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King Adrius Ossian is the main antagonist of the Fantasy Visual Novel Lyre.

An unpleasant, apathetic young deer, Adrius was the only son and heir of Raynar Ossian, king of Lyre, the northern kingdom of the land of Tygren. Having lost his beloved mother Queen Elena when he was a kid when she and Raynar were attacked by bandits while travelling through the kingdom of Drys, Adrius would become an orphan altogether as his father was murdered at the night of the Winter Solstice, with most clues unfortunately pointing to the innocent ambassador from Eryn, the human Richter (whose name is dependent on the reader's choice, as he is the protagonist and main narrator of the Visual Novel).

Now inheriting the mantle of King from his late father, Adrius displays much more extremistic ideas when it comes to external policies, to the worry of the War Minister Elizabeth and Kadaj, the ambassador from Drys. Adding to this, Adrius would develop a strong animosity towards the alleged killer of his father, Richter.

Come Richter's trial, however, the human would discover, with divine aid from the God Tygren, that King Raynar had, in fact, been murdered by Adrius himself so that the young stag could finally achieve his megalomaniacal dream of "fixing" Tygren however he saw fit.

Appearance[]

Adrius is a young deer of short stature, slim build and unimpressive rack size. Like his father, he has light brown fur with tan highlights, such as three spots under each of his eyes. His eyes are a vibrant amber much like his late mother's, but also slightly baggy, with thick, dark brown eyebrows.

He dresses in an extravagant fashion befitting royalty, with a green overcoat detailed in gold over a dark purple shirt, green gloves, a purple cravat, a dark purple belt at his waist, black pants with gold lining and a dark purple shoulder cape pinned down with the crest of Tygren, a triangle split in three (with the upper third, representing Lyre, being a green gem).

Upon his coronation as the new king of Lyre, he dons the same golden crown with the crest of Tygren as his father, which was fitted for Adrius head.

After Richter furiously punched Adrius at the end of the former's trial, the latter was left with a scar on his muzzle and his left antler ripped off. Both of these injuries were quickly treated with bandages and haven't healed up yet.

Personality[]

As a child, Adrius was playful and innocent, if a bit reluctant to pull off scarier stunts without help and had a loving relationship with both his parents, especially his mother Elena, and apparently even a friendship with the wolf Lyall.

This may come as a surprise to those who meet him, for he is anything but jovial in the present day. The loss of his beloved mother at a young age clearly did a number on him, as did the responsibility of being the prince weighing upon him since he was a kid , as theorized by characters such as Leif. Adrius is pretty much never seen in a good mood, being apathetic, dismissive and condescending in his better moments and outright argumentative and abrasive on a bad day.

The captain of the royal guards, Lyall Reed, has often been subjected to Adrius insulting him unprovoked with names such as "Dog", "Hound" and "Mutt" and the physician Leif's blabbery but well-meaning medical advice is met with clearly-forced thanks and rolling eyes by the young deer. After only a few days since he came to know the prince, the Erynian ambassador Richter already managed to form a negative opinion of Adrius, who ignored him most of the time and, in Richter's words, what few conversations the two managed to start would feel like interrogations from Adrius.

It's to the point where, after Adrius insecurily lashed out at Richter after the latter saw him with shed antlers, Richter was surprised when the prince visited him to apologize; Richter immediately suspected there were ulterior motives behind the apology, which was immediately proven correct since Adrius mostly just wanted answers on why Richter knew so much about Queen Elena's death (which was shown to him via a vision granted by the God Tygren, for whom Richter later turns out to be an avatar).

When it comes to the relationship with his father, King Raynar, Adrius and him became much more estranged with time, both grieving over Elena's death even a decade after the fact. The wedge between them was worsened by Adrius's dislike of Raynar's lax approach to ruling Lyre and dealing with foreign affairs, as Adrius wished for more action to be taken and with bolder measures. The young prince would often get in over his head in these arguments to the point where an annoyed Raynar would have to remind him that he (Raynar) was the ruler, not both of them. Adrius would concede. Adrius at one point implied, through "advice" he gave Richter, that he had a network of spies within the castle, further showing he was impatient to hold some control over the kingdom. In Ritcher's words, the portrait of Raynar and Adrius perfectly captured their two's personalities: the former dignified, but looking to the side with a neutral look, while the latter stares forward with a determined look in his eyes.

However, none of this unpleasant behaviour was enough still to convey the real depravity Adrius was capable of. Rather than just a bully and a spoiled brat, Adrius has always been a very ambitious extremist with what he defines as "a dream": to deliver his concept of "true peace" across the kingdom of Lyre as well as Dryz and Eryn, fixing all the problems that plague Tygren, with special "care" to exterminating all of Dryz's bandits.

Adrius self-righteously sees himself as the only one capable of saving the kingdoms, all through Lyre's might alone, and views all other monarchs as incompetent, weak-willed or even corrupt as they fail or neglect to fix their kingdoms' great issues: his own father is not excluded from this notion. Due to Raynar's pragmatism and inaction in Dryz, Adrius would accuse his father of being weak-willed as a king, and not good enough of a father and widower; Adrius couldn't stand how Raynar dealt with his grief, as Raynar avoided speaking of his late wife, even with his own son, who was angered about this. No longer wishing to have power struggles with his father, Adrius decides one night to "take a hold of destiny with his own hands" and assassinates his father in cold blood, with a premeditated strategy to get away with it and incriminate the ambassador Richter, who was to have an audience with the king. He is successful in both.

While young and, as many signs indicate, mentally disturbed, Adrius is very intelligent, calculated and pragmatic and, despite his rude and asocial behaviour as a prince, once he is crowned king he displays much more composition and apparent maturity; he manages to win over most of the lords and ladies around him and no-one suspecting him in the slightest. While he quickly makes it clear to his War Minister, Elizabeth and to the ambassador Kadaj that he will not be as gentle or eager to compromise as Raynar was, Adrius is good at keeping up the appearances of an overall reasonable ruler, with even Richter's rigged trial looking perfectly legit. A skill Adrius regularly shows is that, while often filled with strong emotions, he is capable of good self-control and can mask his mood with a stone-cold expression and demeanor. This, of course, is a mask worn by a psychopathic and power-mad tyrant biding his time before he can show the world that he will "persevere" in his ambitions.

Whatever tenderness truly is within Adrius' cold, ruthless, proud heart is mostly seen in his love for his late mother. As previously stated, her untimely death was the primary reason he went from an happy child to a cynical and cruel teenager and his goal of eradicating the bandits is all but stated to be driven by a will to avenge his mother, who was killed by bandits. He even refers to this as bandits "taking away all that's good in the world". Adrius' love for his deceased mother goes so far that he sadly consulted with the statue built in her honour before he went through with killing Raynar.

Aside from Elena, every other good relationship Adrius had to his name turned sour or, at the very least, complicated.

While he was always closer to Elena, Adrius also loved his father Raynar as a kid, and that partially carried over even after Adrius grew to be jaded and started having a lot of arguments with his father. When Richter tells Adrius that the prince disrespected Raynar every chance he could while he was still alive, Adrius, in his inner monologue, tells himself that that's not true, indicating that Adrius refused to believe he had a bad relationship with his father, even after having downright killed him. As stated before, Adrius' deluded ambition eventually overpowered his love for Raynar and he killed him to usurp him, though not with any joy or satisfaction in his heart. Adrius outright could barely see right after killing Raynar because his eyes were filled with tears and his legs were weak (and, although he was also afraid, the reaction was probably mostly attributed to sadness over his crime) and it's likely that the final slash to Raynar's throat after having stabbed him in the chest was Adrius showing the king mercy with a quicker death. On the day of his coronation, Adrius would even start shedding what Lyall recognized as tears of pure sadness, further indicating he felt a great deal of remorse over his patricide. What contradicts this guilt, however, is Adrius proudly ranting to Richter that his murder of Raynar was "him finally grabbing his destiny" as well as defining the king's death a necessary sacrifice. This could be Adrius having mostly gotten over his remorse, or simple denial. Considering Adrius would later be plagued by nightmares of his father guilting him, it's clear the young king is remorseful over his murder, even stuttering words of remorse when still rattled after waking up.

Lyall and Adrius used to be very close during childhood, as they regularly hung out in the gardens, and Adrius would always look over Lyall as the wolf trained (a revelation that slightly shook Lyall). In the present, however, Adrius regularly mocks the wolf with racist nicknames, and his opinion for the captain of the guards was worsened by the latter's blooming relationship with the human Richter, a romance Adrius finds disgusting for being interspecies (though it's so far unknown if the fact it's also an homosexual relationship has anything to do with Adrius' disdain for it). Adrius outright prohibits the two lovers from ever seeing one another while the falsely accused human is imprisoned, knowing the two will suffer emotionally from it. Later, Adrius is at first concerned when Lyall ends up injured from a vicious duel with Bjorn, but then acts very dismissive and cold towards him, to the disgust of Elizabeth and Kadaj. Adrius later has some nice words to tell Richter about Lyall and his worth, but it's mostly to lament that Lyall shed these virtues as his relationship with Richter "ruined him". Whatever good will Adrius had for Lyall is now completely gone, as he sees the wolf as a perverted traitor he wants to have murdered and his corpse desecrated, a threat he uses to further give Richter distress. This too, however, could be denial or simply hollow threats to hurt the human; judging by some of the nightmares Adrius has been having, the fact Lyall deserted him is eating at the fawn's emotional state, which is already in ruin over a plethora of factors.

Adrius has a mostly respectful king-advisor relationship with Elizabeth, though he makes it clear to her with very stern words that he will not allow her to criticise him in front of the guards and establishes himself as the boss of her and "no longer a child". However, Adrius was sad that he had to be so harsh towards her, showing some care for her, but he also feels he had to stand his ground and, in the words of his inner monologue, "the more problems [they all] caused, the more his disdain for them grew." However, Adrius has the emotional maturity to let her criticize his leadership so long as it's in private, and indeed values her opinions. As noted by Richter, Elizabeth looks more and more uncomfortable with standing by Adrius' side as the deer's colours show more and more, and she witnessed him smiling menacingly at the idea of having Richter and her friend Lyall killed. Elizabeth, currently a tired alcoholic, is still loyal to Adrius, however, something he openly appreciates. While Adrius still wants to know why Elizabeth voted Richter innocent, and the lady has her own grievances with the king, she is still one of two mostly positive relationships Adrius has left, the other being Leif.

Leif is still caring towards Adrius and his health, physical and psychological, even after being displeased with Adrius over Richter's unfair trial, Lyall's possible doom and Adrius' repeated rudeness. Still, Adrius is capable of relative kindness to Leif, the latter occasionally reminding the fawn that Adrius would have been stillborn were it not for Leif's efforts.

The person he has the most hatred for, however, is Richter, who reciprocates the disdain. In Adrius' words, while he never liked Richter, it at first wasn't personal, but the seeds of what would become outright mutual animosity were first sown when, due to the visions given to him by Tygren, Richter had suspiciously good knowledge of the circumstances of Elena's murder, making Adrius both curious, suspicious and already peeved at the human. With Richter acting more and more quaint with time, Adrius decided he'd be the best option as a scapegoat for Raynar's mysterious murder and, while the human was imprisoned for "having killed his father", Adrius ensured he would suffer by separating him and Lyall. Come the rigged trial that would condemn Richter once and for all, the human was given a vision from Tygren revealing to him Adrius was the real murderer, infuriating Richter, who punched the deer with enough strength to make him lose his antler, leading to the one instance so far of Adrius going into a furious, crazed frenzy in public.

After this, Richter was imprisoned again for a few days before his scheduled execution, days during which Adrius, now truly despising the human, revealed an hidden facet of his personality: extreme sadism. Adrius now started to fully embrace that he and Richter were "playing a game together" and felt for the human a mix of pure hatred, as well as curiosity over his strange cogniscient abilities and his past and a want to make their "game" as interesting as possible for him. With the aid of the torturer Ciaran, Adrius had Richter brutally tortured for days, sometimes so as to try and draw out some information about himself from the human, other times for his own twisted satisfaction. Adrius seems to find Richter a "fun" opponent also because he's hard to control, as he angrily declares he doesn't want Richter to sulk or beg for mercy. Eventually, after days of threatening to do so, Adrius uses a branding iron to brand the Ossian crest on the bare skin of Richter's back, to establish once and for all that Richter and his destiny belong to Adrius, as does his own destiny and everyone else's, showing the true depths of Adrius' megalomaniacal lust for control.

Throughout his horrific abuse of Richter, however, Adrius shows his own kind of honour by at the very least telling Ciaran to not torture Richter "too drastically" and to not remove the human's teeth, as the latter's worst crime against Adrius was removing his antler, which would at least grow back, whereas his teeth would never, so removing them would be a disproportionate punishment. He also later admits to Richter that it was really Adrius who killed the king, just to give Richter the satisfaction of hearing it come from him.

At the end of the day, Adrius is a sadistic, unstable child at heart; the biggest display of this is that, for the sake of keeping the "game" between them "exciting", Adrius decides to have Richter executed by being released and free to run away, giving him a chance at survival, but with Adrius' men pursuing him to kill him if they reach him. Richter himself rightly realizes that the deer is not really giving him a chance, would kill him anyway in the end and is doing all this just to be entertained.

Despite how ambitious, bold, war-oriented and arrogant he is and despite him having killed the King all on his own, Richter theorizes that Adrius is a coward at heart who is scared of the fact that, after the trial, Lyall is nowhere to be found and likely after Adrius, and even thinks that the deer's hatred for the human may to some degree be due to him being intimated by the ambassador for some reason.

History[]

TBA

Trivia[]

• Adrius seems to be an atheist, being clearly annoyed at the more religious formalities he has to put up with during special occassions and believing that his deceased parents cannot see him, implying he doesn't believe in the afterlife. However, he also seems to admit the afterlife could exist, as he "assures" Richter that when the human is executed and then Lyall is found, the two will reunite "wherever they're going".
• One very ironic aspect about Adrius is that, in his plans to avenge her mother, who was lethally stabbed with a Drysian dagger, Adrius killed his father using a Drysian dagger, further representing that he is in no way better or different from the thugs he hates so much.
• The name Adrius is Lithuanian in origin and means "strength" or "storm". Fittingly, Adrius is ambitious and believes only he has the strength needed to make the world a better place and he defines himself "the storm that will sweep over this land, cleansing it of all that threatens true peace."
  • "Ossian" on the other hand, is a Gaelic name meaning "fawn", fitting Adrius' very species.
  • Come Chapter 13, it would be confirmed that Adrius' name is a nod to strength and storms, as Adrius had to fight with strength to be born, narrowly avoiding being still-born, and he was born while a thunderstorm was raging outside, Raynar calling him a "child of the storm" and deciding to name him Adrius.