Federico de Vandimion III

Federico cuts a stern figure, his narrowed eyes set above a carefully trimmed beard and mustache, his face framed by waves of hair. Tall and lean, he is a man of great wealth who is invariably turned out in fine clothing.

A distant and seemingly unfeeling man, Federico pours himself into safeguarding his enormous fortune, leaving no room to raise his daughter. His household returns the coldness in kind, save for Farnese, who still asked Guts to shield her kin when Kushan beasts stormed the nobles' ball. He is famously difficult to satisfy, as his son Magnifico learns, yet he is not wholly without honor, thanking Guts and his companions for their aid. His wife names his true flaw as an obsession with control. He is at ease only when everything falls into place by his own design, which is why the unpredictable, unruly Farnese unsettles him so, and why, his wife says, he lacks the strength to accept what he cannot comprehend. That same fixation shows a flicker of care when he waves away the notion that his daughter is a witch.

Long before the story's present, Federico fathered Serpico through an affair with a low-born woman, then bought her silence by granting the boy a noble title. With three sons already scrambling to be his heir, the family could not weather another claimant. He nonetheless saw Serpico educated and comfortable, and leaned on him to keep the troublesome Farnese in check. Federico first surfaces in Serpico's past and makes his in-person debut at Vritannis, dressing down Magnifico over his lesser standing.

When Farnese comes seeking a ship for Guts' crew, he coldly orders her back to her chambers, though she works around him through Magnifico and Roderick, securing the vessel at the price of remaining behind. When Kushan tigers crash the nobles' ball, Guts and his companions drive them off, and Federico has the hall applaud them, publicly dismissing the magic and elves on display as mere Kushan trickery to spare his daughter the label of witch. The sudden arrival of Emperor Ganishka, declaring war, sends him and his family fleeing the ballroom. Later, among the nobles after the reborn Band of the Falcon repels the Kushan, he argues that the Holy See's pontiff, not Midland, should command the allied armies, only to be struck dumb when the pontiff himself bows before Griffith and proclaims him the Falcon of Light.