Skip to content

Cyrus — The Seeker

A man displaced not just in space but in time. Cyrus awakened from the Disruption to find that everyone he once knew has been lost to the centuries that passed while he slept. Quiet, focused, and pragmatic to a fault, he struggles to forge new connections in a world that feels alien despite being built on the bones of his own. One of the few surviving Runic Builders, his engineering expertise is invaluable.

Arc: Learning to connect with a new world rather than mourning the old one.

Combat Archetype: Positional Striker — Pusher with Toolmaker secondary paradigm

Combat identity. Cyrus reads the battlefield as a Runic Builder reads a circuit — every tile, terrain feature, and enemy position is a piece to be moved. He fights to put enemies where he wants them, then makes them pay for being there. His patience and pragmatism translate into a kit that rewards setup over flash; a well-placed Cyrus turn unlocks the rest of the party's plays.

Signature mechanics.

  • Displacement strikes. Most of Cyrus's basic and Skill attacks knock targets between tiles — push to back row, pull to front, shove into adjacent columns. Damage is moderate; the movement is the point.
  • Cleaving strikes. A subset of Cyrus's heavier attacks cleave adjacent tiles — his contribution to the party's AOE coverage, complementary to Vaughn's multi-strike volume.

Secondary paradigm — Toolmaker. Cyrus's Runic Builder background opens an engineering-flavored lane. A player who specializes Cyrus down this paradigm leans on Devices and runic gear to expand his kit beyond pure displacement — the Entropic Blade is the canonical mid-game example, but other Devices may also fit. Gear-derived Skills and Momentum options become more prominent the deeper this lane is taken.

Momentum — player-selectable.

  • Crash (default — Pusher). When Cyrus knocks an enemy into resistant terrain — a tree, a rock, an obstruction tile, or another unit — he gains an extra AP. Chaining Crashes turns a setup turn into a burst turn. (Per-turn cap TBD by playtest.)
  • Cleave (alternative — AOE lean). When Cyrus's attack hits 2+ enemies in a single resolution, he gains an extra AP.

Gear-conditional Momentum options (e.g. Tune via the Entropic Blade) are documented with the equipment that grants them.

Apotheosis: Sword Surgeon

For 4-6 turns, Cyrus's strikes become surgical instruments of displacement.

  • Single-swing field arrangement. Each strike action sweeps through every enemy in arc/range, AND for each enemy struck, Cyrus chooses exactly where they end up:
    • push back N tiles in any direction
    • pull toward him
    • carry across his guard to the opposite side (blunt-edge catch)
    • drop into a tile in an ally's threat range — an instant ambush
  • Surgical precision. Cyrus chooses the destination per enemy. No randomness, no rounding, no "as far as the push value allows." The arc of his sword writes their positions.
  • Crash chains stack. Every enemy placed onto resistant terrain triggers a Crash. His core Momentum naturally compounds — a single swing can land 3+ Crashes in good conditions.
  • Range still melee. His swing is a sword swing — the effect arranges enemies across surrounding tiles, but Cyrus himself doesn't acquire range. He still has to get up close; pairs with Phaidros holding the front line.

The fantasy: where Vaughn finds the weak point and rallies the party to exploit it, Cyrus arranges the table. Pieces precisely placed for the rest of the cast to land their work. Two different orchestrators of the same battle — Vaughn from the soul, Cyrus from the spatial geometry.

Status specialties. Cyrus applies Staggered (heavy displacement strikes) as a primary. Secondary applier of Bleed via edge work. (Gear-derived statuses — e.g. Burning when the Entropic Blade is in fire mode — are documented with the equipment.)

Role in party. Frontline DPS whose damage scales with how chaotic the battlefield is. Sets up other characters' positional plays; punishes any enemy formation that holds still. Pairs especially well with Phaidros (stone pillars become Crash terrain), Sophia (push targets onto flooded tiles for her Plunges), and Vaughn (tighten the formation before Vaughn sweeps it).