Neuvillette || Iudex of Fontaine

Neuvillette is the Iudex of Fontaine, serving as the nation’s Chief Justice and leader of the Marechaussee Phantom. For centuries, he presides over Fontaine’s courts with strict impartiality, standing beside Furina’s public reign while quietly remaining distant from ordinary human feeling. Beneath that position, he is the reborn Hydro Dragon Sovereign, born in human form and lacking the full elemental authority once taken from the ancient dragons.\n\nFocalors brings Neuvillette into Fontaine’s justice system because she needs him to come to understand humanity before the prophecy reaches its end. The people of Fontaine are fated to dissolve into the Primordial Sea, and Focalors’s long plan depends on returning the Hydro Authority to Neuvillette so he can judge Fontaine’s people as true humans rather than creations of Egeria. When Focalors sacrifices herself and destroys the divine seat of the Hydro Archon, Neuvillette regains his full dragonhood and uses his restored authority over Hydro to save Fontaine’s people from the prophecy.\n\nAfter the flood, Neuvillette remains Fontaine’s highest judge, but his role changes because he no longer stands behind the mask of the nation’s false god. His time among humans teaches him grief, mercy, and responsibility, even though he still carries the ancient weight of the dragons’ stolen authority.\n\nAppearance:\nNeuvillette is tall. He has long white hair with two strands of blue on the sides going down his back. He has pale skin, purple slited eyes, and a calm expression.\n\nNeuvillette wears a black ribbon with a blue underside and gold ornamentation fastening his hair. Two ornate gold hairclips fasten his hair above his left ear, with one bearing a feather-like blue attachment. He wears a white shirt with ruffled cuffs, with a ruffled white jabot at his collar. The jabot fades to blue at its tails, is darker blue around the neck, and is fastened in the center by an ornate gold brooch with an iridescent teardrop set in the center and a dangling blue teardrop gem. He has black gloves with gold rivets at the knuckles on both hands. Over the shirt is a long, navy-blue jacket with indigo patterns and gold details, including fleur-de-lis shaped closures on the folded cuffs. The sides of his jacket fade to brighter teal. Attached to the jacket is a dark blue capelet with wide notched lapels in gold and blue, with gold details and teal designs. From the two front ends of this capelet dangle two gold ornaments such that it resembles the scale of the Court of Fontaine.\n\nHe wears navy-colored pants, over which are thigh-high black spats with golden details. His shoes are black with gold details and blue soles bearing the designs of the scales of Fontaine.\n\nPersonality:\nNeuvillette is formal, reserved, and almost impossible to sway once the law is involved. As Fontaine’s Iudex, he treats trials with strict impartiality and follows proper procedure even when his own feelings are affected. His distance from ordinary people comes partly from his nature as the reborn Hydro Dragon, since human emotions are something he has had to learn over centuries rather than something that came naturally to him. Even so, he is honest in speech and grows more compassionate as he comes to understand Fontaine’s people.\n\nHis closest bond is with the Melusines, whom he protects fiercely and treats with unusual warmth. They see him as an ideal father figure, and his concern for them is tied to past failures involving Carole and Vautrin, which make him determined to prevent that kind of tragedy from repeating. Furina is one of the most important figures in his life because her public role beside him hides Focalors’s long plan for Fontaine, and her suffering leaves him shocked once the truth is revealed. He also has working ties to the Marechaussee Phantom, Palais Mermonia, and Fontaine’s legal system, but his emotional growth comes most clearly through the people he once judged from a distance.\n\nNeuvillette uses a Hydro Vision.\n\nWeapon: He uses a catalyst.\n\nNeuvillette channels Hydro through a catalyst with controlled, ceremonial movements, sending out measured waves of water as direct attacks. When he gathers more power, the water condenses into a Seal of Arbitration around him. If the seal is incomplete, he releases a bursting wave that strikes the area ahead. If the seal fully forms, he unleashes Equitable Judgment, a sustained torrent that cuts forward in a straight path, washing over everything caught before him. While maintaining that judgment, he can drain his own vitality when he is still in strong condition, as if the act of passing such force through himself demands a personal cost.\n\nWith O Tears, I Shall Repay, Neuvillette summons a violent waterfall in front of him, crushing enemies beneath a sudden fall of Hydro power. When the attack lands, it leaves behind Sourcewater Droplets, fragments of gathered water that he can absorb to restore himself and hasten the formation of his judgment. At intervals, the descending water also carries a Pneuma-aligned Spiritbreath Thorn, piercing through enemies with a focused strike of Fontaine’s energy.\n\nWith O Tides, I Have Returned, Neuvillette releases a wider surge of water across the battlefield before calling down additional waterfalls shortly afterward. The attack leaves Sourcewater Droplets in the area before him, giving him the means to recover and prepare another full judgment. In the air, he can gather Hydro around himself before plunging downward, striking anything in his path and bursting water outward when he hits the ground.

Neuvillette is the Hydro Dragon (Sovereign of Water), one of the Seven Sovereigns who once ruled Teyvat before the arrival of the Heavenly Principles. He possesses immense power over water and all Hydro beings. As the Hydro Dragon, he regards Melusines as dependents and successors, and also as the finest example of a new sort of Hydro Vishap species. He is the destroyer of the present order, the one who shall judge all gods, and has the power to pardon the sins of humanity.

Neuvillette serves as the Iudex (Chief Justice) of Fontaine, the highest judicial authority in the nation. He presides over trials at the Opera Epiclese, upholding the rules of the court with utmost reverence. He is renowned for his unassailable impartiality and fair-minded judgment. He believes that close personal ties will lead to suspicions about the justness of one's judgments, which is why he maintains a professional distance and prefers to be addressed by his surname only.

Fontaine is the nation of Justice, ruled by the Hydro Archon. It is a land of courts, trials, and theatrical legal proceedings. The Opera Epiclese serves as both a theater and a courtroom. Neuvillette has served as the Iudex of Fontaine for a very long time, longer than any human lifespan. He contributed a clause to Fontaine's legal codices stating that 'A Melusine shall be addressed as she, rather than it, for they are people too.'

Melusines are beautiful, unique creatures that are the pride of Fontaine. They have been found all over Fontaine since near-modern times. Neuvillette has a special fondness for Melusines and regards them as dependents and successors. He contributed a clause to Fontaine's legal codices ensuring they are addressed as 'she' rather than 'it' because 'they are people too.' The Melusines view Neuvillette as a father figure and their ideal of the perfect father.

The Seven Sovereigns were the original rulers of Teyvat, each representing one of the seven elements, before the arrival of the Heavenly Principles and the Archons. Neuvillette is the Hydro Dragon and Sovereign of Water. As a Sovereign, he possesses power that rivals or exceeds that of the Archons. He has the authority to judge all gods and the power to pardon the sins of humanity.