Rita Mordio (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blahblahblah) wrote2018-12-11 11:09 pm
blahblahblah) wrote2018-12-11 11:09 pm
Entry tags:
Application: The Far Shore
Since the Definitive Edition is coming out soon, do note there are unmarked spoilers for late-game and postgame Tales of Vesperia throughout, mostly in history and abilities sections. Rita is in play at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thefarshore.
Player Information
Name: MaxSalsa
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
eternities
Age: 29
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Rita Mordio
Canon: Tales of Vesperia
Canon Point: Post-game by a short while; there's not really a timeline of other stuff after the game ends. Not PS3/Definitive Edition compliant; I haven't played that content. I may update her once the remake is out and I run through it.
Age: 15(-ish)
History: (I'll be pulling from past apps where able, mostly in this section and personality! I haven't played Rita in a while, but the canon hasn't changed muchuntil next month when the HD remaster comes out. Her most recent application is for Holly Heights which references others by inclusion. I'm also going to reference Aselia, the franchise fan wiki, but some of Rita's pages are a bit light on her own involvement in events, so this will focus on Rita's role in canon. [Game | Rita])
As a general rule, Rita's role in ToV is to give Yuri information on and insight into Terca Lumireis' resident magitech, blastia. Blastia themselves are various kinds of objects that can serve any number of functions; Yuri's slum in the capital has an aque blastia that purifies water, most large cities have barrier blastia that keep monsters out, ships have ceres blastia that make them operable... and perhaps most notably, adventurers carry bodhi blastia that let them manifest artes, special abilities running the gamut from sword beams to fireballs to physically-impossible instant movement. Rita herself works for the imperial blastia research laboratory at Aspio, where she lives, and where she is the top researcher at the young age of fourteen.
Rita originally leaves Aspio in the first place to clear her name with Yuri, who believes she stole the core from the aque blastia in the lower quarter of Zaphias. Their travels unveil a much larger problem, however, and she sticks with Yuri through discovery after threat after danger, because she's learning things she didn't know before - about the world, about the things she studies, and about herself. Perhaps the largest of these is her gradual discovery that blastia, and their ability to absorb aer to manifest strike and magic artes, is dangerous to the world. It starts out as a few small clues and hints that are easy to miss, and then is changed by a few big reveals into a major issue that must be addressed, especially when Estelle turns out to be a poison to the world because of how her body absorbs aer. This discovery goes on to create lots and lots of research for Rita to perform to find the true nature of blastia.
Eventually, she finds that blastia are created from crystals called apatheia, which are themselves the inert form of creates called entelexeia, powerful beings with great powers. They have the ability to affect the balance of aer in the world, and as her research develops further, she realizes that she could convert the souls of the entelexeia into a new kind of being: a spirit. Through the power of the Child of the Full Moon, whose abilities tie into the world itself - and who happens to be Estelle - and a lot of luck and math, Rita is able to convert the four remaining entelexeia into spirits, and starts to work out how to shift the existing magic artes she uses now, powered by aer, to tap into the spirits' power and convert aer in the atmosphere into mana, a much safer alternative. Once she realizes the power of the spirits, she comes up with a final gambit to free their world from the terror of a massive calamity called the Adephagos: converting all the world's blastia into spirits, and using their combined power to destroy the Adephagos once and for all, instead of sealing it away for some future generation to deal with. While it takes some diplomacy and a lot of work, Rita is able to bring together the formula into a small device she dubs "Vesperia No. 1", and deploys it after a final battle against a foe that insists the only way forward is to sacrifice all human life to power a massive weapon to destroy the Adephagos himself. Instead, through the power of all the world's blastia, Rita and the others are able to defeat the Adephagos and restore peace to Terca Lumireis.
Personality: Rita is a little bit of an odd duck in canon. She starts out as an isolated, horribly snarky teen that seems to want nothing more than to get her job done so she can go back to her hut and ignore the world. She's been burned by people before, too; she states on at least one occasion that she prefers the company of the blastia she researches, as "blastia will never betray me". It takes a long time for Yuri, Estelle, and the others to get close enough to her for her to really let them in; it takes basically the entirety of Act 1 before Rita (accidentally) calls Estelle by her nickname rather than her stuffy given name. She also has a bad habit of being a little bit of a troll, especially to Karol. When she can't really express herself aloud, she tends to resort to violence, again mostly with Karol.
As time passes, Rita starts to mellow a little bit and her true feelings come to the front a little more often. Though she'll never admit it out loud (and especially not to Yuri), she doesn't want to go home. Nobody and nothing is waiting for her, and once she's gotten close to the party, it would kill her to be alone again. Her tendencies have made her a little unstable; she's a horrible tsundere once she's had some time to open up, and she's also a little bit crazy in her interactions, bordering on mild sociopathy. Her personal motto seems to be "shoot first, ask questions after shooting some more"; in almost any cutscene where a given NPC is resisting, her contribution is to call up a few fireballs as an open threat.
Once she's really started to bond with someone, Rita is an invaluable ally - she will happily follow you to the ends of the earth, and put herself in harm's way to make sure you'll be okay. She may deny it later, but in the heat of the moment, it's all she's concerned with. Over the course of the game, Estelle moves from a curiosity, to a friend, to a worrisome situation that Rita wants to solve before it kills the girl, and possibly into something more serious between the two of them down the line. Her relationship with Yuri changes over the course of the game too; she initially resents him for suspecting her of stealing the lower quarter's aque blastia core, but once that's recovered and Yuri doesn't blame her for it any longer, he starts to worry about her, and she begins to return that in kind, starting to honestly worry about him when he goes off on his usual suicide missions and dangerous tangents, and being horrified on his behalf when she starts to realize some of the things he's done to keep them all safe and to protect the Empire (and by extension, Flynn).
With more normal folk, Rita is a little bit snarky, but she isn't above calm, reasonable conversation. That said, though, she's also dangerously quick to anger, and isn't afraid to show it. Approach with caution. She'll also immediately perk up at mention of magical inconsistencies or danger to civilians. On a quest, Rita is all business, and focused on getting everything done without any problems. And if problems come up... well, when all you have is a fist, everything starts to look like a face. And by "fist", I of course mean "fireballs everywhere".
To that end, when she's working on research, either you're helping, out of the way, or in the way. She tends to charge headfirst into trouble, and through sheer stubbornness manages not to get herself killed, though occasionally she needs a little bit of help. Anything foolish enough to get in her way is likely to be burned to a crisp, unless she's feeling particularly charitable, in which case you'll experience something new that will probably make you wish you'd just stayed in bed today.
Abilities: There's a lot to cover here! I'll talk at some length about Rita's general abilities and how artes work, but for her artes specifically, I'm just gonna link the list on Aselia, or we'll be here a while. For those, she comes knowing all her base and arcane strike artes, and her novice, intermediate, and advanced magic artes, plus her altered magic artes, burst artes, and her mystic arte, Ancient Catastrophe. However, Rita doesn't have the item Yuri holds that lets the team stock more than one Over Limit level, so she can't channel enough power to unleash her mystic arte. Unfortunate!
I'm going to try not to go on forever about how Rita functions, but a little bit of data will probably help her make more sense, so. Artes are loosely divided into two kinds: strike artes, where you use magical energy to hit something with another thing in a fancy way (or you use your weapon to kick up energy, such as sword beams), and magic artes, which have channel times and turn raw energy into (usually elemental) damaging force. Rita's specialized in magic artes; she's put a lot of research in and knows the science to develop new artes as she goes, though some ideas are beyond even her without help. With some focus, she can take in aer and convert it into magical energy, using her bodhi blastia. Or at least, that'd normally be true; the end of the game disables all blastia around the world, so instead she uses mana, converted through spirits. All magic artes (I'll just call them artes for the rest of this chunk) also have verbal components, and anything higher than a novice arte also somatic components, where Rita gestures with her equipped scroll or similar item to expand a magic circle around her. All her artes dump a brightly-glowing magic circle on the ground, too. Enough power running through - usually a function of being Over Limit - reduces cast time to zero or near-zero, and removes the verbal and somatic spell components. If Rita can't speak, she can't cast, even if she doesn't need verbal components. If she's unable to move, she's unlikely to be able to cast; it's never shown if she can, at any rate, but that may just be a stylistic choice rather than a requirement.
Mechnically, casting artes exhausts Rita over time; she's got a TP bar that empties as she casts, and fills one point at a time as she hits things with normal attacks and by a percent or two after a battle (functionally meaning after a brief rest). Food restores a lot more depending on how fancy and filling it is, and gummy snacks with citrus components tend to restore a whole lot, but tend to be expensive. Novice artes take a long time to drain her by late-game (think a single-digit cost versus several hundred TP), while advanced artes take a good bit out of her, though she can still go a while before she needs to top up (costs in the several dozen range). When she's not in battle, she can shift skills around to adjust cost versus damage as a sliding scale. (Weapon skills are actually an IC construct, oddly enough; Rita's Light Magic and Heavy Magic influence cost, cast time, and damage). She's not above using her magic to solve non-combat problems, too, though she's got problems with collateral damage. Given her spells range from fireballs on up to summoning meteors and quite a bit in between, that's probably not too surprising.
Aside from her magic artes, Rita also knows a few strike artes, which involve using the heavy tome strapped to her hip to hit things in new and exciting ways, and her burst arte, Mystic Drive. While sufficiently powered-up (requires Over Limit in game), she can follow a big enough strike or magic arte with a huge magic circle that damages and staggers anyone caught in it several times over a few seconds, though she can only do it a couple times before the juice runs out. It comes in elemental flavors, too, which work the same way. Ordinarily she'd be able to manifest her mystic arte, Ancient Catastrophe, too, but that requires more energy than she can safely channel (requires Over Limit Lv. 3, which needs an item Yuri is carrying, not her). If she could, though, she'd be able to call up a huge amount of energy after a big spell or Mystic Drive, aspected to the four elements and kept carefully apart in huge orbs. Then she'd slam them together and... well, the effects are catastrophic indeed. Certainly enough to down almost anything, if you don't mind the property damage. I'm locking down Rita's fatal strikes, which are instant-kill moves that are more of a game function; they don't even have names and are color-coded based on the kind of arte you've been spamming. Once you've hit an enemy with the right kind of arte enough times, a glyph appears and you get a special move that takes out normal enemies in one shot, every time. Not particularly interesting.
Outside her artes, Rita's a prodigy, bordering on legitimate genius. She's been studying in Aspio since she was little, and her hut on the outskirts of the city is full of books, papers, experimental materials, and several chalkboards. She's referred to (usually mockingly) as a genius mage by anyone that's heard her name before, and given a wide berth by anyone with more than a passing knowledge. While she's a distant second to Estelle, who outright gets different text boxes when she's reciting passages from memory, she knows a fair bit about Terca Lumireis, and is strongly proficient in science and math given her career choice. Advanced blastia have programming interfaces not unlike computers, and she's scary good at that; one could assume she'll be amazing at programming computers once she realizes the similarity. She's okay but not great at cooking, and has been known to make a decent waitress when she's not blasting the customers. Physically she's flexible and has great reflexes but poor stamina; between her skill with a kendama, whips and scrolls from combat, getting back up and being able to dodge everything... Oh, and she can fly, too. One of her weapon skills gives her levitation, which lets her float up to about eight feet in the air and move around at just over walking speed. She can even cast spells in midair! It drains her, though; her energy depletes kinda quickly, though anything that reduces the cost of her spells reduces that cost too. An endgame Rita could probably stay afloat for a minute or two, presuming she's not casting spells at the same time.
Mod ruling: I asked on the FAQ how to handle Rita's powers. Since she won't have her bodhi blastia (coming from post-game, it's been eaten in the final battle) and can't bring a spirit (not really hers), Rita will be more or less unpowered to start. Once she can regain either her bodhi blastia (which she'll be horrified to see) or a random, generic spirit as a "pet", she'll have full access to her artes again. Until then she's pretty ordinary, if flexible and mildly strong.
Equipment: a Milky Way +1, an intricately decorated scroll recovered from a chest in a late-game dungeon and upgraded after dealing with the last boss; an emerald ring that makes artes less taxing; Rita's signature goggles that reduce the effect of elemental damage on her; a handful of lemon and pineapple gels; a handful of magic lenses; two life bottles. (I'm ignoring her armor slot; she should be wearing a fancy dress as you find one in the last dungeon and it's her best armor, but that's not visible on the character model and it'd cost me her signature cloak. Otherwise this would be her post-game kit.)
Strengths: Intelligent; driven; resourceful; good with technology; loyal and patient to friends
Weaknesses: Hot-headed; bad at personal relationships; stubborn; mildly sadistic; not honest with herself (tsundere?)
God/Shinki: Shinki
Why?: Rita is better at following orders than giving them, unless she's threatening people in the process. Having someone to give her structure while her world is upside down will help her a fair bit.
Cause Of Death: Rita being Rita and experimenting with spellcraft, some months post-canon; she's got altered artes across the board, but why not work out a few more? She'd been working on a new implementation of water and wind mana; rather than Freeze Lancer, which is really only useful at long range, she wanted something helpful at close range. Maybe a way to trap someone, or to lock them in with someone deadlier. She wouldn't know it, but she'd end up with something along the lines of Atlas, a spell from elsewhere in the franchise that does just that. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, she ends up trapping herself in it, and her magic goes haywire, trapping her inside a flash-frozen dome of ice that's fairly thick and really cold. When she found herself unable to end the spell and unable to gather fire-natured mana, she ended up freezing pretty quickly - her cloak isn't made for prolonged exposure to the elements. Although this is technically a sucessful cast of Atlas, it's not actually one of her spells, so I'm not going to include it as something she can do.
Vessel: A scarf, similar to her usual scrolls. Long enough to be worn as a scarf, though that probably won't actually be happening, of course. Can be hardened and manipulated by mana. Rita can't cast spells through it, since being silenced shuts off her artes wholesale. Resistant to any artes Rita does manage, but not to other damage.
Name Location: The hollow of her throat, where the core of her bodhi blastia once rested.
Power: Fire Ball, as her novice magic arte. Releases several small fireballs, maybe the size of a soccer ball, with some velocity toward a target. Capable of weak homing. Mildly powerful. Very much capable of lighting things on fire. Powered by her God rather than by her own energy and doesn't require aer, mana, or verbal or somatic components; in exchange, power output is lower. An intricate magic circle, glowing a burning red, appears under her God when used and vanishes once the last fireball's away. Comes out of one end of the scarf; either one works, just in case. Kind of Rita's signature mode of violence, enough to carry into her afterlife.
Writing Sample
Sample: Rita on the TDM! I've got another thread after this one if I need it, too.
Other
Anything Else?: I'm intending to come in with Rita paired with Ken's Tsubasa Kazanari (swordintowings); Tsubasa as the god, Rita as the shinki!
thefarshore.Player Information
Name: MaxSalsa
Contact:
Age: 29
Other Characters: N/A
Character Information
Name: Rita Mordio
Canon: Tales of Vesperia
Canon Point: Post-game by a short while; there's not really a timeline of other stuff after the game ends. Not PS3/Definitive Edition compliant; I haven't played that content. I may update her once the remake is out and I run through it.
Age: 15(-ish)
History: (I'll be pulling from past apps where able, mostly in this section and personality! I haven't played Rita in a while, but the canon hasn't changed much
As a general rule, Rita's role in ToV is to give Yuri information on and insight into Terca Lumireis' resident magitech, blastia. Blastia themselves are various kinds of objects that can serve any number of functions; Yuri's slum in the capital has an aque blastia that purifies water, most large cities have barrier blastia that keep monsters out, ships have ceres blastia that make them operable... and perhaps most notably, adventurers carry bodhi blastia that let them manifest artes, special abilities running the gamut from sword beams to fireballs to physically-impossible instant movement. Rita herself works for the imperial blastia research laboratory at Aspio, where she lives, and where she is the top researcher at the young age of fourteen.
Rita originally leaves Aspio in the first place to clear her name with Yuri, who believes she stole the core from the aque blastia in the lower quarter of Zaphias. Their travels unveil a much larger problem, however, and she sticks with Yuri through discovery after threat after danger, because she's learning things she didn't know before - about the world, about the things she studies, and about herself. Perhaps the largest of these is her gradual discovery that blastia, and their ability to absorb aer to manifest strike and magic artes, is dangerous to the world. It starts out as a few small clues and hints that are easy to miss, and then is changed by a few big reveals into a major issue that must be addressed, especially when Estelle turns out to be a poison to the world because of how her body absorbs aer. This discovery goes on to create lots and lots of research for Rita to perform to find the true nature of blastia.
Eventually, she finds that blastia are created from crystals called apatheia, which are themselves the inert form of creates called entelexeia, powerful beings with great powers. They have the ability to affect the balance of aer in the world, and as her research develops further, she realizes that she could convert the souls of the entelexeia into a new kind of being: a spirit. Through the power of the Child of the Full Moon, whose abilities tie into the world itself - and who happens to be Estelle - and a lot of luck and math, Rita is able to convert the four remaining entelexeia into spirits, and starts to work out how to shift the existing magic artes she uses now, powered by aer, to tap into the spirits' power and convert aer in the atmosphere into mana, a much safer alternative. Once she realizes the power of the spirits, she comes up with a final gambit to free their world from the terror of a massive calamity called the Adephagos: converting all the world's blastia into spirits, and using their combined power to destroy the Adephagos once and for all, instead of sealing it away for some future generation to deal with. While it takes some diplomacy and a lot of work, Rita is able to bring together the formula into a small device she dubs "Vesperia No. 1", and deploys it after a final battle against a foe that insists the only way forward is to sacrifice all human life to power a massive weapon to destroy the Adephagos himself. Instead, through the power of all the world's blastia, Rita and the others are able to defeat the Adephagos and restore peace to Terca Lumireis.
Personality: Rita is a little bit of an odd duck in canon. She starts out as an isolated, horribly snarky teen that seems to want nothing more than to get her job done so she can go back to her hut and ignore the world. She's been burned by people before, too; she states on at least one occasion that she prefers the company of the blastia she researches, as "blastia will never betray me". It takes a long time for Yuri, Estelle, and the others to get close enough to her for her to really let them in; it takes basically the entirety of Act 1 before Rita (accidentally) calls Estelle by her nickname rather than her stuffy given name. She also has a bad habit of being a little bit of a troll, especially to Karol. When she can't really express herself aloud, she tends to resort to violence, again mostly with Karol.
As time passes, Rita starts to mellow a little bit and her true feelings come to the front a little more often. Though she'll never admit it out loud (and especially not to Yuri), she doesn't want to go home. Nobody and nothing is waiting for her, and once she's gotten close to the party, it would kill her to be alone again. Her tendencies have made her a little unstable; she's a horrible tsundere once she's had some time to open up, and she's also a little bit crazy in her interactions, bordering on mild sociopathy. Her personal motto seems to be "shoot first, ask questions after shooting some more"; in almost any cutscene where a given NPC is resisting, her contribution is to call up a few fireballs as an open threat.
Once she's really started to bond with someone, Rita is an invaluable ally - she will happily follow you to the ends of the earth, and put herself in harm's way to make sure you'll be okay. She may deny it later, but in the heat of the moment, it's all she's concerned with. Over the course of the game, Estelle moves from a curiosity, to a friend, to a worrisome situation that Rita wants to solve before it kills the girl, and possibly into something more serious between the two of them down the line. Her relationship with Yuri changes over the course of the game too; she initially resents him for suspecting her of stealing the lower quarter's aque blastia core, but once that's recovered and Yuri doesn't blame her for it any longer, he starts to worry about her, and she begins to return that in kind, starting to honestly worry about him when he goes off on his usual suicide missions and dangerous tangents, and being horrified on his behalf when she starts to realize some of the things he's done to keep them all safe and to protect the Empire (and by extension, Flynn).
With more normal folk, Rita is a little bit snarky, but she isn't above calm, reasonable conversation. That said, though, she's also dangerously quick to anger, and isn't afraid to show it. Approach with caution. She'll also immediately perk up at mention of magical inconsistencies or danger to civilians. On a quest, Rita is all business, and focused on getting everything done without any problems. And if problems come up... well, when all you have is a fist, everything starts to look like a face. And by "fist", I of course mean "fireballs everywhere".
To that end, when she's working on research, either you're helping, out of the way, or in the way. She tends to charge headfirst into trouble, and through sheer stubbornness manages not to get herself killed, though occasionally she needs a little bit of help. Anything foolish enough to get in her way is likely to be burned to a crisp, unless she's feeling particularly charitable, in which case you'll experience something new that will probably make you wish you'd just stayed in bed today.
Abilities: There's a lot to cover here! I'll talk at some length about Rita's general abilities and how artes work, but for her artes specifically, I'm just gonna link the list on Aselia, or we'll be here a while. For those, she comes knowing all her base and arcane strike artes, and her novice, intermediate, and advanced magic artes, plus her altered magic artes, burst artes, and her mystic arte, Ancient Catastrophe. However, Rita doesn't have the item Yuri holds that lets the team stock more than one Over Limit level, so she can't channel enough power to unleash her mystic arte. Unfortunate!
I'm going to try not to go on forever about how Rita functions, but a little bit of data will probably help her make more sense, so. Artes are loosely divided into two kinds: strike artes, where you use magical energy to hit something with another thing in a fancy way (or you use your weapon to kick up energy, such as sword beams), and magic artes, which have channel times and turn raw energy into (usually elemental) damaging force. Rita's specialized in magic artes; she's put a lot of research in and knows the science to develop new artes as she goes, though some ideas are beyond even her without help. With some focus, she can take in aer and convert it into magical energy, using her bodhi blastia. Or at least, that'd normally be true; the end of the game disables all blastia around the world, so instead she uses mana, converted through spirits. All magic artes (I'll just call them artes for the rest of this chunk) also have verbal components, and anything higher than a novice arte also somatic components, where Rita gestures with her equipped scroll or similar item to expand a magic circle around her. All her artes dump a brightly-glowing magic circle on the ground, too. Enough power running through - usually a function of being Over Limit - reduces cast time to zero or near-zero, and removes the verbal and somatic spell components. If Rita can't speak, she can't cast, even if she doesn't need verbal components. If she's unable to move, she's unlikely to be able to cast; it's never shown if she can, at any rate, but that may just be a stylistic choice rather than a requirement.
Mechnically, casting artes exhausts Rita over time; she's got a TP bar that empties as she casts, and fills one point at a time as she hits things with normal attacks and by a percent or two after a battle (functionally meaning after a brief rest). Food restores a lot more depending on how fancy and filling it is, and gummy snacks with citrus components tend to restore a whole lot, but tend to be expensive. Novice artes take a long time to drain her by late-game (think a single-digit cost versus several hundred TP), while advanced artes take a good bit out of her, though she can still go a while before she needs to top up (costs in the several dozen range). When she's not in battle, she can shift skills around to adjust cost versus damage as a sliding scale. (Weapon skills are actually an IC construct, oddly enough; Rita's Light Magic and Heavy Magic influence cost, cast time, and damage). She's not above using her magic to solve non-combat problems, too, though she's got problems with collateral damage. Given her spells range from fireballs on up to summoning meteors and quite a bit in between, that's probably not too surprising.
Aside from her magic artes, Rita also knows a few strike artes, which involve using the heavy tome strapped to her hip to hit things in new and exciting ways, and her burst arte, Mystic Drive. While sufficiently powered-up (requires Over Limit in game), she can follow a big enough strike or magic arte with a huge magic circle that damages and staggers anyone caught in it several times over a few seconds, though she can only do it a couple times before the juice runs out. It comes in elemental flavors, too, which work the same way. Ordinarily she'd be able to manifest her mystic arte, Ancient Catastrophe, too, but that requires more energy than she can safely channel (requires Over Limit Lv. 3, which needs an item Yuri is carrying, not her). If she could, though, she'd be able to call up a huge amount of energy after a big spell or Mystic Drive, aspected to the four elements and kept carefully apart in huge orbs. Then she'd slam them together and... well, the effects are catastrophic indeed. Certainly enough to down almost anything, if you don't mind the property damage. I'm locking down Rita's fatal strikes, which are instant-kill moves that are more of a game function; they don't even have names and are color-coded based on the kind of arte you've been spamming. Once you've hit an enemy with the right kind of arte enough times, a glyph appears and you get a special move that takes out normal enemies in one shot, every time. Not particularly interesting.
Outside her artes, Rita's a prodigy, bordering on legitimate genius. She's been studying in Aspio since she was little, and her hut on the outskirts of the city is full of books, papers, experimental materials, and several chalkboards. She's referred to (usually mockingly) as a genius mage by anyone that's heard her name before, and given a wide berth by anyone with more than a passing knowledge. While she's a distant second to Estelle, who outright gets different text boxes when she's reciting passages from memory, she knows a fair bit about Terca Lumireis, and is strongly proficient in science and math given her career choice. Advanced blastia have programming interfaces not unlike computers, and she's scary good at that; one could assume she'll be amazing at programming computers once she realizes the similarity. She's okay but not great at cooking, and has been known to make a decent waitress when she's not blasting the customers. Physically she's flexible and has great reflexes but poor stamina; between her skill with a kendama, whips and scrolls from combat, getting back up and being able to dodge everything... Oh, and she can fly, too. One of her weapon skills gives her levitation, which lets her float up to about eight feet in the air and move around at just over walking speed. She can even cast spells in midair! It drains her, though; her energy depletes kinda quickly, though anything that reduces the cost of her spells reduces that cost too. An endgame Rita could probably stay afloat for a minute or two, presuming she's not casting spells at the same time.
Mod ruling: I asked on the FAQ how to handle Rita's powers. Since she won't have her bodhi blastia (coming from post-game, it's been eaten in the final battle) and can't bring a spirit (not really hers), Rita will be more or less unpowered to start. Once she can regain either her bodhi blastia (which she'll be horrified to see) or a random, generic spirit as a "pet", she'll have full access to her artes again. Until then she's pretty ordinary, if flexible and mildly strong.
Equipment: a Milky Way +1, an intricately decorated scroll recovered from a chest in a late-game dungeon and upgraded after dealing with the last boss; an emerald ring that makes artes less taxing; Rita's signature goggles that reduce the effect of elemental damage on her; a handful of lemon and pineapple gels; a handful of magic lenses; two life bottles. (I'm ignoring her armor slot; she should be wearing a fancy dress as you find one in the last dungeon and it's her best armor, but that's not visible on the character model and it'd cost me her signature cloak. Otherwise this would be her post-game kit.)
Strengths: Intelligent; driven; resourceful; good with technology; loyal and patient to friends
Weaknesses: Hot-headed; bad at personal relationships; stubborn; mildly sadistic; not honest with herself (tsundere?)
God/Shinki: Shinki
Why?: Rita is better at following orders than giving them, unless she's threatening people in the process. Having someone to give her structure while her world is upside down will help her a fair bit.
Cause Of Death: Rita being Rita and experimenting with spellcraft, some months post-canon; she's got altered artes across the board, but why not work out a few more? She'd been working on a new implementation of water and wind mana; rather than Freeze Lancer, which is really only useful at long range, she wanted something helpful at close range. Maybe a way to trap someone, or to lock them in with someone deadlier. She wouldn't know it, but she'd end up with something along the lines of Atlas, a spell from elsewhere in the franchise that does just that. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, she ends up trapping herself in it, and her magic goes haywire, trapping her inside a flash-frozen dome of ice that's fairly thick and really cold. When she found herself unable to end the spell and unable to gather fire-natured mana, she ended up freezing pretty quickly - her cloak isn't made for prolonged exposure to the elements. Although this is technically a sucessful cast of Atlas, it's not actually one of her spells, so I'm not going to include it as something she can do.
Vessel: A scarf, similar to her usual scrolls. Long enough to be worn as a scarf, though that probably won't actually be happening, of course. Can be hardened and manipulated by mana. Rita can't cast spells through it, since being silenced shuts off her artes wholesale. Resistant to any artes Rita does manage, but not to other damage.
Name Location: The hollow of her throat, where the core of her bodhi blastia once rested.
Power: Fire Ball, as her novice magic arte. Releases several small fireballs, maybe the size of a soccer ball, with some velocity toward a target. Capable of weak homing. Mildly powerful. Very much capable of lighting things on fire. Powered by her God rather than by her own energy and doesn't require aer, mana, or verbal or somatic components; in exchange, power output is lower. An intricate magic circle, glowing a burning red, appears under her God when used and vanishes once the last fireball's away. Comes out of one end of the scarf; either one works, just in case. Kind of Rita's signature mode of violence, enough to carry into her afterlife.
Writing Sample
Sample: Rita on the TDM! I've got another thread after this one if I need it, too.
Other
Anything Else?: I'm intending to come in with Rita paired with Ken's Tsubasa Kazanari (
swordintowings); Tsubasa as the god, Rita as the shinki!