"Till we meet again, dear sister. May the Sacred Flame light your path!"
— Ophilia to her sister Lianna, before departing her home.
Ophilia Clement is one of eight playable characters in Octopath Traveler. She is one of the sisters that work at the Church of Flamesgrace, and embarks on a pilgrimage to restore light to the realm in her adoptive sister’s stead after Archbishop Josef falls seriously ill.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Ophilia has long, straight blonde hair that reaches her shoulders. She wears a white hooded cape held together by a golden trinket, a white dress that reaches to her ankles with blue godets and gold accents, black gloves, and leather lace-up boots. In her sprites, her gloves and eyes are brown.
Personality[]
Ophilia is a soft-spoken young woman with a kind heart who was raised by Archbishop Josef himself. She does what she deems is the right thing and helps those in need whenever necessary, demonstrating her devotion to her faith. She expresses resolute willingness to take on the church's holy pilgrimage, despite the possible repercussions, so that Lianna may remain by her ailing father's side. Josef compares her kindness to the Sacred Flame that illuminates the paths of all, though he hopes that Ophilia's own kindness will not become her downfall.
Initially, upon being brought into the church, Ophilia suffered depression and withdrawal after losing all of her family due to a war. Lianna helped her open up, allowing her to take on a role in the Church and become the woman that she is today.
Ophilia possesses an aptitude for interacting with children, who appear in three of her four story chapters. She also maintains a strong relationship with her fellow travelers, giving and seeking guidance from them. Others often point out that she is too kind for her own good, and Therion says that she trusts others too easily, which can open her up to deception. Ultimately, even betrayal cannot shake her faith, and the light of her love overcomes the dark forces arrayed against her.
History[]
"Your name is Ophilia, and you are a cleric. You hail from the snowswept Frostlands, where you dutifully serve the Order of the Flame under your adoptive father, the archbishop. As your adoptive sister—and best friend—prepares to embark on a perilous pilgrimage, you stand ever at her side. But unbeknownst to the both of you, events are about to take a tragic turn..."
— Ophilia's description when selecting her.
Prior to Story[]
15 years prior to the events of Octopath Traveler, Ophilia was orphaned as the result of the war that was Pardis III's first attempt to conquer all of Orsterra. The archbishop of Flamesgrace Cathedral, Josef, adopted her and treated her as if she was his own blood daughter. At first, Ophilia shut herself away and refused to let anyone talk to her, thinking she was fated to be alone and miserable forever. Fortunately, Lianna, her adoptive sister, was able to help Ophilia out of her shell by bringing her atop a hill that overlooked the cathedral. Lianna hoped that this place would become Ophilia's favorite as well.
Chapter 1[]
Ophilia's story begins at the onset of Lianna's pilgrimage. As Ophilia speaks with Mattias, a merchant providing supplies for Lianna's journey, Archbishop Josef falls gravely ill. Crushed by the fear of what may become of her father, Lianna confides in Ophilia. Ophilia resolves to venture into the Cave of Origin and take Aelfric's Lanthorn, placing the duty of the pilgrimage upon herself so that Lianna may remain at Josef's side.
Chapter 2[]
Ophilia arrives in Saintsbridge and successfully kindles the Sacred Flame there. She later spots a young boy, Emil, being harassed by his friends Derryl and Nate. Emil explains that Derryl had recently lost his mother and was upset because Emil had lost her brooch. Ophilia helps the boys reconcile and search for the brooch. Emil runs into The Murkwood to look further. Fearing for his safety, Ophilia and Derryl chase after him, in time to save him from Hróðvitnir.
Chapter 3[]
In Goldshore, Ophilia runs into Mattias once more. She is later unable to perform the Kindling due to Bishop Donovan's nervous behavior, which he excuses as unpreparedness. Upon speaking with Daniel, a boy she had seen acting suspiciously, she realizes that Donovan's daughter had been taken hostage by cultists who want the Sacred Flame. Ophilia ventures to the Seaside Grotto in order to rescue her from the two men.
She kindles the Sacred Flame upon her return to Goldshore, but is soon approached by Lianna with news of their father's death. Lianna, having been convinced by the cultists that they can bring her father back to life, drugs Ophilia's drink and steals Aelfric's Lanthorn.
Chapter 4[]
As Ophilia arrives in Wispermill in pursuit of Lianna, the townspeople act standoffish towards her. She is soon taken prisoner by the villagers, and it is revealed that the town is part of a cult led by Mattias, the "Savior." He explains his intentions of using Lianna to kindle Galdera's Flame, before leaving. Lianna later secretly unlocks her cell door, but insists on the ceremony, lost in the belief that their father can be resurrected.
Ophilia follows the cultists to the Ebony Grotto, where she interrupts the ceremony and brings Lianna back to her senses by reminding her of a lesson their father taught them, that those who die leave an impact on the bereaved even after the fact, leaving their legacies alive. Enraged that his plan has been thwarted, Mattias engages Ophilia in combat, but perishes at her hand.
Ophilia returns to Flamesgrace to complete the Kindling ceremony. However, Lianna remains distraught at the loss of Josef and guilt over nearly releasing Galdera's power into the world, and shuts herself away in her room in depression, much like Ophilia did fifteen years ago. Ophilia guides her to their favorite place atop the hill, reminding Lianna that their father will live on in their hearts.
Relationships[]
Archbishop Josef[]
He took Ophilia in after she lost her family. Despite living together for fifteen years, Ophilia only ever refers to him as "His Excellency" due to his status and her lack of self-confidence and only calls him "father" once when he is seriously ill and tells her that he believes his end is near. However, they do care for each other, with Ophilia being ever grateful for the archbishop for taking her in.
Lianna[]
Lianna is Ophilia's adoptive sister and best friend who always stands by her side. Thanks to Lianna's insistent help, Ophilia was able to overcome her grief and began enjoying life at the church with her new family. Both of them care for each other greatly, so great that Ophilia offered to take the pilgrimage so Lianna could stay by their sick father's side. Lianna is grateful for such an act, but cannot help but apologize that she had Ophilia take the burden of doing the pilgrimage.
Mattias[]
Mattias is a trader of the Leoniel Consortium who provided support to Lianna before she was meant to depart on the pilgrimage. Ophilia thought of him as a kind man and expressed gratitude to him for helping both Lianna and herself after her sister's worry for what might happen to her father forces Ophilia to take the pilgrimage in her stead. Mattias, for his part, regarded Ophilia warmly, praising her unwavering kindness and even choosing to confide in her about his doubt in the Sacred Flame.
However, Mattias' kind modesty is eventually revealed to be a façade for a much more sinister personality. Having already lost faith in and become hateful towards the Sacred Flame long ago, Mattias had been plotting the failure of the pilgrimage from the start by discreetly poisoning Archbishop Josef, making Lianna fall into despair, and taking advantage of her grief to manipulate her into helping him corrupt the Sacred Flame with Galdera's power, under the pretense of resurrecting her father. When Ophilia sees his true colors in Wispermill, she becomes disgusted with him for using her adoptive sister's pain for his own benefit and is determined to both stop the dark ritual and save Lianna.
Battle[]
Ophilia is a Cleric, being one of the group's two dedicated healers. She focuses on party-wide heals and single-target elemental defense buffs, and is also equipped with light-elemental spells, although she can only use staves initially. She boasts high elemental attack and defense, both powering her spells, but falters in health, physical defense and speed. She can increase her survivability with her last Support Skill, Saving Grace, and Reflective Veil is the key to many anti-magic battle plans.
Ophilia's Path Action, Guide, allows her to recruit an NPC as a temporary companion in battle. These guests are untargetable and uncontrollable, but will attack every turn and offer a rare chance of protecting her from a direct hit. They will leave the field after a few turns and can be resummoned a set number of times before they are released. NPC strengths and abilities vary greatly, so with careful planning and preparation, Ophilia can add considerable value to the fight. Guide is a Noble Path Action and so it relies on Ophilia's level to be used, but it cannot fail.
Due to her natural aptitude as a mage, Ophilia does well with subjobs that further increase her elemental stats and spell repertoire.
- As a Scholar, Ophilia can act as both a powerful healer and a powerful attacker with four different elements. The main flaw in this combination is that it may make Ophilia's focus too broad, preventing her from making optimal use of either her healing abilities or her offensive magic. It also does not grant access to any additional weapon types.
- Apothecary allows a bit more nuance to Ophilia's healing power, as First Aid can be used to heal one character instead of the entire party. This can be helpful for saving SP if there's only one character that actually needs healing. She also gains the ability to remove and prevent status ailments with Rehabilitate, which her native Cleric class lacks.
- Merchant gives Ophilia two additional weapon types and wind elemental attacks, and Donate BP is a powerful addition to Ophilia's support abilities. Most importantly, the Merchant's Rest skill allows Ophilia to regenerate her own SP, which she is dependent on for both healing and offense.
- As a Dancer, Ophilia becomes a powerful support character that can buff any stat thanks to her native Cleric class, including the one buff that Dancer lacks. Ophilia also gains access to a new weapon type and dark-elemental magic. Light and dark are opposite elements, so having both improves Ophilia's ability to break enemy defenses more than it seems. The main drawback is that Ophilia possesses the lowest speed stat among the eight travelers, which may make it difficult for her allies to use buffs the same turn they receive them. This can be somewhat circumvented with the "Defend" command, which will move her to the front of the turn order in the next turn.
Among the advanced classes, Ophilia does best as a Starseer or a Sorcerer. The Starseer gives Ophilia similar advantages to the Dancer by combining her native healing spells with support magic. It also gives her a powerful magic attack that deals three hits on its own and is devastating against broken enemies. As the Starseer cannot equip staves on its own, Ophilila is one of only two travelers, the other being Cyrus, who can power up all three of Shooting Star's hits. The Sorcerer combines Ophilia's high Elemental Attack with the ability to use all six elements, but like the Scholar, she may have difficulty getting the most out of her abilities by spreading them too thin.
Recommended support skills for Ophilia to equip include: Inner Strength (early-game), Saving Grace, SP Saver, Second Wind, Resist Ailments, Patience, Boost-Start (in combination with Heal More/Saving Grace), Divine Aura, Stronger Strikes, Augmented Elements, and Elemental Edge.
Due to the flexibilty of subjobs, any character can fill any role with the right equipment and skills, with proper planning, any of the travelers can perform decently on any subjob.
Cleric Skills[]
| Skill | SP | Damage Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heal Wounds | 8 | Restore HP to all allies. | |
| Holy Light | 6 | 
|
Inflict light-based damage on a single foe. |
| Sheltering Veil | 6 | Augment a single ally's elemental defense for 2 turns. | |
| Luminescence | 9 |
|
Deal light-based damage to all foes. |
| Heal More | 25 | Restore a large amount of HP to all allies. | |
| Reflective Veil | 22 | Grant a single ally the ability to reflect one elemental attack. | |
| Revive | 50 | Revive all incapacitated allies. | |
| Aelfric's Auspices | 30 | [Divine Skill] For 3 turns, skills performed by a single chosen ally will trigger twice (this will not effect other divine skills). |
Support Skills[]
| No. of Skills Unlocked | Total JP | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 130 | Persistence | All status enhancements you receive will last for one additional turn. |
| 5 | 630 | Inner Strength | Increases the maximum SP of the equipped character by 50. |
| 6 | 1,630 | Evil Ward | Increases the party's success rate when attempting to flee (equipping this skill with multiple characters will have no added effect). |
| 7 | 4,630 | Saving Grace | Grants the equipping character the ability to be healed above their maximum HP. |
Subjobs:[]
Below are the sprites and appearance changes for Ophilia with each Subjob:
Each time a subjob is selected, the appearance of the character will also change. The first sprite is the appearance with no subjob equipped.
Quotes[]
- "May the Sacred Flame guide us." —When selected from the main screen
- "And so I must gather the ember, that I might perform the Kindling in my sister's stead.This is a path I had chosen. I alone must go. Hm? Even so you would lend me your aid? I thank you kind offer. Surely the flame has guided you to my side. Now let us for the Cave of Origin. It lies the hills to east the of town." —Joined the Party
- "Should you need guidance and support on your path, I am ever at your service." —Tavern Dialogue
- "Here I go!" —Max Boost
- "Prepare yourself!" —Max Boost
- "Aelfric, bringer of the flame!" —Using Aelfric's Auspices
- "I'm sorry..." —Defeated
- "It seems that I am finished..." —Defeated
- "I'm afraid the people here care not for my guidance..." —Attempting to Guide with damaged reputation
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
The name Ophilia may refer to Ophelia, a Greek name that means "help." This name was first used by Jacopo Sannazaro for a character in the poem titled "Arcadia"; Ophelia's name was later borrowed by Shakespeare for use in the popular play titled Hamlet, in which Ophelia was the name of Hamlet’s lover. Tragically, Ophelia went insane after the death of his father and drowned.
Ophilia's surname, Clement, means "merciful" or "mild," fitting her kind and loving personality.
Trivia[]
- Ophilia and Therion are the only 2 characters facing to the right in their portrait, while the other main characters' portraits face to the left.
- Travel banter reveals that Ophilia admires Therion for his bravery and Olberic for the kindness and mercy that he shows to his opponents. She particularly appreciates Olberic's belief that every child should have a mentor to look up to, enabling a trusted adult to teach them the ways of the world.
- During the "For Women's Ears Only" travel banter, Ophilia states that her ideal man is someone "compassionate, caring, thoughtful, and upright." She adds that he must be "able to handle a sword," "clever like a scholar," and "hard on himself, but forgiving of others." In addition, he must not only be taller than her, but he also must be broad-minded and tolerant. In conclusion, Ophilia requires a man who is "generally wonderful." The other girls point out that no such man exists.
- However, the general consensus is that Ophilia's ideal man is a mix of the 4 male travelers.
- Ophilia is one of three characters with a unique weapon sprite. Her staff sprite is different from the one used by the other seven characters.
- The "Let's Play a Game" travel banter reveals that Ophilia has no prior experience with playing cards games. Nevertheless, she has a natural talent for them, as evidenced by her many victories against Cyrus and Tressa. Her proficiency stems from her perpetually calm, serene demeanor, eliminating any visual cues that can be used to figure out her hand. Ophilia herself claims to have no specific strategy—she simply lets the Sacred Flame guide her.
- Ophilia was born the same year that Archbishop Josef carried out the Kindling pilgrimage; the pilgrimage is performed once every 20 years, and Ophilia is 20 years old during the events of Octopath Traveler.
- According to the official Octopath Traveler guidebook, Ophilia was born in a village named Creek, which was destroyed in the same war that killed her parents.
- During her travel banter in Olberic's Chapter 3, Ophilia prays for the souls of slain lizardmen. Although they are vicious monsters, she says that "they are living creatures... and I would that they rest in peace."
- In Tressa's Chapter 3, Ophilia declares, "Oh how I yearn for the romance of the open sea!" Afterward, she admits that when she was just a small girl, she'd often watch boys playing at pirates, but she was never allowed to join in.
- During her Chapter 3 banter, Ophilia muses that Alfyn gives her "(Strength... and peace of mind, too. I wonder if this is what it's like to have an older brother.)"
- Ophilia's first three story chapters involve her helping and Guiding children. However, her Chapter 4 breaks that pattern when a Wispermill woman uses the prospect of a sick child as bait, demonstrating that Ophilia's enemies have caught on to her habits and wielded them against her.
- Ophilia's Chapter 4 (along with Cyrus's Chapter 3) is one of the two story chapters that involves the protagonist's temporary imprisonment.
- During Ophilia's Chapter 4 travel banter, H'aanit addresses Ophilia as "child."
- In banter during Alfyn's Chapter 4, Ophilia expresses interest in apprenticing herself to Alfyn as an apothecary. However, she realizes that this would be impossible due to her priestly oath and her conflicting responsibilities.
- In the Rituals and Superstitions banter, Ophilia says, "Every morning after reading scripture, I wish for a blessed day... before carefully placing a bookmark between the pages I had been reading. The bookmark I use is actually a pressed flower that I picked from a secret place I know."
- The Culinary Competence banter reveals that Ophilia doesn't know how to bake. In the church, "it's nothing but porridge and tack most days."
- According to a developer interview, Ophilia was the last character created for Octopath Traveler, and as such, her story and gameplay balancing were the most difficult for the developers to finalize.[1]
- None of the bosses in Ophilia's story begin their battles with minions, a trait that her story shares with H'aanit's. Instead, the Guardian of the First Flame and Mattias summon minions during the fight.
- Concept artist Naoki Ikushima remarks that he sensed a calm and gentle yet persevering heart from Ophilia - like a wildflower blooming valiantly from the snow-covered ground.[2]
- At first, Ophilia was designed with more airy expressions, but the development team expressed a desire for her to share the same strength in her eyes as Primrose. Ophilia demonstrated more power in her gaze and poise at one point, but in the end the developers settled on an ambiance at once gentle and approachable.[3]
- Early concepts portrayed Ophilia with shorter hair that curved to frame her face, or else with a darker brown hairstyle that curled or grew wavy at the ends. In the latter design, she wore a blue-jeweled ferronnière (a headband encircling the forehead, set with a pendant gem).[4]
- When sketching Ophilia's artwork, Naoki Ikushima considered how to draw someone meant to be a proverbial guiding star - a shepherd to guide the way. He originally drew her guiding or offering a helping hand to others, and he thought that looking back at everyone behind her suited Ophilia's character. Hers is a face full of love.[5]
- Ikushima sometimes contrasted H'aanit's design with Ophilia's, aiming to clarify Ophilia's own appearance. At one point, he notes that Ophilia should have a look emanating intelligence and a decisive will, but not like the hunter's sharp visage.[6]
- Ophilia's clothing underwent a large number of proposed concepts, including styles with different coloring (white, blue, gray), head coverings, and designs more reminiscent of traditional nun's garb. Overall, she was to exhibit a pure impression befitting a priest. Her initial white robe was designed with white and black parts to contrast and complement the white. Her scepter also went through several iterations, most including a series of rings at its top.[7]
- Of all the characters' clothes, the design of Ophilia's cleric robes took the most time to get right. Naoki Ikushima liked the style of the robes designed to keep out the cold, but it stuck out like a sore thumb when traveling outside of the Frostlands, necessitating modification.[8]
- As the final female character to be created, Ophilia's straightforward attire made her sprites easy to create. Her tidy and trim appearance, combined with her dedication to her calling, made all of her poses easy to conceptualize and just as easy to create. Given all of her bright hues, the developers had to be careful not to make her pop out and look overexposed on the game screen.[9]
- Sprites of Ophilia's curly-haired design were drawn, but never made it into the final game.[10]
- Sprite artist Shizuka Morimoto comments on her sprites, "Still... it's got to be pretty chilly in the Frostlands without any sleeves, huh?"[11]
References[]
- ↑ Octopath Traveler devs on character origins, visual style, initial HD Rumble plans, much more. (Date Posted: Nov. 3, 2018).
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 60.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 61.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 61.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 62.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 61.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, pages 63-65.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 65.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 67.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 67.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 67.