Baldwin

"Making peace with adversity is the very essence of existence."

— Baldwin's Brief Overview

Baldwin is a male human who is alongside the rest of the crew one of the most well known individuals from the Vandos Universe he is fits into the classic "bruiser" archetype—slow, tough, and hard-hitting. Defensively, the Leper is quite self-sufficient, capable of drawing enemy attention while boosting his own defences, and healing his own Health and Stress; while most of his offensive skills are oriented around wrecking the enemy front line. While boasting some of the highest health and damage numbers in the game, the Leper also suffers from a number of weaknesses.

Firstly, his huge damage potential is limited by his inability to target the back ranks, as well as a tendency to Blind himself when attacking. Secondly, he is very weak to being repositioned: most of his skills become unusable in the back ranks, and unlike other front-line heroes, he does not have an efficient way to move himself MoveForward. Lastly, he has very low Speed Speed, meaning that he is often forced to react to enemy attacks instead of acting proactively. When building a party with the Leper, care must be taken to mitigate these weaknesses, or to place him in a role where they are less debilitating.

Unlike most of the known individuals from the Flame's group he has no regrets unlike the others he has nothing to be ashamed.

Biography

Baldwin was once a former monarch from a desert region kingdom and while he was a warrior king (after all the region's nature demanded it) Baldwin was a benevolent one, behaving selflessly with his subjects despite the protestations of his advisors.

Shun them not

"A lion in the blood-soaked grass, circled by hyenas who move as a pack..."

— Baldwin

One day he went to one of the various kingdom's hospital in order to foster the sick ones and providing what comfort he could to the sick and dying despite the protestations of his advisors who would interrupt him with uncouth occlusions that were shadowed by Baldwin's Royal Rebukes while he demanded for his advisors to move out of his way and with an imposing royal stride would embrace the supplicant ones. However it was during this visit where Baldwin embraced a leper supplicant who injured him and infected him with leprosy. Shortly after the Leper, ailing and infirm passed away in far less repulsive fashion than the venomous whispers of his scoffing entourage...

Infection

"A hollow clanging echoed throughout the palace."

— Baldwin

After this incident Baldwin's disease started to take effect slowly but not alarmingly as early signs could be ignored or concealed, but soon the reality was inescapable. It is unknown if it was by some affliction of his lineage or by the direct transmission with the leper, symptoms of his disease began to openly manifest themselves. Wracked with pain, he summoned doctors and aides from the farthest reaches of his lands, but the diagnosis was the same grim one: Baldwin was dying.

Treason

"With wicked plots, they forged the blade that slew them."

— Baldwin

While in this state, Baldwin's circle of royal advisors now rotten with a cynical opportunism born of longstanding entitlement, began drafting mutinous plans in order to overthrow Baldwin and take the throne fomor themselves. Though bedridden, Baldwin had long since divined their intent and feared the disastrous results of their would-be rule for his people and he wouldn't let that happen. So even after his weakened state and having lost his eye sight due to his disease. Baldwin managed to summon his blacksmith and his strength, hoisting his blade, Baldwin rose up to meet the coming threat.

The Purge

"Fury and blade to excise malignance - no matter the agony!"

— Baldwin

With his advisors caught off guard by Baldwin's willpower they tried to kill him on the spot, a fatal mistake as he was known for showing compassion to his foes but now he had none to give to his traitorous advisors, he only had his fury to give them. The castle's walls trembled that night under Baldwin's Blind Fury attacks to set up his former advisors who found themselves in the Executioner's choping block of Baldwin getting killed. Balwin's barks could be heard outside the castle's walls as he denounced his advisors for treachery intimating them and ended up in Baldwin's choping block and their furtive skulkings weren't subsided as a calm sea but the battle was so hard and Baldwin's fury was so intense that as he was able to snap his own sword's blade as it ended the treasonous plot by killing the last plotter.

Equipment

Executioner's Sword

Baldwin's signature weapon is his executioner's sword, the last vestige of his former life as a king with the blade totally broken but still had a massive attack power for its state. When Vandos was discovered and the members of "The Flame" received upgrades to their weapons in was by far the hardest to enhance as unlike the other samples that could be designed from scratch and implement them on a factory new sample the Alliance's engineers had to work using a live sample that was by itself pretty ornateless; also it's quite heavy without enhancements so adding any sort of enhancements would set off the weight despite 1/4 of the blade that was the main thorn when wanting to upgrade Baldwin's Sword. The missing blade piece was quite literally the main obstacle as upgrades such an HF enhancement that are present on Reynauld's Longsword or Sarmenti's sickles nearly impossible.