The Final Fantasy series has its fair share of wizards, in the form of the black/white/red mage classes that have existed since the first game in the series, but the sorceresses became a major part of the franchise in Final Fantasy VIII, when a time-traveling sorceress known as Ultimecia was used as the main villain. Ultimecia has since appeared in other Final Fantasy crossover games and demonstrated other arcane abilities outside of the ones used in Final Fantasy VIII, so we have an idea of how she could be turned into a playable  character.

The villains of the Final Fantasy series generally didn't have much backstory during the early days of the franchise. They were usually just bad guys that needed to be stabbed in the face, before they turned into a huge monster, and needed to be stabbed again. This all changed with Kefka in Final Fantasy VI and became prominent when Sephiroth was introduced in Final Fantasy VII, as these villains oozed personality and remain some of the most popular antagonists in the series. Ultimecia felt like a step back, as she was more of a distant antagonist, who acted through intermediaries and possessing other people. The works outside of Final Fantasy VIII paint a much clearer picture of Ultimecia, as a cruel individual who will do whatever it t༒❀akes to achieve her goal of godhood.

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Ultimecia's Class, Ability Scores, And Background

The version of Ultimecia we have created uses material from the Player's Handbook and Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Ultimecia is a human (non-variant) sorcerer who takes on the Divine Soul origin at level one. Using the basic stat spread listed on page 13 of the Player's Handbook and taking her race into account, Ultimecia's starting stats would be ꦺSTR 9, DEX 🍸15, CON 14, INT 13, WIS 11, CHA 16.

We know almost nothing of Ultimecia's life before her attempts to influence time from afar, which is why the whole "Rinoa turns into Ultimecia" theory exists in the first place. We'll use Sage as Ultimecia's background, due to her learned nature regarding the history of the world. As such, her starting skills would be Arcana, History, Deception, and Intimidation. If the variant Feat rules are used, she would benefit from Actor, Alert, Spell Sniper, or War Caster. In terms of alignment, Ultimecia falls into the Lawful Evil category. Her goal is domination and to rule all things, to the extent that she will do anything to achieve her plans. The Dissidia games show that Ultimecia was willing to serve Chaos, but only as part ওof a larg෴er plot to serve her own ends.

Ultimecia's Spells

In Final Fantasy VIII, Ultimecia demonstrates a number of magical abilities. Her main power is influencing time and space, but she also demonstrates the ability to control minds, inflict debilitating status effects on her enemies, fire orbs of energy, and summon monsters to aid her in battle. In the Dissidia games, she can summon magical weapons to strike her enemies. As a Divine Soul, she has access to both the cleric and sorcerer spell list. As such, Ultimecia's spell list would benefit from minor illusion, poison spray, thaumaturgy, charm person, chromatic orb, ray of sickness, witch bolt, guiding bolt, blindness/deafness, crown of madness, enhance ability, suggestion, calm emotions, spiritual weapon, haste, slow, fear, stinking cloud, bestow curse, spirit guardians, blight, confusion, dimension door, dominate beast, guardian of faith, animate objects, cloudkill, dominate person, hold monster, contagion, flame strike, planar binding, circle of death, mass suggestion, blade barrier, planar ally, reverse gravity, prismatic spray, etherealness, plane shift, dominate monster, incendiary cloud, antimagic field, control weather, gate, time stop, wish, and astral projection. Ultimecia has access 𓆏to four Metamagic powers over the course of her run, with the best being Quickened Spell and Extended Spell, followed by Empowered Spell, and then Twinned Spell.

The majority of DMs won't allow an evil character among a group of good and neutral party members, as it's liable to cause issues down the road. Lawful Evil characters are easier to integrate than most, as they can have higher goals and codes of conduct that they follow, which will allow them to work with other adventurers. Ultimecia is introduced at the height of her power in Final Fantasy VIII, after practically taking over the world, but there must have been a point when she was at her weakest and faced opposition. A playable version of Ultimecia in Dungeons & Dragons that starts at level one has an inkling of her divine destiny, through the special bloodline that gives her access to two different forms of magic without any sort of training, but she needs to train and grow in power to achieve her destiny. Ultimecia showed a willingness to work with others as part of her goals, including Chaos and Emperor Mateus in the Dissidia series, but her goal of becoming a god and compressing time into one is always her driving force. Ultimecia can be persuasive and seductive, but it's all about manipulating others. As she grows in power, her need for allies will diminish, but the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse has no shortage of heroes who 💫want to take down a sorceress ꧟who wants to rule, nor evil mages who don't want any competition, so it might take a long time before she can strike out on her own.

The player should always clear a character with a DM before starting a game and this is especially true for those belonging to an evil alignment. Playing an evil character isn't inherently disruptive, but it has the potential to get out of hand, so both the DM and the player need to establish boundaries and know what they are getting themselves in for beforehand. A character like Ultimecia works better than Kefka, who would burn the party down the first chance he got, as Ultimecia can at least be reasoned with and work towards a higher goal as part of an extended Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

(Also - don't forget to replace the l💜etter c with 💮k, just like Ultimecia does.)

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