Velvet Crowe

Velvet Crowe (ベルベット・クラウ, Berubetto Kurau), is both a fictional character and protagonist from the Tales of RWBY series created by Monty Oum and Yoshiharu Gotanda. She is a human woman turned Therion, although she refers herself as a Daemon.

Originally kind and family-oriented girl, but a tragedy turned her into a strong, angry, and bloodthirsty woman fueled by vengeance and was subsequently imprisoned because of an incident that happened on the Scarlet Night 3 years prior to the events of the story in her village.

After breaking out, she battles the Abbey and their Exorcists who have shed their emotions in pursuit of victory against Daemons. She holds a grudge against Artorius for taking everything away from her during the incident 3 years prior in a single night.

During her journey across regions, she comes across a very young boy called Laphicet, who changes her with his pure heart and soul. From her time in the prison island Titania, and her actions would lead her to be a Lord of Calamity that "helped save the world".

"But even in the depths of despair, only two things mattered to me. The taste of blood-soaked flesh... and revenge upon one man."
 * —Velvet Crowe.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Cristina Vee (English), Rina Satō (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Biography
Originally a kind and family-oriented girl, Velvet became a vengeful woman fueled by hate due to the traumatic events she went through on the Scarlet Night three years prior to the events of the story. She fights with a blade mounted on her right-hand gauntlet, her feet, and her powers to create, control, manipulate, and change her body to darkness as a daemonic weapon to devour daemons, humans, and malakhim alike.

A woman who once had a friendly, no-frills personality. But that changed three years ago when she became embroiled in a certain incident. Since then, she rarely smiles, and always seems filled with rage and hatred. A mysterious power consumed her on that day that transfigured her left hand into something that was non-human. She usually has her hand bandaged to hide it.

Appearance
Velvet is a fairly tall, slim young woman with jet black hair. Her eyes are a piercing yellow.

Past
Three years prior, she used to fully plait her hair, that reaches past her waist, before tying it off with a red hairband. She seems to normally wear it in a loose braid. She used to wear a red shirt with belt-pouches and brown pants as well as maroon boots. She also used to wear a different gauntlet without having the need to bandage her arm up.

Current (Main Story)
Velvet has grown her hair extremely long, and messy, which drops to floor-level; towards the bottom her hair is plaited into big braids that are tied off by a bandage-like band around the tips. Her hair-strands curve towards the left-side of her face and she has mid-length hair which is plaited and tied by a smaller bandage-band resting on her left shoulder. She dresses in dark colors and tattered clothing, and her left arm is perpetually bandaged.

Her outfit consists of a revealing ruby-red corset which reveals her midriff and the top half of her breasts. It is possible her clothes have been torn during her adventures. The red corset has an insignia visible below the belt which it hinders below. The same belt rests of her hip and above her torn, black jean trousers, which now look like shorts. The jean trouser has a chain, multiple belts wrapped around her right leg and a few which spiral towards the lower half of her left. Over her corset, she wears a black jacket in the form of a robe with red-velvet lacing; the jacket is ripped towards the bottom and is tightened towards her chest by the belt.

She wears protective armour on her footwear as well as one extra armour plate on her right shin. She wears the same armour in the form of an arm protective gauntlet which rests above the same material as her coat; the material arches its way up to and wraps around her middle finger, highlighted by a rhombus-shaped piecing. The same gauntlet is where she rest her lance-blade in battle. Her left arm is wrapped and bandaged up because of the alternate appearance it could take in public, and battle.


 * Hair Color: Black
 * Skin Color: Not Known
 * Eye Color: Gold
 * Age: 16 (Prologue), 19 (Physically; Immortal)
 * Birthday: Not Known
 * Height: 170 cm
 * Weight: Not Known

Background
Velvet originally lived in the village of Aball, where she primarily hunted prickleboars for a living, and was taking care of her ill little brother Laphicet Crowe. She and her brother were the only Crowe siblings left after their older sister, Celica Crowe, was killed by daemons during a Scarlet Night three years prior. Artorius, Celica's husband, was tasked with protecting the village and his family from daemons, and he taught Velvet everything he knew about his maxims to apply in combat. Velvet was generally optimistic, and deeply cared for the people around her, especially her brother Laphicet.

However, on the Scarlet Night, a massive outbreak of daemonblight turns all of the villagers into daemons. Worried about Laphicet's safety, Velvet rushes outside the village to a nearby shrine, where she finds Artorius killing her brother in some kind of sacrificial ritual. Devastated, she tries to save her brother from falling into the shrine, but Artorius cuts off her left arm, causing both to fall into the shrine's depths. Laphicet was offered as a sacrifice to the fifth Empyrean Innominat, while Velvet was expelled out of the shrine with a new daemon arm, having been transformed into a Therion. She kills all of the surrounding daemons in a blind rage, but quickly finds out that the daemons she has killed are the villagers that Velvet knew. Artorius quickly takes her down, and locks her up in the prison island of Titania for three years.

One day, a malak named Seres sets Velvet free from her prison to help her get revenge on Artorius, who has now formed an authoritarian society called the Abbey. Determined to avenge her brother's death, Velvet sets out on her long quest for revenge.

Velvet is shown to act very cruel, cynical, and only cares about her goal. She has no qualms about killing anyone who stands in her way, and has racked up a large body count of daemons, malakhim, and exorcists alike. Despite this however, Velvet still has her old feelings hidden inside of her, and is shown to secretly care for her comrades, especially a young malak whom she named Laphicet because he resembles her deceased brother. Eventually, she learns to reconcile her actions after learning the truth about Innominat, and becomes more determined to defeat Artorius in order to make a better world free of "reason". Her battle with Artorius is less "evil vs good", but more "chaos vs order".

Personality
Three years ago before the incident, Velvet was described as a very kind, unpretentious, companionable, and loving woman, holding a deep love for her family and having a sensible head. Her little brother and many of the villagers often believed she was too athletic to land a husband. She loved her family and the people of the village until the events of them being massacred by a mysterious figure.

After the incident and the massacre of her loved ones ever since then, however, she and her life completely changed and she has locked away her carefree heart. She suppresses her kindness and feeds only her standoffish rage and driven by hatred in her heart. Now, all that remains of her facade is a dark and gloomy character who will do anything to achieve her goals. She is a being who is shunned and by the voice of Artorius Collbrande and the Abbey, is feared by the world. She feels loneliness in life, having to continuously went through multiple experiments and injections, face many conflicts and build up hatred. As a result, she almost never smiles.

Despite this, it is until three years later, in which she meets a very young malak boy called Number Two, who she have named after her brother later on "Laphicet", manages to draw out some of her old self. Because his orders were to harm the party, Velvet unconsciously saved him after forcibly using him by commanding him to hurt members of his affiliation and then pulling him along onto the fleeing ship. She acts rude and frustrated with him because everything she talks to him about is referred to as an "order" by him, until she teaches him the ways of life, she gains back some of her emotions of which were buried deep in her memory. It is because of her, that Laphicet began to attain a purpose in life, which makes her happy inside. As the story progresses, Velvet becomes an older sister figure of the team, particularly to Laphicet.

Driven by vengeance, Velvet inevitably shuts herself from all other emotion, viewing them as nothing more than obstacles that would hold her back in her goal to kill Artorius, whom she once loved and trusted. His betrayal ultimately spurred a distrust in Velvet that results in her only using people for her own advantage, never forming friendships until Laphicet and the other group members wear down Velvet's cold exterior. Contrary to heroic protagonists fueled by a need to help others and pursue good-intention motives that involve enacting the moral kind of justice, Velvet's rogue path opts for a more personal and less moral kind of justice, not unlike Yuri Lowell's vigilante approach to things.

Although Velvet's rage keeps her pressing forward and fighting for the one thing she believes will deliver her resolve, she nevertheless holds to her former self in vulnerable moments, often showing a tenderness that surprises the other protagonists, who only know her current self. Laphicet is typically the cause of this vulnerability due to his likeness of Velvet's dead brother. However, Velvet wrestles with connecting and disconnecting the two in her head, knowing they are different people but never fully suppressing her softer emotions she still retains. Ultimately, Velvet spends much of the game's plot in a trance-like state that is only broken when her resolve falters, her rage and sorrow conflicting in her mind and confusing her to the point that her internal struggle eventually reaches a climax.

Velvet can also be quite stubborn when people, usually females, become close to Laphicet in any form. This can be seen when Laphicet and Eleanor were starting to have private conversations and becomes jealous that the former will not tell her about them. Afterwards, she tells him to prioritize her before Eleanor—saying that she is "first" and Eleanor comes "second", therefore he should speak to her about his problems before blushing at what she said. Velvet is also quite sisterly/motherly and overprotective regarding Laphicet, when she scolds Eizen and Rokurou for teaching him, unnecessary knowledge regarding e.g the untrusting of women.

Friends/Allies

 * Magilou's Menagerie
 * Rokurou Rangetsu
 * Laphicet
 * Eizen
 * Magilou Mayvin
 * Eleanor Hume
 * Dyle
 * Benwick
 * Tabatha Baskerville
 * Kurogane
 * Grimoirh
 * Kamoana
 * Percival Yil Mid Asgard
 * Brave Vesperia
 * Yuri Lowell
 * Karol Capel
 * Judith
 * Lloyd Irving
 * Zaveid
 * Team RWBY
 * Ruby Rose
 * Weiss Schnee
 * Blake Belladonna
 * Yang Xiao Long
 * Team JNPR
 * Jaune Arc
 * Nora Valkyrie
 * Lie Ren
 * Qrow Branwen
 * Oscar Pine
 * Maria Calavera

Family

 * Artorius Collbrande (Brother-in-Law)
 * Celica Crowe (Elder sister; Deceased)
 * Laphicet Crowe (Younger brother)
 * Unnamed mother (Deceased)
 * Unnamed father (Deceased)
 * Laphicet (adoptive son/younger brother)

Neutral

 * Van Aifread
 * Medissa

Enemies

 * Abby
 * Oscar Dragonia
 * Teresa Linares
 * Shigure Rangetsu
 * Melchior Mayvin
 * Salem's Faction
 * Salem
 * Tyrian Callows
 * Hazel Rainart
 * Arthur Watts
 * Cinder's Faction
 * Cinder Fall
 * Emerald Sustrai
 * Mercury Black
 * Roman Torchwick
 * Alexei Dinoia
 * Blood Alliance
 * Barbos
 * Ragou
 * Cumore

Abilities and Powers
Velvet's class is that of a Lancer which makes her a quick-combo fighter. She primarily uses martial artes in battle for evasion and rapid succession. She carries a hidden blade underneath her shoe. Velvet fights up-close and personal, utilizing her legs in martial artes performing swift kicks, while relying on her gauntlet blade in hidden artes to perform vicious stabbing attacks. The elemental properties on her hidden artes are well-suited for performing weak point combos.

Abilities
In battle, she equips a blade which acts as a small lance within the tip of her right-hand gauntlet and use it as if it were an extension of her own body. She also uses the power of the Darkness Slayer sealed within her and turns her arms into bloody-crimson clawed hands that she can then use to strike with. She also uses her legs to kick and sweep into her combos. Her kicks are seen into work when she spirals to the side and kick or swipes her foot with a double-loop airborne to perform an a variety of techniques.

Fighting Style
Her Break Soul is Consuming Claw, which causes Velvet to be therionized resulting in unleashing the power of her left arm. She gains certain buffs depending on the type of enemy she strikes and enables her to unleash a special arte. Her health constantly decreases in this state, but she also deals more damage in proportion to the amount of health she loses. Her mystic artes are Lethal Pain, Annihilating Crash, and Impulse Desire. She also has a dual mystic arte with Laphicet called Innumerable Wounds.

Martial Artes

 * Slicing Foot:
 * Tearing Thorn:
 * Gouging Spin:
 * Swallow Dance:
 * Twin Whip:
 * Avalanche Fang:
 * Harsh Rebuttal:
 * Water Snake's Wake:
 * Moonlight Cyclone:
 * Soaring Dragon:
 * Rising Moon:
 * Rising Falcon:
 * Heaven's Wrath:
 * Inferno Torrent:

Hidden Artes

 * Searing Edge:
 * Mega Sonic Thrust:
 * Shell Splitter:
 * Shadow Flow:
 * Slag Assault:
 * Grounding Strike:
 * Cerberus Wave:
 * Banishing Thunder:
 * Binding Frost:
 * Scale Crusher:
 * Defiant Conviction:

Break Souls

 * Consuming Claw (コンジュームクロウ, Konshūmu Kurou; literally meaning "Consume Claw"): A sweeping claw attack that Therionizes an enemy, allowing Velvet to exploit their elemental weaknesses. Following combos will end with special Break Artes, attacks which are specific for the type of enemy that is currently Therionized.
 * Heaven's Claw (ヘヴンズクロウ, Hevunzu Kurou): The second level of Velvet's Break Soul. Velvet swings her daemon arm upward, leaving behind streaks of red energy and unleashing a burst of malevolence in front of her. Once activated, Velvet will perform a flurry of swipes with her daemon arm.
 * Hell's Claw:
 * Nightmare Claw (ナイトメアクロウ, Naitomea Kurou): The forth level of Velvet's Break Soul. To activate it, Velvet has to be in Therion Mode for twenty seconds. Once activated, Velvet will unleash a frenzied barrage of slashes with her daemon arm.

Mystic Artes

 * Lethal Pain (リーサル・ペイン, Rīsaru Pein): Velvet's Level 1 Mystic Arte. She dives into the enemy with a kick, follows up with a couple of slashes with her wrist blade, and then finishes with a sweeping claw attack with her daemon arm.
 * Annihilating Crash (絶破滅焼撃 / 絶破滅衝撃, Zeppa Messhougeki; literally meaning "Stop Ruin Burning Attack" or "Severing Destruction Impact"): Velvet's Level 2 Mystic Arte. She impales the enemy with her wrist blade before using her daemon arm to blast them away with a burst of energy.
 * Impulse Desire (インパルス・ディザイア, Inparusu Dizaia): Velvet's Level 3 Mystic Arte. She performs a barrage of slashes with her wrist blade and daemon arm, and then unleashes a powerful energy attack that raises the ground around the enemy.
 * Innumerable Wounds (イニュメラブル・ワウンド, Inyumeraburu Waundo; literally meaning "Innumerable Wound"): A dual mystic arte with Laphicet, where Laphicet sweeps the enemy into the air with his papers, which then scatter around the air as Laphicet forms a magical glyph beneath the enemy. Velvet advances and slashes the enemy with her gauntlet-blade while ascending by jumping on the scattered papers. As the enemy begins to fall, the magical glyph is fully formed, and the enemy lands on a glowing sphere, propelling it back into the air. Eight ephemeral blades then form around Velvet, landing on circles around the glyph as Velvet descends to stab her enemy down on the glyph. At the center of the glyph, energy expels in a cross shape of darkness while the surrounding circles that were stabbed earlier by the ephemeral blades release pillars of light energy.

Strength level

 * Can break through boulders and stone walls with ease.
 * Threw a small rock at someone with enough force to send them flying backwards.

Speed

 * Easily avoided attacks from Oscar Dragonia, who was moving faster than the human eye could track.

Durability

 * Has high pain tolerance, and can continue fighting even after sustaining injuries.
 * Can survive in extreme temperatures (whether cold and/or heat) without protective clothing.

Skill

 * Has killed and devoured numerous daemons, malakhim, and exorcists over the course of her quest for revenge.
 * Successfully escaped Titania with the help of Seres.
 * Decimated the port town of Hellawes, which was under the rule of Teresa Linares.
 * Broke through the fortress of Vortigern with Aifread's pirates.
 * Slowly undermined the Abbey's control all over the Midgand empire.
 * Defeated all four high-ranking exorcists (Oscar Dragonia, Teresa Linares, Shigure Rangetsu, and Melchior Mayvin).
 * Has awakened the Four Elemental Empyreans by shoving the souls of the exorcists she's devoured into a volcano.
 * Eventually defeated Artorius Collbrande, and the fifth Empyrean; Innominat.
 * Has fought and defeated Phoenix, the world's strongest Normin.
 * Has sparred with Jude Mathis and Milla Maxwell, who are from another world.

Weaknesses

 * Has very poor durability despite her strength, making her a glass cannon, and she lacks a proper healing factor.
 * She dislocated her shoulder from falling off a tower, and had to be healed by Seres.
 * She got stabbed by Artorius a few times and nearly died, and had to be healed by Laphicet.
 * Strength feats are sometimes inconsistent. She once struggled to break open an ordinary wooden door in Vortigern.
 * Is very prone to losing her temper, which can result in her being reckless and not caring about her own safety.
 * Has unstable behavior and suffers from many emotional breakdowns. If pushed to the limit, her own emotions will drive her insane.
 * Her Therion Form slowly drains her health when used, making it not very useful in a long battle.
 * Has lost the ability to taste anything but blood.
 * Is allergic to cats.

Equipment

 * Wrist Blade: Velvet's primary weapon. A retractable blade attached to a gauntlet that she wears on her right arm, originally used for hunting prickleboars. The blade's length is somehow longer than the gauntlet it fits into.
 * Hidden Foot Blades: Concealed blades in Velvet's shoes. Used in a lot of of her kicking attacks.
 * Sorcerer's Ring: A ring that Velvet obtains from devouring Seres. It grants her the ability to activate her Break Soul attacks and her Therion Mode.

Past
Ten years before the story, she lived a quiet, warm, and happy life in a small village of Aball along with both her older sister Celica Crowe, and her younger brother named Laphicet Crowe—who she used to refer to her brother as "Laphi". From a very young age, it has been hinted at many times that Velvet's parents had passed away. As a child, Velvet never went to school.

Meeting Arthur
At the age of nine years old, both Velvet and Laphicet, were introduced to a man with white hair by Celica. They had become close to him and eventually became a brother-in-law, started living under the same roof. The man named Arthur, under whom she trains.

One day during a Scarlet Night, of which was the crimson hours of darkness, her village was attacked by daemons, and she and Laphi had ventured out into the forest with Arthur witnessing a shocking splurge of events. On this night, their older sister was killed and passed away, leaving Velvet to take care of Laphicet together with Arthur. The siblings took a few days to recover from the event and the accept the death of their sister.

On that same night, the more malaks arrived, one of which was a woman named Seres. Arthur's malakian companion, Seres, could not be seen or heard by Velvet but by her brother and Arthur only.

A Stolen Happiness
Three years before the story, at the age of sixteen, despite the loss of Celica and her unborn child, Velvet still leads a happy life, caring for her sickly brother. A few days before an upcoming Scarlet Night, Velvet is doing her usual errands. The next day, she wakes and notices that Laphicet is not at home and begins to look for him. Her search takes her to Tranquil Woods, where she finds her brother, who happened to take a break on his way to the cape. She takes him and they talk a bit, but they are soon attacked by a daemon and Velvet attempts to fight off the monster while giving her brother a window of escape. However, she is unable to do so, and Laphicet encourages the daemon to attack him. It gives into his taunt and knocks Laphicet on the ground with Velvet as he attempts to give her a comb.

Velvet loses conciousness and wakes in her bed during the Scarlet Night with the comb in her hand and her brother nowhere to be seen. She rushes outside to find daemons attacking the village, much to her horror, and she rushes to the cape in hopes of finding her brother. There she sees Arthur together with Laphicet. Relieved to see her brother alright, she rushes to him, but a binding arte is placed upon her, and before her very eyes, Arthur kills Laphicet and drops him into the shrine's depths. Velvet breaks free from the arte's shackles and jumps into the hole, catching her brother with one hand while hanging onto the shrine's edge with her other. Arthur remarks how Velvet acts on emotion and that nothing can save Laphicet now, dropping the two into the shrine.

A mysterious entity devours Laphicet, and a bright light emerges from the shrine. Seeing her brother dead, Velvet is fueled with rage and swears to avenge her brother by killing Arthur. The same mysterious entity curses her with daemonic powers in her left hand. When she is thrown from the shrine, daemons attack her, but she strikes back and devours them on instinct. Arthur notices this and calls her a "therion". He then asks her to look around, and much to Velvet's horror, she discovers that the daemons she devoured were Aball's inhabitants, among them her deceased childhood friend Niko. With her psyche shattered and fatigued from the fight, she collapses as malakhim begin to appear and Arthur reveals his real name: Artorius Collbrande. He takes her to the prison island Titania, where prisoners and daemons are kept and thrown to her so she can devour them.

From this event onward, she grew her hatred all on Artorius and vowed revenge on him for killing the townspeople, as well as her brother.

Etymology

 * The term in her name, Velvet, is a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed, with a short dense pile, giving it a distinctive feel. By extension, the word velvety means "smooth like velvet." Velvet can be made from either synthetic or natural fibers.

Notes & Trivia

 * She shares the same last name as Tytree Crowe
 * Velvet's outfit was originally an alpha design for Rutee Katrea
 * Velvet is allergic to cats. She avoids going to Katz Corner in order to conceal her allergies, which results in her sneezing. Strangely enough, Velvet also admits that she is a dog person, stating that dogs do not betray.