 |
DIO has declared that this article has stopped in time, and any or all information on it may be outdated. Help improve this article by checking and updating its info wherever necessary And now time resumes! |
| “ | Welcome welcome, my new toys. Now dance! Dance for me! | „ |
| ~ Octavian in the game's trailer. |
Octavian, better known as the Necrodancer, is the titular main antagonist of the rythmic roguelike Crypt of the NecroDancer and set to return in its upcoming spin-off Rift of the NecroDancer.
He is an ancient sorcerer who steals the hearts of people that enter his crypt, forcing them to stay within and dance eternally to the rythm of his music, slowly robbing them of their humanity and transforming their corpses into his undead minions.
Appearance[]
As the Necrodancer, Octavian has blue skin, red eyes and pointed ears. While his head is completely bald he has a long, grey beard. He wears a long, black and grey cloak with bone-adorned pauldrons and a frayed, red cape with a high collar as well as a necklace with a purple lantern around his neck.
Prior to losing his humanity, Octavian wore a blue shirt, beige pants and had a brown beard.
Biography[]
Octavian was once an ordinary bard traveling the land, struggling to make ends meet and be noticed by other people. One day he stumbled upon the Golden Lute during his travels, a musical artifact possessing powerful magical abilities. When a band of thieves tried to steal the lute from him, Octavian fled into a crypt and used its power to take control over the monsters dwelling within, killing the thieves and resurrecting them into his minions. Growing obsessed with the Golden Lute, Octavian remained in the crypt and amassed an undead army, kept alive by its music but gradually losing his humanity. Now known as the Necrodancer he, the crypt and the Golden Lute became legends.
When a plague hit a nearby village, a woman named Aria travelled to his crypt in search of the lute in hopes of using it to heal those dying. She found the crypt but discovered it empty, only the Necrodancer's dead body and the lute remained. Over hundreds of years without rest even he had become tired and stopped playing the lute. But as its magical properties only manifest with its music, Octavian and his army died in an instant.
Aria took the lute and returned to the village, but shortly after she started healing people the villagers turned against her, wanting to claim the power of the lute for themselves. Aria decided that the Golden Lute was too powerful to be allowed to exist, travelling back to the crypt and leaving her daughter Melody behind. Only Octavian knew how to destroy it, so she raised him from the dead to ask him for help. He offered to sacrifice himself to destroy the lute, but as Aria handed the Golden Lute back to him Octavian betrayed and killed her.
Thanks to Aria the village had survived the plague, but after several years the sickness returned and Melody fell ill. Desperate, her husband Dorian left to find the lute, but never returned. Melody died, but her daughter Cadence was convinced her father was still alive and trapped in the crypt. The ground underneath her opened up as she dug in the graveyard above it, falling into the crypt and hitting her head on a rock. The Necrodancer noticed the new arrival and stole her heart as she was unconscious, binding her to the music like the others. In the deepest depths of the crypt, Cadence came face to face with the Dead Ringer, the Necrodancer's personal bodyguard. Defeating him freed the Dead Ringer from Octavian's spell, revealing himself to be Dorian. Together they defeated the Necrodancer and took the lute from him.
Dorian and Cadence then returned Melody to life, but they quickly realized that she had to keep playing it to stay alive, just like the Necrodancer. Melody refused to pass the burden of the lute onto her family and ventured back into the crypt to get rid of it once and for all. After finding Octavian's body, she raised him from the dead once more and demanded to know how to destroy it. He refused, declaring that the lute belongs to him and attacked her. He tried to flee when it became clear that he was no match for her, but was caught by a resurrected Aria, who proceeded to push him into a pit. Aria then sacrificed herself to destroy the Golden Lute shortly after, ensuring that the Necrodancer was finally killed once and for all.
Trivia[]
- Despite being the main antagonist Octavian is also a playable character in the form of his former human self, who is simply called the "Bard" and unlocked from the very beginning of the game alongside Cadence. Unlike any of the other characters, who have to move to the beat of the rythm, the Bard can move around freely with the monsters only taking their move when he does. Fittingly, this allows him to set the pace of the game instead of the other way around.