Chrom

Chrom is one of the three main protagonists of Fire Emblem Awakening game.

Chrom is the prince, and eventual Exalt, of the Halidom of Ylisse. He is a direct descendant of the First Exalt, and a distant descendant of the Hero-King, Marth. He is also the captain of Ylisse's elite force, the Shepherds, and wields the legendary blade Falchion. He is the brother of Lissa and Emmeryn, the father of Lucina, the uncle of Owain, and can potentially be the father of Kjelle, Inigo, Brady, Cynthia, or Morgan. His birthday is May 27. He leads his Shepherds force to protect the peace when the neighboring nation of Plegia begins acting suspiciously. He has a strong sense of justice and is a crucial member of his squad. He breaks the most things during army practice.

Appearance
Chrom has a short dark-blue hair and has blue eyes. He wears a dark-blue mantle with yellow linings and it's right sleeve cut off, dark-blue pants with yellow linings and white straps around his chest, a pair of asymmetric thigh-high combat boots, a silver shoulder armor with a white cap on his left shoulder and gray gloves.

Personality
Chrom is a direct and committed person, unflinchingly charging forward to achieve that which he believes in. He cares greatly for those around him and in his service, paying close attention to them and their needs. He believes that as a leader, he must show strength in the face of fatigue and the burden of great work, so as to be an example and inspiration to others.

He is protective of his sisters, especially Emmeryn, but, despite his protests, never argues with Emmeryn's final decisions. While he has the utmost respect for Emmeryn's pacifistic ways, and following her death seeks to honor her legacy, he believes that in the end force will be necessary to counteract those who would endanger a peaceful world and that if he must, he is willing to fight and kill to defend the peace. Chrom deeply cares for Lissa's well-being as well, making sure to take care of her while they are off at war.

Chrom has the utmost faith in other people, particularly his friends and allies. No matter the circumstance or risk, he will attempt to aid anyone in need he encounters, fully aware of and willing to risk any potential consequences if it means. His interest in aiding people goes beyond merely helping them: he is always seeking to forge new bonds of friendship and that doing so improves himself, his army and the people of the world. He believes strongly in the power of unity, attesting that a united front tightly bound by friendship and trust can together overcome even the most powerful of individuals.

Walhart notes that Chrom follows the Path of Kings: a person who lives with and for the people, as Chrom himself states that his strength comes from his comrades. By his own admission, Chrom will help anyone in need without a moment's hesitation. He trusts anyone after witnessing them in action, having given his trust to Lucina before her revelation and to Robin, despite other people's warnings. Chrom shares a special bond with Robin, especially with the female Robin if he is married to her, and unwaveringly believes in them and trusts them implicitly even after finding out about their true heritage.

Not considering himself superior to anyone else just because of his royalty, Chrom much prefers to lead his Shepherds into battle than perform formal duties, finding the life of a royal to be stifling and a hassle at times, though he becomes aware that such a luxurious life shouldn't be taken for granted. After becoming Exalt, he assumes a more serious posture, aspiring to follow Emmeryn's ideals, though not taking it as far as she does.

Abilities
Chrom is one of the best units you will have. Given his mandatory usage in all chapters, Chrom should have no problem leveling up and getting good stats. His good strength, speed, luck, and skill will make Chrom a formidable offensive force in your army, and he can get rather good defense as well, but he should be wary around mages due to his low resistance growth. His Lord skills Dual Strike+ and Charm are moderately good skills in the first half of the game, but lose effectiveness later as your army grows stronger.

Upon promotion to Great Lord, Chrom's attributes stay the same but with higher caps. Chrom also gains the ability to use lances, giving him ranged options with Javelin weapons. He will also learn Aether, his primary attacking skill, and one of the strongest skills in the game. His second Great Lord skill is Rightful King, increasing the activation rates of several skills that Chrom can have. Compounding his Great Lord skills gives Chrom's offensive role more prominence, further solidifying him as a primary offensive unit.

Chrom also has the distinction of being one of four characters to have a personal weapon. Chrom starts with the Falchion, which deals effective damage against dragon units. Though the Falchion cannot break, it is only as strong as an Iron Sword, with a lower hit rate. While it is reliable and eliminates the need to pay for replacements, Chrom may have to use stronger swords if more damage output is needed from him until Chapter 24, where he will perform the Awakening and obtain the Exalted Falchion, which is much more powerful, as the name suggests.

In addition to being a very strong weapon outright, the Exalted Falchion gains the ability to deal effective damage against Grima, making Chrom's role in the final chapter more important. It will become Chrom's primary sword and is the second strongest sword in the game, surpassed only by Mercurius and tied with Tyrfing and an un-forged Alm's Blade. However, unlike the other swords, the Exalted Falchion retains its unbreakable property, making it almost infinitely more useful. Chrom can also now use the sword like an item to replenish 20 HP, eliminating his need to carry Vulneraries or Concoctions as well. Also, Chrom serves as the only Supply Convoyunit in Awakening. Since the Convoy in Awakening can carry an indefinite amount of items, he will need to be used if the player starts the battle and needs to resupply weapons, staves and miscellaneous items for other characters.

Reclassing
Chrom's additional two class sets are the Archer and Cavalier, and rarely enough, Chrom can perform well in nearly every promoted class he has access to.

Unfortunately, few of the skills from the Archer class tree are particularly useful for Chrom. Hit Rate +20 from the Sniper class can help Chrom land blows, which can be useful on higher difficulties when enemies are much more evasive. The only other skill from the Archer class tree that may interest Chrom is Bowfaire, which provides him with a great offense as either bow class, either of which Chrom can do fine in; as a Sniper, Chrom loses access to his coveted Exalted Falchion, but becomes capable of epic Longbow or Double Bow poking thanks to his strong offensive skills in Aether and Luna. While Bow Knight is a more lackluster class in general, it grants Chrom the use of both his signature sword as well as his strong, Bowfaire-boosted ranged attacks.

As a Paladin, Chrom essentially becomes a mounted Great Lord, having only to contend with the weakness to Beast Killers in exchange for access to Defender, another decent pair-up skill (though perhaps overshadowed by the likes of Dual Strike+ and Dual Guard+), and Aegis, (the far superior option to the Bow Knight class's Bowbreaker skill due to its added ability to reduce magic damage) yet another skill boosted by Rightful King.

As a Great Knight, Chrom is a lot slower, but has access to some of his best non-Lord skills in Luna and Dual Guard+. While Luna might seem unnecessary alongside Aether, seeing as the latter is essentially an upgraded version of Luna, running both actually boosts Chrom's potential to activate one of them: while Luna has a higher activation rate, Aether will always out-prioritize it, meaning that if Aether does not activate then Chrom has a high chance to deal extra damage per attack—especially in conjunction with Rightful King. Meanwhile Dual Guard+ in conjunction with Dual Strike+ makes any pair-up involving Chrom all the more potent.

Trivia

 * Chrom's official artwork depicts him wielding the Falchion.
 * Chrom was voted the most popular male character in the Fire Emblem Awakening Character Popularity Poll in Japan.
 * Chrom came in 5th place for males in the Fire Emblem Heroes Choose Your Legends popularity poll. He had 23,803 votes.
 * Chrom appears in some support conversations from other characters. He appears in Ricken and Nowi's C support and Lucina's C & A sibling supports. He shares this trait with Robin, who appears in ​Tharja and Vaike's C support and Tharja and Frederick's C support.
 * According to the Official Fire Emblem Awakening Comic from Nintendo Dream, Chrom is six years younger than Emmeryn, making him roughly nineteen years old at the start of Fire Emblem Awakening.
 * Chrom is the only unit in Awakening with a different portrait for each direction. This is likely due to the Brand of the Exalt on his right shoulder. The only other character in the series to have this trait is Nergal.
 * The Fire Emblem disappears from Chrom's Great Lord battle model from Chapter 21 to Chapter 23 because Validar steals it. The Fire Emblem will also not be present on Chrom's Great Lord model if he promotes before Chapter 7.
 * At the end of Robin and Lucina's reveal trailer for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Chrom remarks that he will "get [his] chance another day." This line was meant to be a joke as he does appear in game as an assist in Robin's Final Smash.
 * This line would ironically become true in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate where Chrom became a full fledged playable character.
 * In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, during Palutena's Guidance for Robin, Palutena states that Chrom does not have Aether. This is not completely true since Chrom can learn Aether as a level 5 Great Lord in Awakening. However, Chrom does not perform the skill in the same way that Ike does in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.
 * Chrom does use Aether as his Up Special move in Ultimate, albeit he performs it differently than Ike.
 * Chrom shares his English voice actor, Matthew Mercer, with Ryoma, Azama, and Shigure from Fates.
 * The "Choose Your Legends" event of Fire Emblem Heroes revealed that he was 8th place out of 791 with 23,803 votes, making him 3rd place in terms of the Awakening portion and the fourth most popular male character overall.