"A world of knowledge awaits."
— Cyrus, when selected from the main screen.
Cyrus Albright is one of eight playable characters in Octopath Traveler. He is a professor at the Royal Academy located in Atlasdam, the academic capital of the Flatlands. Cyrus brims with passion for knowledge and teaching, and enjoys a substantial reputation as an academic.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Cyrus has long black hair tied into a ponytail. His hair is combed back, with two locks of his hair framing both sides of his face. He wears a white button-up shirt with puffed sleeves tied at the wrist, along with a cravat. He also wears a black hooded coat with a caplet, accented with gold filigree and held together by a black gemstone. He also wears a brown vest with filigree embroidery over his white shirt, black breeches with black socks, and black leather shoes with golden buckles. In his sprites, the inside of his coat is a dark purple. Primrose states that Cyrus has "a face that girls are likely to fancy."
Personality[]
As a scholar, Cyrus prizes knowledge above all else. He believes that knowledge must be shared with other people, contrasting the principles of Headmaster Yvon, who believes that knowledge is an extension of one's personal power and should be hoarded for individual gain. Although Cyrus blatantly opposes the headmaster's beliefs, he keeps quiet because criticizing Yvon could cost him his job as a scholar; only when he confronts Lucia does Cyrus deliver a grand lecture on his views. He is always eloquent and respectful towards others, eager to share his knowledge whenever possible.
Thanks in large part to his overflowing knowledge, Cyrus possesses excellent deduction skills. He is also rather pragmatic, taking advantage of the sabbatical to search for the missing tome, From the Far Reaches of Hell. Despite his intelligence, however, he tends to be oblivious to the feelings of women who fall for him. He even mistakes the actions of envy committed by his enamored student, Therese, as feelings of isolation and lack of attentiveness from her tutor. Cyrus even goes so far as to say it is his fault for not providing enough time for Therese in terms of her studying, proving that he cares for the well being - but not for the romantic interests - of his students. Ironically, Cyrus is anything but oblivious to the feelings of women for other men, which unnerves Primrose when she meets Simeon for the first time in ten years; Cyrus is quick to notice and comment on way she looks at him.
Cyrus often provides academic knowledge when talking with his fellow travelers, though his lectures produce mixed results. While Ophilia and Alfyn rejoice in his vast wisdom, others, such as Therion and Tressa, find his lectures long-winded. Nevertheless, Cyrus always shows concern for his companions' problems, and gives advice whenever possible to ease their minds. His analytical mind and thirst for knowledge seeks out the other travelers' own wisdom as well.
History[]
"Your name is Cyrus, and you are a scholar. You teach at the Royal Academy in Atlasdam, and though you have numerous admirers, your only true passion is the pursuit of knowledge. "There is so much more I would learn!" One day, you realize that an invaluable tome has vanished from the Royal Library, piquing your insatiable curiosity..."
— Cyrus' description when selecting him.
Chapter 1[]
Cyrus is a professor to Therese and Princess Mary at the Royal Academy in Atlasdam. However, Headmaster Yvon disapproves of his willingness to share the knowledge contained in the tomes of the Royal Archive, claiming that only selected scholars should have access to such information. While attempting to check out a book in the Archive, Cyrus discovers that the tome is missing. After an investigation, he discovers that a colleague of his, Russell, has been stealing and selling valuable tomes in order to pay off his gambling debts. Cyrus brings Russell to justice, but learns that one book is still missing, having vanished long before Russell's thievery began. In the wake of a troubling rumor, Cyrus leaves the Academy in pursuit of the tome that vanished from the archives some 15 years ago: From the Far Reaches of Hell.
Chapter 2[]
Cyrus arrives in Quarrycrest to seek the help of an old friend, Odette, who asks him to investigate incidents of missing persons. After investigating, he discovers that a kidnapper has been abducting victims near the inn. He enters the sewers in pursuit of the culprit, only to stumble upon a room containing human prisoners who were being sacrificed to create blood-crystals. Gideon, the kidnapper responsible for the forbidden rituals, attempts to kill Cyrus as well, but Cyrus defeats him.
Cyrus rescues the surviving prisoners and obtains a translated copy of From the Far Reaches of Hell from Gideon's laboratory. Upon some inspection, he and Odette, they trace the production of the book back to Stonegard.
Chapter 3[]
In Stonegard, Cyrus learns that the tome had been translated by Dominic, who refuses to let Cyrus enter his home. By Scrutinizing the townsfolk, Cyrus discovers that Dominic translated the tome so he could purchase medicine for his daughter, who passed away. The translation was commissioned by none other than Headmaster Yvon.
Shortly after he makes his discovery, Cyrus notices that he is being followed by Lucia. She claims that she also had suspicions of Yvon, offering to take Cyrus to Yvon's birthplace to investigate further. As Cyrus enters the building, she knocks him unconscious and throws him into a dungeon. Yvon appears and grants Cyrus the opportunity to join him in his dark research, but when Cyrus refuses, Yvon leaves him in the cellar to starve.
Therese, who had followed Cyrus to Stonegard, arrives to rescue him, but is subsequently taken hostage by Yvon. Cyrus pursues and confronts Yvon, who transforms into a demon using a blood-crystal, but is defeated nonetheless. While Cyrus recovers from his ordeal, Therese tells him that Yvon had intended to visit Duskbarrow.
Chapter 4[]
Cyrus journeys to to Duskbarrow, where he spots Lucia entering the Ruins of Eld. Following her into the ruins, he discovers an ancient mural depicting the Gate of Finis, along with a collection of tomes thought to be lost from the world. When he confronts Lucia, she asks him to join her, but he refuses. She transforms into a demon using what she calls a "perfect blood-crystal" and attempts to kill Cyrus, but he destroys her instead.
Upon further inspection of the ruins and tomes, Cyrus concludes that the mural had been left as a warning of the destructive force that lay in wait should humanity be tempted by the secrets of life and death. He resolves to further study this information, spreading its knowledge for the better of mankind.
Relationships[]
Therese[]
A student of Cyrus, Therese harbored strong romantic feelings for her professor, and attempted to strain his relationship with Princess Mary of Atlasdam by spreading a false rumor about his illicit relationship with the princess. Despite Therese's best attempts to gain his attention, Cyrus remains oblivious, assuming that her actions are due to his negligence as her mentor for always paying more attention to Princess Mary's questions.
Princess Mary[]
The princess of Atlasdam and one of Cyrus's students, Mary is incredibly studious and has high expectations for herself, always eager to ask the professor questions. Due to the scholar's tendencies to overshare when it comes to his knowledge, their conversations tend to stretch on.
Odette[]
A close colleague of Cyrus, Odette left the academy 10 years ago and moved to Quarrycrest. Odette often teased Cyrus for unwittingly catching the hearts of woman, scolding him to be more aware of their feelings. Despite her teasing remarks, Odette cares deeply for Cyrus, wishing him the best. She aids him in his search for the missing tome.
Battle[]
Cyrus is a Scholar, and thus has several spells that can target the magical weaknesses of enemies on a large scale. He can initially only equip staves and has very poor physical damage output, but more than makes up for it with his three elemental damage types and outstanding elemental attack. Although he is physically vulnerable with low health, physical defense, and evasion, he has high elemental defense and can weather magical attacks.
Cyrus' Talent is Study Foe, which reveals one weakness for each enemy at the start of battle. His native job's Analyze is a learned ability, and so this talent is useful for discovering weaknesses from missable early game foes, especially if Cyrus is chosen as the protagonist.
- Cyrus can use the Cleric subjob at its full potential as it augments his elemental stats along with increasing his SP. This allows him to dish out more spells in battle while also providing support to his allies. In addition, this subjob provides Cyrus with Light-based spells, granting him more versatility in combat. The main flaw in this combination is that it may make Cyrus' focus too broad, preventing him from making optimal use of either his healing abilities or his offensive magic. It also does not grant access to any additional weapon types.
- Merchant is another powerful subjob due to its native Wind-based spells, which completes the four most common magical weaknesses when combined with Scholar. Along with providing two additional weapon types, Merchant constitutes the most significant increase to Cyrus's ability to break enemy defenses, giving him coverage of seven different weaknesses (Polearms, Bows, Staves, Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Wind). Merchant also allows Cyrus to recover his own SP via the Rest ability, relieving his dependency on items. The SP Saver support skill also comes in handy, as this means he can cast more skills once SP cost has been lowered.
- This matches well with the Dancer support skill, Second Wind, as it lets him regenerate his SP every turn.
- Apothecary is also a viable choice for Cyrus. His high Elemental Defense makes him a strong user of First Aid, and then adding a status-blocking skill, a massive HP bonus, and a revival skill. Unfortunately, Cyrus' low physical attack is a detriment to Amputation and Last Stand, Icicle is outclassed by Icewind and Blizzard, and the job itself has low magical stats, only 1.5% increases. However, its main advantage is access to the Battle-tested Axe, which empowers his ice and lightning spells. Along with the Absolute Zero Staff, he can massively increase his ice attacks. This combination is great even in the late game, which means Starseer and Sorcerer could be given to other travelers instead.
Once the player has access to the secret jobs late into the game, changing him to the Sorcerer class provides him with a massive boost in his elemental attack and defense. The Sorcerer class grants him access to all elements, as well as bows. His physical damage output will still be poor, but grants him access to the Primeval Bow of Storms, which augments his wind attacks. The main drawback of this combination is that it makes Cyrus's Scholar skills (with the exceptions of Analyze and Alephan's Enlightenment) redundant.
Cyrus also makes a fantastic Starseer, which allows greater elemental diversity among the party. As a Starseer, Cyrus can deal huge damage with Shooting Stars, which also grants him access to the elements not found in the Scholar class. Classing him to Starseer also allows another magically inclined character, such as Primrose or Ophilia, to have full elemental access as a Sorcerer. As the Starseer cannot equip staves natively, Cyrus is one of only two characters, the other being Ophilia who can power up all three hits of Shooting Stars.
Additionally, Cyrus' high elemental attack allows him to be an effective Runelord, capable of performing potent rune follow-ups and devastating Balogar's Blade attacks, augmented by up to 4 elemental upgrades with the Absolute Zero/Bishop's Staff, Harald's Sword, and the Battle-Tested Axe. Also, no matter what magical job he uses in the end, the Elemental Edge support skill learned from the Runelord job will be very useful.
Recommended support skills for Cyrus include: Inner Strength (early-game), Saving Grace, Elemental Augmentation (early-game), SP Saver, Surpassing Power (late-game), Second Wind, BP Eater, Stronger Strikes, Augmented Elements, and Elemental Edge.
Due to the flexibility of subjobs, any character can fill any role with the right equipment and skills with proper planning, any of the travelers can perform decently on any subjob.
Scholar Skills[]
| Skill | SP | Damage Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fireball | 8 | 
|
Deal fire damage to all foes. |
| Icewind | 8 | 
|
Deal ice damage to all foes. |
| Lightning Bolt | 8 | 
|
Deal lightning damage to all foes. |
| Analyze | 1 | Reveal the HP and one weakness of a single foe. | |
| Fire Storm | 22 |
|
Deal fire damage to all foes twice. |
| Blizzard | 22 |
|
Deal ice damage to all foes twice. |
| Lightning Blast | 22 |
|
Deal lightning damage to all foes twice. |
| Alephan's Enlightenment | 30 | [Divine Skill] For 3 turns, spells cast by a single chosen ally that usually target all foes will instead be focused on a single foe at increased intensity. |
Support Skills[]
| No. of Skills Unlocked | Total JP | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 130 | Evasive Maneuvers | Reduces the rate of random encounters. (Equipping this skill with multiple characters will have no added effect.) |
| 5 | 630 | Elemental Augmentation | Augments the equipping character's elemental attack strength by 50. |
| 6 | 1,630 | Percipience | Prevents the party from being surprised by foes. (Equipping this skill with multiple characters will have no added effect.) |
| 7 | 4,630 | Vim and Vigor | The equipping character will regenerate HP each turn. |
Subjobs:[]
Below are the sprites and appearance changes for Cyrus with each Subjobs:
Each time a subjob is selected, the appearance of the character will also change. The first sprite is the appearance with no Subjob equipped.
Quotes[]
- "And so I have taken it upon myself to investigate this suspicious scholar. Interested in coming along, are you? It seems you have quite the curious streak yourself. But of course mysteries exist only to be solved. After all, it is of utmost importance to remember that. Ah, but here I go again! Don't let me talk your ear off— But I will be glad for your help. Let's get right to business. No doubt we'll find Russell in his laboratory down below." —Joined the Party
- "Should you again have need of a discerning mind, I would be happy to offer my talents." —Tavern Dialogue
- "Now the true lesson begins!" —Max Boost
- "My focus is unparalleled!" —Max Boost
- "My friends... I am sorry." —Defeated
- "But I still have... so much to learn." —Defeated
- "Alephan, lord of learning!" —Using Alephan's Enlightenment
- "Thus ends your lesson." —After battle
- "Not bad, a passing grade." —After battle
- "You should've studied harder." —After battle
- "For whatever reason, it would seem the people here care not to converse with me further." —Attempting to Scrutinize with damaged reputation
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
Cyrus is a Persian name that means "sun" or "throne." His surname, Albright, likely derives from "all bright."
Trivia[]
- During the Chapter 2: Primrose & Cyrus travel banter, Cyrus compliments Primrose on her inspiring dancing, then admits that he is a poor dancer despite loving dance.
- Cyrus has skipped out on faculty balls in Atlasdam for fear of tripping over a girl and embarrassing them both.
- During the "Shall We Dance?" travel banter, Cyrus seizes upon Primrose's offer to teach him dancing lessons. At the end of his performance, however, Primrose reflects that Cyrus's dancing is like "watching despair in motion."
- During the Chapter 3: Primrose & Cyrus travel banter, Cyrus reveals that he's not as clueless to love, as long as he is not involved in it. Much to her surprise, he was able to catch on Primrose's feelings for Simeon, earning her rebuke to mind his own busy.
- In travel banter with Tressa, Cyrus demonstrates his unparalleled focus through this anecdote: "There was a time when I was so engrossed in a book, I failed to notice that my neighbor's house was on fire."
- During the A Drinking Contest travel banter with all four of the male travelers, Cyrus mentions that he prefers to take his drinks at his own pace, savoring them.
- In the Heart of a Maiden travel banter, Primrose teases Cyrus for his naïvety towards women's feelings. She refers to his obliviousness to Therese's feelings for him, and points out that his eloquent manners can often give women the wrong idea and false hope.
- The final chapter in Cyrus's story is unique to all of his other chapters, as well as to the other characters', as it is the only chapter whose boss fight takes place prior to completing the chapter's objectives.
- Cyrus is one of the few people known to have drunk enough to have pushed Olberic to his tipping point. (The others are Alfyn and Erhardt.)
- Cyrus has been shown to play the piano in multiple official artworks, such as the cover art for Octopath Traveler's OST and the promotional artworks for Octopath Traveler Break and Boost Beyond and Octopath Traveler Break and Boost -Extend-. In the former, Cyrus can be seen teaching Ophilia how to play piano as well.
- In his travel banter with Ophilia during her Chapter 2, Cyrus reveals his overflowing excitement to witness the historic ritual of the Kindling.
- During Therion's Chapter 3, Cyrus declares that he disapproves of black markets, as they conceal historical objects that ought to be open to the public.
- In his banter during Cyrus's Chapter 3, Olberic addresses Cyrus as "Scholar," a curiously reductive title that none of the other protagonists use.
- Cyrus's Chapter 3 (along with Ophilia's Chapter 4) is one of the two story chapters that involves temporary imprisonment.
- In the Fears and Aversions banter, Cyrus says he has a sneaking suspicion that singing is his weakness. He says, "Whenever I give voice to a song, people look at me with the queerest expressions... Also, they say things like, 'Good things you're a scholar, sir, and not a bard.'" In spite of such comments, Cyrus declares that he still enjoys a good ballad.
- Concept artist Naoki Ikushima describes Cyrus as "cool and collected as a rule, a mentor type with a look in his eye as if gazing off at some dazzling scenery - even if you're standing right next to him." According to Ikushima, Cyrus is the type of man that looks good sitting in a chair and doesn't notice his surroundings.[1]
- Cyrus's clothes were designed to be black robes bestowed upon scholars as recognition of their expertise.[2]
- When Naoki Ikushima drew Cyrus at his desk, Tomoya Asano served as a pose model.[3] Later, Masashi Takahashi served as the model for Cyrus in the scholar's Fin art, which Takahashi called "the greatest honor in his tenure on this title." [4]
- At one point, Cyrus's hair was golden, in order to highlight his sparkling impression to stand out against his black hood. A black feathered hat was also conceived as an accessory for his design.[5]
- During development, Cyrus's hairstyle was changed to a shorter cut with bangs over his face. This made him look too young, however, so the developers returned to their previous design.[6]
- Because Cyrus is quite expressive, though not boisterous, his sprite poses were easy to create. Sprite artist Shizuka Morimoto remarks, "I imagine a guy like him - expressive, taking everything head on - would be blessed in his environment, surrounded by wonderful people (perhaps of the female persuasion?)." [7]
References[]
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, pages 44, 47, and 48.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 45.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 46.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 77.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 49.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 51.
- ↑ The Art of Octopath Traveler 2016-2020, page 51.