Characters / Tales of Vesperia: Empire

The Empire

The Empire is one of two functioning bodies of power in the world of Terca Lumeries, although as a whole, it considers itself as the only true power in the world despite the Guild Union's thoughts. The power within The Empire is split among three different branches, the Council, which acts as a parliamentary house made up of the nobility; the Knights, which act as the law enforcement body and the Throne. During the Great War ten years before the start of the game, the previous emperor died and for some reason, no new emperor has ascended to the throne, instead, leaving two Imperial Candidates, Ioder Algios Heurassien and Estellise Sidos Heurassien.

Notice: Due to Khroma's Walking Spoiler status, Spoilers Off is in effect for her folder

In General

• Succession Crisis: Despite the death of the Emperor ten years prior, no one has yet to ascend the throne with the reason being a state secret. This is due to Dein Nomos, the sword that is used in the coronation and symbol of the promise that the Child of the Full Moon made with the Entelexia, vanished during the War.
• Decadent Court: While in the public view, the Empire looks to be functioning normally, the Council has become this with powerplays and blatant abuse of power.
• The Empire: Zigzagged. Unlike the usual evilness expected of something called an empire, this example has its ups and downs due to there not being a true leader. However, the citizens agree that the Imperial Knights - the driving force of the Empire - are at best controversial and at worst useless. It very quickly turns out corruption is very prevalent behind the scenes, which extends all the way to Alexei, the boss of all the knights.

Main Game

Alexei Dinoia

Voiced by: Jurota Kosugi (JP), D.C. Douglas (EN)

The Commandant of the Imperial Knights. He leads the Royal Guard and acts as one of the main leaders of the Empire on a whole.

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• All There in the Manual: A lot of Alexei's backstory and motivations are explored in-depth in supplementary material that never made it out of Japan. This unfortunately means his personality, motives, and actions were missing major pieces that fleshed it out, causing the localization team to make him more villainous.
• Ambiguous Situation: He gives Damuron the shut-off switch for his heart, but it doesn't work. It's unknown if this defect was accidental or deliberate to ensure that a useful pawn can't kill himself.
• Anti-Villain: A complex case. Alexei's motives are far from evil and largely motivated against those of most of the other villains in the story. His horrible actions and jaded personality would disqualify him from this trope, but Alexei truly believes it is all a means to a noble end. He promptly crumbles when it's clear where it all led to and surrenders to despair.
• Adaptational Villainy: A dub induced instance of this. The English localization removes his genuine desire to improve the world by removing Blastia as well as his complex, tragic backstory that prompted him to begin his plan, turning him into a deranged, power-hungry dictator.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: It's stated in his backstory he entered a gladiatorial contest and won, earning him a place in the Knights. Numerous characters even vouch for his supreme swordsmanship.

  Yuri: Damn, he may be crazy, but he still fights like a Commandant.

• The Bad Guy Wins: In a way. Alexei's ultimate goals were to get the world to give up Blastia and rid the Empire of its aristocratic corruption. Through the heroes cleaning up the messes of his misguided actions, this all ends up being the ultimate outcome through positive means.
• Bad Boss: He sees all of his subordinates as disposable, as shown when he tries to cave-in the boss room of Baction in order to kill Brave Vesperia, despite Schwann being in there.
• Benevolent Boss: The Empty Mask shows that he used to care for his troops and that he revived Damuron as Schwann out of goodwill. When he realizes that Damuron lost the will to live, Alexei feels pity for him and hands over the shut-off switch for the Blastia heart. He even tried to rush into a building that was set to explode in an attempt to save his soldiers, but after the trauma of seeing them vaporized in front of him, he averts this trope and became an uncaring sociopath who is only concerned with his own ambitions, to the point where he's willing to sacrifice Schwann despite previously saving him.
• Big Bad: Narratively-wise Alexei is the games main antagonist, as all of the plot is linked to his plans and efforts to create a new world. Interestingly, he gets defeated after the second act. The last act is, essentially, cleaning up the mess he left. (The "mess" in question is an Eldritch Abomination threatening to devour the entire planet.)
• Broken Pedestal: To Flynn and the Empire as a whole. He was a trusted hero but his sudden betrayal shocks everyone into being unsure what to do for a bit.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He's mentioned a few times and makes brief appearances during the first arc. Ultimately turns out to be the one behind pretty much everything and the Big Bad.
• Climax Boss: Beating him just clears the way to dealing with the Adephagos.
• Cool Sword: He has a replica Dein Nomos that can be used both for melee and firing projectiles.
• Cult of Personality: The Royal Guard is fanatically devoted to him and see him as a hero. This works against him when the party questions him in Yormgen about Estelle's whereabouts, since his personal guard are so loyal to him that they act irrationally. When his henchman's first response to the questioning is to draw his weapon, Alexei groans in frustration because this action basically outs him as Estelle's kidnapper.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: His Mystic Arte and ultimate attack, Brilliant Cataclysm, leaves him badly winded after he uses it, which progressively gets much worse as he keeps spamming it.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Alexei used to be a hero, but the Great War nearly broke him, and so he tried to find a way to stop such an event from happening again. However, he lost sight of his ideals and things got increasingly worse from there.
• Despair Event Horizon: Happened to him before the game's events and more than likely led to his Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. When tasked with protecting the world as Commandant, he realized the impossibility of the task due to the blastia culture that was slowly killing it. The supplementary manga, The Empty Mask, shows that he stopped caring about his methods after Imperial Council members, Cactoph and Fialen, used a blastia to blow up the knights under his command.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He's definitely the Big Bad but ends up as this as his actions unleash the Adephagos upon the world.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: After crossing the Despair Event Horizon, he began plotting to unite the whole world under a single, united order. His order. At any cost.
• Driven to Suicide: Granted, Yuri does wound him beforehand, but Alexei makes absolutely no attempt to avoid Zaude's barrier blastia as it begins to fall, tearfully musing of how much of a fool he was instead.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: One of his goals is to break down class barriers and he is accepting of both commoner and noble knights as long as they support his goals. Though he considers all of his subordinates equally expendable.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Flynn, who also wants to be an Internal Reformist for the corrupt empire by rising through the knight order. However, Alexei becomes much more cynical and underhanded once he realizes how far his political rivals are willing to go to stop him. While Flynn acknowledges that he can't change the world alone and relies on his subordinates and the empire's allies, Alexei is The Paranoiac who trusts no one and wants to rule the world alone.
  • To Yuri, who also comes to the conclusion that it's necessary to kill corrupt bureaucrats who use the law to get away with their misdeeds, leading to them breaking the law for their own brand of justice. The first hit Alexei orders is on Cactoph, an Imperial Council member who has similarities to Ragou. However, Alexei slowly loses all his moral standards and is willing to sacrifice anyone for his goals, innocent or not. On the other hand, Yuri is at least able to adhere to his own moral standards on who he should kill and spare.
  • To Don Whitehorse in terms of being leaders. Both want to bring order to their own respective factions, but Alexei is a Control Freak who only trusts himself while the Don has a mostly hands-off approach in leading the Union and trusts the other guilds to eventually unite even after he dies. Alexei started out distraught over Damuron becoming a broken man, eventually gave up on helping him, and ultimately considered him a disposable tool. In contrast, Don genuinely wants to help Raven find his purpose in life, even if it means having less direct control over Raven's actions as the latter travels with Brave Vesperia.
• Evil Is Petty: After The Reveal, he more or less stops trying to be subtle about anything and starts acting like a massive tool, even when it benefits him in no way to do so.
• Evil Laugh: Just in case you had any doubts he was a villain.
• Evil Plan: Alexei's goal is to destroy the Empire and the Union so he can create a world where people stop relying on Blastia. To do so, he looks for every weapon he can find to do so.
• Expy: Of Vaclav Bolud. Both share the same means of reaching their goals, voice actor, and similar positions in their respective stories. However, while Vaclav had no depth past using the Nerifes Cannon to take over the world "because," and is killed off barely a quarterway into that game, Alexei has sympathetic and fleshed out reasons for his actions. He also survives until near the end of the game.
• Hates Everyone Equally: It's clear that he despises the Entelexeia, accusing them of keeping humanity down. His backstory shows that he's also a misanthrope due to the imperial council killing several of his knights. As a result, he trusts no one except himself and believes that he's the only one fit to reform the empire.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He shows signs of regret in his last moments, and he might have been offered a chance at atonement had Flynn been the only guy there. However, when the crystal begins falling, he makes no effort to dodge and gets killed by it.
• Ignored Epiphany: In The Empty Mask, he's initially remorseful about reviving Damuron, who has no will to live. One would think Alexei would take this as a sign that his blastia experiments are going too far, but he not only continues his experiments, he pushes Damuron to live a lie for the sake of his agenda.
• Informed Attribute: He is said to be a supreme swordfighter, the best Raven knows, but his fight has him using far more magic than sword fighting. While he does have a decent normal attack speed, he doesn't use complex sword techniques like Yuri, Flynn, and Schwann, instead preferring to use strike artes that unleash elemental effects.
• Irony:
  • Alexei originally gave Damuron the shut-off switch to the latter's blastia heart, intending to let Damuron have the freedom to choose life or death. Years later, he sees Raven/Schwann as a disposable tool, but cannot easily get rid of him due to lacking the switch, not that it would have worked anyways due to the switch being defective.
  • Lampshaded by Alexei himself. He truly believed all the evil he masterminded was for the greater good of saving the planet, but Alexei personally hastened the apocalypse instead.
  Alexei: And to think, I caused it all! The ultimate irony! Hah hah hah!
• Kick the Dog: Does this often, but a stand out example is when he discovers Yeager's better interests under his nose and orders him to fight Brave Vesperia to the death or he will kill his adoptive daughters and destroy the orphanage he was donating toward. Then, after he fails, he mocks his "uselessness." Much to Judith's disgust.
• Knight Templar: At his best, he's this; believing he has to Take Over the World to save the world.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: He puts years of effort into uncovering and controlling Zaude, which he believes to be an ultimate weapon which he can use to force the general populace to give up blastia. When he activates it, he realizes that it is actually a barrier sealing an Eldritch Abomination. Upon learning that his efforts only hastened the death of the world, Alexei literally snaps and begins raving about how humans are doomed.
• Large Ham: In retrospect, a character voiced by D.C. Douglas really had no choice but to be one.
• Last-Second Chance: Much of the party sympathize with his plight and try talking him into standing down before the fight with him. To no avail.
• Laughing Mad: At the end when he realizes everything he did was for nothing.
• Limit Break: His Mystic Arte, Brilliant Cataclysm, which has him send his sword flying in perpendicular directions before crashing it down into the ground to create a giant sigil that devastates everyone standing on it. His constant spamming of it in his boss fight at the end of Part 2 has left a lasting impression on just about anyone who's played the game.
• Mad Scientist: Has shades of this. When trying to make his replica of Dein Nomos, before the events of the game, he used a ship's passengers as guinea pigs to test its control of aer. It not only failed but turned all but two of its crew into mindless monsters, forcing one of the two survivors to mercy kill them. He feels no guilt for all of it, as it was just a simple mistake.
• The Man Behind the Man: Alexei is behind almost everything in the first two acts and the actual culprit behind the Black Hope Massacre.
• Manipulative Bastard: The Empty Mask implies he no longer has any means to turn off Raven's heart, due to giving the switch to the latter. He still get Raven to do what he wants by arranging the Don's death, leaving Raven in despair with no will to refuse Alexei's orders.
• Magic Knight: Has one spell of each element in his moveset, and his sword permits him to enhance his artes with magic as well.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When he realizes he accidentally released the Adephagos.
• Necromancy: He's the one who raised Schwann and Yeager from the dead, via heart blastias.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Through his activation of Zaude, Alexei unintentionally revealed the Adephagos to the world—thus making its destruction a priority now that everyone could see it. His Blastia network was also repurposed to help fight the Adephagos.
• No Cure for Evil: Averted. He uses Guardian Frost after he takes enough damage, which deals ice damage around him while healing him by a small percentage. Due to Health/Damage Asymmetry, this arte heals a lot of damage in comparison to what the player can deal, especially on higher difficulties.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Played with. Alexei started with benevolent goals such as rooting corruption out of the Empire, promoting egalitarianism among the knights, and protecting humanity from another attack from the Entelexeia. However, he lost sight of his noble intentions after being betrayed by the Imperial Council, and instead became focused on gaining power for himself out of paranoia. While he still claims that he wants to reform the empire and protect humanity, he performs many actions that make him the greatest danger to humanity, such as destabilizing the Union, unleashing deadly amounts of aer in Zaphias, and destabilizing the world's aer through his blastia experiments. However, despite his hypocrisy, he is aghast when he realizes that his actions caused the Adephagos to return, which suggests he still has some good intentions left.
• Old Soldier: He's probably in his forties at least but it's Depending on the Artist. In the main game, he's a White Hair, Black Heart pretty boy who are usually young. He's several years older than any of the main characters. In the game's anime cutscenes, the bags and lines on his face make him look like he's in his late forties and, on a few rare occasions, extremely aged and ugly. The First Strike struck a balance between the two.
• The Paranoiac: The Empty Mask shows that Alexei slowly became more paranoid over time, causing him to become a selfish and self-righteous villain. After the Great War, Alexei became very distrustful of the Entelexeia and feared they could attack again at any time, which is why he wants to throw large amounts of money into building the Heracles to counter them, not caring about the consequences on diplomacy with the guilds. He also becomes distrustful of his fellow imperials after Cactoph kills his troops, causing Alexei to assassinate political rivals in order to maintain his influence and get revenge on his corrupt enemies. Later, Alexei somehow comes to the conclusion that Don Whitehorse might end up interfering with his plans in the future, despite Don not being privy to his plans, so he preemptively sends Schwann to spy on him. At Baction, he starts questioning Schwann's loyalty and grabs the latter's face while stating that the latter should be his puppet, showing that Alexei is a Control Freak in both his politics and treatment of his soldiers. During his boss battle, he makes it clear that he believes he's the only one capable of leading the world. If Estelle and Flynn are chosen for that battle, Alexei tells them that their fettered methods are milquetoast and weak in comparison to his own methods.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Zigzagged. It's not clear as to whether he's one or another corrupt knight for the first part of the game. Then he tells Yuri to keep protecting Estelle. Then he more or less screws the peace pooch between the Guilds and the Empire by attacking Phareoh with Heracles. Then he reveals that he was the Big Bad all along.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: In The Empty Mask, Alexei was already crossing moral boundaries by using blastia hearts to revive dead soldiers, though he at least had enough scruples at that point to give the shut-off switch to Schwann. Afterwards, he has Schwann become a Propaganda Hero to promote unity between commoner and noble knights, which is an understandable goal despite the deceitful methods. However, he shows his hawkish side when he tries to secure funds for Heracles, which could disrupt the power balance between the guilds and the empire. Once Imperial Councilmember Cactoph kills his knights, Alexei starts having his political rivals assassinated and later sends Schwann to spy on Don Whitehorse in case the latter becomes an obstacle. By the time of the game's events, he has thrown away what little standards he had, showing no guilt in using Estelle's power despite the pain it causes her and nearly destroying Zaphias.
• Tears of Remorse: Sheds tears of sheer regret before he is crushed to death.
• Übermensch: Believes that a world under his command will be better for it.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • In The Empty Mask, he tells Damuron that Casey wouldn't want him to wallow in despair and squander his abilities. While he's saying this because he wants to use Damuron, Raven later admits that Alexei's words are true.
  • He's correct in pointing out the corruption within the imperial government and suffered from it firsthand in The Empty Mask, but he eventually becomes just as corrupt in his attempts to take over the world.
• Villainous Breakdown: After inadvertently bringing back the Adephagos.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Surprisingly averted. Although Alexei is a hero who is beloved by the Empire, when he shows his true colors, only the Leviathan's Claw Guild (under Yeager) and his personal Brigade continue to support him. His brigade, also known as the Royal Guard, is highly numerous though, meaning he still has tons of devoted followers, but there's a lot of discussion about how he basically cultivated them into a cult-like group that hung on his every word. Even then you can find some elite guards in other locations, indicating that not all of them were loyal to him.
• Walking Spoiler: Pretty much everything about him beyond his minor role in the first act.
• We Can Rule Together: He tries this with Brave Vesperia before their fight, reasoning they are not so different with their views on the Empire. On top of what he did to Estelle, when the party sees him struggling to even decode Zaude, they deem him a childish madman and utterly refuse.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In his own mind. Despite his abuse of Estelle and her powers, he was trying to reform the corrupt Empire and Guilds by enacting a military dictatorship under his personal guidance.

Ioder Algios Heurassein

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (JP), Bryce Papenbrook (EN)

Estelle's distant cousin, and another member of the Imperial Family. He too was drawn into the succession crisis as a potential Imperial Candidate. He spends most of his time traveling and meeting with Guild leaders to improve the relationship between the Guilds and Empire.

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• Apocalypse Maiden: Like Estelle and any other imperial of the royal family, he also has the blood of the Children of the Full Moon in his veins. However, unlike hers, his potential is a lot weaker as he cannot use healing artes, and so he isn't a threat to the planet.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Asking Yuri if he realizes he may have to kill Estelle to stop her out of control power. Yuri - who has been privately dreading such a possibility for a while - is so shaken he threatens to kill Ioder unless he drops the subject.
• Big Good: He basically becomes this for the Empire by the end of the story.
• Distressed Dude: He's introduced by Yuri rescuing him from a sinking ship. Such tendencies must run in the family...
• Expy: Looks an awful lot like Flynn, who himself looks an awful lot like Guy.
• Nice Guy: Is unfailingly polite and kind to everyone.
• Non-Action Guy: Doesn't fight and in the PS3/Definitive Edition versions in fact reveals he has no talent with a sword when he gives up his sword to form Vesperia No. 2 to defeat the Adephagos.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: First as a noble who's willing to listen to commoners and form treaties with the Guilds, and then as Emperor.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Is very active in the background in making sure the Empire is running smoothly and that negotiations with the Guild Union is also going well.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: He truly believes that cooperation between the Empire and the Guilds is possible. Like Flynn though, he's reasonable about it.
• The Wise Prince: Calm and diplomatic as well.

Magistrate Ragou

Voiced by: Takashi Taguchi (JP) and Dino Andrade (EN)

"It's the privilege of my exalted station to dispel such boredom with the...help of the common people."

An Imperial Council member tasked with governing the port town of Nor Harbor. He is corrupt and depraved; feeding his own people to his pet monsters if they cannot pay his obscenely high taxes. He openly despises Flynn for being a commoner and does his best to make his life difficult.

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• Aristocrats Are Evil: He's an upper class Council Member who's meant to show how corrupt the Empire is.
• Asshole Victim: He is the first major villain in the game to be murdered by Yuri. Needless to say, he had it coming and draws no sympathy in-universe or out.
• Dirty Coward: Even more so than Cumore, much to the disgust of Barbos.
• Evil Genius: In Alexei's Five-Man Band.
• Flat Character: His entire characterization centers around being so absurdly evil that The Hero can brutally murder without players feeling 'too' conflicted about it.
• For the Evulz: In his own words, politics bore him and he simply finds it entertaining to torment common people in his free time.
• Hate Sink: One of the most disgusting characters in the game. Ragou has absolutely zero good qualities about him to the point he boasts his terrible actions to Yuri and the party. Even Flynn, a by-the-book knight, briefly considers killing him when he uses his political connections to avoid consequences. When Yuri murders him, practically nobody mourns over it and the only consequence Yuri faces is that he took the law to his own hands.
• It's Personal: After events of Ghasfarost, Ragou isn't satisfied with merely getting away with his crimes. He wants to retaliate against Flynn for ruining his plans and exposing him. Yuri's vigilantism ensures Ragou never gets a chance.
• Moral Event Horizon: In-universe, Yuri and Flynn consider him to have crossed it by feeding children to monsters. This is what motivates Yuri to kill him.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The only reason why he's able to weasel his way out of his many, many atrocities. This is why Yuri decides to just "bring him to justice" himself.
• The Starscream: To Alexei. He had no plans of following him and wanted to usurp his power.
• We Have Reserves: Upon hearing that the party fought off Rhybgaro:
  Ragou: Ah well, with a bit more money, I'll soon be able to replace him.
• Would Hurt a Child: He's willing to feed children to monsters.

Alexander von Cumore

Voiced by: Kenji Nojima (JP) and Liam O'Brien (EN)

An Imperial Knight Captain of noble birth. Like Ragou, he also openly despises the commonly-born, especially those who have made a name for themselves in the Knights: namely, Flynn, Schwann, and Alexei. He is the appointed governor of Mantaic, a desert town, and has been tasked by a mysterious benefactor to find the creature Phaeroh.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Screams out his lungs begging, bargaining, and crying for Yuri to spare his life, but Yuri has none of it.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: He is a noble who was placed into the Knights. He is just as evil as you would expect.
• Asshole Victim: He is shown to be a truly corrupt and evil person. As a result, it's hard to feel any sympathy for him when Yuri knocks him into quicksand. In fact, the only sympathy you can give is that his way of dying was horrific for any normal person.
• Bad Boss: He sends one of his men on a suicide mission just for not doing his job fast enough.
• Foreshadowing: As he's pleading with Yuri for his life, he claims he was only ever following someone's orders. Given his noble status and place in the military, there could have only been one person higher than him: Alexei.
• Hate Sink: He's just as vile as Ragou, and meets a similar fate at Yuri's hands. Yuri even kills Cumore somewhat more readily than Ragou, possibly because he knows that Cumore will escape justice.
• Just Following Orders: He tries to claim that he was ordered to do the things he did. Yuri tells him that he should hate those who gave him those orders, before killing him.
• Non-Action Guy: Zigzagged. When first encountered, he seriously does make a gesture at fighting the party and only relents considering the circumstances. Later on though, when Yuri is not playing around, he has none of the same bravado and tries to flee and bargain for his life.
• Quicksand Sucks: How he meets his end.
• Sissy Villain: Just... look at him. Loads of makeup, namely the blue lipstick, the loads of pink on his outfit, the fact that his outfit makes the shape of a heart twice (in the front and the back)...
• Smug Snake: He seems like one at first, but we soon learn he's much worse.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He and his sister Mimula have very similar looks, from the color of their hair, the colors of their outfits, and the heart designs on said outfits. They both look down on commoners as well. When Yuri finds out about their family connection, he isn't surprised and admits he had a feeling they were siblings.
• The Starscream: To Alexei.
• Undignified Death: What he remarks about his impending doom, but Yuri couldn't care less.
• You Have Failed Me: As mentioned in Bad Boss, he forces one of his men to go with the citizens on the search for Phaeroh because he didn't round up the pressganged citizens quickly enough. Considering how dangerous the desert was, his subordinate would most likely have died if the party hadn't sabotaged the coach.

The Schwann Brigade

Adecor voiced by: Keiichi Nanba (JP), Keith Silverstein (EN)

Boccos voiced by: Toshiharu Sakurai (JP), Roger Craig Smith (EN)

Leblanc voiced by: Masashi Hirose (JP), JB Blanc (EN), David Vincent (Definitive Edition content) (EN)

Boccos, Leblanc, and Adecor

A trio of bumbling knights serving under the perpetually-absent Captain Schwann. They are dedicated to the pursuit of justice, and are determined to get the fugitive Yuri back behind bars.

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• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Schwann is a hero of the Great War and a hell of a fighter, but he's also a recluse who leaves everything up to Leblanc. He also likes to sleep in prison cells and has grown far too attached to being Raven.
• Butt-Monkey: They tend to be on the receiving end of Yuri's various jabs.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: They manage to match and beat back the Elite Mooks that are the Royal Guard, as well as successfully evacuate everyone in the lower quarter. Between their quirks and Yuri poking at them, their incompetence seems to be mainly a matter of perspective; rather similar to how Dist is viewed by the party as utterly pathetic thanks to Jade's poking at him when he's anything but.
• Expy: Adecor and Boccos bear an uncanny resemblance to Solt and Peppor from Chrono Cross: A pair of Fat and Skinny knights that antagonize the heroes and whose fights mostly serve as tutorials to introduce new game play elements.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: They constantly chase Yuri, but never succeed in arresting him. Even in the event that Adecor and Boccos win the first tutorial battle, Cumore will still swoop in and steal the credit for arresting Yuri. After that, they are never allowed any non-game over outcome where they defeat Yuri, minus the arena. This goes away after they form an Enemy Mine with the party against Alexei, where they follow the party in order to help them and sell them supplies.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Adeccor and Boccos serve as tutorial bosses throughout Part I.
• Hero Antagonist: For most of act one. They are knights that are pursuing a "criminal" in Yuri after all. They're also able to recognize when other criminals should be prioritized over arresting Yuri, as shown when they go after the red-eyed assassins in Halure instead of continuing their fight with the party.
• In-Series Nickname: Yuri seems to prefer "Tweedle A and Tweedle B" to Adeccor and Boccos' real names.
  • In the original Japanese, this is instead a play on their actual names, calling them "Deko Boko", a term for a ridiculous and incongruous pairing.
• Inspector Javert: Very determined to pursue Yuri for a good chunk of the first act, which he lampshades.
• Misfit Mobilization Moment: They can be surprisingly competent when they're not fighting the party.
  • Despite learning that Raven/Schwann was buried in the boss room of Baction, they go down there anyways and dig him out. They somehow do so fast enough that they have enough time to beat Brave Vesperia to the Heracles.
  • They risk life and limb during the Zaphias crisis to evacuate the Lower Quarter when it was given up for lost. And keep them safe in the castle, while fending off attacks from the elite Royal Guard.
• No Indoor Voice: Leblanc.
• Open-Ended Boss Battle: The story will continue whether or not the player wins the first fight against them.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Despite being the tutorial bosses, they're still stronger than most other imperial knights of the same level, as shown by how in their first battle, they have about five times as much HP as the guards in the castle and have more artes. They're still no match for Yuri one-on-one or two-on-one depending on the player's skill. The story shows them to be able to hold their own against Alexei's royal guard as well, showing they are some of the most skilled knights in the Empire.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Well, of course.
• Shout-Out: "Tweedle A" and "Tweedle B" ("Just what IS a Tweedle, anyway?!") are obvious references to Alice in Wonderland.
• Those Two Guys: Adeccor and Boccos. The first moment you see them, you immediately know their only purpose in the game.
• Token Good Teammate: After the events of Baction, the Schwann Brigade assists Brave Vesperia indirectly by keeping watch on Heracles under Raven's orders, provide provisional items on their infiltration mission, and help the citizens of Zaphias' Lower Quarter evacuate into the castle when Alexei takes it over. They're willing to put aside Yuri's transgressions for the time being until Alexei, Duke, and the Adephagos are taken care of.
• Undying Loyalty: They show so much loyalty to Schwann that long after it is revealed that he is Raven and he tried to put that persona behind, the three knights still view him as their one and only captain.
• The Unfought: Leblanc is the only member of the Schwann Brigade who is never fought directly by Yuri and his group. Instead, he acts as second-in-command and gives orders to Adecor and Boccos whenever Raven is not around. He does show up alongside the rest of his brigade in the optional Team Battle mode of the coliseum, but even that isn't a story fight.
• Verbal Tic: Adecor has a tendency to speak the words "I say" ("de arimasu" in Japanese) in his speech.
• Worthy Opponent: Leblanc actually seems to enjoy their cat-and-mouse relationship with Yuri and admits he wouldn't have it any other way.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The Empty Mask expands on what happened after the brigade digs Schwann out of Baction. Schwann tells them that he isn't worth saving and that he isn't the hero they think he is, but Leblanc admits he already knew that and still respects Schwann for teaching him swordsmanship and being a good leader to the brigade.

Sodia

Voiced by: Miki Nagasawa (JP), Kate Higgins (EN)

A young female knight, who serves as vice-captain of the Flynn Brigade. She firmly believes in adhering to the rule of law and will not abide anyone who doesn't. This puts her at odds with Yuri despite Flynn's best efforts to help.

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• Action Girl: She's a lieutenant of the Imperial Knights for a reason which she proves later when she leads a Big Damn Heroes after Brave Vesperia is incapacitated by the Big Bad. She also takes down several members of the Royal Guard by herself in the Heracles, which Yuri actually compliments her on.
• Anger Born of Worry: For Sodia, Flynn represents the ideal that she and the rest of the Imperial Knights should aspire to. Which is why she fears his association with Yuri could potentially tarnish that image. A fact which Flynn is well aware of.
  Flynn: "She's placed me on too high a pedestal. She believes me to be the ideal knight, but the things aren't as black-and-white as she thinks. In time, I'm certain she'll realize that."
• Animal Motif: Yuri has noted that her eyes resemble a cat's.
• Berserk Button: Yuri quickly becomes a walking and talking one to her. By the third arc though, this has dropped.
• Birds of a Feather: After aiding Flynn in Hypionia, Yuri points out that she's just like him in regards to dirtying her hands with blood for the sake of Flynn.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Has this bad. She very firmly follows the law, even when she disagrees with it, and is hostile to those who act outside of it, regardless of reasons. As a result, she hates Yuri because his vigilantism is, by the laws of the Emprie, wrong, even if he does good in spite of it. The PS3 version even has a skit where everyone discusses this and Flynn hopes she moves past it.
• Character Development: She tries to keep Yuri away from Flynn throughout the first two acts, but her attitude towards him begins to change after the events at Zaude. Sodia is left struggling to find a way to make amends with Yuri and eventually urges Flynn to go with him to face the Adephagos, on behalf of the Imperial Knights.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong:
  • While Yuri's actions are noted as being criminal by both Flynn and Sodia, the narrative still favors Yuri because her issue with him is not mainly the crimes he commits but the fact that she thinks he'll taint her perfect image of Flynn.
  • This also extends to how the traveling party views Sodia, with Raven being the only one to empathize with her^note during the "Yuri and Sodia" field skit, which triggers immediately after the party leaves Aurnion. A separate skit has Flynn apologize for Sodia's abrasiveness and tell the others she means well, but they remain indifferent toward her and change the subject to Witcher instead^note in the "Sodia and Witcher" skit, which triggers once Flynn joins the party permanently.
  • In general the party don't seem to disagree with her morals, Yuri even admits Flynn needs someone like her at his side, but her abrasive attitude, constant verbal assaults at Yuri and pigheadedness even with unjust laws put them off so they, and the narrative, tend to disagree with her on principle alone.
• Fiery Redhead: Deconstructed considering what her temper makes her do. Her inability to handle her anger towards Yuri very nearly has cross the line into being what she hates.
• Full-Name Basis: She always addresses Yuri by his full name in a disdainful (and later angry) tone. Her intonation changes in the latter portion of the game, out of remorse for trying to kill him.
• Hero Antagonist: Towards Yuri. Sodia is a good person but her antagonism towards Yuri makes her more flawed than she normally would be, and she acts as something of a Downplayed antagonist to him.
• He Who Fights Monsters: From her point of view, Yuri's actions reflect poorly on Flynn due to their association. So she and Witcher effectively have to do cleanup work to keep Flynn's reputation from suffering. Which culminates in Sodia attempting to get rid of Yuri, while they're alone atop Zaude. In so doing though, she takes the law into her own hands and inadvertently becomes the very thing she hates about him.
• Hypocrite: She hates Yuri for his vigilante actions, but tries to kill him on top of Zaude, an action that she takes without her superior's knowledge or approval so things are "better" for him.
• It's Personal: Her attempt at reasoning with Yuri was to essentially order him to stop associating with her superior, Flynn. Yuri's response was to tell Sodia Flynn could decide that for himself and that he had no intention of changing. Suffice to say, it struck a nerve and forms the basis for why she tries to kill him at Zaude.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Yuri even admits it. His actions are wrong and cause trouble for Flynn.
• Jerkass to One: When talking to the party, she's usually polite and friendly. The sole person she isn't polite to is Yuri, and whenever she has to deal with him, her attitude very clearly goes from "friendly" to "frustrated".
• Karma Houdini: Subverted. She's never charged for the murder attempt, nor is it ever divulged to anyone else. However, Yuri says he hasn't forgiven her for it. The reason he doesn't report her to Flynn is because it would be hypocritical of him and he acknowledges that Flynn benefits from having someone like Sodia under his command^note i.e. because Sodia has Flynn's best interests at heart.
• Knight Templar: Sodia takes her duty to Zaphias and as Flynn's subordinate seriously and will not abide anything that can potentially harm either.
• Loving a Shadow: Heavily implied to be in love with Flynn. However, she likes him as a Knight In Shining Armour and Internal Reformist. Flynn is more than that. When Flynn starts acting unknightly by teaming up with Brave Vesperia and prioritizing going after Alexei over protecting Ioder, Sodia sees Yuri as someone who is corrupting her image of Flynn as the perfect knight.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Her attempt to kill Yuri on top of Zaude can be read like this, either in a platonic fashion or something more as her reasons for doing so is to remove his "influence" from Flynn.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Her immediate reaction upon stabbing Yuri and watching him fall from atop Zaude, seemingly to his death. Although he survives, Sodia still left aghast at her own actions.
• Number Two: She serves directly under Flynn as his lieutenant.
• Skewed Priorities: She wants to arrest Yuri, even when both Brave Vesperia and the imperial knights are facing the larger threat of Alexei and the Royal Guard.
• Tsundere: By the time she mellows out from her guilt of trying to kill Yuri, she has started to show a softer side to the party, especially during her surprise hot spring break at Yumanju.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Despite her personal grudge against Yuri, her actions were motivated by her desire to protect Flynn. Yuri even concedes she is completely justified in hating him.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Yuri doesn't call her out on her attempt to kill him at Zaude in her belief that she needed to kill him so he'd stop being an influence on Flynn, but he is frustrated that, after that, Sodia essentially ran away from Flynn while he was fending off a massive monster invasion and she went out of her way to desperately seek Yuri, whom she tried to kill. He is angry that she can't really go all the way in protecting Flynn herself despite her big move on trying to kill Yuri.
  • Before the above, Sodia was the one dishing out this towards Yuri. She didn't exactly know how to handle how Yuri calmly accepted her criticism, resulting in her just getting angrier.

Witcher

Voiced by: Makiko Ohmoto (JP), Wendee Lee (EN)

A young mage, who serves in the Flynn Brigade along with Sodia. Witcher also knows Rita, with whom he has a one-sided rivalry.

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• Child Prodigy: He's very smart considering his age. Raven teases Rita that Witcher will eventually surpass her if she doesn't step it up, much to her chagrin.
• Fanboy: Of Professor Sicily.
• Foil: To Rita. Also a child magic prodigy, his personality is in drastic contrast to Rita's bombastic outbursts. While Witcher is lawful and takes his duties as part of the empire seriously, he doesn't get as much done as Rita, who is the exact opposite.
• In-Series Nickname: Yuri refers to him as "apple head" because of the shape of his hair. The pair of cowlicks atop his head resemble the stem.
• No Social Skills: During his surprise hot springs break at Yumanju, Witcher is almost unable to drop his studious attitude and can't really behave like a normal person so much that Yuri can't help to comment him and Flynn looking like brothers as Flynn tries having Witcher relax the right way.
• Only Sane Man: Of the Knights - yes, Flynn doesn't count.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's much more level-headed than Sodia, demonstrated when he stops her from lashing out at Yuri at Baction.
• The Resenter: Downplayed. Despite his jealousy towards Rita's fame in the mage community, he doesn't obsess over it. Instead, he regards Rita with the same indifference as she does with him. Witcher is confident that his own accomplishments will speak for themselves, in due time.
• The Short Guy with Glasses: Witcher is about the same height as Patty and wears wooden framed glasses.
• The Smart Guy: He's the Flynn Brigade's chief mage and blastia expert. In the final act, Witcher devises a plan to create a networking system to link all the world's blastia to Vesperia No.2, in order to covert all the remaining blastia cores into spirits simultaneously. Even Rita admits it was a stroke of genius.
• Unknown Rival: Though they never spoke directly, while they were in Aspio, Witcher holds Rita in mild contempt, believing Rita to be full of herself due to her achievements. The fact that she barely acknowledges him when they finally meet at Capoa Torim only reinforces his opinion of her.
  Witcher: (matter-of-factly, at Rita) "Whatever. I don't care a wit about you either."

Khroma WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS

^{Click here to see her true form}

^{Click here to see her as a spirit} The binder of winds, Sylph

Voiced by: Satomi Arai (JP), Kate Higgins (EN)

Alexei's aide and secretary, a mysterious Krityan woman.

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• Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Khroma reveals that she is one of, if not the only, Entelexeia born using a normal reproductive manner while others including her own father, Elucifer are born from aer. No word on how it happened or if there even was a female involved.
• Blow You Away: As the wind spirit, Sylph. She favored wind attacks even in her Entelexeia form.
• Chekhov's Gunman: A seemingly unimportant person until near the start of the third act.
• Elemental Embodiment: Of wind, after her death and rebirth.
• Giant Flyer: In her Entelexeia form. She scales down significantly as Sylph.
• Heel–Face Turn: spoiler: Seems to be doing this when she provides vital information to the party during the Zaphias attack, but she's actually The Mole.
• Interspecies Romance: A return trip to Relewiese Hollow reveals that she was in love with Duke as Khroma and may still be so as Sylph. Good luck getting it though.
• The Mole: Took it upon herself to monitor Alexei's actions for Duke.
• Ms. Exposition: Notable even in her brief appearance during the Zaphias attack, but especially so after she joins with the party, and is the only source of information about Duke's past.
• Our Gryphons Are Different: In her Entelexeia form.
• Walking Spoiler: Considering her late-game reveal, it's not easy to talk about her in detail without ruining the story.

The Empty Mask

Casey

Voiced by: Aya Endo (Drama CD)

A knight who plays an important role in Raven's backstory. She died during the Great War.

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• Action Girl: It was pretty unheard of to have a female Imperial Knight who could also kick ass very good.
• Blue Blood: Born to a noble family, though she discarded that life because her father didn't like either the Empire or the Guilds.
• Damsel in Distress: Subverted. It was her who usually saved her male partners.
• Dub Name Change: Kyanari (Canary) in Japanese, most likely to fit the bird theme of Schwann and Raven.
• Excellent Judge of Character: She was able to tell Damuron wasn't being himself when she first met him trying to woo a woman, and he himself is surprised that she could tell that much from a single meeting.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Died trying to protect Damuron Atomais. Unfortunately was a Senseless Sacrifice as he died anyways and Alexei revived him as "Schwann Oltorain".
• Identical Stranger: Though it's never commented on, Yuri resembles her a lot or vise-versa.
• Idiot Hair: Has a big strand of this sticking up in front.
• Knight In Shining Armour: Was a good, noble person as well as an Imperial Knight.
• The Lost Lenore: To Raven and Yeager, who is implied to have been romantically involved with her.
• Loved by All: She and her brigade were adored by the citizens of the Lower Quarter because she was one of the few knights who actually liked to help commoners despite their status.
• Nice Girl: Kind and caring to others. Notably, she was willing to forgive Damuron for participating in a scheme against her and recruit him as a subordinate because he didn't ditch her but instead tried to rescue her.
• Posthumous Character: She died in the Great War ten years before the start of the story.
• True Companions: The Casey Brigade was made up of soldiers who were friends and very loyal to each other, compared to every other brigade that had a lot of bad apples looking after themselves.

Cactoph

An imperial council member who opposed Alexei's agenda.

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• Asshole Victim: Alexei has Schwann assassinate him, which he deserved because he killed many of Alexei's subordinates out of spite.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He and his assistant, Fialen, trap several of Alexei's knights in an exploding building to get back at him for gaining the support of the majority of council members.
• Expy: He was clearly meant as a parallel to Ragou, being a corrupt imperial council member whose crimes become the catalyst for his enemy to use more ruthless methods to achieve their ideals.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: He opposes increasing the budget of the knights because he fears this will lead to Alexei becoming more powerful than him politically. Considering that Alexei planned on using the budget to build Heracles, which could upset the power balance of the world, his position is correct in hindsight, but his motives are purely selfish.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His murder of Alexei's knights caused the commandant to abandon all his scruples and become the Big Bad of the first half of the game.

First Strike

Garista Luodur

Voiced by: Mitsuru Miyamoto (JP) and J. Michael Tatum (EN)

Introduced in Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike, he is the strategist of the Niren Corps and a close friend of Niren Fedrok.

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• Asshole Victim: Canonically the first victim of Yuri's vigilante justice, but richly deserved.
• Badass Book Worm: Unlike the next victims of Yuri's vigilantism to follow, Garista puts up a vicious fight against him and Flynn by himself.
• Big Bad Friend: To Niren, who he was deceiving and leading to death on Alexei's orders.
• Expy: Personality and appearance-wise, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Jade. Only he completely lacks a conscience and moral complexity.
• Faux Affably Evil: He puts up a facade of understanding and warmth to manipulate Flynn into Alexei's servitude, but once it's clear this isn't going to happen, he immediately plots to dispose of him.
• For Science!: He tries to justify all his atrocities with this to Flynn and Yuri. They don't care for a second.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: As an all-around sociopath and mad scientist...
• Kick the Dog: Before their climactic fight, he subtly hints to Flynn he murdered his father with wicked pleasure.
• Mad Scientist: His occupation under Alexei.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: His preferred way of disposing of nosy knights on Alexei's behalf. First, Flynn's father, then Niren. He voices his intent to do the same to Yuri and Flynn, but this fate befalls him posthumously instead.
• Obviously Evil: Rita assumed he was no good just from one interaction with him. Unsurprisingly, he is behind everything bad in the film.

Niren Fedrock

Voiced by: Takashi Taniguchi (JP), Christopher Sabat (EN)

The commanding officer of the Niren Corps that plays a pivotal role in Yuri dropping out of the knights.

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• Horrible Judgeof Character: Never suspects Garista for a moment and trusts him implicitly.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: He is killed through a series of events staged by Garista to have him and his entire platoon dead.
• Military Maverick: He does as he pleases to get work done, and has good relations with mercenaries from the Guilds. This rebelliousness is why Alexei has Garista have him killed.

Hisca & Chastel Aiheap

(Hisca) Voiced by: Arisa Ogasawara (JP), Trina Nishimura (EN)

(Chastel) Voiced by: Fumie Mizusawa (JP), Leah Clark (EN)

Two twins who were senior knights to Yuri and Flynn during their time as Niren Corps knights in Shizontania.

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• Boob-Based Gag: Chastel's larger buxom is the victim of jokes from Niren, as he once referred to her as "the bigger [sister]" because of it. None of the two sisters is slightly amused at this.
• Canon Foreigner: Introduced in the prequel film, both appear in the later ports as part of a sidequest.
• Heroic BSoD: Hisca suffers a particularly brief but nasty one when she is bathed in blood raining down on her by murdered soldiers from the mutated Lambert monster. She of course has all the right to scream her head off.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Both are almost exactly the same in looks, except for the fact older sister Chastel has a bigger chest than her little sister; a fact Flynn finds out in the most embarrassing way possible. Weirdly, in the game, it's the other way around.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Hisca is a little more serious and determined than Chastel, who is a little more soft-spoken and kinder than her.