| “ | I prepared my champions to face Ganon, but things have taken an unexpected turn. I'll be taking my instruments back now. | „ |
| ~ Octavo before battle. |
Octavo is the main antagonist of the 2019 action-adventure and rhythm video game Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer and the main protagonist of the post-game story, "Octavo's Ode".
Once a musician who played for the King of Hyrule, Octavo, fearing Ganon's return, bewitched the latter and then cursed Hyrule, preparing his champions to fight Ganon.
Biography
Main Story
Octavo performed for the King of Hyrule as a magician and musician. Octavo tried to steal the Triforce and enchanted the King of Hyrule out of fear of Ganon's reappearance. But when the Triforce was touched, it split. In spite of this, Octavo managed to enchant his lute and change it into the Golden Lute, which gave him additional strength. Octavo used this power to conjure an army of monsters throughout the Kingdom of Hyrule, lock Hyrule Castle, and curse the people of the Kingdom of Hyrule to follow a rhythm. In order to prepare Four Champions who could fight Ganon, he also buried a number of instruments deep within the Kingdom of Hyrule's dungeons.
He also summoned creatures to the Kakariko Crypt, froze Lake Hylia, and enchanted Barriara to sleep in Gerudo Village, in addition to enchantment of the King of Hyrule. Octavo stole the Threads of Wisdom, Courage, and Power from the Fates in order to craft the Golden Lute.
Octavo can be found at the conclusion of four elemental dungeons, where he is trying to build his Four Champions by incorporating the elements into his Instruments. Octavo challenges Cadence, Link, Yves, or Zelda to fight his first Champion when he initially appears. He challenges the heroes to a duel with his second Champion after promising not to make the same error twice. He maintains that the heroes will never be able to repel Ganon during their third encounter with Octavo. To get the heroes to realize that he is trying to gather an army to battle Ganon, Octavo calls forth his last Champion at their fourth meeting.
Following the retrieval of the four Instruments and the infiltration of Hyrule Castle, Octavo welcomes the heroes and takes back his Instruments by force in order to gain dominance. Then, he challenges the heroes to fight him by asking whether they can prove to be his Champions instead.
A Portal will materialize and spirit away the Golden Lute after Octavo is defeated. Octavo will be upset that Ganon cannot be vanquished without it and blame the heroes for this. After that, he journeys to the Future World, twenty-five years later, when Ganon has conquered the Kingdom of Hyrule. Octavo challenges Ganon to a fight in the hopes of stopping him, but he loses. After Ganon is defeated, Octavo disappears.
Octavo's Ode
After stealing the thread of fate from the fortune tellers, Octavo sets off to prevent his death at the hands of Ganon. Using the Golden Lute, Octavo gathers the instruments from the four champions.
Once he has gathered enough power, he makes his way to the Future World to defeat Ganon. When he arrives though, he discovers that Ganon has already been defeated by none other than his future self who had become corrupted by the Golden Lute and become an even far greater threat known as the Necrodancer. After defeating his evil future counterpart, Octavo uses both Golden Lutes to rewind time to undo all of the damage he had done back to when he was meeting the fortune tellers. After this, he tells the fortune teller that he will leave fate to those wiser than him.
Trivia
- Octavo's name seems to be a reference to Octavian, the real name of the NecroDancer from Crypt of the NecroDancer. This makes more sense when an alternate version of Octavo from the future is revealed to be Hyrule's NecroDancer.
- Octavo is visually similar to Vaati, and may be an incarnation of him.
