Relius Clover

Evil-doer
Full Name	Relius Clover
Alias	The Puppeteer Mad Puppeteer Puppet Master One
Origin	Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend
Occupation	Colonel of NOL's Engineering Department (formerly) Member of Ten Sages (formerly)
Powers / Skills	Fluctus Redactum: Ignis Vast knowledge of both science and magic The Puppeteer's Altar
Hobby	Researching. Torturing and experimenting on people.
Goals	Enact Doomsday (succeeded). Eliminate all gods and become the new god. Kill everyone and repopulate the world with his perfect "dolls".
Crimes	Turning his wife and daughter into dolls Genocide Conspiracy Orchestration of the Ikaruga Civil War alongside Terumi Collaborating with Terumi and Izanami to enact "Doomsday"
Type of Villain	Mad Scientist

“	You're an impressive specimen. Now, let the experiments begin!	„
	~ Relius Clover

Relius Clover is one of the main antagonists of the BlazBlue franchise alongside Yuuki Terumi and Hades Izanami. He is Carl Clover and Ada's father and the husband of Ignis. He is a Colonel in the engineering department for the Novus Orbis Librarium, and works alongside Hazama. He became a playable character in BlazBlue starting from Continuum Shift: Extend. In Centralfiction, he was revealed to be a former leader of the Ten Sages, known as One. His life-force value hovers around 9152.

History

In Chronophantasma, Relius mostly focuses on obtaining Kushinada's Lynchpin as he and Hazama arrive to the Ikaruga Federation. Previously, on the request of Hazama, he captured the creature Arakune and fused him with the remnants of the 11th Murakumo Unit, Lambda-11, empowering Arakune further due to Lambda's Idea Engine and also turning him into his personal servant/attack dog. Additionally, Hazama has also secured the services of the doctor Litchi Faye-Ling due to her personal problems and desire to save Arakune, but Relius majorly considered her useless aside of the theory she brought. He is also implied to know the truth behind the massacre of Bullet's unit.

Relius appears as a final boss for Carl's Arcade Run. Unimpressed with how Carl clings on humanity, Relius then attempts to goad him with an offer: To rebuild Ada as a human. Likewise, he also serves as Bang Shishigami's final boss, Bang was extremely cross at how Relius apparently manipulated Litchi, but Relius was more interested at how he brought the Kushinada's Lynchpin along with him... this is, in fact, the true form of Bang's nail, the Nox Nyctores Phoenix Rettenjou. Relius reveals that the Nox is not just capable of separating the world from the Boundary, but can also be used as a seithr nuke, to rid the world of all seithr, and subsequently push civilization back to something akin of the stone age. When asked why, Relius just replied that he's just curious on Bang's burden and awaited the phenomenon he dubbed 'Day of Destruction'.

It is later implied that Relius succeeded in taking the Rettenjou away from Bang, but he either personally did it, or he left the dirty job to Arakune. He's also the final boss of Valkenhayn's Arcade Route, where he came close in killing Valkenhayn for good (they're apparently rivals from the past), but a time disturbance sent Valkenhayn back in time. His own final boss is Hakumen, whereas after the battle, he left a cryptic remark that everything's going according to plan.

Gallery

Continuum Shift

Chronophantasma

Central Fiction

Alter Memory

Trivia

• The log entry parts of BlazBlue: Phase 0 suggest that Relius Clover was eaten by the Black Beast, being as dead as Terumi in the story, since the frightened Shūichirō was unsure whatever he was dead or not.
• His Astral Heat uses different binding methods for each character:
  • Ragna: Crucified on an X-shaped stake.
  • Jin: Arms are chained spread-eagle, while legs are chained at the ankles.
  • Noel, Lambda, Nu, Mu: Placed inside a Murakumo unit test tube. The Japanese text on the right of each device has different readings for each Murakumo. Naturally, Noel and Mu have the same readings, but with different character sprites, while Lambda and Nu use the same sprite but with palettes swapped.
  • Rachel: Tied via vines to a cross. Gii is morphed into a tabernacle and Nago, still an umbrella, is being choked by a vine.
  • Taokaka: Trapped inside a pet cage.
  • Tager: Limbs magnetized by 2 U-magnets. This one actually uses various different sprites for Tager.
  • Litchi: Hands tied to her enlarged staff. Lao Jiu is tied above her, unable to help.
  • Arakune: Poured inside a huge lab beaker/flask while being burned alive by a bunsen burner.
  • Bang: Hands are tied behind back as cinderblocks are placed on his knees to break his legs. A large row of cinderblocks yet to be placed are seen behind him.
  • Carl: He and Ada are suspended by puppet strings in a marionette fashion.
  • Hakumen: Tied to the seal Kokonoe uses on him in Story Mode, which is also the seal he uses in his Astral.
  • Tsubaki:
    • Continuum Shift: Sits on the floor praying, facing the wrong way (back turned to Relius) as her blindness has overcome her. Strangely, some of Izayoi's feathers are seen around her.
    • Chrono Phantasma: Stands with hands tied above her head, back still turned to Relius.
  • Hazama: Sits in a chair looking bored. The way he sits is a reference to Phase Shift 1.
  • Makoto: Trapped inside of a bubble akin to a hamster ball.
  • Valkenhayn: Strapped via leather belts to an iron maiden and gagged so he cannot bite back.
  • Platinum: Inside a barrel with swords slotted in, crying a fountain of tears.
  • Mirror-Relius: Lies asleep in a different chair opposite of the winning Relius, while his Ignis is disabled and is going to be experimented on.
  • Amane: Trapped inside an ancient Japanese brothel cage, used for displaying prostitutes.
  • Bullet: Put in crawling position, hands bound behind her back with red tape.
  • Azrael: Crucified upside-down on a cross.
  • Izayoi: Arms held above her head by a giant puppet arm, which sprouts smaller arms that grab the rest of her body.
  • Kagura: Hands tied behind his back, being suspended from a gallows stand. His Zweihander is on the ground and out of his reach.
  • Terumi: Sitting in a chair, hands bound behind it. Behind him is a mirror which reflects his ghost form.
    • Also, in his Astral Heat, if one looks closely at the lighting on the walls, several shadows of dangling corpses can be seen as well as what appears to be their blood. They are possibly previous test subjects who died during procedures.
  • Kokonoe: Strapped into a chair with a cat-shaped helmet on her head with several tubes connecting it to a mind-reading machine.
  • Hibiki Kohaku: Strapped to a large metal gear.
  • Naoto Kurogane: Blindfolded while chained to a chair.
  • Konoe A. Mercury: Bathing in a cauldron, naked.
  • Hades Izanami: Laying limp/unconscious, surrounded by candles and floating skulls, all lit with purple flames. Yasakani no Magatama sits behind her with the bits hanging downwards.
  • Es: Place inside of a tube where she was created, like on this illustration.
  • Susanoo: Standing still. Broken glowing chains are attached to his wrists, as well as laying on the floor.
  • Jubei: Has a cone on his neck struggling to get it off.
• The intro of Relius-Carl matchup has Relius dodging Nirvana's Con Fuoco, then summoning Ignis, with whom Nirvana continues to trade a Distortion Drive clash (Rhapsody of Memories for Nirvana and Duo Bios for Ignis). When the dolls have finished their clash, the two puppeteers meet each other. This is currently the longest intro in the whole game.
• Relius' Astral Heat is the first case of international censorship within the game itself, as so far, only the games' covers had been edited. In the Xbox 360 version of the game, the blood splatters on the walls of the background have been decreased as not to show as much, and the shadows of the dangling corpses have been removed to avoid an M-rating by the ESRB/PEGI. The Playstation 3 version of the game is not censored, however.
• When using his Astral Heat against Hazama, Carl, and Makoto, he gives a unique dialogue different from everyone else.
• Most of Relius' special moves are in Latin, while most of Carl's are Italian. This could be a comparison likening Relius to Rome, which was the predecessor of modern Italy, represented by Carl. Oddly, however, the Clover family is Austrian.
• Relius is Blazblue's counterpart of Raven and Crow (although Crow's counterpart is Kokonoe). It is even notable that Relius has more similarities with Crow than Raven, both being mad scientists and both wanting to obtain powerful experiments.