Kelvin

Kelvin is a major character in Paper Mario: The Crystal Griffin, and is the second permanent party member you get in the events of Chapter 2. He initially joins Mario in order to take down the unseen forces attacking Basalt Beach and to continue carrying out his duty as protector of the village, but decides to permanently join Mario afterwards in order to better his skills and to "protect the world".

Personality
Kelvin is most known for his extreme athletic capabilities and go-getter attitude. He runs the lengths from Basalt Beach to Pastel Bay on a daily basis whilst still having enough energy to protect his local neighbours and friends from imminent dangers. Additionally, he will never back down from a fight (especially if the lives of people he cares for) are at risk and will continue battling until he has no more strength to do so.

He is very confident and will always go into a new challenge with no fear (unless under one circumstance mentioned below). Whilst he can sometimes speak his mind, he may come off as a loud mouth and may say some things that he shouldn't say (though this is often shown in comedic flavour text as opposed to the main story). Kelvin very easily things about emotions before logic, and may become too reckless in his judgement and actions should it occur; if someone is hurt he will stop at nothing to try and get revenge, even if he is barely aware of the situation at hand itself.

Throughout his journey with Mario and the other partners, he learns that it's better to assess a situation first before making any further decisions, which plays in his character as he slowly grows more observant of a situation rather than actively diving headfirst without a second thought.

Kelvin also has a very big fear of water as he is made of lava, and states that if any part of him is in water for too long it will solidify into rock.

Base Ability: Tattle (General)
A trait all partners have is the tattle ability: When Kelvin is talking about his homeland (Basalt Beach), he will have a much more detailed description of every character there as opposed to most other partners who will give generalised opinions on the place. However, this role reverses whenever he is in another area, where he will instead deliver his more generalised opinion on the place.

Base Ability: Ride
Like Yoshi in TTYD, Kelvin can be ridden on but runs at a much faster pace due to his athleticism. This can be used to traverse the many large open world landscapes that are scattered around Crescent Island. However, unlike Yoshi he cannot flutter jump due to his weight being significantly heavier (as he is composed of magma). He also cannot traverse through water sources as those will significantly damage him more, nor is he allowed to travel through frozen water blocks (as they will melt into water), but is free to travel through lava blocks (and they may even heal him).

Hidden Ability: Illuminate
An exclusive hidden ability of Kelvin, and also the easiest one to discover. When in darkened area and Kelvin is the active party member, he will light up the area and make it easier to navigate across compared to if you used any other partner. (Author's note: This could be used to good memory-related puzzles to solve).

Moveset
Below is a prototype of Kelvin's moveset:


 * Lava Snipe: Uses his lava pistol organ and quickly spits out a string of lava at the enemy, piercing DEF.
 * ATK: 2/2/3
 * Ram: Uses all of his ATK power and rams into a single enemy, ignoring 1 DEF, but takes recoil damage as a result. Deals a small amount of knockback damage to an adjacent enemy.
 * ATK: 2/3/4 (if 0 DEF) + 1/1/2 (Represents both recoil damage taken and knockback damage to one enemy)
 * (Super Rank) Speed Strike: Dashes around the enemies at an incredibly high velocity, guaranteeing all enemies to be dizzy.
 * (Ultra Rank) Mini Eruption: Causes a small lava eruption around the enemies and deals damage. May cause burn status for 3 turns.
 * ATK: 4
 * (Secret Skill) Heavy Ram: Unlocked after using him in battle 30 times. Rams into the enemy with force you've never seen, ignoring all DEF, but suffers a lot of recoil damage in return. Deals knockback damage to all enemies in the back.
 * ATK: 6. Deals 5, 4, and 3 damage for all enemies in the back. Takes 9 damage in recoil ( (6+5+4+3)/2 = 9 )

Keep in mind that, in battle, any water based attack, or any attack from any water enemy will deal double the damage to him.

Trivia

 * Before Kelvin, there were initially two other partner designs that were in his place: Lady Spike in 2013 (A Koopa with a single spike on her shell), and Cooper in 2016. Little is known about Lady Spike other than a crude drawing of her, but Cooper had an entire moveset and basic backstory written about him in a 2016 drawing: He seemed to be a mailman and Stella's brother, and is generally adventurous and outgoing.
 * Kelvin is named after "Kelvin", the base unit of temperature, but is also simultaneously a pun on "Kevin".