The Celestial Nightstrider
Celaia Kirika
Sole survivor of the Zaya tribe
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
[ADDING EVENTS OF ENDWALKER AND DAWNTRAIL]
[LAST UPDATED 02/2024]
BACKSTORY
Celaia Zaya was born into the Zaya tribe, one of the many to call the Azim Steppe home. The Zaya, at the time of her birth, were the strongest tribe in the region, but also fairly unorthodox. The Zaya made no claim to The Dawn Throne and even though they acknowledged the Dawn Father and the Dusk Mother as the origin of the Au Ra, they were a tribe that accepted Menphina as their patron deity.
Although not much different from any other tribe in their values of strength, nomadic lifestyle, and ambitious nature, the other Xaela tribes viewed the Zaya as blasphemous and an insult to their ways of life. Even so, battle after battle the Zaya proved their dominance over the other tribes, yet continued to live in isolation from them.Celaia was born during a brief period of peace to a slightly elevated status within the tribe. During this peace time the Zaya tribe bore no hostility toward any of their neighbors, even while under scrutiny themselves. This allowed her parents, of two different tribes, to meet and fall in love. Celaia's nameday fell on the second full astral moon of the year, marking her as one of Menphina's blessed and celebrated as one of the Zaya's strongest warriors of the future. While celebrated, Celaia was far from royalty as her mother was an apothecary from the outside tribe and her father was a simple soldier. Celaia was not able to see her mother very often. Celaia was kept under the watch of her father amongst the barracks and all of the other soldiers in the Zaya tribe. She learned the basics of wielding a weapon and hunting at a very young age; she had no practical experience, but many teachings and tests given to her by the age of seven. She knew that her purpose was to uphold the strength of the Zaya.
Many expectations were thrust upon the child and, needless to say, she was not happy. Celaia often cursed her time training as a Zaya warrior in favor of what was, by comparison, the peaceful time she would spend with her mother. She enjoyed tending to the few crops kept by the nomads and helping with her mother's remedy stall whenever her mother could sneak away from her tribe to visit the Zaya's camp. Her life would continue like this for some time.That peace Celaia yearned for would not last long enough. When Celaia turned ten she was no longer able to see her mother due to rising tensions between the Xaela tribes in the region. A year of smaller conflicts would lead into a rather extreme winter which ended up killing many of the game the nomadic tribes would hunt for miles around. Most tribes at the time were barely surviving the weather only due to the black mages that would create mystical fires around their settlements creating artificial heat. The tribes were infuriated by the lack of resources, when the Zaya still had plenty, many blaming Menphina herself as the false deity to bring such a frigid winter to the steppe. This caused many tribes to band together in secret with the goal of ending the winter, redistributing the Zaya's resources, and finally ridding the steppe of the heretics.On Celaia's eleventh birthday the Zaya tribe was attacked by seven neighboring smaller tribes that when combined doubled the Zaya's numbers. It was an all out bloodbath at midnight. Amidst the chaos Celaia had been able to remain stealthy enough to make sure she wouldn't become a target. Hiding, running with crowds, staying with soldiers before ditching them as they were overrun, she made her way across the tribe's encampment to where her father would most likely be.Celaia saw many atrocious things on her way there and it was the first real eye opener to what the Xaela were capable of. Before she reached her father she was surprised to see a battalion led by her mother of all people heading in the same direction. She tailed them as she pondered whether or not to reveal herself to her mother, wondering to herself how her gentle, sweet, mother had become a commander in the last year. Celaia stifled her sobs while following her, watching as her mother's soldiers destroyed her home until they arrived at a rather large portable forge.
Someone was defending something inside and every Xaela that entered was cut down and tossed back outside. That someone was Celaia's father. He held out for quite some time before stepping out in a fit of battle high only to be surrounded immediately and impaled. Celaia's mother realized who he was as soon as he stepped out of the forge and tried to stop her soldiers to no avail. Screaming over the death of her husband she collapsed to her knees. Another nearby leader had been passing through as this happened and questioned the hysterical woman before him until she admit that he was her lover. Celaia's mother pleaded for their lives only to be cut down as a "traitor" by the battalion leader and left to bleed out with her husband.Celaia witnessed everything. She was mortified. Time seemed to pass at a snail's pace as she waited for the soldiers to move on so that she could make what would be a futile effort to help her already dead parents.Emotionally destroyed, she started to wander into the forge to see if she could find anything that her father might have been protecting. The building, burning on the inside, housed a number of unused weapons. Celaia lethargically stumbled over to a dagger kicked out of the way of the rest of the weapons. It had a small piercingly glowing blue Menphina engraving that stood out against the flames.Celaia took it before the building had started to collapse and wandered back outside. She made no real effort to hide from the enemy forces, thinking that if she was found at least it would end her pain. She was lost and so was her entire tribe. She wandered slowly out of camp without encountering anyone and stuck to the nearest road for the next 18 hours before collapsing from exhaustion.Within the next 15 minutes a caravan owned by the traveling Miqo'te merchant S'yteri Kirika discovered her and took her in, continuing to travel to the nearest Raen port town. Over the next two weeks S'yteri tended to the traumatized child delaying her trip back home. It was after those two weeks where Celaia first talked again and over the next three days the two bonded more closely even with S'yteri unable to get the child to talk about where she came from.S’yteri eventually offered to adopt Celaia allowing her to leave Othard, and the pain that she had experienced there, for Eorzea. She was to return home with S'yteri to the Gridania region. Celaia agreed, there was nothing left for her in Othard.Upon arriving, Celaia was grateful that she had found a new mother figure, a new home, and a new life away from the horrors that she now knew the Xaelan tribes to be capable of. She dropped her tribe name vowing to never identify as a Zaya again and took the Miqo'te merchant's last name, becoming Celaia Kirika. However, she did vow to remember her parents as they were in her earlier years.Celaia turned to Menphina to helping her become the strong champion that she was destined to become. She was intent on stopping the wrongs of the realm from occurring even from humble beginnings in the small city state of Gridania. Little did she know, she was also a future Warrior of Light, not only chosen by Menphina, but by Hydaelyn as well. Celaia survived that night on many blessings and would become a defender of the entire realm against any who would threaten it.
INFORMATION
TIMELINE
PROFILE
Age: 29
Birthday: 22nd Sun of the 2nd Astral Moon
Gender: Female
Race: Full Au Ra, Xaela
Height: 5 fulms, 2 ilms
Eye Color: Heterochromia (silver right eye, steel blue left eye)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Sexuality: Bisexual
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: Scion of the Seventh Dawn, Diplomat, Headhunter, Leader of the Fury Free Company.
Hobbies: Traveling, window shopping, reading, tarot reading.
Likes: Sweets, karakul, competition, her friends, whining, teasing, midnight blue, peace and quiet.
Dislikes: Cast times, insects, feeling alone, vacations, complications, being teased, ruby red.
Defining Features: Moonlike porcelain pale skin, pair of midnight blue star tattoos under her left eye, ice blue limbal rings.
PERSONALITY
Celaia is very dutiful and puts a lot of expectations on herself in order to outpace the uncomfortable expectations of others. She is always trying to find new ways to push herself and ways to make herself of use to others in need. Although she tries to forget her painful, complicated, and conflict ridden childhood, the massacre of her tribe has left her unwilling to experience loss on the same scale. Celaia may deny it, but the pangs of her past are a large part of what makes her so heroic today.As the continued face of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and somewhat of a self proclaimed Eorzean Diplomat, Celaia maintains a dignified, elegant, composed image in public. While she never asked to be such a representative, Celaia strives to be a symbol of strength that everyone can believe in, taking her jobs and those expectations very seriously. Calm, cold, and calculating, Celaia's influence can be felt on any battlefield she commands just as a full moon would touch every blade of grass on a clear night.Celaia wears a different face for the public. To her friends she's a different person entirely. She loves finding any opportunity to be silly and mischievous. Celaia will often tease and poke those closest to her. She is very physically affectionate, as was her adoptive Miqo'te mother, S'yteri. When not in public she spends a lot of time reading in her private chambers or relaxing in common areas of her guild house. Celaia doesn't generally seek social interaction as she is rather introverted, but she makes herself available and approachable.Celaia likes to be spoiled and tries to remain amongst the thoughts of those she cares about. She'll often whine about minor inconveniencies to get attention or help with trivial things to maintain her laziness during her time off. However, she doesn't take her friends or her time off for granted. Its the only time she can let loose and not be such an upstanding symbol. She cherishes the relationships where she feels she can be herself.When in combat or competition Celaia is very methodical, often analyzing her opponents quickly and flawlessly exploiting weaknesses. However, she isn't the most flexible and hates dealing with too many variables. She tries to limit concerns to avoid hesitation. While she doesn't often crack under pressure, she is prone to losing her temper and becoming increasingly aggressive the longer fights go on, often overwhelming her strongest of foes with an unrelenting flurry of attacks.There are many times Celaia will retreat into much more withdrawn moods due to her PTSD and as such will often turn to headhunting alone. Sometimes disappearing for weeks at a time clearing bounty board after bounty board in her shadow's wake. Even so, Celaia would never shirk her responsibilities. She keeps a watchful eye and reappears whenever she is most needed regardless of her own agenda.
HEADCANON / HOOKS
Celaia, quite obviously has an affinity for the night sky and celestial bodies. While her character is themed after the night sky, it is completely of her own conscious doing and will very rarely be caught wearing anything that isn't midnight blue, jet black, or pure white. Her partner Yukimi has been getting her to wear pastel blues more often to get her to lighten up.
Celaia loves karakul. They are her favorite animal and one of the fond memories she has from childhood tending to the herds her tribe kept. She loves taking naps with them surrounded by pure fluffiness and thinks their horns are infinitely cuter than Au Ra horns. She also keeps a pet albino karakul, named Kara.
Celaia's favorite flower is the Hydrangea, specifically blue ones. She is quite attached to their meaning representing heartfelt emotion, empathy, and unity, all of which she values dearly.
Celaia is very proud of how well kept her jet black hair is. While she doesn't fuss over her many things in her maintenance routine her hair must be perfect. While she doesn't deviate often from her usual hairstyle, Celaia has been known to magically glamour it blonde from time to time. It was a color that grew on her after being stuck blonde for four months after being light poisoned in The First.
Celaia can be a bit of a workaholic and hates idle time, especially when its necessary to wait for tasks to be completed properly. It's not necessarily that she likes the work, but her sense of duty leads her to believe if she's not doing something, she should be. Celaia has been forced to take a number of vacations by her fellow scions.
While somewhat of a celebrity herself, Celaia hates the publicity of fame and, even more so, the arrogance of egotistical people. She is quite a humble and private person, but not necessarily as selfless as some believe. She would rather people not feel the need to get attached or pay debts to her for her deeds and so she rather selfishly avoids much social entanglement and idolization.
Celaia's heterochromatic eyes are the mark of Menphina's blessing. Her moonlit silver right eye actually has much more keen sight in addition to the ability to see aetheric manipulation. She can use her eye to help her determine weaknesses or preempt spell casts helping to cover her weaknesses against magic users. In more serious combat scenarios she can often be spotted wearing a mask or blindfold that covers her normal left eye in order to block out distractions.
Celaia's pupils are also able to become silt like a lizard or dragon. Her first time unleashing her dragoon's blood of the dragon was a rather primal, almost feral experience. Ever since, her eyes often change when she is intensely focused, aggravated, or under heavy exertion. They grant the same benefits of low light vision and the effect can often be self induced when she's trying to see in a dark area. Sometimes it takes days for her eyes to turn back and sometimes they change without any provocation. Many who are close to Celaia are rather used to seeing her eyes in both forms.
Celaia is known to have trouble managing her anger just like her other negative emotions. She is prone to impulsive behavior when enraged. While she is much more likely to become simply impatient with an annoying situation, once in a fit of fury Celaia becomes wholly uninhibited and extremely difficult to calm down. This is actually the known reason as to why Celaia never became a full-fledged Warrior.
TALENTS
Soulstones: Astrologian, Dark Knight, Dragoon, Ninja, Viper
Main Job: Ninja
Additional Informal Training: Bows, Gunblades, Guns, Sword and Shield, Katana
Echo: Duality
Trump Card: Crux
Strengths: Dexterity, Stealth, Umbral Acuity
Weaknesses: Spell Casting, Advanced Magic, Vitality/Endurance
Artisan Skills: Alchemist, Culinarian
STORIES OF SKILL
Celaia has had success with many weapons, but is vastly more skillful with the ones she has obtained soulstones for. The training in the Zaya tribe camp has made her able to defend herself with most any weapon she can get her hands on.Early on Celaia was very fond of lances and spears. They were many skilled hunters among her tribe and as such her training with the weapon carried her to an early acceptance into the Gridania Lancer's Guild. Celaia's progression from lancer to dragoon was only natural and follows the normal course of events in the job quests of ARR and Heavensward before focusing her attention elsewhere.Celaia is not the strongest of warriors, but is incredibly fast when unencumbered. Early on, this was the source of her success as a dragoon, with a heavy focus on her jumping abilities. However, she struggled against many of the non-dragon foes she would face against within Alexander.After a narrow victory against Alexander Prime, she was quick to do some soul searching in the next step to becoming stronger. It was around this time she started to become fascinated in the fighting style of a certain Yugiri Mistwalker. Yugiri decided to show Celaia some of the basics, and after seeing Celaia's potential, recommended she continue her training by seeking out a soulstone. Celaia agreed realizing instantly that the lighter equipment would allow her to flourish, trading her lance for a pair of daggers that she practiced with every day for weeks, alone. Once skillful martially, Celaia went about finding a teacher to train her in the ways of ninjutsu. The magical abilities did well to compliment her new short range and mobility focused, hit and run tactics. She received formal ninja training from Yugiri Mistwalker, as well as Oboro Torioi after receiving her ninja soulstone.During her ninja training, Celaia was quick to notice the full potential of her speed was nearly limitless due to the utilization of her echo. Her echo, aptly named Duality, manifests in a reality bending speed that blurs the fabric of space and time. This allows her to move fast enough to create two independent instances of herself as long as they are both in motion. In combination with her Bunshin technique, Celaia's trump card, Crux, effectively results in three additional images (the echo clone and the two shadow clones) all able to engage targets as effectively as the original.It was also around this time that Celaia had started down the path of a Dark Knight unknowingly inheriting the soulstone of Fray Myste. Due to Celaia's traumatic childhood, it was discovered she had a sensitivity and affinity to the powers of darkness. While mostly suppressed, Celaia was a well of negative emotions in the form of pain, loss, and fear. She took to and mastered many of her dark arts fairly quickly. Quite notably was the leech effect on abyssal drain when used at full power, instantly repurposing any life energy into her own. Her dark side was strong. When channeling it she felt lighter than her ninja self even while in full dark knight plate.Celaia loved her newfound powers, but at the price of almost falling victim to it after a fit of fury triggered by remembering the night of her tribe's massacre. Distraught, Celaia took the nearest bounty she could find from a guild board in Limsa Lominsa near midnight to try to abate her feelings with work. Slowly consumed by rage and sorrow leading up to the encounter, Celaia's dark side took over, inciting her to murder a group of twelve pirates each wanted alive. There were no witnesses and no repercussions once her dark side was suppressed. However, Celaia bears the burden of their blood and refuses to use her dark knight powers liberally, instead saving them as a sort of last resort. She often uses much weaker versions of the abilities like abyssal drain and the blackest night to help supplement her ninja combat style or cover weaknesses.Lastly, also fascinated by celestial bodies like the moon and stars, Celaia would study the ways of the astrologian. The last frontier of ability she would come to conquer would be that of a healer. Not typically interested in many magicks or medicines, she found it difficult to click with the foundations of arcanist or conjurer. Her attempts to break into the world of alchemy, while dedicated, also bore little fruit. It wasn't until she had heard of the non-conventional future reading, fate bending ways of healing that the heavens would grant her that Celaia finally resonated with healing... somewhat. She remains rather neophyte in terms of more serious practical experience, but through much raw talent and understanding of the stars she would refuse to let anyone under her care fall in battle, maybe to a fault. Again, it's more likely to witness Celaia using her astrologian powers supplementary to her ninja, namely abilities that would grant her foresight of a situation. However, she loves telling fortunes and has no reservations about using her astrologian soulstone unlike her dark knight.Celaia's mastery of the night, the moon, and the stars has earned her the title of The Celestial Shadow amongst those who know her as legend. After the events of Endwalker helped her temper her darkside, her title has changed to The Celestial Shadewalker.
EQUIPMENT
NINJA
Mutsunokami
White Hydrangea Corsage
Virtu Iga Ningi
Panthean Armguards of Scouting
Asphodelos Hose of Scouting
Ktiseos Sabatons of Scouting
DARK KNIGHT
Voidcast Greatsword
Little Lady's Crown
Diadochos Jacket of Fending
Ednechoir Gauntlets of Fending
Scion Healer's Halftights
Edenchoir Sollerets of Fending
.
VIPER
Skydeep Twinfangs
White Hydrangea Corsage
Augmented Crystarium Coat of Scouting
Bozjan Wristwraps of Scouting
Asphodelos Hose of Scouting
Oracle Leggings
ASTROLOGIAN
Solstice Recollection
White Hydrangea Corsage
Prestige High Allagan Coat of Healing
Makai Moon Guide's Fingerless Gloves
Makai Moon Guide's Quarter Tights
Asphodelos Gaiters of Healing
.
WINTER
DIVINER
WANDERER
HEADHUNTER
GLAMOURS
CASUAL
SCOUT
SKIRMISHER
VENTURER
.
SUMMER
TECHER
REAVER
GATHERER
RELATIONSHIPS
Fury: The free company allied with the Maelstrom founded directly by Celaia Kirika. While dedicated to the prospects of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Celaia had made many friends and allies who she would not expect the same commitment from. However, these close friends would gather under Celaia's banner at a moment's notice if asked. Celaia founded it to keep these friends close during the events of Stormblood as tensions of war continued to rise across Eorzea. Celaia inherited an abandoned old forge in the Mist that belonged to a now disbanded Free Company.In the basement there were still embers burning and a lone magicked aetherial construct that resembled a pyretic butterfly fluttering about. Celaia wondered by what means this construct was kept alive, why this fire's fury had not been extinguished. She then wondered the same of herself after all that she had been through. Celaia was inspired to name the guild after the thought and made the crimson butterfly its emblem. Fury, a guild for the determined and defiant.Along with the help of Yukimi, The small forge was repurposed into the free company's guild house and remains a place for the furious to rest.
GALLERY
(All images will enlarge on click)
ORIGINAL GPOSE HIGHLIGHTS
Commissioned Artwork
Artist: Yinyun @yinyun_art
Artist: Allasinnia @Allasinnia
Artist: Sinrid @SinridX
Artist: Crim @crim7x
Artist: NEAH @lv99box
From the Creator
Hey, Sen here, writer and gamer. I've had a lot of fun putting this together only recently getting into really sharing stuff about my FFXIV character, Celaia. I've played many MMOs and made many characters, but FFXIV has been the one I've played the longest, and this version of Celaia has been the most fleshed out. Much of the information has been floating around in my head-canon of the character for quite some time and it's been cool to finally share a lot of what makes my FFXIV character so special to me. A lot of this was a personal passion project, but I do plan on continuing to update things on this carrd as things develop.I haven't done much with the character other than think up all of this stuff and unfortunately I don't have any current plans to RP. However, I do love gposing and am open to collabs with mutuals on twitter.Thanks for reading if you've made it this far and feel free to message me if you enjoyed learning about Celaia.