Atma

"Why would my superiors want me gone? I've done all I was told to do..."

Profile

A Holy Knight of the Gozen Shogunate, "Sir" Atma is occasionally referred to as "Atma of the Ragged Cloth", for the bandanna that does not leave her head. She is a ranking Holy Knight of the Third Order. She initially commands a legion of five hundred Gozenjin (twenty of them are Fourth Order lieutenants and the remaining 480 are Fifth Order soldiers). When Lynia's resistance nears Gozen's territory, however, Atma's legion is sent to deny her entry to the Shogunate. Her superiors have designs against the throne, however, and a tactician of the Second Order sets the legion into a deathtrap by sticking them into a three-way pincer between Lynia's resistance, Riga's nomad warriors, and a detachment of Gozen sellswords (secretly hired by a Second Order general). Most of Atma's legion is killed in the battle before she gives the order to retreat; the tactician who sent her men there blames the tactical error on Atma, and she is then exiled from duty. Lynia, who had come to Gozen to appeal to the Shogun to grant her soldiers to stop her father's invasion plans, learns of Atma's situation and allows her to join the resistance.

Atma, despite having completed her pilgrimage to become a Holy Knight, was not visited by her patron yousei for a whole year. Atma had to lie about having been visited to obtain her rank, and despite her yousei being in favor of that action, it weighs on her conscience. Atma's patron yousei, the guardian spirit of the ground, taught her that she must never wash away the memory of her fallen comrades, that even if they have died and been returned to the dust, their dust remains a part of what grants her strength. The bandana that Atma wears is never washed, and is constantly stained with blood and dirt from many battles in defense of her home city. It is difficult for her to explain this to non-Gozenjin, and takes quite a while for her to open up about it during Supports.

Weapon

Atma wields a large, two-handed odachi named Hoshigiri, a strength-based weapon which makes her much better suited for outdoor combat against mounted enemies. Her reach is similar to spears (1-2 tiles range), but if the space nearer to her is blocked, she cannot attack the space 2 tiles away.

Hoshigiri is, incidentally, based on a real-life sword owned and wielded by the person on whom this character is based. She has written quite a lot about it here.

Skills

• Slash Through: If there are two enemies directly in front, attacking the nearest enemy has a chance for the attack to also "tunnel through" to the second enemy.
• Femoral Strike: When countering an enemy attack, Atma ducks beneath the opponent's attack and cuts into their legs, dealing 1.5x damage (before critical hit is applied) and permanently reducing opponent to move speed of 1, should they survive. Will only trigger if Atma is counter-attacking, not if defending.