The Knight

❥ Character Information

Character Name: The Knight ("Little Ghost")
Character Age: It's existed for a very long time -- since before the fall of Hallownest, which only ghosts and immortals now remember -- but has been out in the world having actual life experiences for a much shorter time than that, and doesn't remember very much of what it was doing before it returned to Hallownest. It comes across as a child due to its size and aura of naivety/gremlinhood, but is quite capable of taking care of itself.
Character Species: Higher Being/Bug/Void creature
Current Health: Full up on masks and doing fine.
Outfit: A tattered gray Mothwing Cloak and its horned white mask. Is it naked under its cloak? Unclear.

Character Canon: Hollow Knight
Link to History: Ages ago, the Moth Tribe reigned over the bugs of what would become Hallownest, worshipping a radiant Higher Being who kept lesser insects enthralled to her will. Then a Wyrm chose the Radiance's lands as its dying ground, birthing a Pale King from its cast-off shell. The King liberated the enslaved bugs, lifting them up to sapience, and led the Moths away from their ancestral god. Over time, he attracted a White Lady to be his queen, and the kingdom of Hallownest throve.

But the Radiance, once spited, would not be ignored forever. Disease began to claim Hallownest's citizens -- a creeping Infection of light that stole bugs' minds and set them against their neighbors. The King's gallant knights and skilled doctors were equally helpless against the onset of the Infection, and the kingdom withered.

So it fell to the Pale King to save his people, and his was a cruel salvation. With his White Lady he begat thousands of children and gave them to the Void beneath the kingdom, until one crawled forth from the Abyss with no will to break, no mind to think, no voice to cry suffering -- a perfect Pure Vessel that could be used to contain the Infection. In time, the Vessel grew to maturity and was sacrificed and bound to seal the Infection away, its eternal bondage guarded by three Dreamers lest the Radiance find someway to destroy the Vessel.

Yet the Vessel was tainted by an idea instilled -- by its own father's tender pride in it -- and fell to the Radiance in its dreams. And so fell Hallownest with it.

Long years after Hallownest's glory faded into ancient history, her ruins raided by treasure hunters and adventurers, a single tattered Knight made its way back into the kingdom where it was born. Not knowing what called it there, it fought its way into Hallownest's depths -- bested the Dreamers, who knew their time had come -- assumed its father's crown and kingship -- and descended into the Abyss where it was born to remember the tragic reasons for its own birth.

Canon Point: After acquiring the Void Heart but prior to facing the Hollow Knight in the Temple of the Black Egg.
Canon Iteration: Original canon, with the following worldstate:

• Bretta rescued
  
• Zote rescued and defeated in the Coliseum
  
• Grey Prince Zote defeated once
  
• Grimm Troupe banished
  
• All grubs rescued
  
• Grey Mourner's flower delivered
  
• Dream Nail Awakened
  
• Godseeker not unlocked
  
• Myla killed :(
  
• Nailsmith not killed
  
• Void Heart acquired

Canon Iteration Explanation: A maximally helpful/nice route for the Knight, sans taking the option that lets it end the threat of the Radiance without killing its older sibling, the Hollow Knight. Leaving that option open for something it can discover in a canon update.

❥ Folkmore Roles & Attributes

Skills:

• Armed combat (nail, longnail)
  
• Nail arts
  
• Riding (Stag beetle)
  
• Acrobatics
  
• Mapmaking

Canon Abilities:

• Soul manipulation - The Knight can harness the power of its own Soul to mend damage to its shell or cast damaging offensive spells.
  
• Void manipulation - The Knight can add the power of the Void to its Soul-based spells.
  
• Higher Being - Offspring of Wyrm and Root, the Knight seems to be immortal and is recognized as a (small) god by spells and creatures that can discern such. Whatever else this means for its abilities is unclear.
  
• Lord of Shades / Void given Focus - Creatures of the Void and the Sea of Void are passive in the Knight's presence and will obey its commands.
  
• Dream Wielder - Bonded to the Awakened Dream Nail, the Knight can use that ancient Moth weapon to read minds and dreams, collect Dream Essence, commune with the dead, and teleport to a set Dream Gate.

Role: Legend
Role Qualities/Attributes: Wings resembling the glowing white Monarch Wings, but permanent; it can keep them folded under its cloak to hide them. A halo of woven branches resembling its mother's crown, but Void-black lined in pale fire like the fringes of an eclipse. The halo appears when it is being particularly heroic or challenging someone or something that is hurting others.
Role Reasoning: The Knight is almost a quintessential Legend by design: Focused on others rather than itself and primed from birth to sacrifice itself for the good of its kingdom. While it has deviated from its parents' design, the deviation is meant to do better than they intended for it, and end the threat to Hallownest permanently rather than prolonging the kingdom's infected stasis. Other, minor deviations along the way are likewise meant to better the lives of individual bugs it meets -- it wants, so desperately, to help that it will suffer great and terrible costs to itself to do so.

Initially, what I'm interested in exploring is not whether the Knight will become cynical and fall from being a Legend, but how it negotiates its relationships with its memories of its family, and what was done to it. Its origin is horrifying but it doesn't necessarily seem to carry any resentment about that, just a determination to succeed. It doesn't have a whole lot of experience outside trying to execute on that mission, and it will be fun to see what it does in a relatively unconstrained and safe environment where it has more of an opportunity to explore what it is beyond a targeted solution to the problem of the Infection (and the Radiance).

❥ Personality

Option 2. Choose FOUR-FIVE of the following questions to answer and expand upon. Each answer has a 100-300 word requirement.
Option 2 questions (4-5). 100-300 word limit each:

❥ What is a headcanon (or two) you feel strongly about and that you prefer playing your character with? How is this supported in canon and why do you think it benefits the character's story?

• The sudden distortion and muting in game sounds when the Knight is hit in-game is diegetic rather than just a gameplay feature, and represents an "inverse scream" that is the only response a voiceless void entity can make in response to being hurt. It plays well into the creepy-but-not-evil/also-a-victim aesthetics of the Knight.
  
  
• While the people around it -- especially its older sister, Hornet -- recognize that the Knight's parents did something legitimately horrible to it, it does not resent the Pale King or White Lady even though it ultimately chooses to go beyond their design for it. It cares about its parents. It wants their approval as much as any child does, and wants to save their kingdom, but recognizes -- with a maturity beyond its apparent age -- that they were not perfect and part of that imperfection was not admitting that it and its siblings were people and not just tools. This emphasizes the alien nature of its mindset, and the society (or lack thereof) that it was raised in. It is a fully divine Higher Being by its parentage, albeit a psychologically young one that's also been altered by the limitless possibilities of the Void, and it doesn't operate on human emotions of propriety or what's due to it.

❥ What is your character's moral code? Do they have one? Why or why not?

The Knight might not be able to clearly articulate its moral code, but it amounts to three strong imperatives: Save the bugs of Hallownest; be helpful to those who need its help (or less charitably, "obey clearly worded commands"); do the most good for the most bugs. It effectively has a functioning code of chivalry that leads it to be largely respectful and helpful to those around it, as long as "those around it" aren't posing an imminent threat to its life.

That doesn't stop it from being a total gremlin sometimes, even to those it cares about, or randomly destroying abandoned property and the landscape out of curiosity or boredom. It also has a vengeful streak that it doesn't really question, being willing to torment those who have stolen from it (Mirabelle) or been obnoxious to it (Zote) in the past. It does not use lethal force against those who haven't tried to kill it, though -- unless they're obviously Infected, or mindless critters that it's hunting because the Hunter is just so cool you guys.

❥ What does your character feel like they struggle with still? Where could they improve? This could be physically, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise.

Now that it's claimed the Void Heart and become more cognizant of its own will, the Knight finds its muteness ... not a problem, exactly, because it's an inborn aspect of what it is, but a definite obstacle to communicating clearly with those around it. And (literally) being heard, if it wants to express something other than what the person talking to it wants to assume about what it is thinking or feeling. While its generally agreeable (or uncharitably: passive, receptive) nature means that it rarely wants to contradict or interrupt someone who's talking to it, it does have things it wishes it could express unambiguously. It wants to be understood.

Solving this problem will not be as simple as just picking up an assistive device, since as stated its voicelessness is part of its own identity and finding an artificial voice won't feel right. Though it doesn't know it now, it wants an authentic way of communicating with others that feels in harmony with its own nature. That might be sign, it might be writing, it might be projective telepathy -- but it has to find a voiceless voice of its own.

❥ If your character could change one thing about their past, what would it be and why? Or why not?

Tragically, if it could, it would rewrite history so that the Pale King chose it and left the Vessel that became the Hollow Knight in the Abyss. Not out of any sense of malice (though maybe some sibling rivalry) -- rather, it would've spared its sibling the fate of binding the Infection, and then it could have basked in its father's pride.

Before being bound in turn and having had a remaining life of horrible misery until it was overcome by the Infection itself, because that plan was never going to work.

Look, it hasn't thought this out completely -- it just still wants parental approval on some level, and has a concerning inkling that the Hollow Knight is suffering badly given the Infection has broken loose, and it knows that that whole "no will to break, no mind to think" line is about as full of poop as Ogrim's boss arena.

❥ Permissions

OOC opt-outs: NSFW sexual content; hard gore; untagged/unwarned-for pregnancy loss; untagged/unwarned-for death or serious injury of young children.
IC opt-outs: Uninterested in romantic shipping for this character -- unrequited crushes/romantic overtures are fine, it just won't reciprocate.
Content warnings related to the character: Dehumanization/depersonalization, species extinction/low key ecological disaster, post-apocalyptic horror, mistreatment/neglect of children, mind control, infection-based zombies, eldritch horror, insects and spiders of all sizes and creepinesses.
Sensitive subjects related to the character: Aside from "directly attacking or mistreating it or those it cares for," nothing Knight-specific.

❥ Player Information

Player Name: Lark
Pronouns: AM GIRL
Are you over 18?: Yup.
Contact(s): Plagueheart on Discord.
Link to invitation: Current player!
Current Characters: Illarion Albireo
Permissions: Here.
Writing Samples: TDM top-level; can I offer you a rancid egg in this trying time?