Mario Zeppeli

A middle-aged man from Italy, Mario wears his hair in an ordinary cut and sports a mustache. Colorists gave him blond hair to match his children in the manga, while the anime shades it dark brown. His earliest glimpse, on the Zeppeli family tree, shows him clean-shaven.

Mario is remembered as diligent, dependable, and devoted to his household. Love for his family did not stop him from walking away to pursue the Pillar Men. His selflessness defined his end, when he threw himself in the way to rescue a stranger from a trap, never realizing the young man was his own son.

From an early age Mario understood how his own father, Will Anthonio Zeppeli, had met his fate, and that knowledge pushed him to study the Stone Masks. He located the Pillar Men well before German researchers stumbled onto them, then roamed the globe searching for a means to destroy the beings sealed in the wall, quietly honing the Ripple across his lifetime just as his father had.

Duty cost him his family. He left his five children without explaining his mission, which turned his eldest boy, Caesar, bitter toward him. Long after, Mario returned to the excavation site, unaware that his resentful son shadowed him there. As Caesar paused to pry a gem loose from the wall, Mario shoved him clear of a device rigged by Kars and was drawn into the stone in his place.

In his final moments he urged the young man to carry word of his death to Lisa Lisa, the one ally able to stand against the creatures. The sacrifice reshaped how Caesar saw him and set the son on a path of vengeance.