Gau

Gau is a playable character in Final Fantasy VI. He is a "Feral Child" due to his growing up on The Veldt. His speech is drowned out by growls, and is thus very primitive. He treasures his "shiny thing," which turns out to be a diving apparatus. He is also afraid of heights.

Story
Gau was born in a house north of The Veldt to a crazy old man. During Gau's birth, his mother died and as a result, his father went mad. He believed that Gau was a demon and threw him out on The Veldt. Later, he believed that it was all a dream and no longer remembers Gau or his wife.

One day, Sabin Rene Figaro and Cyan Garamonde washed ashore onto The Veldt. Gau saved them and ran away. The next time he encountered them, he demanded food. When Sabin and Cyan threw him Dried Meat, Gau started following them around. He began to make fun of Cyan's archaic speech, and mistakenly attributed it to Sabin, calling him "Mr. Thou." However, he agreed to show them his treasure, which was used to travel through the Serpent Trench to Nikeah, where they took a ferry to South Figaro and eventually made their way to Narshe.

The party arrived just in time, as Kefka was planning a raid on Narshe to get the frozen Esper. The three helped Banon, Terra Branford, Locke Cole, Edgar Roni Figaro, and Celes Chere defend Narshe and succeeded, but after the battle, Terra reacted with the Esper for the second time. She was turned into an Esper and flew away. A search party was sent to look for her.

The party found Terra on top of the tallest tower in Zozo, where she was being cared for by Ramuh. Ramuh told them that they needed to go to Vector and free the imprisoned Espers. One of them was Terra's father Maduin. To get there, they had to meet up with Setzer Gabbiani, the infamous gambler. Setzer was not willing to help them, but Celes proposed a coin toss, which if she won, Setzer would offer help. Otherwise, Setzer and Celes would marry. A two-faced coin was used to guarantee that Celes would win. Setzer agreed to help anyway. The group went to Vector, succeeded in recovering the Espers, and saved Terra.

Back in Narshe, the Elder decided to join with the Returners. An agreement was made that Terra would contact the Espers to attack Vector, after which a coalition of Returners and Narshe guards would storm from the north. The plan was a success, and Emperor Gestahl appeared to have surrendered. At a banquet, he asked Terra if she would try convince the Espers to negotiate peace. She and Locke would go to Crescent Island to parlay the Emperor's message. Gau and the others were still very skeptical of the Emperor, and decided to stay in Vector to make sure the Emperor wasn't lying. However, Edgar seduced one of the Emperor's maids into revealing the Emperor's true plan: he wanted to lure out the Espers in hopes of capturing them. They flew to Thamasa to warn Terra and Locke, but they were too late. Kefka had acquired more magicite and used it to revive the Statues and turn the Land of Espers into the Floating Continent.

One year after the apocalypse, Gau returned to The Veldt. He would rejoin the party, but only if a group of three approached him. Sabin took him to see his father, but in order to do so, Gau had to get a makeover. Setzer took him to Jidoor and dressed him up. When Gau met his father, his father didn't recognize him, but complimented his "parents" for raising such a nice young man. Sabin became infuriated and threatened to beat up Gau's father, but Gau was just happy to find out that his father was still alive.

In the ending, Gau found several shortcuts out of Kefka's Tower.

Equipment and Stats
Gau's stats are all around very high, but this can be attributed to the randomness of the Rages he chooses. He can equip lightweight vests and hats, universal shields, and even a few helmets. However, he cannot equip any weapons without using the Merit Award except for the universal Imp Halberd. The weapon he uses is dependent upon his Rage.

Abilities
Gau's special ability is called Rage, and it replaces his Fight command. Rage allows him to select the abilities of a certain monster. Once Gau rages, he takes on the elemental and status properties of a monster, and uses either a physical attack or a special attack that is dependent on the actual monster, which is more often than not related to itself (though there are cases where the attack has very little correlation with the monster itself). The attacks are chosen at random, and the player loses control of Gau. Gau can only learn new Rages on The Veldt.

Gau does not have a Desperation Attack because he does not have a Fight command.

"Wind God Gau"
One popular setup involving Gau is the use of the Merit Award to give him a Tempest, which randomly casts Wind Slash, and using a powerful Rage. The Wind Slash will make the effects of the Rage affect all enemies. This is often coupled with the four-attack power of the Offering to devastating effect, particularly with the Stray Cat rage. This trick only works in the SNES release, as the code was modified in all future releases to prohibit Gau from equipping the Merit Award.

Music
Gau's theme is named after himself, and it is mixed into the ending.