Name (Former):Jared McQuarrie
Name (Character): Cenadin
Age:27
Appearance:
Character Level: 59
Character Class: Paladin
Personality: Straightforward. Friendly. Naive. Stubborn. Loyal.
Five words that come to mind when describing Jared. He tends to call it like he sees it, a quality that endears him to some and irritates others. He is easygoing, social, and generally likeable from the minute you meet him. However, getting to know him better might make one revise their initial assessment. Likely due to his upbringing, Jared has very little appreciation for the difficulties other people may have faced in life. If pushed to the edge, he rarely backs down; argue him into a corner, and he’ll never listen to your logic. Make him lose his temper, and you’re cruising for a bruising. Together, these traits are an absolute dealbreaker for some people, but endear him to others. The upside of Jared’s conviction is that he’s extremely dedicated to his friends and anyone who has earned his trust.
Abilities: As a human, Cenadin has no special attributes, other than the increased strength and endurance from his class. Cenadin is fully specced out as a Paladin tank, using the powers of the Light to defend himself and allies, command the attention of enemies, and dish a little damage along the way. His most commonly used abilities are below.
Consecration: Everyone’s favourite Paladin ability. Creates a medium sized area of sacred ground. Friendlies in the area are healed for a small percentage of their health each second, while enemies take light damage at the same time. Short cooldown, to the point where high level paladins with the proper specs can maintain a Consecration almost continuously.
Endure: Temporarily boosts the Paladin’s maximum HP by 30%.
Unbowed: For a short time, causes the Paladin to heal for a percentage of their health when damaged.
Righteous Leap: Wings of light help the Paladin leap great distances. At the end of the jump, the wings burst into holy energy. Can be used on friendly or enemy targets. Friendly targets are healed, enemy targets are damaged.
Ward of Light: A shield of light blossoms in front of the Paladin, reducing incoming damage to him and all targets in a cone behind him. (Cenadin’s sole concession to mitigation tanking, because of the AOE protection it offers)
Sacred Armaments: Swords of light descend from the heavens, dealing damage to all enemy targets in an area.
Warcry: Incites an enemy target to attack the Paladin.
Skills:Blacksmithing: It often pays to be able to make your own armor. Cenadin has invested a lot of time and effort becoming a proficient blacksmith in the Emerald Odyssey, though it remains to be seen how that will translate to the game’s….new state.
Mining: Might as well find your own raw materials. Cenadin can recognize and extract precious metals and ores when he comes across them in the game world.
Dance: Before the change, the Dance skill let a character use increasingly elaborate Dance emotes. Again, it remains to be seen how that will manifest now.
Additionally, Jared is a highly capable financier in the real world, meaning he has an eye for how economies change. This previously helped him turn tidy profits in the game.
Backstory:
Jared is an import to Japan. Born in faroff Toronto, Canada, he lived a comfortable upper class life, wealthy, but not obscenely so. He excelled in school, and attended an Ivy League university down in the US. Family connections, the university’s reputation, and an impressive GPA landed him a job at a global bank at the tender age of 22. Jared excelled in the finance-bro culture of New York, bringing in tremendous profits, partying hard, and living the good life. Following a few promotions, he was offered a very senior and very well paying position in the bank’s Tokyo offices.
Accepting that position was, in retrospect, a mistake. Jared has been in Japan for about a year, and is pretty miserable. He continues to be successful in his professional career, and he’s picked up the language quite well, but the cultural barriers have proven...problematic. He’s friendly with his co-workers, but not friends with them, and outside of that, he has no network, no way of meeting new people, leaving him desperately lonely. Jared misses his old life and his old friends, and his only sanctuary is Emerald Odyssey.
Jared originally picked up the game because his tutor had recommended immersing himself in Japanese media to help him learn the language, and he’d always enjoyed gaming, though never taken it very seriously. As he grew increasingly lonely, he became increasingly enthralled by the game, and now spends every hour he’s not at work playing it.
Cenadin started off as a bit of a joke; a paladin modeled to look like WWE superstar JOHN CENA! But he’s grown into a serious player since then. His ultimate objective is to have the highest HP total of any player in the game. Some internet digging told him what he’d need: a human-specific helmet called Crown of the Lion, and a two-handed greatsword called Balance of Judgement. The Crown is a high level raid drop, while Balance of Judgement is the reward for a high level Paladin quest. The path forward is therefore clear: level up, finish the quest for Balance of Judgement, GIT GUD at raiding, get the Crown, and stand back in admiration of his really big numbers.
Despite being a newer character, Cenadin is an excellent tank. However, without access to forums and videos and wikis, he will have to learn the new content through trial and error.
Other: His hat is a very non-lore friendly anniversary item, given out to be purely cosmetic. Cenadin has instead had it enchanted to give bonus health and strength, making it better more useful than it might appear.
Despite being a tank, Cenadin uses 2 handed swords. Emerald Odyssey does not restrict most moves to certain weapon types, so this does not compromise his moveset. Additionally, the endgame greatsword Balance of Judgement gives more bonuses to health than any known sword and shield combo, despite the reduced block chance.