Kiefer von Hamelin

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'“Half the time I know what I’m doing, the other half I act like I don’t. I find it’s easier to keep expectations low like that.”'

Kiefer von Hamelin is the leader of Team KORL. A laid-back and clever individual, he leads the team with a cool head and often acts as the more grounded member. A talented musician, he makes heavy use of Dust in combination with his semblance to fight.

Appearance
Kiefer appears as a tall young man with a long face, black, slicked back hair and dark blue eyes. Physically he is lean and slender, not having a lot of muscle mass in comparison to other budding Huntsman. He typically likes to wear classy clothes that aren’t too restrictive. His attire often consists of vests, dress shirts and pants with black gloves and boots. He keeps his flute behind his back and extra vials for it in a pouch on the left of his belt. He often wears a pine green cape and packer hat with a red band, but loses them and his gloves when in his casual attire. The fastener to his cape is shaped like his symbol, the segno.

Personality
Based on first impressions, Kiefer comes off as a lazy, antisocial young man. He often prefers to laze about, often sleeping and reading in lieu of studying or training. Though his slacker tendencies may seem like he doesn’t care about his work, he is quite intelligent and boasts a strong memory. His disdain towards hard work stems from the anxiety he caused himself while he was in combat school, which resulted in him becoming very unmotivated and nonchalant in regards to becoming a Huntsman. Though becoming one remains his ultimate goal, he has no clue what to do after the fact and has begun to aimlessly drift through training, often coming off as depressed when in fact he finds himself more bored with the workload. He can be pushed into caring about his work, though it takes a good amount of encouragement.

Kiefer becomes noticeably more talkative while in battle, often sharing advice and strategies with allies as he comes up with them, but rarely breaks out into quips and conversation unless he’s confident he can win (then again he can’t afford to talk much given his weapon and semblance). He is able to maintain a level head in nearly any situation. It is rare to see Kiefer intimidated and he will firmly stand his ground for as long as he can manage, but when things begin to get the better of him he is not afraid to run away in order to reevaluate things and attack a second time.

Abilities
Kiefer is a ranged fighter, relying on his Dust to attack opponents due to his lack of close-range options. He makes use various types of Dust and can manipulate it once it leaves his flute by use of his semblance. Different notes result in different motions, allowing him to use Dust for multiple strikes and mix it in the air to strike opponents with powerful combination attacks. Combining Dust takes time and the attack patterns can be fairly predictable, especially if the opponent can learn the movements in relation to the notes, but Kiefer is clever enough to keep his attacks varied. He also takes a support role on the battlefield, using his semblance to aid allies by increasing their reaction time and pulling them away from oncoming danger, or by disrupt enemies should he have the time to make the connection. He is not strong in close quarters, typically dodging incoming attacks as he can and maintaining distance to use his semblance. Kiefer's style revolves heavily on building momentum, as he can control multiple clouds of Dust over time. He can only start with one, but once he feels he has a firm grasp on it he can make another. If he tries to make another too early, he'll lose his grasp and drop both. He can create up to five clouds, each one getting easier to add than the last. Granted he often spends the fight on the back line, giving orders and calling out targets while formulating strategies. As a result he isn’t always able to build his way up to multiple Dust clouds and each cloud shrinks as it is used, so he’ll often have to recreate them. His weapon is able to create three clouds of a single Dust before needing to reload that type. He tends to keep the clouds close to himself, moving them in a circular, defensive pattern and lashing out with them as he can.

Semblance
Kiefer's semblance is called Harmonic Guidance. This semblance allows him to use his aura to guide a target’s movement along soundwaves. He does not take direct control, more influences its movements by guiding it along the sound he creates. He only has proper control over light things like Dust, and having influence over living beings takes time and focus. On top of this he has a definite range of 10 meters, but as he controls something farther away his control over it loosens. The drop is noticeable around the 3 meter mark as the soundwaves weaken; visually noticeable as a cloud of Dust he controls begins to expand as it gets further away and it slows down. He can only manipulate one thing at a time, though he can control more as long as he keeps using his semblance without interruption. If he stops creating sound he will drop whatever he was controlling and have to begin again.

Kiefer also acts like a bard with his semblance, providing ‘stat boosts’ by guiding his ally’s movements. Strength boosts come from him helping his ally keep pressure on the opponent, at the cost of recklessness being less defensive; defense boosts focus more on blocking attacks and conserving aura, at the cost of speed due to a concentration on standing ground; and a speed boost increasing reaction time and movement at the cost of follow through on strikes (less damage) in order to maintain pace.

History
Born to the von Hamelin family of musicians, great things were expected of Kiefer from a young age. At 4 he was encouraged to pursue a life of music and was enrolled in flute lessons. While he did take interest in them, Kiefer was constantly compared to his older, more successful siblings. As time went on he found himself desiring something more, to do something that set him apart from his siblings. Eventually he found himself inspired by his father, Rubin’s, past as a Huntsman, a profession he had to relinquish after he lost his leg during a Grimm attack. Rubin encouraged his children to pursue a life of music in order to keep them away from such dangerous work, but a young Kiefer was not easily swayed.

Kiefer eventually defied his father and enrolled in the local Huntsman academy at the age of 10. He proved early on to be an adept student and managed good grades, but excelled in his knowledge of Dust in his later school years. His semblance came as a surprise to most, as it was first seen as Kiefer discovered that he could use it to control leaves while playing his flute. Despite the fact that his semblance was first seen as useless in combat, it eventually proved versatile beyond belief as he began to experiment with its ability to control Dust. Taking this into account, he designed his weapon, Jägerlied, to make full use of his semblance, Dust and flute playing.

Though he never had trouble with his grades and social life, the weight of the expectations from himself to do exceed them proved too much for him and Kiefer eventually lost the heart and became bored with his life, distancing himself from his classmates and letting his grades drop to a low-average as he felt the emotional drain. Through this he maintained good enough grades to get him into Haven, far away from Atlas’ military-controlled schooling.

Trivia

 * Kiefer alludes to the story of The Pied Piper.


 * Kiefer's name means "pine" in German, while his last name is in reference to Hamelin, the town in which The Pied Piper took place in.
 * When put together his name roughly means "Pines of Hamelin".
 * The colouration of green references the Pied Piper's return to the town after they refuse to pay him. When he lead the rats away he was dressed in red, but when he kidnapped the town's children he was dressed in green.
 * Though he is capable of keeping it under control, Kiefer is claustrophobic and will become increasingly anxious until he can make it to an open space.