April Ryan

April Ryan is the main protagonist from The Longest Journey franchise.

April is an 18 year-old art student who recently moved to the big city, Newport, to study at VAVA. April is troubled by vivid dreams and suppressed memories from her difficult childhood, when she had to deal with her abusive father. When strange things begin happening in her neighbourhood, events soon sweep her away on a dangerous and exciting journey, where she must use her wits and courage to survive, friend can turn foe, and not everything is as it seems.

April discovers that not only is she a Shifter, one able to travel between the twin worlds of Stark and Arcadia through the Divide, but that she is also a key figure in the prophecies of many of the magical races, and a force against Chaos.

Personality
April is a determined young woman with a snarky attitude.

Abilities
April's most prominent and unique power is the ability to open Shifts between the Twin Worlds and other fragments of Earth left over after the Divide. No other human character in the games has so far expressed the ability to transfer oneself (and other individuals, such as Crow) fully from one world to another within such short time. Although she has lost control of this ability soon after she acquired it, it has been revealed that she has never lost it completely.

Her second, less obvious power is that she is "strong in the Balance", according to many knowledgeable characters. This is probably the reason why she was mistaken for the thirteenth Guardian by Vestrum Tobias and possibly by Cortez. As one of the characters explained, every action of hers has positive effects for the Balance, meaning that she brings refreshing Chaos to where Order has been gathering dust for too long and relieving Order to where Chaos has been tormenting people for ages. Some examples:

Hacking into and infiltrating the bureaucratic policing and security structures of Stark

Freeing the Banda from terror of the woods (Gribbler) and thus becoming their messiah (April-Bandu-Embata)

Defeating the alchemist Klacks, who has been trying to tame the wild force of the wind

Stopping a war between Alatien and Maerum by fulfilling the prophecies of both peoples

Bringing down the mighty Church of Voltec (Vanguard) that has had too firm a grip on everything in Stark

Fighting against the strict and unforgiving regime of the Azadi in Marcuria and the Northlands

Whether this can be considered a "power" or not, April is a Wave by the definition of the Dark People. They define a Wave as someone whose actions affect the entire universe, sending ripples through the reality. This is indeed what she has done in the end of the first game, wherein she alters the course of history.

Benrime Salmin calls April an "Artisan", the title of the most powerful magic wielders in Arcadia who can shape magic with their wills alone. Although even in Dreamfall, those magic powers still lay dormant within her, they are likely to manifest themselves in later games, if she is shown to have survived.

Since her brief stay in an underwater city of the Maerum, April is capable of aquatic respiration, which is made possible by a symbiont polyp in her trachea.

By 2219 (by Stark reckoning), April has become fearfully proficient with her quarterstaff earning a great reputation among both allies and enemies.

Trivia

 * Given her comments inside the Hope Street Cathedral, with references to Confession and the rosary, one can conclude that April was raised in a Catholic household.
 * She is allergic to synthetic wood.
 * She weighs 118lb.
 * Until she was 13, her secret passion was gas-guzzling cars.
 * The name April "was [a] name for various things; the month she was born, the fact that it’s spring - a new start, a new beginning. Which has relevance both to The Longest Journey and up to Dreamfall Chapters." - Ragnar Tørnquist, 4:25:30, livestream.