Raven (Tales of Vesperia)

**Raven** (レイヴン *Reivun*?), birth-named **Damuron Atomais** (ダミュロン・アトマイス *Damyuron Atomaisu*?), then renamed **Schwann Oltorain** (シュヴァーン・オルトレイン *Shuvaan Orutorein*?), is a frivolous and shady-looking man that wears a long purple coat with light, blue-green eyes and unkempt grayish-brown hair tied up in a ponytail. Raven also sports a stubble and bags under his eyes, giving off a weary, weathered look. Despite his fishy appearance, he is a high-ranked member of Altosk, one of the five master guilds of the Union. When his hair is down, it falls into long, uneven bangs that cover most of his left eye. At 35, he is the oldest member of the party.

## Appearance and Personality

As Raven, he is a slightly odd individual, easily recognized by his lazy, slang-ridden speech and overly friendly, nonchalant demeanor. He is talkative, and is prone to teasing and melodramatic complaining, which easily grates on the nerves of others. This sometimes subjects him to brutal reprimanding. He's also kind, hardly ever showing anger to anyone but his enemies, and he serves to try and maintain a lighthearted atmosphere in the group when things get tense. He does, however, display occasional perverted behavior, cracking jokes with innuendo and lightly flirting with the females of the group, as well as with several women they may come across on their journey. The behavior is usually not taken well by his peers. Oddly enough he avoids seriously involving himself with women and will gently turn them down if ever any interest beyond a casual attraction seems to be directed at him.

He also complains about various things, his age being the most prominent, as he frequently claims that he is too old to be doing the things he does despite him not actually being very old. He is also highly intolerant of cold weather and does well in heat. At the start of the game he lives life in a very dispassionate, detached manner, the center of which are his duties and orders as both a knight and a member of the Union. He is described as "the man who lives life as if he is already dead", a trait of him that, while not far from the truth, begins to dissipate more over the course of the story. He becomes closer to Yuri and the others and begins to find a reason to live for again. Despite his blase characteristics, he often maintains an odd air of astuteness that makes one believe he is a much more complicated person than he lets on. He is decent at cooking and is apparently very good at making sweets, especially crepes, though he paradoxically hates them with a passion.

As Schwann, he shows himself to be a quiet, observant, and serious person who will without hesitation follow the orders of his superiors. While not much is known about Schwann, he apparently is also very gentle and understanding. He is a Captain who has forged close bonds between himself and his junior ranks, unlike many other authority figures in the knights. These traits, as well as possibly some others, have earned him not only respect and trust, but also an utmost, unquestioning loyalty from his brigade members and several other knights. Because Raven's true identity is Schwann, his accent is not part of his natural speech patterns, and therefore, is not as profound when he believes others cannot hear him. Although Raven can be a goofy old man, his Schwann side shows a serious, chivalrous, and understanding person. Because of this, he acts almost as a father figure to most of the party, since all of the others seemed to have grown up without their parents.

After Raven rejoins the group, his Schwann traits surface themselves more frequently, melding into his more prominent Raven persona, though he insists on being called Raven. He also makes it clear that he is very bitter towards his former identity as Schwann, treating "Schwann" almost as if he were a separate person from himself. He refuses to answer to the name Schwann, and should anyone address him as such, even his own brigade members, he will either sternly correct them or will claim that he does not know who "Schwann" is. At one point, in order to claim a technique Drake wanted to teach Schwann, Raven claims that he is Schwann's brother in order to learn the technique without admitting his identity.

## Fighting Style

Raven's primary weapon is a bow that can transform into a short sword for battle. He also carries around a knife that he occasionally pulls out for certain techniques, and is relatively adequate at magic, though he is the only one who does not use formal language when saying the incantation. Most of his artes are original and exclusive to himself, the only ones not being Wind Blade, Tempest, Stop Flow and, in the PlayStation 3 port, Air Thrust. He has an affinity for Wind-based techniques, with almost all of his elemental artes either having a wind attribute or being an altered form of a wind-attributed technique; The only exception to this is the technique, Serpent. Raven can also heal up to three members of the party with his original technique Love Shot. This makes him an extremely versatile character.

As Schwann, he abandons his bow and instead wields a sword, though the short sword remains a part of his arsenal. His artes are sword-based and many are techniques also known to Alexei, as well as variations of the artes used by Raven himself. His spell usage is also identical to Raven's. Both Raven and Schwann's mystic arte is Blast Heart, in which he uses his blastia heart to unleash a large amount of power. He staggers for a few seconds after this mystic arte, clutching his heart. This stagger is important for Secret Mission 13 during his boss fight, as the player has to down him before he regains his energy.

## TMNT X Pokemon

Being very laid back, he is used to the antics of others. He likes to tease Aqua and Saitana much to their dismay.

## Trivia

* Both *Raven* and *Schwann* are names of birds. The names are both symbolic as well as ironic. The swan is a white bird, often a symbol of beauty, purity, high class, and grace. The raven is a black bird, considered to be a thieving pest and is often represented in literature and mythology as an unrefined, untrustworthy crook and bringer of misfortune. The names are symbolic in that Schwann is a high ranking knight, a person in a well respected position meant to serve the royal family and bring order and peace to society, while Raven is a shady, disheveled member of the often-considered-to-be-barbaric-and-untrustworthy Union. The names are ironic in that Schwann is ultimately an enslaved puppet, forced to do the bidding of a corrupt official intent on bringing calamity to the world, while Raven is the free individual, comrade to an unlikely hero and able to help a cause that he finds worth believing in. Corvus and Cygnus are also constellation names, which fit the game's star-themed references.