"Stars! Hide your fires! Let light not see my dark and deep desires..."
General Information
True Name: Mac Bethad mac Findlaích (Macbeth, son of Findlay)
Class: Berserker
Gender: Male
Other Qualifying Classes: Saber, Assassin
Title: The King of Tragedies
Alignment: Lawful Evil/Lawful Mad
Country of Origin: Scotland
Source: Historical Record (c. 1005-1057)/Literature (1606)
Likes: Being King, stability, travelling across the moors
Dislikes: "The Scottish Play", English invasions, "witches"
Talents: Acquiring Promotions
Natural Enemies: Edward the Confessor, "Hecate", William Shakespeare
CV: [EN] JB Blanc (Ares, Marvel's Future Avengers)
[JP] Takeshi Kaga (Golbez, Dissidia Final Fantasy)
Armament:
Spoiler:
Parameters
Strength: (B) A
Endurance: (B) A
Agility: (D) C
Mana: C
Luck: E
Noble Phantasm: B+
Class Skills
Mad Enhancement
The Class Skill that characterizes a Berserker, raising basic parameters and strengthens one's physical abilities in exchange of hindering mental capacities and/or in exchange for their sense of reason.
- C-: Rank Upin all Parameters except Mana and Luck. Communication is possible, but, due to Innocent Monster, Berserker's conversational skills are limited entirely to quoting the play he hates with a seething passion. Thus, he opts to limit his dialogue where possible.
Personal Skills
Innocent Monster
An attribute possessed by Servants whose history and existence have been distorted by the monstrous reputations they accrued across the course of their life and thereafter. As a consequence, the Servant's abilities and appearance have been rendered to conform to the specifications of their legend. Incidentally, this personal skill cannot be removed.
- A: Had he been summoned as a Saber or within his own homeland of Scotland, Macbeth may have been able to manifest as Mac Bethad the Red King. A monarch who won his throne through war and bloodshed, but otherwise had a relatively stable and peaceful reign until its final years, wherein an invasion by England and a breakdown of relations between Scotland's many thanes sparked the conflict that saw him killed. As Berserker or Assassin, however, Shakespeare's twisted fallen hero overlaps his own Spirit Graph; warping his appearance, Skills and Noble Phantasms to better fit the man feared, reviled and even pitied as the King of Tragedies.
Battle Continuation
A Skill that allows for the continuation of combat after sustaining mortal wounds. It will also reduce mortality rate from injury. This Skill represents the ability to survive and/or the mentality of one who doesn't know when to give up, consisting of one's strength of vitality in predicaments. It is also one of the powers of a vampire.
- -: This Skill has been absorbed into his Noble Phantasm, No Man of Woman Born.
Blessing of the Goddess [False]
A Skill that denotes one being blessed by a goddess. This "blessing" is in fact untrue; often a fabrication of one's own zealotry or a conflation of lore.
- A-: A "gift from Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic" (read: William Shakespeare), in the form of her crest on his breastplate. Under its effect, it gives him a Magic Resistance of A as well as a B-Rank in Mana Burst [Shadow]. However, Hecate's "gift" is fickle and fleeting; each consecutive time he fails a Luck ability check, his Magic Resistance Ranks Down until it is grossly negligible, and even a rank amateur at witchcraft could dominate his fate.
Wakefulness
The power to always remain alert, regardless of fatigue.
- A: "Macbeth does murder sleep." At this rank, one is immune to the concept of "fatigue" and "sleep". Not even mental interference or sleep-inducing spells can slow or halt Berserker. In conjunction with No Man of Woman Born, this makes Berserker's rampages nigh unstoppable as he will never falter nor slow on his warpath.
Noble Phantasms
A Life Charmed and Unhallowed
No Man of Woman Born
Type: Anti-Unit [Self]
Rank: B+
According to Shakespeare's play, Berserker was a man ruled by prophecy--the most notable of which surrounded his own death; foretold by witches of Hecate to him. This prophecy being that "no man of woman born" could ever slay him. This fabricated fate materialises as a Noble Phantasm that gives him the curse of semi-immortality. No matter how grievous a wound he sustains, whether he is incinerated, his heart destroyed, reduced to a pool of blood or apparently atomised, if the individual who struck him was 'born of a woman', Berserker will regenerate fully from the attack in a matter of mere moments. In combination with Wakefulness, his threshold for pain is wherein his danger in a Holy Grail War lies; few enemies can truly harm him, let alone kill him. Life is but a walking shadow, a wretched ghoul, Berserker is to the naked eye little more than an empty 'immortal". Trudging from one fight to the next; nigh unstoppable physically, and never seeming to tire.
However, this curse of immortality is not without its limitations. Due to the malignant nature of the witches of Hecate, the definition of "man of woman born" includes a variety of loopholes; the most famous, represented by the man that slew Berserker in his original life, being those born under such emergency procedures as a C-section; "untimely ripp'd" as opposed to naturally birthed. Servants born of a non-human nature - such as Beasts, homunculi, the children of Elementals or goddesses, etc. - can also bypass this curse to inflict potentially mortal wounds on Berserker. Furthermore, his regenerative ability still has its upper limits. While a severed limb could, in theory, be reconnected? Berserker, or his Master, would need to fetch the severed limb and hold it up to Berserker so that he may be able to sew himself back together. Finally, Noble Phantasms of a higher tier of existence than a witch's prophecy, such as the holy sword Excalibur, would bypass any bewitchment or protection provided by No Man of Woman Born posing extreme danger to Berserker's existence.
Wretched Blade of the Witch-King
Claidheamh Buidsichean
Type: Anti-Unit/Anti-Army
Rank: B
Berserker's broken claidheamh (a Gaelic longsword) is the manifestation of Berserker's 'dealings' with the unhallowed. However, there is the faintest smidgeon of truth to the Bard's nationalistic propaganda as much as Berserker will refuse to admit it. During the final years of his reign, when an invasion orchestrated by Edward the Confessor of England struck Scotland, Berserker had sought out and consulted the wild women of Scotland. Weird sisters who practiced herbalism and, indeed, witchcraft. However, none dabbled in the cult practices of Hecate, a Greek goddess alien and intrusive upon their culture. But so influential was the Bard's word that this false magic of a false goddess has claimed even Berserker's weapon.
Even broken, so long as Macbeth wields this claidheamh, his martial prowess and technique cannot be diminished no matter how maddened or frenzied he is.
Its true, devastating power, however, is activated upon the invocations of Macbeth’s fantastical titles: "Hail Macbeth, Thane of Glamis! Hail Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor! Hail Macbeth, for he shall be King hereafter!" The broken blade is wreathed in dark magic, generating a claymore-sized greatsword of shadowy essence. This allows Berserker to fully tap into his renowned fighting prowess with a sword more comparable in size to the blades he wielded in life. While in this state, his Mana Burst (Shadows) Skill is Ranked Up to an A-Rank, and he can - albeit, via the use of a Master’s Command Seal - create a wide-spreading dark mist ("so foul and fair a night"), able to engulf entire city blocks; its aura and presence suffocating to lesser Servants as well as most Masters on a failed Endurance check.
Lore
Berserker's true name is none other than Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, the Rí Deircc (Red King) of Alba from 1040-1057. However, thanks to a certain world-famous play of betrayal, curses, the divine right of kingship and royal propaganda by a certain Bard, he is better known around the world as Macbeth the King of Tragedies.
Little reliable history is actually available on Macbeth's life. What is known is that he was the Mormaer of Moray when King Duncan I launched his ill-fated invasion of the lands and was killed by Macbeth's forces. Thus, Macbeth himself was crowned High King of Alba, alongside his wife and queen Gruoch (the widow of the previous Mormaer of Moray, who may have been killed by his successor, in one of the few potential parallels between fact and ficiton). Despite his famed tyranny, Alba was in fact a relatively peaceful country under Macbeth's rule. That is, at least, until 1054 when Edward the Confessor and the Duke of Northumbria launched an invasion of Scotland by the English.
Thus, Macbeth turned in desperation to the weird sisters of the moors and highlands.
They offered to him their gifts of foresight. They blessed his already commendable fighting spirit with even greater power. They crafted him into a champion of Alba to defend her in its darkest hour.
Alas, alack, nothing could save Macbeth in 1057 from the forces of the future Malcolm III. Macbeth fell at the Battle of Lumphanan and his stepson Lulach joined hi m in death not long thereafter. Thus was paved the way to Malcolm's ascension. And, centuries later, his name would be further sullied and ground into the dirt by acclaimed playwright William Shakespeare. His dealings with the weird sisters were twisted into a macabre series of prophecy by a triad of acolytes to Hecate. Macbeth, no more ruthless than other warrior-kings of his era, became a cutthroat traitor who'd kill any of his former friends. His wife manipulative and toxic. His kingship false and invalid.
And this would become how the rest of the world saw him...
Personality
Astark contrast to most summoned to his Class, Berserker is often quiet and stoic. Many observe him as frequently appearing sullen, but always with an intensity in his face. He speaks few words for even his words have been stolen from him by the play. He can only speak in full sentences if those sentences are direct quotations from Shakespeare's script. Because of his silent persona, it might be easy to presume Berserker as "dumb". But in truth this is far from the case. He is a talented and steadfast warrior with a will of iron to keep on living, despite the nihilistic speeches forced upon him and the aura of hollowness he exudes.
When he commits to a task? He will see that task done. Anyone ELSE making references to "the Scottish Play" around him best beware, for Berserker may yet fly into an uncontrollable rampage at how thoroughly his legend has been 'tainted'. That said, however? There is that one American cartoon he is featured in. The one about the flying beasts of stone. That series pleases him. It treats his name with respect.
His wish for the Holy Grail is a simple one. Have a terrible "accident" befall William Shakespeare before he ever dared to write a first draft about his story. And should that accident happen to involve the man walking face-first into a certain Scot king's sword? All the better! Maybe then he could go back to being "the Red King" as he was in life. And not the King of Tragedies...