Ardyn

Ardyn is a tall (6'2") man with red-violet hair, amber eyes, and strong facial features. He appears to be middle-aged and dresses in a black trench coat and pinstripe trousers, an attire he is said to have acquired when he became the chancellor of Niflheim. He wears a red scarf and a hooded, gray and white flower-print mantle. Ardyn wears a black fedora and sometimes wears a black winglike accessory on his left arm.

When his true identity is revealed, Ardyn's face sometimes appears daemonic and grotesque. His sclera turn black, his irises and pupils turn gold while appearing clouded, his skin becomes paler, and black markings appear across his face. It is implied he wears so much clothing because the sun hurts his skin.

Two thousand years ago, Ardyn dressed in a simple white cloak, which he used to hide the spread of Starscourge that had infected his body. In Episode Ardyn Prologue his eyes are blue and his hair brown. When Niflheim retrieved him from Angelgard in the beginning of Episode Ardyn, he lacked a top, and had a ragged white and gray belt and matching pants. When awakening at Verstael Besithia's lab, he wore a white tunic and trousers noted to be uncomfortable on his skin. The attire was similar to the outfit he wore during his days as a healer.

A man cursed with life eternal, whose immortality stems from the selfsame scourge that wrought the daemons. One so impure of body and soul was deemed unworthy of the Crystal's Light, and forbidden to ascend. His mind twisted by spite and bent on revenge, the Usurper came to bring darkness down upon our world. Only the True King, chosen by the Crystal and guarded by his forebears, can end the Accursed's madness.

Ardyn is a man shrouded in mystery. He expresses his eccentric personality through his unique attire, and is both polite and flamboyant. He sometimes acts suggestive, likely as a means to creep others out, calling Noctis a "tease" and stroking Prompto on his cheek. Ardyn is bold and manipulative; he remains civil, patronizingly so, even in the face of hostility, and perhaps even to attract hostility. Ardyn's behavior is performative, and his expressions and movements are exaggerated. Ardyn's ruthlessness grows until his true personality is revealed: he is evil, vicious, calculative, and twisted. Behaving unpredictably, Ardyn remains casual and unfazed by the world around him. He has a dark sense of humor, sarcastic wit and an utter lack of empathy, finding cruel ways to taunt others. He may torture people close to the ones he's targeting to force them to pick up pace. He has given up hope on humanity, and admits he wouldn't mind ending everything.

Ardyn often helps Noctis and his friends along their journey by giving them access to imperial-controlled areas and by saving them from hostile situations. He claims to have earned the right to call Noctis "Noct", a nickname only his closest friends call him.

Ardyn's twisted personality greatly contrasts with how he was 2,000 years ago. He used to be a compassionate and righteous man, devoted to saving the people. Described as an idealist and a dreamer by the directors of Episode Ardyn Prologue in stark contrast to his realist brother, the siblings' differing methods in saving the world made them turn against one another. He had a strong will, as despite being accumulatingly infected with the Starscourge by the very people he was healing, he nonetheless retained his compassion. In Episode Ardyn he is horrified to discover he can bestow the Scourge upon others, and when dining with Verstael Besithia at his lab shortly after fully awakening, Ardyn refers to himself as a monster in a self-loathing manner. Besithia corrects him, saying he's "a marvel".

Although initially having no interest in revenge, Ardyn's mind began to deteriorate after he started to daemonify others en masse, and being forced to experience his victims' memories is implied to have warped his personality to a husk of his former self. Filled with hatred towards his brother and bloodline, Ardyn has become a broken man who acts out of spite, regret and a desire for vengeance as he has become the very thing he had tried to prevent two millennia ago. Ardyn finally satisfies his lust for vengeance at the end of The Dawn of the Future, but rather than reveling in his victory, he laments about being forgotten and rekindles his love for his fiancée, implying some of his original persona was still latent within him.

Ardyn conceals his true capabilities behind a frivolous and lighthearted exterior. He is extremely intelligent and is an effective manipulator and deceiver, positioning himself as the emperor's right-hand-man. He helped the empire develop an army of automata that utilizes ancient magiteknology, a deed that fueled his rise to his position as chancellor and paved the way for the rest of his plans.

While Ardyn uses a simple dagger to murder Lunafreya, he later reveals his supernatural powers and true prowess in combat with Verstael stated that Ardyn can be God in his own right. Despite his corruption, Ardyn retains the "power of kings" granted to his bloodline: warping and phasing through solid matter, summoning weapons from thin air, and wielding the royal arms, as well as his personal longsword, called the Rakshasa Blade. He uses Armiger in various ways and can also manifest a red scythe. He can erect the Wall, although it is tainted by daemonic energy. Ardyn can cast powerful magic, such as striking down bolts of lightning, summoning blizzards, and causing fiery explosions, all without magic flasks or needing to collect energy from elemental deposits. He primarily controls the element of darkness, but can also fire energy beams from the palms of his hands that can knock their targets back, and summon a barrage of meteorites from the sky. He can momentarily transform into miasma and use this to teleport and to fly, a feat independent of his ability to warp. He is also proficient in hand-to-hand combat (a skill he displays especially when wanting to conceal his identity as a Lucis Caelum). In fact Ardyn defeated both Regis and later his brother Somnus in his full armor King form with minimal effort, shocking them with his power, which make them call him a monster. Even after Noctis obtains the power of Providence, Ardyn proves himself an immensely formidable adversary, easily countering Noctis and even pinning him on the ground at one point.

Ardyn can temporarily halt time and assume the form of another, distorting others' perception of reality to create illusions, making him able to manipulate people into attacking their friends by having them see them as himself. He can use his ability to read the memories of those he daemonifies to perfect his disguise. Two millennia ago, Ardyn was blessed with the power to heal those afflicted with the Starscourge and traveled the world purging the plague by absorbing it into his own body. He believed his ability to withstand the Scourge was a gift from the Astrals, but could not truly cleanse the darkness he'd absorbed. Now as the Starscourge incarnate, he is the one to spread it over Eos. He exudes miasma from his body at will, but unlike regular daemons, can operate in daylight as his body regenerates faster than the sun can damage him, although he still opts to wear clothing that conceals as much as possible. He can turn others into daemons and assimilate them to increase his power, which also allows him to experience their memories, and is even able to do so to Astrals themselves as he did with Ifrit. He can even revive the dead into ghastly mockeries of their former selves and brainwash certain rulers of yore into fighting Noctis. After having daemonified Ifrit, Ardyn can summon and command him.

Ardyn's personal arm is the Rakshasa Blade, a red counterpart to the Blade of the Mystic that his brother wields. Dagger, royal arms.

Drinking wine and playing chess

Ardyn also got a bunch of names after his long life he's also known as; The Accursed, The Usurper, Darkness of the Legends, Starscourge incarnate, Suspicious Stranger and Adagium