Monthly Create-A-Servant Contest

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

@King of Padoru: Wonderful sheet, not much I can criticize, though I must ask, wouldn't she have something to say to Goetia, whose whole goal is to return the planet to Genesis, and the Alien God, who wants to rewrite human history for some reason? Also, wouldn't she say something about Excalibur given that she may very well have had a hand in its creation?

[Shiki-pon]

Source

Class: Alter Ego
Other Classes: Lancer, Caster, Assassin
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Place of Origin: Ireland

Parameters:
STR: D
END: C
AGI: B
MGI: A
LCK: B
NP: C++

Height: 163 cm
Weight: 47 kg
Likes: Battlefields, impressive men
Dislikes: Going against fate, insults, humans
Talent: Singing, blessings
Natural Enemy: Aibell
Attribute: Earth
Armament: Voice
Catalyst: A brick from Blarney Castle or a stone from Carrigcleena

Skills

Class Skills

Territory Creation - Rank B: The ability to create a territory, most often serving the same role as a Magus’ Workshop. Depending on the rank, effects from collecting mana from one’s surroundings and amplifying the use of one’s magic within the territory can be achieved.
Alter Ego can create a ‘Fairy Hill’ rather than a ‘Workshop’. Though not useful for the creation of magical items or enhancing one’s magic, this territory is supremely in tune with the mana of the land, allowing the user to begin drawing on vast amounts of its power immediately upon the territory’s establishment.

Magic Resistance - Rank B: A Skill granting protection from magical effects. Depending on the rank, the strength of magical effects is reduced or negated altogether.
At Rank B, the effects of spells with a chant below three verses are negated automatically. The strength of High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals is also significantly reduced.

Personal Skills

Divinity - Rank C: The measure of whether one has Divine Spirit aptitude or not. Those who have A Rank Divinity or above have reached the Throne of Gods. It also has an effect which reduces special defensive values called 'purge defense' in proportion to the Divinity's Rank. It can break through Skills such as Protection of the Faith and Enlightenment of the Sacred Fig.
Though recorded as a minor goddess in some traditions, Alter Ego’s true Divinity stems from her connection the Morrígan. Alter Ego is an aspect of the Morrígan, representing the goddess as a banshee.

Clairvoyance (Death) - Rank A+: Differing from ordinary Clairvoyance, the user is capable of foretelling the deaths of others. How accurate and how far in the future these premonitions can be is dependent on the rank of the Skill.
At rank A+, Alter Ego can accurately perceive the time and method of another’s death weeks in advance. However, the future is not set in stone, and certain factors can affect the veracity of Alter Ego’s visions. Servants, having already died before, are also exempt from the accurate prediction of their deaths. As such, Clairvoyance (Death) can most effectively be used to time ‘critical hits’ by coinciding attacks with the predicted time of death.

Alluring Nightingale - Rank C+: A Skill representing one’s possession of a mesmerizing singing voice. It functions as a fascination magecraft-like effect against targets of the opposing gender. The effect can be resisted fully with Magic Resistance, but can also be abated with enough willpower.
Alter Ego was notorious for luring sailors toward rocky shores and young men off of cliffs. Her reputation as a siren boosts her rank in this Skill slightly.

Noble Phantasm(s)

Blessed Stone of Glibness

Cloch na Barnan

Type: Anti-Unit
Rank: D
Range: 0
Max Targets: 1

A blessing in the form of a stone, acting as Alter Ego’s primary Noble Phantasm. Rather than manifesting as any particular object, Cloch na Barnan is an effect that can be bestowed on any target made of stone. Once cast on an object, the Noble Phantasm will function as a good-luck charm, raising the Luck parameter of the carrier by one stage.
Kissing the blessed object activates Cloch na Barnan’s true effect. For several hours after activation, the target’s words are granted the supernatural power to fool the world around them. Termed as the ability to “deceive without offending”, the target’s words can not only convince those that hear them of nearly anything, at least momentarily, but can also be used to craft plausible illusions.
A the Blarney Stone, on which the Noble Phantasm is based, is a singular object, no more than one iteration of Cloch na Barnan can be in effect at the same time.

Three Birds of Calamity

Trí Énlaith

Type: Anti-Army
Rank: B++
Range: 1~40
Max Targets: 500 people

Alter Ego is recorded as having owned three miraculous birds whose singing could heal the sick. Due to the influence of the Morrígan on Alter Ego’s Saint Graph, however, Trí Énlaith has been changed into its present form. Rather than manifesting as songbirds, Alter Ego’s pets have been transformed into crows. They are the truest representation of the trinity of goddesses present in Alter Ego’s current manifestation. The goddesses that make up the Morrígan are Badb, Macha and Nemain.
Though only slightly larger than a regular crow in size, all three qualify as Divine Beasts. Their cries manifest as a powerful attack, with the voice of a single one capable of slaying dozens of mortals at once. The presence of Trí Énlaith also has a direct effect on the battlefield, driving those that pass under their wings into a frenzy and amplifying the panic and terror normally present on a battlefield. Though the effect does not reach such heights when targeting Servants, the goddesses the birds represent could cause the dearest of friends to strangle each other in a rage or entire armies to fall upon their swords, their minds broken by wrath and fear.
As carrion birds, Trí Énlaith feeds on carnage, and as such the crows can sustain their manifestation even without a source of magical energy, so long as there is death around them.

Cry of the Banshee

Ben Síd Gáire

Type: Anti-Unit~Anti-Army
Rank: A+
Range: 3~50
Max Targets: 1~3 people/100 people

The famous wail of the Banshee, the faerie women of Irish Mythology. Though originally simply an omen of death, Ben Síd Gáire has been warped over time into a veritable weapon. Due to modern perceptions, what was once a warning of one’s impending demise is now capable of outright killing a select group of those that hear its sound.
At its core, Ben Síd Gáire is a sonic attack that indiscriminately attacks all those within hearing distance. The blast of sound is difficult to block outright, and certain solid materials can even serve to amplify the attack. In addition to this effect, Alter Ego is capable of designating a small number of targets among those afflicted by the sonic attack. Upon hearing her wail, these targets are forced to take a Luck check or suffer an instant death effect.

Lore

Alter Ego’s true identity is Clíodhna, the Queen of the Banshees.
Clíodhna was the fabled queen of the Banshees of the Tuatha de Danann. Her existence is an extension of that of the Morrígan, though her exact origins are unclear. She once dwelt in Tír na nÓg, the promised otherworld of the Celtic peoples, but was eventually lured into the lands of humanity.
She is said to have fallen in love with a young man from Munster, and taught her lover many things about magic. However, the man sought power rather than a relationship, and, having learned enough, eventually plotted to kill Clíodhna. Striking during one of Clíodhna’s trips from Tír na nÓg to Ireland, her erstwhile lover conjured a massive wave to drown her. Though her boat capsized, Clíodhna was rescued from drowning by Manannan mac Lir and returned to safety.
Vowing vengeance, Clíodhna foretold that in the future, a great wave would issue forth from the sea, causing such destruction as to lay waste to all of Munster. Having made her proclamation, she vanished from the eyes of mortals.

Another legend tells of Cormac Laidir MacCarthy, the builder of Blarney Castle, and his interactions with Clíodhna. Seeking aid with a lawsuit, MacCarthy beseeched Clíodhna’s aid. Being told to kiss the first stone that he encountered the next day, MacCarthy, doing so, developed great eloquence and won his case. In honor of Clíodhna’s gift, MacCarthy set the blessed stone as a part of the wall of Blarney Castle, where it sits to this day.

Personality

Clíodhna appears outwardly cold and unemotive, fittingly for someone that heralds the deaths of others. Despite her aloofness, she is not entirely heartless. Though Clíodhna views herself as someone above mere mortals, the earnest efforts of those of human stock can still move her heart. Perhaps due to the influence of the Morrígan, she is especially fond of those who impress her through their might and prowess in combat.
Though otherwise appearing as a pure maiden queen, she possesses strong sadistic tendencies. As humans are existences below hers, she finds no particular guilt in luring them to their deaths. As an Alter Ego, her self is an unequal mix of human, fairy and goddess. This causes discord between the different parts of her personality, though she herself is not fully aware of them.

Part of how she carries herself stems from her poor experiences with humans, as she was once tricked by someone she had assumed truly loved her. As such, she is distrustful of those that value her power, viewing them with suspicion.
Due to her outlook, she often does not recognize feelings of closeness until it is too late to indulge in such things. Missing a chance for a closer relationship with someone is naturally something that turns Clíodhna melancholy. These feelings are a source of power for her, empowering her status as a banshee further. It is possible for her to develop into something entirely inhuman, should she face enough misfortune.
However, in losing someone dear to her, Clíodhna is likely to become truly fearsome. Though she does not otherwise care much for the Holy Grail War, other than as a means of attaining her wish, such a loss could well turn the war into a personal matter. In such a case, the cruel nature of the Morrígan would likely shine through fully, transforming Clíodhna into a merciless queen of the battlefield.

Despite being an aspect of the greater Morrígan entity, she views herself as her own person rather than as an extension of the goddess. The strengthened unity with the goddess of battle and fate has made her outlook very fatalistic, seeing events occurring according to their destinies as the correct way of things. If she has witnessed something that occurs in the future through her variant of Clairvoyance, she is prone to acting as though whatever she witnessed ‘already happened’, treating those that die in her visions as ‘already dead’ and so on.
As an extension of this, something deviating from its witnessed fate infuriates her. Since mortals are those that strive against their fates, this serves to drive a further wedge in her relation to mortals.

Clíodhna is fundamentally incapable of accepting another as a Master, as she will not allow a human free reign over her. If she serves, she does so grudgingly, marking her Master for later punishment. As she can, to some extent, sustain herself without a Master after establishing her territory, she might come to view her Master as dead weight if they have insulted her enough.
Should her Master comport themselves as an ally, rather than as someone seeking to control her, Clíodhna’s response might be more positive. If they prove themselves in battle, Clíodhna may even find herself growing close to them, though she is likely to deny her feelings until the last moment.

As the time she spent with the one she thought of as her lover was one of unparallelled happiness, Clíodhna’s fondest wish is to return to such a time. As the man from that time ended up betraying her in a bid for power, however, her true wish to the Holy Grail would most likely be for a devoted lover.

Relationships

Irish heroes: “Your bravery and prowess do you credit, mortals.”
Cú Chulainn: “Seeing you, I feel… Somehow slighted. No matter. You have already suffered your punishment, have you not?”

Creator Notes

As this version mainly plays off of Clíodhna as a banshee and thus her connection to the Morrígan, her abilities (mainly NPs) have been somewhat altered. In other incarnations, she would probably be able to manifest an Anti-Country Noble Phantasm, Tonn Clíodhna.
I also took some liberties with the lore, but I suppose that’s part of making a Servant.

The personality section became really messy though. I get the feeling that trying to mix her with the Morrígan too much was a bad idea.
Not sure about who she’d have relationship comments on, though, other than the usual slew of Irish heroes.

[Skull]

Another legend tells of Cormac Laidir MacCarthy, the builder of Blarney Castle, and his interactions with Clíodhna. Seeking aid with a lawsuit, MacCarthy beseeched Clíodhna’s aid.

Great, now I can't stop imagining Fate/Ace Attorney.

[King of Padoru]

@King of Padoru: Wonderful sheet, not much I can criticize, though I must ask, wouldn't she have something to say to Goetia, whose whole goal is to return the planet to Genesis, and the Alien God, who wants to rewrite human history for some reason? Also, wouldn't she say something about Excalibur given that she may very well have had a hand in its creation?

I become dumber than usual at 3am and forget things, but it's already been added

[Spartacus]

"To be merciful or inexorable? I say be resourceful of the two.
Kidding~!
How about we simply have fun, dance a little, forget stressful concerns and follow our human desires for a moment?"

Class	Caster
Epithet	The Black Queen
Identity	Catherine de' Medici
Origin	Historical Facts; France
Height/Weight	153cm/48kg
Alignment	Neutral Evil
Attribute	Man

STR	AGI	END	MANA	LCK	NP
E	D	E	A	C	B

Character theme: ritual casting, fleeting happy moment, and harsh reality.

Armament/Class and Personal Skills

ARMAMENT:
Flying Squadron: The court women of Catherine, manifested as low level Familiar. Instead of battling, their main usage is to assist her performs Magecrafts or Rituals.


CLASS SKILLS:
Item Construction C
Despite never practiced Alchemy, she able to create poisons due to her anecdotes using poison as a mean of assassination.

Territory Creation A+
Recreating her Workshop in high speed, Chateau de Blois which allows almost instantaneous casting of her spells, becomes possible. She can also upgrade it to create a Fortress. Her extraordinary ranks come from her various projects of magnificent architecture, the success on her court festivals and her talents on Boundary Fields.


PERSONAL SKILLS:
Astronomy A
In her case, she uses a formula by means of emulating the constellations on objects to causes phenomena based on readings associated with the constellations. The bigger the emulated constellations being drawn, the stronger the phenomena being created. Under the tutelage of the famed seer — Nostradamus and truster advisor — Cosimo Ruggeri, Catherine learned Astronomy Magecraft. Despite her lack of magical lineage, she is proved to be a very competent Magus who excels at the usage of Boundary Field-based Ritual ceremony.

Golden Rule B
The powerful combined financial power of de' Medici family and Valois dynasty. There is no issue for her to quickly acquires magical items and material she needs to perform her Rituals.

Eye for Art C
Catherine is a patron for many forms of arts; painting, tapestries, sculpture, literature, architecture, and court festivals. If she happens to see a Noble Phantasm that possesses artistic anecdotes, there is a moderate chance that she might be able to figure out its True Name.

Black Dress of Sorrow B
The black dress she wore after the death of Henry II. Whatever she truly feels devastated about his sudden death or a simple propaganda move; it successfully gives an image of a widow and enforced her rule. By wearing it, one will be reminded that it is not only them suffers, but the other people around them too, and also the Queen; momentarily put aside their disapproval of her.

Noble Phantasm

Joyeuse Magnificence

Dazzling Starlights of Fleeting Myths

Rank B
Anti Army

The lasting fret that keeps on forever bagging one's mind- either long-living grand design or simple worries about tomorrow; momentarily removed for a little moment of bliss. That is the purpose of Catherine's Magnificence, lavish and spectacular entertainment full of grandeur and vulgarity, means to distract others from alerting but unresolvable problems of their futures, their lives, their family; and most importantly- her children's reign.

An entertainment festival not so different from Roman emperors' gladiator games in nature: but violence is replaced with dance, blood is replaced with wine. She creates a ballroom as a Boundary Field and set a house rule to not allow fighting inside: substituting a bloody life-and-death battle with sports, making damage received to anyone inside becomes zero until they leave the field. The sport itself isn't really important, as the participant can choose any kind of game they want so long it didn't violate the house rule. During the duration of the game, abiding that rule will be rewarded by temporary raises in their Stats, violating the rule will be punished by temporary Stats reductions.

But the true nature of the ballroom is not a simple fair game, but an original magic circle by means of emulating celestial bodies performed by the participants. Which each person assigned in particular places, and if looked in bird-view; ones can see their positions mimic the constellations or the galaxy. And by doing that, they become a proxy for her to activate and to speed up the casting time of Ten Counts-level Spells; which she uses to enforce the house rules if the Stats reductions are not enough for them to abide.

Victorious or not, joyous occasions need to be celebrated. All the participants will be rewarded with a grand display of performance by talented dancers and musicians. These dancers and musicians are no other than her familiars, the Flying Squadron. Their main job is to lead and guide the participants to dance alongside them, as not everyone can dance or sing.

The dances and music mean to tell a story and assign roles to the participants; it tells an abridged version of war myths of old. Using the Trojan war as an example, each participant is positioned based on the position of their character in the Jupiter Trojans Asteroid belts. The one that plays as Achilles will be placed in the location of 588 Achilles asteroid, the one that plays as Hector will be placed in the location of 624 Hektor asteroid, and so on. All of these are simply to perform her final Grand-level Ritual.

Note: The bluish light represent the Jupiter Trojans Asteroid belts.

Yes, the entire ball is nothing but a massive self-performing and self-harming Ritual. Taking a page of Nostradamus's Magecraft as her formula, that is using old passages to predict the future; she uses old passages to create direct phenomena from mythology in the present time. By recreating an allegory of Trojan Wars, she able to generate phenomena the same way the characters in the story bears: both happiness and suffering. The one that role play as Achilles will experience complete invincibility and suffers devastating heel wounds, the one that role play as Hector will experience numerous victory and suffers fatal piercing wounds, and so on. Of course, there will be no damage can be felt as the house rule was enforced, because it is just a simple fun game after all.

But the moment that momentary happiness fleet, with a single clasp of Catherine's hand to pull down the curtain...

A reminder of reality pass by, the pain they suffer from the sports, all the pains the heroes and gods suffer from the myths, and so suddenly...!

Character/Speech/Lore

Character:

A caring young mother.

She is an oddity among rulers who abandon emotional ties with individuals to preserve their reign. As she is a person that values interpersonal relationships more than anything. To her, family is everything she has and must be protected no matter what. The cold-blooded side of a ruler can be seen in her not when she rules the masses, but when she tries to protect them.

To protect her loved ones, she is willing to massacre others.
To protect her loved ones, she is willing to let a nation fall into ruin.
To protect her loved ones, she is willing to abandon the human order.


Motivation and attitudes toward the Master:

Her wish to the Holy Grail is to make the happy-but-brief moments of her life to be much more longer, to be a meaningful time she can hold dearly; allowing her to move on from her hard and unrewarding life.

If she took a liking to her Master, the Master will be treated as one of her children to protect. From that, even if a fall out happens between them, she will become the most trusted ally that prioritizes the Master's well being.


Speech Example

"Joyous occasions come and gone like a fleeting dream."
"Now then... to go back to dreaming again."
"There is the time to run away, there is the time to remove the source of the problem once and for all."
"If they had perished sooner, peace would have been achieved more quickly."
"Every single of them! Every single of them!"


Lore:

Ah... 16th century, the age where remembered fondly as part of the Renaissance, but also, an era where a bloody drama between religion and royal power took place.

Behind the story of Elizabeth I struggle and successfully keeping the balance between her reign and her faith; a story of another Queen undergoes a similar scenario, but less fortunate.

That Queen is Catherine de' Medici, the Italian girl that born as the daughter and heir of the wealthy de' Medici's family; whom, despite their commoner background, holds an enormous wealth and political controls. Despite that, both of her parents died when she was not even a year old.

At the age of 14, she married Henry II of Valois, King of France at the time and becomes the Queen of France. During her reign, she creates various entertainments such as her patronages toward arts and her famed magnificent court festivals. All of her projects is not because of her wastefulness, but in hope to blind her people from the actual tensions by illusions of grandeur; and perhaps, to blind her own self from the painful things to come.

All the prospect seems promising, yet Henry II didn't really love her at all. At first, it is only about his preference over his mistress, then she revealed to be infertile and the others start plotting to replace her too. For years, she has been shunned from the political world and didn't hold any influence. But then, she finally bears children after 9 years of infertility, everything should be alright from now on.

Then, Henry II died during a jousting match, and the crown suddenly fell to her nine-year-old son.

In hope for the survival of the Valois Dynasty, she took control of the government and she desperately struggles to maintain her status and the safety of her family.
Power struggles suddenly arouse to race who will control the young king.
Sudden tension between Catholics and Protestants explodes.
Even after leaning help from supernatural forces like Magecraft and the occults, all of them lead to assassinations and massacres.

One by one, her sons died until her youngest son, Henry III take the reign. She finally has an adapt heir, being old enough to govern a nation his own. Yet, it seems he didn't really have an interest in the government, much more interested in pious devotions. As his reign is still part of the ongoing drama between Catholics and Protestants, backed up by both Spain and England, it didn't take long for an unstable France to crumble.

"Never have I seen myself in such trouble or with so little light by which to escape."

She died thinking that Henry III able to secure the Valois Dynasty, not knowing he soon will be assassinated 7 months after her death, ending the Valois.

Such is the life of Catherine de' Medici, the woman who encourages others to run away from harsh reality, only unable to run from the reality of her own.

Relationships

Nostradamus:
"Ah, Michel! Geez, he is gone... You don't know? He is an old friend and teacher. Under his guidance, I learn Astronomy. You can say that he is the Merlin of my Arthur, but less willingly..."

Nero Claudius:
"Stars are beautiful because many of them shine together faintly, not a single giant sun outshines everything around her. It's not because you put yourself at the center of attention, but it because you didn't bring them together in the stage. Other than that... I think you should read more about... pieces of literature and arts? Just for a little, uh, to get a slight sense of them..."

Achilles and Hector:
*Instant fangirling*

Alexandre Dumas:
"You sure like to write trash, that's why your works are popular."

Elizabeth I of England and Phillip II of Spain:
"...!!! All of you-!!!"

[King of Padoru]

That's a cute queen. I'm aware of how asking for reactions is seen, but I'm curious about her relation with my Avenger Juana la Loca

[Spartacus]

That's a cute queen. I'm aware of how asking for reactions is seen, but I'm curious about her relation with my Avenger Juana la Loca

She didn't share her view and hatred about Christianity (or religion) since my take of Catherine's evil deeds is simply out of pragmatism (or what she thought of as), but she sympathizes with her condition as a fellow unfortunate evil queen.
She may offer her Noble Phantasm without the painful part to ease her rage, to experience her pre-Mental Pollution and pre-Avenger self, even only for a fleeting moment.

[Bloble]

Spoiler:

“INITIALIZING…”

“SEVENTH GATE, OPEN.”

“SUMMONS, ANSWERED.”

“THIS SPIRIT ASKS OF YOU: ARE YOU MY MASTER?”“...YOU ARE?”

“THEN RAGE FREELY! UNLEASH YOUR INSTINCTS! I WILL SUPPORT YOU TO THE VERY END OF YOUR SPECIES’ EXISTENCE!”

Class: Limited Armament Negation Cant: Exemplary Righteousness
True Name: Amalthea
Alignment: Lawful Just

Parameters:

TORQUE — B　　　　　FRAME — C　　　　　HANDLING — A+

　　ETHER — B　　　　　　FATE — A　　　　　PHANTASM — B++

Class Skills

GRAIN RESISTANCE - A
Protection against Ether-based attacks and non-mundane effects. Normally a medical anti-Grain barrier meant to envelop a single human, it has been overcharged by the V.E.N.U.S. engine to 470% effectiveness. L.A.N.C.E.R.’s body acts as a poison to Liners and A-Rays, and will even damage a Knight Arm on contact.

LIFE-END BAPTISM - B
The primary function of a conceptual weapon meant to eradicate invaders from the solar system. Three key ingredients of “blueprints for a weapon to kill God”, “a frame to house a Hero”, and “overflowing love” have been combined to give birth to a skill that could sanctify the stars. Targets without a concept of death are forcibly granted one, and effectiveness of attacks rises exponentially in proportion to the amount of Grain in the target.

Personal Skills

ETHER BURST - B-
A skill that momentarily strengthens the body and improves parameters by absorbing Grain from the atmosphere and converting it into magical energy. Because she is a Heroic Spirit from before Overcount, L.A.N.C.E.R. should not possess this skill. It is instead a skill of the body, warped and strengthened by the spirit. As it is incompatible with her personal barrier, activating Ether Burst leaves L.A.N.C.E.R. vulnerable for a split second. Overuse will also damage the Master: the reason is self-evident.

SELF-REPLENISHMENT - D
A Class Skill from an extinct summoning system that should not be usable. Due to stemming from her Noble Phantasm, it has been forcibly activated. Allows L.A.N.C.E.R. to recover a small amount of Magical Energy over time. Her current form has downgraded this skill to the point where it is merely enough to keep her functional and slowly repair damage out of combat.

ARTIFICIAL BODY - EX
The aptitude to remold one's own body or merge one's own flesh with body parts of others. In L.A.N.C.E.R.’s case, her current form is simultaneously the catalyst for her summoning and the anchor sustaining her existence. As a contract could never be engraved on the corpse of the world, it was instead layered onto a construct of living steel. Only the crystallized knowledge of humanity that outlived its world, a single person’s sacrifice, and a true miracle could have facilitated this impossible being.

DISENGAGE - E
The ability to withdraw from the battlefield in the midst of combat. Normally, it would be among L.A.N.C.E.R.’s greatest strengths and strategies, a self-preservation instinct that tells her the opportune time to grasp survival against an unbeatable foe. However, L.A.N.C.E.R. was not designed with retreat in mind, so this skill’s power cannot be displayed except as slightly increased ability to outmaneuver a foe.

Noble Phantasms

“Lancer! Release restraints on the first horn! Red Key, Ignition!”
“UNDERSTOOD, MASTER. LIFE WILL BLOOM AGAIN!”
“CODE ONE - CORNUCOPIA OVERLOAD!”
Type: Anti-Unit
Rank: B++

The horn that L.A.N.C.E.R. carries on her forehead is the mythical Cornucopia, a horn of plenty that once nurtured life all over the planet. As a reality sublimation engine, it was originally used to give birth to the world using the abundant Grain in the atmosphere. Now, however, Earth is a dead husk, and Cornucopia’s life-giving nectar is the most deadly poison to its inhabitants. The very activation of this Noble Phantasm generates deadly byproducts that can endanger the lives of bystanders within several kilometres. Due to this danger, it is normally kept sealed.

However, should it need to be used, Cornucopia Overload will shine and reactivate its long-dormant functions, becoming a horn of light that breaks down anything it touches into pure life energy for L.A.N.C.E.R. and her Master, the only one for whom it is not deadly. Due to the way her body is constructed, this “horn” is also her spear. At full power, nothing can survive contact with its tip.

Apart from the initial activation cost, Cornucopia Overload is a constant drain on L.A.N.C.E.R. to keep activated. However, when it strikes and breaks down a target, the matter is converted into energy that restores her reserves and repairs any damage instantly with 89.7% efficiency. So long as she keeps charging and raging and striking accurately, she can recoup any losses. In that sense, it is a Noble Phantasm that encourages its user to return to being a wild beast, and fight as recklessly as possible.


“Lancer… thank you for everything. I don’t want to, but… please…”
“EVEN NOW YOU CRY? WHAT AM I TO DO... PLEASE GROW UP TO BE A GREAT HUMAN, MASTER. THAT IS MY DEAREST WISH.”
“CODE ZERO - CORNUCOPIA GENESIS!”
Type: Anti-City
Rank: A+

The horn of plenty is a gift from the gods to the humans, representing fertility and growth. However, life is not necessarily a good thing. What catalyzed the transformation of old Earth from a chaotic wilderness hostile to civilization into something that nurtured human growth was “love”.

Without the love of the Gods, humans never would have grown up to love themselves. In that sense, Cornucopia Genesis represents the love of a parent towards a child; it is infinitely patient and compassionate, no matter how many times it is rebuked. By unleashing all of the energy stored up within Cornucopia during L.A.N.C.E.R.’s summoning, and striking deep into the husk of the dead Earth, a massive dose of life will be injected into it, revitalizing the area proportional to how much energy has been stored up at the cost of leaving L.A.N.C.E.R. on the verge of death. Plants will grow, Grain will disperse, and humans can exist, and even flourish.

This cannot revive the dead Earth completely. But it can create a shelter, which will last for an unknown time. Perhaps it would be enough for people to get back on their feet and leave to sail the stars as they were meant to. Even when they should be gone for good, some parents simply can’t help themselves.

This would normally be an impossible Noble Phantasm to achieve. It is not in fact L.A.N.C.E.R’s own power that allows it. What makes Cornucopia Genesis attainable is her catalyst, the core of her current body that is filled with more love than even she can handle: the V.E.N.U.S. engine.

Description

With a height of 24.5 metres, a weight of just 78 tons, and the miraculous V.E.N.U.S. engine as a power source, the L.A.N.C.E.R. prototype is the most advanced piece of technology that humanity has ever produced - though none who worked on it would ever call themselves human. Even so, without the Heroic Spirit summoned to fill the empty core within it, and the Master to whom it is contracted, L.A.N.C.E.R. would just be a hunk of useless metal.

Amalthea was the sole spirit to answer the call. Even when the Throne should have been beyond humanity’s reach, the love of a being from across the solar system was powerful enough to resonate with her. She arrived to battle a foe beyond her reckoning, because some desperate children begged for her help.

Much of Amalthea’s existence is unfamiliar to her. She is large now, and cannot move about freely. But she can still be herself. The children are different. Some of them have wings, some hooves like her, and others are weak and strong and everything in between. She has time for all of them; she listens to their digital complaints and answers in kind, chastising and cheering as needed. They are far easier to manage than the rowdy God she was used to.

Her Master, too, reminds her much of previous ones. They were all girls, shy and maiden-like, with hidden reserves of inner strength. Amalthea prefers to sit back, letting her Master blossom, teaching with an approach some would generously call hands-off, and others non-existent. For Amalthea is kind, but she is not gentle. She allows for weakness only as an obstacle that must one day be defeated, and never as something that should be tolerated. In that sense she is as much an animal as they come, a trait that she has never discarded. Still, she’s a big softie at heart. Even when her children should be all grown up, and her very existence should be obsoleted, she will answer their calls and be delighted at seeing how they have grown.

Others may be more war-like. In fact, Amalthea’s first instincts are usually to run. But her current form was built with a “retreat = death” mentality, where a single defeat would lead to the extinction of all life on Earth’s corpse, so that avenue has been sealed off. This has a side-effect of making Amalthea much more hot-blooded, stubborn, and less skittish than she would normally be. Instead of running and living to fight another day, she will declare to her Master that there is no tomorrow if today is not won.

Oh, but still, no male pilots.

Lore

In Greek mythology, Amalthea is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus.

There were different traditions regarding Amalthea. She is sometimes represented as the goat who nurtured the infant-god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion, sometimes as a goat-tending nymph of uncertain parentage. The possession of multiple and uncertain mythological parents indicates wide worship of a deity in many cultures having varying local traditions. Other names, like Adrasteia, Ide, the nymph of Mount Ida, or Adamanthea, which appear in mythology handbooks, are simply duplicates of Amalthea.

After Cronus swallowed all of his children immediately after birth, the mother goddess Rhea hid away the infant Zeus and gave him to Amalthea to nurse in a cave on a mountain in Crete. Still a baby, Zeus would have broken off one of Amalthea's horns while playing, which would become the cornucopia, and turning Amalthea into the first unicorn.

As she raised the most temperamental of Gods, Amalthea underwent a transformation from naive girl to doting parent, becoming a person that could admonish even the heavens without fear (consequently, this is why only she of all near-Divine Spirits is willing to challenge the Types). She imparted upon Zeus her philosophy and love, which, while it helped both him and his followers survive the harsh environments of the Age of Gods, may have resulted in him growing up a tad bit too headstrong, among other things.

Her current existence is a strange one. She answered the call of a catalyst linked to her through the Greco-Roman pantheon, and wound up in a land and body of steel.

Her existence as a unicorn has been emphasized in this summoning, specifically the trait of purifying the soul common to all unicorns. On top of that is layered ancient Church thaumaturgy to create an anti-reincarnation weapon of forced limited lifespan. As Amalthea is the first ever unicorn, her horn, the Cornucopia, represents the purest, kindest outpouring of life in all human legends.

[Leftovers]

[34]

so i've been wondering about this for a while. does double servants (like anne bonny & mary read, or sakamoto & oreo) count as a single submission?

also, because valentine's in the corner, i'm working on something like sakamoto & oryo, husband and wife who can be summoned independently, but each of them is an NP of one another--or smthing like that. would this still fit into the prompt?

[asterism42]

so i've been wondering about this for a while. does double servants (like anne bonny & mary read, or sakamoto & oreo) count as a single submission?

yes

[Funderfullness]

Class: Alter Ego
Alternate Classes: Caster, Ruler, Foreigner

STR: E
END: D
AGI: D
MGI: A
LCK: B

Class Skills

Magic Resistance (A+): Cancels spells A-rank or below, making the Servant untouchable to modern magic. This skill is an amalgamation of the various
resistance-granting skills such as Protection of the Faith, Divinity and Insanity, granted by the other classes Alter Ego qualifies for, as a result
of divine contact and great piety. As an Alter-Ego, simply equipping her with high anti-magic saves a fortune on processing power.

Territory Creation (C): Allows for the construction of a Workshop, confined to a single room rather than an entire structure. As an anchoress, Alter
Ego lived a life of seclusion in a cell in her Church, interacting with the outside world through a small window. This experience has left her a
little more agoraphobic than most.

Personal Skills

Revelation (B+): The skill that started Alter Ego down her path, the skill to "hear the voice of heavens" and take optimum action in regards to all
matters related to the achievement of a goal, whether it be combat or travelling. Because there is no basis to it, it cannot be explained to others
clearly. Alter Ego's visions of YHWH and Christ form the foundation of her class and her abilities, and will lead her in an upward spiral.

Baptismal Rite (A): A type of magecraft developed by the Church, tremendously effective against spiritual bodies. As a cleric and anchoress, Alter
Ego specializes in healing, comforting and laying spirits to rest. Should a spirit be purified, she can keep it with her in order to serve as her
guardian. Such guardians or minions see Alter Ego as their mother, eagerly serving and protecting her. It is beyond the typical capabilities of a
mage specializing in summoning and binding, for it utilizes Alter Ego's special understanding of the intimate motherly love of God as a foundation
to gain a spirit's true love and devotion. In this way, it could be called a charm effect. This gathering of familiars and minions, buffed by her
support, serves as the backbone of Alter Ego's combat arsenal.

Saint (E): Alter Ego was never officially canonized as a saint, but she is still venerated as a holy woman to this day. Therefore, she is still able to use
the magecraft of the Church and produce Holy Shrouds, as evidenced by the image of her weaving and sewing clothes for the poor, one of the few
activities she can do while confined to an anchorite's cell.

Noble Phantasms

World Hazelnut~All That Is Made (A, Magecraft, Anti-Army)

An apparent "cheat skill" derived from Territory Creation, the ability of a magus to create advantageous terrain, whether that be the construction of
a Temple, Workshop or simple wards. Rather than a time-consuming task done as preparation for battle, Alter Ego may instantly alter the environment
by throwing an "egg" that contains a miniature world; when it hatches, the environment it contains expands to occupy the area. For offense, she can
throw "eggs" that contain hazardous environments such as regions filled with lava or radiation. How long it takes for an egg to hatch is proportional
to how complex the environment is, and the size of the expansion is determined by how long the egg is left in incubation. Ever since Alter Ego was
summoned, she has held on to an "egg" that she claims holds her dream of a perfect world. This skill derives from her vision of God encapsulating all
of creation into a single hazelnut in the palm of her hand, representing the ancient motif of the World Egg, in which the universe waits to be born.

Sophia~Divine Spark of the Mother God (EX, Magecraft, Support)

The concept of the female aspect of YHWH has been discussed and theorized for centuries, but it was Alter Ego who was the first one to see it with her
own eyes. Rather than a name, the Sophia is the anthropomorphization of the light and wisdom of God, and Alter Ego understood her role to be that of
a mother of all living things, embodying the motif of the Mother Goddess. With this revelation of divine love bestowed upon her, Alter Ego's power is
to become one and the same as the Sophia, transforming herself into an Aeon, a Divine Spirit. In the context of God as a mother, it greatly increases
the strength of Alter Ego's flock of familiars; a mere purified nature spirit can be elevated to a holy knight capable of battling on equal footing
with a Servant. Conversely, it allows Alter Ego to greatly strengthen herself to come to the protection of her familiars, taking over for them when
they are overwhelmed. Given enough time and energy, Alter Ego and her flock can form an infinite upward spiral of strengthening her children, then
strengthening of herself, then further strengthening of her children, ad infinitum, all in the name of fierce love and protection of each other.

Background

Julian of Norwich was an incredibly influential English theologian, anchoress and mystic. During a time when the Black Plague ravaged Europe, she fell
ill and called a priest to administer her last rites. As the crucifix was held over her, her vision went white and her body went numb, and the figure
of Christ on the metal cross began to bleed. Over the next several hours, she had fifteen visions of various scenes from Jesus' life, followed by a
sixteenth after she wrote down her account as a devotion book entitled Revelations of Divine Love. Over the next 20 years, she expanded on the
account of the visions with theological explorations, and it was published in 1395 as the first book in the English language written by a woman.

Very little is known about Julian's history; even her birth name is not known, since she changed her name to reflect the church she stayed in as an
anchoress, St Julian's Church in Norwich. What can be inferred is that the girl known as Julian grew up in a time of constant plague, religious schism,
uprisings and war. It is theorized that her discussions on the maternal nature of God suggest that she had children of her own, but lost them to the
plague, and that choosing the solitary life of an anchoress was a way of quarantining herself. Upon completing the initiation ceremony, which is in
many ways similar to a funeral, Julian was sealed in a small chamber in the church with only her cat for company. It was from there that she served as
a spiritual authority in the community as a counselor and adviser. Contemporary mystic Margery Kempe wrote that Julian showed her "the grace that
God put into her soul, of compunction, contrition, sweetness and devotion, compassion with holy meditation and high contemplation."

The most characteristic element of Julian's mystical theology was a daring likening of divine love to motherly love, a theme found in the biblical prophets,
such as Isaiah. According to Julian, God is both mother and father. Julian emphasized this by explaining how the bond between mother and child is the
only earthly relationship that comes close to the relationship a person can have with Jesus.

"You would know our Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why
did he show it? For love. Hold on to this and you will know and understand love more and more." -Julian of Norwich, "Revelations of Divine Love"

[ItsaRandomUsername]

“The only way to get far in life is to never go about things the way people expect you to. Now, sit down, get comfortable and pour yourself a drink, Master, I’ve many strategies to discuss for this ‘Holy Grail War’.”



Class: Lancer
Alternate Classes: Saber
True Name: Frode I
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Place of Origin: Denmark, Gesta Danorum (Presumed early-to-mid 5th century)

STR: B+ AGI: B

END: A MGI: C

LCK: B NP: A

Height: 183cm
Weight: 72kg
Likes: Gold leaf, the seabreeze in her hair, spoils of war.
Dislikes: Sweden, fake gold, summer weather.
Talent: Thinking outside of the box.
Natural Enemy: Her sisters.
Attribute: Earth.
Armament: Glaive, shortspear, shield.
Catalysts: Treasures from his dragon hoard, gold found in the Rhinelands wilderness.

Class Skills:

Magic Resistance: C

The ability to repel thaumaturgy.

Personal Skills:

Divinity: D

Measures one’s Divine Spirit Aptitude. Her great-great-grandfather Skjöldr was a son of Odin, her great-grandfather was rumored to be Thor in human guise and her father was thought of to be the god Njörðr in the form of a human. However, as these are only the speculations of Saxo Grammaticus, they are likely unfounded in reality, and as such, Frode’s divine aptitude is remarkably low for such a glorious lineage.

Presence Concealment: C+

The ability to infiltrate and disguise one’s presence as a Servant. As a large amount of her military operations in life included the stealthy setup of elaborate traps and infiltration, Frode got a knack for how to appear undetectable to the untrained eye, and additionally does not reveal her presence when utilizing her first Noble Phantasm.

Golden Rule: B+

Measures one’s ability to gather wealth. Between gaining a dragon’s hoard for herself and plundering each of the lands she conquered, Frode was surrounded by riches perpetually throughout her life. In addition to having an almost magnetic pull when it comes to money, any valuables thrown away by Frode will act as a powerful Suggestion that forces those with insufficient willpower to toss aside all their priorities to take the item for themselves, brainwashed with a conviction that the item should be their only priority.

Deceptive Tactics: A

Strategy with no grounds in convention. Plans that rely on fooling both one’s enemy and allies. All or nothing battle tactics that prey upon the complete shattering of expectations. By always trying new tricks to leave her opponents in a vulnerable position, fighting Frode becomes a battle of trying to counteract the stratagems of what a trained general would call a madwoman.

Disengage: A

The ability to retreat unharmed from combat. A master of comeback strategies and fake retreats, Frode exceeds at both resetting combat conditions while moving a fight to a more favorable location and feigning defeat entirely. Due to her legacy of faking her death, Frode is even able to create perfect duplicates of herself that can be used to either lead the opponent astray and then fade away or be killed to let the real Frode escape unscathed.

Noble Phantasms:

Far we ran and long we searched, Found no sheep nor cattle

Langt vi løb og ledte længe, fandt ej Faar og fandt ej Køer: B

Anti-Army
Range: Indefinite
Max Targets: Indefinite

The crystallization of all of Frode’s mad tactics, improvised strategies and utterly baffling military prowess. It is the ability to turn anything in her surroundings into into traps, pitfalls and other forms of weaponized terrain. Without having to invoke it’s True Name, Frode can expend mana to transform any surface or material within her line of sight into a hidden or obvious trap that will activate either on her signal or by a predetermined trigger such as motion, the proximity of a high density of mana, or heat. Roads can suddenly open into massive, spear-riddled pitfalls, any tree could suddenly be filled with venomous snakes and perfectly sound pipework could suddenly erupt into an explosion of steam. While many of such tricks are by themselves of no particular issue to even a middling Servant, the utterly ludicrous ways they can be utilized to Frode’s benefit are obvious only to herself, and simply the fact that an explosion of steam might not be a threat to a superhuman Servant does not mean that Frode’s spear, propelled by said explosion for example, is harmless.

Edder-dækket Torned Braad

Glaive of Dragonstongue: A

The most valuable treasure Frode earned from confronting the great Dragon that roosted in the islands of the Baltic Sea was a near-absolute control over her own fear. The second most valuable was this glaive, which she pierced the Dragon’s only vulnerable spot with. While the weapon itself was already hers since childhood, it received an enormous makeover not only from being bathed in the Dragon’s blood, but from modifications Frode had made to it in the battle’s aftermath. Inspired by the Dragon’s spear-like tongue that acted almost like a mouth-within-a-mouth, she climbed into the dead beast’s maw and cut the appendage loose, before redesigning her weapon with it in mind.

Normally, Frode’s glaive is simply an amazingly sharp damascus steel glaive that inflicts increased damage to all Draconic foes. When it’s True Name is revealed, however, the weapon’s blade splits in half, acting now more like an large axe and revealing the still-living Dragon tongue within, which can then be used as a lance tip. Once the spear-tongue makes contact with flesh, it will latch on with it’s razor-sharp teeth and pump the victim full of the corrosive and incredibly deadly toxin of the Dragon that Frode slew. As soon as the target has been envenomed, rapid necrosis of every internal organ and then death will occur unless the target has a poison resistance or immortality-like ability to counteract it.

Lore

Frode I is the 9th of the legendary semi-mythological kings of Denmark, the great-great-granddaughter of Skjoldr, who was a companion of Beowulf, and a warrior legendary for her great wit and moral fiber in the first Danish “history”, the Gesta Danorum.
Becoming king in a time of strife and poverty, Frode set out to refill the national treasury after one of her citizens told her the location of a mighty dragon’s lair, and of the riches it contained. Sailing off alone to the island where she was told the dragon would be, Frode fought the mighty beast as it came to the beach to drink and defeated it in single combat by impaling it with her glaive in the only spot where the dragon’s hide was not unbreakable. Summoning her fleet to bring the dragon’s hoard home, she restored the glory of her kingdom with the enormous wealth she found in the beast’s lair.

In a short span of years afterwards, Frode conquered the Russian lowlands, the Baltics and the Rhinelands, fielding a wide range of clever and tricky tactics such as digging trapholes during a siege and feigning retreat and disguising herself as one of her shieldmaidens, blending in with the residents of another besieged city, and then kicking down the gate in the cover of the dark. During these conquests, she had her sister Swanwhite marry the Swedish prince Regner, who would later prove his own valor by overcoming his wife’s assassins’ attempt on his life and dissuade her from her plans of overthrowing Frode and becoming queen of a united Sweden and Denmark.

After escaping the English army in the Rhinelands by Frode and her entire army throwing away their loot and booty among the fields and marshes to distract their pursuers, Frode mounted an assault on England, where her close ally and lifelong friend Skotte, who the Scots would gain their name from, had gathered an enormous army in his conquest of Scotland. With her numbers reinforced, she laid siege to London and faked her own death, whereupon the deceived Englishmen allowed her armies into the city to mourn under the disguise of wanting their king buried in a church of the city she failed to conquer. With her armies now inside, Frode burst from her funeral casket and sacked the city, putting the English heartlands under Danish rule.

Decades later in her twilight years, Frode would end up dying on the battlefield fighting the swedish king Regner after their close-knit alliance fell apart, not to the blade of an enemy but to exhaustion and overheating under the harsh summer sun, leaving her son Halfdan Scylding as the king.

Personality

An opportunist by nature, Frode is at once an extremely pragmatic yet noble. She is of the belief truly anything goes in a fight, and so while behaving of impeccable nobility elsewhere, she is a trick-loving berserker on the battlefield. While a descendant of godly lineage and gifted with superhuman prowess, what got Frode farther than anything in life was her great wit and willingness to endure a temporary setback in return for a long-lasting victory.

As she was blessed with immeasurable wealth, cursed with great humiliation and died a worthy death, she has no real desire left for anything and thus no wish for the grail. Simply another chance to exercise her brains and brawn is sufficient, and thus she is ideal for all but the most immoral of Masters, who will find her ire and disapproval heap upon them for any cruel misdeeds.

Creator’s notes

I had to have a friend parse through and translate an ungodly amount of 1850’s Danish to write this, but I’m fairly happy with the result. Saxo is a pretty funny guy in that while he’s definitely trying to glorify ancient Denmark with his long list of well-described kings, he’s basically the 1100’s Christian equivalent to a fedora-tipping atheist (to the point where he calls Odin ‘A man who fancied himself a god’ that converts to Christianity after Frigg is murdered by some weird Finnish wizard and then immediately dies after making all the other Nordic gods convert too) and so he’s constantly trying to demean the very people he’s glorifying/making up. If it’s hard to imagine, think of reading the Iliad where every time Diomedes does something cool, Homer jumps in and calls him a brain-damaged baboon for relying on Greek Gods and not Orthodox Christianity in the narration.

[SirGauoftheSquareTable]

She would get along super well with Joseph Joestar. "You're next line is..."

[RoydGolden]

She would get along super well with Joseph Joestar. "You're next line is..."

I was thinking the same thing! Her first NP immediately made me think of Joseph's "pin a bunch of grenades to Straizo's scarf without him noticing" trick. Jojo references aside, this was a really good sheet.

Not sure about the five Personal Skills though. Granted that it's an important part of her legend, I don't think Frode really needs three different Skills to represent her use of deceptive tactics. I'd keep the titular Skill since it's the most unique and interesting, but scrap Presence Concealment and Disengage. Also, Disengage's effect of creating identical copies of herself feels way more like an NP than anything we've seen of that Skill in canon.

[34]

“Yes—we finally meet! I came from a far away place, through the cold and lonely space, just to sing this song to you. Now, please listen—to the Murmurs of Earth.”



Class: Rider
Identity: Voyager
Gender: Female
Origin: Historical Facts
Region: Interstellar Space
Alignment: Neutral Good
Attribute: Star

The Voyager spacecraft, vessels embarking on a voyage towards the ocean of stars for eternity, The Voyagers represents the goodwill of a species recently emerging to be a space-faring civilization, ready to leave the planet that birthed them. Travelling through the endless void of the interstellar medium—beyond the sun’s embrace—both Voyagers carries with them a record, a song, a greeting from planet Earth, a proof of humanity’s existence—like a child lost in the dark saying “Hello? Is anyone there? We exist(ed). This is (was) what we are (were).”

PARAMETERS
STR:E
END: A+
AGL: A+
MGI: E
LCK: EX
NP: EX

Voyager

In the annals of exploration, the achievements of the two Voyager spacecraft are unprecedented. The piddling journeys of Columbus and Magellan spanned a few tens of thousands of miles on the watery surface of one small world. Voyagers 1 and 2 have traveled billions of miles through the ocean of space, exploring dozens of new worlds along the way and revolutionizing our knowledge of the solar system in which we live. And as a gift of the brilliant mission design, these robot ships are no longer within the boundary of the solar system. The Voyagers are the first human-made object to cross the threshold of interstellar space - the cold, dark void between the stars. Nothing can stop their voyage. Not even after their scientific instruments cease operating, predicted to be on the year 2025. Thereafter, they will wander silently and forever in the realm of the stars.

Who knows who's out there? Perhaps the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy is populated by desolate, wasteland worlds circling a hundred billion stars. Or maybe the Galaxy is rich in life forms and intelligence and technology much further beyond our reach than the Voyagers are beyond the reach of Columbus and Magellan. Someday - maybe millions of years in the future - one of these ghostly, derelict ships may be detected and captured by the representatives of some devastatingly advanced interstellar culture. They will wonder about the shipbuilders.

If you could send a long message to such extraterrestrial beings - words, pictures, sounds, music - what would you say? How would you describe us? What would you leave out? Could you communicate intelligibly to very different beings with a wholly independent evolution? The Golden Record which the Voyagers carries contains a rich message to the stars - 116 pictures and diagrams about our global civilization and our species, greetings, samples of the world's great music, the brain waves of a young woman in love and much else. These contents of the interstellar record have become public and can be easily accessible through the internet. This is what the extraterrestrials will learn about us, should the spacecraft - now the fastest and farthest machines ever launched by the human species - one day encounter someone else in the depths of space.

A billion years from now, when everything on Earth we've ever made has crumbled into dust, when the continents are changed beyond recognition and our species is unimaginably altered or extinct, the Voyager record will still speak for us.

Class Skills

Riding: EX
The Class Skill of Rider and Saber class Servants, denoting the ability to ride mounts and vehicles. The act of riding a steed or a vehicle is one of the paramount ability humankind has mastered -- it is the proof of the human race's dominance over other species and also the instrument which eventually bring humanity to the stars. As such depiction in the form of several images and sounds of "the act of riding" are included among the contents of the Golden Record which the Voyager carries. Because of this, Voyager has the ability equivalent to D-ranked Riding--able to ride most vehicle and animals with average skill.

However, as a spacecraft, Voyager has a fundamentally different kind of Riding skill. The Voyagers managed to achieve the velocity required to escape the solar system, as well as becoming the fastest vessels currently ever constructed by the human species to sail away from the sun at 17 km/s because it was assisted by the gravity of a once in 175 years alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. In essence, this skill allows Voyager to fly and maneuver though the heavens by the assistance of the Planet itself. In other words, Voyager can be said to possess the ability to "ride" celestial bodies.

Magic Resistance: B+
A Skill which grants protection against magical effects. This skill is a passive effect of Voyager's Noble Phantasm. Through the exclusion of the representation of war, disease, poverty, crime, ideologies and religions from the contents of the Golden Record -- which only includes and represents humanity’s innocuous hope and goodwill -- Voyager displays an absolute rejection against magical effects stemming from such foundation.

Personal Skills

Voyager of the Stars: E
A Skill denoting the ability to pilot vessels recognized as starships—vessels capable of interstellar travel. Because the Voyagers are unmanned vessels whose purpose is to conduct scientific exploration and to carry a cosmic message, Voyager does not possess the additional management and leadership ability required for conducting a manned interstellar voyage.

The soonest the Voyagers will reach other stars is approximately in 40.000 years. It is not even the current soonest vessel that will reach other stars; that belongs to Pioneer 10, which will reach Barnard’s Star, the closest star from the sun in 10.000 years. However, Disregarding the eternity required for them to reach even the nearest stars, the Voyagers are the first objects ever constructed by mankind to pass through the heliosphere—the sun’s embrace—and reach the interstellar medium, the space between stars.

Farthest Reach: EX
A Unique Skill given to beings which expands the reach of Human Presence in the cosmos. It is similar in nature with the Pioneers of the Stars skill. The first human vessel to cross the threshold of interstellar space, Voyager represents humanity’s advent as a species that is now mature enough to leave a physical trace into the stars. The Voyagers are also the first spacecraft to explore the Jovian planets and their moons, revealing many secrets and wonders of these alien worlds to humanity.

Journeying into the mysteries beyond the Known World, the Voyagers are the literal Frontier of Humanity—beings from the edge of Human Awareness Universe. All difficult or impossible voyages become “events that can be realized”. In addition, any place where the Voyagers manifest and travels to will become a “place humanity has reached”, and as such becomes a place where the “Common Sense of Man” can be applied.

Signal Recovery: C+++
A Skill which allows the user to send and receive information—or extract magical energy—from signals of machines or, at higher rank, from stimulus of living organism; it is similar to in principle to Presence Detection Skill, and can reveal optical illusions and, at higher rank, can negate the effects of Presence Concealment at equal rank or below.

The Voyagers are equipped with microwave radio communication system and antenna which allows them to send back scientific data back to Earth and receive instruction or even a software update. The communication equipment is quite sophisticated for its time, and is still sending and receiving data as of present time. Augmented with the Farthest Reach Skill, this Skill and allows communication with telecommunication devices or her own Master across time and space anywhere within Human Awareness World—which is any place in space and time Voyager can reach.

Eye of the Machine: B
A Skill derived from the Eye of the Mind, the capacity of artificial constructs to conduct accurate and throughout observation and analysis. Its power is based solely on the quality and quantity of devices installed. Voyager has a total of 11 scientific instruments to measure, investigate and image physical objects in macro and micro scale. Together they manifests as super sensitive eyes which can see light in all spectrum as well as analyze various attributes and conditions of objects, allowing Voyager to determine the best course of action.

Noble Phantasm

Heliopause
Boundary of the Stars
Rank: B
Type: Barrier
Heliopause is the region which marks the boundary between matter originating from the Sun and matter originating from the rest of the galaxy. It is the outermost layer of the Heliosphere, the Sun’s stellar-wind bubble which surrounds and is created by the sun, inflated by solar plasma rays from the Sun interacting with the cosmic rays. Those who crossed this boundary can be said to have reached interstellar space. Both Voyagers are first object humanity constructed to cross this boundary and entered the space between stars. Leaving the Solar System behind, the Voyagers continues its eternal journey towards the ocean of stars, unaffected by any and all matters happening in the world they left behind—yet still carrying a Record of that world.

This Noble Phantasm manifests as an invisible barrier surrounding Voyager. This barrier makes it as if Voyager is physically outside the Solar System—on the Interstellar Space. As of present time, there is nothing from Human Civilization which exists on the Interstellar Space but the Voyagers and the Record they carries. Only the Representation of Humanity included in that Record may exist on it. As such, those which are not included, the evils and worst of humanity; war, poverty, religions, ideologies, crime—those things cannot, or rather, does not exist yet on that space. If an object derived from these things comes into contact with Voyager, then this barrier, which resembles that membrane at the edge of the solar system, will reject it, heating that object with charged particles, turning it into glowing plasma.

Golden Record
To the Makers of Music – All Worlds, All Times
Rank: EX
Type: Anti-World

--

[STATEMENT]
This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our, music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.

Signed, Jimmy Carter
President of the Unites States

The White House
June 16, 1977

--

The Golden Record, a gold-plated audio-visual disc which both Voyagers carry on their eternal lonely journey towards the ocean of stars. It is humanity’s cosmic message in a bottle for any intelligent extraterrestrial species it might encounter. It is a token, a representation of humanity and the earth. The record contains greetings in 55 languages—including a whale greeting, 116 pictures detailing—but not limited to—human life and the planet, the Murmurs of Earth which includes among it the sounds of volcanoes, rain, birds, wind, trains, kiss and rockets; 90 minutes selection music from various cultures, and an hour recorded brainwaves of a young woman in love.

The Golden Record is a representation of all that is good in this world. It is requiem—token of remembrance—for that world, a frozen Akashic Record. It is a greeting from humanity, representation of the collective wisdom and achievement the human civilization, of the beauty of Earth and a celebration of the awesomeness of life. Because it represents hope and goodwill, this gilded record excludes any depiction and representation of this world’s worst aspects; war, disease, poverty, religion, ideologies—even though these are all fundamental parts which shapes human civilization.

As soon as Voyager is summoned into the world and found a Master candidate, this Noble Phantasm will be partly activated, as the Golden Record determines that it has “found an audience”. As Voyager the space probe doesn’t have a proper Saint Graph, the Golden Record will first produce a Saint Graph by searching through its record and conjure the best “representation of humanity” for the audience, that is, the Master. Depending on the Fate of that audience, different representation will be summoned. Perhaps the Record will summon the simulacrum of a certain little prince who went on a journey exploring the human nature and life. However, in this case the record instead produces a saint graph which resembles the figure of the person whose brainwave is contained on it—that of a young woman in love. Even if their appearance and personality seems to be different, their abilities and what they represent is essentially the same.

Directly manifested into the world, this Noble Phantasm takes the appearance of a golden musical instrument—in this case a golden guitar. Activating this Noble Phantasm, Voyager plays this guitar and sings a song—a song which represents the greatness of humanity; the beauty of earth; the transience of life; the hope of a glorious future.

For as long as this eternal, yet ephemeral song is playing, everything within the range of which this song can be heard will be endowed with the concept of “Earth”, “human” and “life”. A world will have “the laws of Earth” imposed upon it; any audience will have “the emotion of human”, the quality of being a “proper human” enforced to them; as well as the concept of being “alive” and thus, of being “mortal”.

Description and Personality

An innocuous and naive girl, yet extremely optimistic and fearless, Rider radiates a powerful inspiring aura of hope and goodness. She is obedient towards her Master, and even often longs for their attention and care. As she is a representation based on the recorded brainwave of a young girl who recently had fallen in love, Voyager also yearns for another's love. She is quite obsessed towards science and music.

Even if she displays strong empathic characteristics, Voyager is quite childish and often clueless. She does not receive knowledge from the Grail, but instead her knowledge of the world and humans comes solely from the Golden Record. Concepts such as war, poverty, religion and such are alien to her. At the same time, she often displays rejection towards "the evils of the world" and "improper state of humanity". Voyager will always follow "the proper path of human progress". Following her path, her axiom, she is ready to challenge the world itself, if necessary.

"I am the one who represents all that is good in this living world, I am the one who curves down all that is evil in this living world. By the guidance of this Golden Record, this purpose, this axiom to continue this eternal journey- I shall trust my fate to the path you take."

Bond Craft Essence

The Pale Blue Dot



This is the picture I took 6 billion km away from this world. Please, look at that dot. That’s here. That's home. That's us.

On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived; lived out their lives.

The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there;

—On a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

Contents of the Golden Record

Images
Sounds of Earth
Songs
Greetings

- - - Updated - - -

ah fck that goddamn juliet sheet, here's a remake of my previous sheet instead

[King of Padoru]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

YES, YES! VOYAGER-CHAN IS SUCH A GOOD GIRL!

[Fabuzer]

"A fine room, appetizing meals and the occasional respite from my contractual duties - in exchange of my power, my demands are not unreasonable. Demons may be fated to be slayed by heroes, but until then I'll rampage whenever and wherever you wish me to, Master."

Class: Rider

True Name: Takiyashahime

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Parameters:

Strength: B
Endurance: C
Agility: C
Mana: A
Luck: D
Noble Phantasm: A+

Skills

Class Skills:

Magic Resistance: B
Grants protection against magical effects. At this rank, spells with a chant below three verses are nullified - even if targeted by High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals, it is difficult for Rider to be affected. Her nature as a youkai aside, the teachings of the toad spirit Nikushisen - as well as those of Gozu-Tennou's aramitama (the violent side of a kami) - granted her considerable mystical knowledge, so her defense against magecraft manifests well even as a Rider.

Riding: A
The ability to ride mounts and vehicles. At this rank, anything aside from creatures of the Phantasmal and Divine rank can be handled. The scroll gifted by Nikushisen contained the secrets of frog magic, granting the reader the ability to summon and control giant demon toads.

Personal Skills:

Blood-Sucking: B
The act of absorbing another's blood to replenish one's own health, physical strength and magical reserves. Rider was originally a hone-onna - a "bone woman" who seduced humans to steal their lifeforce. After centuries spent absorbing the malice and blood caused by wars and famines, she rose in power and eventually became a gashadokuro (starving skeleton) while still maintaining her human form. The act of stealing and absorbing the blood - in other words, one's lifeforce - is familiar to her. Directly sucking from the source is not strictly necessary and she is capable of draining her victims by merely touching them; upon completion they are reduced to skeletons that she can conveniently control due to her status as a gashadokuro, the "greatest skeleton".

Gashadokuro: EX
A Skill unique to Rider as she's the only "great skeleton" eligible for summoning as a Heroic Spirit. It indicates powerful conceptual defenses that she can gain by shedding her human form and ascending - or perhaps degrading - to the form she was supposed to take as a youkai. She can become impervious to physical attacks "because a skeleton can't die any further" or completely disappear from normal sight - as well as spiritual detection - "because the dead are not supposed to interact with the world". Since the foundations of these abilities are concepts, a greater mystery will overwhelm them. The more Rider surrenders to her nature as a youkai, the stronger her abilities will grow in response, but magical energy upkeep is multiplied accordingly. Regression to a more human form is impossible and excessive use of this Skill will inevitably lead to a complete ascension/degradation of her Saint Graph into a demon god, making manifestation of her physical form impossible without an incredible source of magical energy.

Witchcraft: A+
A Skill that signifies one as a practitioner of Witchcraft. Rider's style is a mix of two schools, one belonging to the toad spirit Nikushisen and the other to Gozu-Tennou. The former grants spells that can summon youkai and bind already existing ones to her to use as familiars, while the latter consists in conceptual curses that strike those who "are disrespectful and don't follow etiquette" as well as physical maledictions such as lightning strikes that manage to hit the target "by pure coincidence". The two styles have great compatibility: toads are symbol of good omens and rainfall that brings fortune, which reinforce Gozu-Tennou's dominion over lightning and disaster by creating a proper environment for his spells to manifest. The Skill's rank would be higher were she summoned as a Caster, but it still boasts great power even as a Rider. With effort and time, she can trap her enemies in a battlefield where she enjoys divine blessing while her foes suffer one disaster after another - it is a testament to her talents that she can do so despite her own low Luck.

Noble Phantasms

Gashadokuro: The Blood-Drunk Prominence of Princess Takiyasha
Type: Anti-Army/Anti-Fortress
Rank: A+

The great youkai summoned by Takiyashahime when she returned to Shimousa in order to continue the rebellion started by her father/master Taira no Masakado.

A "demon god" that is nothing but a projection of her true self. Because the human form she stubbornly clings to seals her natural abilities as a great skeleton, this Noble Phantasm that reenacts her invasion of Souma Castle permits the manifestation of her true nature without the need to alter her own Saint Graph.

It's a projection, a "shadow" that betrays her external disguise and reveals her repressed nature.
Because she has to be physically connected to the giant skeleton for it to maintain physical form, she usually stands on its skull and rides it as a sort of mount.

In the words of certain Servants with peculiar interests: "That's totally a mecha, isn't it?!"

On top of its conceptual defense that negates physical attacks with insufficient mystery, the giant's might and fortitude are such that a solid blow would crush any Servant who lacks powerful defensive armaments.

As the strongest skeleton youkai that is born only after the convergence of hundreds of thousands of resentful ghosts born from bloody battlefields, its power is proportional to the amount of conflict present in the area.

Although powerful enough to be categorizes as Anti-Army, its rank as an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm doesn't indicate any type of powerful burst attack, but rather a special trait that grants exceptional attack power against "symbols of authority" such as palaces or fortresses.

Takiyashahime returned to Shimousa with the goal of continuing her father's/master's rebellion against the central government, so the giant skeleton that symbolizes her invasion is a "demolition-type" mount that boasts even greater power against other Noble Phantasms manifesting as large structures, castles, palaces and fortresses.

Like most mounts of the Rider-class, it requires fairly low cost to summon but demands a harsh amount of magical energy in the long run.
As compensation for its might even when compared to other powerful mounts, it can operate for at most 5 minutes before Rider requires an additional supply of magical energy.

This weakness is slightly compensated for by the Gashadokuro's endurance, who are often said to "maintain their existence until the energy and malice stored up has completely burnt out", so it can exist for a short amount of time after Rider breaks physical contact before fading away.

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Hyakki Yagyou: From the Underworld, A Horde of Demons Returns
Type: Anti-Army
Rank: B++

The parade of a hundred demons.

A Noble Phantasm not unique to Rider, but shared between any Heroic Spirit who can be credited for having been involved in this pandemonium of youkai. Its form, rank, type of attack and traits differ from Servant to Servant.

For Rider, it's the second Noble Phantasm that symbolizes her invasion of Shimousa.
However, if Gashadokuro represents her "highest point", Hyakki Yagyou is a stigma that reminds her of her pathetic defeat.

It specializes as a short, devastating stampede that - although definitely capable of leaving the land in complete ruin - is extremely cost-ineffective even if Rider anticipates its activation and attempts to minimize its harsh mana consumption.

Upon activation, it forcefully takes control of all beings categorizes as "monsters" in the area, except high-level spiritual existences such as Servants.
The parade must always number a hundred demons, so further magical energy is demanded to summon the remaining ones from the underworld.
Once all demons are assembled, more magical energy is required to boost their capabilities as youkai and they gain the ability to collectively work as a monstrous cavalry charge.

The Noble Phantasm lasts only a few seconds - it strikes like an explosion and leaves like a storm.
A flood of Phantasmal Beasts breaks through the barrier between worlds to violate the world of humans.
The land is ruined, enemies are trampled upon and space is ripped apart due to the dimensional rift from which the parade erupted.

The cost comes not from upkeep or activation, but from the need to build a proper demon parade.

Even if Rider were to prepare beforehand by summoning a great number of youkai - typically giant toads - with the arts she learned from Nikushisen to minimize mana consumption, it would still be too inefficient.

Aside from its disadvantages heavily outweighing the Noble Phantasm's overwhelming power, it's also a reminder of her defeat at the hands of the warrior Mitsukuni - because she had been to eager to avenge her father/master Masakado, she built a needlessly large army and lost the final confrontation for being too exhausted.

Fundamentally, she will never utilize it. It's more suited as a suicide attack that anticipates Rider's defeat and seals her fate, and that is perhaps the idea behind the Noble Phantasm given the fact that it's a crystallization of what led to her death.

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Kaeru: Frog's Great Return
Type: Anti-Unit (Self)
Rank: C

A type of blessing that derives from the legend of Rider's father/master, Taira no Masakado, manifesting as a passive Noble Phantasm.

A play on words between "frog" (kaeru) and "return" (kaeru).

After being defeated by Fujiwara no Hidesato, Masakado's head returned.
His daughter Takiyashahime, who had been exiled, returned for revenge.
To this day, people adorn Masakado's grave with frog sculptures and pray so that his spirit may return to the afterlife.

A Noble Phantasm that allows for a "comeback" at any moment.

Its effects aren't too evident - in a Holy Grail War, it's likely that enemy Masters and Servants will never figure out the reason for which Rider can be so elusive or hard to permanently strike down.

Each time she's attacked, she can perform a Luck check to perfectly counterattack. When she's defeated, she can similarly survive a seemingly debilitating blow and surprise her enemy by ambushing them later while blessed so that she's unable to be discovered.

Outside of battle, because frogs are symbols of abundance and good omens, the Noble Phantasm occasionally grants "happy returns" in the form of large amounts of money or useful knowledge and information, seemingly out of nowhere.

It doesn't normally synergize well with her low Luck, but her Witchcraft specializes in blessing herself and cursing her enemies, so it's actually a rather terrifying combination when she is given time to properly arrange a perfect battlefield. Neither flashy nor a trump card, it's a "boring" Noble Phantasm that simply boosts Rider's capabilities.

Lore and Background

Princess Takiyasha - alternatively, Takiyashahime.

Allegedly, she's the daughter of the Heian-era samurai, Taira no Masakado. An evil witch whose name indicates the words "waterfall", "demon" and "princess".

Her actual name is Satsukihime, but it was a human designation she lost after accepting the teachings of the toad youkai Nikushisen and performing the Ox Curse to grant herself divine powers.

Her true identity is that of a youkai contractually bound to the Taira clan - more specifically, to Taira no Masakado.

She was originally a hone-onna, a weak apparition that stole the lifeforce of unsuspecting men by draining their blood until they became skeletons themselves.
She is, in fact, the same skeleton woman depicted in the short story "The Peony Lantern" included in the youkai encyclopedia "The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past" that also describes wicked demons such as Tamamo-no-Mae, Shuten-Douji and the Gashadokuro.

Hone-onna are wandering ghosts by nature, so they can be found anywhere.
It is pure coincidence that she managed to travel from country to country for centuries without being exorcised.
Wars and famines were common at the time, and her disposition as a blood-sucking demon led her to absorb the blood and souls of the deceased.

Battlefields and mass-graves full of rotting corpses - their abundance is what led to the birth of what one might call a Gashadokuro.
They are the highest-class of skeleton youkai, demon gods who rampage until their energy runs out.
The amount of malicious ghosts required to create one makes them a rare occurrence, but she's more akin to a vessel that encapsulates the possibility of a Gashadokuro.

She could have become a powerful youkai by surrendering to her true nature, but instead decided to cling to her sense of self.
How extremely unnatural - a youkai who found more value in their individuality and rejected strength was no youkai at all.

To other youkai, she was an unforgivable existence and thus despised. But to some humans, she was worthy of redemption.

"Placing one's ego above their calling - indeed, it's a very human way of being."

As a samurai named Taira no Masakado said those words to her, he named her "Satsukihime" and bound her to a contract with him.
Names hold power, and the act of accepting the designation given to her by a mere human placed her below him as his familiar.

Was it charity, or just taking advantage of the situation to obtain a powerful demon? It didn't particularly matter to her - youkai do not seek affection or love, but gratitude was not completely alien to her and she could feel thankful for the man who had welcomed her when she had no nowhere to go.

Thus, she disguised herself as Masakado's daughter and became a princess.

Luxurious food to eat, a grand palace to live in, entertainment to be enjoyed - it was a most delightful life.
And, as her contract stipulated, she acted as Masakado's familiar - a sword he would point at enemies who could only await a one-sided slaughter.

Human affairs didn't concern her, but she knew that her master acted against the king of humans - that is to say, the emperor.
His ambition would have pleased any other youkai, but Satsukihime preferred a simple life.
Her disinterest in power made her instead wary of the inevitable attention he would bring to himself with his constant massacres and betrayals.

It didn't surprise her when he fell.

Although loved by the peasants for his good treatment of them, Masakado's enemies among the nobility were innumerable.
One could say that his ambitions were meant to bring prosperity to the people, but he was ruthless and betrayed friends and family alike.

He was beheaded by someone who was once an ally and friend - Fujiwara no Hidesato, also known as Tawara no Touta.
Masakado's life as a human wilted there, but the tale of an immortal demon whose curse still afflicts the land of Japan to this day flourished at the same time.

It was a battle worthy of being called an epic, but Fujiwara no Hidesato still triumphed for he - who had once slayed the giant centipede Ōmukade - had been rewarded by the Dragon King with a bad of unending rice and knowledge of how to defeat Taira no Masakado, whose return as an immortal demon god had been prophesied.

Yes, Satsukihime wasn't surprised by his death.
However, when faced with death, Masakado hadn't asked her for help.
He neither begged nor wept, and had calmly instructed her to take his son Yoshikado and flee.

"An unanticipated development. Perhaps my now disembodied master was indeed wonderfully sentimental?"

She didn't hate Masakado - one could say that she enjoyed their contract.
Sadness is unfitting of a youkai and tears of anguish are unknown to them.
Her contract with him ended the instant Fujiwara no Hidesato's blade removed Masakado's head from his body, but she still carried out his orders for some reason.

So it wouldn't be incorrect to say that this Gashadokuro was the sentimental one instead, yes?

Fujiwara no Hidesato would eventually come after her as well - that was her rationale for gathering power and avenging her master, how she convinced herself to act in such a human manner.

The great toad youkai Nikushisen aided her for the simple reason that she wished to wage war against humanity. A scroll that contained knowledge of onmyōdō and taught the reader how to summon and bind youkai to their will - that was his gift to her.

Furthermore, she sought assistance from the gods themselves.
It was a foolish thought - why would they humor a monster?
Gods who bring blessing would smite her on the spot, but what about gods who cause disasters?

By performing the "Ushi no koku mairi" - the Ox Curse - she summoned one such such kami:

Gozu-Tennou, the Ox-Head Heavenly King that - as an incarnation of Indra - presided over disasters that are beyond the control of man.
The calamities he sowed were trials for men to overcome.
His justice was the absolute will of heaven that escaped the limited reasoning of humanity.

Thus, he found Satsukihime's cause to be just - her master Masakado has been assassinated by a corrupt nobility and his familiar sought to avenge him by bringing chaos to the world of man.

Her interests aligned with his, and so Satsukihime received two blessings from Gozu-Tennou: spells of calamities and destruction, and another name to welcome her new identity as a demon princess that commanded an army of youkai - Takiyasahime.

And so, she planned to kill those who might come after her - is what she told herself even though she actually wished to seek revenge against Fujiwara no Hidesato.

She subtly reconquered Masakado's former castle to use as a base for her next move, but her plans were hindered by Ōya no Tarō Mitsukuni - a skilled warrior with enough talent to be called a mage as well. Takiyashahime attempted to quietly dispose of him by pretending to be a prostitute and drain his lifeforce - a modus operandi that reminded her of her past existence as a hone-onna - but Mitsukuni suspected a trap and narrated the brutal death of Masakado in the most gruesome details.

Some say Takiyashahime wept, some say her visage was twisted in rage and revealed her true identity as a gashadokuro.

Regardless, she fled and returned with an army of youkai that could drown a city.
A horde of demons that not even Mitsukuni could hope to defeat.
But the tales say that Mitsukuni had a companion - and who would be more fitting that Fujiwara no Hidesato, who had returned to slay Masakado's heir?

Feeling an inexplicable fury at the sight of Masakado's killer, Takiyashahime willingly surrendered to her nature as a youkai.
Her human body breaking apart, a giant skeleton emerged from a black void.
The form she was supposed to adopt years ago appeared - a demon god called Gashadokuro threatened the two warriors.

Yet, Takiyashahime still lost - or one might say that she caused her own defeat.
Had she endured Mitsukuni's taunts like a youkai would have, she would not have summoned such a huge army of demons and needlessly tired herself.
Had she kept her composure upon noticing Hidesato instead of turning into a Gashadokuro, she could have properly led her army.

A demon princess who lost because she was too human and died because she gave in to her demonic nature.

Almost as if to say that a youkai with a human nature is not allowed to exist - something whose only fate is to be slayed by human heroes.

Personality

Part of her disguise as a princess led her to develop the mannerisms that one would expect from a high-class lady.
Objectively speaking, her behavior is flawless, but one would still feel unnerved by her presence.
Although she can hide her brutality as a youkai, she's wrapped in an air of mystery and unearthliness that hints at her true nature.

As one who abandoned the path of a demon to welcome her own individuality, she lacks the oddities that characterize Servants with a monstrous nature.

She doesn't kill for no reason.
She doesn't bare her fangs for no reason.
She doesn't seek revenge for no reason.
She doesn't love for no reason.
She doesn't weep for no reason.

Unlike the Oni who might bite the very hand that feeds them, she has the capacity to truly feel gratitude. Her actions are backed by a cold rationality that - although at times callous - is undeniably a logic that one can't reject as senseless.

She has a good eye for the assessment of others, and is quick and accurate in her judgments of them. But she does not lack in bias - when confronted with those she's at odds with, her description of their character is more akin to verbal abuse.

She's self-centered at her core and whatever action she might take - whether salvation or extermination - is done with her personal goals as the first priority. If she seeks revenge or wishes to save someone, it is because she does not want to experience feeling of boiling rage at the thought of those who wronged her or anguish for the death of those whose company she enjoyed.

It might sound like a roundabout way to deny her love for others, but it is not: Satsukihime prioritized her own ego over her calling, and Takiyashahime selfishly sought to plunge the human world in a mountain of corpses for pure personal satisfaction. It is self-evident what kind of individual she is.

She's seems like a hard-worker who is very thorough in the tasks she's assigned to complete, but she's fundamentally lazy.
She doesn't half-ass things, but rather looks for "the easiest way to exist".

Submitting to Taira no Masakado's contract as a familiar guaranteed her safety and his rebellion against the emperor was so bothersome because it threatened the luxurious life she enjoyed as a princess. That's her general thought process.

As a result, she displays no pride. She can bow her head for help without hesitation or shamelessly admit her uselessness if it's true, but because she's not being pathetic or desperate in her words or expressions, she instead comes off as admirable rather than undignified.

Despised by youkai, she in turn despises them for their arrogance.
Despised by humans, she in turn despises them for their arrogance.
It's not hatred - which is as intense as it is fleeting - but a general distrust that makes her always ready for the worst outcome.
A pessimist at heart.

Therefore, she stands alone, fighting everyone and helping no one.
In battles, aside from her contractor, she won't help even her allies.
Of course, she doesn't expect help neither.

She considers herself neither demon nor human, but because "being a demon" is a saying commonly used by humans to insult another, she self-deprecatingly calls herself such.

Since she's so harsh with herself, she can't admit feelings of affection neither: she claims "I didn't love Masakado" and although it may be true, she would be secretly pleased if he were summoned as a Servant.

Belonging to nowhere, she possesses a side where she can be genuinely happy when she has a place to call "home". Thus, her rage towards the detestable Fujiwara no Hidesato - who stole that happiness from her - must have been natural in her eyes.

Relationships

Tawara Touta: Cold, but not outright hostile. If one of the two enters the room, the other will immediately leave.

That sort of relationship.

She can't identity the jovial archer with the brutal swordsman, so she just occasionally observes and belittles him. And to him, the princess is an odd existence that confuses his beliefs.

One should never point out that her assessment of the archer as conditionally kind and ruthless is similar to her own disposition.

• "Carefully empathetic to those he cherishes and ruthlessly cruel against those he deems evil. A human hero, they say. Indeed, I will not argue against that. A dog of the masses who answers their pleas by slaying what they deem to be hideous - that's what a hero is, no? The bowman who has yet to slay my master - surely he hates me, for I existed as a fiend who trampled upon the innocents oppressed by the emperor he served. I wonder, does my presence prompt him to question his own principles?"

• "Masakado's... I see. I might be stung by her sharp tongue if I get near, so I'll just keep my distance. Still, my future self sure saw something unexpected - even a skeleton can weep like that... Mmm."

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Minamoto no Raikou: As a manner of fact, they get along - correction, Raikou pampers her while Takiyashahime threads lightly around her. Like the daughter of your superior whom you don't dare to displease in fear of retribution... something like that.

Because Raikou as a Berserker is dominated by her monstrous nature, she's unable to see Takiyashahime - who is favored by Gozu Tennou - as a demon princess.

• "A demon who struggles to be human, appreciated by a monster-slayer who is more akin to the preys she hunts than the humans she serves? The will of heaven must have hired a jester, for this certainly sounds like the sort of play that even Masakado might have praised. Gozu Tennou birthed something whose mentality is beyond any of his calamities."
  
  
• "Master, Mother must definitely apologize to that cute princess later. I thought she was an insect and drew my blade, but I was completely mistaken. Unlike Kintoki, she's so well-mannered and polite! Ahh, I must protect her from insects! There you are, Takiyashahime. Come here and let me pamper you."

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Shuten-douji: One could say that the Dragon King who gave information to Tawara Touta - leading to Masakado's assassination - is almost the same being as the entity that brought the drunk demon known as Shuten-douji in this world.

They lived in the same era and to Shuten-douji, seeing the skeleton princess struggling with her nature as a youkai was an amusing sight that accompanied her sake well.

• "Dragon King, Kuzuryuu...! So your filthy spawn dirties even these white corridors. Is it so entertaining to aid humanity while also culling its numbers? You are not indecisive, merely a repugnant snake who claims divinity. May the descendants of Kōga Saburō, who absorbed your Authority, drain you to nothing."

• "Eheheh. She's still so pathetic, how cute."

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Kiyohime: Similar... or that's what they think. Comrades of a sort due to having suffered under "Hell's Kitchen Benienma Edition". Kiyohime passes an apparently sound judgment upon Takiyashahime, but ends up only describing herself.

To Takiyashahime, Kiyohime is a crazy one-dimensional girl that only cares about love, so she doesn't have much to say to her. She seems more interested in assessing Kiyohime's rank as a youkai, because that's all she sees her as. Although she values selfishness as what defines a human, there's no point to it if it's focused on a single obsession.

• "It pains me, but I must approve of that selfishness. "Love"... is that how you would define it? It is nothing but a one-sided dream sprouting from the obsession of that nure-onna (snake woman). She will never obtain what she seeks, so she lies to herself while despising lies - perhaps I should reevaluate her as a hannya honnari, a jealous monster beyond salvation."
  
  
• "Ah, lying is punishable by death. Liars are unpleasant. I hate, hate, hate them. But a maiden in love that lies to herself... in a way, it's wonderful. Why not just admit that she loved Lord Masakado?"

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Osakabehime: Similar... and they definitely are. Comrades of a sort due to having suffered under "Hell's Kitchen Benienma Edition". Both are pretend princesses, but the bat is just bad at it while the skeleton is too good in her act and just creates an elegant-but-actually-a-monster contrast.

Osakabehime excels at foretelling good fortune while Takiyashahime's curses are on the level of natural disasters - how to say this, aren't they a terrifying combination?

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Benienma: Female youkai that somehow qualify as Heroic Spirits are somehow forced into the course "Hell's Kitchen Benienma Edition" to polish their cooking skills, or so the nightmarish tales go. Regardless of Takiyashahime constantly denying any sort of romantic feeling she had for her master Masakado, everyone just nods while smiling arrogantly - how frustrating.

Once, a demon princess whose motto is "take it easy" was being taught by an iron chef that pretended steely discipline - she was punished, the end. But the only way to escape the cooking course is to graduate, so she's still doomed.

Cooking aside, they are on relatively good terms and Takiyashahime respectfully (fearfully) calls the sparrow Beni-sensei. But Takiyashahime, a pessimist at heart, still expects for the sparrow to revert to her status as a judge of hell and punish her sins, so the mood around them is always a bit gloomy.

"It's unbelievable for me to say this, but that immortal demon Masakado was actually a good influence on her, chirp. If she had her master, she might actually exert a modicum of effort to impress him."

• "Humans are overly arrogant when it comes to their achievements, but they occasionally come up with something that strikes even at my absent heart. Instant noodles...! Cooked in boiling water and ready in three mere minutes. Bothering to actually work in the kitchen is a relic of the pa- (a chirping sound abruptly makes her break into cold sweat)."
  
  
• "Living skeletons are the epitome of sloth, for they walk this earth while accomplishing nothing, chirp. That's a thought process that is nothing short of flawless, yes? And when you think of an useless waste of space, Takiyashahime inevitably comes to mind, no? If you can only cause trouble, you might as well disappear. When it comes to cutting corners, I can't deny that she's demon lord class, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if she accidentally severed her own bony fingers. However, the kitchen is my realm, and I have taken over Chaldea's canteen. A pathetic life-sucker praising unhealthy instant food as superior to my multi-course kaiseki that makes even the kami weep in joy - you have guts to mock me this openly, chirp! I will beat some sense into that ignorant skull of yours until you crawl back to your grave, then I'll drag you to a centuries-long special course when you are sentenced to hell!"

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Murasaki Shikibu: One goes mad with the resurgence of the ancient grudge she contained until the moment she would meet her old foe, and one acknowledges that it is the princess' selfishness that makes her human. Not even a relationship, just a confrontation that inevitably sheds blood - although surprisingly not a one-sided slaughter as one might think.

• "Fujiwara no Kaeruko... Fujiwara... ah, ahahahah! I see. If you introduce yourself as such, it is only proper for me to announce the designation granted to me. Familiar of the immortal demon Taira no Masakado, Satsukihime. Gozu-Tennou calls me Takiyashahime and your arrogant kind calls me Gashadokuro. Arrogant, arrogant indeed! To so carelessly reveal your lineage! Did you place your hopes on my humanity? But are you not aware that human grudges last an eternity, arrogant woman? If the bowman can't sate my revenge, his descendants will!"
  
  
• "Humans are humans, and youkai are youkai. She's a terrible being that only spread death and misery... but that's how humans are, aren't they?"
  

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Robin Hood: Those who are exiled, those who are rejected, those who can't fit in - do they gather as if commanded by fate? They normally don't mind each other, but their personalities can occasionally create friction. Takiyashahime hates the sage's indecisiveness when it comes to justice and Robin Hood hates the princess' callousness.

She is kind to those she likes but ruthlessly cruel to everyone else.

He is dishonest and cold on the surface, but a virtuous man at his core.

Deepening their bond actually worsens their relationship. A pair of recluses that get along only as acquaintances.

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Mochizuki Chiyome: A supreme sense of satisfaction, but not out of sadism.

Koga Saburo's descendants are still afflicted by the curse of Yamata-no-Orochi (Kuzuryuu) - therefore, Kuzuryuu's shame at having his power stolen by a mere human hasn't faded yet

Notes

Turns out that writing female Servants is unexpectedly hard. I noticed that all my sheets so far are males only.

There weren't any female historical figures I was too interested in, specifically because I couldn't come up with a good twist. At first, I wanted to depict Jeanne de Clisson as an Avenger, but my mental image of her was way too similar to Dantes. Instead, I turned to Japanese lore since it has a bunch of female youkai.

Rather than a witch who later turns demon, she was a demon all along - I suppose that's my twist. The idea of a Rider/Caster that commands an army of demons sounded way too boring, but my main motivation for the twist was to display her character as a "human demon" that's the complete opposite of monstrous Servants that have a screw loose in their head, even the seemingly normal ones like Tomoe.

Writing the Skills and Noble Phantasm (except the army type) was fun, but I hit a block in the history and personality section. I managed to pull it off, but others may consider them dragged out (her history is definitely long, WTF).

As I said before, I wasn't a fan of Takiyashahime as a witch who commands an demonic army, which is why I even made her army-type Noble Phantasm what is basically a suicidal move since she was offed not too long after that. Making her mount a skeleton mecha was too good to pass up. Her third Noble Phantasm is a bonus that I wrote after rewatching Bakemonogatari, but it's actually a wordplay that people in the past were way too obsessed with, so it does have a solid basis.

Honestly, not too happy with the end result, but I'd feel worse not publishing it after hours of work and research.

Takiyashahime was actually mentioned in Benienma's profile as one of the female youkai Servants that got dragged into Hell's Kitchen, so that's neat.

[Skull]

Phew, finally done. Personally I don't think it's among the top three Sheets I've ever created, but I'm glad to have had a reason to get off my arse and finish it once and for all after like 2 years.

- - - Updated - - -

The Assassin from Shaolin

"Protecting others, training and healthy living - everything comes back to good

Breath

"Neigong"

. Fear upsets breathing, but overcome it with courage and your breath will never fail you. Truly, courage is humanity's greatest strength!""


[SOURCE]

True Name: Hong Mei
Title: "The Scarlet Devil"
Origin: Legendary
Region: China (Qing Dynasty)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Armament: Shoes (protecting one's feet is important!)
Likes: Children, Reading
Dislikes: Governments, Those Who Use Martial Arts to Kill
Talents: Martial Arts, Qi Manipulation
Natural Enemy: Bak Mei

Parameters:
STG (C), END (D), AGI (A+), MGI (E), LCK (D), NP (-)

Appearance:

Hong Mei has aqua-blue eyes and long, scarlet hair that symbolizes her name. She wears a traditional green Chinese dress with white pants and green cloth slip on shoes. Atop her head she wears a green beret which has a gold star on the front with the Traditional Chinese character "龍" that means "dragon" in English.

Personality:

The cool headed and elegant beauty. Hong Mei is generally an easy going person and humble enough to use polite speech to her Master regardless of their status. Her earnest pursuit of martial arts has lead her to be a little air-headed or even naïve when it comes to subjects outside of her expertise. But in combat she transforms into a fierce fighter who fights calmly and without fear no matter who she's facing. Although she will fight dutifully without a word, inside she is tormented around the concept of having to kill the other Servants as she worries that she is walking down the same path as her murderous student Bak Mei. This hesitation is extremely dangerous as if it manifests at the wrong moment during a battle it could result in the opponent being able to strike Hong Mei down in a fight she would have been otherwise able to win.

Her Wish Upon the Holy Grail? To have given her past self a little more time to have prevented the tragedy of the Five Elders and the downfall of the Shaolin Temple.

Skills:

Class Skills:

Presence Concealment - (D)
The capacity to hide one's presence as a Servant. Hong Mei cannot "disappear" but the ability to mask her Qi makes it difficult to perceive her and thus has granted her this Skill in low rank. She can hide her presence from ordinary humans but Servants will be able to detect her once they are within close range.

Personal Skills:

Clairvoyance - (B)
The ability to perceive beyond what is physically possible, commonly known as "Extra Sensory Perception". As a grandmaster of Tàijíquán, Hong Mei is capable of seeing and discerning the shapes of energies and auras within the body of others. It is useful for gauging the strength of others before a fight as well as detecting hidden enemies. At higher ranks, it is even possible that the bearers of this Skill have acquired abilities such as in Hong Mei's case having limited precognition ('future vision') during combat.

Intersection of Yin and Yang - (B)
An ability possessed by all humans to switch their own nature. The core concept of Tàijíquán is achieving duality of Yin and Yang. By reversing the flow of one's Qi, Hong Mei is able to fill herself with Yang energy that allows her strength output to exceed what her muscles would normally be capable of. Even as an older woman, Hong Mei was still able to channel her Yang energy to match a young man in terms of strength. However, being summoned into the prime of her youth has given her an overabundance of Yin energy and the imbalance has caused a Rank Down.

Seeking the Truth of Martial Arts - (A)
A Skill granted to those who purely, wholeheartedly refines their martial arts, ignoring social position, prestige, riches and romance. In order to become the grandmaster of Tàijíquán as well as the leader of a Shaolin temple, Hong Mei had to pursue her craft at the expense of all worldly pleasures. This Skill is equal to Chinese Martial Arts (A++) as well as granting strong Mental Resistance.

Noble Phantasm:

[As a martial artist, Hong Mei does not possess a "true" Noble Phantasm. But nevertheless her skill in Tàijíquán was unprecedented and represents her legend.]

Supreme Ultimate Fist

Crimson Dragon Dance

[Type: Anti-Unit Attack], [Rank: N/A], [Maximum Range: 1 Metre], [Maximum Number of Targets: 5]

By increasing the flow of Qi throughout her body until the very limit and then beyond, Hong Mei is able to drastically go beyond her physical limits - the Qi exuding off her body becomes visible even to normal people - appearing like a red mist swirling around and engulfing her as she strikes a multitude of times, each strike lifting both her and the enemy off of the ground and further into the air before finishing with a final kick so hard it slams the opponent back down and into the ground. To the average person, all they will see is the visage of a crimson dragon biting into the opponent and dragging them into the sky before striking them down in its divine wrath. This can be preformed entirely on one person, or at a push on five opponents although the damage will be lessened due to being distributed amongst them. However, this technique has one major flaw which is the taxing nature of overclocking one's Qi can lead to one's death if they aren't careful and even for a Grandmaster, Hong Mei needs an entire day to rest after preforming this technique.

Lore:

Deep in Southern China in the Fujian Province, there existed a Shaolin Temple known as "Changlin". Outside of normal duties, the temple acted as a place of refuge for other Shaolin Monks who had been the victims of a crackdown by the Qing government as the Qianlong Emperor was afraid of an uprising due to the monks' growing influence in China and wanted them to be supressed throughout the land. Hong Mei had become the Grandmaster of Tàijíquán and the leader of Changlin during these turbulent times. Her charisma and diplomatic strategies created a fragile balance that shielded southern China against much government suppression. Over time she raised and trained many students at the temple, but five children in particular rose above the others and became masters in their own right.

Eventually the time came where Hong Mei became too old to lead and so she had to choose a successor to be the head of the temple. Everyone was expecting it to be Bak Mei who was the strongest but to everyone's shock, Hong Mei chose Ji Sin instead for his calm and reasonable attitude over Bak Mei's powerful but overly violent fighting style. Bak Mei initially acceded to the decision but after Hong Mei passed away everything changed. Bak Mei got in contact with the Qing government and convinced them that without Hong Mei, the Changlin temple would be easily crushed and so leading a force of Qing military troops, Bak Mei stormed Changlin and killed everyone that got in his way until he had burned the entire temple to the ground - forever destroying his master's legacy.

Relationships:

Arthur/Artoria - Sympathises with them over one's successor rebelling and destroying what you've created.

Li Shuwen (Young) - Hong Mei cannot stand the brutality of Li as she believes that martial arts must not be used to take life.

Li Shuwen (Old) - Together they sit down over a cup of tea and discuss life, politics and trying to bridge the divide between Northern and Southern martial arts in China.

Mordred - Senses the same spirit within her as Bak Mei, simply cannot get along with her.

Qin Shi Huang - Communication completely breaks down as the Emperor dismisses Hong Mei as yet another student of Confucius that must be destroyed.

Creator's Notes:

Well blow me down, I finally gave in and made a Gender-Bend, though that's more to do with the Touhou character "Hong Meiling" being based on Hong Mei and thus I just took that to its logical conclusion and made the latter into a Meiling-face genderbend.

Probably the shortest Lore section I've ever written as there's barely any info on this legendary figure. Though I doubt anyone's complaining given how ridiculously long my Lore sections can get.

[King of Padoru]

Fear upsets breathing, but overcome it with courage and your breath will never fail you. Truly, courage is humanity's greatest strength!

Spoiler:

She's actually very interesting