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Fandaniel

Ascian

One of the sundered Ascians, Fandaniel first appeared before the Warrior of Light in the body of the late Asahi sas Brutus. Like those of his brethren, his name is in fact a title — one of the exalted offices of the Convocation of Fourteen, the collective that guided mankind in ancient times.

During the first Final Days, the seat was held by a man named Hermes, who prior to his induction served as chief overseer of Elpis, the testing ground of creation, and was an authority on flying life-forms as well as the celestial sphere. In the course of his work, however, Hermes came to question mankind’s single-minded pursuit of perfection, prompting him to create Meteion and her sisters to seek the meaning of life in the distant stars. Alas, an accident caused them all to perish before they could fulfill their purpose... or so it was believed.

In truth, his creations found naught but despair, and concluded that salvation lay only in death. Furthermore, Meteion declared that she herself would usher in their demise. In a moment of madness, Hermes allowed her to pursue her designs, and erased the memories of those who knew what awaited — his own included — that mankind might be put to the proof and prove themselves capable of change and thus worthy of survival.

Ignorant of his deeds, Hermes went on to oppose the Final Days with all his being, as he himself had intended. His knowledge proved instrumental in forestalling the Final Days, and the formulation of the plan to sacrifice half their number to manifest the mighty Zodiark. This first primal served to shield the star from Meteion’s song of oblivion, but would later be sundered into fourteen parts alongside all creation by His counterpart, Hydaelyn.

Ironically, in forcibly erasing his memories, Hermes engraved them deeper upon his soul. In the millennia that followed, the cycle of death and rebirth would lead him to recall the forgotten truth: that the architect of the apocalypse abided at the edge of the universe.

One of the incarnations who inherited a shard of Hermes’s tormented soul was a man named Amon, a brilliant technologist who rose to prominence in the Allagan Empire just as it was falling into decline. A victim of its prosperity, the empire had grown stagnant; the people delighted in debauchery, and science was no more than a means to amuse the decadent masses. Lamenting this state of affairs, Amon resolved to resurrect the founding father, Emperor Xande, that he might restore the empire to its former glory. And though he succeeded in his unholy endeavor, the emperor, having once experienced death, had been forever changed by the knowledge. Seeking to return all to nothingness, he set in motion events that would lead to the empire’s undoing. But before Allag was consigned to oblivion, the Ascians, wishing to make use of Amon’s singular talents, called him to serve as the new Fandaniel.

In receiving of the Ascian mantle, Fandaniel regained the missing pieces of his past and recalled the truth of the Final Days in its entirety. After the three unsundered Ascians met their ends, he forged an alliance with Zenos in order to take control of Zodiark. His heart was a maelstrom of righteous anger and all-consuming despair, twisted further by the remnants of the dreams that had haunted him as Amon — of an ancient world rent asunder by a calamity well deserved.

Ultimately, he did not bear witness to the conclusion of the tale he had written. Having fallen as Zodiark, his soul was subsequently dragged into the depths of the aetherial sea by the spiteful Asahi, and he would never know if the Warrior of Light and [his/her] comrades managed to overcome the despair that had broken him so utterly.