Rondoline E. Effenberg

Rondoline E. Effenberg
Information
Appearance	•Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X •Tales of Phantasia: Cross Edition
Age	19
Height	5'3" / 160 cm
Weight	109 lbs / 49 kg
Weapon	Two-Form Sword
Japanese Voice Actor	Eri Kitamura
Character Designer	Maika Matsui

Rondoline E. Effenberg (ロンドリーネ・Ｅ・エッフェンベルグ, Rondoliine E. Effenberugu^?), known simply as Rody (ロディ, Rodi^?) to her friends, is a main protagonist in Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X. She is also a playable character in Tales of Phantasia: Cross Edition, a remake of Tales of Phantasia that was bundled with Narikiri Dungeon X.

History[]

Rody was adopted by a man named Victor E. Effenberg (ヴィクトル・Ｅ・エッフェンベルグ^?) and raised in the Forest of Spirits as his daughter, during which time she was taught the ways of the sword and about the world outside the forest. They lived happily together until the day Victor left for Midgards, saying that he had a big job to do. Wandering in the forest, Rody met a man named Dhaos who came every day to visit the World Tree. Slowly she struck up a friendship with him, and in return he taught her how to use magic. Beneath his cold exterior, the Dhaos that Rody knew was a kind and caring man, and she grew over time to admire him.

On the last day that they were together, Dhaos presented Rody with a gift of a magical ring. The next day, he was nowhere to be found, as he had traveled into the future to begin his plan, leaving Rody all alone once more. To her surprise, the ring allowed Rody to travel through time. She followed Dhaos to the future, only to discover that there he was known as a ruthless and evil Demon King. Shocked and unwilling to believe what she was hearing, Rody decided to go on a quest to confront Dhaos and discover the truth, even if it meant losing one of her most important friendships, an idea that secretly terrified her.

Rody joined up with Cress Albane's party and together they assaulted Dhaos's Castle. However, before she could confront Dhaos, one of the monsters within the castle inadvertently activated the magic within Rody's ring and flung her to a different age. She reunited with Cress's party and discovered that a merchant was selling her father's coveted sword, Dragonov. Speaking with the merchant, she discovered a terrible truth: her father was a member of the Eclipse Clan (エクリプス^?), a notorious group of assassins noteworthy for the initial "E" in their names. Rondoline became even more distraught that her father had lied to her, but hid her true feelings from the rest of her friends.

After saving the merchant from a group of monsters, he attempted to give Dragonov to Rody for free, as she was the true "Child of Eclipse". Though Rody turned it down at first, later an assassin from the Eclipse Clan approached her to reveal Victor's last wish and the reason he raised her in ignorance. He had wished for Rody to live a peaceful, ordinary life. Though Rody was annoyed that her father had not had the courage to tell her directly, she accepted his wish and took up Dragonov. Though Rody had gained the resolve to confront Dhaos, a magical trap in Dhaos's Castle once again activated the magic in her ring and flung her to another era. Though Cress attempted to save her with the Eternal Sword, she convinced him to let her go and with her final words urged him to defeat Dhaos.

Appearance and Personality[]

Rody is a white-haired woman of average-to-high height, tan-skin and blue eyes. She wears an armored bikini with black spandex shorts, decked out with a long blue scarf, white gloves, along with white heeled shoes that reveal her toes. Her outfit is is filled with various gold and blue touches, along with having a bit of asymmetry (her left arm and right leg are covered by black hose with gold rims) and a pair of swords on her hips held by a gold belt. As a nod to her artes' swallow motif, a blue-yellow-rimmed pair of pointed cloths behind her emulate a swallow's tail. The ring being hung around Rondoline's neck was given to her by Dhaos, and allows her to travel through time.

Rody is a cheerful and optimistic young woman. She has a strong, independent spirit from her years of living alone, but prefers to travel with other people for the company. She finds it very easy to get along with others, and always tries to keep spirits high. However, Rody also tends to suppress her own unhappiness or worries so that she does not worry other people. She uses her joking, carefree attitude to keep an emotional distance from her friends and protect herself from being hurt if they should suddenly leave her.

Fighting Style[]

Rody was trained in swordsmanship from a young age, and she is an incredibly experienced and refined swordswoman. She can also use magic, possessing offensive spells of every element. Much of her swordsmanship revolves around quick movements, and a notable focus on aerial combat (once again enforcing her swallow motif on top of her repertoire of artes being named after swallows likewise). Along with the use of her whip-sword, she can attack from both a distance and take the fight up close, she is overall a well-rounded fighter who can cover many fields as the only hybrid character with both melee and spell support capabilities.

However, with her agility in mind, she has less focus on power compared to Cress or Suzu being able to front-line enemies more effectively, nor is she in Narikiri Dungeon X able to break through bosses' armored-actions as effectively as certain bosses' mechanics will change when inflicted with critical hits, causing Rody to drop her combos more often than other characters when she is attempting to solo them.

Even as a spellcaster, she has no Arcane level spells nor does she have anything higher than mid-tier magic. Regardless, she comes with notable perks that can give her extra utility over raw-power, such as ignoring invincibility frames with certain attacks as well as being able to inflict a stun without the use of Pow Hammer.

Even then, her biggest lacking forte tends to be her low magical defense while all her other stats are just at above-average. As an aerial-focused fighter, Rondoline is also one of the harder characters to control, especially in Narikiri Dungeon X where one must adapt to the enemy much more often compared to other fighters.

Other Appearances[]

Tales of Crestoria

In Tales of Crestoria, Rody is a confidant to king Gaius.

Trivia[]

• Rody's swallow motif in both her outfit and her artes play nod to the historical famed swordsman, Sasaki Kojirō, as Rody has some of her artes named directly after his highly-referenced Tsubame Gaeshi (Swallow Return/Reversal) technique. Likewise, Rody also possesses a pun-based alternate-named technique based on it.
• In her crossover appearances, Rody uses the SPAS as her default weapon.