Raven

A frivolous and shady-looking old man that wears a long purple coat, with messy brown hair tied up in a ponytail. He uses a bow that can transform into a short sword for battle, as well as being able to use magic. He is wind-elemental, with all of his elemental artes (except Serpent) being wind element or wind element paired with another element. Raven can also heal using the arte Love Shot, which if used enough will heal 3 members of the party at once. This makes him an extremely balanced character.

Raven's signature move is Rain, in which he shoots a single arrow (Two if you hold down the arte button after he's used it over 100 times) at the enemy. That arrow will explode if it causes a guard break.

He first appears in a jail cell next to Yuri early in the game (although he does not join the party until much later). Raven often complains about his age and doing hard work. He also seems to hate the cold, but is perfectly fine in the heat, as we found out while traveling through the sands of Kohgor and the Zopheir rifts. He sometimes mentions being in the Great War.

Raven is a high-ranking member of Altosk, one of the five master guilds.

When the party reaches Myorzo, Estelle and Raven will vanish from the party. Upon trying to look for them, the party find that Estelle was captured by Alexei, and the party goes into Baction, a temple made to worship an Entelexia, to try and get her back. Alexei escapes because a knight blocks their way, and reveals himself as Schwann Oltorain, a Captain of the Imperial Knights. The party recognizes his voice as Raven.

Raven fights the party, and the party emerges victorious. During the fight, the front of Schwann's clothing rips apart, revealing a pink Blastia on his chest. He tells the group that during the Great War ten years ago, he had died, stabbed through the heart. But Alexei managed to replace his heart with a blastia that drew on Schwann's own life force instead of aer.

The group also finds out that Schwann didn't stay behind to kill them, just to stall them, as the entire Baction temple began to collapse. The party manages to convince Schwann to help them, who proceeded to blast a hole in the wall and hold the ceiling up as the party escapes.

Raven shows up on the Heracles after this, and joins your party, after everything gives him a good beating for his betrayal. We do not find out how he survived the fall of Baction.

At the end of Tales of Vesperia, when all Blastia Cores and Apatheia are converted into Spirits, Raven does not die despite his heart being replaced by a blastia because despite having a Blastia as his heart, it is powered by his own life force, not a core.

In a side quest later on in the game, you learn that during the great war, Raven loved a knight named Casey. She did not return his love though, and instead loved a knight that in the present is Yeager, who also seems to have a Blastia heart from Alexei. Casey died during the Great War.

As Schwann is Raven's actual identity, his accent is not as profound when he believes others can't hear him. Although Raven can be a goofy old man, his Schwann side shows a serious, compassionate, and understanding person. Because of this, he acts almost as a father figure to most of the party, since all of the others seemed to have grown up without their parents.

One interesting quote came up during the fight against Schwann, in which Karol says, "Dammit...I really liked you Raven...I couldn't tell you before, but, if my dad were--"

Raven's Mystic Arte is Blast Heart, in which he uses his blastia heart to unleash a large amount of power. He staggers for a few seconds after this Mystic Arte, clutching his heart. This stagger is important for Secret Mission 13.