare: attack one target with pure magic energy
Meteor: attack all enemies with meteors and magic energy
Float: float above the ground
Confuse: confuse the enemy so that they can’t tell the difference between enemy and friend
Slow: Slow down enemies
Drain: injure opponent to heal himself
Osmose: steal mana from opponent to gain more for himself
Rasp: destroy mana in opponent
Imp: turn opponent into small animal
Arise: bring one mortally injured person to full health
White Wind: heal self and companions with enough HP as he has
Mighty Guard: cast Protect, Shell and Float on self and companions
1000 Needles: shoots 1000 needles. Cannot be blocked by armor.
Trine: cause temporary blindness and muteness, sometimes.
Razor Wind: Attack all targets with wind
Illusions: Kefka can magically mimic other beings and some objects. For him to do it accurately, he needs to know the person/object well, and he can only use the power for so long before he exhausts himself. Any uses of this power will have to be ok’d by the mun of whoever is having it used on beforehand.
Power Theft: Kefka can steal powers. (He does so to a zillion espers and several of his minions in game.) I’ll be portraying this as a version of Blue Magic, which is, in Final Fantasy, a type of magic that copycats the magic of monsters. Kefka’s is different because it 1. Steals normal spells and not just monster spells 2. Seems to boost his stats as well as teaching magic 3. Is often fatal to whoever got power-sucked.
It’d be boring if it stayed horribly fatal since that’d mean Kefka couldn’t steal from PCs easily and anyone he power sucked would die. So, for the game, these are the requirements for Kefka’s power theft: 1. PERMISSION FROM THE OTHER MUN 2. Kefka can have at least a minute or so of touching the theftee 3. And the theftee is exhausted afterwards 4. As well as Kefka.
…it’s still easier than the blue magic in FF9.
Godfse: Kefka transforms into a ten-foot tall purple angel with six wings. This requires time and energy and he can only do it for a limited amount of time. There are certain magics he can only use in this form. ANY GODFSING WILL BE WARNED FOR FIRST AND ALL POWERS NEED PERMISSION TO HIT
God!magic:
Heartless Angel: Takes target’s HP to one.
Forsaken: Blasts all opponents in the area with pure magic energy. Requires time to cast.
Southern Cross: hit targets with ice spikes, then encase them in it so they can’t move
Ultima: attack all targets with pure magic energy, requires time to cast. Cannot be blocked by armor.
✧ TIME OF ARRIVAL: night
✧ MASK DESIGN: Kefka’s mask is white with red stars around the eyes, gold filigree on the edges and blue eye covers. It’s made of a firm fabric. It can be flipped around to an all-purple mask with pink eye covers.
✧ PLACE OF SOLACE: The Tower of Kefka, a tower with another tower inside it and filled with random encounters. The Tower was made from the ruins of Kefka’s hometown, Vector, and is populated by monsters created from the remaining inhabitants of Vector after the apocalypse and being esper-nuked. Which includes ninjas, scantily clad healer women, malboros, behemoths among other kinds of monsters, which will just attack people and be annoying for now. Kefka thinks they think, but they will only attack if approached by others. (Though in his presence, they’ll chill out and watch.)
SAMPLES
✧ FIRST PERSON: Welcome, friends! I knew you were coming, so I wrote a speech!
…wait, no. That was earlier, wasn’t it? Or later. Later, earlier, we’re all going to die so it doesn’t really matter. Does it? All things crumble to dust in the end, so why do we care?
I think I care about this bed, though. It’s very comfortable. I’d remember having such a bed before! You, this bed I am on, why am I existing on the bed and not not existing? I arranged that very nicely so that things could cycle and re-cycle. The bed exists, and like a raven and a writing desk, it’s kind of shiny at the edges! Also like those, it shouldn’t be here. I destroyed all the beds with all the people! And became a god! It was thrilling. Is thrilling? Why am I not dead?
✧ THIRD PERSON:
[[pulled from the Drama Drama Duck app:]]
Kefka weighs the book in his hand, turning it over every now and then. It’s as light as a book of it’s size should be, well-bound, the leather…
Well, he thinks he should have noticed the faint buzz of magic on the book’s leather sooner. It’s very faint, smells like ozone when he brings it to his face, makes his fingers tingle. When he’d first found the book in his tent, he’d been too pleased that his old journal had been replaced to really focus on his surroundings, nor to notice that the book translated his coded shorthand to a normal longhand.
Stupid stupid stupid-
But right now, he needs to focus on the book. A monster book, most likely, a book that wrote back and talked back and occasionally flashed images on it’s pages and spoke of worlds beyond his own, and demons who lived in books were known liars who lied and ate whoever was stupid enough to try and keep their book around. It was the only logical explanation.
But. But but but. Monsters who live in books came for the art; they lust after beauty, just like the monsters in paintings or the monsters in music records. And this book is blank. Was blank. Is mostly blank save for his handwriting and the monster handwriting and the arcane symbols decorating in decadent silver.
In the pursuit of magic, Kefka has seen plenty of impossible things. He’s done them. He is the first magi in a thousand years, after whom all others in the Empire are modeled; he has found magical artifacts called impossible by historians and the Empire has made more and even wears some now, a ring that keeps the endless apathy and the boundless rage from eating him and a cloak that turns his movements swifter; he will find the gods, knows where they are and how to summon them, knows the secrets of their lands, knows he is one of them and will join them once he finds them and they shall become the Warring Triad Plus Kefka and he will not be that crazy clownface or that expendable general or stupid sucking scapegoat-
And he can risk believing in another impossible thing. If nothing else, if the book really is a lying monster demon in a book, he can give it to Dr. del Norte and they can figure out how it’s done and start a demon monster book science program and kill enemies of the empire with literature. Glorious beautiful perfect!
“So,” Kefka says, humming as he opens the book, speaking directly to it, “you claim that this Drama Drama Duck is real? And that all the worlds with it exist?”
He laughs, a jittery smug thing, like a smirking spider on roller skates.
“Prove it!”
[[ alternatively, here is Kefka being eeevil and goddish. With some gore, be warned.]]