Rodney Rodney

About
Rodney Rodney was the 5th chair of the 8 Knights of the Pentagon, the single largest anti-magic revolutionary group in all of Zeth, during its final year of operation.

Of the 8 Knights, Rodney has the least amount of information known about his background prior to joining the Pentagon. However, his extensive knowledge of chemistry and general intelligence suggested that he came from a highly educated background, making it likely that he was born into a first class family and was reduced to second class citizenship only after failing the magic exam. At some point, he was persuaded by the words of Nelson Server to join the Pentagon. As Nelson had been steadily pushing the organization into a more radical and violent background around the time when Rodney joined, he succeeded in gaining a high standing in the group due to the effectiveness of the debilitating chemical compounds he had developed when used during raids.

During the events of Rance VI, Rodney, along with his colleague Kinggeorge Abare, led an assault on Zeth's largest hospital during the early stages of the operation "Liberation of the Motherland", which intended to cripple the power of the Zeth upper class to allow it to be more easily toppled. He encountered the rival revolutionary group Ice Flame's Green Corps during this time, who fought and defeated him, though he successfully managed to escape with his life.

Following the Pentagon's successful dismantling of the Maginot Line, which led to a large monster army led by the Dark Lord Kamilla ravaging most of Zeth, Nelson suffered from a mental breakdown that resulted in the group immediately dissolving without his leadership. Some time after Kamilla's defeat, Rodney, alongside the other surviving member of the 8 Knights Elizabeth Lacock, gathered the remaining Pentagon forces to create a group known as "Neo-Pentagon" and intended to follow through with Nelson's goal of making non-magic users the dominant group within Zeth. When Ice Flame's Green Corps infiltrated the organization's headquarters in order to destroy it, Rodney attempted to stop his old enemies by trapping them in his latest creation, a powerful gas known as the "Ha Ha Spark" that caused all who became caught in it to be overcome with uncontrollable laughter before dying due to a lack of oxygen. The trap failed to gain the attention of the Green Corps, however, instead resulting in Rodney becoming caught in it himself, leading to his death.

Personality and Appearance
Rodney was a thin young man with very pale skin and dark purple hair in a bowl cut style. He had fairly youthful and boyish features that were almost always shaped into a stoic frown. Along with the standard Pentagon uniform, he wore a small pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose and a gas mask around his neck, presumably to prevent himself from falling under the effects of his gasses.

A cold and ruthless man with seemingly no capacity for empathy or kindness, Rodney was by far the most sinister member of the Pentagon's forces. He placed no value on the company of others, and treated even his allies within the Pentagon with indifference and scorn at all times. His sole passion in life seemed to be developing chemical compounds that could weaken and torment the human body, to the point where he saw both friend and foe alike as mere fodder for his experimentation with them. Of the members of the 8 Knights, Daniel Safety held the lowest opinion of him, believing that he had no real interest in the rights of non-magic users and solely joined as a way of being able to test out his latest poisons on the people they attacked. Despite this, Rodney's attempt to restore the Pentagon following its destruction suggests that he trusted in the words of Nelson Server just as strongly as his colleagues did.

Abilities
Despite being one of the highest ranking members of the Pentagon, Rodney was not particularly notable as a fighter. He possessed a Level Cap of 29 which, while quite good, he was not close to reaching, and a frail, weak body that further compromised his potential in battle.

In spite of his physical weakness, Rodney's exceptional talent for chemistry, when combined with his twisted mind, allowed for him to nonetheless be highly effective in combat. He would carry a vast array of potent mixtures and gases that could produce a variety of negative effects, such as poisoning and paralysis, and throw them at his foes, severely debilitating their performance in battle. Rodney would often fight alongside the Pentagon's strongest warrior Kinggeorge Abare and use the effects of his creations to allow his colleague to attack their opponents more easily.

Trivia

 * Rodney's name, like all of the major members of the Pentagon, was derived from a class of battleship in the British Royal Navy.


 * Unlike the other members of the Pentagon, Rodney's eventual fate is not explicitly shown following the failure of his Ha Ha Spark, leading many to speculate that he had survived the collapse of the Neo-Pentagon. This was finally disproven several years after the release of Rance VI, when the Zeth section of the Rance World Notes was expanded to include the Pentagon members, confirming his death at the hands of the gas in the process.
 * His "Ha Ha Spark" is similar to the real life chemical compound nitrous oxide, which is known for causing the person under its effects to fall into bouts of heavy laughter, and can be deadly due to oxygen deprivation if given in large amounts.
 * It is also similar to Joker Gas from DC comics as both were escentially weaponized versions of laughing gas created by madmen to make people literaly laugh themselves to death. While Joker gas is treatable it is unkown if Ha Ha Spark is.