Sign Up Post for Player Run Holy Grail War

[gordianknots]

Sign Up Post for a Player-Run Event
HOLY GRAIL WAR, RUBY CITY EDITION

Good news, Ruby City! An omnipotent wish granting device has appeared. Here’s the problem: it wants you to fight for it, the magic cup requires a certain amount of spiritual energy to activate. That means it has turned some citizens into so-called Heroic Spirits, and others into Masters to temporarily power up those Heroic Spirits.

You might be wondering how the grail gets its power. Well, that’s easy, Heroic Spirits have to kill each other - six in all, with the seventh standing. The last Heroic Spirit standing alongside their master both get wishes from the grail.

So, what’ll you do? Fight for the Grail, killing others, and hopefully getting your wish? Stay out of the fight? Manipulate everyone from afar? Try and remove the grail without causing bloodshed?

Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?

If you missed the interest post, please click here - it will explain the objectives and game play!

Masters

Master sign ups are easy. Please fill out the following information and paste it into the comments below. If you are entering multiple characters, please post a new comment under that character's account. Thank you!
MASTER Name: Your character’s name: Contact methods:

Servant sign ups require a little more detail!

Remember, you need to pick a servant’s class and make up a stats sheet.

A Brief Guide to Servant Classes
We are asking everyone participating to list two potential servant classes for their character, as it will give us some flexibility. Please read the notes on each servant class carefully, as there are benefits and drawbacks to each.

Archer: Naturally, Servants of the Archer Class are associated with bows and arrows, although as you might’ve noticed from say, the "Gate of Babylon" clip in the other post, it isn’t always true. More broadly, projectile weaponry of any sort, If you're still on the fence, please, ask the mods!

Assassin: Are you known as a sneaky sort, who may kill using subtle methods and prefers covert operations to flashy attacks? Or how about just a spy? Murderer for hire, a sellsword to the highest bidder? Don't mind two wits about fighting dirty? Great, you’re probably in the Assassin boat! Assassins tend to target enemy Masters and kill them to disable other Servants instead of fighting them head-on.

Berserker: Got a fondness for brute strength, overpowered physical attacks and mowing through armies? If extreme rage, property damage, and fits of intense violence are associated with your character, you may want to consider them in the Berserker class. It is worth noting that the Berserker class carries a certain effect called Mad Enhancement - meaning that your Servant stats get bumped up a sliding scale, at the cost of your character’s sanity, grasp on rationality and ability to be articulate. A bit-by-bit explanation of this scale is here. (PLEASE NOTE: Mad enhancement, for this game, will be an option for those in the berserker class, not a requirement.) Berserkers are gifted with the potential for the usual benefits of genuine madness, but must confront the downsides of it as well. They tend to be incapable of independence to the degree of some of the other Classes due to their greater levels of mana consumption, and if 'Mad Enhancement' is active, also due to their insanity and usual lack of tactics outside of "killing and/or beating the crap out of everything that moves." Good luck with that!

Caster: Do you like illusions, witchery and giant, glowing energy beams? This is where the fantasy mage, the brilliant scientists who wouldn't shine on the battlefield, and the people who favor magic to brute force often get booted. If you’re a magic user from any universe, a sorcerer with the ability to alter the laws of nature as they please, or the sort for backstabbing trickery, then you have the great potential to be a Servant in the Caster class. In addition, writers and authors have a great chance of being Casters as well (no seriously, they did this in Fate/ canon with William Shakespeare), which for the purposes of this game we’ll extend to all artists.

Lancer: Associated with the usage of spears? Any sort of long, pointy, long-range weapon? Great, you’re a Lancer. This is the Servant Class for the agile speedsters who focus on melee fighting, rogues and the whose not particularly physically bulked up, but not that bad at throwing a punch either. Now, all jokes about the Lancer class and their canonly abysmal, awful luck aside, the Lancer class is pretty open to anyone who is using a big stick to stab or bash people over the head with it. Or say, liked to impale people in life, which is what the franchise did with Vlad the Impaler as Lancer.

Rider: If your character is associated with a particular animal and/or beast, well-known in conjunction with a motor vehicle, even a ship, or a mount of any kind, then they meet the qualifying conditions for the Rider class. Thanks to the mount aspect though, they also tend to be very, very easy to guess in terms of identity, so keep that trade off in mind.

Saber: The class often most fitting for the characters skilled in swordsmanship, the honorable knights with a code of morals they firmly subscribe to, and the stoic warriors, Saber should basically be quite self-explanatory. If you’re associated with a sword - anything that can be interpreted as a frickin' kind of sword - or have fought with one, you can be slotted right into the Saber Class.

Class skills
These are additional skills related to each class that influence fights. We've indicated which servant classes have the following class skills.

Battle continuation (Lancer): The servant can take multiple wounds and continue to fight until a fatal blow is dealt. These few minutes can allow the servant to still severely injury or kill their opponent.
Independent Action (Archer, Assassin): The servant can survive up to two days with no master acting as a source of mana.
Item Creation (Caster): The servant can create items enhanced with magic to exert influence over others. This may include potions that influence decision making, charms to control behaviour, or anything else the servant can think of.
Mad Enhancement (Berserker): The servant's abilities gain a stats boost, in exchange for their ability to be articulate and have control over their actions.
Magic resistance (Archer, Berserker, Lancer, Rider, Saber): The servant has high resistance to magic attacks. For magic to have an effect, the spell caster's attack rank must be higher than the magic resistance rank of the servant.
Presence concealment (Assassin): The servant can conceal their presence from other servants and move around, undetected even by most magic.
Riding (Rider, Saber): The servant has the ability to hop onto anything like a ride and have instant mastery, even if they haven’t rode/driven/etc. it before.
Territory creation (Caster): The servant is capable building a safe zone for themselves and their master, or fortifying an existing structure with magic.

Making a Noble Phantasm
Now that you have two Servant Classes in mind, it's time to create (up to two, at the most) Noble Phantasms for your character to use. Noble Phantasms, as you might recall from the interest post, are manifestations of characters' legends. The best way to think of it is like this: if your character had an ultimate attack or special ability, based on major aspects of their character, history or self, what would it be? What kind of damage would it do? Would it be strictly for combat, or more suited for support usage? How powerful would it be?

Remember that Noble Phantasms don’t have to be weapons. Here are some examples from the Fate/etc series itself:

Lancer's spears: In Fate/zero, Lancer has two spears, Gae Dearge and Gae Buidhe. The former can cut through items made of magic (like a Servant's armor), the latter makes any wounds that it causes unhealable. This is a straight-forward example of weapons being associated with a particular hero becoming Noble Phantasms, as Lancer's two spears were weapons he personally handled in the course of his lifetime.

Rider's Pegasus: In Fate/stay night, Rider (Medusa) is of this class because of her association with the birth of Pegasus. It is her ultimate Noble Phantasm, and a winged horse is extremely useful in a fight.This association with Pegasus allows her to use it as a Noble Phantasm despite not having ridden it even once in her lifetime.

Heracles' God Hand: Also in Fate/stay night, Heracles has twelve lives, and each one can only be destroyed by an A-Rank attack. It is only once all twelve lives run out, that he dies and is defeated in the Grail War. This Noble Phantasm is based on the legendary myth of the twelve labours of Heracles.

Got the idea? Here are a few more examples, from not Fate/:

If you were entering, say, Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games, you might consider making her ultimate Noble Phantasm an ability that whenever she fires an arrow from her bow and calls out the name of the object she wants to hit, it makes it mark.

If you were thinking of entering Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson and the Olympians, you would want to consider her invisibility baseball cap as one of her two phantasms, since it comes into play so much in the books and allows her a fair amount of ability to sneak around.

If you were to make a Noble Phantasm for Captain Jack Sparrow, you'd need to consider how the entire Black Pearl could be summoned onto a battle field and made into a weapon!

Obviously, these are just a few examples. Don't hesitate to rewatch the videos of a few canonical Noble Phantasm: Excalibur, the Gate of Babylon, and the Ionian Hetaroi (spoiler warning).

If you’re having issues thinking up something, please don’t hesitate to contact us, we’re happy to help!

Personal Skills
These are little skills that can represent abilities your character might have, but not ultimate noble phantasms! For example, your character may be in the Saber class, but has some skill in military tactics. That would be listed as a personal skill. A good list is here.. Pick up to three personal skills!

Putting it all together
Got your two Servant Classes picked out? Noble Phantasms ready to go? Any and all personal skills selected? Great, then it's time to put it all together.

Stat ranks run from A-F, with C being average. While in-series uses +, -, and EX, we will not be using them for the sake of simplicity.

Obviously, we're trusting you to be honest about you character's skills. Please don't assign A or B ranks to everything. When in doubt, please contact the mods with questions.

NO, REALLY. PLEASE PM OR IM THE MODS WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT STATTING. God knows we understand that it can be a right pain.

A Sample Stats Sheet:
YOUR NAME: Meg
CONTACT: AIM@Megkips
CHARACTER NAME: Waver Velvet
FIRST CLASS CHOICE: Rider
SECOND CLASS CHOICE: Caster
THIRD CLASS CHOICE (optional):
NOBLE PHANTASM 1 (include description and rank): Volumen Hydragyrum (10 litres of weaponized mercury, capable of taking any number of shapes. It is usually used as a mount, but can also be used to attack. Please see this video, which demonstrates its abilities.) A
NOBLE PHANTASM 2 (include description and rank):
STRENGTH: C
MANA: A
AGILITY: C
ENDURANCE: C
LUCK: B
RIDING: A
MAGIC RESISTANCE: B

PERSONAL SKILLS
Magecraft (B)

Ready to go? Enter the following information into the comments. If you are entering multiple characters, please post a new comment under that character's account. Thank you!

SERVANT YOUR NAME: CONTACT: CHARACTER NAME: FIRST CLASS CHOICE: SECOND CLASS CHOICE: THIRD CLASS CHOICE (optional): NOBLE PHANTASM 1 (include description and rank): NOBLE PHANTASM 2 (include description and rank): STRENGTH: MANA: AGILITY: ENDURANCE: LUCK: CLASS SPECIFIC SKILL SET: (please see the above descriptions of classes. We’ll remind you if you forget this part.) PERSONAL SKILLS

If you’re okay with being a master or a servant

Please read all of the above, then fill out this forum.

MASTER OR SERVANT YOUR NAME: CONTACT: CHARACTER NAME: <b>I’M OPTIONING TO ACT AS EITHER A MASTER OR A SERVANT!</B> FIRST CLASS CHOICE: SECOND CLASS CHOICE: THIRD CLASS CHOICE (optional): NOBLE PHANTASM 1 (include description and rank): NOBLE PHANTASM 2 (include description and rank): STRENGTH: MANA: AGILITY: ENDURANCE: LUCK: CLASS SPECIFIC SKILL SET: (please see the above descriptions of classes. We’ll remind you if you forget this part.) PERSONAL SKILLS

If you're interested in participating outside of the Master and Servant set up

Please fill out the following form and place it in the comments. If you are entering multiple characters, please post a new comment under that character's account. Thank you!
INTERFERENCE Name: Your character’s name: Contact methods:

Questions? Comments? Concerns?
Ask them here, PM us, or contact Fel (plurk@tenfel,AIM@erraticExcursionist) and Meg (AIM@megkips) personally!

Sign ups will close on the 21st. We will let you know your character's role in the plot on the 22nd! Remember, the plotting post goes up on the 23rd, and we begin 29 September.

ETA: The plotting post will also allow for players to make their Master-Servant teams. Yes, you get to pick your own. However, please wait until we have figured out everyone's servant classes, we don't want you to make too many plans and then have to modify them!

AS OF NOW (21 SEPT) SIGN UPS ARE NOW CLOSED, UNLESS YOU HAVE CONTACTED MEG OR FEL OTHERWISE (THIS APPLIES TO TWO PEOPLE.)

WE WILL BE CONTACTING YOU SOON TO INFORM YOU OF YOUR CLASS, OR OF YOUR APPROVAL AS MASTER OR INTERFERENCE.

Comments

[gordianknots]

Congratulations! The Holy Grail has selected you as a Master in the Holy Grail War. As a master, here is the information your character will wake up knowing:

That there is a set of command seals on the back of their dominant hand. (Click here for some examples.)

That these seals are magical in nature, although their purpose will remain unknown.

That something is up in the city, although what, well, who knows.

It will be up to your character to form a Master-Servant contract with a servant.

Please keep an eye out for the plotting post, which will go up soon. There, we do ask that you find a servant-mun to partner up with. Let us know who your team will consist of, so that we can update the team roster accordingly.
Let us know if you have any comments, questions, and concerns.

Thank you, and we’ll see you on 29 September when we get under way.