Polyphia

Polyphia is the Stand of Cassio Montagna in Fate of Zephyr.

## Appearance

Polyphia resembles a two-headed white tiger with black stripes. It wears a golden crown of thorns on each of its heads and two pairs of golden wings on their conjoined back. Like a tiger, Polyphia travels by walking on its paws and will show tiger-like aggression, such as snarling or retracting its claws when provoked or confronting an enemy. It appears to have red eyes that glow lightly.

When Cassio is knocked unconscious, Polyphia will appear as a light golden mist that will indiscriminately float around in the area it is contained. The mist is told to smell like roses and some claim it also smells like marijuana.

## Personality

Polyphia's Stand cry resembles a tiger's roar or a loud snarl. It seems to enjoy pets and words of affection from its Stand user, although it hates being touched by others besides Taehyung Pescatore and Olio Nero and is apathetic towards everyone else. Beyond that, it behaves similarly to a wild tiger when it attacks or paces around. It will also retract its claws and crouch when threatened.

As a conjoined tiger, each head can be seen was its own entity but will work together in unison when necessary. It is unknown what the two heads think of each other or whether they have their own individual personalities, but it has been seen accidentally knocking each other in the head and responding to it with growls.

## Ability

### Overdose

Overdose is the primary ability of Polpyhia and has the ability to reverse the flow of an object's placement or state by the user's touch. Time is not affected, as everything remains constant, except for whatever is affected by the Stand. An example of this was when Cassio touched a broken vase and used its ability to reassemble it back to the shelf it originally fell off; however, he stopped his Stand ability at the second it began to fall off again, causing it to fall once more. The flow can be done on biological creatures as well, as also seen when Polyphia was used on a cat by causing it to walk backwards against its will. The object being touched can vary from a moving car to the human body's digestive tract, but the complexity of the flow can affect the energy it can drain out of Cassio as a result.

Coincidentally, Overdose can be used to retrieve items that were once destroyed or originally placed where it should be, so long as the user has enough information to predict and determine what is needed. Information required can be the location of where it originated from, anything related to the five senses, or photographs related to the object at hand. This can allow the user to reverse items, which was seen when Cassio reassembled a decomposed shredded polaroid to retrieve an image of Father Diavolo in Sardinia.

### G.O.A.T

This ability is only activated when the user is severely injured or knocked unconscious, as it serves as a automatic defense that they cannot control until they are able to stop it themselves. Upon activating G.O.A.T, white mist will appear and cause hallucinations to whoever inhales it for long periods of time until they die from insanity. The hallucinations vary but the most common experiences involve victims feeling like they're switching between being upside down or right-side up. The most common hallucinations involve goats. These goats vary in behavior, depending on the person, from harmless to aggressive. As a hallucinogen via inhalation, the best solution to prevent G.O.A.T's effects are to stop inhaling the mist and wait for the effects to subside; inhaling oxygen can speed up the process of dispelling the mist out of the body.

It's revealed through Taehyung that those who are affected by G.O.A.T more often eventually develop a tolerance to a degree or at least are aware that its effects are going on and can still navigate around themselves regardless. Taehyung was able to successfully stop Giorno from hallucinating further despite being in a state of hallucination himself, and seemed to recover quicker than the other once the two escaped the train.

## Trivia

* According to Taehyung, Polyphia's fur and feathers are both soft to touch. However, no one has been able to pet Polyphia safely except for him and Olio, with the latter refusing to confirm it.
* Polyphia is heavily based on their namesake's studio album *New Levels New Devils*, drawing heavy inspiration from the album artwork.
	+ Initially, the Stand was going to be named as *New Levels New Devils* to reference the album only, but later altered to be Polyphia to reference all the work created by the artist, specifically the album *The Most Hated*.
	+ The reversal ability that Polyphia has is based on the music video "O.D.", where objects are seen to be put in reverse after being destroyed. The hallucination ability comes from the music video "G.O.A.T" and plays on the band's own joking nature.
* Polpyhia's abilities were made to foil Prosciutto's "Grateful Dead". While Grateful Dead accelerates time through aging, Polpyhia reverses time by reversing the flow of objects.
	+ Interestingly enough, Grateful Dead was known for its eclectic fuse of various styles while Polyphia is known for its use of EDM, funk, and hip-hop influences in progressive metal.
	+ Jokingly, Polpyhia becoming Cassio's Stand was finalized when viewing the music video of "40 oz", which shows four elderly women representing the band members playing rock instruments.
* Polyphia was originally a Stand made for a different original character outside of Fate of Zephyr but redesigned to become Cassio's Stand.

## References

* *New Levels New Devils* tracklist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLN0q19AZLbScLK7Z9Yni9y6iubv1S8tBs
* *The Most Hated*: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHQ\_5h3NTkXEIolKGu6\_i9dH5NJ68Je0q
* "OD" music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHcAi2FPrTM
* Tim Henson's "Making of GOAT" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg\_3jkSSbig

"New Levels New Devils" album cover art. Inspiration of Polyphia's appearance.