Fish of Oblivion — Roleplayer Guild

Okay, so, apologies if it seems like I've been ignoring this the last few days, last week was just kind of tending towards surreal even before this popped up in my notifications and I've only really just caught up with it. 

I'm gonna be completely honest and say that I'm barely on here any more, probably would already be permanently offline if it wasn't for finishing off the other version of Convergence. That being said, I appreciate that you reaching out to me and the others was a big move after everything that's happened, and that everyone involved in this did some questionable shit at one point or another, so I do want to offer this much:

I may not have the time or energy to get actively involved in a reboot, but besides my offer from back in 2014 for you to take over whatever characters of mine that you need to keep things moving still standing, I don't mind being a sounding board for the ideas you've mentioned? I can't promise I'll like what you have or that whatever suggestions I have will work for you, since I think it's safe to say we're fairly different as writers, but you can probably tell if you've been looking at the recent stuff in the other Convergence that I've had some thoughts of my own about the old stuff and I'm happy to share some of that if it helps your end of things.

(Also, Vo is about but she works full-time and is only still on here for the same rough reasons as me? Fuck knows with Vin at this point, dude last posted in the other thread over four years ago and hasn't IC posted in almost six, I pretty much consider him legally dead at this point.)

Gonna get progress up for my guy while I can. Master to follow soon.

Assassin



Team: ???

True Name: Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger

Appearance: 
With a lean and only modestly muscular build, and a fairly average height of 5’11, Assassin’s physical appearance is rather unassuming for a member of his class. His demeanour gives him more the presence of a stern yet likeable manager than a Heroic Spirit, an impression reinforced by his tendency towards clean suits outside of combat.

When his Presence Concealment is dispelled and his mind is set on a target, however, the frigid intensity of his aura is almost paralyzing. Clad in the scarred and bloodstained armour and tunic he was summoned in, with only his piercing grey eyes visible from the helmet covering his face, he seems every bit the murderous spirit of antiquity one would expect an Assassin-class Servant to be.

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Sex: Male

Attribute: Man

History:A bright and ruthless child born into the last generation of nobiles prior to the collapse of the Roman Republic, and into a family largely defined by the legacy of expelling the last King of Rome, Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger was perhaps born at just the right time in history and into the right lineage to light the powder keg of history. Raised by his uncle after his father was executed for his role in a failed rebellion, the young Brutus rose to prominence in part by finding himself appointed the assistant of Cato the Younger, his other uncle, and by amassing a considerable fortune by lending money at high rates of interest to those desperate enough to approach him. 

While he looks back on these deeds ruefully, claiming that his actions were that of a spoiled and bloody-minded child eager to prove himself worthy and deserving of respect apart from his family name, he is also forthcoming about the lesson that it taught him: a human being in desperate circumstances is like a starving animal, too stupid and starving to spring itself from its misery. This formed the core of views that were later tempered by a political career on the twilight years of the Roman Republic: although he was largely perceived as an even-handed moderate and respected across the senate, he was an unapologetic and steadfast optimate, maintaining that the Patricians were the ones who knew best how to maintain the civilization and democracy that had elevated Rome to a world superpower over the fickle rabble of the common citizenry. 

But fate is not a game played by one, and even ones of such breathtaking bloody-mindedness and high willpower as Brutus may well fade into the doldrums of history without a great foe against which to define themselves. For Brutus, this contrasting image was Gaius Julius Caesar, a  politician and military genius of the populares faction whose mounting popularity threatened to finally burn the Roman Republic to the ground. 

Despite the ideological opposition between them, and the enmity of his uncle and mentor towards the man, Brutus developed a genuine respect for Caesar. The two men were, in many ways, very similar. While the seemingly quiet and thoughtful Brutus seemed to be cut from very different cloth than the force of charisma that was Caesar, they were both gifted with the ability to make friends and allies across the full spectrum of the senate and the ideologies it represented, and possessed very similar beliefs on the matter of noblesse oblige. Even as the tumultuous final decades of the Roman Republic brought them into conflict against each-other, Caesar mounting insurrection in the name of the people he championed and Brutus taking up arms against him alongside the rest of the optimates, the bond between the two remained strong. The two at last became official allies at the close of what history records as the Great Roman Civil War, with the victorious Caesar reaching out to many of his former foes to bring peace back to Rome even as he pursued Pompey and Cato abroad to resolve the matter once and for all. 

But this was merely the calm before the storm. Brutus was drawn to Caesar because of his principles and the strong leadership he offered over the constant infighting of the twilight years of the Roman Republic. As such, his assuming the role of dictator perpetuo was initially of little concern. Many statesmen before him had taken up the reigns, only to put them down when no longer required, and at first it seemed as if Caesar would be no different. But as time went on, Brutus came to the realization that while they held similar perspectives on their roles as nobiles, and of the people they governed, Caesar’s ultimate conclusions on the matter were very different. Brutus saw the weakness in the common citizenry and determined it was their role to keep power amongst those who could use it responsibly; Caesar, meanwhile, sought to fan those flames, currying favour amongst the people and using it as pretext to seek yet more power and glory. And of course, they ate it all up, hanging on his every word and clamouring for him to be given more and more honours as he consolidated his influence over the dying Republic more and more, installing his friend Marcus Antonius to rule in his absence as he went around bringing order to its conquered territories.

As history reached its boiling point, Brutus made a decision: Caesar was a rot festering within the dying body of the Roman Republic, and it was the duty of himself and his fellow Patricians to cut him out before it was too late. Enlisting the help of his brother in law, Gaius Cassius Longinus, he formed a conspiracy against Caesar out of fellow senators and statesmen with himself as the central force and spearhead, making plans to assassinate him upon a planned address to the Senate on March 15th 44 BC- a date both prophesied and remembered as the Ides of March. Brutus had hoped to end things quickly, to quickly and efficiently take Caesar out with the other conspirators providing backup if the notoriously strong man was able to resist the initial attack. But things didn’t work out that way: as one broke rank and attacked Caesar, so did the rest make for him in an orgy of savage but futile violence, only succeeding in mangling and enraging the would-be-Dictator with a volley of weak stabs and blows. Collecting himself, Brutus made his own move; breaking through the squabbling rabble, he drew his own dagger and plunged it straight through Caesar’s chest, and into his heart, finally cutting the man down as he looked upon his final assailant with a mixture of horror and disbelief. 

“καὶ σύ, τέκνον?”

But Caesar’s death came far too late to save the Republic. His words and influence had already infested the hearts of the people, and as Brutus’s fellow conspirators adulated in their ‘victory’, taking to the streets to sing of the freedom they had delivered to their subjects, the dam finally broke. Marcus Antonius, previously written off by them as a dullard riding on Caesar’s coat-tails, used this rage to galvanize Rome behind him and Caesar’s adopted son and nephew Gaius Octavius and drive them from the city into the eastern provinces. With their enemies tied up in Rome, Brutus and Cassius consolidated their forces and made plans to attack and liberate the Republic from the new Triumvirate forming; but in their absence, the rot festered further. After a few early victories in the Liberator’s Civil War, the new Triumvirate went to drastic measures and came down on the forces of the conspirators not with the scattered and weakened forces left in the wake of Caesar’s death, but with nineteen full legions propped up by conscription. Encountering a stalemate at Phillipi, the suicide of Cassius nonetheless worked to fracture the morale of his and Brutus’s forces; retreating with only four of seventeen legions left under his command, he looked over everything that had led him up to this point and made a decision.

He did not regret killing Caesar, only that it had to be done and that it had come too late. The rot had set in, and there was little he could do to stop it now; even now, not only was he giving the Triumvirate an enemy towards which they could unify the rabble, but if they were to capture rather than kill him, they would only use the spectacle to further their own ends. As such, ordering two of his men to hold his sword aloft, Brutus took his life into his own hands and ran it through, deciding to die with his cause and put a swift end to the Civil War, denying the Triumvirate the satisfaction of capturing him or prolonging the spectacle of his defeat while leaving history to judge him for his actions. History, of course, variously remembers him as either the Judas of the Roman Era, the very embodiment of treachery, or as a noble man who only acted in defense of the people: a dichotomy that the Servant Brutus finds rather unsophisticated.

Personality:
Although a rather blunt and pragmatic character, Assassin largely comes across as approachable and well-adjusted. While he possesses a rather proud and forceful personality, and is prone to scolding those who act wantonly, he follows the principles of stoicism and noblesse oblige; his words come from a place of honesty and responsibility that he feels he owes those around him. While his strong convictions can readily lend themselves to conflict, his character is such that a Master with good compatibility has little to fear of him; after all, it was not for no reason that history remembers him as the ‘Noblest Roman of them all’. 

However, one hardly garners the amount of infamy that Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger does without having darker depths, and Assassin has those in spades. Although he feels a sense of duty and responsibility to those ‘beneath him’, that much in itself speaks volumes of his worldview. To him, humanity is an easily-manipulated rabble that needs to be guided and protected from those who would pervert them from the course of reason and civilization, and he is among the precious few enlightened existences who must shoulder the burden of protecting it from those who would talk it into drinking poison with honeyed words and false promises. ‘Arrogant’ is perhaps not the right word for him, as his stoicism is genuine, as is his belief that his life is ultimately expendable in the service of a greater good. If anything, it is a sort of madness, which compels him to make a monster of himself at the cost of whatever genuine human connections he maintains.

Parameters: STR- B
END- C
AGI- A
MAG- D
LUK- D
Noble Phantasm: C+

Class Skills:Presence ConcealmentC: Hides one's presence as a Servant. Suitable for spying.

Personal Skills:Bearing of the EliteB: The Servant can walk amongst kings and commoners alike without compromising their dignity or principles, endearing them to even those that are ideologically opposed to them. Attacks and effects that target the mind are reduced by one rank in effectiveness if of equivalent or higher rank to this skill, and negated entirely if of a lesser standing.
DisengageD: The Servant can reliably withdraw from combat and will return all skill conditions to their initial value, but retains any inflicted statuses.
Eye of the Mind (True)B: Capable of calm analysis of battle conditions even when in danger and deduce an appropriate course of action after considering all possibilities to escape from a predicament. So long there is even a 1% chance of a comeback, this ability greatly improves the chances of winning.
Sic Semper TyrannisA: When facing an enemy Servant known to have been affiliated with Monarchy, or possessing Charisma of Rank C or above, all attacks are granted a Rank-Up in effectiveness. The Servant has heightened perception regarding the words and actions of these individuals, even in limited interactions, and can track them at a greater distance than they would otherwise be able to.

Florem Dignitatis~ The Noblest Son of RomeRank- C+
Type- Anti-UnitBrutus’s primary Noble Phantasm, and a manifestation of his resolve and brutal impersonality. While the motives of the other assassins are debated, Brutus acted against Caesar in the steadfast belief that he was a threat to the autonomy of the Roman Republic, and that their duty as the chosen elite was to eliminate him and consign his ambitions to history. Florem Dignitatis is thus a powerful curse that serves two distinct functions. Firstly, in accordance with the stoic principle of adiaphora, which maintains that external things are only given value by the ones who make use of them, it allows Brutus to wield a single dagger, knife or sword at a time as a C-Rank Noble Phantasm. Secondly, it prevents onlookers from perceiving Brutus as a Servant even if they are aware he is one, or even registering his Parameters and Skills unless they learn his true name, reflecting how his public persona placed him above the suspicion of Caesar.

Idus Martiae~ Carving Fate into the Earth
Rank- E ~ C
Type- Anti-UnitBrutus’s secondary and most frightening Noble Phantasm, which reproduces the events of the Ides of March upon which Julius Caesar was assassinated. Upon initialization, Idus Martiae at first provides Brutus’s chosen target with a premonition of death, before surrounding them with spectral daggers that follow them even if they try to move away. From there, the daggers proceed to skewer the target, delivering twenty-two rounds of E-Rank damage in increments of four, four, six and eight. While the nature of this Noble Phantasm is that it cannot be blocked, a luck check is performed against Brutus's own luck after each round of damage, and should the target prevail in this check, the attack will end prematurely.

However, these initial twenty-two rounds are incapable of killing on a basic conceptual level unless ‘validated’ by a separate attack. While Brutus carried out his own attack with a resolute and clear mind, the other assassins were hardly so organized, with not a single killing blow among them. The purpose of these strikes is thus not to kill the foe, but to overwrite their fate with that which Caesar suffered on the Ides of March, a fate of which he was warned but that he ultimately failed to circumvent. Once twenty-two strikes have been landed, this same fate will have been engraved into the target, at which point this Noble Phantasm will become Idus Martiae~ Then Fall, Caesar. Representing the twenty-third and final strike, and the one delivered by Brutus himself, the attack will compel Brutus’s chosen weapon to shoot towards the target, transforming it into a final C-Rank kill shot that perforates both the body and spiritual core.

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