Palisade Grendel
Palisade Grendel, the name attributed to Napoli’s Sorcery Trait as well as a specific technique that calls upon the abilities of the demon’s sleeping blood. In essence, it denotes the replication of Grendel’s protean nature through the manipulation of natural processes already found within the human body. Though a monster he may have been, his arms and armor were composed entirely from parts still recognizable as “human”.
Rather than making use of Grendel’s nature of “absorption”, it draws upon the data of the human body already collected to use inside the monster’s new “hardware”: that being Napoli’s body itself.
The applications are limitless in theory, but things like “moving the location of the heart” and “surviving without a head” are beyond human ability and fully within the domain of bloodsuckers.
Of course, the form Grendel took during his conflict with Beowulf is the most impactful to the World’s memory. As translated by Heaney:
Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike
and welt on the hand of that heathen brute
was like barbed steel. Everybody said
there was no honed iron hard enough
to pierce him through, no time proofed blade
that could cut his brutal blood caked claw.
A “default” transformation that takes the form of beaten, black armor. Though it’s segmented and sounds like steel when struck, it’s actually all biological. Hair condenses and hardens into horn. Skin thickens and deadens to become like iron. Musculature swells with so much additional output that it can no longer be contained by the body. To say she looks a bit like a certain anime’s Toguro when she’s like this wouldn’t be incorrect.
But by far the most useful aspect of Palisade Grendel is the embodiment of the initial curse exhibited by Grendel. The curse inherited from Grendel and Napoli’s common ancestor, the very foundation for the concept of the “sins of the father are visited upon the son”.
The Mark of Cain.
The “rejection of weaponry” rivaling those similar curses borne by the likes of Caenis or the Nemean Lion. Being so heavily diluted, of course, it’s nothing compared to the magical defenses of a first-rate magus. At most, she is effectively invulnerable against anything less than a missile strike in terms of the mundane (when activated). Even the magical has reduced effect against her, though not quite at the level of Grendel’s skin rejecting Hrunting.
Still, it’s this potent combination of natural defense and offense that afford her the infamy around the Clock Tower’s halls as “The Living Heroic Spirit”.
Sublimated Noble Phantasm 004-- “Heat Broadsword”
An infant relic of the first-generation Clan Calatin, and one of the many false Noble Phantasms crafted by Alexandre Dumas at the direction of Orlando Reeve. As with the rest of the weapons making up the collection, the sword remained behind in the world after Dumas’ death. A falsity that was accepted by the World as truth. However, the “false Mystery” attached to it immediately began to degrade after the ultimate disappearance of Dumas, no longer attached to a direct source but working from “battery power” as it were. The same holds true for the rest of Clan Calatin’s ordnance, the half-life of each weapon leading towards the eventual collapse of the weapons’ utility.
Its true purpose is thus used sparingly. Ironically, using it as a regular blade is more suited to Napoli’s style anyway.
A deceptively simple, if Mystery-laden archetype was applied to the sword, one seen in many other cultures that initially stems from the Claíomh Solais of Irish lore. Dumas created this flashy weapon for Orlando initially, but of course it didn’t match the former chief’s preferences. It was handed down to another officer, unfortunately killed in battle by Alcides. There were several options given to Napoli when she came aboard, but she still picked this one.
Now she’s collecting the curse of a guy she’d never even met? What a pain in the ass...
She’s privately nicknamed it Svangur--Great Red Dragon. So the chief is someone like that after all, huh.