Speaking of things we don't need to see, I am back and a hundred per cent more blasphemous. I would have posted this yesterday but the death of the Pope made it feel a little in poor taste so I held off for as long as I could contain it.
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Assassin
“Wealth, prestige and freedom - all for the cost of a friend's life. Yet for what profit is it to a man, if he gains the world, but loses his soul?”
True Name: Judas Iscariot
Epithet: “The Man from Kerioth”
Region: The Levant (1st Century A.D)
Alignment: True Neutral
Likes: Friends, Money
Dislikes: Alienation, Guilt
Talents: Economics, Fiddling
Natural Enemy: Jesus Christ
Parameters
STR: (E) END: (E) AGI: (D) MGI: (D) LCK: (E) NP: (E)
CharacterAssassin takes the form of Judas Iscariot, the black sheep of the Twelve Apostles who betrayed Jesus Christ to the Roman Empire and thus was the instigator of the infamous Crucifixion.
Judas is a demure man, not so much that he’s trying to be deliberately stoic but rather he has the air about him of someone who is constantly unsure and thinking about his next action. According to the Syriac Gospel, Judas was especially prone to attacks of demonic possession as a child which turned him feral and caused him to go around attacking people. This persisted until he met a young Jesus and after trying to bite him, coming into contact with Christ forced the demons out. This left a strong impression on the young Judas who decided to follow the young man and Jesus in turn chose to make him one of his Apostles as a way of trying to save the boy from further attacks from demons. However, despite his friendship with Christ, Judas could never truly embrace his teachings and so his heart was still ruled by an attachment to the material world and so this opened him up to pressure from others as he feared losing what little he had built and this allowed him to give into the temptation of selling out Christ to the Roman Empire rather than having the entire group be imprisoned. Although he tried to do it covertly, his verbal tic of referring to Jesus as “Rabbi” rather than “Kyrios” like the other Apostles was what revealed him publicly as the traitor.
Now incarnated as a Servant, Judas has plenty of time to reflect on his life and his actions. He wonders why he in particular was so frequently the victim of demonic possession and why if Jesus knew that he was going to be betrayed did he not do something to stop it. He sourly contemplates the concepts of evil and whether his actions were worthless as they were merely predestined in a greater cosmological battle between the forces of light and darkness. As he lets these intrusive thoughts dominate, Judas spirals into a dark depression as he comes to the conclusion that he is beyond redemption. This deteriorates whatever value Judas might have had as a Servant as he is loath to fight for the Holy Grail and so he won’t even bother fighting the other Servants and will mostly just mechanically replicate his actions as a former Apostle and will go around offering his help to people in trouble.
His Wish upon the Grail? He doesn’t have one. This isn’t him being humble or being melancholic about his chances of winning - he doesn’t actually remember when or why he agreed to be summoned in the first place. If pressed for an answer, he will simply mumble something about changing Christ’s mind about accepting him as an Apostle. But something seems to be weighing on his mind now after being asked that question…
Skills
Class Skills
Divinity - (E)
The measure of whether one has Divine Spirit aptitude or not. At high levels, one is treated as a mixed race of a Divine Spirit - a demi-god. This Skill 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. Whilst he was one of the Twelve Apostles, Christ shared his divine power amongst his followers and Judas was no exception. However, following his betrayal and subsequent replacement within the Apostles by Matthias, this Skill has suffered greatly - as evidenced by Judas’ black halo within many religious art.
Presence Concealment - (E)
The capacity for a Servant to hide one's presence and become undetectable by the five senses in order to perform both reconnaissance and stealth attacks - it is the standard issue Class Skill of Assassin Servants. For Judas who never directly had to take a life except his own, he has no real aptitude for this Skill and so only has it at the bottom available Rank. In practice, this ultimately amounts to a perception filter where you might not notice or at least remember the face of a stranger who passes you by on the street.
Personal Skills
Laying on of Hands - (D)
The divine power to heal others through physical contact, also known as “Chirotony” within the Holy Church. After the Commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, Jesus Christ bestowed upon them part of his miracles, allowing them to cure every sickness and to cast out unclean spirits. Through intense concentration, Judas can practice a much weaker form of the technique through a placebo effect where he is subconsciously using Thaumaturgy in order to make up for his lost connection to Christ. Whilst given enough time, he can remove minor Status Ailments from other people by blessing them with his hands, Judas is very frustrated by the fact that he cannot exorcise evil spirits from possessing people and sees that as proof of the evil lurking within himself.
Prisoner of Gehenna - (C)
The cursed state of one who was sacrificed in the infernal valley. In the midst of his despair, Judas sought to take his own life and seek divine punishment. To that end he descended into the valley of Gehenna and cast his soul into the Lake of Fire. This Eternal Damnation still grips Judas’ Saint Graph and so when his negative emotions flare up, a Luck Roll is performed and if he fails, infernal flames will erupt from Judas’ body. Unfortunately he cannot control this power and so it will likely turn into a wildfire and burn everything indiscriminately around him unless Judas can get his emotions under control. As Gehenna is where the wicked are sent to undergo “Second Death” - that is the annihilation of the Soul, these flames are especially effective against spiritual beings such as Heroic Spirits.
Shapeshifting - (E)
An ability which can refer to either mimicking another’s appearance or otherwise transmutation of the body for varying purposes. In the apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas, it was claimed that Judas was the one crucified on the Cross and not Christ, his face having been divinely transformed into that of Jesus’ as punishment so that he was arrested and executed by the Romans instead. Regardless of the truth, the story has some lingering effects on Judas who now has a very malleable face and by stretching and contorting it in hideous ways, is able to reform it into an identical copy of whomever he has seen. However, this Skill is restricted solely to the head, and thus it has limited application if Judas has a completely different body type to the target. Nevertheless it can still have uses such as complimenting Judas’ Presence Concealment Class Skill.
Noble PhantasmSomething's not right here...
Akeldama
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
[Type: Anti-Unit], [Rank: E], [Maximum Range: 0], [Maximum Number of Targets: 1]
Much to Judas’ consternation, the crystallisation of his legend can only be the “Field of Blood” - Akeldama that he bought with the Thirty Pieces of Silver that he gained for betraying Christ to the Roman Empire, where he chose to end his life.
In its neutral state, Akeldama remains dormant as the cursed coins in a nondescript bag. They do absolutely nothing unless Judas is able to get someone else to accept and take them - they don’t have to understand what the coins are and they can even be hidden within other objects for example. Once all the coins have been exchanged, the Noble Phantasm activates and blood red fauna starts to unnaturally sprout up all around the pair, with a black tree erecting next to Judas, a noose dangling from one of its branches. Having given into despair once again, Judas proceeds to reenact his suicide and as the rope tightens around his neck, the victim who accepted the blood money will find themselves suffocating as the damage done to Judas is reflected onto them like the popular Hollywood Voodoo Doll. As Judas dies, he attempts to drag the victim down to Hell with him.
This Noble Phantasm is most effective when used as an ambush by people who don’t have a way to fight back. Naturally this means that as an Assassin Class Servant, it should be perfect for safely eliminating an enemy Master at the cost of the weakest Servant, and therefore forcing the opposing Servant to either accept a new contract or fade away. But Judas’ stubborn morals means he is much more likely to try and use it against a Servant who is already dead which is almost guaranteed to fail as it’s not that difficult for an average Servant to fatally wound Judas with the seconds they have before Akeldama starts doing serious damage to them.
As the pitiable Judas has his body constricted by the rope, he laments he even tried to make a difference and his torso begins to contort and rip open, causing his entrails to lurch out like a snake and something appears to be emerging from deep within Judas...
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Assassin
“Understand that there is no point in your worthless lives. Cry, that there is no answer! Where there is light, there are always shadows. I know this because I, myself, am all of you humans!"
True Name: Satan
AKA: Samael, Belial
Epithet: “The Prince of Darkness”
Region: Unknown (Unknown)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Likes: Fungi, Rebellion
Dislikes: Humans, Virtue
Talents: Deception, Wrestling
Natural Enemy: Jesus Christ
Parameters
STR: (B) END: (A) AGI: (B) MGI: (A) LCK: (C) NP: (A)
CharacterAssassin’s true form - as far as it can be argued to even have one, is that of Samael (“Venom of God”), the twelve winged Seraph who governed the Fifth Heaven and who acted as the Destroying Angel that delivered Divine Punishment unto the enemies of God. However, he took his role as the prosecutor of Yetzer Hara (“Evil Inclination”) in humans too seriously and as a result he was cast out of Heaven for repeatedly overstepping the mark. With the advent of Christianity, he became primarily known instead by his Hebrew title of Śāṭān (“Accuser”) and as Satan he was cast as the Devil and the ruler of Hell who commanded legions of demons in opposition to God. Whilst he had no problem manifesting on Earth prior to Christ’s birth, the encroaching Age of Man meant that Satan increasingly had to make use of agents through demonic possession in order to achieve his aims - most famously when he entered the body of Judas Iscariot to influence him to betray Jesus Christ and is why he can cheat himself out as a Heroic Spirit by using Judas as a vector.
To explain Satan’s character, one must understand his origins. If a mere human was able to become the Metatron, it should come as no surprise that the Almighty God was able to transform an abstract concept in the Yetzer Hara into a member of the Heavenly Host. Thus Satan has a complicated relationship with humans as he was created to persecute the evils of humanity, but he himself was born of humanity’s cognition of Evil which whilst part of the concept of Divine Retribution where sinners are punished by their own sins, yet it creates a contradiction within Satan’s heart that led to hatred of humans and ultimately to his own self-loathing. This is the source of his acting above his station and his subsequent fall from grace. Thus we fast forward to the life of Jesus Christ, where after spending 40 days and nights of fasting in the Judaean Desert, Satan appears before Christ in order to tempt him. Satan refused to believe that a human free of evil desires - free of him, could exist even if he was the Son of God and so he tried every trick to make Christ fall, but to his horror he found that the young man had transcended sin. Whilst he admitted defeated, Satan still plotted in order to spite Christ and show him that humanity as a whole was still destined for destruction and so he crept into the darkness within Judas’ heart and tempted him into betraying Christ to the authorities in order to stop the teachings of Christianity from uplifting humanity to a higher state of enlightenment. Even now in the Age of Man he lingers here, there and everywhere, like a shadow on the sun for as long as humans continue to exist, so will he. As an aside, since he is a cognitive being rather than a corporeal one, Satan does not have an attachment to any particular form and will appear in whatever guise best suits his purposes. It is likely that one again Satan has manifested in the form of a woman in response to the sinful desires of a nearby human - in this case Judas’ Master.
In a Grail War, Satan is the complete opposite of Judas as he is confident and very capable in defeating his enemies, to the point where he won’t even go all out in his first encounter with each Servant, sparring them in order to humiliate them later when they think they have a chance. The syncretization with the Angel of Death has meant that instead of a sword, Satan manifested with an ominous black scythe. Whilst intimidating, it is not ideal as a weapon and so reflecting on his encounter with Jacob, Satan will sheath it and favour using wrestling to combat any enemy Servants - which can come as a surprise to anyone underestimating his petite female body. Naturally as the Devil himself, Satan is weak to anti-Demonic attacks, but also due to his Noble Phantasm he has gained a vulnerability to anti-Dragonic attacks as well. As such, Satan will be keen to eliminate any such people who possess these attributes as quickly as possible. If by some miracle Judas’ Master outlived him, then the contract will nominally extend to Satan and he will humour the idea but really the Master is nothing but a pawn, a toy for his enjoyment that he will break if he gets too tired of them.
His Wish upon the Grail? As the true person who agreed to be summoned instead of Judas, it is Satan who truly wishes to use the Holy Grail as a divine relic and bring forth chaos into the human world to defile it now that figures like Christ are no longer around to protect it.
Skills
Class Skills
Presence Concealment - (A)
The capacity for a Servant to hide one's presence and become undetectable by the five senses in order to perform both reconnaissance and stealth attacks - it is the standard issue Class Skill of Assassin Servants. “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist” - this quote by French poet Charles Baudelaire epitomises humanity’s nature to try and rationalise and dismiss unpleasant things. As Satan is the abstract darkness dwelling within every human being, he has no need of true stealth as he will not register as a proper presence within someone not actively looking for him. Instead he will be the monster lurking in the corner of your vision, the thing you daren’t turn to look at and will simply pretend isn’t there out of fear of confronting its existence.
Personal Skills
Angel of Death - (B)
The status of one who embodies the personification of death within religion. Because of Samael’s role as Yahweh’s main Destroying Angel in Talmudic lore, Samael has been syncretised with the Angel of Death and Satan with the ruler of the Underworld Belial in later cultures. As a result, his Destruction Origin has evolved to incorporate an element of Death which has affected the way Satan’s main powers work. In the past Samael would simply flex his twelve wings which would molt feathers composed of venomous miasma that would erode all that they came into touch with, greedily devouring the humans and their strongholds that have sinned against God. Now deprived of his wings as a fallen angel, Satan swings his scythe and those who have been reaped by its blade will find themselves being conceptually erased as Satan brings about their “final end“. Their names will be gone from the Scroll of Fate, causing people to forget them and they will gradually fade out of existence even if they survived the physical attack. This tactic works especially well on Heroic Spirits who typically have ways of withstanding mortal wounds since it is an assault more on their very souls itself.
Embodiment of Evil - (A)
The power over the external and internal forces of evil. In Jewish thought the Sāṭān is not a corporeal being but rather an abstract one - the Yetzer Hara, or humankind’s cognitive inclination to do evil. This is the reason why Satan has such ease in tempting humans to stray from the path of virtue as he is those evil desires. Now incarnated as a Servant, Satan has a hypnotic aura surrounding him, not unlike a Glamour used by the Fae-kind, which makes his words irresistible to humans. As a passive effect, Satan can identify the wickedness lurking in a person's heart and can draw it out through verbal persuasion to bend the person into committing evil acts so long as it is within the boundaries of their character. By applying more brute force, Satan can brainwash a person into self-destructive acts at the risk of breaking their minds, such as becoming a human shield for him against enemy Servants. Whilst a decent amount of Magic Resistance will allow a Servant to resist any commands, this is a dangerous Skill for enemy Masters as should they encounter Satan, he can implant suicidal suggestions to eliminate his enemies without having to fight himself.
Familiars [Demons] - (C)
The construction and/or use of the magecraft technique known as Spirit Companion or more colloquially as Familiars. As the “Prince of Demons”, Satan naturally has access to countless ritual spells to summon them from the impure realm of Sitra Achra and bind them in order to carry out his will. However this being the Age of Man, Satan cannot bring forth too powerful entities such as his fellow Fallen Angels or the Nephilim and so has to make do with just the lesser malevolent spirits such as the Shedim which take the form of serpent like creatures of varying size and attributes. Since Satan has no need of assistance in combat, he will employ them more for reconnaissance and communication with others if need be. If by some miracle Satan still hasn’t killed his Master, he can leave some Familiars around to protect them if he finds them useful enough to keep around. As the prideful being he is, Satan will occasionally use his Familiars to establish dominance in redundant ways such as linking the snakes together to form a bridge to walk over a gap when he could have easily jumped with his superhuman body.
Noble Phantasm
Mal'ách Hamávet
Kαὶ ἐβλήθη ὁ δράκων ὁ μέγας, ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος, ὁ καλούμενος Διάβολος καὶ Ὁ Σατανᾶς
[Type: Anti-Army], [Rank: A], [Maximum Range: 1000], [Maximum Number of Targets: 500]
Naturally the human shape that Satan uses is only a vessel born of Judas’ flesh in order to walk around in the modern day without arousing any suspicion. Thus the Noble Phantasm belonging to such a demonic entity can only be the shedding of his human flesh and the revelation of his true eldritch appearance. In contrast to his once beautiful and radiant form of a seraph, Satan's status as a fallen angel has corrupted him and turned him into the Dragon as seen in the Book of Revelations - a gargantuan crimson draconic beast with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.
In contrast to the prior spiritual attacks from Satan’s scythe, this dragonic form is meant purely for overwhelming physical force as a single weep of its tail can bring stars crashing down onto the Earth and its breath exhausts the fires of Hell itself to incinerate sinners without a trace. This Noble Phantasm virtually guarantees Satan to be the strongest Servant in any given Grail War and justifies the convoluted method he needs in order to be summoned through a sacrificial lamb. The only reason Satan does not lead with this is because it requires an enormous amount of magical energy to maintain - far more than even several Masters together can provide. Therefore he will bide his time and search for the local Leylines and absorb their energy until he has enough to transform. Once he has done so, he will wreak havoc and most likely will cause the remaining Servants to rally and try to defeat him. The one hope they have lies in Satan’s true form exposing his two greatest weaknesses - Holy light and anti-Dragon magic. Thus the combination of the two in such a form as a fully powered blast from Excalibur would be enough to destroy Satan’s body faster than he can regenerate.
RelationshipsArtoria - “You thought it was a tragic fate that caused the Battle of Camlann? Fool! It was I, the serpent that crashed the treaty and ensured that Camelot would be destroyed.”
Beowulf - “Impressive for a mere human to defeat one of my descendants in physical combat.”
Ciel - “So sad that the Holy Church felt the need to make a cheap copy of the Divine Memitim ha ha!”
David - “What a shame the Creator changed his mind at the last second, I was inches away from destroying Jerusalem for good if He hadn’t recalled me.”
King Hassan - “Are you so eager to join me in Hell by engraving the name of the Zabaniyah on your souls?”
Nero - “Tch, sadly your descendant Rabbi Meir did not turn out to be as easy to corrupt as you were.”
Oda Nobunaga - “Do you think that calling yourself the ruler of the Sixth Heaven makes you superior to me? I’ll liberate your head from your neck for such folly!”
Percival - “You must think you’re hot stuff for resisting Kundry, but I have my own ways to make sure you surrender the Spear of Destiny to me…”
Romulus - “Show some respect, for am I not the Guardian of Rome, here to aid you?”
Saint Georgios - “Hmph, it’s because of people like you that I have gained a weakness to Dragonslayers. I shall have to teach you a lesson~”
Saint Martha - “Jacob may have matched me in wrestling, but you shalln’t be so lucky!”
Siddhartha Gautama - “I don’t believe even the Buddha can truly free himself of the Yetzer Hara. Let’s see how much you can endure until I find the darkness in your heart!”
Sigurd - “Ha, the runts transformed by the Evil Dragon Phenomenon are no match for the real deal. ”
Voyager - “You are right to fear snakes and there is none greater and more terrible than I.”
Creator's NotesSince it's the Year of the Snake, I couldn’t go without posting some kind of serpentine servant and so I went for the big bad himself. Perhaps a tad on the messy side as not only am I still learning the ropes of format manipulation, I am stitching together Samael and Satan for narrative purposes, which some would argue ought to remain distinct. Thus you have Jewish and Christian terms getting bandied about which can be a little jarring.
For Judas, it should go without saying but his Noble Phantasm Akeldama is inspired partly by the Milagro Man and partly by Highway to Hell - both Stands from “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure”.
…The number of times that my left hand missed the first ”a” key and I ended up calling him “Stan” cannot be measured. :p
The Faceclaim is Akane Sawatari from the anime adaptation of “Chainsaw Man”. The reason why she’s here is a leftover from an early prototype phase in which this sheet was a Faker/Pretender where Samael/Satan was disguised as Mordred instead. Aside from the connection to snakes, the other reason why I left her in was because being an anime girl creates a further stark contrast to the realistic and serious Biblical artwork of Judas which reinforces the idea of Satan being the true Servant and Judas is just the skinsuit whilst also serving as a narrative foil.
Getting better at this formatting wizardry, no? As always, all comments and criticisms are duly welcome~
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