Hassam Crown

"Hassam Crown"

- dismissing the humanity of the lower class.

About
Hassam Crown was a first-class citizen of the magic nation of Zeth and a member of the prestigious Crown noble family. He was the son of the country's Secretary of Finance Zulki Crown and the former fiance of Emi Alphone. He derived a great deal of pleasure from watching the suffering of the lower class, and frequently bet on the slave pit fights in Radon Alphone's arena. At some point, Hassam grew bored of simply watching second-class citizens getting killed, and decided to begin hunting them himself for fun. Taking on the name "Saberknight", he would disguise himself in armor and prowl the lower class districts of Zeth, butchering any second-class citizens that amused him. As the security forces of Zeth favored first-class citizens over second-class ones, his crimes were almost never reported and the few times they were were simply written off as hunting accidents and excused. Over time, he would begin taking Emi with him on these hunts as dates, and would allow her to pick which citizens he would kill. During the events of Rance VI, he was challenged and defeated by the Green Corps division of the resistance group Ice Flame led by Rance, though he managed to escape with his life thanks to an interference from the Zeth security forces. His escape was only temporary, however, as he was soon caught by Punisher Mito and imprisoned for his crimes, though he was quickly bailed out by his father. His imprisonment humiliated Emi, who called off their marriage. Hassam made several attempts at revenge by killing the Green Corps in order to win back Emi's love, but failed every single time. Eventually, he was killed by the Pentagon member Kinggeorge Abare during the organization's raid on his father's estate. He was later resurrected as a zombie alongside his father by Papaya Server in order to battle Ice Flame, where he was once again defeated.

Personality and Appearance
Hassam was a tall man with a rather shifty appearance, sporting sunken in eyes, a crooked nose, and a demented smirk. Like all members of the Crown family, he had red hair, which he kept tied back in a ponytail. When acting as Saberknight, he wore terrifying-looking armor with a screaming face engraved onto it.

A cruel and sadistic young man, Hassam lacked any sort of empathy for second-class citizens, and considered them to be little more than walking piles of garbage. As a result of this, he had no problem with brutally murdering dozens of them at a time for his own amusement without even a second thought. He was not completely heartless, however, and genuinely seemed to be devoted to his fiance Emi, who would take advantage of this devotion in order to get him to do things for her.

He seemed to be on good terms with his father Zulki, who was an equally cruel and contemptible person. Zulki would immediately bail Hassam out of prison whenever he was successfully caught committing a crime, allowing him to avoid any major punishments for his behavior. During the Pentagon's raid on Zulki's estate, Hassam made an attempt to defend his father, which resulted in his death, further showing the close relationship the two shared.

As a member of the Crown family, he was actually the cousin of Zeth's Flame General Saias Crown. While the two never meet in game, Saias' vocal distaste of the nobility and his attempts at distancing himself from his family name suggests that they were not close.

Abilities
Compared to the otherwise inactive and unimpressive nobility of Zeth, Hassam was a formidable warrior who was skilled with a sword. He possessed an above average Level Cap of 31 and was very close to reaching it at the time of his death. Additionally, the armor he wore when acting as Saberknight was magically enchanted, giving him a great amount of physical and magical resistance that allowed him to shrug off most attacks. While the majority of the people he slaughtered were defenseless innocents, he was perfectly capable of holding his own in actual combat, and was responsible for slaughtering every single member of Ice Flame's Black Corps, with the exception of Prima Hononoman, on his own. When facing the Green Corps, he was capable of putting up a difficult fight completely unaided, despite the group containing strong warriors such as Rance and Kaoru Quincy Kagura, which further proves his skill.

As a first-class citizen of Zeth, Hassam also had to have passed the magic exam, meaning he had some skill with the Magic Arts. Despite this, as he lacked any magic-related skills, he was much more notable as a warrior than as a mage.

Trivia

 * Interestingly, he has a Sword Combat skill despite wielding a rapier, while all other rapier wielders in the series have a Short Sword Combat one.
 * He bears a strong resemblance to Seiichirō Kitano, the main protagonist of the manga Angel Densetsu. Whether this is merely a coincidence or not is unknown.