Sylvain Boudreaux

Throw roses into the abyss and say: "'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.'" — Friedrich Nietzsche

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Name Sylvain Boudreaux
Age 400+ (appears 32)
Race Voidsent – formerly Elezen
Sexuality/Gender bisexual male
Residency Ishgard & the Thirteenth
Profession antiquarian, dealmaker
Specialties astral voidmagicks, aetheric vampirism, illusionary enchantments, swordplay & song
Traits 6’7” lithe build, lilac skintone & scarlet eyes
Appearance ghostlike hair, melodic lilting voice, attire of lace & jewels

To the uninitiated, Sylvain seemingly carries an effortless air of noble decadence. Desired as greatly as he is feared, the proprietor of Ishgard’s finest collection of rare artifacts is known in the highest echelons of society as a granter of wishes. He is the third claimant of his lineage to such an epithet, though there are none alive to recall his predecessors—beyond the paperwork of his pedigree, of course. Should desperation lead you past the raspy hisses of his pet vultures to the red, incense-laden parlor within this cluttered house of curiosities, be on your guard; his clients always receive exactly what they wish for.

“Cold, yet beautiful hands clasped my own as I entered the shop, and a subtle scent of earthen floral decay did greet me in kind. When I was led to the Rosarium, as he called it in a melodious tone, a veil of intoxicating incense akin to opium arose from leathery, black resin raked across the embers of his hearth. Roses lay strewn atop the mantle, and the crackling of an old orchestrion filled the air. Resolved as I was then to beg of him the unspeakable, I now find myself haunted.”

a white rose · the trickster fox · circling vultures

History

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An elezen man of lithe build waltzes with a young woman, and together they glide across a masquerade ballroom. As they part, he links arms with another man, paying no mind to social custom. His partners from this evening do not follow him home, though on other nights he might give thought to entertaining company if there is aught to gain. Vulpine in nature, the man is altogether desired, reviled, and an enigma. Few individuals present, if any, would be correct in assuming the origins of Lord Boudreaux. The truth is a harsh cry from expectations: Sylvain was born an elezen of low rank far beneath Ishgard’s resplendent spires, in an age where the city-state was hardly 600 years standing. Indeed, he came of age in a peasant's labyrinth where the perpetual damp of alpine fog would permeate the floors and unfinished walls of his simple hovel. To understand how this could come to pass, one must look to stars long dead.

Etheirys unbroken
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In a previous time, in a different, more whole life, Sylvain was known to his contemporaries as Koios – pronounced key-os. In this world, he was brother to Adamanteia, the current seat of Azem, while his own duties pertained to distant stars and extant phenomena. In tandem with his peer Hermes, he would labor under the seat of Fandaniel in ambitious pursuit of documenting the unknown. While the two apprentices were both possessed of brilliant mind, their viewpoints differed. Where Hermes was wont to unravel a deeper nature to existence, Koios was cautious; "The mysteries of the universe are but that—mysteries," Koios would elucidate. “We need not pry into their intricacies, so much as revere their beauty.”

When the path of Hermes lead him to the seat of Fandaniel, Koios was assigned to keep watch of the stars, much to his delight. At the dawn of the Final Days, Koios and Hermes would work together one final time when Koios pinpointed a seemingly irreversible stagnation of aether hailing from the edges of the universe. Before they could make significant headway in his research, however, his life was cut short: he witnessed the horrifying death of his lover, the daimon Alastor, as he fell to a horde of beasts. Driven from despair unto madness, Adamanteia shot him through the heart with an arrow as her final act of love and mercy.

In the sundering of Etheirys, the starry tapestry of Koios lingering in the aetherial sea came undone as his soul splintered across thirteen reflections. A pale fragment of him named Desiderio would be born on her Thirteenth shard, where, still possessed of brilliant mind, he predicted a catastrophe concluding the Thirteenth’s twilight years of war and ruin. An inventor of great renown, he performed myriad experimentations on the material known now as auracite, albeit in vain. The efforts of one man could do little to save a star—its elemental fabric coming undone, Desiderio was cast unto the dark and his soul remained adrift for years to come.

The empire, allag
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Hermes, as Amon, reached infamy in the Third Astral Era under the banner of Allag, creating abject horrors in the name of scientific experimentation and subjugation. Xande had made contact with the Cloud of Darkness and the now-voidbound Desiderio was shackled in thrall, brought to distant lands to fight a war of annihilation against the dragons of Meracydia. A frail, aether-starved creature, he was felled by the wyrms, his shredded remains later collected by laborers of Allag for repurposement. Even in death, a soul suffused with darkness cannot easily find rest. To exploit this, the Aetherochemical Research Facility had begun the production of chimerically manufactured voidsent.

Amon himself would encounter what remained of Desiderio, recognizing a pitiful shred of the once-vast soul of Koios clinging to flesh consumed by war and darkness alike. Desiderio was reconstructed as a patchwork sin of aetheric engineering: fused to an amalgamation of voidsent flesh ‘gifted’ sentience. This reconstructed body possessed immense strength and even resembled the unsundered Koios in appearance, though these privileges came with a cruel price. Forced into countless nihilistic campaigns for Allag as an acting general, he found this new body agonizing, his suffering eased only by aether consumption.

Despite this, Desiderio did not yet lose the will to live. Allag’s greatest victories served only to hasten its cruel end. When the empire fell to ruin, Desiderio broke free of his bonds and escaped damnation, fleeing to the void amid planar weakness. Chimerical enhancement, transcendent knowledge, and martial prowess had thrust him upwards in hierarchy, affording him his own domain and the title Desiderio, void generale Condottiero. Though his new body proved resilient, his strength waned while gnawing hunger consumed him, and he found himself struggling to retain sentience. When the mages of Mhach treated with the void in the Fifth Astral Era he bound himself to them by pact, seeking greater knowledge and aether in kind.

War of the magi
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Possessed of no care to fight mortal wars, Desiderio soon sought to betray his pact, but was bound by a nullstone capable of eradicating any voidsent proven disloyal. Recognizing that the flames of war were undoubtedly fanning the Ardor as they did in Allag, he conspired with the shadow queen Scathach in a bid for freedom and power whilst performing the bidding of Mhachi mages. Desiderio felled adversaries with ease and gorged upon their aether—it was only at the climax of the war that he would meet with a worthy adversary. Defending the gates of Amdapor’s stone towers was a Duskwight Elezen of ash-green pallor, a white mage known to his kin as Aearuin, born with fell might to weaponize the aetherial sea itself. Though he was bested, Desiderio could not be so easily vanquished, and was instead bound and imprisoned.

As the fates willed it, his Amdapori captor was a reincarnation of the ancient Alastor who had been slain ere the world was broken millennia prior. Even fractured, he retained great power: at this time channeled into devastating white magic and the animation of war golems by means of forging life-giving gems. Witnessing this process while in captivity informed the learned Desiderio that this man could possess the strength to create an artifact capable of transcending planes; what began as a ploy to obtain such an artifact, however, gave way to an unlikely and ill-fated romance between the two war generals. Aearuin meticulously forged an aetherically dense resonator for the purpose of interplanar travel to Desiderio’s domain on the Thirteenth—and attuned the device to both of their souls.

This device, in the form of a crystal, would emit oscillating frequencies when struck—mirrored frequencies across two planes tear open a gate for attuned users to traverse. Aearuin's relentless channeling of aether, however, had begun to erode his physical body before this gem could be completed, and the prototype was given to Desiderio for safe keeping. Soon after, Mhach summoned the voidking Diabolos, and in the ensuing battle, Aearuin’s weakened flesh calcified into white stone, a fatal death to elemental imbalance from light-aspected aether. When Desiderio lurched forward to slay Diabolos in his rage, rapidly stagnating ambient aether gave way to the resurgent dynamis of his anguish—the resonator in his possession was spurred to completion. A rift tore open, and Desiderio alone was pulled to the void while Diabolos remained bound on the Source.

Ishgard—c.1100
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At the close of the Fifth Astral Era, Desiderio at first remained alone in the void, though as ages passed, his gnawing hunger for aether persisted. Eventually, he used his resonator to return to the Source to feast, his blurred mind retaining naught but a patchwork memories of his past, often haunted by visions of a dying man of stone, whose name he could not recall. When this happened, Desiderio would claw at the heart of his resonator—the jewel now melded into his flesh. Finding the hollow monotony of his nefarious exploits and false lives to be lacking purpose, he devised a plan to become more ‘complete.’ As of year 1100 of the Sixth Astral Era, Desiderio had established himself under the title of Lord Disdier in the city-state of Ishgard where he gained notoriety as a dealmaker, one day luring a man critical to his goal into his employ: an Elezen called Sylvain.

Though a peasant of the Brume, Sylvain's keen mind, unfaltering hope and joie de vivre afforded him an air of otherworldly affluence as the Source's remaining shard of the star-loving Koios. Lacking education, he labored in kitchens and tinker shops, marrying for love early in his years and fathering his only child soon after. The allure of Sylvain’s melodious tenor caught the ear of Lord Disdier whlist caroling about the upper wards of Ishgard one Starlight, a gifted young singer seeking donations for his ill daughter. Lord Disdier took the man into servitude in exchange for a wish granted, forming a binding pact that would soon serve to bring about his—and his family's—undoing.

The Lord Disdier meticulously siphoned Sylvain's aether while teaching him to read, write, and practice arcane arts of supposed healing, while in truth melding him into a compatible vessel for himself. Though Sylvain's daughter had first appeared to miraculously recover, he awoke one morning to find her despondent and lifeless—alongside his wife. Realizing his folly, Sylvain confronted his lord and, in desperation, made a vain attempt to banish him despite lacking power to perform the act. Lord Disdier retaliated with a death–strike from his rapier, but Sylvain's refusal to comply in the surrender of all he had lived for awakened the dying thoughts of Koios himself, and searing light flooding from his wound enveloped them both.

As his consciousness faded, Desiderio laughed aloud one final time. Two fragments of Koios had merged in macrocosmic Rejoining, and from that day onwards Sylvain was changed, body and soul. His nails had become talons, coloring altered, and his mind itself grew foreign. Though Desiderio himself was no more, for all intents and purposes, the mortal Sylvain was, too, laid to rest in the ornate mausoleum erected for his family, where to this day the scent of roses lingers on exquisite stone statues in repose. Though Desiderio’s mind had eroded over ages and the myriad writings, artifacts, and magic left in his wake were initially undecipherable, the domain and legacy Sylvain inherited soon came to him as second nature.

Ishgard—c.1550
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Keen to remain in Ishgard and now capable of preying on the noble class to which had a lived subservient life, Sylvain mastered the myriad enchantments and deceptions devised by Desiderio. He first attained ennoblement, ensuring his purported lineage a place in high society with ample leverage to promote his own agenda. Before long, he ceased counting namedays in favor of marking the century: once per which he would return to the Pillars as heir to a previous incarnation, eking out a living by route of his services. Every purported miracle by his hand is but a cover for sinister sorcery and aetheric vampirism—insidious dealings and pacts played to the tune of Ishgardian scandals.

Upon Sylvain's arrival in his 400th year, hardly a fortnight had yet passed before Etienne of the Vale, the bastard 16 year-old son of a Dzemael vassal, Lord Drauvaix, came knocking at his door—presently refashioned into an antiques shop and private parlor. Interestingly, the young Elezen came to Sylvain not with scandalous requests, but instead a naive enthusiasm for antiques, brazen inquiries on heretical subjects, and eager questioning of the world beyond the confines of their city-state. Sensing a kindred spirit not a far cry from the mortal life he left behind centuries prior, the two formed an unlikely bond.

This selfsame bond afforded Etienne his chance at life and love—for when this bastard lordling found it in a Xaela woman fleeing Temple Knights years later, it was Sylvain who granted them safe passage overseas to escape the fanatical persecutions of Ishgard. In time, House Drauvaix would call again—when under suspect of heresy in light of a Dravanian assault, the elder matriarch herself bargained for the safe passage of her fleeing descendants, protection of their family histories, and a word of warning for Etienne not to return.

Despite this plea, Sylvain would later receive word that two children bearing Elezen and Au Ra features had arrived in Ishgard, claiming protection as Boudreaux wards by route of distant kin—a young boy, Asala, and his elder sister, Ataash. In truth, Etienne and his wife had fallen deathly ill while traversing the world with their children, and knowing the two would find stalwart protection in his closest friend, Etienne tasked him with their well-being. Sylvain's second foray into fatherhood lead to frequent clashes, especially with the hot-headed Ataash, though quiet moments of calm and caring came in equal measure. For the remaining years the children spent as his wards, he protected them as his own — all the while silently mourning yet another loss of those he loved to illness.

The present day
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In the Seventh Umbral Era, Ataash proves herself not only an adventurer, but heir to the seat of Azem, Adamanteia reincarnate. Following their departure from his estate, Sylvain keeps watch over both children, though he retains a certain physical and emotional distance. He later adopts two vultures, though only the most trained eye may notice their nature as eternal creatures of the void: loyal subjects given corporeal form on the Source. In tandem with his enduring promise to his fallen friend, Sylvain safeguards the histories of House Drauvaix, initially keeping them secret even from the heir, Miraut: a mage, alchemist and mercenary adventurer who returns to Ishgard at the height of the Dragonsong War.

The Duskwight heir is thus the unknowing cousin of Ataash—the warrior of light—as well as a shard of the ancient Alastor, his fate tied eternally unto that of the star. Miraut establishes himself as an apothecary which soon disrupts Sylvain's line of business, as nobles that otherwise would have succumbed to his sinister enchantments are restored by means of healing pomanders and potions. A rivalry sparks between the two, only intensified by Sylvain's sharp yet flirtatious tongue, Miraut's aloof yet unyielding demeanor, their mutual knowledge and arcane skill, and an inherent magnetism buried within their souls. This pull occasionally breaches the physical plane, causing aetheric disruptions in Sylvain's voidal resonator.

As of Endwalker, Miraut and Sylvain have become romantically entangled in a tumultuous affair befitting of their nature. When Ataash traverses the more perilous reaches of Etheirys and her reflections, Miraut becomes a permanent fixture in the scions. Both men are present when Ataash reaches Ultima Thule; only by Miraut's reclamation of the mantle of Alastor and Sylvain's fatherly love is Ataash at last delivered unto the Endsinger. Asala, a student of conjury, is delighted to learn the archmage Miraut is his cousin; Ataash finds it rather strange. Sylvain accompanies the party on the Thirteenth, where he retains the domain of Desiderio to this day.

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