Archard Soie

Name: Archard Soie
Nickname(s): Archie - General | Dog - Known by their closer friends, but Archard hates it | Maman/Papa - Children | Grandy - Arjean and Remi
Age: 328
Birthday: August 1st
Gender: Genderless
Pronouns: They/She/He
Romance: Panromantic/Demiromantic - Open (?)
Sexuality: Pansexual/Demisexual - Open (?)
Species: Cloud Oricenta
Languages: Oscela (Main) | French | English
Category: Citizen
Career: Creator of Eternal Youth Designs, but they share ownership with their daughter, Béatrice, and daughter-in-law, Ade

Appearance:

• 8ft tall​
• Looks 24-years-old, but has a more mature look than most people that age
• Large floating antler-like horns with a transparent look and a gradient that goes from white to a light gold from bottom to top; resembles ice in a way
• White feathers on their body with golden patterns
• Large wings
• Sometimes decorates their horns with shiny jewelry
• Curvy, muscular body that gives them an androgynous appearance
• Styles their short hair in either a pompadour or down with their bang covering one side of their eye
• Literally white skin with gold freckles on their cheeks
• When relaxed or happy their eyes are squinted, giving them the appearance of closed eyes
• Monolid, gold eyes

Personality:

• Arrogant - Archard has a high opinion on themself, sometimes nearing a God complex. While they are aware they aren't omnipotent and can't do everything perfectly, they often hold themself to a higher pedestal than others, even if they don't blatantly show it all the time. Usually, they show off this side with sarcasm, acting like someone wouldn't be in a troubling situation if they just listened to Archard's words. Sometimes this side of theirs can be shown in a more positive way too, as they like to do their absolute best on their projects, whether it's sewing or helping a person out. This way, they'll be recognized as being right or impressive at their job.
  
  This has also extended to their family life. Archard's arrogance often leads to them putting down their children in emotionally abusive ways. They will disregard their happiness if Archard thinks it will benefit the family as a whole or just themself, and they will outright insult and belittle them just to reinforce their power.
  
  
• Family and Friend-Orientated - Despite Archard's questionable child-raising skills, they do love their family and friends and will look out for them no matter what. They hate seeing their loved ones insulted and disrespected, partly because that risks disrespecting them too, and will try to look for any opportunity to help the people they like to get further ahead in life. Even if that means helping them hide shady (or outright illegal) activities.
  
  
• Manipulative - Archard is extremely manipulative, with nearly every single thing they do having the purpose to benefit them or people close to them, which usually leads to them benefiting off of their loved ones benefiting. While their true personality is pretty apathetic, harsh, rude, blunt, and childish with a hint of "jerkass with a heart of gold" in there, they like to present themself as dignified, polite, powerful, funny, and easygoing. Sometimes they even confuse those close to them because of how willing they are to switch personalities to achieve their own goals.
  
  
• Immature - Although Archard can most definitely come across as an unlikeable person to be around, they often show their best side when they're being immature and flippant. They enjoy making jokes—specifically puns—and will often make snarky remarks as a way to show their true opinions in an arrogant manner. This part of their personality makes it easy for them to act easygoing, friendly, and laid-back because, for the most part, they genuinely want to be that type of person.

History:
Relatives -

• Luco/Lucy Soie - Son
• Mika/Miia Soie - Son
• Béatrice Afolabi-Soie - Daughter
• Ade Afolabi-Soie - Daughter-in-law
• Remi - Step-Grandchild
• Arjean - Grandchild

Friends -

• Mei Anrong
• Mei Henghai

Archard quickly climbed up the political ladder in Ilada with a mixture of charisma, manipulation, and pure dominance. They started off their career-path by selling their clothes, armor, and weapons to the Royal Family after gaining their attention. Then they moved onto taking the role as the Royal Designer, all the while getting closer to the family, "befriending" them, and giving them "helpful" advice. It wasn't long before Archard took the title of the Royal Oricenta by shaming the last Royal Oricenta and her family. All by subtly pushing her to nearly break the peace that dragons, humans, and oricenta had together, then stepping in to stop her and show how "horrible" of a leader she was. After that, Archard ruled the islands by the time they were 40 and did a fine job keeping everyone safe and happy, as well as making sure the species stayed out of trouble, but still acquired the resources they needed to survive and gain more power and knowledge.

During all of this Archard had three children asexually. Their first two were twins named Miia and Luco by the age 28, then Béatrice at the age 38. Even before their political rising, they lived a comfortable life, knowing enough about sewing, fashion design, armor making, and weapon making to easily sell their products at high prices. Despite being a single parent though, they often left their kids to do whatever, just so they could get their work done. As long as their kids didn't do anything to mess with the family's reputation, they didn't care much. Eventually, the kids realized that the freedom they thought they had was fake and that their life was already being decided and ruled by Archard. While they didn't put exact details on their child's life, they gave strict guidelines, mostly fueled by fear of their family being embarrassed, or their political career failing because their kids were being stupid. While Miia and Béatrice were mostly loyal, albeit annoyed, Miia still stayed the most loyal and had the least amount of anger. Because of tense family relations, Luco left and went off to run a successful bar without family help. Miia left too, but it was because he wanted to father a daughter with a wife. By then Béatrice was the only member left living with them.

Since Béatrice was the only one Archard has left, they focused a lot of their attention on her. That is to say, they only gave slightly more attention than what they focused previously on their kids, so not a lot. They did, however, notice she had a special interest in learning about culture and species. Even from a young age, Archard noticed that she liked conducting her own biological research by using half-alive animals she acquired from her hunting practices. Since Archard didn't appreciate the blood she was leaving around the house and the smell of dead animals in the science labs she made, so by the time she was in her pre-teens they signed her up to intern with the Royal Scientists and had a legitimate lab. There she got to see how professionals worked and kept all her dead, mutated animals in a safe area to not disturb others.

Still, despite all that transpired, Archard didn't forget their roots. They still created their own armor, weapons, and clothing, and found that there was no need for there to be a new Royal Designer that focused on those topics. So instead they hired one for house design and other features Archard wasn't trained well in and worked with other designers across Ilada to see if there could be more potential designers to help out. One that caught their attention two weapon designers and their teenage daughter in Koli, a grassy land that has a nice temperature, allowing all types of oricenta to go there without fear of danger. All three family members showed an impressive skill in their craft, but they saw the most potential in the daughter, Ade. There Archard took in the family, took Ade as their courtier, and trained her in developing her talents more. She even had a good relationship with their daughter, but while Archard found it quite obvious Béatrice was romantically interested in Ade from the start, Ade went off with another man and started a new life with him. Instead of interfering, they just decided to see how things played out but warned Béatrice to not make a fool of herself. It only took nearly three-hundred years for Ade to divorce her husband and move onto Béatrice anyways.

After spending many years just observing various types of species, allying themself with the sentient ones, and acquiring magical resources for their land, eventually, they desired to expand outside of their dimension. They heard talks of a place called Manta Carlos Islands from the humans, which they heard from the dragons. Since dragons had the strongest dimension hopping magic Archard contacted them first, then once they had enough details on the place, they decided to experiment. Since they had to stay back to watch over Ilada most of the time, they sent the members of their family they knew would be the most interested in the islands. Béatrice, her wife Ade, and their daughter and Remi were sent off to the islands to learn more about what was going on there, expecting to get regular messages reporting what was going on.

To help their family settle in, Archard helped Béatrice and Ade create a design shop called Eternal Youth Designs and make a mansion fit for someone of wealthy back on Ilada. It was smaller than their actual home, but it was comfortable and provided enough and more for a family of five, as Béatrice and Ade were having a child. Something Archard didn't expect was finding themself enjoying the island and visiting regularly, later on basically moving in with their family and living a double life. It was made even better by how their close friends Henghai and Anrong, who were also the previous Royal Gardeners before quitting, moved there with their son too.

Powers:

• Air Manipulation - Archard is able to manipulate the air in a way similar to telekinesis. They are able to lift matter up by forming air bubbles around them, create constructs from air, and decrease the temperature of the air around them; however, they are incapable of increasing the air to any temperature higher than what it was already set as.
  
  They are also incapable of manipulating air that's out of their line of sight, and while they can manipulate from far distances there is a limit to how much air they can manipulate. Creating construct bigger and heavier than their body tires them out quickly, and lifting matter with their aerokinesis is similar to trying to lift matter physically. If they want to lift something heavy they have to train themself for it, which has fewer limits than trying to lift something with their physical body. They've reached their limit with only being able to lift an object about the same weight of a van. Anything more causes them a headache, makes them exhausted and will cause them to collapse until they pass out depending on how long and hard they try.​

Species Abilities:

• Owl, Deer, and Cervitaur Shape-Shifting - Archard is able to shape-shift into an owl, deer, and cervitaur. In their owl form they take the shape of a large snowy owl with a pretty normal appearance other than a gold beak. They find this form convenient to use to get into smaller spaces, and they try to avoid summoning their horns since that ruins why they use this form in the first place. In their deer form they look similar to a reindeer with golden eyes, hooves, nose, and floating horns. Archard generally tried to avoid using this form, and when they summon their wings they're obviously slower at flying and more uncomfortable. Their cervitaur form is basically a combination of their normal oricenta form, and their deer form.
  
  
• Owl and Deer Physiology - Archard has traits of both owls and deer, such as being able to eat the same food they can eat, having a predator and prey instinct, sharp sturdy nails (which they cut), aerial adaption, enhanced senses, the ability to jump high up. They would also be able to run faster than any normal human, if not for the fact that they never trained themself in travelling on the ground.
  
  
• Healing - Despite having so many years to learn how to heal at an experienced level, Archard hasn't really used this ability enough for it to be anything special. They've never found any reason to since their main focus in life was to keep their species orderly and happy, and make sure the needs of their family were met. Because of this, Archard's healing ability is on the level of a child: they are only capable of healing small scars.
  
  
• Longevity- All oricenta will stop aging at 24-years-old, the year they hit their prime, and continue to live forever, but they are still capable of being harmed and killed. They are still vulnerable to sicknesses, wounds, and whatever their weakness is depending on their oricenta type. Their best bet against those things are to be healed by either themselves or others. They cannot resurrect themselves from the dead, and even just trying to resurrect them is hard because their bodies turn into whatever oricenta type they represent. When Archard dies they will turn into clouds and float away.
  
  
• Sexual characteristics shifting
• Water walking/breathing
• Air walking
• Cloud walking

Skills:

• Fashion, Armor and Weapon Design - Despite Archard starting off their life learning how to sew clothing they've designed, they found they had a strong passion for crafting armor and weapons. While they never gave up their talent for fashion, they focused more on making the armor and weapons they made both practical and beautiful. They put all their love, care, and sweat into their work, and while they are generally better at designing and making armor, weapons get the same affection from Archard. Eventually they put their talent out for sell, and after a short time, they began selling it to the Royal Family, eventually becoming the Royal Designer, before displacing the Royal Oricenta. A lot of their designs take a noticeable inspiration from French culture, or at least the French culture from their dimension.
  
  
• Fighting/Sparring - While Archard isn't the best fighter when it comes to using their fists, legs, or anything else physical, they do spar with their daughter-in-law to test out the armor and weapons they make. If the armor and weapons break easily then it's considered a failure and will be improved upon until Archard deems it perfect. Archard feels that its much easier to fight and defend themself with their powers, and while they can fight well enough in a physical battle, it's much harder for them and they'll end up getting tired easily and too weak to continue.
  
  
• Traveling - Archard trained themself more in flight and swimming than any other form of traveling. Cars were a struggle considering their wings and horns, and cars weren't a common thing in oricenta society, and were mostly seen as useless. Planes also had the same issue, though they were larger and could hold more people. Archard found it more entertaining and free to just use their own wings to move around, and as a Royal Oricenta who must travel a lot to different areas of their islands and discuss business, they found themself getting quickly used to and more skilled at traveling.

Weaknesses:

• Heat/Electricity - Being part water oricenta, Archard is incapable of being near heated areas, objects, or even people. Of course, electricity and lightning are also things they have to worry about, especially when it comes to traveling and flying in high places. If they ever come too close to fire, or just in an area that's even a bit too warm for a normal human, they'll end up feeling dizzy and will eventually pass out. Even as their body constantly tried to heal to keep them alive, after just a few moments they'll die.
  
  
• Ground - Since Archard spends most of their time traveling through air, they find themself seriously lacking when on the ground. While they're perfectly capable of walking and running, they just aren't a good runner. Even just running for a few minutes can cause Archard to get winded and will force them into taking a break.
  
  
• Large Stature - Being someone who's 8ft tall with floating antler-like horns and large wings, Archard isn't the smallest target out there. Even excluding being a large target in battle, just day-to-day life in a struggle. Trying to enter buildings and rooms that were made for smaller people is an issue, they need custom made beds, and trying to not look like a large and threatening person due to size is hard. The only way they avoid this issue is by turning into their owl form and refusing to summon their horns in it. This at least lets them into smaller areas, and sleeping in that form isn't actually too uncomfortable.