Saint Figarland Garling

Garling is a tall, powerfully built man of advanced years, his lined face set with an aquiline nose and red eyes. Pale-blond hair rises in a distinctive arrangement, two side-facing spikes set on either side of one very tall spike that bends forward at the crown, while his mustache and beard sweep into spikes of their own, so that the whole resembles a crescent moon from the side and a four-pointed star from the front.

As a Knight of God he wore a red high-collared noble's suit beneath a hooded black coat marked with golden government insignia, plus red round-framed sunglasses, going without the usual gloves. Upon joining the Five Elders he switched to a dark suit with a light dress shirt and tie and a red collared cape, removing his shades but keeping his saber in hand. Decades earlier his younger self closely resembled his sons and drew swooning female admirers.

Composed and self-assured, Garling lacks the buffoonery of lesser nobles yet matches their cruelty, openly preaching the supremacy of Celestial Dragons and dismissing commoners as "trash" unworthy of being called people. He reserves special contempt for nobles who shield the lowborn, even handing down an execution order against Donquixote Mjosgard for it, and he pitied his own son Shanks for living in the Lower World.

He has pursued common women only as status trophies or to sire heirs, discarding past lovers without a flicker of feeling, as he did when he fatally struck Magnolia. Fiercely devoted to the World Government and to Imu, he acts decisively, arranging the slaughter of the Davy Family and killing God Valley's king on the spot for protesting. He believes firmly in fate and carries an unshakable confidence, addressing his fellow Elders as equals the instant he joined them.

Garling sailed to God Valley forty years ago, met and impregnated Magnolia while concealing his rank, and found the island rich in resources and home to the marked Davy Family. He urged the Five Elders to choose God Valley as the next site of the Native Hunting Competition. Thirty-nine years ago his twin sons were born, and the next year he returned, met the boys, then stabbed Magnolia after revealing the island's coming destruction and his plan to wed Shakuyaku.

He executed the protesting king, shrugging off a points penalty as a useful handicap, and dominated the hunt until the Rocks and Roger Pirates stormed the island. Garling traded strikes with Rocks D. Xebec himself, was overpowered and gravely wounded, but after Imu's intervention and Rocks' defeat at the hands of Garp and Roger, he dealt the killing blow and was afterward hailed a champion of God Valley. Through a pact made with Imu, of either the Depths or the Abyssal sort, he gained heightened power and an immortality that regenerates even fatal wounds, though Haki-laced damage heals slowly.

Following the Egghead Incident he succeeded Jaygarcia Saturn among the Five Elders, taking over the science-and-defense duties as a Warrior God, and in the Elbaph era he backed Imu's resolve to descend personally to the Lower World.