The Holy Grail. An artifact of unlimited power, worth any cost to obtain. It promises a single wish with no limits. That is the simple version, at least. The reality is much more complicated, even the task of explaining the truth to the uninitiated would prove difficult. If you succeed in your explanation, what is true elsewhere is not necessarily true in this case...
Regardless, this artifact calls out to you. It chose you. Perhaps you sought it out in return, perhaps you stumbled into the War by luck (be it bad or good), perhaps you have yet to head its call. Whatever the case may be, you are in the War now. There is no getting out of it. It pulled you to America, a city named Fort Casper on a lake in the Midwest. A pleasant enough place in fly-over country, certainly the last location you would expect a bloody showdown to take place. Some of you may have lived here already.
The ritual itself was strange. You felt like a passenger in your own body, unable to control yourself for its duration. Like you were watching yourself through a fuzzy video feed. You drew symbols you may have never saw. You chanted incantations you may have never heard. If you had never used magic before, pain filled your body as if you were thrown into a pit of hot coals-thankfully even this felt numb and dreamlike- as images flashed across your vision accompanied by snippets of ghost-like whispers. When the ceremony was completed, your body fell like an abandoned doll to the floor as light filled the area. You now have the ability and knowledge to cast spells-even if you didn't before. Standing in the room was someone now familiar to you. This is where we start our story...
Concept, rules, and other such things blatantly stolen from IamanElfCollaborator's long dead
Fate/millennium. Which is in turn based off of Type Moon's Fate series. Most mechanics copied+pasted. Some editing was done in the character sheets, most of it pointless paraphrasing.
As an important note, character sheets should be
PMed to me. Do state your intent to play below, but keep your character a secret. For all intents and purposes, you should consider all the other players enemies (or at least, potential enemies), and information wins wars. In fact,
most actions will be taken and responded to via PMs. After an important event or significant amount of time, these PMs will be collected and edited together into "Chapters" which will be posted in the IC. Please bear with me during this odd experiment
. If effective, this means you shouldn't even know what player is what character until they die. I hope this should increase the feel of actually being in the war yourself-rather than thinking "Oh, look! Its Stirk's NPC antagonist Abe Lincoln. I'll just look at his character sheet to see everything about him doot do do da doo!"
We will be taking 5+ players. We are starting with a more traditional 7 servants, two of which will be antagonistic NPCs. The relatively small number of players should keep the odd play-style viable. The + because we are actually taking 5 servant/master pairs. If you wish to only play only a servant or only a master, you may. Ideally you would pick a partner here in the OOC thread, otherwise you will be given an NPC to play with (who may be taken over by a new player or yourself at a later date).
There are three phases in each ingame day: Morning, Day, and Night. Each phase regenerates 5 prana for both Master and Servant. Additional prana can be gained by other means, such as by stealing it from pedestrians. If a Master is killed, the Servant will fade away at a rate dictated by its Independent Action skill. Unless it is incredibly high, you will be out of the game swiftly. If your Servant is killed, you may continue the game with just your Master-though you will have to form a Contract with a new servant to have any chance of winning it. If a Master and Servant played by different players form a contract, then the players decide if they continue to control their character or give control to the other player. Masters have three Command Spells that may be used to give one specific order that must be followed. This can be something normally beyond their ability, such as dodging an attack that would have surely hit them otherwise. This Command Spells can be given away or even stolen, which gives the recipient control over the servant the command spell originated from. In a similar vain, the Servant and Master pair share two "Destiny Breaks". These allow you to survive lethal blows, dodge undodgable attacks, cast spells even when out of Prana, or other destiny defying acts. When a Master fights a Servant, the Master's parameters are considered two lower than they usually are to represent the superior strength of the Servant. At the GMs discretion, some points may be transferred between Master and Servant during character creation to represent odd cases like a powerful servant that absorbs so much Prana that its master is left weaker, or a Dead Apostle with a weak servant.
Name: What your master is called.
Age: How old you are. Masters can be any age in this war, if you want to be a baby or grandma be my guest.
Gender: Your master's gender.
Description: Who are they-both physically and mentally. What is their personality, what do they look like, what do they wear, etc.
Backstory: What is their past? Are they local- with all the personal connections and the strengths and weaknesses that come with it? Are they from a foreign land? Are they a member of the Church, The Mage Association, another organization, or none of the above? How did they come into the war?
Wish: What you want to get out of the Holy Grail. The Grail prefers to choose those who have strong motivations-though it is not a hard and fast rule.
Stat Parameters: 15 points to spend on rank increases.
Strength:E (This handles physical strength and ability to hit hard physically.)
Magic: E (This handles magic power and mana.)
Endurance: E (This handles constitution and health, as well as one's ability to take hits.)
Agility: E (This handles one's speed and ability to dodge hits, as well as dealing with ranged non-magical damage.)
Luck: E (This handles one's luck with critical hits and dodging, to an extent.)
Spells: 15/15 base. +5 points per Magic Rank.
All non-Command Spell based Magic requires a D rank in Magic. The base spell capacity is 2. Every full rank past D (without the +) increases the maximum spell capacity by 1.
Spell: All spells start as E rank.
-Boosting a spell’s rank costs 1 point. Master Spells cannot reach past A rank.
-Each rank of spells has a separate points pool to buy spell effects with, depending on the rank of the spell. Depending on the type of spell, there are two different pools of effects.
-There are two types of spells: Damaging and Utility.
-Damaging Spells do a base amount of damage according to spell rank. This damage is then boosted by the Master’s base Magic rank. Their effects can be unlocked on spell rank.
-Utility Spells have special effects that can be bought depending on spell rank.
- Masters cannot use spells beyond their Magic Rank.
Spell Name: What is the spell called?
Prana Cost: How much the spell costs to cast.
Spell Type: What the spell does.
-Spell Damage (if damaging): How much damage the spell does.
Spell Rank: How powerful the spell is.
Target Number: 1 is the base. Every extra target adds +2 to the Prana cost.
Description: What the spell looks like when cast.
Effects: How much points you use to buy effects here depends on the rank of the Spell.
Abilities: 20/20 points.
Abilities are special boons; equipment, training or experience- that a Master may have to aid their participation in the Holy Grail War. For this game, all Masters are considered to be Magus, even if they never heard of magic before entering the War.
Name: The true name of the Servant.
Sex: Wouldn’t normally need to ask this. Arturia Pendragon says otherwise.
Class: The Servant’s class and container while on Earth. This can be one of the seven below:
-Caster:
-Saber:
-Lancer
-Archer
-Rider
-Assassin
-Berserker
Description: What your servant looks like, his personality, backstory, and other factors that make your servant who he is.
Wish: Much like the Master, the Grail calls for Servants with a strong desire. What is your Servant's end goal for the Grail?
Type: Hero/Antihero/Monster. This affects some Noble Phantasms and spells.
"Heroes" are those that people celebrate and idolize. On an alignment scale, they tend to have "Good" or the brighter side of "Neutral".
"Antiheroes" are the opposite of heroes. Villains scorned and hated by all. On an alignment scale, they tend towards "Evil" or the darker side of "Neutral"
"Monsters" are creatures slayed, tamed, or otherwise related to the legendary heroes. They tend toward "True Neutral"
Stat Parameters: 25 points to spend on rank increases.
Strength:E (This handles physical strength and ability to hit hard physically.)
Magic: E (This handles magic power and mana.)
Endurance: E (This handles constitution and health, as well as one's ability to take hits.)
Agility: E (This handles one's speed and ability to dodge hits, as well as dealing with ranged non-magical damage.)
Luck: E (This handles one's luck with critical hits and dodging, to an extent.)
Class Skills: (Pick one set depending on your Class.)
Saber: Magic Resistance: C
Riding: D
Rider: Magic Resistance: D
Riding: A
Assassin: Presence Concealment: D
Berserker: Mad Enhancement: A
Archer: Independent Action: C
Magic Resistance: D
Caster: Item Construction: D
Territory Creation: D
Lancer: Battle Continuation: C
Magic Resistance: D
Class Skills are skills intrinsic to the base container these Servants use. They cannot be removed without an A-class Noble Phantasm or a Skill upon the Servant itself.
Skills: 20/20 points
These points can be allocated to buy Skills that are associated with this Servant, or used to enhance the Class Skills the Servant already possesses. Unless otherwise stated, skills do not have + ranks as the others do (ex it goes from E to D instead of from E to E+).
Noble Phantasm: 20/20 points.
Noble Phantasms, the meat of the Servant’s powers. Here, you will find the likes of Excalibur and Balmung, of Mjollnir and the Grand Arsenal of France, of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Walls of Jericho. There are no limits on Noble Phantasms, but please keep it logical.
Noble Phantasm: All Phantasms start as E rank.
-Similar to spells, each rank of Noble Phantasm has a separate points pool, depending on the rank of the Phantasm. Depending on the type of Phantasm, there are two different pools of effects.
-Each rank of Phantasm has a separate points pool, depending on the rank of the Phantasm.
Noble Phantasm Name: What is this Noble Phantasm called?
Prana Cost: How much does it cost to cast?
Phantasm Type: What is it?
Phantasm Rank: Their rank determines both the power of this Noble Phantasm as well as the amount of points available to buy the effects with.
Target Number: 1 is the base. Every extra target adds +2 to the Prana cost.
Description: What does it look like?
(Please ignore this if your Noble Phantasm is not a Summon or Craft-type) Stats:
Craft: 60 HP (+10 per rank)
Endurance: E (+1 rank per Phantasm rank)
Summon: 30 HP (+5 per rank)
Strength: E
Endurance: E
Agility: E
(All Parameters gain +1 Rank per Phantasm Rank)
Effects: The points pool here depends on the rank of the Noble Phantasm.