Kingxana0
Since: Oct, 2011
#2: Apr 25th 2020 at 4:12:34 PM
Deleted
Edited by Kingxana0 on Apr 25th 2020 at 4:21:57 AM
#3: Apr 25th 2020 at 4:16:21 PM
Master
- Name: Sedryk de Saint-Paulin
- Age: Thirty-two
- House: The roots of the Saint-Paulin Magus family stretch back into the half-forgotten mists of pre-Shelter time, established, so the legends say, by French dairy farmers who discovered a way to enrich the produce of their cows with prana. With such means did the early generations of the family build a financial empire even as they sought the secrets of the Root, and with this wealth did their descendants assure a place for themselves in Shelter when the world’s decay began. But the bottom of the ocean is no place to raise cattle, and the fortunes of the Saint-Paulins took a downward turn long before Shelter’s magical bloodlines were outed and ostracized. Now they dwell in empty halls that once rang with the lowing of cows and smelled of freshly-curdled milk, meagre shadows of their former glory.
- Appearance: Sedryk in his natural state: disheveled and drawing shit that nobody else likes.
- Command Seal: Sedryk’s Command Seal takes the form of a stylized cattle skull. The horns each make up one part of the three-part design, with the skull itself being the third part. For visual reference, something like this.
- Personality: Laid back and easy-going, Sedryk would describe his personal philosophy as nihilistic realism. The world’s fucked, the family line is effectively dead, and the human race is out of gas and circling the drain. Shit sucks, but since there’s nothing he can do about it, he sees no reason to get upset about it. He takes things as they come and tries to enjoy the time he has left, dabbling in art and prose even though he has no talent for either. Now if only his father would stop going on and on about the glory days… He’s normally calm, but when he finds himself in difficult situations, he tends to mask his nervousness by making cheesy puns.
- Life Story: Born long after his parents were injected with the Mayor’s magic-blocking nanites, Sedryk has never known the transcendent joys of Magecraft that his father would so often describe in a wistful drunken haze. With no ability to further the family’s Magic Crest and the end of mankind imminent, few expectations were placed upon him, and he wiled away the hours in artistic pursuits. The inheritance of the Saint-Paulin Magic Crest and the Manus Monado were sombre and perfunctory affairs, carried out with the knowledge of all concerned that there would be no inheritors in his wake.
- Origin: Current. Sedryk is a slippery little shit, and knows how to find the path of least resistance—or effort, as the case may be—out of any given situation.
- Magic Circuits: Quality B, Quantity D. Sedryk can’t absorb very much prana due to a limited number of Magic Circuits, but he can use the limited amount that he does absorb quite efficiently.
- Magic Crest: The Saint-Paulin Magic Crest is located above Sedryk’s left breast. It takes the form of an incomplete circle divided into eleven wedges of equal size, with a gap for a nonexistent twelfth wedge. Each wedge was the product of a generation’s work, and the Crest thus contains eleven generations of magical knowledge regarding the enrichment of dairy products, the purification (or poisoning) of food, and other such alchemical pursuits. Little of this knowledge is of immediate use in a combat situation.
- Elemental Affinity: Water. Sedryk goes with the flow and works well with liquids of various sorts.
- Magecraft:
- Balles de Cocyte (Cocytus Bullets): Also called “Ice Bullet”, this spell draws moisture from Sedryk’s own body, condenses it into a shard of ice, and propels it through the air with the force of a bullet. This is a basic offensive spell with a maximum range of twenty feet, which can be further reduced by the ambient temperature: the ice bullets fly farther and last longer in colder weather, but don’t fly as far and evaporate faster in warmer weather.
- Panacée Laitière (Dairy Panacea): A spell which infuses some of the caster’s prana into milk, transmuting it into an alchemical concoction which grants a single beneficial effect to the first person who drinks it. This effect can be one of the following, which Sedryk must choose as he casts the spell: immunity to poison; greatly accelerated healing; enhancement of the drinker’s skin to make them more resistant to injury; or reinforcement of the drinker’s bones and muscles to make them stronger. The milk retains its magical properties for twenty-four hours or until drunk; once drunk, the effect lasts for one minute.
- Mystic Codes:
- Manus Monado: A bipartite Mystic Code made by one of the pre-Shelter Saint-Paulins, consisting of a fingerless metal glove and a wooden paintbrush consecrated in the milk of six generations of Saint-Paulin cows. When the glove is worn and the brush is dipped in ink, any drawing Sedryk puts to paper will spring to life as a two-dimensional familiar: these familiars can travel along any flat surface that was in contact with the paper, or Sedryk can make them three-dimensional by shaking the paper with the glove, causing them to spring off the page and into corporeality. Being tiny and made of ink, these corporealized familiars are understandably fragile, and they only last an hour before fading away. Sedryk is not limited to creating “creatures” with the Manus Monado: he can also use it to create temporary objects. The less complex an object’s nature is, the more it functions like the real thing when it’s brought off the page: a corporealized laptop or walkie-talkie wouldn’t even turn on, but a corporealized kitchen knife would be just as sharp as a real one.
- Le Bétail de Damona (Damona’s Cattle): This Mystic Code is a cowhide drawstring pouch containing four porcelain cow figurines the size of small apples. Each cow is hollow, and contains three gallons of magically-compressed (and pressurized) milk. Speaking a command world while holding one of the cows primes that cow for action, at which point Sedryk can do one of two things. If he snaps his fingers, the cow will release its milk by spraying it from its udders with a force comparable to a high-pressure garden hose. If he throws the cow, it will shatter on impact, and the milk will react to the air by transforming into a form of cheese that rapidly expands and hardens, engulfing anything within a two-meter radius of the point of impact. If a cow is not destroyed, it will teleport back into the pouch once it has expended all of its milk, and slowly refill over the course of a day.
- Other Things Of Note: If you want to mention the claret-powered elephant butler, now is the time.
- The twelfth wedge of the Saint-Paulin Magic Crest was meant to be filled out by Sedryk’s father Jean-Fransoix. That the Mayor’s nanites prevented him from doing so is one of the many factors that led Jean-Fransoix to become a bitter, drunken shell of a man. It’s also a contributing factor in the strained relationship between Sedryk and his father.
- The fortunes of the Saint-Paulins may not be what they once were, but they are by no means living in poverty. Sedryk can draw upon the family’s resources if he needs to, even if it means going through his father.
- Ironically, Sedryk hates cheese.
Servant
- Name: Shaka Zulu, Lancer
- Tale and Time of Origin: The Founding of the Zulu Kingdom, early 1800s
- Appearance: Lancer is tall and athletically built, with well-defined muscles adorning her lean frame. She dresses in white furs for a skirt and cape, and wears cowhide wraps on her wrists and ankles. Her long white hair is kept tied in a high ponytail, and she conceals her face behind a brightly-coloured mask meant to evoke the skull of a Nguni cow. Under the mask she has a stern face with high cheekbones, full lips, a broad nose, thin brows and gleaming yellow eyes. (TL;DR she looks like this◊.)
- Personality: Goal-oriented to the point of ruthlessness, Lancer does not believe in sitting idly by while her enemies are out there gathering their strength. If you have an enemy at your mercy, put him down: otherwise you invite him to recoup his strength and threaten you anew in the future. Though capable of profound cruelty, Lancer isn’t a monster: she respects those who manage to earn her trust, and will go to great lengths to avenge any wrong inflicted upon them. She also has a soft spot for struggling mothers and their children. In most situations she is collected and confident, but put Lancer into a confined space and her confidence may begin to fray…
- Parameters, Stats and Skills:
- Servant Parameters
- Strength: C
- Endurance: B
- Agility: B
- Prana: E
- Luck: C
- NP: B
- Class Stats:
- Magic Resistance: C. Cancel spells with a chant below two verses. Cannot defend against Magecraft on the level of High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals.
- Personal Skills:
- Charisma: B
- Protection from Arrows: C
- Tactics: B
- Thorn-Calloused Soles: A
- Personal Skills Explained:
- Charisma: The natural talent to command an army. Suitable for the king of a country.
- Protection from Arrows: The ability to guard oneself against ranged attacks. Shaka countered the long-range tactics of her day by equipping her warriors with larger-than-average cowhide shields and training them to advance rapidly on enemy spear-throwers, and she was confident that such tactics could defeat even European rifle formations. This skill makes Shaka’s cowhide shield impervious to modern projectile weapons and allows her to block or deflect most ranged attacks as long as she’s moving toward an enemy.
- Tactics: Leading her troops to victory in many battles while alive, Lancer's ingenuity and military exploits have transformed into this Skill.
- Thorn-Calloused Soles: The ability to walk on harmful terrain without injury or a loss of mobility. This skill represents the harsh training Shaka imposed on her warriors, such as stamping on thorny bushes to toughen their soles and marching barefoot across miles of scorching rock. If there is even a slight chance that a human being could stand on a given type of hazardous terrain without slipping or being injured, Lancer can move across that terrain freely and unharmed.
- Impi Weapons Training: Lancer is proficient with traditional Zulu weapons, such as the iklwa shortspear, the assegai throwing spear and the iwisa cudgel, and can manifest them at will. She is also proficient in using the cowhide shield for both offense and defense.
- Servant Parameters
- Noble Phantasms:
- Isihlangu: The Shield of Shaka – Rank B: The traditional cowhide shield of the Zulu people, used to hook an opponent’s shield and yank it aside, exposing them to a killing thrust. In Lancer’s hands this humble shield becomes durable enough to block Anti-Unit Noble Phantasms of Rank B or lower.
- Impondo Zenkomo: Horns of the Zulu – Rank B, Anti-Unit: A conceptualization of the military reforms that Shaka brought to the Zulu people, in particular the distinct “buffalo horns” formations in which her armies were organized. This Noble Phantasm creates three phantasmal Impi warriors that fight alongside Lancer in formation, with two of them attempting to flank Lancer’s opponent while the third stands behind her, ready to exploit gaps in the opponent’s guard or shield Lancer from unexpected attacks. Lancer can sustain this Noble Phantasm for up to five minutes, or end it prematurely by initiating a coordinated, simultaneous attack that cannot be blocked. To initiate the latter she must speak the command “Strike once and for all”.
- Mfecane: The Crushing – Rank B, Anti-Army: A conceptualization of the bloodshed and chaos which swept across southern Africa as Lancer’s conquests displaced neighbouring tribes from their lands. These tribes adopted Lancer’s brutal new ways of war, terrorizing and displacing others as they themselves had been terrorized and displaced by the ascendant Zulu. It is the mechanism by which Lancer expands her territory and drives out her enemies.
- When activated, this Noble Phantasm summons a horde of screaming phantoms which stampede in the direction of Lancer’s choice. Though frail and easily dispatched, these phantoms are corporeal enough to knock down anyone in their path and trample them underfoot, and new phantoms will quickly replace felled ones so long as Lancer’s Master maintains a steady prana supply.
- The invocation of Mfecane creates a Bounded Field where the horde has trod. Within it, those whom Lancer does not consider her allies or subjects will experience profound unease and a compulsion to leave the area as quickly as possible. Both sensations grow stronger the longer one remains within the Bounded Field, causing enemy Servants to accrue penalties to their skills and parameters, and making ordinary humans panic within minutes. Humans that reach a state of panic within Mfecane’s Bounded Field will lash out at anything or anyone that they perceive as preventing them from leaving, and they will not willingly return to the area until the Bounded Field is dispelled. Similarly, Servants that retreat from the Bounded Field cannot re-enter Lancer’s territory without expending large amounts of prana.
- Invoking the horde places a great strain on Lancer’s prana reserves. Sedryk’s low quantity of Magic Circuits means that Lancer can only sustain the horde’s manifestation for a minute: any longer risks killing Sedryk, and even this brief period will leave him drained and weakened for at least an hour. The Bounded Field left in the horde’s wake is far less taxing, and lasts up to a week before Lancer needs to renew it. She can expand her territory through repeated uses of Mfecane, but she must take care that each subsequent Bounded Field overlaps with the rest of her territory: otherwise, the previous Bounded Field will collapse and she will be left only with her latest land grab.
- If Lancer summons the horde within her own territory and invokes Impondo Zenkomo, the two Noble Phantasms interact in a way that drastically changes the nature of the horde. The phantoms cease to be a stampeding mob and become a disciplined, organized fighting force armed with shields and spears. They remain disciplined within Lancer’s territory, but revert to form if they pass outside of her Bounded Field.
- History: One of many children born to the Zulu chieftain Senzangakhona, Shaka spent her early years wandering from tribe to tribe after a falling out between her mother and father. In time they settled amongst the Mthethwa people, where Shaka—disguised as a man—would join a military unit and develop a knack for strategic and tactical thought. The Mthethwa chieftain Dingiswayo was so impressed by Shaka’s tactical insights that he appointed her his general, and after several successful campaigns she would return to the land of her birth and claim what she saw as her birthright by assassinating one of her half-brothers to claim the Zulu throne. From there she rose to power, first as Dingiswayo’s loyal vassal, then as his successor and avenger after his death at the hands of his rival Zwide. Shaka’s reign was solidified after a long and brutal war against Zwide’s forces, in which she expunged his people from the region, and for a time she reigned as a harsh but fair king. Then Nandi, her dear mother and staunchest supporter, died. Shaka was overwhelmed with grief, and took it out upon her people in a reign of terror that ended only when her half-brothers, long jealous of her success, had her assassinated. Shaka was dead, but her legacy as a king and warlord would live on.
Edited by SullenFrog on Apr 25th 2020 at 7:57:54 AM
The Danse Macabre Codex
wikkit
Since: Sep, 2009
#4: Apr 25th 2020 at 4:19:14 PM
- Name: Zorana Dojinovac
- Age: 30
- House: She doesn't belong to any family, being an artificial mage, but instead works for the Couhendove clan, a relatively young (in magus terms) and inexperienced lineage that managed to avoid registration through sheer lack of notoriety. Nowadays, they have some level of power due to this hidden nature.
- Appearance: Like◊ so.◊ Average height, understandably thin body, grey hair, skin has the patina of pork fat. Eyes appear to have lost all features beyond the pupil. Wears a grey robe when going about town because she thinks she's special for having one. Fashion's been elevated to ridiculous levels, so it looks strangely mundane.
- Command Seal: A heavily angular triskelion, three lines spiraling down into a central triangle. A simplistic design.
- Personality: Really, really doesn't like mages. Zorana can prove friendly and eager to talk in good circumstances, if very coarse, but has a pretty strong prejudice against the majority of magically inclined people. She thinks they're all a bunch of holier-than-thou assholes who practice eugenics and view the life and livelihoods of non-mages as unimportant at best, expendable at worst. They also regularly endanger the lives of many innocent bystanders with their petty squabbles and magical testing. Very unrealistic, I know. In any case, she hates formality and loves anything that gives her an adrenaline rush. She's not very smart.
- Life Story: Even in a future where perfect control of the circumstances of birth exist, and all of the remaining souls on Earth live right besides one another, orphans exist. Her memory of her former parents is sketchy, but it is secondary to what she is convinced happened: they must have been killed by the root of all evil in this world, named "Mages". She would grow on the underside of the gleaming society of Shelter, and after years of ruing the existence of magic folk, decided to do something about it.
- This meant, at first, terrorizing the publicly known mage populace under the justification of vigilantism, but this would change entirely when she was approached by one hidden family line. The Couhendove Method of Magical Integration was developed in secret, and given that Zorana was easily swayed by large amounts of cash and the opportunity to "break people's shit" as she puts it, she was quickly selected to be the recipient of this artificial magecraft. Now just as much of a violent agitator as a blind pawn of mages, Zorana plans on spending these last few years burning brightly.
- Origin: Elation. The feeling of success and everything going your way. The adrenaline rush that comes with speed, and the endorphin rush that exists to counteract pain. Zorana lives for the last few bits of genuine happiness that she can grasp.
- Magic Circuits: Quality E, Quantity B-. The Couhendove Method is rather random, but at least it's consistent!
- Magic Crest: The Couhendove Method is unique in that, instead of something dumb like worms or bacteria getting stuck inside of you, it's technically a method of transposing an artificial Crest onto one's body along with forced genetic activation of Magic Circuits. It's a very simplistic design on the back of the body, just a stylized eye of sorts. It has no set spells due to being artificial, but in this instance is loaded with a small amount of lesser spells dedicated to strengthening one's body against wear and tear.
- Elemental Affinity: Water
- Magecraft: Zorana has very little knowledge and sense for magical rituals, mostly going off of what she can be told by the Couhendoves. The magecraft she is skilled in revolves around tempering the self and removing the tempering of others.
- Self-Preparation: Though it can't reverse the more extreme effects of her Crest, and sometimes certain wounds "slip through" and become permanent, her body can regenerate an incredible amount of damage, up to severing body parts, and null pain to negligible levels. Obviously it takes a while to grow back your arm, but even being on fire isn't that big of an issue. Sufficient damage to the brain or heart will permanently kill her, and the mana reserves held in whatever part of her body that is damaged or lost can't be used until fully healed. This means she can easily run out of mana temporarily if this ability is overused. Also looks kinda gross.
- Preparation for Others: The only thing she decided to learn was how to pierce magical barriers. She can impart this property to anything she can hold in her hand for a short period of time, and since that means "bullets" usually a short period of time is all she needs. The larger the object, the worse it is at penetration, and she can only transfer this property to things at a certain range. Things like energy or light can't have this property. Sniping won't work, but rifles can, and shotguns are the best. Yes, shotguns exist in the future. Also, strong enough barriers will rebuke any attempt to break it.
- Mystic Codes: Only one: an unnamed shotgun. Otherwise unnotable, the double-barrels have been etched down its length with magical inscriptions that allow for the infusion of Prana into its shots, harming things normally unaffected by mere firearms. Its effectiveness has been unknowingly reduced by Zorana's sawing off of the barrel, though.
- Other Things Of Note: Where the Couhendoves lack in expertise, they sure don't lack material wealth. Zorana may lack wits, but she won't be lacking money any time soon.
- Name: Saber Cao Cao, courtesy name Mengde
- Tale and Time of Origin: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Late Second Century to Middle Third Century A.D.
- Appearance: This guy.
- Personality: The cultural perception of Cao Cao paints him as ruthless and pragmatic...but depending on the person speaking, these very same qualities can make him a hero or a villain. He is absolutely a warlord emblematic of the times, one who fought for self-centered control of the world around him, but he did not necessarily embody the treachery that he was believed to have. Cao Cao is honest and abides by the codes and oaths of the world without err, and treats those underneath him fairly. He was also refined, a poet, and a man with a sense of humor. However, he was still one who would kill many without hesitation. He has little tolerance for failure, but won't throw away those who still have some use in them. In this incarnation, he looks upon the evil aspect the world has ascribed him with amusement, and may act to live up to his legend.
- Parameters, Stats and Skills:
- Servant Parameters
- Strength: B-
- Endurance: C
- Agility: C
- Prana: B+
- Luck: E
- NP: B
- Class Skills:
- Magical Resistance B-: He is a true Saber in that regard...however, one famous instance of an enemy's magic bringing him ruin proves that it is not a perfect resistance.
- Riding C: Cao Cao was one of the owners of the paradigm of horses, the Red Hare. Perhaps he retains some memory of that beautiful horse, even if his time with it was brief.
- Personal Skills:
- Independent Action B: Riding alone, Cao Cao may exist without the aid of his Master's prana for the span of two days. However, this time dwindles the more he acts.
- Imperial Villain A: The mantle placed upon him by the scorn of the public, centuries after his death. Cao Cao's parameters increase alongside the number of his foes. If he can be called the enemy of another person who would do him harm, they add themselves onto the total and his powers increase. This way, his reputation is made true, and he becomes "a hero in chaos".
- Servant Parameters
- Noble Phantasm:
- Appearance of the Uttered Devil - Rank C: The nature of his villainy grants him the notoriousness of the phrase most repeated: "Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao appears." This ability allows the distance between him and anyone who refers to him to be bridged instantly: he learns of their location, and may appear in their vicinity without any delay. His Noble Phantasm is less effective with each level of indirectness applied to it. However, speaking his "True Name" means that absolutely nothing can stop you from being found. In this way, he has arrived from beyond death to finally make the oft-uttered warning a reality, becoming a true Devil.
- Seven Star Precious Sword - Rank A: It is a supremely effective weapon, capable of cutting through anything. Even the finest metals of the modern day, and things which cannot normally be cut, part like air. However, it is an "honest" blade. It cannot draw even a drop of blood if used in subterfuge, stealth or anything but a head-on, declared fight. The nature of this sword is what unknowingly catapulted Cao Cao into the eyes of his nation, and would leave him heading one of the Three Kingdoms that left so much destruction in their wake. Perhaps it should not be said that it "cuts", but "divides", even up to nations.
- History: The descendant of a court eunuch of the late Han dynasty, Cao Cao found himself a notable commander during the Yellow Turban rebellion. After this, one tyrant by the name of Dong Zhuo enraged the whole world with his attempts to surreptitiously control the young, weak-willed emperor. But from this point, did Cao Cao attempt to assassinate the villain, and in his failure run as a fugitive and join a coalition against Dong Zhuo? Or was he merely appointed a position he refused to take, and so hid? The nature of Cao Cao's story is unlike many, where the average man can easily read what happened in reality compared to the legends, and yet both persist. He, like many of his contemporaries, would become a strange fusion of truth and fiction. Some of his enemies would even become elevated to the point of Godhood.
- In all, he would repeatedly fight for control of China the many other warlords - Dong, Yuan, Ma, Gongsun, Zhang, Sun, Liu - and yet he would never see it unified in his life. Despite being the dominant power of his time and controlling most, if not all of the north, his state of Wei would not be the one to unify China.
Edited by wikkit on Dec 7th 2020 at 5:33:01 AM
kagescorpionakki
Breath of the Sun
from Long Ago
Since: Apr, 2009
Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Breath of the Sun
#5: Apr 25th 2020 at 4:47:17 PM
Master
- Name: Claire Rosenkreuz
- Age: 25
- House: According to Claire’s father, the House of Rosenkreuz is descended from the mythical Christian Rosenkreuz. According to her Magic Crest, the family goes back about three generations. Claire trusts the Magic Crest more than her father. She doesn’t know how or when her family first gained magical ability, and doesn’t really care.
- Appearance: Seen here, looking smug.
- Command Seal: Resembles the symbol for a ‘queen’ in chess◊, albeit with only three points on the crown.
- Personality: Claire at first glance is introverted and quiet, but also doesn’t have any particular fear of interaction. She prefers to be alone most of the time, except when playing games; she views any kind of game, even something as simple as checkers, as a test of intellect. As such, she’ll readily accept any challenge as long as it could be considered a ‘game’.
- Life Story:
- Edmund Rosenkreuz was not a bad father, by any means, but he was a bit wacky. He would constantly insist that he was descended from a mythical figure, boasting of magical prowess that he clearly didn’t have. If other Magus families found this annoying, they didn’t say. This was apparently hereditary, as Claire’s grandfather has often remarked that they probably could have avoided registration if he hadn’t bragged so much.
- Though she had her father’s name, it was Claire’s mother, Sydney, who shaped her. A chess grandmaster, who imbued Claire with a love of the game from childhood. Claire spent most of her time indoors, playing game after game with her mother. Though her mother insisted she occasionally go outside to try and make actual friends, Claire nonetheless focused intently on being a master of games. For what was the world’s imminent end, if not a game to be won?
- Origin: Game. Claire views everything as a ‘game’ which can be won. As a result, she’s excellent at strategic thinking and finding optimal outcomes.
- Magic Circuits: Quantity C, Quality D. Altogether, quite average in amount, and subpar in usability.
- Magic Crest: A perfect square, located upon the magus’s back. Contains nothing of substance; as far as Claire is concerned, her father just scribbled some vaguely religious nonsense on her.
- Elemental Affinity: Earth. Based upon Claire’s preferred strategies of ‘never losing ground’, she firmly plants her heels and establishes a dominant position.
- Magecraft: Claire can fashion ‘earthen’ materials (clay, stone, metal, etc) into different shapes, though barring her one actual spell (see below), only small amounts at a time - around what she can fit into her hands. Larger structures are possible, but she must work on them piecemeal, and each small piece takes a second to reshape.
- King’s Castle: A simple Earth manipulation by which Claire creates a small ‘fortress’ of stone around herself. Though primarily defensive, the stone that protects her can also be molded into spikes or extended out to strike at enemies in a counter-attack. Small chunks can also be launched off of it, impacting with roughly the force one would expect from a thrown rock. Because Claire is a pretentious child, this ‘fortress’ usually takes the form of a chess piece.
- Mystic Codes:
- Maharajah: An enchanted chess set, missing many pieces. The white side has only the king, while the black side has only its eight pawns. The pieces are stuck to the board, and normally inert. By tapping the white king, which rests at the board’s center, the board will activate, and the black pawns will begin to move. Each pawn represents a person or animal, and will act as a ‘radar’ showing how far they are from the board - represented by the white king - and in what direction. Tapping a pawn will reveal its exact distance from the center, and the board has a max scanning distance of 1 km. By default, the eight nearest people and animals will be displayed, but by tapping a pawn and visualizing a target, if that target is in range, the pawn will display that target instead.
- Other Things Of Note: Is renowned as the most l33t g@^^3r in Shelter.
Servant Assassin
- Name: Pale Rider
- Tale and Time of Origin: Predates human history
- Appearance: When initially summoned, takes the form of a dessicated walking corpse surrounded by mosquitoes. Because it can inhabit multiple bodies, it doesn’t really have a true appearance.
- Personality: Though one would expect such a creature to be enthralled with killing humans, Assassin has a perverse love of humankind. It views the bacteria within every human body as ‘a part of itself’, and thus believes itself to be humanity’s friend. As it spreads to living things, it sees its infection as a ‘gift’ that will inevitably ‘unite everyone’. The end result of this bizarre worldview is that Assassin is jovial and friendly, despite wanting to infect everything it sees.
- Parameters, Stats and Skills:
- Servant Parameters
- Strength: E
- Endurance: E
- Agility: A
- Prana: C
- Luck: E
- NP: A
- Class Skills:
- Presence Concealment: EX
- Personal Skills:
- Mental Pollution: EX
- Hubris of Filth: A
- Familiars (Pests): C
- Servant Parameters
- Skill Explanations:
- Presence Concealment: Due to Assassin’s unorthodox existence, it’s ability to conceal itself applies separately to each of its bodies (including its familiars). While stealth decreases for any individual body once said body prepares an attack, the stealth of other bodies is not affected, allowing Assassin to sneak attack multiple times in quick succession.
- Mental Pollution: Assassin lacks all human understanding and empathy, being nothing more than the personification of mindlessly spreading disease. Effectively this renders it immune to mental thaumaturgy; assaulting its ‘mind’ will always fail.
- Hubris of Filth: The embodiment of the ravages and declines of plague. A skill denoting that Assassin's greatest weakness was not magic or gods, but the simple act of washing one’s hands. It imposes a penalty against enemies who are more ancient, reducing the effectiveness of their attacks against Assassin and conversely increasing Assassin's effectiveness against them. The penalty increases the further their origins are from the modern era. A modern magus would be unaffected, while a powerful Servant from the Age of Gods would have their attacks reduced by multiple ranks.
- Familiars (Pests): From Assassin spawns a never-ending horde of rodents, birds, and insects, each infected with its essence. Though individually they are worthless, together the sheer number of them can drown an opponent in contaminated blood.
- Noble Phantasms:
- Danse Macabre
- It comes, We fly, We follow, We die
- Rank B, Anti-Unit (Self)
- Assassin acts as a hive mind of many bodies. Assassin infects people and animals, including all of its own familiars, with its prana, turning them into 'carriers' of Assassin which can then go on to infect more people. So long as at least one carrier exists, Assassin will survive and regrow, even if every other body is destroyed. Anything without the will to resist being infected will become Assassin's familiar. High endurance or a successful Luck check can allow one to resist infection. Additional defense against infection can be gained by keeping oneself clean, and wearing clothing that covers the mouth and nose.
- Once someone becomes a carrier of Assassin, Assassin is capable of speaking with them telepathically at will, and can utilize their senses or summon familiars from within them. Assassin also leeches off its carriers, slowly draining them of prana and eroding them from the inside out. Naturally, anyone infected will show symptoms of a severe illness, but will never actually die unless Assassin wills it. Assassin can also manipulate the illness within them at will; though they will always show some symptoms, Assassin can choose which; it can make them feverish, or induce vomiting, or boils, render them sleepless or comatose, or inflict any number of terrible ailments upon them.
- Oddly, this infection can be ‘cleansed’ easily by modern antibiotics, but despite being a kind of ‘curse’, is highly resistant to magical healing.
- Pandemos Loimos
- Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
- Rank D~A, Anti-Humanity
- Perhaps the most horrifying plagues known to mankind are called 'Pandemic' - an illness of 'all people'. The most lethal enemies of mankind, these are diseases that drain the blood of continents and cause the suffering of millions. Those diseases are crystallized into a Noble Phantasm taking the form of a potent, yet simple curse: the more people Assassin infects, the stronger Assassin becomes. Only humans are counted towards this curse, as it is borne from the fear and despair of humanity, who could never understand why plague ravaged them time and again.
- For each human carrier, Assassin receives a slight boost to its physical abilities, and the cost of its familiars is slightly decreased. Individual carriers provide so little benefit as to be unnoticeable - it would take a thousand infected to increase Assassin's parameters one rank - but the more there are, the faster Assassin spreads. Once the number of human carriers reaches a high enough number, humans will begin dying and returning as walking corpses, their bloated bodies reduced to Assassin's familiars, retaining any magical ability they may have had. These zombies can continue to spread Assassin.
- History:
- Since mankind’s infancy, there was disease. A greater killer than any warrior or war, an enemy that humanity could never defeat, that which we call ‘illness’ is, in a very real sense, our oldest foe. And yet, it has no true face or name. It is not a singular entity with cruel machinations, but the mindless actions of countless bacteria and viruses, that have no regard for human suffering.
- The being called ‘Pale Rider’ is not a true Servant, but a wraith, based loosely upon the ‘Pale Horse’s Rider’ from the Book of Revelations. The embodiment of disease, more akin to a curse than a living being.
Edited by kagescorpionakki on Dec 12th 2020 at 5:09:15 AM
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?
One Brunch Man
#6: Apr 25th 2020 at 5:12:52 PM
- Name: Radek Pribyl, alias EXT
- Age: 29
- House: If you needed something stolen anywhere throughout the region of Czechoslovakia, chances were that you might call upon the services of the Pribyl clan—even if you didn’t know it. Pribyl, meaning “newcomer” in the local dialect, was less a family name than it was a mission statement, the clan as a whole dedicated to settling down nowhere while being able to slip in to anywhere. It was also passed down asymmetrically, occasionally to outside users of sufficient magical talent, and most critically, anonymously, meaning that those that carried the title could disappear back into their lives once the job was done. At the expense of any noteworthy recognition from the mage community at large, the Pribyl clan was able to enjoy the fruits of its anonymity to build up its power, wealth, and horde of magical items basically unchecked, while forever at the mercy of the highest bidder and the just-as-high stakes that the magical thieving game provides.
- Appearance: For a world that manages to provide everything one might need, Radek has managed to go without—sleep on long nights, food on long days, and hygiene somewhere in-between. Tall, lanky, and with longer hair he can never seem to figure out what to do with, Radek is usually relegated to the man on the subway car you take pains to avoid eye-contact with, or a face that comes out of the crowd just long enough to fix a minor technical problem before once again disappearing into the aether. And that’s just the way he likes it.
- Command Seal: A key stuck into a padlock, with the top and bottom of the lock forming two parts and the key itself the third.
- Personality: Radek's experiences have left him deeply bitter and cynical towards the world around him, albeit tempered with a righteous streak that wants to see humanity pull itself up from where it has fallen. Rude and tactless in conversation, and with a tendency to get caught up in the big picture over the small sacrifices, Radek nevertheless truly believes in his mission, and in the possibilities for the future should it come to pass.
- Life Story:
- For all of the magic tricks at the Pribyl clan’s disposal, perhaps their greatest one was remaining anonymous right up until the end of the world. While mages were ostracized, collared, and eventually crippled, Radek’s parents were able to make their way onto Shelter with their magecraft undetected, ordinary citizens prepared for a brave new world once the old one failed.
- And then, for one reason or another, some time after Radek was born, they just… gave up.
- It was then that Radek decided that the real problem was Shelter as a whole, the cradle of civilization somehow having turned into a crib where all of humanity was gradually rocked into the grave. He taught himself everything he could about system architecture, practiced his latent magical abilities in secret, and even managed to coax his father into lucidity long enough to transfer over his Mystic Code—all while making a heartfelt plea, to help him make Shelter a place where humanity could thrive once more.
- His father had merely smiled and shook his head, telling him that that was the curse of a family of thieves—once you get too good at taking, there’s no way to put things back.
- A short while after that, Shelter’s Djerba Rediscovered district experienced its first Denial Of Service attack by a mysterious cyberterrorist known only as EXT. The primary target was the pleasure pods that he had gunned for so long ago—this time managing to put the facility on hold for a few hours, before business resumed as normal. But this was only the first in a string of attacks, all focused on some area of the distractions that the inhabitants used to placate themselves and forget about their impending doom—letting livestock out of the cock fights, leveraging impossible payouts from the casino slot machines, loading up the e-restaurants of all manner of disgusting tastes and palettes. And all the while, leaving messages in his wake, encouraging someone, anyone, to look through the veil of complacency that Shelter had consigned them to. To realize that their existence had meaning beyond just waiting for the end. For each and every citizen to, as his ending message put it:
- E Xi T your E Xis Tence
- In-between these jolts to Shelter’s collective heart, Radek spends his time in his hideout at Demophon Raised, taking advantage of exploited mechanical blindspots to remain undetected. And while his handiwork runs rampant in the second layer, his gaze remains firmly focused on the seventh, and his ultimate goal—to breach the walls of True Elysium, track down the Mayor’s pet supercomputer Prometheus, and shut it down once and for all, thus giving the community back the fire that had been taken from it.
- Some day. Maybe even some day soon…
- Origin: Programming. Everything is connected to everything else, anything can be slotted anywhere, and putting these two things together has such interesting results…
- Magic Circuits: Quality B, Quantity B. The clandestine nature of the Pribyls and the lack of straight lines of succession means that they had to sacrifice the prospect of a few great mages for quite a bit more pretty good ones. Radek lucked out in this regard, though his family’s intense specialization means that most of his spells trade raw power for some measure of preternatural control.
- Magic Crest: Radek’s Magic Crest is a series of locks hanging off of one another in a loose trail descending down the skin just to the right of his spine, each lock representing a different individual or group of individuals that pooled their knowledge and magical talent to create it. Within this crest is the combined expertise of centuries of magical thieves honed over countless acquisitions, albeit somewhat haphazardly put together on account of the occasional lack of genetic continuity and the general paranoia that comes attached with said expertise. Radek had only been able to access a small portion of this knowledge without proper tutelage or support from the clan at large, so swaths of the crest go unused even as Radek does his best to fish out what he can use and modify it to fit his current circumstances. Most usefully, it can vanish from both physical and magical detection with a thought, preventing it from giving away Radek’s status as a mage and a mage of the Pribyl clan in particular.
- Elemental Affinity: Fire and Air.
- Magecraft:
- The Spark Of Inspiration: Taking the form of an luminous white flame, The Spark Of Inspiration is the embodiment of human consciousness, typically only used in the very beginning stages of creating an artificial lifeform such as a homunculus or golem. However, the Pribyl clan have taken this branch of study down a different and bizarre path, until, in the right hands, it can temporarily burn bright enough to overwrite a human consciousness that already exists. The Spark of Inspiration can be controlled mentally to move over whatever surfaces that a normal flame would be able to travel over, but won’t burn anything until it touches a human host—and even then, the flames will inflict no pain, and do no damage, even as they appear to sink into a space as large as a limb or as small as a trigger finger. While attached to said limb, Radek is able to control it as he would his own corresponding limb, meaning that it cannot do anything that a normal user of the limb wouldn’t be able to do. While this flame can be directed and controlled with great precision, it is also subject to the same weaknesses as normal fire, and while it can be transformed back into normal fire in a pinch, it will quickly burn out and fade away afterwards.
- Digital Phantom: Using a combination of common wireless earpieces and wind magic to alchemically boost their signal, Radek is able to make himself unseen and unnoticed to any electronic sensors or observers, whether they are some form of A.I. or somebody sitting at the other end of a camera. Radek can and does keep this ability engaged for stretches of time, and can maintain it with minimal effort given there is no other pressing strain on his attention or magical abilities, though in an emergency he can spend a great deal more mana to conceal himself from the vision of anyone looking directly at him as well. This version of the technique isn’t something that he can keep up for long, and so he generally only uses it as a last resort.
- Mystic Codes:
- Deucalion: A typical Augmented Reality digital headset, that features a set of goggles and connected tactile-sensation gloves that allow someone to interface with a virtual experience or else maintain a digital presence wherever they go. In addition to numerous hardware and software upgrades to increase performance and encryption, Radek has alchemically bonded the USB jack to an old family heirloom—in layman’s terms, a key that can shift itself to fit into any lock, up to and including modern keycard swipe pads. With these two elements combined, Radek can shift Deucalion’s jack to fit into anything that would ever be reasonably designed to take an import jack, no matter the design, along with its traditional duties of opening regular old doors.
- Other Things Of Note: Radek has spent an incredible amount of time and energy amassing a well of computer systems and information knowledge, combined with the insight provided by his crest to make him a top-notch hacker. His primary teacher is experience and his only source of new knowledge are the barely-attended classes at Shelter universities, but he has remained steadfast in honing his greatest tool against the establishment.
- Name: Clyde Barrow, Berserker
- Tale and Time of Origin: Historical Fact, most known for his crime spree from 1932-1934
- Appearance: A well-built Texas man, Clyde is paradoxically clad in the finery of a suit jacket, tie, and undershirt, while also never bothering to wear these things in the correct fashion, the jacket generally unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up, and the tie hanging loose as an slack noose. He also tends toward a hat and other accessories, but in this bright new world of futuristic fashions, he isn’t concerned so much as what he brought with him as what he can take.
- Personality: Any historian will tell you that Clyde Barrow was a cruel monster that took what he wanted when he wanted it, with absolutely no mind for the consequences. The media took the opposite track, painting him as a decent kid in bad circumstances in over his head at worst and a brave champion sticking it to the tyranny of the nation’s banks at best. This Clyde Barrow is somewhere in the middle of all that, a man consumed with the same kind of small-town desperation that weighed on so many of his countrymen at the time who decided to take out burgeoning chaotic impulses on the most acceptable and obvious target around—only to perhaps find something more important along the way. Boorish and brash, while also able to be charming and easy-going, even as he nurses a violent streak aimed particularly at those in a position of authority, Clyde generally does his best to only give people what they deserve. But unfortunately for some people, he believes that he personally deserves a lot.
- Parameters, Stats and Skills:
- Servant Parameters
- Strength: B
- Endurance: C
- Agility: D-
- Prana: C+
- Luck: EX
- NP: B
- Class Skills:
- Madness Enhancement EX: Rather than being given any kind of Madness Enhancement by the systems put into place by the Grail War, Clyde Barrow has the exact same Madness Enhancement that he had in life—that is, his surefire confidence in his own ability to get away with his crimes, which despite all odds actually managed to keep him out of the arms of the law for most of his two-year crime spree. This Madness Enhancement only affects his Luck stat, bringing it up to an EX rank that denotes this special effect: Whenever Clyde, or a group of people accompanying Clyde, cross something that could be denoted as, or reasonably substituted for, a “state line”—in his current setting, meaning the various boundaries between the seven Strata of Shelter—anyone pursuing him or his group will suddenly find themselves lost, disoriented, physically impeded from following, or some other means to ensure that they cannot continue their pursuit.
- Personal Skills:
- The Barrow Gang Rides Again B+: Whenever Clyde or someone directly associated with him in his immediate vicinity steals something from someone else, Clyde regenerates or stores an amount of mana proportional to the perceived, actual, or fiat value of the item, whichever is highest. In this way, he can generate more mana than he would normally be able to store, but he cannot gain this bonus by stealing the same thing more than once, even if the item is reclaimed by its original owner or a third party first.
- Riding C+: Whenever Clyde finds himself driving a vehicle that he has explicitly taken from someone else and that isn’t his, he will be able to drive it like a seasoned expert whether or not he has ever seen the controls or even the vehicle itself before.
- Golden Rule B-: Whenever Clyde has the opportunity to choose between more than one value-rich target, even with no obvious indicators he will be able to instinctively move toward whichever one is the most valuable, whether it is the cash register with the most money, the safety deposit box with the most valuable object, etc.
- Servant Parameters
- Noble Phantasms:
- Legacy Of A Roadside Shoot-Out, Rank B (Anti-Unit~Anti-Army): Clyde was finally put down at the hands of a posse of lawmen unloading dozens of rounds into his person—and those bullets have left their mark, both physically and spiritually. Clyde is able to produce either partially or fully any of the guns that he used in life through any of the places where those fateful rounds struck, and fire them with rounds generated from his prana. The only limit to the amount of guns he can generate or the bullets he can fire at any one time are the limits of said prana, and both imitate any of the physical or armor-piercing properties that they may have had while being used in life.
- What’s Yours Is Mine (And What’s Mine Is Also Mine) Rank EX (Anti-Concept[Possession]): If Clyde is able to steal the item-type Noble Phantasm of another Servant, he is then able to generate his own version of it at one rank lower. It will typically have similar, though not identical effects to the item, and will take the form of something more appropriate to Clyde’s own era.
- The Ultimate Accomplice (Anti-Unit[Self]): Just as inseparable in life as in death, Clyde’s final Noble Phantasm allows him to bring Bonnie Parker from the Throne of Heroes to fight alongside him. She has stats that are similar to Clyde’s, along with her own Noble Phantasms such as the ability to guide Clyde’s bullets to their destinations or create decoys to deflect attacks away from Clyde’s person. However, perhaps as a penance for Clyde’s status as a Berserker in life, this Noble Phantasm is sealed off to Clyde normally, and can only be accessed through a Command Seal. Even with this hurdle crossed, the Master would then need to figure out a way to supply enough prana for two Servants at the same time, else they succumb to exhaustion or even death.
- History:
- Born as the fifth of seven sons to a poor farming family in Texas of 1909, Clyde Champion Barrow didn’t have a lot of options. He fell into a life of crime almost as a matter of course, just as soon as he figured out how to drive the cars he meant to steal. In-between taking things that didn’t belong to him, he fell in with a local waitress named Bonnie Parker, who he felt deserved bigger things that he wasted no time promising to her. And he meant every word—until his dirty deeds finally caught up to him, and he was shipped off to a prison farm.
- When Clyde got out, he came out angry. Mingling with real criminals had rubbed off his schoolboy sheen, and he was looking to take out his frustrations on what many people considered the source of the Great Depression ravaging the hearts, minds, and wallets of the nation’s Midwest: banks. With his woman by his side, along with a collection of revolving friends, family, and fellow thugs, Bonnie and Clyde spent the next two years robbing a swath across the neighboring states as they also stole the attention of America at large. Young lovers on the run, vicariously giving it to the institutions that had ruined so many people’s lives, sparked imaginations across the country even while a darker question landed on everyone’s lips: could anyone catch Bonnie and Clyde?
- In the end, they didn’t bother. On a hot Louisiana day, the father of one of their gang members made a deal to secure a lighter sentence for his son. When Bonnie and Clyde stopped to help him change a tire, half-a-dozen lawmen jumped out of the brush, and unloaded more than 130 rounds into their vehicle. But even as their lifeless bodies were towed throughout the streets of the nearby town, their legacy was spread by the people tearing at their bodies for souvenirs just as much as the papers telling the story of their demise, and the Throne of Heroes always has a place for legacies...
Edited by Uncandescent on Apr 25th 2020 at 1:12:09 PM
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
#7: Apr 25th 2020 at 5:21:24 PM
- Name: Euphrasia Chrysanthe Elpis "Euphie Presto" Preston
- Age: 26
- House: Mother never talked much about our House after she left. I wasn't even born yet, so I don't really know the rest of my family outside of her and my brother.
- Appearance: Dreams start by believing. If you don't, even wishes that can be granted won't be.
- Command Seal: It looks like a crown of interwoven flowers, clearly divided into two strands, with a single blossom in the center.
- Personality: I love entertaining and making people smile. I think that's my calling, actually. I know the world is supposedly ending and everything, so it's harder to bring out those smiles these days, but I'm sure there must be a way to fix whatever the problem is! I'm sure Shelter's best minds are working on something right now! Just have to wait and have faith! Still, I'm glad I can help people forget their worries, even if only for a little while. As you can probably tell, I like to look on the bright side of life and reframe things in a positive light. I don't think I've ever really hated anyone, but I don't understand why the Mayor did what he did to the mage families. It just doesn't make sense to hate people who are different from you, you know? I've always wondered a lot about what the rest of my family is like, but now that Mother is gone, I think I'll probably never learn about them. Gad might know something, but he refuses to talk about it. As far as Magecraft, I'm very careful to make sure I don't let on that I'm a mage, just like Mother always taught me. I do use it a bit in my stage shows, but people just think it's part of the act, so no problem!
- Life Story: I grew up in Djerba Rediscovered. I never knew my father, but Mother was a magician of the mundane variety, and also secretly a mage. She taught me all her tricks in secret, Magecraft and otherwise, and passed on the family Crest. Then, one day, she did a disappearing act and never returned. We still don't know what happened to her. Anyway, I live in Djerba with my brother, Cassander (I just call him Cass). I do acts with a bit of comedy, song, dance, acrobatics, and stage magic, and he accompanies me with music. He's really good at most instruments, but where he really shines is with the violin! I know we don't have to work, technically, but it's worth it to see the smiles on people's faces!
- Origin: Optimism! I never let go of my sunny personality, and I instinctively understand how to inspire others toward the same disposition.
- Magic Circuits: Quality B; Quantity A.
- Magic Crest: I don't know how many generations back it goes, but it's on the skin of my left upper outer thigh in the shape of a spiral adhering to the Golden Ratio. As for the spells it contains:
- A barrier adhering to the Golden Ratio with a maximum size of about 10 by 16 feet that dissipates and redirects force and energy coming from one direction to the sides.
- A Bounded Field for dampening noise and bending light around an area, rendering things within unheard and invisible.
- A spell that causes a target object within twenty feet to heat up and vibrate with increasing intensity while prana is focused into the spell, until the target breaks, melts, or explodes, whichever comes first.
- Reinforcement of one's body for increased endurance, agility, and flexibility.
- A spell that temporarily allows transference of energy, heat, light, or sound between two objects the spell has been cast upon.
- Elemental Affinity: Fire and Wind
- Magecraft:
- Cande: creates a shower of multicolor sparks that are pleasantly warm to the touch.
- Common Mage Spells: Bounded Fields for diverting awareness of non-mages, Geassa, Memory Manipulation of non-mage individuals, Shared Perception and Transference of Consciousness with a familiar.
- Fulge: Creates a blinding flash of light in front of me.
- Radia: Shines a spotlight at the target location starting from a point somewhere above my head.
- Mystic Codes:
- Gad: Not really a Mystic Code, but a familiar, inherited from my mother. He's a white rabbit. Inn't he the cutest thing you ever did see?! I dressed him up with his own little performer's outfit and tophat, even! Gad can talk, but he's pretty sarcastic and grump most of the time. He has an accent that I think I once heard described as "British". What's British?
- "Magic Hats": My cap, my brother's cap, and Mother's old top hat are linked and can transmit sound and energy to and from one another. This means we can speak into them and hear one another, and that we can project light and heat from the opening of one to the opening of the others. Depending on which keyword you speak while holding them, things will be transmitted to only one or both.
- "Magic Wand": A baton topped with a large ruby that channels and stores prana, which can be released from its tip in either a focused vector of force, a fire varying in intensity from lighter-like to flamethrower, or simply a glowing light to see by.
- Other Things Of Note:
#8: Apr 26th 2020 at 3:55:30 AM
[deleted]
Edited by DarknessAwaits on Apr 26th 2020 at 1:11:05 PM
JumpingFruit
An Ordinary Oddball
from R'lyeh
Since: Feb, 2018
Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
An Ordinary Oddball
#9: Apr 26th 2020 at 5:52:30 PM
Master
- Name: Alicia Blackwood
- Age: 17
- House: The Blackwood clan has its roots in England, arising during the Elizabethan Era. They were not particularly known for having strong magecraft, but for their use of magecraft in politicking their way around and challenging other members of mage families to duels, which they almost always won due to either creative and skillful use of whatever magic they had or blatant cheating. Alicia’s branch of the family was started comparatively recently when one of the members of the main family fornicated with a prostitute, just before the Branding. Thus, her branch of the family flew under the radar and were not Branded, while the main branch of the family denies any and all association with them and mostly ignores them.
- Appearance: Kinda punky.◊ She’s 5’2” and weighs around 120 lbs.
- Command Seal: A circle with wings on both sides.◊
- Personality: She might look like a punk (because she likes the aesthetic), but she doesn't really act like it. Alicia will try to help anyone in trouble to the best of her ability, because she believes that people have to stick together in hard times in order to pull through. She often cracks jokes to hide her true feelings and is a hard worker. However, she can be overly reckless and stubborn, especially if she feels like people are looking down on her. Alicia still retains the street smarts and scrapping skills that served her well in Electric Hades and is not afraid to use them if need be.
- Life Story:
- Alicia was born in Electric Hades, and spent much of her childhood getting into scraps and stealing from people who were comparatively better off than her. However, when she turned 12, her parents finally decided to put in enough work to move to Old Athens. There was no need to continue her delinquent behavior, so she gradually stopped and became more responsible.
- Her parents soon succumbed again to the general apathetic mood of Shelter, and began spending more and more time in Djerba Rediscovered as wireheads. Alicia has spent the last few years raising herself in her family’s modest apartment and studying what little magecraft she can, starting from when the main branch of the family deigned to contact her to give her their Magic Crest, since they couldn’t make good use of it.
- She isn’t sure how she’ll survive this whole Holy Grail War thingy, but she’s prepared to make a good effort to win. Let’s just hope she can summon a strong Servant, or else this will all be over from the beginning...
- Origin: Heaven. This can fuel weather-manipulating magic.
- Magic Circuits:
- Quality: B
- Quantity: C
- Magic Crest: A small, raggedy piece of skin on her upper back. It goes back only one generation and contains magic theory only; giving it to Alicia was only a formality as far as the main branch of the Blackwoods are concerned, and by and large it is useless for any sort of actual spellcasting.
- Elemental Affinity: Air
- Magecraft:
- Aerosol Vaporous: Creates a thick patch of fog in a given area, use of magecraft is obscured/harder to detect and scrying is disrupted for as long as the fog covers the target(s)
- Nimbus: Creates a fluffy cloud that wraps around an object to move it, the bigger the object, the slower the movement
- Cumulonimbus: Creates miniature thunderclouds that shoot lightning, up to a maximum of 6 at a time
- Ventus (Minor): A short blast of a powerful wind that forces everything in front of it back OR a long blast of a weaker wind that covers a wider area
- Glacies (Major): Covers a surface in frost and lowers its friction to the point that anything that is moving/touching the surface will slip and slide around very easily OR generates a blast of cold intense enough to freeze the surfaces of liquids so that they are safe enough to walk on and temporarily encase living things
- Mystic Codes:
- Cloak of Levitation: A blue cloak with wing-shaped clasps. A blatant ripoff of something Alicia saw in a movie, it allows her to float, glide, and fly at her top running speed. Sadly, it does not have a personality.
- Weather Rod: A worn oaken staff with runes crudely carved into it. It allows for large-scale weather manipulation and is also supernaturally sturdy. It can also shoot out small, yet powerful whirlwinds that suck in surrounding objects, up to a maximum of 3 at a time.
- Souped-Up Skateboard: A skateboard with runes spray-painted on the bottom. It can store up the kinetic energy it gains from moving around to boost its speed in a burst of electricity. It shoots fire when you do certain tricks with it. In order to be able to withstand the G-forces that result from its sudden acceleration, it generates a substantially protective magical shield around its user and itself while it is in motion.
- Other Things of Note: Alicia is pretty good at street-fighting and is street-smart. Since moving to Old Athens, she decided to get into fencing as a hobby, though skateboarding and parkour are still her favorite pastimes.
Servant
- Name: Harry Houdini, Caster
- Tale & Time of Origin: Vaudeville Acts, etc. [Historical Fact], Late 1800s to early 1900s
- Appearance: Somewhat lanky.◊ He’s 5’6” and about 140 lbs. Under that mop of unruly reddish hair, he has one green eye and one blue eye.
- Personality: Houdini is almost never seen without a smile of some kind, and adopts a grand and showy personality when in public. He is fundamentally a kind and cheerful man who only wants to bring joy to those around him. Though he pretends to be mysterious, he loves company and will often drop his pretentious affectations in order to get to know people. He will only stop smiling in the direst of situations, and is very driven and determined.
- Parameters, Stats & Skills:
- Servant Parameters:
- Strength: E
- Endurance: E
- Agility: C
- Prana: A
- Luck: B
- NP: EX
- Class Skills:
- Territory Creation B++: Houdini can create a sizable territory in which his magic will be boosted, but its effectiveness will be boosted a little bit more if the territory happens to include a stage somewhere on its premises. Additionally, he can instantly construct deathtraps anywhere within his territory, which only he knows how to escape in the “right way.”
- Item Creation C+: Houdini can create magical and mundane objects with a practical nature, but their effectiveness will be boosted if they are things which can conceivably be used as props in a “magic show.”
- Personal Skills:
- Slippery Body A+: Houdini’s body is unable to be held by any lock and key. If there is the tiniest chance that he will escape imprisonment and entrapment, then he will be able to do so. If he is transformed into something else, then he still might be able to turn back through sheer force of will.
- Magic Resistance B: Cancels spells with a chant below three verses. Even if Houdini is targeted by High Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals, it is difficult for him to be hurt. He can recognize that real magic is being used against him, but by rejecting it as fraudulent, he can force reality to exempt him from being affected.
- Charisma B: Houdini was one of the greatest showmen in his era, and his particular brand of affability, though he was prone to grandiosity, managed to charm the hearts of many. The effects of this skill are boosted considerably, especially if he is putting on a “show.”
- Mana Burst (Cards) C+: Enables him to charge ordinary playing cards or sheets of flash paper with mana, exponentially increasing their cutting ability or incendiary power when thrown as weapons.
- Mystic Eyes of Disappearance C: Allows Houdini to teleport any “small” object he can see and is able to be hidden in his clothes or behind him to his person, or at least somewhere “near” him. With an additional cost of mana, he can replace the item with a worthless replica. Also allows him to teleport within his possible field of vision (even if something is obscuring his field of vision), provided that nobody is observing him at the moment.
- Familiar (Posters) C: Houdini is able to make any poster which contains his likeness (especially his head and eyes) spy for him and relay information to him. He must see and touch the poster he wishes to make into his familiar in order to “activate” it. If a poster is touching or can see other posters, then it may spread its nature at a slow rate until all of the posters it is touching or looking at have been converted.
- An additional unique familiar that Houdini can summon is in the form of a large, awkward Automaton, which moves slowly and must be wound up with a key before it is sent out on missions. Its very presence will cause much consternation and it will always appear menacing, but it can be toppled with but a kick. However, it will nearly always manage to reassemble itself and continue on its noble mission to be a minor annoyance to Houdini’s enemies.
- Heart of the Show: Houdini has no particular armament, as he is not a Servant particularly suited for combat, but he can summon any sort of prop used in “magic shows,” from playing cards to big cabinets. If he does get into a melee confrontation, then he will have to improvise weapons in order to trip his enemy up.
- Noble Phantasms:
- Death Trap Atelier EX (Anti-Concept [Escape]): Creates a Reality Marble filled with innumerable deathtraps and pitfalls. The traps are even more deadly than those created by Houdini’s Territory Creation ability. It represents the pinnacle of Houdini’s achievements, and is extremely dangerous for even Servants to attempt to traverse this space. Some traps will temporarily lower a Servant’s parameters, while some will suppress their skills and even Noble Phantasms. All hope of escape is utterly annihilated. Truly, a mad world to anybody but Houdini, who uses it as a training ground for himself.
- Unbreakable Restraints A (Anti-Unit): Manifests a straitjacket onto the target. It is very durable and seemingly impossible to escape. It has a random number of padlocks holding the ensemble together, but they will never number below 3 or above 7. The keys to the padlock will also manifest in Houdini’s possession, and he can then hide them however he wishes. A reference to his famous straitjacket escapes.
- Magician’s Rod B+ (Magecraft): Stage magicians commonly use some sort of rod in their performances for dramatic effect and to represent a “magic wand.” Houdini is no exception. His “walking stick” can grant him the ability to cast spells faster (the equivalent of Rapid Casting B+) as long as he incorporates it into his grandiose gesturing when casting magic. It’s a handy little thing.
- Servant Parameters:
- History: An ordinary magician who came to specialize in escape artistry. He gained much fame for his daring escapes from life-threatening situations and his work in disproving the work of false mystics. Finally, after reaching the pinnacle of greatness in showmanship, he was tragically killed by an internal infection following a punch to the stomach. After his death, his life was heavily romanticized, and his shows are now considered the stuff of legend in Djerba Rediscovered, with many VR experiences accurately recreating them. Some people are fascinated by his life and put on dramatic reenactments of his shows regularly. All this love and admiration directed towards him has allowed him to ascend to the Throne of Heroes and be summoned as a Servant.
Edited by JumpingFruit on Dec 6th 2020 at 1:06:20 AM
I wear the skin of the Elder Things, having come unto my own.
joergenjetsam
from The city of constant rain
Since: Dec, 2012
Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
#10: Apr 29th 2020 at 9:48:51 PM
- Name: Adeline Thérèse Viviani
- Age: 19
- House: The Vivianis are proud to count themselves amongst the first immigrants to Shelter, before it was even a proper town. They were mages long before that of course, one-time members of the Mage’s Association of decent standing. Before 2940, they were secure in the knowledge of their superiority over the local mages. Since the branding, the family has tried to take their fall with good grace, though success on that front varies. They are united in their loathing of the mayor and little else these days.
- Appearance: A brunette of average height and wiry build, Adeline has grey eyes. Her skin is pale and her hair reaches to her shoulders.
- Command Seals: https://imgur.com/a/1tUEa
- Personality: Ill-tempered and blunt, the status quo sits poorly with Adeline. Mages might have saved humanity. It would have been a gamble, perhaps, but it was within the realm of possibility. Fear and laziness led the species to take the easier route, and now all are resigned to a guaranteed if slow death. Galling.
- Life Story: The great-granddaughter of the Viviani family patriarch, Adeline might once have expected to inherit that post one day, following strict primogeniture. Alas, life at Shelter means that is unlikely to happen, and Adeline oft wonders why she even lives, born scant decades before the end. Otherwise her upbringing has been the same as most Vivianis, taught what little magecraft can be taught since the branding and given a decently broad education otherwise. As of late she's been increasingly left to her own devices as apathy sets in, similar to her cousins.
- Origin: Patronage
- Magic Circuits: Quality A, Quantity B. Though gifted by any objective measure, the Vivianis have produced an excess amount of mages who possess A rank in both categories, whom are the only ones Adeline feels are worth comparing herself too.
- Magic Crest: The Viviani Magic Crest is grafted to ones abdomen traditionally, resembling a flowering vine coiled around ones waist. Though the Viviani crest in full is very impressive and boasts perhaps the largest repertoire of spells in Shelter, the family itself having lost count of how many generations back their house goes, Adeline does not possess the full version. Her great-grandfather does, and her grandfather perhaps as well, but with their magecraft forever crippled by the Mayor they decided against risking any future children's lives with a full transplant. The incomplete Crest offers Adeline some basic strengthening magic to make her quicker and stronger, along with a few other basic spells, such as the creation of lights.
- Elemental Affinity: Water & Fire
- Magecraft:
- Adeline can specially prepare blood for combat use. She can use it to lengthen her sabre if need be, or use it in conjunction with her strengthening to enhance her physical capabilities further. Otherwise she can fire the stuff as high-pressure projectiles or manipulate it to form tendrils. She can also absorb lifeforce from the shed blood of others if it's fresh. She's only recently began using blood in her magecraft, and in truth it disgusts her somewhat. But it distinguishes her from her family members, and intellectual honesty demanded she explore it further when she chanced across it with ordinary hydromancy.
- Blood-writing: Through experimentation, Adeline has found that by writing in blood, she can infuse the words with more meaning. Effectively, this means a single word can convey several sentences worth of information, and some hasty scribbles enough to fill a book. Likewise, it lets her convey information that the written word would usually be unable to convey, like sounds and smells. These effects appear only to work on those she wishes to share the information with, as found when she delivered two copies of the same text to two different cousins.
- Hydromancy: Manipulation and control of water. Findings so far suggest blood may be a medium more suited to her, which she finds unsettling.
- Shared Perception: The sharing of sense input with a consenting partner via magecraft.
- Others: As might be expected from a scion of a respected and established family, Adeline understands and can proficiently apply more ubiquitous magecraft such as bounded fields and familiars. She can write up Geass Scrolls, knows how to set up a workshop, and has knowledge of all the common branches of study.
- Mystic Codes: None that are seriously magical. The family has more than a few, but none have been granted to her. She does however possess a plain sabre which she trained with growing up. Logically she could use it in real combat as well.
- Name: Seleucus I Nicator; Servant class Rider
- Tale and Time of Origin: The Conquests of Alexander, and the Early Hellenistic period
- Appearance: Fittingly for one who claims descent from Apollo, he is tall and splendid, clean-shaven, with bright eyes, a handsome smile, and hair a radiant blend of silver and gold. Typically wears a chestplate polished to a mirror sheen, with a blue and white cape emblazoned with the Seleucid anchor. On the fourth finger of his left hand he wears his personal signet ring.
- Personality: Seleucus is one who would consider his life one well-lived. He is even-tempered and cheerful, quick to laugh and slow to anger. His life’s achievements stand as testament to his greatness, and when his end came he had done all that he had set out to do, save one thing only. He has been a soldier, a commander, an admiral, and finally a king. He dined and celebrated with Chandragupta and Ptolemy, and in 40 years forged an empire that stretched from Afghanistan to Bulgaria.
- Parameters, Stats and Skills:
- Servant Parameters:
- Strength: B
- Endurance: B
- Agility: B
- Mana: C
- Luck: A
- Noble Phantasm: A
- Class Skills:
- Magic Resistance: C
- Riding: A
- Personal Skills:
- Charisma: B
- Imperial Privilege: B
- Divinity: C
- Servant Parameters:
- Personal Skills explained:
- Imperial Privilege: With a B rank in this skill, it corresponds to swordsmanship, fine arts, military tactics, architecture, engineering and law. When King of Asia is in effect, it also grants Eye of the Mind (True) and Magecraft of the corresponding rank.
- Noble Phantasms:
- Elephant King: O beast of the founder king, make safe our kingdom – Rank A, Anti-Army: The first Noble Phantasm of Seleucus, it summons an enormous radiant elephant, a Divine Beast that is the reification of the empire he founded. Like the empire it embodies, and the animal whose form it takes, this creature is an unstoppable juggernaut, plodding yet brutally powerful. The elephant may be summoned at Seleucus’ leisure, and sitting atop it the radiant king shines more like Apollo than ever. The power of the beast scales with Seleucus’ Imperial Privilege and Divinity ranks.
- King of Asia – Rank B: The Seleucid Empire was Asia. This much was clear to the Greeks and Macedonians, and so its king was rightly the master of Asia. A straightforward Noble Phantasm, it confers bonuses to Seleucus’ parameters and personal skills within any space that is understood to be ‘Asia’ or somehow descended from it, for instance a Chinatown in an American city.
- Ta pragmata: The sacred affairs of the king – Rank C: For a dynasty divorced from its ancestral heartland, what recourse is there but to develop new ones? Where the king walks, there lies his kingdom. Rider may, at his leisure, lose his signet ring at a site he deems promising. This noble phantasm may be used once only. Once lost, the signet ring cannot be recovered.
- History:
- Conqueror of conquerors, the Victor of Alexander’s funeral games, the Elephant King. What more need be said of Seleucus, son of Antiochus? Quite a bit, actually. Beginning his career as an officer in Alexander’s army on the latter’s fateful journey east, Seleucus gradually rose in the ranks to command the contingent later termed the Silvershields. Following Alexander’s death, he became satrap of Babylon, and thence he founded what would become the Seleucid empire, the largest of the Hellenistic kingdoms. Those conflicts were long and complicated, and for the sake of brevity we shall not touch on them here. Suffice to say, that by the end of the Diadoch wars, the Seleucid empire stretched from Central Asia to Thrace, and its founder’s title of Nicator, ‘the victor’ was well-earned. After becoming master of Asia, the aged and venerable king finally met his end in Europe, struck down by his ward, Ptolemy Keraunos.
Edited by joergenjetsam on Apr 30th 2020 at 2:53:36 AM
Conception is sin Birth is pain Life is toil Death is inevitable
#11: Nov 13th 2020 at 4:43:47 PM
- Name: Hou Yi, Servant Class Archer
- Tale and Time of Origin: Chinese Mythology, Ming Dynasty
- Appearance: As a Psuedo-Servant, Hou Yi has manifested in the body of Euphie's brother, Cassander. In this form, he wears a yellow sleeved tunic with a black pattern of a tree. Around his waist, he wears a furred garment separated from the tunic with a white band of leather, from which hangs his quiver - the requisite bow is slung across his back. However, he has kept his vessel's pants, though they are worn under a flared skirt that also serves as armor for the upper leg and lower chest area. He has also, for whatever reason, kept his vessel’s hat.
- Personality: Hou Yi is neither a benevolent hero or cruel tyrant, both as accounted by the stories - instead he lies somewhere in-between. Confident in his power and willing to go to many lengths to maintain it, he nevertheless feels a duty to protect humanity from whatever depredations may threaten them. He is disdainful of authorities he sees as inept or needlessly cruel, and has a strange fondness for traditions, especially festivals or other celebrations. With his newly-implanted memories, he is quite shocked that one of the versions of his tale has him becoming a tyrant and attempting to shoot his wife, and consequently a bit confused about the current state of the world that would remember him thusly.
- Parameters, Stats and Skills: All stats are relative, A being the highest and E the lowest. No-one has any idea what they actually mean. Ignore Luck. Base class parameters can be found on the TYPE-MOON wiki, under Parameters.
- Servant Parameters
- Strength: C
- Endurance: B
- Agility: C
- Prana: D
- Luck: C
- NP: A
- Class Stats:
- Independent Action (A): It is possible to take action even without a Master. However, to use Noble Phantasms of great magical energy consumption, backup from the Master is necessary. At Rank A, it is possible for a Servant to stay in the world for about a week without a Master.
- Magic Resistance (A): Cancel spells of A-Rank or below, no matter what High-Thaumaturgy it is. In practice, the Servant is untouchable to modern magi, so it would not be an exaggeration to title the Servant a "Magus Killer".
- Personal Skills:
- Divinity (A+)
- Personal Skills:
- Explain Personal Skills Here, particularly any made-up ones. Armor and non-NP weapons go here too.
- Elixir of Immortality A - The moon goddess, Chang’e, stole two immortality pills when she wished to fly to the moon, intending the second for Hou Yi, her husband. This skill confers A-rank divinity.
- Questionable Divinity D - Hou Yi’s origins have been lost to the mists of time, disputed eben before Shelter. Some sources claim that he was a god of archery that descended from heaven to aid mankind, while other times he is claimed to be fully mortal or half-divine. This skill simply increases all parameters by one rank on its own, but in combination with his Pill of Immortality skill adds a “+” to the A-rank already conferred.
- Meat of the Double-Headed Boar B - Hou Yi, when faced with the enormous double-headed boar Feng Xi, did not kill it as he did the other monsters. Instead, he crippled it by shooting its leg, and presented the meat to Emperor Yao. This skill allows him to provide nourishment he sees as appropriate to his Master once every three days, sustaining them both physically and magically. Since the feat this is based off of was a result of an order, this comes at the cost of ranking down his Independent Action to B as long as the nourishment is not wholly consumed. The three-day count is “reset” to start on the day the food is finally consumed if the lapsed period outlasts it.
- Exile to the Sun - Hou Yi was exiled to the sun for his killing of the Jade Emperor’s nine sons while Chang’e waited on the moon. When the Jade Emperor gets drunk and falls asleep as a result of a festival dedicated to him, his edict forbidding the sun to cross the moon lapses, and husband and wife meet again for a week. This skill manifests as a coolness or even coldness towards the Master, who represents the restraining figure of authority. Possible nullification would require both parties to acknowledge “fairness” in the Master-Servant relationship. Can be nullified by the use of a Command Seal, but at the cost of Independent Action ranking down to B.
- Noble Phantasms:
- Don't kid me, you thought of this part first. Don't sprain your fingers.
Hunter of Monsters - Rank B, Anti-Unit - The conceptualization of Hou Yi’s famous monster-hunting. The slaying of the snake-monster Xiushe that could swallow an elephant and the savage bird Dafeng that could whip up tempests with its wings are his most “normal” feats - the Yayu, a man-eating beast that was once a benevolent creature before its death and resurrection by heaven, and the Jiuying, a nine-headed mythical creature of fire and water with a baby’s cry, are among the supernatural. Hou Yi, sent by Emperor Yao to slay these beasts who were harming humanity, shot all of them through the heart. Whatever skill or normally inactive Noble Phantasm that could make Hou Yi consider something a “monster” or “threat to humanity” is suppressed. This skill can be forcibly applied to any enemy with the use of a Command Seal, with the consequence that any offending skill or Noble Phantasm is not suppressed but instead brought down one rank.
Mid-Autumn Festival of Gathering, Rank B+, Anti-Army* - In one version of their myth, after Chang’e floated off to the moon Hou Yi was saddened and laid out her favorite cakes and fruits as sacrifices. Eventually, people became sympathetic to his cause and participated alongside him. The sacrifice grants all participants luck and safety pertaining to mundane matters, altering any enemy’s feelings towards those associated with Hou Yi and making them sympathize with his and his associates’ goal and intentions. Since the festival was seen as a tradition to bring the family together, this Noble Phantasm’s range increases when someone makes an affirmation of any positive emotional bond within or in visual/auditory range of it. However, the festival’s initial range is limited to extend to all participants with a “margin” of five feet extending beyond them in all directions. It “ideally” consists of the placement of mooncakes and incense under the full moon, with the effects weakening the farther these three are from “the original”. Since the festival is also associated with another version of the myth where Hou Yi became a cruel tyrant once proclaimed hero-king by the people, this will also result in a temporary Mad Enhancement rank of C-, lasting until the festival is ended.
- Is sealed by the skill “Exile to the Sun”.
Slaying of the Golden Jiuying, the Nine Suns - Rank A, Anti-Unit: The nine arrows Hou Yi used to down nine of ten suns, who were the sons of the Jade Emperor. It is said that he only needed one arrow for each sun, and only spared the tenth because its mother and King Yao asked him to for the prosperity of man. These arrows will, unerringly, find their targets, even if they must perform otherwise-unlikely maneuvers. These can be “focused” on one target or spread out to as many as nine, but are not numerous enough to classify as “Anti-Army”. Effective against enemies with the Divine trait.
- History:
- Even before Shelter, Hou Yi’s origins were lost to the mists of time and the inaccuracy of record. In some stories he was portrayed as an archery god, descended from the heavens to aid mankind - in others, he was half-divine or even fully mortal. The rest of his story shares a common thread - his shooting down of the nine suns and hunting of various monsters - but after that they fragment into three distinct tales. Since the Throne of Heroes seems to have recorded one “correct” version, this is the one that will be explained, with the other two mentioned as necessary.
- In the “correct” version of the story, recorded in the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West, after Hou Yi shot down the nine suns on the Jade Emperor’s request, the Jade Emperor imprisoned him, as the suns were his sons. Chang’e, his wife, stole two immortality pills and took one, floating up to the moon and expecting her husband to follow. Hou Yi took the pill, but was exiled to the sun by the Jade Emperor, who then forbade the sun from crossing the moon. This is the reason for the initial application of “Exile to the Sun”. However, for one week every year, the Jade Emperor gets drunk and falls asleep, allowing the couple to meet and in the record allowing possible dispelling of the skill.
This version, however, does not explain the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival other than claiming it as a result, while the other two explain it in their different ways. In the first, Hou Yi was not imprisoned for shooting the suns but instead given the immortality elixir as a reward. Chang’e kept it with her, and swallowed it when accosted by a thief who had heard of it - she flew to the moon both to escape and to remain near her beloved husband. When Hou Yi returned from hunting and heard what had transpired, he was greatly saddened and put out sacrifices of the fruits and cakes that Chang’e had liked, and eventually people felt pity for him and joined in.
In the second version, which is somewhat more popular when it comes to the festival’s origins, Hou Yi instead became a tyrant after receiving the elixir as a reward and being elected hero-king by the grateful people. Chang’e, fearing that humanity would never escape his cruelty if he took the elixir, stole it and consumed it, again floating off to the moon. Hou Yi, in great anger, tried and failed to shoot her - therefore, on that day, people celebrate the sacrifice that Chang’e made.
The Journey to the West version also seems to be lacking Hou Yi’s record of slaying monsters who were troubling humans under the command of King Yao, but this thread is common in the other two versions and as such has “matched up” with the current record. The nature of the immortality-granting object also varies, with Journey to the West recording it as a pill while the other two record it as an elixir - however, with the public memory associating “elixirs of immortality” with Chinese emperors the Throne has recorded it as such.
Edited by Altris on Dec 17th 2020 at 7:46:57 AM
So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr
Mancunian Candidate
#12: Dec 5th 2020 at 1:32:07 PM
Obligatory mea culpa: Ezra has been extrapolated wholesale from previous existence as a single paragraph in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. PDF available on request to make this all a little less incomprehensible.
More important mea culpa: he's a vampire now.
- Name: Ezra Buckley, also known as Servant Girl ♂ ANNIHILATOR or Atavist of the Primate Epoque.
- Age: 1213 (actual). 48 (physical).
- House: Independent. The last surviving associate of a long-forgotten breakaway organisation extinguished by the Enforcers at the close of the 20th century. He is also the 27th Dead Apostle Ancestor; there are exactly 27 Dead Apostles left in existence, and he is by far the weakest, so it could be said that this largely boils down to observance of tradition.
- Appearance: The quintessential southern gentleman and captain of industry, a tall man in a cleanly-pressed three-piece suit who gives an overwhelming impression of disingenuous hospitality. For unknown reasons, his general countenance is always sure to provoke a reaction of "wow, finger-licking good". His charm points are his Van Dyke moustache and goatee, which are always immaculately groomed.
- Command Seal: ψ.
- Personality: An iconoclastic firebrand of the Enlightenment, whose only possible outlook is the sum of all the cruel triumphalism of that epoch. He believes sternly in the capacity of man to correct all weaknesses and superstitions inherent to his being, discarding disproven ideas to the grinding wheel of history and ascending ever higher on stairs of shattered falsehood. His grandest heresy is that the Swirl of the Root does not concern him in the slightest; his life's work has been to demonstrate to a non-existent god the superiority of his creation, holding nothing sacred and denying himself regret. He is considered by the other 27 Dead Apostle Ancestors to be the one most alligned with the goal of "amenable reconciliation with our food", contributing to his weakness.
- Robbed of his capacity for change in exchange for eternal life, the events of the two centuries have been powerless to stymie this outlook. However, while his inclination can no longer be modified, as a goal is the effect of interaction between attitude and established facts, he can still be steered by changes to his material reality. It can be said that he is one who has abandoned "two-loop learning" and focuses entirely on the "single loop".
- Life Story: Ezra was born in 1780, the eccentric son of an eccentric millionaire, and inherited from his father a fortune in dollars, gold, cattle, brothels, rivers, slaves, and a nascent capacity for magecraft which allowed him to multiply them tenfold. The purpose of his riches came to him in 1824, when under his disdainful gaze in Tennessee came the messenger of a certain secret society in hiding from another far older and more powerful, an association of Mages and Magicians devoted to establishing hegemony across the breadth of the Old World; the prey's particular heresy was the attempted creation of a fictional country, one at the furthest borders of the common sense of humans, as means of exploring a vaguely-defined program of topics from philanthropy to the Kabbalah.
- To Ezra, this was a laughably modest ambition. In America, he told the man, it was absurd to invent a thing so small as a mere country. They were to invent a a planet, a world, a cosmos of this potent heresy, and if they wanted his backing were to do so in private. "Furthermore," he said, "this work will make no pact with that imposter Jesus Christ". Their agreement was sealed with spit and handshakes.
- In baton Rouge in 1828, following four years of meticulous preparation, Ezra drank a potent poison and rose from the dead three days later spitting blasphemies and triumph. The work of that secret society continued in earnest, funded by cotton and flesh, until in 1914 the last of forty volumes were delivered to their collaborators. This was the First Encyclopaedia of Tlön, subject of the mythology of the equally fictional land of Uqbar, and under these conditions a metaphysical position obscured from the Root in its entirety.
- In 1942, as Ezra's true scheme was sprung and dissemination became his organisation's new praxis, Tlön began its intrusion into the World Interior. The Mage's Association was alerted by 1945, and after a short but bloody conflict the whole affair was contained in its entirety by 1973. Ezra's collaborators, some three-hundred astronomers, biologists, engineers, metaphysicians, poets, chemists, algebraists, moralists, painters, geometers, and so forth, were exterminated in their totality. Ezra, who the Association was unable to exterminate for political reasons, was passed on to the Church and sentenced to be sealed in a coffin until the day of Judgement.
- In 2653, in the aftermath of a particularly pointless schism, Ezra escaped containment; he flowed with the rest of man's detritus to the waiting cesspit of Shelter, quietly establishing himself as a discerning supplier in the flesh-trade supplying the Fourth Ring. Though presumably forced by an imbalance of power and ingenious legal attack to submit to the mayor's genetic splicing, the conceptual or physical advantage of a Dead Apostle rendered it ineffective. It can be understood that he simply digested the new genetic material and went home full.
- Incidentally, his deplorable conduct toward his household staff at this time has earned him the derogatory nickname Servant Girl ♂ ANNIHILATOR from the other 26 Ancestors.
- Origin: None whatsoever. Originally fire, but this blew out during his transformation into a Dead Apostle.
- Magic Circuits:Quantity A+, quality D. Technique is an invention utilised by humans to make up for inherent weakness; creatures which surpass the common sense of humans, who possess no such weaknesses, have no corresponding need for technique.
- Magic Crest: Inapplicable. A second-generation Mage incapable of reproduction, but granted the time to memorise what he had no intention of sharing and the capacity for infinite growth.
- Elemental Affinity: Void in its understanding as Imaginary Numbers, granting him intuitive affinity with matters of abstract systems; finances, the law, and fiction. He has no access to Imaginary Number Space or any particular affinity with spirits, having broken from the Platonists an aeon ago.
- Dead Apostleship:
- The Curse of Resurrection: Wounds dealt to Ezra's flesh are healed as his body burns prana to reverse its personal timeframe to a state in which it was undamaged - for this reason, it is impossible to deal damage greater than the speed of his regeneration. He cannot be said to have such a thing as "vital organs" or "a conceptual core as a magus", and under ideal conditions could even resurrect from his four scattered limbs. As the weakest remaining Dead Apostle, however, Ezra can be functionally disabled by the removal of more than fifty percent of his extant biomass and could not hope to recover from the destruction of more than three quarters of his body. Moreover, while his prana reserves are vast, they are not infinite, and under the additional strain of supporting a servant wanton sacrifice of his body cannot be sustained for long.
- Man's Only Predator: As a form of life suited to the task of killing and consuming human beings, the body of Ezra Buckley is best understood of that of a human with inflated parameters; it is said the only being which could plausibly hunt the humans of his age was another, especially high-performance human. He is stronger than five men, faster than the quickest athlete, and holds himself at all times with the reptilian grace of an astounding gentleman. Such a body naturally generates truly profound quantities of prana, like a snake filling up its stomach with its own tail, and from a certain point of view you could say "he must drink blood to avoid choking".
- Ezra is incapable of creating ghouls, having abandoned the method of "creating slaves by utilising magecraft" for the far more efficient method of "buying slaves by utilising capital".
- Magicos Excommunicatus Traitoris: The magecraft of Ezra Buckley is a jumbled mass of autodidactic research and thieved crib-notes, and bears little mechanical resemblance to the formal magecraft of an Association Mage. Without a crest his spells are assembled within his body on the fly, sacrificing assured success in casting for greater flexibility. In combat the focus of his interests become clear, and there are a few areas in which he displays eccentric genius;
- Bounded Fields: The bounded fields of Ezra Buckley are not particularly robust, nor due to sloppy casting methods is he able to establish those of typical size, covering a whole building or entire castle grounds. Instead he focuses entirely on the manipulation of interior reality, able to establish harsh conditions or powerful boons within his miniscule domain. Lacking an in-depth understanding of magecraft theory, manipulation of the physical law is his primary defence against hostile magic.
- Reinforcement: A comparatively recent area of interest, following his resounding defeat at the hands of the Mage's Association, an incident in which when his even superior body proved insufficient. By channelling prana through the latticework of his body flesh turns to steel and fists to mortarshells, increasing his durability and power tenfold. Without an ounce of training or even a natural talent for violence, he becomes an existence capable of threatening even the body of a Heroic Spirit in close quarters.
- Gandr: An elementary nordic curse, taught during his first exposure to the world of magecraft. By channelling his outrageous reserves of prana through this unassuming beginner-level spell, a mild sinus infection strikes the target with the energy of a high-calibre anti-materiel rifle round. Incidentally, he is an abysmal shootist.
- Mystic Codes:
- Remington Model 95: Loretta An ornate◊ but otherwise perfectly ordinary derringer, a weapon totally unsuited for combat whose only utility is the surreptitious murder of humans. In Ezra's possession since his distant youth, his familiarity with the weapon gives it exceptional compatibility for reinforcement. Its anemic .22 catridge, once hardened to diamond and propelled by by an impossibly enhanced payload, is his primary method of overwhelming magical barriers against which Gandr would dissipate harmlessly.
- Orbis Tertius, or, the Third Collected Encyclopaedia of Tlön: A collection of forty-two tomes describing in meticulous detail the mythology of a country which does not exist, itself concerning a world doubly fictional; Tlön, a conceptual "Primate Epoque" in which the Root does not exist and "the alien common sense of demons" is mankind's only heuristic. In this sense it is a particular understanding of a Reality Marble that strays dangerously close to the nature of Mystery, a bounded metaphysical location within which the only viable metaphysics are those of spectacle and vaguery. Positioned beyond the Interior World yet bypassing the Exterior, the bounded field of Tlön cannot be traversed by any physical means, and to do so would surely mean insanity and death in the shortest order for a descendent of Akash. Yet, if proper ritual is observed, certain phenomena can only be persuaded to leave its domain.
- Briefly Dropping the Nasuverse Wiki Act: TLDR he can pull shit from Tlön out of it. This has little practical use; the pages of the encyclopaedia are filled with the ingenious exotica and esoteric grammars which were the delight of early 20th century intellectuals - though Nasu's Mystery is here the commonplace, Tlön possesses no grand magecrafts (at least, none that would survive contact with functioning metaphysics), no Throne of Heroes, and no Noble Phantasms to be summoned. Tlön operates entirely on Berkeleyan idealism (sans the stabilising presence of god) and cannot meaningfully be said to have a physical aspect at all. Instead, you can coax through certain emergent phenomena.
- The Practical Application: Hrönir and Urir A hrön is an object unique to Tlönic cosmology and culture, a symptom of a world without object permanence. It is the duplicated object created when an object has been discarded and found again by two separate individuals, warped almost imperceptibly by misremembrance. Hrönir can themselves be generated from a hrön, but quickly collect defects and typically become unrecognisable by the twelth generation. A ur is of the same general order of objects, but urir are educed through suggestion or vague hope; the second final bullet of your magazine, the archaeological find which just so happens to prove your every theory, one last dribble of milk to get your through to the shops opening.
- Why This and Not Just Tracing: Hrönir and urir require no magical expenditure to keep summoned and no particular understanding of the object in question in order to generate. In the case of hrönir you don't even need to really know what you're looking for. On the flipside, it won't work on Noble Phantasms or other objects dependent on the high-performance bourgeois metaphysique of worlds anchored to the Root for their function. No Ea for Ezra.
- In Conclusion: mea maxima culpa
- Remington Model 95: Loretta An ornate
A-RAY:
- Name: Diogenes the Cynic (Avenger).
- Tale and Time of Origin: Sinope, 412BC, yet associated most strongly with Athens. His tale is that of his life; his fame the fiction of his meeting with Iskander.
- Appearance: A elderly gentlemen in a white himation, hair turned white by the years yet with the coarse skin and rugged musculature of someone thoroughly inured to the elements. His odour has been described as a potent anti-nostril technique with the capability to humble any perfume.
- Personality: Diogenes is one who sought to "degrade the political currency", a human who abandoned the common sense of humans and took his inspiration from the domain of Gaia. Believing truly that actions speak louder than words and living at the very end of the last age in which man could still be said to recognise the Truth, he became a living critique of a confused and shallow societies which sought to lock it behind abstractions of thought. Maintaining an extremely high ego while still remaining fundamentally easygoing, he does not so much as bat an eye before doing something outrageous like masturbating in public or eating in the crowded marketplace, and his argumentative strategy is that of victory by attrition. He has poor compatibility with human beings, instead being something more akin to the dogs which inspired his name.
- Parameters, Stats and Skills:
- Servant Parameters:
- Strength: Ε
- Endurance: Δ*
- Agility: Ε
- Prana: Γ
- Luck: Δ
- Noble Phantasm: Ω
- Class Skills:
- Avenger: B; As one with the trait of "making a virtue of the insult" yet not a physical fighter Diogenes experiences a boost to the effectiveness of his Noble Phantasm proportionate to world's antipathy. The product of a truly troublesome personality.
- Personal Skills:
- Inured to the Elements: Α; Diogenes endurance can be considered A against passive weather effects or bodily discomfort.
- Battle Continuation: Γ; Inferred from a stubborn attitude, Diogenes can force himself to continue talking for a time even with fatal wounds, but strenuous exertion will certainly spell his doom.
- Battle Discontinuation: ΕΧ; When backed into a corner or simply disinterested, there is a chance Diogenes will hold his breath until his body expires.
- Magecraft Resistance: B; A limited skill considered inferior to true Magic Resistance, born from his antipathy with the ancient Mage Plato. True Mystery which surpasses human wisdom will affect him without resistance of any kind.
- Noble Phantasms:
- Diogenes' Tub: A large clay wine jar belonging to the temple of Cybele, still holding enough of the residual trace of her protection to be considered to belong to a certain low-ranked category of symbolic Divine Construct. Diogenes' beloved home, under which he can hide to deflect attacks.
- Behold: A Man: A phenomena-based Noble Phantasm derived from the story of his most infamous quarrel with Plato. Once an opponent's Noble Phantasm has been identified and properly understood, Diogenes constructs a crude facsimile from trash he finds lying around which functions as a powerful counterargument against the authority of his opponent's legend. The affected Noble Phantasm has its parameters decreased proportionate to his satire until such time as the facsimile is destroyed. For example, during his summoning a particular Grail War elsewhere in the Kaleidoscope, Behold: Excalibur took the form of a child's wooden toy with the name of God scrawled crudely onto it in charcoal, resulting in a certain Saber's tearful retirement three nights later. As a point of interest, Diogenes was able to learn the nature of the contents of that Grail later on in this War and by sitting in his tub became Behold: Angra Mainyu, resulting in the ritual's utter failure and the immediate suicide of the local overseer.
- History: Diogenes was born the son of a banker in Sinope; at an early age he was instructed by the Oracle at Delphi to "deface the currency" and was expelled from the city soon afterwards for his crime. Arriving in Athens and quickly losing his slave, he realised that gnarled old Pythia had intended to say "deface the political currency", and took spiritedly to finding appropriate methods of insulting the city he had so recently adopted as his home. Trained in philosophy by Antisthenes, he took at once to the path of demonstrating his thoughts through actions and not words, harassing the other heirs of Socrates at every turn while simultaneously offending every civilised notion of the people he lived amongst. Eventually he was sold to slavery and arrived in Corinth, where he grew tired of living and held his breath until he expired. As he had accumulated an abundance of apprentices before his perfectly-timed death and would later be said to have crossed path with the legendary King of Conquerors himself, his name grew in prestige and passed eventually into the Throne of Heroes, a possibility to which he had given no thought whatsoever.
- Servant Parameters:
Edited by OG-Sama on Dec 14th 2020 at 11:01:03 AM
Total posts: 12
Like all other things, we try again.
It is the year 2993 CE. The city of Shelter, for the half-a-million souls who inhabit her, is the protectress and matron of the human race. The world above is a cracked shell under an orange sky, but down in Shelter the monorails still run, the police drones still function and the sun still shines bright in the blue heavens.
The Sheltered themselves are a hodge-podge of humanity, dressing and styling themselves after every era and race of mankind: at the end of history, new fashions somehow matter somewhat less. Crinoline skirts creak against obi sashes; steel heelspurs scratch sealskin sandals. The city herself is a sprawling structured mess of architecture, teased and pried by the municipal board into a semblance of order - curved Chinese eaves stare haughtily over the bright silver monorails, hovercars glide under the taciturn eyes of mehnirs and dolmens, and children play around the transcendentalist fountains of New Arcady, twisted plexiglass forms which spit blood and not water.
Most of the time their parents join them. There has been an outpouring of apathy in these last days, ever since the tremors began ten years ago. Schools teach nothing, save as student interest dictates; there is nothing left going forward. Adults do not work; the Department of Health synthesises more than enough food with more than enough flavor to keep five Shelters sated and satisfied. Even pensioners do not, as a general rule, die - meditech keeps the hand of death at bay. Two hundred is the new eighty.
As no-one in Shelter expects to survive past 3000 CE, this is small comfort to anyone.
The city's lodestone, its magical core, the only thing keeping her impossible utopia alive and afloat two kilometers deep in the Atlantic seabed, is failing fast. Perhaps once the Mages could have helped, but no longer. Shelter's great Mage families, forcibly registered fifty years ago and marked by the hereditary pewter 'M' on their left shoulders, are now no more than vengeful, cheeping chicks, staring balefully out of their ruined nests into a dark and brooding sky.
Magic died in Shelter when the Mayor broke it.
Your friends say that's the reason for the ten-year costume party; boredom, and dead magic. There just isn't anything exciting in the world anymore. All the mysteries were explained fifty years ago, when Dr. Larson and his team mapped the magic chromosome and found a way to cripple it, and the Mayor had the nanotech blocking proteins spliced into every single Mage. And besides, most of the world is dead.
But you aren't too sure, because no matter how you try, you can't explain the dreams.
Over the past few weeks you've been dreaming. Not too uncommon, in a city of layabouts and fancy-dressers, but still quite unnerving. Some nights, you see a green field and a blue sky - the bluest you've ever seen, brighter than even Shelter's on minimal occlusion days, and they designed that one. Other nights, you see other places. A hill of swords. A sea of black mud. A burning city, looking vaguely early twenty-first century with its blocky buildings and short squat suburbs. A ziggurat in a desert, watered by rivers.
And then, on the seventh of July, seven years to the end of the world, you see a woman in white. In cold and dolorous tones she says, her pale hands stroking the red welts of a flayed and weeping back:
"Come to the Ark of the Ways. Receive thy mandate for the world's mending. I name thee Master; fight, therefore, for the cup of Christ. Seek the Sangreal."
And so, waking on the morning of the eighth, you find yourself where you last laid your head, smarting strangely, the name of a three-thousand-year-old criminal ringing in your ears.
There is a bruise on the back of your hand.
Hello, and welcome to the signup thread for Fate/Final Deluge: The Past Is Lost Beneath The Waves, a traditional seven-team Grail War set in the far future! I'm troydenite, your host, but you can call me Troy. The previous RP crashed and burned, due to a variety of factors, so I'm going to try out something new this time. All players have already been confirmed in private, so if you don't know if you're meant to be here, you're probably not. My bad entirely.
Here is the Master Template. Have fun.
I understand this is terribly complicated, so here is an example.
And now, the Servant template. Canon Servants are allowed, but no Gilgamesh/Karna/Mushroom Antoinettes. No fandom characters, please, there are plenty of those crossover R Ps elsewhere.
And, because this is also a very complicated template, I have written an example using everyone's favorite lady-king, Arturia Pendragon. Your actual sheets do not need to be this long, I just have too much time on my hands. And no, I did not write this in 2015 why did you ask
So yeah, I think that's enough from me. Looking forward to seeing all your characters!
Edited by troydenite on Apr 27th 2020 at 12:16:21 AM
'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023