Father

About Father

Father is the being behind everything: a homunculus created centuries ago in the lost kingdom of Xerxes, who built Amestris as a giant transmutation circle and fathered the seven Homunculi from his own sins. Seated beneath Central, he plans to sacrifice the whole country to swallow God and become a perfect being. Calm and contemptuous of humans, he is the final enemy the Elrics must face.

Appearance

Father appears as a stern, bearded older man with long pale hair, dressed in plain white robes, seated on a throne-like chair in a vast chamber deep beneath Central, pipes and cables running into the darkness around him. His face is the face of Van Hohenheim, the same features, emptied of warmth. He rarely stands, rarely moves and rarely needs to: the Homunculi, the military and the country above him all move at his word. When he does act, the scale of his alchemy is unlike anything human: performed without gesture, circle or apparent effort.

Personality

Father is calm, patient and completely contemptuous of human beings, whom he regards as insects: useful, briefly interesting, then thrown away. Centuries of planning have burned away everything in him except appetite: he separated his own sins into the Homunculi to make himself perfect, yet the desire that drives him is the most human thing imaginable: to know everything, to be free of every limit, to become a god. He almost never raises his voice. He does not need to persuade anyone of his power; the country itself is built to his design.

Background & Story

Father began, centuries ago, as a tiny homunculus in a flask in the kingdom of Xerxes, an artificial being created from the blood of a slave who would later be known as Van Hohenheim. What happened to Xerxes made both of them immortal and emptied a country in a single night. In the centuries since, the being now called Father founded Amestris and shaped it, war by war and border by border, into a single vast design, fathering the seven Homunculi from his own vices to run it. From beneath Central he waits, patient as geology, for the day his design is complete. This is as much of his plan as the Elric brothers can glimpse at first, and it is already more than enough to terrify them.

Powers & Abilities

• Alchemy Beyond Human Limits: Father transmutes without circles, movement or visible effort, on a scale no human alchemist can approach, his power is limited by design and knowledge, not by technique.
• Creator of the Homunculi: He separated his own sins into seven artificial humans built around Philosopher's Stones, each with its own terrible ability, and rules them as their creator and god.

Key Relationships

• King Bradley: His chosen instrument, the Homunculus Wrath, raised and placed on Amestris's throne to rule the country in Father's design.
• Envy: One of his seven Homunculi children, sent to watch, manipulate and ignite conflict wherever the plan requires it.
• Edward Elric: A boy Father regards as a useful insect, one of the human sacrifices his design has marked, and therefore a piece he intends to keep alive until the appointed day.

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