Rygdea



Rygdea is a non-player character in Final Fantasy XIII, who works for the Sanctum. 180 cm tall (5' 10"), he is a captain working under the command of Cid Raines as his right-hand man, as they both share the same view of the Sanctum. He later becomes one of the secret founders of the Academy. His Japanese voice actor is Yasuyuki Kase and his English voice actor is.

Final Fantasy XIII
''Rygdea is an officer in the Wide-area Response Brigade led by Cid Raines. Hidden behind his cowboy antics is a man of unwavering courage and integrity.''

''Disgusted by the deception of the Sanctum, he once thought to retire from the military, but was instead convinced by Raines to join the Cavalry. Finding that the brigadier general shared his ideals, Rygdea now works as his right-hand man in various operations designed to undermine the government's power.''

Rygdea is an officer in the Wide-area Response Brigade formerly led by Cid Raines.

''Disgusted by the deception of the Sanctum, he thought to retire from the military, but instead joined Raines and the Cavalry in their efforts to bring down the government. Rygdea followed the general without question, unaware of his superior's status as a servant of the Sanctum fal'Cie.''

Raines has now replaced Barthandelus in the position of Primarch, leaving Rygdea to lead the Cavalry in a charge to topple the Sanctum and destroy Orphan.

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Figures of Note

''Captain Rygdea is a former Cocoon soldier. Following the catastrophe, he played a central role in running the provisional government.''

Rygdea crushed the budding resurgence of the former administration by revealing the Sanctum's manipulation by the fal'Cie, and their subsequent slaughter of innocent civilians during the Purge.

He lent his support to the Academy scientists who sought to promote 'human independence,' and encouraged the shift in authority from the government to this new institute.

Final Fantasy XIII
Rygdea first appears with Oerba Yun Fang in Lake Bresha, where his troops apprehend Snow Villiers and take Serah Farron's crystallized form after Snow's Eidolon, the Shiva Sisters, decimate the PSICOM troops sent to kill the l'Cie and Snow is forced to tame the Eidolon. He and Fang takes them onto their airship, the Lindblum, where Snow meets Cid Rainse and learns of the latter's wish to overthrow the fal'Cie. Later, he helps the l'Cie in escaping from Rosch's forces in Palumpolum. Afterwards, Rygdea helps Lightning, Snow, Fang and Hope get on board the Palamecia to rescue Sazh Katzroy and Oerba Dia Vanille.

Near the end of the game, he takes leadership of the Cavalry, unknowingly a tool of Galenth Dysley, and leads them in rebellion against the Sanctum. He ends up confronting the newly-made Primarch Raines as all hell breaks loose in Eden, asking if this was his dream for Cocoon. Rainse, abandoning his dream as a "fal'Cie fancy", asks Rygdea to end his life. Reluctantly, Rygdea complies, then leads his forces against PSICOM in an all-out war on the Sanctum.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments Before
Rygdea survives the transformation of the Cavalry's majority into Cie'th and the fall of Cocoon, and in the six months after the Day of Ragnarok, he helps the surviving populace in Cocoon and on Gran Pulse rebuild. He is now stationed in Palumpolum, which has become the new capital of Cocoon and the military base of operations. Rygdea summons Hope Estheim's father Bartholomew to a secret meeting in the city concert hall. Rygdea shows him an ID card containing internal documents from the Sanctum made by the late Rosch, with his voiceover providing insight to what happened behind the scenes within the Sanctum. The card shows the security footage from the day of the incident at Euride Gorge, depicting Fang and Vanille, the Pulse l'Cie responsible for the accident. Rygdea then goes through the rest of the card's footage, which documents, from Roche's perspective, the events leading up to the Siege of Eden, with Rydgea often commenting on many aspects, including Raines defying his Focus and entering crystal stasis through his own will, and the irony of the god-like fal'Cie searching for a god themselves.

After he finishes showing the footage, Rygdea tells Bartholomew of how people have forgotten PSICOM's last act of heroism because of their pitted reputation, and that former members of the Sanctum pushing the blame for the Siege of Eden on them for their own profit. Rygdea reveals his plan of making the ID card's footage public along with other acquired inside information to expose the truth behind the Purge and everything else that led to Cocoon's fall, so then the former Sanctum members will be held responsible. Then they will disappear until after the changes take effect. Rygdea then reveals he wishes to create a society free of the fal'Cie, where the people think for themselves and live how they want. By releasing Rosch's documents, Rygdea also hopes to clear the reputations of the former Pulse l'Cie. Then he reveals that he summoned Bartholomew to meet with him to ask him to join the new provisional government being formed. When Bartholomew agrees, he tells Rygdea he wants to build a public research institute that will publicize its findings without any interference from the government, and a higher education parallel to the institute.

Rygdea accepts Bartholomew's conditions as long as he does not get his hands dirty, and leaves it to the military. They shake hands and seal their agreement. As congresspeople gather in the hall for an assembly, Rygdea prepares to release the secret information. While Bartholomew watches from inside the storage room, Rygdea goes into the assembly hall and shows Rosch's footage and the other secret documents to the congresspeople, who remain in denial as expected. As everything is being broadcast to all of Cocoon, Rygdea summons the Palumpolum Security Regiment to arrest everyone for approving of the Purge and conspiring to massacre the people in Bodhum, completing his clean sweep of the former Sanctum and making way for the new government and the Academy. Some time later, Rygdea meets up with Snow, who is on a journey to find the missing Lightning. He asks Snow to do him the favor of locating the remnants of the disbanded PSICOM division on Pulse to see whether or not they were holding a grudge for being chased out of Cocoon and planning an armed reprisal, to which Snow agrees.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments After
When Snow returns to Palumpolum, Rygdea meets up with him and receives his news, before Snow departs on an airship, smuggling his fal'Cie companion Cactaur on board.

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Rygdea is mentioned in the game, describing in rough detail what happens in Fragments Before. Rygdea is never met in person by either Serah, Mog, or Noel Kreiss.

Creation and Development
Because Rygdea is a, his body model being that of a standard Sanctum soldier and only his head has a unique model and texture, Nao Ikeda, who designed the Final Fantasy XIII support cast, only designed a face. The Ultimania Omega reveals the development team wanted a character who couldn't cost much as far as the polygon model or animation went, so Ikeda also drew a version with short hair.

However, the person in charge of modelling chose the long haired version out of enthusiasm for keeping with that design. Rygdea was designed with a sky theme in mind, with sky blue eyes and his hair color was influenced by, a type of bird. Rygdea's profile described him as both lax and courageous, so to keep with that image Ikeda tried showing his chest and gave him a stubble.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Rygdea appears in Final Fantasy Trading Card Game.

Trivia

 * His first name is unknown for it is never spoken in game.
 * In "Final Fantasy XIII: The Lost Report", the story of Final Fantasy XIII is being told from the view of Yaag Rosch and Rygdea.