Aurelis, the False Gryphon
Aurelis is a Rivals of Aether 2 Contest character designed by MoonBear (me), DoodlingNeko (he did the art[and programmed some stuff :D], he’s awesome!!!!), and rana! (he helped with final sprites, and we wouldn’t have finished without him!).
Aurelis is a character designed around getting up close and personal with her opponents, hitting hard with relentless pressure. She’s 50% lion, 50% bird, and 100% concentrated power of hurt!
Aurelis is a heavy-hitter that takes advantage of her newly developed golden powers to take on the fiercest opponents head-on. All of her charged attacks give her a power up, allowing her to enhance her specials to do even more damage.
Neutral Special shows Aurelis firing off a bolt of gold that can be charged up by holding the special button. When enhanced, the neutral special gains an extra level of charge that deals greater amounts of damage knockback to foes
Forward Special is a two part move, a glide that allows you to recover horizontally, and an overhead swipe that grabs and throws any opponent unfortunate enough to be in your reach. When enhanced, Forward Special deals extra damage and knockback, and even throws a projectile forward to keep you safe
For the Up special, Aurelis leaps into the air a bit. While this move does not have a hitbox, when empowered you gain armor to keep you safe while recovering.
Down Special has 3 major variations. When grounded, Aurelis will charge up, and gain a stock of gold meter. While airborne, Aurelis will charge downwards, creating a splash of damage when she hits the ground, which gets bigger when empowered. Finally, when you have full charge, your grounded down special uses up all of your meter to deal devastating damage and knockback to any foes too close to you. Be careful when you use it though, as it leaves you vulnerable afterwards.
Aurelis was, once upon a time, a young Lioness of the Neo Fire Capital. In her youth, she was always kind of a loner compared to the rest of the citizens. This tendency led to her getting singled out in a crowd, and kidnapped by an underground research organization. They were completely obscured from the public view, and obsessed with creating the perfect being.
Her captors were cruel, experimenting on her mind and body, twisting her body as if she weren’t even alive, until she could barely recognize herself. She grew angry, frustrated at the constant pain she was subjected to, until these "scientists" had gotten what they had wished for, Aurelis had transformed from a Lioness… to their very own Gryphon. Unfortunately for them, their success would not be kind to them, destroying the research facility, and escaping, yearning for freedom and desperate for some form of normalcy.
She knew not where she was when she fled, but deep in her heart she felt some familiar, yet alien pulse within the earth itself. As she reached out to this rhythm, it slowly crept towards her, growing out of the ground and warping to her touch. The shimmer of liquid gold swirled at her feet, meeting her touch and forming to fit her body, it felt almost natural to wield, and yet this power was foreign to her. She decided she would take advantage of this, and use it to find her way back to a time before this nightmare.
