CorrosiveCherry

⊰Manifest Anima: Planes Divided⊱

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Fate/akashic writhe

Scarlet Ruler

"Get busy or get dead."

---

Class: Scarlet Ruler
True Name: Shi Xianggu, or Ching Shih of the Red Flag Fleet
Gender: Female
Appearance:

Hider

Currently a work in progress!

Height: 5'11''
Weight: 157 lbs.
Personality: Swift, sassy, and socially sagacious, Ruler lives by the pirate's creed, through and through: ill-gotten gains still spend the same.

Fearless to a fault, Ching Shih appears, at first, to be completely indomitable. Then, upon peeling away her outer layers of brusque bravado and uncommonly sharp snark, many come to realize that she is peerlessly unshakeable. She is a woman of tenacity. Of risk and reward. Of clever gambits. And, perhaps above all, Ching Shih lacks that human quality normal folk seem unable to do without:

Dignity. Certainly, she cuts a good rug and talks a big game--she'll dress herself to the nines, but when it comes to it, Ching Shih has no pride to shake. She just has ambition. She would garrote a puppy for her own goals, should it serve her.

And then, perhaps, eat it, just to prove that she could.

Like a crocodile, she'll swim through shit-caked waters, taking on creatures of far greater size, simply to catch a bite. Teeth, nails, poison, bullets, knives, ball-peen hammers, freshly eaten puppy skulls--she will use everything at her disposal to bring a foe to their knees, and she will do so unimpeded by a concept so paltry as human decency.

An absolute joy at parties, though god help you if you ever invite her to one. She will quickly commandeer the festivities and drink your cabinet through. Seemingly never without her wit at her side, but ferociously quiet in a fight; for her, every duel is a matter of survival, not a matter of success or defeat. There is something ineffably primal inside of Ching Shih, and she knows it.

Strengths: Ching Shih is a peerless tactician. Fearlessly brave among her comrades, she is a forceful soul--but patient, taking no more than a reasonable share of risk. She is clever and careful, a sly devil through and through. A force to be reckoned with, especially when backed by her underlings.
Moreover, she is a fighter with an unbelievable amount of grit--even in combat situations where she is outmatched, she is not above fighting dirty to prove victorious over her opponent.
Negotiation is possibly, however, the greatest strength the Pirate Queen carries. Countless secrets have passed through her ears, from the men she's bedded to the Chinese government, who, fairly, she really should have bought dinner for before forcing their ass to the air and their teeth to the dirt.

Weaknesses: It is important to note that, in life, Ching Shih was rarely a direct combatant--she often worked as a commander, rather than a soldier, so to speak. As a result, while her skill in combat is greatly enhanced by her status as a Ruler and her adopted status as a Lancer, it leaves her wanting in most conventional forms of one-on-one combat. She works best when she fights dirty.
Moreover, she struggles without leverage. Prone to dangling carrots--or dangling blackmail--she tends to have difficulty without an army on her payroll. Rarely ever appearing without backup, she is quick to crumble when backed into a corner without cohorts with which to turn to.

Fatal Flaw: Treachery. In life, Ching Shih carried a draconian code that the entire Red Flag Fleet was to follow, and it would be by that same code that she came undone. When one of her subsidiaries--the Black Flag Fleet--took a pardon and sided with the Chinese government, it became the first domino that would later remove her from piracy. As a result, she is especially vulnerable to Servants who were betrayers--such as Brutus or Judas.

Origin:

"Pretense and prose are for eulogies and limericks. Bother me with neither."

Shi Xianggu was a whore.

However, she was a very good whore indeed. Hailing from Canton, her early life was characterized by prostitution, and the secrets she derived from the pillow-talk whispers of dignitaries and officials. It wouldn't be until she came across Cheng I that her career in piracy would begin in earnest.

Shi Xianggu didn't just espouse herself to Cheng I, she espoused herself to a life of pillage and plunder. Of course, her times with Cheng I were mostly lost to history--but Ruler herself tells a different story of how she came to be known as Ching Shih.

'Bodies are best removed in a thunderstorm,' she'll note. Cheng I's body was lost to the South China Sea, along with his lead of the Red Flag Fleet. With Cheung Po Tsai as his only living successor, Ching Shih knew exactly what her next move must be--solidify a relationship with her own stepson.

Fearless and undignified to the bitter end.

There were a variety of folk up to lead the Red Flag Fleet, a combined force of pirate factions that terrorized the China Sea--but many saw Cheung Po Tsai as the next true leader. As a result, her relationship with her stepson was twofold--one, to gain him as a lieutenant, and two, to seize control using him to vouch for her efficacy.

The leader that blossomed from their union would go down as the greatest pirate in history.

Ching Shih did not simply steal--she ruled the ocean from Canton to Macau. Imposing taxes on the towns and offering 'protection' to the coast, she was nothing if not an efficient pirate. She was a manipulator; the type of person who could easily and efficiently command legions of men, all ruled by a single iron code.

Ching Shih was not some simple pirate. She was a ruler, all her own. Battles came and went, but Ching Shih saw her way through skirmish after skirmish--she, as captain of the Red Flag Fleet, contended with and routinely defeated the Portuguese, the British, and, of course, the Chinese government.

Her code of laws were strict--often ending in beheadings and undersea shackles for the violators. This led to an army of pirates who were tenacious in offense, and desperate on the defense. Ching Shih lived an at-all-costs life, where risk was, often, its own reward.

It was seldom explored by history what the dread queen did with all of her wealth, but Ruler is rarely so tight-lipped as the annals of history. She would often spend the money on refitting and manning her ships--300 strong makes for a hefty maintenance fee--and, of course, keeping a public fund for any dire needs that any one ship might need.

However, it is her personal fund that went to interesting proclivities. Exotic food. Rare wine. Secret flavors from all across the eastern seaboard. Her desires were--in many ways--gluttonous, but none nearly so as her greed for the more damaging delights of the world. She would often dabble in a variety of substances, ranging from bitterly strong alcohol to opiates to cocaine--all with not so much as a batting of an eyelash.

All legends must end, though. For Ching Shih, it was a battle on her home turf. After the Black Flag Fleet abandoned her--taking a pardon from the increasingly exacting Chinese government--she was found with enemies on all sides, with her back to the wall.
The Portuguese were the ones who would finally corner her. Trapping her in the inlet where she made her home, they sent bombing platforms--tiny rafts filled to the brim with explosives and set alight--to take her down from afar. Even then, though, it was Ching Shih's expert maneuvering and tactics that would send each and every one to shore--waiting for her moment to escape.

Then, the winds turned. The explosives were suddenly headed towards the Portuguese, and with them, Ching Shih. She quickly maneuvered between the ships, riding out safely onto open sea.

But she knew that her luck had run out. On that week, Ching Shih would enter into negotiations with the Chinese government--but her hand had not yet been shown. The government pleaded with her to take their deal--but she had her demands.
Freedom for all her crew, a fleet of ships, and all the treasure she'd amassed.

And with those demands came not a threat, but a promise.
In one, last-ditch play, Ching Shih sent all of her men on canoes into the delta of Canton and ransacked all the towns along the riverbed, leaving the government in an awful position. Their citizens were restless, and so was Ching Shih.
She would, in the end, get every last thing she wanted. She was able to retire from piracy in luxury.

And so, Ruler came to be born. How she came to be the Scarlet Lancer is up to a great deal of scrutiny; perhaps being a queen among her people, but never truly a queen created some sort of strange flux in her position? Perhaps there was some secret knightly tale of whom she was the protagonist? Perhaps the love of the sea goddess Mazu simply lent her the position.

Perhaps Ching Shih stole it for herself.

Attributes:
Physique: +
Skill: +
Agility: -
Mana: -
Luck: +
Skills:
Honor Among Thieves: A+

"Penitence is for the dead, not the guilty."

A Skill expressing Ching Shih's iron law that she heralded over the Red Flag Fleet. These laws were draconian in nature, often ending with the loss of life and limb for lawbreakers. It is by these laws that she built her empire, and it is by these laws that it stayed. This Skill substantiates a variety of Skills related to life at sea and, more specifically, the handling of money and men. In the Class of Rider, this Skill would have allowed for an immense power surge beyond even the norm whenever a Command Spell was enacted upon her, but as Ruler, it is a Skill far greater, and befitting of a queen among pirates:

As she uses her Command Seals, she will slowly grow in power--every edict that she passes, backed by a Command Seal, allows her to reclaim some of the might of the Red Flag Fleet. This is best seen in the growth of her combat capabilities, which grow more refined and deadly as the Seals are used.

Charisma: A

"You don't get to be a pirate queen without having a personality."

The manifestation of Ching Shih's peerless content of character. Few could command a fleet so prodigious, let alone one manned by pirates.

Ching Shih happens to be one of those few. As a result, she is more than capable of leading an army and keeping every mouth happily fed. A maestro of favor-currying and logistics, this Charisma is something more insidious than the usual brand; it also heavily relates to her skill with manipulating people. During her time as a prostitute, she often shared beds with government officials, taking their secrets and using them as the foundation for her more criminal proclivities.

Her ships were manned by man, woman, and children alike, and all worked in harmony under her charismatic leadership--and her iron laws.

Battle Continuation: B

"A battle where both sides survive is a draw."

The personification of her losses and trials, Battle Continuation serves as the truest recollection of the Red Flag Fleet: indomitable, even at the bitter end. Ching Shih carries with her a frightful ability to continue the fight, refusing to crumble even in the wake of wounds that would cripple lesser men.

Ruler is not one to simply give up in the face of a fight. She is tenacious. No matter what, she will always--in some way--come out on top. It is simply the way things are. It is no longer some opinion--it is a fact of life. Ching Shih is indomitable.

Man-At-Arms: C+

"Don't fret about the condition of your weapons. They'll be mine soon enough."

While Ching Shih wasn't particularly known for her combat skills--though they were more than present--her status as a Ruler has granted her a particularly odd Skill: she can quickly adapt her martial skills to new weapons, especially Treasure Phantasms. Some of this might be attributable to her prowess over the concept of plunder--ruthlessly stealing martial talents is not above her. No pirate ever lives so long at sea without learning how to fight--it is, possibly, that Ching Shih learned more than just a thing or two about combat.

It is, moreover, a statement of her understanding of the value of treasure--there is a beauty and a strength to be found in the objects few have ever held.

Divine Favor: D

"The tides all turn, eventually."

A surrogate blessing from Cheung Po Tsai, and his religious predilections. In this case, a blessing from Mazu, the sea goddess of Chinese folklore. On the open ocean--or any body of water--Ching Shih is capable of turning the wake to favor her.

Moreover, it is also related to how she went essentially undefeated in life; to some degree, divinity had to favor her. To that end, there is some divine gift that lies within her, though it is--as all things are with her--perhaps less a gift than something she took for herself.

Antimagic: B-

"Ruling has its benefits."

A weakened version of the Antimagic conferred by Rulership and the status of being a Lancer, but still formidable in and of itself. As Ching Shih is a strange manifestation of a Lancer, albeit incredible in strength, she has none of the knightly qualities that substantiate the magic-dissipating nature befitting either Class. Thus, she carries a substantial amount of Antimagic, but not to the quality befitting either Class. Single-action magecraft hardly fazes her, and she has little trouble avoiding greater spells. However, if she gets caught, she's like to take a great deal of punishment for her folly.

Unlikely to faze her too much, though. She'd be like to take the spell on the chin and simply soldier through it. Angrily. Perhaps she should have been a Berserker...

True Name Discernment: D

"And look at what the tide has washed ashore!"

Perhaps in part because of her lack of saintly stature, or even because of the strange form the Heavenly Grail War takes, Shih's True Name Discernment is left wanting. She must first see a Noble Phantasm before being able to discern the nature of a Servant--but once she does, their True Name is immediately revealed.

Noble Phantasms:
Canton Pardon, Parting of Fool and Purse:

"What's mine is mine, and what's yours will soon be mine."

This Esoteric Phantasm is the manifestation of a single, inviolable truth: Ching Shih was never truly defeated. She was allowed to retire with all of her money, a small fleet of ships, and not a single one of her crew members went down in chains. This occurred due to her clever tactics and knack for applying pressure, leading one final massive-scale assault on the Canton-Macau coastline during negotiations for her surrender. The Chinese government eventually conceded.

With that, of course, came her treasure--the treasure that was, rightfully, that of the Chinese people. This Noble Phantasm is less a true Noble Phantasm, and more a right to the concept of plunder.

Any Treasure Phantasms that she comes into contact with become, by all rights, hers. Once a Servant falls by her hands, she may exert control over the Treasure Phantasms that they once owned, and use them as an extension of the Canton Pardon. However, she must understand how these Phantasms work; as such, knowing the Servant's True Name is usually vital to the effective use of the Canton Pardon.

There are, moreover, other things that she can steal. It is only a matter of her having to attempt to do so. Tout your belongings at your own risk; she is a slavering dog in the face of a glistering coin.

Cheung Po Tsai, Ersatz Lance of the Pillager's Beloved:

"You don't come to be a pirate captain without breaking a few enemies."

Ching Shih's personal Treasure Phantasm. As she lacks the strength of her Red Flag Fleet backing her as a Ruler and Lancer, its might has been concentrated into a lance that bears the name of her lover, who was believed to be blessed by the gods. This Treasure Phantasm has no activated effect, but rather, is a passive Noble Phantasm--as her treasure trove of Noble Phantasms from the Canton Pardon grows, so too does the might of Cheung Po Tsai. In this, its nascent state, without a single Phantasm to its name, Cheung Po Tsai is capable of piercing through thaumaturgical defenses with relative ease. Just as both Ching Shih and her lover came from small beginnings, so too does this fabricated Phantasm.

???

Belongings: Ching Shih's garb is that of a dread pirate. An amalgam of flavors of courtesean's finery and the striking form of a pirate captain, it also incorporates elements of the navies she routinely struck down. These clothes are essential to her knightly silhouette and are, of course, a deeply-rooted part of her personal aesthetic.

It is important to note the skull that she wears; it is that of a ram, her birth sign under the Chinese Zodiac. It is unknown if this odd accessory is some sort of Mystic Code or merely an odd substitute for a codpiece.

Her eyepatch is completely functional in purpose; she isn't missing an eye, she merely uses it to quickly switch from day to night vision. As such, she always keeps one eye covered--preferably the left, so as to better display the Chinese character emblazoned on its front.

She also keeps a derringer--a flintlock pistol that, despite its appearance, is actually a Mystic Code--a treasure she herself took with her to the grave. Instead of lobbing bullets, it acts as a curse-throwing mechanism, firing off rounds fashioned from her personal supply of mana. She also keeps a pair of knives meant for throwing, in the case she's caught unarmed.

Ching Shih is almost never seen without the comforts of her home--she always seems to have a flask and some rice, if not enough rations to feed herself and a few others. She is, moreover, a decent cook--though it is a skill largely irrelevant to life as a Ruler. Even though she doesn't need to eat, drink, or sleep, she is often found enjoying any of the three, usually to gluttonous excess.

On the subject of excess, all of her metal belongings seem to be crafted from gold or other such rich materials; one could hardly expect anything less from her. Ching Shih is the queen of conspicuous consumption, and--in being so--is certain to make everyone know just that.

Fate/akashic writhe

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Fate/akashic writhe [A High Casual adventure--Great for people new to the series!]

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Fate/akashic writhe

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Main Theme | Cut it Free

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~Plot~

“This is where the end ends and the beginning begins.”

It always starts with a Holy Grail.
There are many worlds. Timelines. Universes upon universes, wrapped around each other like molecules in a vast ocean of existence.
At the center of it all lies Akasha. The Akashic Records. The Void. Heaven. Hell.
All of it.
None of it.
It is the place where all souls are bound to, and from whence all lives originate. It is the past, present, and future. It is the place where wishes can be granted, and where dreams go to die. It is the dream of every magus to one day arrive there, and unravel its secrets--to be the first to grasp a new, true Magic.
A very long time ago--during the year of 1790--a group of great men convened to summon a gate to Akasha, using a tool ancient beyond antiquity--the Holy Grail. They were successful. They were more successful than they could ever have dreamed. They created not only a gate to Akasha, but a wellspring from which magecraft could flourish and evolve beyond its wildest dreams.

It was then that the world ended.
At once, the world became as one and then as none. Reality could not bear this transgression, and chose altogether to bury itself in an eternal Mystery. Impenetrable, and unfathomable.

But, fear not, for this was not our world. This was another world. Had it not so deeply affected our own, we would not have even known of its existence.

Today--during this year of 1790--a group of magi convened to summon a gate to Akasha. However, there was only room enough for one of these men. The Holy Grail was not so much a gate as they had originally surmised, but more like a tollbooth. One pushed through, and what they saw was unspeakable.
They did not see the path to a new Magic. They did not see the Swirl at the Root. They did not step foot in the annals of the Akashic Records.
Through the gate, they had found a great, Mysterious thing. An entire planet, shrouded in an ancient, ineffable strangeness.
They had found what was lost to the hubris of another self, simultaneously having been for as long as being could be, and being as fresh and nascent as a newborn.
The gate that they had stepped through was now open--permanently. The Holy Grail was no more--it could be no more. It was as it always was, and as it had never been.
A Gate to Mystery. The Universe Between Universes.
At the very moment that Mystery lodged itself in the path to the Swirl of the Root, all timelines--all universes--came undone at once. Its mere existence set every other existence off of their preordained course. It is an aberration--a thing that should never have been. In that moment, time itself became a convoluted thing; what was once 1790 became nonexistent, as past, present, and future became but concepts--irrelevant creatures that heralded no weight nor presence.
There is only Mystery, and upon it, the battleground of ages.

Take up arms, O Servants.
Make thy name known to the world, O Masters.
This is the Heavenly Grail War.

~Your Role~

Mystery is an aberration of time and space. It is a planet that is at once a part of Akasha, and the very furthest thing from it. Lodged squarely in the path the Holy Grail created, Mystery has destabilized every timeline, every universe. In doing so, the collective unconscious of the Earth and the primal will to survive of Man--Gaia and Alaya--have all at once coincided, through every universe, creating a temporary battleground in an effort to dislodge the anomaly and bring time back to its rightful course.
This, in the simplest terms, is why you are here. Passing through the gate not of your own free will, but rather because there are no worlds to come home to, you are one of the 42 Masters that inhabit the world of Mystery--and you are destined to fight for the right to your own future. The Heavenly Grail speaks of granting a single wish, and destroying the Mystery that so destabilizes the flow of time.
Led by a Ruler, you and your compatriots will aim to bring the other six factions to their knees, and in the process feed the Heavenly Grail its sacrifices and bring Mystery to its final oblivion.

~The World~

The Heavenly Grail War

The Holy Grail & the Swirl At the Root

What is Akasha?

Akasha, or the Root, is the center of all space and time. It is, in the simplest sense, the very beginning of the universe, and the essence of reality. It is a metaphysical location that records all the information processed by space and time, and acts as both the termination point and the origin point of the soul. It is the reason Magecraft exists, and the objective of the Second, Third, and Fourth Magics. It is also known as the Void, Heaven, the Throne of Heroes, and the Akashic Records. It houses all the events and phenomena of the universe, and is, as a result, the single greatest force ever to exist.

Mystery

Mystery is both a place and a state of being. It is important to make note of this distinction, as the two are used interchangeably within the world of Mystery. Mystery--in worlds where Mystery was once a thing rare and altogether unseen--was a power that grew with age, and when two Mysteries intersected, the stronger would always overwhelm the weaker. It is the source, moreover, of all supernatural phenomena, making the land of Mystery a strange place indeed. It is, moreover, the origin of Magecraft.
Mystery, the location, is a world created for the Heavenly Grail War. This dimensionless plane wraps in upon itself, creating a mobius strip upon which the Faction Lands exist. There is no “top,” no “bottom,” nor “side,” there is merely Mystery and the Heavens. As a result of this strange shape--and its small size--much of Mystery is visible from any point along its surface. Mystery sits directly in the path to Akasha, acting as a plug of time and space--as a result, time itself has come unwound.

The Heavenly Grail

The Heavenly Grail is the source of energy and the stabilizing force that forces Mystery’s continued existence. It is best classified as a “gate within gates,” or, perhaps more accurately, a “False Root.” Its existence is twofold: it is the Heavens that surround Mystery, and the shining star by which day and night occur. The Heavens are bounded by a field created by the infinite wills of Gaia and Alaya, and, to this end, it could be said that Mystery is, in and of itself, not just a but the Reality Marble.

Factions

Within the world of Mystery, there exists 7 Factions. Each of these Factions consists of 13 souls--6 Masters, and 7 Servants. This seventh Servant is both the leader and Ruler of its faction, standing in the place of Servants such as the Azure Saber, or Argent Rider. They are both the greatest weapon and greatest weakness of their creed, as their death spells certain doom for their constituents--a great deal of the power and territory of most of the Factions are manifested and controlled by its Ruler. Each Faction represents one of the Classes that Servants tend to follow, and as a result, are granted boons associated with that Class.

Azure (Saber)

The Saber. Widely regarded as the strongest Class among the seven, they are characterized by their knightly stature and enviable versatility. The Azure Faction follows this chivalrous nature to its very core--its land, the Keep of Blades, is every part as imposing and regal as the Faction that inhabits it. Many of the Azure Masters are folk from times long past, and as such the Keep stands firm as a relic of antiquity.

Scarlet (Lancer)

The Lancer. The most reliable of the classes, they are known for being distinctly above-average in every regard. In this instance, you are all Servants and Masters of the Scarlet Faction. Your domain is for you to create as intimately--or as distanced--as you choose. Each of the Scarlet Servants are closer to their main Classes than their Faction, moreso than any other Faction. As a result, the Scarlet Faction is the most versatile of the Factions, and is capable of the most variety.

Gilt (Archer)

The Archer. The free spirit--the ranger without boundaries. Known for their independence, the Gilt Faction houses itself within the Fabled Wild--a massive forest that spans their entire Faction domain. The Masters are made up of free spirits; believers in the inviolable human right to their own personal freedom. All of the Gilt Servants employ some form of ranged weapon, though some more than others.

Clay (Berserker)

The Berserker. Beings of chaos--more beast than man. Trading sanity in favor of immense power, Berserkers are characterized by their violent natures and erratic, unpredictable behavior. The Badlands are where they make their home, and it--suiting a creed of wildmen--is a wasteland where the mighty ravage all comers. All of the Clay Masters are in some way unhinged, and they--along with their Servants--are essentially led by the leash by their Avenger. All of the Servants suffer from some sort of Mad Enhancement, and the Clay Faction is the only faction that lacks a Ruler.

Sable (Assassin)

The Assassin. Unique among the Factions not only for their location, but the origin from which all of the Servants spring; every last Sable Servant is counted among the Hassan-i-Sabbah, and their domain is the Old Man’s Mountain itself. While the Sable Faction is physically weaker than the other Factions by orders of magnitude, what they lack in ability they more than make up for in subterfuge. The Masters, of course, are all morally malleable in one way or another--criminals from all corners of time.

Argent (Rider)

The Rider. Possessed of preternatural skill with their steeds, the Argent Servants are characterized by their extreme mobility--whether by land, by air, or by sea. Residing in the vast Silverwater Straits, the home of the Argent Faction is ever-moving, and constantly amidships. The Argent Masters consist of conquerors and war heroes, and their Servants are much the same--beings that birth empires. The most mobile--and perhaps most aggressive--of the Factions.

Violet (Caster)

The Caster. Housed in the Prolix Realm of Cambridge, what Casters lack in combat potential they more than make up for in their potential as magi. Schemers, witches, warlocks--all masters of esoteric and strange Magecrafts. All of the Violet Servants ply some form of Magecraft that further enhances their natural Class capacities, and each and every one of them are blessed with the gift of Territory Creation--as a result, Cambridge is the most expansive and enigmatic of all of the Faction Lands. All of the Violet Masters, moreover, are magi of some renown--and while the playing field was leveled by Mystery’s proximity to the Root, their intermingling beliefs in specific Mysteries have placed their potential in a league of their own. The Violet Faction, in that sense, is a Faction where the Masters and Servants have the smallest gap in power.

Magic, Magecraft, and Mystery

What is Magecraft?

Magecraft (or Thaumaturgy), in short, is the method by which a supernatural phenomenon is reenacted using a Mystery as the source of its power. In the past, it would require a modicum of energy from the Root--which, in the case of the planet Mystery, is so close and easily accessible that the ancient fears of too many magi drawing on magical power is essentially meaningless. In the past, widespread belief in a Mystery was required in order to properly evoke a Thaumaturgy in its vein, but now that the number of humans in the world are reduced to 42, it merely takes personal belief to give rise to a Thaumaturgy. In even shorter terms, Magecraft is now a system by which energy from the Root is allowed to flow through the body in order to enact a magical effect fashioned by the user; while Thaumaturgy is now much easier to achieve, the user must be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are capable of the Magecraft that they are trying to invoke. As a result, magi are generally limited to 1 or 2 schools of Thaumaturgy. However, in this limitation, you are granted a great deal of freedom so long as you do not violate the law of Equivalency. An Elemental Affinity does not count towards this total, though the possession of multiple Affinities does.

Mysterious Magecraft

Modern Magecraft no longer functions in the manner that it did when the worlds were stable. It has become an altogether more streamlined thing, as the laws of the world change to suit the Mystery that pervades its every inch of being. Gone are the days of rigorous and constant magical research; there exists only Mystery, and it is in perfect balance with the beliefs of the Masters that live upon it. As a result, the old schools of Thaumaturgy are now a great deal more conceptual in nature, and now simpler, greater Magecraft can be achieved. There is one great rule of Thaumaturgy, given these circumstances: it must follow the law of Equivalency, in that something must be given--somatically, vocatively, materially--in order to initiate an effect. The world will not simply change of your own will.

What is Magic?

It is important to note the distinction between Magecraft and Magic. True Magic--of which exists Five--is a beast all on its own. First, Magic is passed by way of heirship, rather than simply being practiced by any and everyone; it only ever has a single practitioner at any given time. It is said that the beginning First changed everything, the following Second acknowledged many, the resulting Third showed the future, the linking Fourth concealed itself, and the final Fifth had already lost its meaning. Someone once said, "Had it only ended at the Third." Magic is the immutable existence of life beyond the natural order, and is in and of itself a thing not practiced by any of the Masters, nor their Servants. While the Magecraft of Servants from the Age of Gods is laudable and nearly on the level of Magic, it is a different thing entirely for it to truly be Magic. For something to be truly Magic, it must be impossible to replicate by any other given being in the time period, even given infinite time and resources. As a result, Magecraft and, more specifically, Mysterious Magecraft can be defined in retrograde as “anything that could be replicated given infinite time and resources, hastened through the use of the Root.”

Examples of Magecraft

Often, Magecraft is divided into what the practitioner believes makes up the building blocks of the universe. For instance, in terms of the Westernized Thaumaturgy (and its Holy Sacraments), the major elements are wind, water, fire, earth, and void. For the East, however, it is wind, water, fire, wood, and metal. Furthermore, these are usually derived into applications of positive and negative nature--the difference between healing hands and a curse. These are not the only elements, either--so long as it embodies a concept, it is usually within reason. On the subject of concepts, most Magecraft is the actualization of a concept--like temporal perception, gravitational force, internal enhancement--through the usage of these elemental building blocks. It is moreover important to note that certain magi from certain timelines may ply an entirely different craft, often using Mystic Codes--physical objects that enhance magical capabilities--to supplement a magic they never had.

Masters

What is a Master?

A Master is someone who has pacted with a Servant. This pact is done by way of a Summoning Rite, which every Master performed shortly after their arrival in Mystery. A Master need not be a magus, but most Masters are magi. Within the confines of Mystery, Masters are capable of originating from any time during the Age of Man--that is to say, after the Age of Gods (Which took place before 0 AD). For example, Abraham would not be able to be a Master, but Jesus might. That being said, any being who is already a Heroic Spirit and recognized as having a seat upon the Throne of Heroes is precluded from being a Master. (Jesus is counted among them, and only serves as a recognizable example in this instance.)

Command Seals

Every Master is presented with 3 Command Seals. Command Seals are three-part insignias etched onto the body--often the hand or arm--of the Master, that represent three inviolable commands that their Servant must follow. These are imbued with a great deal of power from the Root, and serve, moreover, to allow a Servant to break their own restrictions and perform acts that would be infeasible without the onus of a Command Seal. When the final Command Seal is used, the Master is deemed no longer a part of the Heavenly Grail War. In this case, without any further anchor, they will simply cease to exist. Servants, however, are not necessarily doomed to the same fate, because of the unique nature and circumstance of Mystery.

Creating a Master

The nature of Mystery allows for a great deal of variety in the Masters that dwell within its boundaries. First, it should be noted that Masters are capable of carrying their own rare and powerful artifacts, just like a Servant--except their artifacts are usually quite a bit weaker, and almost definitely fewer in number. Masters can come from any cut of cloth and almost any point in time during the Age of Man, and vary wildly in origin and skillset. Oftentimes, they are some degree of magi, though that is not a prerequisite for Mastership. However, every Master, in order to anchor themselves in the world of Mystery, has summoned a Servant--immediately upon entry into the world.
Second, it’s important to note the existence of Mystic Codes. A Mystic Code is something like a magical artifact; it supplements magecraft with its own power, and is often used as a catalyst for greater invocations. The Azoth Sword stands as the most obvious example of a Mystic Code, as it is used by most folk within the Mages’ Association. Its major use is as a wand--a conduit to form magical circles or bring to form physical divine Mysteries--that is, to cast spells. Often, a Mystic Code has its own lore and story behind it, and is usually some sort of heirloom or other object with an air of Mystery due to age and magical origin. They come in two varieties--Amplifiers and Specialized Mystic Codes. The former is used to enhance thaumaturgical spells, whereas the latter has a specific functional use that is wholly unique to the item. Most object Noble Phantasms are of this variety. Generally speaking, it is reasonable for your Master to have one or two Mystic Codes of variable strength--anything more than that is something that will have to come with more explanation than merely having a magical background.

Example of a Mystic Code

Here’s an example of a Mystic Code’s background: the Distillate Chalice. This withered old thing--a decrepit object, hardly capable of holding liquid within its container. Yet, by the grace of its runic inlay, it acts as a Bounded Field that separates the liquid within from the world without. As a matter of fact, it can only contain liquid--as such, any solid forms of any size, even bacteria, will be immediately expunged from its form. This Bounded Field can be expanded by the assistance of a magus, turning it into a cylinder of water that excludes all solid matter from it--essentially the perfect parrying tool. It was found in an ancient monastery by the sea, surrounded by desiccated, toothless corpses--it’s surmised that their teeth ripped themselves from their skull in attempting to partake of the water within.

Because of the nature of Mystery, Masters do not need to come from any of the timelines within the Fate/ universe. As such, please do not create a Master with relations to any of the major characters within the Fate/ franchises--though it is perfectly fine if they come from a timeline where events such as the Great Grail War took place, or even timelines where entirely different Grail Wars occurred--or none at all!

Servants

What is a Servant?

A Servant is a being who has achieved some form of greatness or renown within their life, and has found their place on the Throne of Heroes as a result. They are separated into 7 major Classes--6 of which are a part of each of the aforementioned Factions, accompanied by a Ruler who acts as a greatly enhanced version of the final major Class. These Classes are subdivided into the Three Knight Classes and the Four Cavalry Classes.

The Seven Classes, and Rulers

Saber

Sabers are characterized by their extreme prowess on the battlefield and immense power. Their Class Skill is Antimagic, rendering most Magecraft almost totally harmless--they stand as exemplars of one-on-one combat, and as such have great advantage over those who would use Thaumaturgy rather than combat skills. Usually quite powerful in each of the major attributes. They are, however, required to use a sword--placing them at a disadvantage as far as clever combat goes. By far, the most straightforward Class.

Lancer

Second only to Sabers in terms of natural power, Lancers are similarly efficient combatants, with a minor twist. First and foremost, Lancers are exceedingly agile, moreso than their Saber counterparts. Secondly, they have a far greater berth of abilities and Skills, and often have weapons with secret, deleterious effects like the Gae Bolg, or Gae Dearg. Also blessed with Antimagic as a Class Skill, along with a degree of Independence--allowing, as a base, for all Lancers to function for a full day without the energy from their Master. They must, however, use some sort of polearm--making them similarly dedicated to close combat, like the Saber.

Archer

The final Knight Class, Archers are distinguished by their usage of long ranged weaponry. While they are weaker than Lancers or Sabers, they are blessed with a startlingly high Independence Skill--allowing Archers to go completely without their Masters for days at a time. Moreover, their Noble Phantasms often totally outstrip all others. They are capable of using long ranged weapons, though it need not always be the case--most of the time, though, they are artillery specialists that rain hell from extremely long distances.

Rider

The first and most fitting Cavalry Class, Riders are the conquerors, the warmasters, the trailblazers. Extremely mobile and characterized by their Riding Skill, Riders are capable of synergizing with their mounts in ways that give them immense advantages in the field. Other than having said mount, Riders also often have exceedingly strong Noble Phantasms, and, moreover, no weapons to which they must adhere like the Knight Classes.

Berserker

Berserkers are the most phenomenally powerful Class. Exchanging their sanity for the Mad Enhancement Class Skill, Berserkers are masters of slaughter--while their Noble Phantasms are often passive in nature, it is usually in order to grant them immensely greater power on the battlefield, or even stave off death. Masters almost always end up using at least one Command Seal when in possession of a Berserker Servant.

Assassin

Assassins are one of, if not the most esoteric Class. Usually consisting of the Hassan-i-Sabbah, the first assassins, this Class is characterized by its opportunistic nature. Bearing low combat skills because of their lack of illustrious legends, Assassins prefer to target Masters over other Servants, using underhanded tactics in order to achieve the upper hand. A very technical Class, blessed with Presence Concealment--a common tool among assassins.

Caster

Casters--the plotters, the tacticians, the schemers. The final of the Cavalry Classes, they are the most magically inclined class by a great measure, and in being so, they are also the weakest physically. Casters are often from the Age of Gods, but more specifically, Casters are fashioned from the tales and legends of great magi and amazing minds that astounded the world with their magic and intellect. Given Terrain Creation as a Class Skill, Casters often fashion for themselves a domain--a Workshop of sorts where they can create their wonders and bring woe upon their enemies. The Class for the clever and mischievous.

Ruler

There are few as memorable and immensely gifted as the Rulers. Rulers were, in the context of normal Holy Grail Wars, arbiters of the Grail that would protect the sanctity of its trial at all costs. In this instance, a Ruler is an arbiter of the enigmatic Heavenly Grail, and as a result is not alone--seven conceptions of the Heavenly Grail exist, and with it seven Rulers, all vying for the completion of the War. Within the confines of the Heavenly Grail War, Rulers stand in as the greatest summon of a Faction--the Scarlet Lancer, Sable Assassin, Argent Rider, Azure Saber, Violet Caster, and Gilt Archer are all counted as Rulers. Rulers are granted two Command Seals for all of the Servants within their given Faction, and all of them possess a greatly weakened version of True Name Discernment--while they are capable of discerning the names of their constituents, and Classes of other Servants, they cannot learn the names of other Servants. Generally speaking, Rulers have Skills that are often in a class all their own--and while these Skills aren’t usually offensive in nature, they are nonetheless to be greatly feared.

Avenger

Servants who never should have existed. Each Avenger is distinct among its peers, and Class Skills are hardly indicative of what an Avenger is capable of. In this regard, the Clay Berserker is an Avenger. Little is known about its characteristics beyond its existence. Its status as a Ruler, moreover, is unknown; it may or may not have Command Seals.

Creating a Servant

Parameters & You

In the Fate/ franchise, there is an attempt to categorize beings by their Parameters, which are graded on an E-A scale. Much of this scale is redundant and asinine, and will not be used. In exchange, parameters will be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and it will be generally assumed--in most cases--that Servants are around the same power level within their same Class. In lieu of Parameters, we will be using a Strengths, Weaknesses, and Fatal Flaws system, coupled with a simplified Attribute system.
Attributes are a greatly pared down version of the Fate/ Parameter system--of which your character will have 3 “positive” and 2 “negative” Attributes.
These Attributes are Physique, Skill, Agility, Mana, and Luck. Having a “positive” Attribute means that they will, of course, supersede another Servant’s “negative” Attribute during relevant combat encounters. Two Servants who clash with Attributes that align--two “positive” or two “negative”--will cancel each other out, and will need to take a different approach. Moreover, Attributes can be buffed and debuffed into Neutral, Double Positive, or Double Negative states, the effects of which are self-explanatory.

Strengths, Weaknesses, and Fatal Flaws

Strengths are--obviously--the vital abilities that substantiate a Servant. Combat skills, diplomatic abilities, Magecraft, physical prowess, dexterity, speed--all of these are examples of Strengths that Servants can possess. Knowledges, similarly, are considered Strengths. The peerless combat of Arturia Pendragon, for instance, is a Strength, as is the Magecraft of Semiramis. These Strengths are useful for doing unorthodox moves or performing physical and magical feats beyond what the Attribute system can express.
Weaknesses are places where Servants falter, capacities that can be exploited to gain the upper hand against a specific Servant. Just as Strengths are meaningful, so too must be Weaknesses. These are vulnerabilities that must be accounted for, and should be related to their defeats and failures in life. For every two Strengths, there should be at least one Weakness. Optimally, I’d like a 3:2 ratio!
Fatal Flaws are the equal and opposite facet to the Noble Phantasm. All heroes, eventually, come undone by the hands of time, fate, or another. Fatal Flaws are deep weaknesses that severely hinder--or even outright kill--a Servant. Every Servant has at least one, usually related to the quality of their being or the cause of their death. Every Servant must have one Fatal Flaw. The Fatal Flaw is easier to suss out once they have activated a Noble Phantasm, or their True Name has been otherwise revealed.

Skills & Noble Phantasms

Skills are, in short, preternaturally attuned abilities that all Servants carry in one way or another. This can be anything from the Mind’s Eye--the ability to perceive the unseen and avoid dangers--to Terrain Creation, the ability to manifest and fashion zones of one’s personal domain. These are usually preternatural in nature, and it is perfectly fine to use ones from the Fate/ wiki article on the subject.
Noble Phantasms are immensely powerful abilities that hearken back to the story of the Heroic Spirit--as a result, they are also the method by which True Names can often be discerned. Often, Servants have three Noble Phantasms, each one stronger than the last. For the sake of simplicity, I have divided the many nomenclatures of Noble Phantasms into five categories: Anti-Being, Anti-Status, Treasure, Thaumaturgical, and Esoteric Phantasms.

The Five Noble Archetypes

I.Anti-Being Noble Phantasms are Noble Phantasms that target people specifically--they are the most direct kind of power, and are intended to kill, maim, or debilitate other Servants or Masters--or even bystanders, depending on its function. These also include Phantasms that target specific aspects of a being, such as the mind or the soul.
II.Anti-Status Noble Phantasms target qualities of being--that is to say, Divine beings or objects, or Draconic beings or objects, or so on. These Noble Phantasms can also target other Noble Phantasms that fulfill its prerequisites.
III.Treasure Noble Phantasms are simply that--immensely valuable objects that often carry passive effects--or even activated effects--that set them apart from normal objects. These can be weapons, jewelry, even prosthetics--should the Servant have a story revolving around the loss of a limb. Simply holding one of these Phantasms can sometimes be enough to trigger True Name Discernment in a Ruler, but that is only for particularly famous weapons. Otherwise, they must be activated first. Treasure Phantasms can activate in the capacity in any one of the other four archetypes.
IV.Magecraft Noble Phantasms are directly related to Thaumaturgy, amplified manyfold by being a crystallized Mystery. These can consist of a variety of different effects--immensely powerful curses, the fashioning of overwhelmingly large and powerful domains, or even creating Reality Marbles.
V.Esoteric Phantasms are the strange and powerful Phantasms that are hard to fit into any other category. Conceptual Phantasms, which embody a concept, such as the concept of undeath, or the concept of impalement, fall under Esoteric Phantasms. Transformative Phantasms, moreover, also fall under the umbrella of Esoteric Phantasms.

An example of a Noble Phantasm

A good example of a Noble Phantasm: The Impenetrable Necropolis. A domain created by the Caster Khafre, it is the replication of his final resting place--one of the Great Pyramids of Giza. From it, Khafre can manifest great and ancient Magecraft, and it serves to hold dominion over his own death. Within the Crypt, he is simultaneously a mortal being and an aspect of pharohood, and as such cannot be killed by regular means. Instead, one must either strip him of his divinity or strike him down with an anti-divine weapon. Within the tomb, he can summon jackals, cranes, and other auspicious beings of Egyptian myth to bring woe upon his foes, and bring the many statues and carvings to life. This, moreover, includes the Sphinx.

Rulers as Player Characters

Currently, the Scarlet Faction is open for characters to create, save for the Scarlet Ruler. I endeavor to have control over three of the total Rulers, and leave the rest for single players to take over. Rulership is something like a co-GM, in that you act as the leader of one of the other Factions, and I will approach you if I want to offer you a spot as a Ruler!

~The Rules~

1. No Gatekeeping!
The Fate/ series is big. It has a lot of people who have invested themselves in varying amounts to the fandom and their understanding of Fate/. What I don’t want to see is people snubbing others because they don’t know some obscure fact about the Nasuverse!
2. There are no dumb questions.
I tried my very best to make this setting as approachable as possible, but even then there are things I missed or failed to properly explain! Please ask questions if you have them--the Discord is a great place to get to know others and ask me anything you’d like to know.
3. Your party is your friend.
I really can’t stress this enough. Please join the Discord and please get involved with other players! We can’t make this story happen without you. Everyone’s equally valuable--I’m just the GM that put this story together! It’s nothing without people to get involved in it.
4. “Have fun” is not a rule!
If you’re not having fun, or not feeling involved, you gotta talk to people! I am absolutely dedicated to helping people feel like they’re having a good time, but I’m not perfect and I’ll do everything in my power to accommodate you.
5. Do what you love.
Don’t make a character that you think I’ll like--make a character that’s uniquely you and makes you happy and excited to write. This isn’t a talent show or a competition--I want to give every player a fair shake and a chance to do the crazy stuff they feel like they can’t do in other roleplays. That being said…
6. Don’t be a creeper!
I know, Fate/ is a historical waifu simulator, but I really don’t want people to go around buying girlfriends like it’s 2000s Runescape. This is, at its core, a real deal venture and creeping other people out is a big no-no! Please make an effort to make your character feel larger than life, rather than making them feel like a pinup.
7. Don’t think “power.” Think “interesting.”
While Fate/ is very, very easy to turn into a high-power excursion into just how easily the universe can be broken, I’d really like it if people would exercise restraint in favor of characters being balanced and interesting! I’m much more interested in weird powers than I am outrageous ones. Taking rule 5 into account, this means that while I want you to express yourself, remember that the power level needs to be within reason, and any extravagant powers need to have reasonable drawbacks! If you ever have a question about power levels, I handle things on a case-by-case basis--we’ll talk it out and see how everyone else feels, and ultimately I’ll come to a decision! The nature of Servants makes their power levels a little nebulous and flexible, so it kind of has to go by feel rather than objectivity.

~The Sheets~

Master Sheet

Name: [Not as important as a True Name, but it’s not likely that your parents named you “Master!”]
Servant: [The Servant that you’ve pacted with. This will be filled in once you’ve paired up with someone, so don’t fill it in before you’re approved!]
Age:
Gender:
Appearance: [Images are fine, but I’d like a description too, if you can manage it!]
Height:
Weight:
Personality: [Who are they? People are more than a list of traits. Be complex!]
Strengths: [What are they good at? I’d like this to be the same ratio as Servant Strengths and Weaknesses.]
Weaknesses: [What are they horrible at?]
Background: [Please include when your Master came from, too!]
Abilities: [What can they do that isn’t magic? Martial prowess, technical skills, all of that goes down here.]
Thaumaturgies: [Remember: up to two major Magecrafts without talking it over with me first! Moreover, by the nature of Mystery, this number can increase as time goes on.]
Elemental Affinities: [Everyone has one!]
Command Seals: [You get 3. I’d like this to be a running counter along with a description of the seal’s location and its general appearance--image or described!]
Personal Effects: [Swiggity swag, what’s in your bag?]
Mystic Codes: [Remember, you get 2 max unless you can justify it in the background! Feel free to make them weird.]

Servant Sheet

Class: [In this case, please prefix the name with “Scarlet.”]
True Name: [The actual name of your character! You can DM me if you want to keep this secret, but I--as the Scarlet Ruler--do have to know.]
Gender:
Appearance: [Images are fine, but I’d love to see some description too!]
Height:
Weight:
Personality: [Who are they, as a person?]
Strengths: [Remember: 3:2 ratio.]
Weaknesses: [Where do they falter?]
Fatal Flaw: [All beings come undone. How does this effect you, as a Servant?]
Origin: [This is the biggie--remember that Fate/ allows for some historical revisionism. Feel free to tell the “whole story” if it adds drama. Also, remember that there exists multiple timelines--Heroic Spirits can make different decisions in life that lead them down very different paths from the stories we know.]
Attributes: [Remember! 3 plus, 2 minus.]
Physique: [+/-]
Skill: [+/-]
Agility: [+/-]
Mana: [+/-]
Luck: [+/-]
Skills: [Please keep it to six or less! Also, remember that Skills exist to greater and lesser degrees. While you don’t have to use the grading system, I would like it if you’d put a plus or a minus next to the name to signify whether it’s a “strong” or a “weak” Skill, just like attributes.]
Noble Phantasms: [Three or less! Make ‘em fun.]
Belongings: [If only everything a Servant had on hand was a magical tool of mass destruction! What elements of home do you carry?]

Fate/akashic writhe [A High Casual adventure--Great for people new to the series!]

I don't mind terribly if you do, @KawaiiKyouko, as long as you're invested in playing them! I'm happy if you're playing something you feel strongly about and want to try something new or interesting with.

Also, to everyone else, we just got a whole bunch of you, so I'm gonna go ahead and start up the OOC tomorrow after doing a little bit of wrap-up!

Fate/akashic writhe [A High Casual adventure--Great for people new to the series!]

Fantastic~ Happy to see I've got so many comers! I think I wanna wait for at least one more person--get half of the total twelve--and then I'll start up the OOC!

(Also, to anyone who's reading this--feel free to drop by the Discord and get a feel for everyone if you're still on the fence about joining! Everyone's tossing around concepts at the moment--you're still very likely to fit into whatever niche you want!)

Fate/akashic writhe [A High Casual adventure--Great for people new to the series!]

(Discord Here!)

Main Theme | Cut it Free

(Placeholder image while I finish up the proper version!)

~Plot~

“This is where the end ends and the beginning begins.”

It always starts with a Holy Grail.
There are many worlds. Timelines. Universes upon universes, wrapped around each other like molecules in a vast ocean of existence.
At the center of it all lies Akasha. The Akashic Records. The Void. Heaven. Hell.
All of it.
None of it.
It is the place where all souls are bound to, and from whence all lives originate. It is the past, present, and future. It is the place where wishes can be granted, and where dreams go to die. It is the dream of every magus to one day arrive there, and unravel its secrets--to be the first to grasp a new, true Magic.
A very long time ago--during the year of 1790--a group of great men convened to summon a gate to Akasha, using a tool ancient beyond antiquity--the Holy Grail. They were successful. They were more successful than they could ever have dreamed. They created not only a gate to Akasha, but a wellspring from which magecraft could flourish and evolve beyond its wildest dreams.

It was then that the world ended.
At once, the world became as one and then as none. Reality could not bear this transgression, and chose altogether to bury itself in an eternal Mystery. Impenetrable, and unfathomable.

But, fear not, for this was not our world. This was another world. Had it not so deeply affected our own, we would not have even known of its existence.

Today--during this year of 1790--a group of magi convened to summon a gate to Akasha. However, there was only room enough for one of these men. The Holy Grail was not so much a gate as they had originally surmised, but more like a tollbooth. One pushed through, and what they saw was unspeakable.
They did not see the path to a new Magic. They did not see the Swirl at the Root. They did not step foot in the annals of the Akashic Records.
Through the gate, they had found a great, Mysterious thing. An entire planet, shrouded in an ancient, ineffable strangeness.
They had found what was lost to the hubris of another self, simultaneously having been for as long as being could be, and being as fresh and nascent as a newborn.
The gate that they had stepped through was now open--permanently. The Holy Grail was no more--it could be no more. It was as it always was, and as it had never been.
A Gate to Mystery. The Universe Between Universes.
At the very moment that Mystery lodged itself in the path to the Swirl of the Root, all timelines--all universes--came undone at once. Its mere existence set every other existence off of their preordained course. It is an aberration--a thing that should never have been. In that moment, time itself became a convoluted thing; what was once 1790 became nonexistent, as past, present, and future became but concepts--irrelevant creatures that heralded no weight nor presence.
There is only Mystery, and upon it, the battleground of ages.

Take up arms, O Servants.
Make thy name known to the world, O Masters.
This is the Heavenly Grail War.

~Your Role~

Mystery is an aberration of time and space. It is a planet that is at once a part of Akasha, and the very furthest thing from it. Lodged squarely in the path the Holy Grail created, Mystery has destabilized every timeline, every universe. In doing so, the collective unconscious of the Earth and the primal will to survive of Man--Gaia and Alaya--have all at once coincided, through every universe, creating a temporary battleground in an effort to dislodge the anomaly and bring time back to its rightful course.
This, in the simplest terms, is why you are here. Passing through the gate not of your own free will, but rather because there are no worlds to come home to, you are one of the 42 Masters that inhabit the world of Mystery--and you are destined to fight for the right to your own future. The Heavenly Grail speaks of granting a single wish, and destroying the Mystery that so destabilizes the flow of time.
Led by a Ruler, you and your compatriots will aim to bring the other six factions to their knees, and in the process feed the Heavenly Grail its sacrifices and bring Mystery to its final oblivion.

~The World~

The Heavenly Grail War

The Holy Grail & the Swirl At the Root

What is Akasha?

Akasha, or the Root, is the center of all space and time. It is, in the simplest sense, the very beginning of the universe, and the essence of reality. It is a metaphysical location that records all the information processed by space and time, and acts as both the termination point and the origin point of the soul. It is the reason Magecraft exists, and the objective of the Second, Third, and Fourth Magics. It is also known as the Void, Heaven, the Throne of Heroes, and the Akashic Records. It houses all the events and phenomena of the universe, and is, as a result, the single greatest force ever to exist.

Mystery

Mystery is both a place and a state of being. It is important to make note of this distinction, as the two are used interchangeably within the world of Mystery. Mystery--in worlds where Mystery was once a thing rare and altogether unseen--was a power that grew with age, and when two Mysteries intersected, the stronger would always overwhelm the weaker. It is the source, moreover, of all supernatural phenomena, making the land of Mystery a strange place indeed. It is, moreover, the origin of Magecraft.
Mystery, the location, is a world created for the Heavenly Grail War. This dimensionless plane wraps in upon itself, creating a mobius strip upon which the Faction Lands exist. There is no “top,” no “bottom,” nor “side,” there is merely Mystery and the Heavens. As a result of this strange shape--and its small size--much of Mystery is visible from any point along its surface. Mystery sits directly in the path to Akasha, acting as a plug of time and space--as a result, time itself has come unwound.

The Heavenly Grail

The Heavenly Grail is the source of energy and the stabilizing force that forces Mystery’s continued existence. It is best classified as a “gate within gates,” or, perhaps more accurately, a “False Root.” Its existence is twofold: it is the Heavens that surround Mystery, and the shining star by which day and night occur. The Heavens are bounded by a field created by the infinite wills of Gaia and Alaya, and, to this end, it could be said that Mystery is, in and of itself, not just a but the Reality Marble.

Factions

Within the world of Mystery, there exists 7 Factions. Each of these Factions consists of 13 souls--6 Masters, and 7 Servants. This seventh Servant is both the leader and Ruler of its faction, standing in the place of Servants such as the Azure Saber, or Argent Rider. They are both the greatest weapon and greatest weakness of their creed, as their death spells certain doom for their constituents--a great deal of the power and territory of most of the Factions are manifested and controlled by its Ruler. Each Faction represents one of the Classes that Servants tend to follow, and as a result, are granted boons associated with that Class.

Azure (Saber)

The Saber. Widely regarded as the strongest Class among the seven, they are characterized by their knightly stature and enviable versatility. The Azure Faction follows this chivalrous nature to its very core--its land, the Keep of Blades, is every part as imposing and regal as the Faction that inhabits it. Many of the Azure Masters are folk from times long past, and as such the Keep stands firm as a relic of antiquity.

Scarlet (Lancer)

The Lancer. The most reliable of the classes, they are known for being distinctly above-average in every regard. In this instance, you are all Servants and Masters of the Scarlet Faction. Your domain is for you to create as intimately--or as distanced--as you choose. Each of the Scarlet Servants are closer to their main Classes than their Faction, moreso than any other Faction. As a result, the Scarlet Faction is the most versatile of the Factions, and is capable of the most variety.

Gilt (Archer)

The Archer. The free spirit--the ranger without boundaries. Known for their independence, the Gilt Faction houses itself within the Fabled Wild--a massive forest that spans their entire Faction domain. The Masters are made up of free spirits; believers in the inviolable human right to their own personal freedom. All of the Gilt Servants employ some form of ranged weapon, though some more than others.

Clay (Berserker)

The Berserker. Beings of chaos--more beast than man. Trading sanity in favor of immense power, Berserkers are characterized by their violent natures and erratic, unpredictable behavior. The Badlands are where they make their home, and it--suiting a creed of wildmen--is a wasteland where the mighty ravage all comers. All of the Clay Masters are in some way unhinged, and they--along with their Servants--are essentially led by the leash by their Avenger. All of the Servants suffer from some sort of Mad Enhancement, and the Clay Faction is the only faction that lacks a Ruler.

Sable (Assassin)

The Assassin. Unique among the Factions not only for their location, but the origin from which all of the Servants spring; every last Sable Servant is counted among the Hassan-i-Sabbah, and their domain is the Old Man’s Mountain itself. While the Sable Faction is physically weaker than the other Factions by orders of magnitude, what they lack in ability they more than make up for in subterfuge. The Masters, of course, are all morally malleable in one way or another--criminals from all corners of time.

Argent (Rider)

The Rider. Possessed of preternatural skill with their steeds, the Argent Servants are characterized by their extreme mobility--whether by land, by air, or by sea. Residing in the vast Silverwater Straits, the home of the Argent Faction is ever-moving, and constantly amidships. The Argent Masters consist of conquerors and war heroes, and their Servants are much the same--beings that birth empires. The most mobile--and perhaps most aggressive--of the Factions.

Violet (Caster)

The Caster. Housed in the Prolix Realm of Cambridge, what Casters lack in combat potential they more than make up for in their potential as magi. Schemers, witches, warlocks--all masters of esoteric and strange Magecrafts. All of the Violet Servants ply some form of Magecraft that further enhances their natural Class capacities, and each and every one of them are blessed with the gift of Territory Creation--as a result, Cambridge is the most expansive and enigmatic of all of the Faction Lands. All of the Violet Masters, moreover, are magi of some renown--and while the playing field was leveled by Mystery’s proximity to the Root, their intermingling beliefs in specific Mysteries have placed their potential in a league of their own. The Violet Faction, in that sense, is a Faction where the Masters and Servants have the smallest gap in power.

Magic, Magecraft, and Mystery

What is Magecraft?

Magecraft (or Thaumaturgy), in short, is the method by which a supernatural phenomenon is reenacted using a Mystery as the source of its power. In the past, it would require a modicum of energy from the Root--which, in the case of the planet Mystery, is so close and easily accessible that the ancient fears of too many magi drawing on magical power is essentially meaningless. In the past, widespread belief in a Mystery was required in order to properly evoke a Thaumaturgy in its vein, but now that the number of humans in the world are reduced to 42, it merely takes personal belief to give rise to a Thaumaturgy. In even shorter terms, Magecraft is now a system by which energy from the Root is allowed to flow through the body in order to enact a magical effect fashioned by the user; while Thaumaturgy is now much easier to achieve, the user must be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are capable of the Magecraft that they are trying to invoke. As a result, magi are generally limited to 1 or 2 schools of Thaumaturgy. However, in this limitation, you are granted a great deal of freedom so long as you do not violate the law of Equivalency. An Elemental Affinity does not count towards this total, though the possession of multiple Affinities does.

Mysterious Magecraft

Modern Magecraft no longer functions in the manner that it did when the worlds were stable. It has become an altogether more streamlined thing, as the laws of the world change to suit the Mystery that pervades its every inch of being. Gone are the days of rigorous and constant magical research; there exists only Mystery, and it is in perfect balance with the beliefs of the Masters that live upon it. As a result, the old schools of Thaumaturgy are now a great deal more conceptual in nature, and now simpler, greater Magecraft can be achieved. There is one great rule of Thaumaturgy, given these circumstances: it must follow the law of Equivalency, in that something must be given--somatically, vocatively, materially--in order to initiate an effect. The world will not simply change of your own will.

What is Magic?

It is important to note the distinction between Magecraft and Magic. True Magic--of which exists Five--is a beast all on its own. First, Magic is passed by way of heirship, rather than simply being practiced by any and everyone; it only ever has a single practitioner at any given time. It is said that the beginning First changed everything, the following Second acknowledged many, the resulting Third showed the future, the linking Fourth concealed itself, and the final Fifth had already lost its meaning. Someone once said, "Had it only ended at the Third." Magic is the immutable existence of life beyond the natural order, and is in and of itself a thing not practiced by any of the Masters, nor their Servants. While the Magecraft of Servants from the Age of Gods is laudable and nearly on the level of Magic, it is a different thing entirely for it to truly be Magic. For something to be truly Magic, it must be impossible to replicate by any other given being in the time period, even given infinite time and resources. As a result, Magecraft and, more specifically, Mysterious Magecraft can be defined in retrograde as “anything that could be replicated given infinite time and resources, hastened through the use of the Root.”

Examples of Magecraft

Often, Magecraft is divided into what the practitioner believes makes up the building blocks of the universe. For instance, in terms of the Westernized Thaumaturgy (and its Holy Sacraments), the major elements are wind, water, fire, earth, and void. For the East, however, it is wind, water, fire, wood, and metal. Furthermore, these are usually derived into applications of positive and negative nature--the difference between healing hands and a curse. These are not the only elements, either--so long as it embodies a concept, it is usually within reason. On the subject of concepts, most Magecraft is the actualization of a concept--like temporal perception, gravitational force, internal enhancement--through the usage of these elemental building blocks. It is moreover important to note that certain magi from certain timelines may ply an entirely different craft, often using Mystic Codes--physical objects that enhance magical capabilities--to supplement a magic they never had.

Masters

What is a Master?

A Master is someone who has pacted with a Servant. This pact is done by way of a Summoning Rite, which every Master performed shortly after their arrival in Mystery. A Master need not be a magus, but most Masters are magi. Within the confines of Mystery, Masters are capable of originating from any time during the Age of Man--that is to say, after the Age of Gods (Which took place before 0 AD). For example, Abraham would not be able to be a Master, but Jesus might. That being said, any being who is already a Heroic Spirit and recognized as having a seat upon the Throne of Heroes is precluded from being a Master. (Jesus is counted among them, and only serves as a recognizable example in this instance.)

Command Seals

Every Master is presented with 3 Command Seals. Command Seals are three-part insignias etched onto the body--often the hand or arm--of the Master, that represent three inviolable commands that their Servant must follow. These are imbued with a great deal of power from the Root, and serve, moreover, to allow a Servant to break their own restrictions and perform acts that would be infeasible without the onus of a Command Seal. When the final Command Seal is used, the Master is deemed no longer a part of the Heavenly Grail War. In this case, without any further anchor, they will simply cease to exist. Servants, however, are not necessarily doomed to the same fate, because of the unique nature and circumstance of Mystery.

Creating a Master

The nature of Mystery allows for a great deal of variety in the Masters that dwell within its boundaries. First, it should be noted that Masters are capable of carrying their own rare and powerful artifacts, just like a Servant--except their artifacts are usually quite a bit weaker, and almost definitely fewer in number. Masters can come from any cut of cloth and almost any point in time during the Age of Man, and vary wildly in origin and skillset. Oftentimes, they are some degree of magi, though that is not a prerequisite for Mastership. However, every Master, in order to anchor themselves in the world of Mystery, has summoned a Servant--immediately upon entry into the world.
Second, it’s important to note the existence of Mystic Codes. A Mystic Code is something like a magical artifact; it supplements magecraft with its own power, and is often used as a catalyst for greater invocations. The Azoth Sword stands as the most obvious example of a Mystic Code, as it is used by most folk within the Mages’ Association. Its major use is as a wand--a conduit to form magical circles or bring to form physical divine Mysteries--that is, to cast spells. Often, a Mystic Code has its own lore and story behind it, and is usually some sort of heirloom or other object with an air of Mystery due to age and magical origin. They come in two varieties--Amplifiers and Specialized Mystic Codes. The former is used to enhance thaumaturgical spells, whereas the latter has a specific functional use that is wholly unique to the item. Most object Noble Phantasms are of this variety. Generally speaking, it is reasonable for your Master to have one or two Mystic Codes of variable strength--anything more than that is something that will have to come with more explanation than merely having a magical background.

Example of a Mystic Code

Here’s an example of a Mystic Code’s background: the Distillate Chalice. This withered old thing--a decrepit object, hardly capable of holding liquid within its container. Yet, by the grace of its runic inlay, it acts as a Bounded Field that separates the liquid within from the world without. As a matter of fact, it can only contain liquid--as such, any solid forms of any size, even bacteria, will be immediately expunged from its form. This Bounded Field can be expanded by the assistance of a magus, turning it into a cylinder of water that excludes all solid matter from it--essentially the perfect parrying tool. It was found in an ancient monastery by the sea, surrounded by desiccated, toothless corpses--it’s surmised that their teeth ripped themselves from their skull in attempting to partake of the water within.

Because of the nature of Mystery, Masters do not need to come from any of the timelines within the Fate/ universe. As such, please do not create a Master with relations to any of the major characters within the Fate/ franchises--though it is perfectly fine if they come from a timeline where events such as the Great Grail War took place, or even timelines where entirely different Grail Wars occurred--or none at all!

Servants

What is a Servant?

A Servant is a being who has achieved some form of greatness or renown within their life, and has found their place on the Throne of Heroes as a result. They are separated into 7 major Classes--6 of which are a part of each of the aforementioned Factions, accompanied by a Ruler who acts as a greatly enhanced version of the final major Class. These Classes are subdivided into the Three Knight Classes and the Four Cavalry Classes.

The Seven Classes, and Rulers

Saber

Sabers are characterized by their extreme prowess on the battlefield and immense power. Their Class Skill is Antimagic, rendering most Magecraft almost totally harmless--they stand as exemplars of one-on-one combat, and as such have great advantage over those who would use Thaumaturgy rather than combat skills. Usually quite powerful in each of the major attributes. They are, however, required to use a sword--placing them at a disadvantage as far as clever combat goes. By far, the most straightforward Class.

Lancer

Second only to Sabers in terms of natural power, Lancers are similarly efficient combatants, with a minor twist. First and foremost, Lancers are exceedingly agile, moreso than their Saber counterparts. Secondly, they have a far greater berth of abilities and Skills, and often have weapons with secret, deleterious effects like the Gae Bolg, or Gae Dearg. Also blessed with Antimagic as a Class Skill, along with a degree of Independence--allowing, as a base, for all Lancers to function for a full day without the energy from their Master. They must, however, use some sort of polearm--making them similarly dedicated to close combat, like the Saber.

Archer

The final Knight Class, Archers are distinguished by their usage of long ranged weaponry. While they are weaker than Lancers or Sabers, they are blessed with a startlingly high Independence Skill--allowing Archers to go completely without their Masters for days at a time. Moreover, their Noble Phantasms often totally outstrip all others. They are capable of using long ranged weapons, though it need not always be the case--most of the time, though, they are artillery specialists that rain hell from extremely long distances.

Rider

The first and most fitting Cavalry Class, Riders are the conquerors, the warmasters, the trailblazers. Extremely mobile and characterized by their Riding Skill, Riders are capable of synergizing with their mounts in ways that give them immense advantages in the field. Other than having said mount, Riders also often have exceedingly strong Noble Phantasms, and, moreover, no weapons to which they must adhere like the Knight Classes.

Berserker

Berserkers are the most phenomenally powerful Class. Exchanging their sanity for the Mad Enhancement Class Skill, Berserkers are masters of slaughter--while their Noble Phantasms are often passive in nature, it is usually in order to grant them immensely greater power on the battlefield, or even stave off death. Masters almost always end up using at least one Command Seal when in possession of a Berserker Servant.

Assassin

Assassins are one of, if not the most esoteric Class. Usually consisting of the Hassan-i-Sabbah, the first assassins, this Class is characterized by its opportunistic nature. Bearing low combat skills because of their lack of illustrious legends, Assassins prefer to target Masters over other Servants, using underhanded tactics in order to achieve the upper hand. A very technical Class, blessed with Presence Concealment--a common tool among assassins.

Caster

Casters--the plotters, the tacticians, the schemers. The final of the Cavalry Classes, they are the most magically inclined class by a great measure, and in being so, they are also the weakest physically. Casters are often from the Age of Gods, but more specifically, Casters are fashioned from the tales and legends of great magi and amazing minds that astounded the world with their magic and intellect. Given Terrain Creation as a Class Skill, Casters often fashion for themselves a domain--a Workshop of sorts where they can create their wonders and bring woe upon their enemies. The Class for the clever and mischievous.

Ruler

There are few as memorable and immensely gifted as the Rulers. Rulers were, in the context of normal Holy Grail Wars, arbiters of the Grail that would protect the sanctity of its trial at all costs. In this instance, a Ruler is an arbiter of the enigmatic Heavenly Grail, and as a result is not alone--seven conceptions of the Heavenly Grail exist, and with it seven Rulers, all vying for the completion of the War. Within the confines of the Heavenly Grail War, Rulers stand in as the greatest summon of a Faction--the Scarlet Lancer, Sable Assassin, Argent Rider, Azure Saber, Violet Caster, and Gilt Archer are all counted as Rulers. Rulers are granted two Command Seals for all of the Servants within their given Faction, and all of them possess a greatly weakened version of True Name Discernment--while they are capable of discerning the names of their constituents, and Classes of other Servants, they cannot learn the names of other Servants. Generally speaking, Rulers have Skills that are often in a class all their own--and while these Skills aren’t usually offensive in nature, they are nonetheless to be greatly feared.

Avenger

Servants who never should have existed. Each Avenger is distinct among its peers, and Class Skills are hardly indicative of what an Avenger is capable of. In this regard, the Clay Berserker is an Avenger. Little is known about its characteristics beyond its existence. Its status as a Ruler, moreover, is unknown; it may or may not have Command Seals.

Creating a Servant

Parameters & You

In the Fate/ franchise, there is an attempt to categorize beings by their Parameters, which are graded on an E-A scale. Much of this scale is redundant and asinine, and will not be used. In exchange, parameters will be assessed on a case-by-case basis, and it will be generally assumed--in most cases--that Servants are around the same power level within their same Class. In lieu of Parameters, we will be using a Strengths, Weaknesses, and Fatal Flaws system, coupled with a simplified Attribute system.
Attributes are a greatly pared down version of the Fate/ Parameter system--of which your character will have 3 “positive” and 2 “negative” Attributes.
These Attributes are Physique, Skill, Agility, Mana, and Luck. Having a “positive” Attribute means that they will, of course, supersede another Servant’s “negative” Attribute during relevant combat encounters. Two Servants who clash with Attributes that align--two “positive” or two “negative”--will cancel each other out, and will need to take a different approach. Moreover, Attributes can be buffed and debuffed into Neutral, Double Positive, or Double Negative states, the effects of which are self-explanatory.

Strengths, Weaknesses, and Fatal Flaws

Strengths are--obviously--the vital abilities that substantiate a Servant. Combat skills, diplomatic abilities, Magecraft, physical prowess, dexterity, speed--all of these are examples of Strengths that Servants can possess. Knowledges, similarly, are considered Strengths. The peerless combat of Arturia Pendragon, for instance, is a Strength, as is the Magecraft of Semiramis. These Strengths are useful for doing unorthodox moves or performing physical and magical feats beyond what the Attribute system can express.
Weaknesses are places where Servants falter, capacities that can be exploited to gain the upper hand against a specific Servant. Just as Strengths are meaningful, so too must be Weaknesses. These are vulnerabilities that must be accounted for, and should be related to their defeats and failures in life. For every two Strengths, there should be at least one Weakness. Optimally, I’d like a 3:2 ratio!
Fatal Flaws are the equal and opposite facet to the Noble Phantasm. All heroes, eventually, come undone by the hands of time, fate, or another. Fatal Flaws are deep weaknesses that severely hinder--or even outright kill--a Servant. Every Servant has at least one, usually related to the quality of their being or the cause of their death. Every Servant must have one Fatal Flaw. The Fatal Flaw is easier to suss out once they have activated a Noble Phantasm, or their True Name has been otherwise revealed.

Skills & Noble Phantasms

Skills are, in short, preternaturally attuned abilities that all Servants carry in one way or another. This can be anything from the Mind’s Eye--the ability to perceive the unseen and avoid dangers--to Terrain Creation, the ability to manifest and fashion zones of one’s personal domain. These are usually preternatural in nature, and it is perfectly fine to use ones from the Fate/ wiki article on the subject.
Noble Phantasms are immensely powerful abilities that hearken back to the story of the Heroic Spirit--as a result, they are also the method by which True Names can often be discerned. Often, Servants have three Noble Phantasms, each one stronger than the last. For the sake of simplicity, I have divided the many nomenclatures of Noble Phantasms into five categories: Anti-Being, Anti-Status, Treasure, Thaumaturgical, and Esoteric Phantasms.

The Five Noble Archetypes

I.Anti-Being Noble Phantasms are Noble Phantasms that target people specifically--they are the most direct kind of power, and are intended to kill, maim, or debilitate other Servants or Masters--or even bystanders, depending on its function. These also include Phantasms that target specific aspects of a being, such as the mind or the soul.
II.Anti-Status Noble Phantasms target qualities of being--that is to say, Divine beings or objects, or Draconic beings or objects, or so on. These Noble Phantasms can also target other Noble Phantasms that fulfill its prerequisites.
III.Treasure Noble Phantasms are simply that--immensely valuable objects that often carry passive effects--or even activated effects--that set them apart from normal objects. These can be weapons, jewelry, even prosthetics--should the Servant have a story revolving around the loss of a limb. Simply holding one of these Phantasms can sometimes be enough to trigger True Name Discernment in a Ruler, but that is only for particularly famous weapons. Otherwise, they must be activated first. Treasure Phantasms can activate in the capacity in any one of the other four archetypes.
IV.Magecraft Noble Phantasms are directly related to Thaumaturgy, amplified manyfold by being a crystallized Mystery. These can consist of a variety of different effects--immensely powerful curses, the fashioning of overwhelmingly large and powerful domains, or even creating Reality Marbles.
V.Esoteric Phantasms are the strange and powerful Phantasms that are hard to fit into any other category. Conceptual Phantasms, which embody a concept, such as the concept of undeath, or the concept of impalement, fall under Esoteric Phantasms. Transformative Phantasms, moreover, also fall under the umbrella of Esoteric Phantasms.

An example of a Noble Phantasm

A good example of a Noble Phantasm: The Impenetrable Necropolis. A domain created by the Caster Khafre, it is the replication of his final resting place--one of the Great Pyramids of Giza. From it, Khafre can manifest great and ancient Magecraft, and it serves to hold dominion over his own death. Within the Crypt, he is simultaneously a mortal being and an aspect of pharohood, and as such cannot be killed by regular means. Instead, one must either strip him of his divinity or strike him down with an anti-divine weapon. Within the tomb, he can summon jackals, cranes, and other auspicious beings of Egyptian myth to bring woe upon his foes, and bring the many statues and carvings to life. This, moreover, includes the Sphinx.

Rulers as Player Characters

Currently, the Scarlet Faction is open for characters to create, save for the Scarlet Ruler. I endeavor to have control over three of the total Rulers, and leave the rest for single players to take over. Rulership is something like a co-GM, in that you act as the leader of one of the other Factions, and I will approach you if I want to offer you a spot as a Ruler!

~The Rules~

1. No Gatekeeping!
The Fate/ series is big. It has a lot of people who have invested themselves in varying amounts to the fandom and their understanding of Fate/. What I don’t want to see is people snubbing others because they don’t know some obscure fact about the Nasuverse!
2. There are no dumb questions.
I tried my very best to make this setting as approachable as possible, but even then there are things I missed or failed to properly explain! Please ask questions if you have them--the Discord is a great place to get to know others and ask me anything you’d like to know.
3. Your party is your friend.
I really can’t stress this enough. Please join the Discord and please get involved with other players! We can’t make this story happen without you. Everyone’s equally valuable--I’m just the GM that put this story together! It’s nothing without people to get involved in it.
4. “Have fun” is not a rule!
If you’re not having fun, or not feeling involved, you gotta talk to people! I am absolutely dedicated to helping people feel like they’re having a good time, but I’m not perfect and I’ll do everything in my power to accommodate you.
5. Do what you love.
Don’t make a character that you think I’ll like--make a character that’s uniquely you and makes you happy and excited to write. This isn’t a talent show or a competition--I want to give every player a fair shake and a chance to do the crazy stuff they feel like they can’t do in other roleplays. That being said…
6. Don’t be a creeper!
I know, Fate/ is a historical waifu simulator, but I really don’t want people to go around buying girlfriends like it’s 2000s Runescape. This is, at its core, a real deal venture and creeping other people out is a big no-no! Please make an effort to make your character feel larger than life, rather than making them feel like a pinup.
7. Don’t think “power.” Think “interesting.”
While Fate/ is very, very easy to turn into a high-power excursion into just how easily the universe can be broken, I’d really like it if people would exercise restraint in favor of characters being balanced and interesting! I’m much more interested in weird powers than I am outrageous ones. Taking rule 5 into account, this means that while I want you to express yourself, remember that the power level needs to be within reason, and any extravagant powers need to have reasonable drawbacks! If you ever have a question about power levels, I handle things on a case-by-case basis--we’ll talk it out and see how everyone else feels, and ultimately I’ll come to a decision! The nature of Servants makes their power levels a little nebulous and flexible, so it kind of has to go by feel rather than objectivity.

~The Sheets~

Master Sheet

Name: [Not as important as a True Name, but it’s not likely that your parents named you “Master!”]
Servant: [The Servant that you’ve pacted with. This will be filled in once you’ve paired up with someone, so don’t fill it in before you’re approved!]
Age:
Gender:
Appearance: [Images are fine, but I’d like a description too, if you can manage it!]
Height:
Weight:
Personality: [Who are they? People are more than a list of traits. Be complex!]
Strengths: [What are they good at? I’d like this to be the same ratio as Servant Strengths and Weaknesses.]
Weaknesses: [What are they horrible at?]
Background: [Please include when your Master came from, too!]
Abilities: [What can they do that isn’t magic? Martial prowess, technical skills, all of that goes down here.]
Thaumaturgies: [Remember: up to two major Magecrafts without talking it over with me first! Moreover, by the nature of Mystery, this number can increase as time goes on.]
Elemental Affinities: [Everyone has one!]
Command Seals: [You get 3. I’d like this to be a running counter along with a description of the seal’s location and its general appearance--image or described!]
Personal Effects: [Swiggity swag, what’s in your bag?]
Mystic Codes: [Remember, you get 2 max unless you can justify it in the background! Feel free to make them weird.]

Servant Sheet

Class: [In this case, please prefix the name with “Scarlet.”]
True Name: [The actual name of your character! You can DM me if you want to keep this secret, but I--as the Scarlet Ruler--do have to know.]
Gender:
Appearance: [Images are fine, but I’d love to see some description too!]
Height:
Weight:
Personality: [Who are they, as a person?]
Strengths: [Remember: 3:2 ratio.]
Weaknesses: [Where do they falter?]
Fatal Flaw: [All beings come undone. How does this effect you, as a Servant?]
Origin: [This is the biggie--remember that Fate/ allows for some historical revisionism. Feel free to tell the “whole story” if it adds drama. Also, remember that there exists multiple timelines--Heroic Spirits can make different decisions in life that lead them down very different paths from the stories we know.]
Attributes: [Remember! 3 plus, 2 minus.]
Physique: [+/-]
Skill: [+/-]
Agility: [+/-]
Mana: [+/-]
Luck: [+/-]
Skills: [Please keep it to six or less! Also, remember that Skills exist to greater and lesser degrees. While you don’t have to use the grading system, I would like it if you’d put a plus or a minus next to the name to signify whether it’s a “strong” or a “weak” Skill, just like attributes.]
Noble Phantasms: [Three or less! Make ‘em fun.]
Belongings: [If only everything a Servant had on hand was a magical tool of mass destruction! What elements of home do you carry?]

⊰Manifest Anima: Planes Divided⊱

---

Naomi Popjay

Arc 2, Day 1; 9:35 AM
On the Gray Line, courtesy of Ominar Transportation Services
Corner of Camdarry Alley and Basken Dr --> 4040 Culphey Ln, Apartment D2

---

"Earbuds are fucking tripe. I have never been so offended in my entire life."

For Naomi, life had just become an arduous journey. The truest version of a trawl through hell. The clasp of the little headphones dangled annoyingly in front of her nose, pods shoved haphazardly into her foxlike ear canals. A song that could really only be described as 'butt rock's younger brother, butt pop' pumped through the noisemakers as Nao quickly whipped the wire behind her head, temporarily tangling herself in the cord as she played a short game of hot potato with her phone.

You see, it would have been quite strange for her outburst to not garner attention, but the fact of the matter was that the sweet southerly Australian accent could not even nearly match the sheer gravitas of the massive, floating hands that hovered at either side. Aldous--the left--gingerly picked up the phone, coming to rest at an angle that didn't irritate the edges of Naomi's ears.

People were staring. Well, most were staring. Some were licentia... Who had certainly at some point adopted a form that wasn't catered to by the likes of Bose or AKG.

Others were human. Some were elderly, looking upon her with sneers and snide expressions as her outcry had interrupted whatever video game they were playing--or merely interrupted the sanctity of the 'seen, not heard' clause of being--or just looking--like a licentia in Praesville.

But, of course, Naomi was not a licentia. She was just another human, plagued by a kink for the bizarre. And by headphone cords being entirely too short. Her tail swished lightly hither and yon, sensing a humorlessness in the air. Like a dowsing rod for stink-eye.
The licentia she sat next to, however--a great big man, shaped like a shark that hadn't skipped a single leg day--gave her salvation in the form of a chuckle.
"Hey, listen, least you've got a place to put them. See these?" His girthy finger gestured just above his false gills, at a tiny hole in the side of his head, "Yeah, I haven't figured out how to get ears on me without making it look like someone taped some normal ears on and painted 'em blue. Made me look like a fuckin' extra on a kid's show." The faint Geordie twang merely added to his hearty chuckle, clapping her on the back in a show of camaraderie. A crooked grin played across Nao's face--she couldn't help it.

"Now, you know what's really shit? Shoes. Look at these." Her pawed foot rose slightly, allowing her to present it with a pair of outstretched well-manicured hands--and two giant floating gauntlets. The shoe itself was quite simply made--a wrapping with a sole, clasped with two golden buckles and a heel descending to meet the open toe. Her paw wriggled in demonstration.

"Fox feet was the worst idea I could've had. I..."
Naomi looked across the cabin of the bus. It was entirely too quiet. It didn't help that these were the types that looked like they'd swoon at the sight of a pair of wings and sticks shoved where holes should be.

"...Think we should move this conversation abovedeck. I could use some fresh air, couldn't you?" She offered George to the man, who wrapped his hand around the ring and hoisted himself up--Nao winced ever so slightly as she shifted her ostium's discharge to shoulder his weight, but otherwise hardly changed expression as her heels clicker-clacked against the floor.

And lo, there it was.

Ominar's Camdarry Alley--the longest stretch of Old Town, nestled right along the River Dour. It smacked of the old world, of a time before the time before--Romanesque architecture lined the streets and side paths, all resplendent in the morningtime mist. Autumn slipped its ruddy hues and sunlit yellows in between the sepia-tone streets, breathing warmth into the dawning chill. Something about it all made Nao feel wistful for the days where she was cooped up in the attic with a book on vis circuitry, with Kapsey downstairs cooking up something fresh and simple. Lots of salt, though. Naomi's arteries whimpered nostalgically.

"You're a queer one, aren't you? Come all the way up here and then you glaze right over. Where are you from, anyway? I can't hardly pin that accent. Sounds proper." The mammoth of a man leaned gingerly against the side railing, hardly even reacting to the biting wind that buffeted the open-air seats.

Naomi planted herself against the rails, looping her tail through the underside as she sat herself up on the rim of the bus. Her tiny size forced her to make a bit of a hop, but it was altogether fairly fluid. "Sorry, didn't mean to space out like that. I'm just thinking about home--little place called Alice Springs."
"Fuck me, that's not Britain at all! Where's that? South Africa? Australia? You don't sound too tourist."
A sharp, cheerful chirp sprung from Naomi's throat. She answered with a single finger-gun at the sound of her home country, a smile playing across her sickeningly-saccharine face.
"That's the one! Look the place up. Good-size town, right in the middle of Australia. Really, just a bunch of decent folk. My dad was a licentia--but, uh, no relation, though. I'm human as they come, with a couple of, uh, tweaks--"

Her tragic backstory screeched to a halt, as did the bus. "The fuck is that?"

The fuck in question was a raucous mob standing directly in the way of Naomi's bus ride home. A standing protest.

"Well, that's a crying shame. They've disrupted the whole government. You see this bus?" The shark-man gestured to the vehicle below with a sardonic grin, "Whole of fucking Parliament in here. They're really making a difference. Wait, did you say you're not--"
"Hold the queries for a moment. What are they even protesting about? Licenti rights?" Naomi peered over the front end, trying to get a better look at the tiny sea of signs. The first one that jumped out at her was perhaps the most beautifully designed, simple, and excellently executed sign she had ever seen in her entire, blessedly short life:

PRAE
ARE
CUNTS

"That's really hard to argue with. They made a statement, and they meant it. Guess I was right about the licentia rights thing. You can see 'em all in the crowd." Naomi pointed to the variety of folk--reptilian men in hoodies, strange ears and eyes abound, a small bevy of non-standard legs and tails--that were riotously chanting an incoherent garble of different messages.
"I can't tell if they're saying all different things or just speaking Welsh."

The many-toothed man's browless brow furrowed in disappointment and consternation. "This is exactly the kind of shit that gives us a bad name. It's not great. Didn't one of those prae queen types just die? What're people going to think when they see these folk on the news? They never think about the image of us working types. I can't afford to be losing what job I've got for some chav with a heroin habit what wants to have fourteen tails and a wing growing out his arse in public."

Naomi, however, had had quite enough of waiting. "Well I'll be fucked if I'm going to sit around waiting for some tit with a head like an orange to tell Bastille Day 2: The Reckoning down there that they've got the wrong spot. Are you coming?"
Half of this, of course, was said as she quickly made her descent down the side of the bus, using Aldous and George as her own personal staircase. As she hit the ground, she offered a massive ringed mitt to her newfound companion, which he gingerly took--and the other construct carefully grabbed his other arm. "Just jump on down, I've got you," came Nao's surprisingly reassuring voice as her friend hopped down, fall slowed considerably by her two floating helpers.

And then, of course, Naomi had to say something smart. She'd been mulling on what sounded the most clever for the past minute, and continued mulling until the first syllable cleared her lips:

"Hey, come on, derv-verv-er..." she trailed off, having to start again. Nao's tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth as she internally 'reset' herself.
"Diversity hires coming through! We have a friend who needs us so he can make racist jokes!"

A twang of pride forced her chest out and forward, as she used Aldous and George to pave a path--she was only a block away from the sweet solace of home, and she knew she deserved a nice shower. Her newfound ally quickly tottered after her, pushing past the little wall of people in order to catch up.

The next few minutes were spent conversing. Small talk. His name was Ghillie, and he was actually from Newcastle. The shark thing really wasn't intentional--he was born at sea, and his parents were both sailor types. He got to be out on the ocean so much that his body simply adapted to it--and he'd always liked sharks. It just became natural.

They talked about the graffiti on the walls of old-town buildings. How bigoted things were getting. The Exeo's death. That one new movie--the action flick that everyone was talking about. They didn't even have special effects, really--most of it was licentia stunt-boys and the like with a little bit of CGI to make them suit the artist's renditions. "Real impressive stuff, honestly. I love that we're getting more roles and such, but I do still wish they'd give us another starring role--you remember Beauty and the Beast? Great live-action. Comsey Kade was great in it."

Eventually, though, all good things must come to an end--Naomi reluctantly bid her farewells to her newfound comrade, though they promised to keep in touch.

All of that, of course, was a great deal less important than home, sweet home. 4040 Culphey Lane. Naomi had to feed Cap--she'd been out of the house for the past four hours, attending courses that she wasn't enrolled in and using her phone for day-trading. He was going to be so upset.

As she entered her homey, cozy little apartment, the cry of a hungry parakeet drowned out her thoughts.

"Aw, Cap, honey, I know--I've been out of the house all day. But I've got your feed right here, okay?"
Naomi skipped past the hastily strewn clothes and pulled a little baggie out of the cupboard--all seeds and berries. Cap's favorite.

This was home, for Nao. A place with her stuff, a place with her bird, a place where she could just be herself and not have to worry about the outside.

It helped, moreover, that she wasn't paying utilities. Reluctantly, she pulled up her phone and began to scroll through the messages, looking for things of interest--and her heart immediately sank.

Her face was already tagged on a photo.
Alongside words like 'race traitor.'

"Fuck," stated her sense of dread. Her fingers quickly began tapping away as she began back-tracing her photo, looking for as many of them as possible--and, of course, there she was, pushing licentia out of the way during a protest like nothing was wrong.

This was going to be a long morning.

"Fuck," reminded Cap.

For Naomi, life had just become an arduous journey.

⊰Manifest Anima: Planes Divided⊱

Nao

MEDICINE ||| Blast Doors

~"Life has taught me two things. One, don't say everything you know."~

Dossier

Name: Naomi Shastey Chāyì-Popjay
Alias: Naomi Peony Popjay
Nicknames: Nao
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Homosexual
Age: 28
Apparent Age: Perhaps 17-20, depending on your criteria.
Race: Precursor
Nationality / Lineage: Australian (House Chāyì)
Appearance:
Height: 4'9''
Weight: 89 lbs.

"Do you have any clue how much effort it takes to look effortless?"

Personality:

"I like my philosophy like I like my stories. 140 characters or less."

Nao is cut from a pointedly different cloth. At the very core of her being lies an innocence. Not innocence in the sense of naivety--it is more like a simplicity of desire.
A straightforwardness.
This "innocence" differs from gullibility not only in its nature, but in its source. Being naive is a sign of underdevelopment--of never having been tried. Trusting the fire because you've never been burned. For Naomi, however, this guilelessness is actually something entirely more like its own kind of tact--she trusts the fire not because she's never been burned, but rather because the fire keeps her warm and feeds her. She is careful. Every chance she takes--every risk she shoulders--is carefully considered. Nao is earnest in the blithest sense of the word. She will never tell a lie that didn't need telling, and comprehends the morally gray atmosphere of the world she lives in.
In that morality, however, she chooses to paint in brighter shades. Simply because she could or would lie doesn't mean she will or wants to. It's all a cautious consideration. She is straightforward simply because it's better, to her, than being spurious and false-faced. Every nugget of information that passes through her ears is considered and placed through a gauntlet of queries and conflicts, and her next action is always the one that she feels has the greatest reward for the least risk.
All of this, though, is merely the method by which she resolves internal conflict, and the reason behind her willingness to trust others. The web grows in breadth and depth as her desires and dreams and moral code enter the fray.
Naomi is superficial. The absolute worst trait she carries is her desire for--and willingness to believe--a pretty face. At the core of everything, she believes beauty is what separates humanity from animals. Her conceit is immutable, but as far as she or anyone else can comprehend, it really is the only conceit she carries--and she carries it willingly. For her, romance is something pivotal to her beliefs; attractiveness, cleverness, seduction and glamor are all things that she idolizes. The greater truths of the world often beget a perfection of form; a clarity of existence.
Nao carries herself with confidence. Most see that at first glance. However, much of that confidence is a facade; it's been generated by years of self-modification and her own personal evolution, rather than an inborn tendency to capture the eyes of others. As a result, she is noticeably feast-or-famine when it comes to social interaction; either she rises high and knows just the right thing to say, becoming the life of the party, or she fades into the background, like a wallflower.
When she's at her best, she's socially sagacious and generally gregarious; at her worst, she's quick to find a corner of the room and start looking for small animals to talk to.
Morally, Nao seems incredibly simplistic, but that belies a greater understanding--as many of her traits often do. Nao, most of the time, will quickly condemn actions that serve a petty purpose or put one person's gain above another's loss. However, when the scale is widened, her morals don't so much decay as they do metamorphose; when it becomes about the safety of others, or the choice between falling into riotous chaos and maintaining a mildly distasteful status quo, Nao will begin considering. She puts a great deal of merit into the lives of others, and is fiercely protective of the rights of the greater populace.
Finally, Naomi is deeply, spiritedly individualistic. She believes two major things:
One, that everyone has the capacity for greatness within them, and it simply takes time and effort to wring it out.
Two, that greatness in and of itself is subjective, and she would really rather you leave your opinion of her dreams to yourself.
It is these things that act as cadence to the tune of her life, and many of her reactions and interjections become self-evident once these--her closest-held tenets--are revealed. Her queer, sprightly demeanor is entirely intentional, and the result of her own personal crucible, rather than a symptom of underdevelopment.

History:

"Hey, wait, what if I want to be the sexy, mysterious type? Are you really gonna do me dirty like this?"

Nao's story starts as all good ones do: with an empty jug of milk at 10:35 on a hazy Australian morning.

It was the seventh day in a row that her father, Pyne Chāyì-Popjay, had decided to drink an entire gallon of milk a day. Her mother, Astrid Kosskie, had finally had enough.
The argument over the ridiculous amount of money that they were spending on his newfound desire for calcium escalated very quickly. The squabbling continued for almost two hours, turning from good-natured jabs to harsh accusations and something that approached a true spat.
That is, until the sexual tension broke like a twig and the two of them went at it like the world's worst Heimlich maneuver.

On that day, at 2:00 in the afternoon, their first child was conceived, and they were named Oliver Shastey Chāyì-Popjay.

Oliver, to the two of them, was a problem child. It all started at the ripe old age of four, when Oliver was just learning how to string together complex sentences. Their first statement went something a little like this:

"Daddy, I hate overalls and peas!"

This phrase caused the leg of the nearby endtable to bust into splinters. It was at that point that Pyne was certain of two things;

First, that Oliver was never going to own another pair of denim overalls in their life.

Second, that Oliver took after their father.

Astrid, until her favorite chairside table had been turned into an art installation, was woefully unaware of what she had married into. She'd known that the Popjays she'd met--and been told to keep quiet about--were accomplished mages and runicographs, but it was not until that very moment that she had suspected them of something more.
That suspicion turned into conviction when Pyne insisted on homeschooling their child.

At the age of 6, Oliver became a receptacle for books. Oliver had learned to read quite early--before they were even able to speak--and under Pyne's tutelage, their knowledge flourished at the expense of their freedom. The books started simply enough; learning more complex phonics, reading longer-form narratives and novels, learning about poets, cursive, and maths. Suddenly, a book on discrete magics crept into Oliver's reading schedule, and they read it.

And then they read another.

And another.

At the age of eight, Oliver had, in some ways, forgotten themselves; for fear of manifesting their synesthetism, they had learned to walk with the very quietest of footsteps, and they were all but wordless--preferring to write as a means of communication. It was at about this time, however, that their innate magics were exacerbated yet again. Seventeen days after Oliver's ninth birthday, they tripped and fell against a wall... And found themselves laying there, against the wall, as if they'd fallen on the floor. Oliver sat up, and for the first time that week, spoke a single, solitary word.

"Dad?"

Pyne came rushing into the room, with Astrid close behind him. There Oliver sat, attached to the wall as if nothing had happened at all. Fearing the worst might happen, Pyne was forced to take his child into the fold, and Astrid with them. You see, Pyne was a Chāyì, and the Chāyì are a secretive folk; he had attempted to escape that life, to become his own person, and hoped--desperately--that his child wouldn't turn out like him. He'd tried to whet Oliver's appetite with books and teach them caution and care, but realized all too late that, without proper training, Oliver would be reduced to the life of an invalid. The magics inherent to the Chāyì were beginning to take their hold, and Pyne was no tutor.

But he knew people who were.

Deep in the Australian Outback, where no one would ever think to look, there is a crater. This crater is manmade, a massive thing that, if it weren't for some incredibly clever architects and artists, would be quite easily visible from above. In this depression lay a small university, of sorts--perhaps a square mile in size. Hidden from overhead view, it is one of the better-kept secrets of the Chāyì--a sort of halfway house for its Oceanic descendants. It was there that Oliver lived and died, and where Naomi was born.

Oliver's death wasn't a sudden thing. It was a slow, laborious process. It started innocently enough. When they were merely 11, the plague of their synesthetism had died down, weakened under their now-learned control. Its effects were ever-present, but not as bad as they'd used to be. On that day, Oliver asked a question.

"Why?"

Innocent, yet petulant query. Their first questioning of authority, of status quo. Why here? Why now? Why Oliver? It was the stone that would turn the river. The burbling of a new stream. It was not a question that Oliver would ask--Oliver had always been the type to merely read until they understood, not make a demand to know.

The answer would never come. Shea Chāyì-Popjay was of a no-nonsense sort. She would, however, teach Oliver many lessons, regardless of her own intent. Shea was, moreover, the first obstacle that Naomi vowed to overcome. Strict, stringent, and jaded, the only value that she saw was the value one could provide to her, and the only thing she valued was knowledge and factoids. An academic, through and through, but not a scholar. Under Shea's tutelage, Oliver learned two languages beyond the two they already knew.

She was also Naomi's first introduction into antisophy. Runes, written in flavors Shea saw fit, would be posed on a chalkboard or splayed across a page in her own pen. It was up to Naomi to pick them apart, and understand the intention in the text.

And she would decipher them. Naomi would always find the root, eventually, the cadence to which the runes were written and the logic by which they operated. Oliver wanted answers. Naomi realized that she could create them. Oliver would coop themselves up in their room, after that, poring over ciphers and encryptions and other linguistic excursions. Naomi had an immutable desire for knowledge.

As Oliver aged, they realized that they really could no longer be a "they" anymore. Emotions became complex. Reality became stark and obvious, and it became necessary to shuffle off one identity and adopt a truer one. Year by year, Oliver's feelings on the subjects they were to research and the path they wished to choose grew quieter and quieter; it was Naomi that grew more and more opinionated as time went on. Applications became more and more important. The finer points of magical alterations and alchemy became suddenly a great deal more vital than maths and sciences. Magic became, in and of itself, Naomi's total focus.

It was at 17 that Oliver became just a name that Naomi tolerated. It didn't represent her passions, her intentions, her ideals or her beliefs. She would hear that name at house functions and meetings, from her parents and professors. She was getting so tired of it. Naturally, she gravitated towards the friends she could find--and none of them lived on the compound where she'd been living for so long. She looked to express herself in quiet, subtle ways. She found poetry, linguistics, writing. She mused. She created. She designed verses and prose in ways that spoke to her, rather than to anyone else.

She'd learned much, but the knowledges put upon her were insufficient--they didn't suit her. She was destined for more than asceticism and a life governed by her elders. There was something so much more romantic out there, and she knew she would find it. Her father left his family for a reason; Naomi deserved to have a reason of her own.

The very first act that Naomi performed as an "adult" of her own definition was one of theft. She plucked the keys off of a night guard's hook and waltzed straight out the front gate, into the wilds beyond.

The seventeen year old Naomi managed to camp, alone, for 3 days. The first was easy; she hunted for food, made a little shelter, and relaxed under the stars--she was still close enough to the outpost that her cell phone had an internet connection, and the fresh air was wonderful.

Her phone died halfway through the second day. It was sweltering, and she needed a shower. She passed out under a rock, with barely enough water to make it through the night.

She awoke to her first brush with danger--true danger--in her blessedly short life. A small pack of dingoes had caught her scent, and descended upon the rock that she'd been sleeping under. She was tired. And weak. And so, so hungry. In the pitch of the night, she could practically see their musky smell.

Then, stepping out from under the rock, she realized that it wasn't night at all as the raging heat of the sun beat down on her back.

Naomi had gone blind. Yet--she could still see. Such strange colors, fulminating in the landscape, on a background of purest black. One of the wild dogs reared up and leapt for her, letting out a mighty bark--and cleanly dashed itself on the rock behind her. Then another, and then another. Two dingoes reared around, frantically looking for Naomi, who hadn't moved an inch.

It was at this moment that Naomi had, inadvertently, learned the fullest extent of the magical potential that she carried. When they found her the next day, Nao sat underneath the rock, pupils as white as the roaring sun, with burns, cuts, and blisters all over her hands--likely from clumsily skinning and cooking the dingo carcass that lay an arm's breadth away from her, a large chunk missing from its hind leg and a messy mass of peeled and gouged skin scattered around it.

'They,' as it were, were a couple of nice folk from a place called Alice Springs. The first, a dusky-hued, slight woman in her early 40s, and the second, a man that appeared to be masquerading as half of a bird.
The two of them dusted Naomi off, fed her, and clothed her. People, of course, came looking.

Naomi decided to hide. The two helped, in more ways than one. The woman--Shaska Roucrouge--proved to be quite the actor. It helped, of course, that a large bird-person--Kapsey Atat--proved quite intimidating with a machete. Even accomplished mages like the Chāyì know better than to bother with large birds in their own home.

Kapsey proved to be an interesting person; a licentia hailing from Portugal who moved to escape the prejudices of the greater public. His morals were simple, but they were salient. He became someone that Naomi desired to mold herself after. He was like a superhero, to her--a great deal more like a father than her father ever was. Pyne was never around enough--he felt more like an uncle than a father.

Naomi, eventually, decided to start living in Alice Springs. She started out painfully, painfully small, living in the attic of that very same odd couple. She used her knack for linguistics to learn more applicable talents--namely, coding and IT. Her aggressive and depthy education saw to it that hiring was never an issue. It would be in that attic that she would spend six months of her life, before--finally--putting together enough money to find an apartment of her own.

At the age of 18, Nao realized that she needed to make a change. A severe, personal change.

She needed to mold herself into the person she knew she was.

Her magical studies never truly stopped, not even after she lost the vast library that the Chāyì painstakingly maintained. She began to research by doing. She began taking pills to alter her appearance--and two weeks in, she finished work on the first hand of Hecatoncheir, Diddles.

It was the first step on a long, long road of self-discovery and evolution.

Time passed. Work came and went. Surgeries came and went. Naomi, however, arrived. Slowly, bit by bit, she molded herself into a person--a being--that she could be happy with. A someone that took after people, not the expectations that were foisted upon her. She created things. Another 99 hands. Aldous and George. All sorts of wonderful and interesting items, all in the effort to properly explore who Naomi truly was.

Then, of course, she was found. No freedom truly lasts forever. The Chāyì brought her back into the fold, though the person they brought back was almost unrecognizable from the runaway that had stood there only 8 years prior. Even as they dragged her to meetings between the houses, her defiance of her birthright was palpable--it was apparent to everyone who talked to her.

Some were against who she had become, but a fair few were sympathetic to her cause. It was these few--Pyne counted among them. At 27, she--and a few others--smuggled themselves away from the Chāyì outpost, scattering themselves to the furthest reaches of the globe.

In the effort of learning more about the cultures that her adopted family were once a part of, Nao's pilgrimage found its destination in a city called Ominar.

It was there that, for the last time, she recreated herself from the ground up--in a way a great deal more extreme than anything before it.

Ominar is where Naomi rewrote herself as the protagonist of her own story, rather than the supporting character of everyone else's. It is the place where Oliver ceased to exist, and where Naomi, for the very first time, had come into her own.

Belongings:

"Why is it that everything I own comes in either 'dangerous' or 'wildly dangerous?'"

Aldous and George:
These twin constructs, when active, are linked directly to Nao's ostium, acting as a second pair of hands. However, what makes
these massive hands unique is not their method of movement and motion, but rather their ability to move their digits along the
rings that they have been fashioned on. It is noteworthy that, unless Naomi concentrates on their movements specifically, both
Aldous and George will follow the movements of the hands they represent, maintaining a palm-like configuration.
When Naomi ceases moving one of her hands entirely, she is capable of utilizing Aldous or George to their fullest extent,
moving digits as she pleases to suit her needs. Aldous is the right, George is the left.

The Antisophist's Almanac:
Ever the errant scion of the Chāyì, Naomi--nor any other traveling Chāyì descendant--would never be caught dead without the
Antisophist's Almanac. This tome is, in and of itself, nonmagical. However, it details the ins and outs of the runic language,
allowing--with time and a little bit of effort--most antisophists to counter-work almost any rune or ward. Comprehensive notes
on every runic swish, sway, and structure that the Chāyì house has come across are detailed within. Moreover, this book often
comes in a variety of different shapes and forms, usually tailored to the user's preferences. Nao's is white and leather-
bound, with her name penned in her own script across the front. It is the fourth copy she has ever owned, and unlike the other
three, it is in sterling condition and has remained so. Naomi's personal notes cover each and every page like a calligraphic
mask. These notes come in at least four different colors; usually whatever color pen she had on hand at the time.

Hecatoncheir:
Unlike most of the Chāyì, Naomi saw it fit to expand her knowledge of antisophy beyond just countermagic. Hecatoncheir is the
result of this exploration, powered by her application of fascillomagy. To each and every one of these tiny, hexagonal drones,
there is a connection point for Nao to reach out and link up with them. However, each of these connection points take up
progressively larger and larger amounts of her cognitive function, to the point that if she were to use all of them at once,
she would be completely unable to move save for her eyes. Named for the hundred-handed titans of myth, these mites all have
one thing in common: each and every one of them have a portion of a rune inscribed upon their face. Given time and
concentration, Nao is capable of quickly stringing together runes of many shapes and configurations, so long as there are no
more than four endpoints for the rune; given the modular nature of Hecatoncheir, Nao was forced to forgo making more than a
few endpoint drones in favor of offering more points of continuation on individual faces. Moreover, Hecatoncheir can act as
a shield, as the drones are quite solidly built and any vis connections created force them into alignment. Upon the backsides
of each of the "hands," there is a single, solid, bright dot of varying color: these are used so Naomi can create runes while
pointing them away from herself.

Nao's favorite hand is named Diddles. It is an endpoint, and the only one with a white dot on the back; she uses it to start
every rune.

A Wallet:
Small, white, and clasps with two buttons. Fits nicely in her dress pockets. Also, it has a self-immolation mechanism. The
Popjays, even among their peers, are really quite protective of their identities. Opening the wallet too quickly will cause
the flint inlay in the clasp to spark, which will quickly cause the oil on inside of the wallet to catch aflame and burn the
whole thing. The concave end of the clasp leads directly into the inner lining of the wallet, which is soaked in said oil.
Her ID picture is awful. The face looks like her, except generally worse--and it lacks her trademark ears.
It also incorrectly lists her height as 5'11'', and her hair color as "Black."

Gug:
Her smartphone. The finger smudges are almost unbearable, but Nao's clothes are made out of fabric that just doesn't catch on
the screen at all. However, she also hardly notices unless there's gunk on the screen, like soy sauce.
(She has, on perhaps too many occasions, soaked Gug in rice and ended up cooking with it later.)
Filled to the brim with texts from her family that she's ignored or half-heartedly responded to, numbers for restaurants,
and, perhaps most importantly, three different completely terrible mobile games that she can't bring herself to delete or
pay money for. Also, a disturbing amount of pirated music. The AI assistant refers to her as "The Chicken Nuggest."
The ringtone is Saint Motel's "For Elise."

Capabilities:

"The last time someone was this intrusive, I was getting my appendix removed..."

Mental:
Naomi is, in the strictest terms, very intelligent. She carries an innate ability to adapt, comprehend, and intuit, and much
of that applies to any further mental capabilities that she carries.
To that end, her willpower is really quite something to behold; while it isn't limitless, the amount of suffering she's able
to put herself through is frightening, especially for someone of her stature. Her training in catalysmy is a major part of
her mental resilience.
Pattern recognition and problem solving are well above par, compared to most folk.
Scholarly education; while she has no explicit degrees, her education level is on par with most post-graduates, specifically
in the field of linguistics.
Fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese, and Cantonese. Conversational in Russian, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Comprehends the logic and syntax structures of most major Medius languages, and as such can intuit a lot of meaning languages
she doesn't know.
Familiar with most ciphers, and fairly capable of decrypting messages given time and effort.
Prone to bouts of insomnia--as a result, she is somewhat chemically dependent on sleeping pills.
Displays dysphoric tendencies, and frets about her appearance to the point of near-narcissism; lacks most other
traits of narcissistic personality disorder, however.
Capable of tolerating extremely high levels of discomfort.
Highly functional, even without the use of some of her major senses.
Responds well to stress and stressful situations, but often becomes indecisive in a pinch.
Creatively inclined.
Mathematically disinclined, but versed to the point of higher calculus concepts.
Physical:
Physically weak.
Small stature, extremely light--easily to unbalance.
Capable of contorting herself into spaces as small as 2 cubic feet.
Highly dexterous, capable of doing two completely independent movements with both hands.
Left hand dominant; hefts most objects with her right hand, however.
Acute sense of hearing. Can hear sounds outside of the human auditory range.
Highly effective sense of smell.
Fairly sensitive, especially at her joints; strikes to nerve clusters such as the funny bone are especially painful, likely
due to drastic body modification putting a stress on her bones and muscles.
Lacks human feet; must wear shoes that support her vulpine ankles, as a result.
Low pain threshold, high pain tolerance.
Slightly nearsighted, but not to the point of needing any sort of corrective lenses.
High degree of physical coordination.

Magical/Technological:

Catalysmy (Imprinted):
Catalysmy is not to be confused with Cataclysmy, the much more exciting cousin that everyone wishes existed. Catalysmy--the
art of antimagic using the body and the inner/outer ostium as a catalyst--is a discipline almost entirely unique to
Precursors. Many races have attempted to replicate it, and all of them have succeeded in some regard, but Precursor
catalysmy--practiced primarily by the Chāyì--is on a level all its own, thanks to the clever usage of their velo.
The velo is something akin to a shield around a second set of ostium, and in being so, it is also uniquely capable of acting
as a valve. The very essence of catalysmy is the capture of manifested vis in the outer ostium;
this flytrap-like maneuver allows the mage--often through the use of a somatic component such as tai chi--to push the vis
piece by piece through their inner ostium, pushing it around their anima and out through another hole that they have formed in
their velo. This manipulation of velo has one unintended effect, however--it also renders them open to another strike, and at
some point, enough magical energy will simply overload the user and levy the weight of all of the magics upon them at once.
Masters of catalysmy are to be feared, however. The human facsimile of catalysmy is seen in the art of the Shaolin monk, who
stands capable of withstanding immense pain and have some degree of simple antimagic. True catalysmists, however, are known
to be able to counterattack with all of the vis that has been expended upon them, and, in a perhaps more fearsome manner,
metamorphose to adopt the elemental aspects of the world around them and become--temporarily--a vessel for the elements.

Nao's understanding of catalysmy is twofold: first, she carries a great potential for antimagic. Unless she stands up against
someone who greatly exceeds her own capacity for vis control, the functionality of vis-based attacks are practically useless,
unless there happens to be quite a lot of them. Moreover, catching her blindsided is another simple method of bypassing her
catalysmic barrier. Her second capacity is a vestige of true mastery, though she is not, herself, a master: she is capable,
when properly focused, of counterattacking using only small amounts of her own vis. The problem lies in that she must be
standing perfectly still in order to use this ability, and anything that breaks her concentration will render her unable to
redirect the attack. As this skill develops, however, she is like to become a great deal more effective at redirection.

Complex Antisophy (Imprint Lexicon):
Antisophy is more an art than a science. At its very core, this discipline is akin to learning how to pick a lock.
Antisophy, or the countermagic of runes and the runic language, is a style of magic entirely unique to the Chāyì purely by the
nature by which it must occur. Antisophy is characterized by the articulate imprint of a series of partial runes upon the
anima, something like taking every possible line present in the alphabet and etching it into your eyelids. The runic language
has two necessary components: purity of form, and purity of purpose. Form, of course, is present in the runes themselves.
While runes lack a true lingua franca, there are only so many methods of completing a rune; this allows for the presence of
somatic antisophy, or combat antisophy--a skill that cannot be taught to non-Precursors.
There are two target goals of antisophists: to either ruin a rune by destroying purity of form, or overpowering the enemy's
vis and essentially hijacking a rune by superseding the original creator's intent. Many of the Chāyì spend decades upon
centuries perfecting this skill, and there is no such thing as a true mastery of antisophy, given the conceptual nature of
runes. However, a collection of understood runes can be amassed, and meanings can be applied to new runes--that is the basis
for the magic of antisophism. The capacity for instinctual magic, moreover, is pivotal. Thus, the Chāyì pioneered the
concept of the Lexicon, the process of imprinting inscriptions rather than true magics. Popjay antisophism, for instance, is
heavily based in the art of combat antisophy, and as a result has a bias towards popular runicographies, rather than focusing
on shorthands. The rest of these antisophistic half-runes are inscribed in a massive codex known as the Antisophist's Almanac
which Nao has in her possession--as do all Chāyì.
On a personal level, Nao has a great deal of experience with antisophy, and uses somatic antisophy in a primarily anti-combat
manner. Often, she chooses to stop fights before they even begin, ruining runes or overpowering runecrafters, in the process
creating harmless or incapacitative runes. Moreover, Nao has a fairly complex understanding of the creation of runes, and--in
tandem with fascillomagy--often creates tiny constructs with parts of runes written on each, mixing and matching them to
complete full runes with a variety of different effects. These "recreated" runes are ones that she has personally memorized,
using the Antisophist's Almanac as a lexicon of concepts.

Runicography (Learned):
This is more of a runoff trait from having learned antisophy. A great deal of the runic language that Naomi is intimate with
focuses on non-aggressive applications; very little of her understanding extends into the more creative explorations of runes,
save for in the case of antisophic alterations. The presence of this capability in her magical knowledges is entirely
for the sake of posterity, and is best described by referring to Complex Antisophy.
When designing runes, Nao prefers to use a shorthand she refers to as "singlestroke." Using Hecatoncheir, she fashions runes
that can be performed using only one press of a pen. Many of these runes take inspiration from traditional Chinese, the
first language she learned to antisophize. This makes it particularly difficult to antisophize, because not only is it
nearly impossible to break Hecatoncheir's purity of form--thanks to the hivelike nature of the construct--it is a shorthand,
meaning that her opponent would have to be a precursor that could apply new meaning to her shorthand on the fly, or worse yet,
someone who has made themselves intimately familiar with her runicographic notes.

Broken Synesthetism (Complex Imprint):
Synesthetism is easily the most esoteric of the three major imprinted magics that the Chāyì family passes on--and the most
pointedly dangerous. Synesthetism is the act of physically materializing the senses, which comes in a variety of
manifestations. For instance, Nao is capable of manifesting her sense of hearing--which causes the sound waves that
pass through her ears to flex and aberrate the world around her. This causes a ripple effect with every sound that's created
in her vicinity, something like dropping a pebble in a silent pond.
This, however, is where the similarities with normal Chāyì descendants end. Synesthetism, when imprinted, is so complex that
it has never--not once--arrived in a child in its complete form. As a result, a part of the journey into adulthood for the
Chāyì is properly grasping synesthetism and specializing in a sense. This sense, usually, is the one that first manifests
during their early years--and many Chāyì learn how to utilize sensory manifestation in a variety of scenarios.
For Nao, however, her synesthetism manifested in not one, but three ways. Sight, sound, and balance.
Her early years were, in fact, a catastrophic disaster.
As she developed and learned how to complete her personal imprint for synesthetism, an entirely new problem arrived: her
imprint had actually become too complex to properly utilize. As a result, whenever Nao accesses synesthetism, she loses
the sense that she manifests.
It is important to note, though, that because of the complexity of this imprint and its effect on her, Nao is, in fact,
unable to use the Sight unless she gives up her sense of sight. It is easy to see when Naomi uses her Sight,
because her synesthetistic reactions are all completely visual: when she gives up her ability to see, her sclera dye a deep
navy hue, whereas her irises and pupils become uniformly white.
Before going further, it is important to explain how synesthetism is imposed upon an opponent or another living target. First,
the target must be "tagged" with some of the synesthetist's vis--that is, the synesthetist must get their ostium in range of
their enemy and suffuse vis in their direction, like fungal spores. As such, synesthetism is seen as a complement to
close-range combat, and many synesthetists explore martial arts as a supplement to their magical skills.
The first of the three is sight. When Naomi tags another person and imposes synesthetistic sight upon them, two things
occur: she first blinds herself, and then, one by one, all of the target's senses slowly become visual stimuli. It begins
innocently enough; they start seeing sounds as they ripple away from their sources. Then, scents guide them towards their
origin. After about 5 minutes, however, their vision occludes and becomes more and more esoteric--in tandem with Naomi's.
The only boon she has over her target is that she removes her vision in the first place--meaning that, for the first while,
she has an immense advantage over a confused opponent. Once the sense of taste and touch begin to be visualized, however,
the visual input becomes so cloudy and murky that even Naomi ceases to be able to discern relative location; it is usually at
this point that she must halt the visual manifestations.
Even when using the Sight without a target, Naomi's vision will still slowly obfuscate. However, this obfuscation is much
slower, as she has to use less vis to maintain her concentration and keep the visual noise in check.
Second, there is sound. The sound manifestation, for Naomi, is actually something more like a locus. When manifested, sound
will begin physically altering the landscape and the surfaces of inanimate objects, rendering as they enter the vicinity of
Naomi's manifestation--within 7 feet of her, in this case. As Naomi goes deaf when using this facet of synesthetism, her
situational awareness usually comes from sensing these tremors as they pass over her or her clothes. When imposed on an
opponent, these sound waves begin aberrating their physical form, to greater and greater degrees depending on the loudness
of the sound and the amount of vis Naomi is expending. These tremors make bones particularly weak--as jagged structures are--
and often make it easier to severely cripple opponents. The visual cue for this version of synesthetism is, in fact, her ears;
they clamp firmly down against her head, completely cupping themselves from all noise. Her original ears, too, would fold in
on themselves, back when she had them.
Finally, there is balance. When active, Naomi's sense of balance isn't so much gone as it is muted--making it
difficult for her to stand upright, and anything faster than a slow stroll is vertigo-inducing. However, when active, she
becomes capable of physically changing the pull of gravity on her person--allowing her to effectively attach herself to walls
and ceilings. Without a sense of balance, moreover, it affects her exactly as much as being on the ground. Thus, she is
capable of slowly but steadily ascending most any surface, given that she can keep her vertigo in check.
When imposed on an opponent, their sense of balance is placed in lockstep with Naomi's movements. If she were to move onto
a wall, their sense of balance would act as if they were laying horizontal. She often uses this skill in tandem with Aldous
and George, pushing herself around in order to induce vertigo in her opponent. This, however, often causes her to vomit in
the process. Because her sense of balance is muted, even light jostling will wreak havoc on her stomach.
It is easy to tell when she loses her sense of balance, because all of the muscles in her arms go slack. This is due to her
added reliance on fascillomagy during this sensory manifestation, but the actual physical manifestation--a whitening of the
tongue and throat--are difficult to see unless she's talking.
It is important to note that while Naomi can use these aspects of synesthetism in tandem, she will also compound
the sensory loss associated with each, and draw on more vis in the process. As a result, she very rarely uses more than one,
and has never used three at once.

Autotomic Fascillomagy (Learned):
Many mages are versed in the usage of construct control and creation, but few are so passionate about the subject as Nao.
Fascillomagy, or the magic of controlling constructs directly, is a generally indelicate art, but with Nao behind the wheel,
it is something like a dance. Loosely related to technomancy, fascillomagy specifically deals with constructs that have been
fashioned by the user and have an intended purpose that aligns with fascillomagy's uses.
Nao's application of the magic, while unconventional, is still well within the means of the school's confines. It is also,
moreover, the only magic that she could prospectively imprint at this current juncture. Through ruthless tenacity and a great
deal of research, her practiced skills with fascillomagy are adjacent to mastery--she uses constructed limbs as if they were
her own. This is best exemplified with her control of Hecatoncheir, which requires an immense number of specific and dexterous
movements to control more than ten at once.
The reason for Nao's mastery, however, is actually partially due to her warped synesthetism; she is uniquely capable of
functioning while some of her body's major senses are shut off, and, as a result, her fascillomagy is amplified manyfold when
she is perfectly unmoving. To control all 100 hands of Hecatoncheir, for instance, she must be sitting completely still--not
standing, because she must also mute her sense of balance--otherwise, she'll have to focus too hard on standing up and every
single hand of Hecatoncheir will drop like flies. This is where the "autotomy" comes in; she cuts off some of her ability
to move and articulate in order to gain more control. In fact, were literal autotomy to occur, Nao would likely be able to
have a greater degree of control over her constructs at all times. Her tail and ears, moreover, count as moving parts that she
must "shut off" to gain more control, and--though Naomi might never admit it--part of the reason she has them may be to train
herself to think with more limbs at once.

She prefers the romantic explanation.

The Search-Engine Learnings of the Modern Scholar:
Much of Nao's technological knowledge is, in fact, a building block for her further understandings of most of her fields of
interest. Naomi is well-versed in the much-lauded Google-fu, and is fairly capable at just about any task she sets her mind
to, given time and access to a research tool. While, of course, Naomi is no script kiddie, she is faintly versed in a variety
of coding languages to the point of being able to read and parse most of the code she sees--being able to pick out important
syntax and the makings of recursive loops, for instance. From a purely technological perspective, Naomi is often as capable as
the information she's been given. A perfect instance of this is her ley-constructs, Aldous and George. They were both
fashioned by Naomi, but significant time and research--taking place over the course of seven months--were required to properly
string together and piece together the knowledge required to fashion the twin hands, using the Chāyì's vast library of
knowledge on vis crystals and fascillomagic anatomy, as well as advanced magical metalworking techniques and even things as
mechanical as hydraulics.

In short: if there is a technical document on how to build a deck and Nao is in need of a deck, she will make that deck.