There is light, and heat, and the scent of burning copper wiring from within the summoning circle. A bond is formed, a ragged thread tying your fate to the spiritual being before you. Your hand burns as your command seals form, dying it red with a sigil vaguely shaped like a bird in flight, and despite the connotations such an image might bring, you feel as if you’ve taken on a heavy weight. Before you stands a sad old man, who looks at you with a certain air of regret.
“So you are my master… I’m sorry about that.”
Class: Rider
Other Classes: Assassin, Caster, Shielder
True Name: Daedalus
Alignment: Neutral Good
Place of Origin: Ancient Greece
Parameters and Class SkillsSTR: DRiding: C+
END: C
AGI: C
MGI: A
LCK: B
Rider was the first man to fly under his own power. Despite this, he has few other anecdotes involving riding, besides his time building ships for Crete's navy, and as such his riding skill is merely middle of the road except when piloting machines he’s built himself.
Magic Resistance: C
Rider was a man who lived in the age of gods, however as there are few anecdotes that involve him clashing with magic users, a truth that leaves him with a middling resistance to magic, canceling spells of two chants or below.
Personality
Likes: Architecture, Puzzles, Machines
Dislikes: Himself, flaws in otherwise fine machines
Talent: Mechanical Engineering
Natural Enemy: Icarus, Perdix, Himself
Armament: a pair of brass wings, various tools
Catalyst: A piece of bronze statuary from ancient Crete
Rider is a somber old man who has spent so long regretting his decisions that he has become comfortable with sadness, making other emotions somewhat alien and unwelcome. For example, if Rider is happy, he will wonder why such a thing could ever come to pass for someone like him. If anger strikes him, his thoughts will be muddled and he will stop at nothing to catch himself before he does anything foolish. Rider is a man completely mired in regret.
This certain sadness that runs through him is born from his guilt, for the man known as Daedalus has the blood of his kin on his hands. Perhaps if he were in another class he would be better equipped to handle his guilt, but as Rider he cannot so easily escape them.
Rider will seek redemption. He will try to act the part of a wise teacher for his master, or even seek the role of a father figure if they are young enough, however a combination of his regrets and his penchant for self-sabotage will invariably cause him to feel like a failure.
Despite being a ball of survivor's guilt roughly in the shape of a human man, there are things Rider can still take pleasure in. This new era fascinates Rider, and to see the progression of art and architecture from his time to the present day gives him a sense of pride that almost distracts him from his regrets. His work on new projects can also be a welcome distraction. He genuinely seems to enjoy a show from a certain television channel that goes through the process of creating the marvels of the modern age, even if it's the kind of thing that could put his master to sleep.
Personal Skills
Elusive Target: C
Rider was hunted for much of his later life, but he always managed to be just one step ahead of his pursuer until the incident at the court of King Cocalus. This, combined with his unstoppable escape from the tower in Crete, has manifested into an enhanced ability to elude capture and avoid those who seek to bring him down. This skill does not hide Rider’s presence, it merely makes it difficult to pin him down, and differs from escape artist in that it seeks merely to avoid capture rather than escape from the jaws of a trap already closed.
If Rider is retreating, it is difficult to catch up to him.
Engineer of Marvels (Flawed): A-
Rider is a genius engineer from the age of the gods, and as such he has the combination of knowledge and innovative drive to plan, build, and modify most mundane feats of engineering. At a glance he can appraise any structure and find the weaknesses in its construction, so that he can shore them up or tear them down with relative ease.
In practice, this skill is almost akin to Item Construction and Conceptual Improvement, however, it implicitly requires raw materials and a time investment, and is much more involved than either of those skills.
Despite his mastery, Rider’s creations will always have one fatal flaw, a weakness that shall undo his work, and reduce them to brittle, broken trinkets. This extends even and especially to objects created by his Noble Phantasm. Even if he tries to design around these imperfections, his self-sabotage is on a conceptual level, as in myth, every one of his most famous inventions held within themselves a flaw that rendered them useless, and these flaws will only reveal themselves to him after the work is complete.
Magecraft: C+
Rider may have been a denizen of the age of gods but magic never came easy to him, so he shifted his focus from it to engineering. That said, even a third rate mage from the age of gods has impressive abilities in these modern times. Rider’s magecraft has a heavy focus on reinforcement and discerning solutions to problems in conjunction with his Engineer of Marvels skill. He can also use his magecraft to weaken the structure of something, causing it to fall apart or break.
Territory Creation: E
Perhaps in another class, Rider would be able to construct a grand workshop fit for a king among inventors, but as a rider his ability is limited to the creation of a humble space within which he may draft new designs and craft tools in relative peace.
Additionally, his Elusive Target Skill is sealed while within his workshop, and is replaced with Escape Artist and Disengage of equivalent rank for as long as he is within it, a reminder of his captivity.
Lore
Rider is Daedalus, the Cretan Architect of the Labyrinth and designer of many marvels of the ancient world. Although such an entity needs no introduction, I will provide a truncated version of his life, to contextualize the sorry thing that calls himself Rider.
Born in ancient Crete during the age of Gods, and claiming descent from Hephaestus, Daedalus was always marked by destiny for great and terrible things. As a young man he built automata in the image of the gods that moved on their own and were so lifelike that mortals trembled in their presence. He planned architectural projects the likes of which are unmatched to this day. The ships he built for Crete’s navy were unrivaled in their speed and strength. He was even commissioned to cast a hollow bronze bull for his queen, though if he knew what it was to be used for or the consequences it would bring on himself and his son, he wouldn’t have built it.
In the wake of Asterios the Minotaur’s birth Daedalus was conscripted to modify The Labyrinth, originally a summer palace for the king, into a great maze from which none could escape to house the monster he helped create. As punishment for the role he played in the birth of the beast and so that the Labyrinth’s secrets could never be revealed, a tower was built at its center where he and his son Icarus would remain until they died, creating ever more wonders for King Minos.
To escape this tower Daedalus and his son built wings of bronze and wax and the feathers of birds and flew away from their prison. As we all know, Icarus revels in the beauty of flight and soars too close to the sun, melting the wax and sending him plummeting into the sea. Upon landing in Sicily, Daedalus in his grief offered his wings to the temple of Athena, and was chased by King Minos across the island until the incident at the court of the King Cocalus, when Minos was slain by Cocalus' daughter.
Daedalus eventually found his way to Athens and began working in the city as an artisan. There he gained an apprentice, his nephew Perdix, whose ingenuity and artistic skill matched and even exceeded his own. As years went by Daedalus harbored seeds of resentment that bloomed upon Perdix’s invention of the Saw. Daedalus lured his Nephew to a cliff near the Acropolis, where he pushed the young man off into the airy void. In response, Athena transformed Perdix into a Partridge, and stamped his image onto Daedalus’ shoulder as an eternal reminder of his guilt. He was driven from Athens shortly thereafter for the murder, and it is there that mythology loses sight of him.
Of his death we know nothing, but posthumously his name became synonymous with tools of the finest quality, and the most skilled among artisans would be honored by his name. This legacy is betrayed by the broken man you see before you.
Noble Phantasms
Daidala Pteron
The Wings of Miraculous Genius
Type: Anti-Unit (Self)
Rank: A
What else could Rider’s primary Noble Phantasm be? One might say the Labyrinth, and in another form that may well be true, but in his current state his wings take precedence.
Manifesting a pair of mechanical wings, this is a tool for mobility unparalleled in its age and unmatched until the advent of modern aviation.
These are an always active Noble Phantasm that draws magical energy from the air and converts it into thrust, allowing Rider to fly like a bird and claim mastery over the sky. A marvel among marvels, this tool has been returned to Rider as a Servant, despite having given them up as an offering to Athena in life.
Daidala Pteron grants a great bonus to Rider's Speed, speed in addition to the power of flight, but they are also weak to attacks founded on heat or water, and are overall incredibly fragile
Daidala Hephaestus
The Works of Dirtied Hands
Type: Creation
Rank: E-C
Rider’s first noble phantasm represents those trinkets that bear his name, and the last connection to divinity that in his guilt he has not suppressed. It is better not to sully the gods’ names by his connection, yet still he holds this small thread of familiarity.
The word Daidala originally referred to automata made in the likeness of the gods crafted by Rider himself, but over time the word propagated and became a term describing all kinds of technological achievements by which greek society was built, from earthworks to writing utensils, from simple brass trinkets to dazzling swords. In other words, the Daidala are the tools early society used to build themselves up.
In another form, Rider’s more famous feats would doubtless be immortalized over this, however for a guilty man to find solace in what little good his name has brought is only natural.
Rider can spend time to craft a simple, E rank Noble Phantasm of any kind, limited only by the requirements that it be an object incorporating brass that it be, “A Tool For Human Use.” Once built, this Noble Phantasm exists in the world and can be used by anyone. This may be a cloak of invisibility, a sword that seeks the blood of an enemy, a bottomless bag, or some other wondrous object. The only unifying feature of these objects is the glaring flaws in their design that will undo all of that object's effects and render them utterly mundane, as specified in his Engineer of Marvels (Flawed) skill. In situations where time is of the essence Rider can project his Artificial Noble Phantasms at the cost of them instantly breaking after they are used once. The construction of such an object takes time and resources, and by putting considerable time into a single project he could conceivable build something of Rank D or even C.
Nevertheless, for all their usefulness, trafficking with one such as Rider begets ruin, and while those who wield his tools may be lifted to heights of success, there lies within these things a truth: that all who rise must someday fall…
The Fall
Daidala Icarus
Glory Begetting Ruin
Type: Anti-Unit
Rank: EX
If that were all, Daidala Hephaestus alone would be a powerful Noble Phantasm, but there is an unsightly and insidious other side to it.
All of Rider’s works carry with them a stigma that attaches itself to those who use them, a black mark in the shape of a partridge that appears on the right shoulders of those affected. Rider can sense the locations of these marks, and can generally understand the identity of a marked individual.
Upon the calling of its True Name, Rider can choose one or many of these marks to activate. They will begin to draw in Magical energy from the atmosphere in a manner similar to Rider’s wings, and will use it to channel reinforcement magic into the target. They will suddenly become stronger, smarter, more efficient and skillful at whatever task they put their mind to. Humans affected by this Noble Phantasm could even trouble a weak or distracted servant for a short time, and servants will begin to more closely resemble their ideal selves. Accompanying this meteoric rise in power is unmatched euphoria, joyful madness, and in some cases outright megalomania as the target soars far above their wildest dreams.
At the apex of their revels, however, the unavoidable “sun” crushes all hope. Muscles reinforced beyond their limits become stiff and brittle before igniting from their own friction as they strain against each other, minds sharpened to needle points engage in monomaniacal obsessions, and as their bodily functions and magical circuits streamline themselves to the point of simple baseline functioning, the nature of Rider’s Noble Phantasm reveals itself: an ascension in service to a calamitous descent. It may be possible to survive this with some form of Battle Continuation, or a powerful will, or even magecraft intended to weaken the target, however whatever survives may not have a life worth living.
Sublimating the deaths of the two children in his care with the essence of facilitating a flight too close to the sun, this is Rider’s shame incarnate. His grief lies in his wings, his guilt weighing heavily upon his shoulder.
It should be noted that Rider can use this Noble Phantasm on himself, however this is a death sentence and will progress him to the state of egomania in which he saw fit to kill his own nephew, so masters ought to beware this, even as a last resort.
Creator Notes
This is the last servant I made of a batch of fourteen for a play by post TTRPG I tried to run once, unsuccessfully, and I like him quite a bit. Figured it would be fitting to make him my inaugural post. The conceit of the game was that someone had fucked up an Apocrypha style grail ritual by dying and letting it gather mana for too long, so a when it was activated long after it was supposed to, it triggered a true war with classic servants and an “aberrant” war of extra classes, some of which I had to make up cause I’m not giving somebody a ruler class servant and the moon cell didn’t exist to get cancer. Daedalus was Mirror, which was my idea for a class that was based solely on how a character related to someone else in their legend, thus his sheet and character revolves around the kids that died on his watch. I’ll probably post most of the others, maybe change a few so that they aren’t rip-offs of stuff posted here already (I took an honestly embarrassing amount of inspiration from here).
I hope you’ll bear with me, I feel like I know enough about the lore for unearned confidence but too little to not annoy people who’re real sticklers about it, and if that is the case, I am sorry. I've tried to copy some of the cool formatting stuff I've seen elsewhere but I'm new to the system so I hope to get better as I go along. I'm happy with it at the moment but feels half-baked to my perfectionist mind.
Notes:
-I think he's a little too castery, but I feel like a lot of the caster-ness is essential to the kind of character this is, and Caster Daedalus has a lot more emphasis on the Labyrinth I feel
-there are parallels to EMIYA in here on a couple of this guy's abilities, and that's mostly on purpose I think.
-in the TTRPG he was built for, his master was a homunculus built to house Asterios as a pseudo-servant, and was described to me as "Mash but she was locked in her basement for three years and went feral," which informed the emphasis on the sad dad aspect of Rider's character.
-The Face Claim is not ideal
-originally this guy had one NP just called Daidala that did everything his other three did, but that felt just a bit excessive. feels like you can argue that its still excessive, but what am I gonna do about it besides remake the whole thing
-I thought it was pretty funky that Daedalus has a feat about building moving statues of the gods when in T/M lore (I’m pretty sure) they’re alien mechas. Maybe there’s something there, but I dunno.
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