Create-a-Servant

[forumghost]

That's all well and good, but there's no way Achilles is Lawful Neutral in the Iliad.

He kinda is. "Lawful" in terms of alignment doesn't mean that you obey the law specifically, but that you have a 'code' that you live by that dictates your actions. Achilles does- he is bound by the traditional Greek Heroic code of gaining honour and glory and avoiding shame.

Thus when Agamemnon shames him, he goes and sulks in his tent, because his honour cannot bring him to help a man that so greatly insulted him. He then returns to the battle to satisfy his need to restore his honour after Hector kills Patroclus.

"Neutral" just means that he has no moral yardstick for his actions. Which he doesn't- he care about glory and honour, not ethics.

Achilles is totally Lawful Neutral.

[JetKinen]

I don't really think Kojiro is really treated as a villain.

Sure he is the antagonist, but Kojiro doesn't really cut down children with his swords.

Unless killing Swallows make people evil in the eyes of the world

[Milbunk]

I think it has more to do with the fact that he doesn't care about the situation so long as he gets what he wants. (In this case fighting.) Even if it meant the end of the world by Angra Mainyu.

[JetKinen]

That doesn't fit with the Backstory stuff suggested before, because there Kojiro was just a dude who was good with a sword that Musashi goaded and taunted into death

[Arashi_Leonhart]

It really depends on what account you go with, just like King Arthur. One had him very clearly a trash-talker that insulted Musashi's honor.

[Seika]

In Fate/stay night, all of the Servants' alignments can be viewed on their respective status screens. The first part indicates the principles they consider important, and the second part indicates personality.
While a difference in personality generally won't be too much of a problem, a difference in principles will inevitably lead to friction.
Saber and Gil would be a good example of that.

As much as alignments have the form of the D&D concept, I don't think this definition maps to it particularly well. Seems to me that Nasu's consciously done something a bit different.

[Imperial]

Servant: Tomoe Gozen (Alleged)
Class: Saber
(Alternate Classes: Lancer, Archer, Rider)
Gender: Female
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:

Strength - C
Endurance - C
Agility - B
Mana - C
Luck - D
Noble Phantasm - A

Class Skills:

Magic Resistance - C
Cancels spells below two verses but cannot defend against Greater Rituals. Having encountered little magic other than what her mother taught her, this Skill is almost entirely a function of her class container.

Riding - B+
Most vehicles and all manner of mortal beasts may be ridden, owing to her reputation as a breaker of even the wildest horses. Does not extend to Monstrous, Phantasmal or Divine Beasts

Personal Skills:

Charisma - C
The natural talent to lead others. In this case, the ability to lead her lord's soldiers into battle as a captain of the cavalry.

Mystic Eyes of Charm - C
The ability to overwhelm anyone who makes eye contact with her with the sensation of adoration and fascination. A neglected skill Saber disliked using in life, its effects are diminished due to lack of use.

Protection of the Faith - C
In certain accounts of her life, the woman who Saber is mimicking gave up the sword and bow to become a nun praying over her lord's shrine for the rest of her days. That the legend exists places this Skill upon her, but the questions surrounding her life and whether or not she truly lived keep it at a lower rank. In effect, it somewhat reduces the effects of holy Sacraments and divinely empowered Noble Phantasms.

Eye of the Mind (True) - B
The ability to observer the flow of battle and calmly analyze the most certain path to victory even in the heat of battle. A skill fostered by dozens of battles with little more than her wits to serve her

Noble Phantasm:

The Lady's Glorious Last Charge

You Shall Know Me By the Heads on My Belt

Anti-Unit
Rank A

Tomoe Gozen's last charge has gone down in history as her greatest. With her lord and lover's death all but assured, she suffered a final order to quit the field, an order that has been guessed at for generations. Did Minamoto no Yoshinaka fear for her life? Was he truly ashamed at the thought of dying with a woman? Was there a hope in his heart that she would live on champion his cause even after his death?

No one will ever really know, not even the nameless swordswoman wearing Tomoe Gozen's name, but the facts of the Phantasm remain the same: Whenever Saber is forced into a position where her Grail War must end, she becomes a terror on the battlefield. Be it by the use of her Master's last Command Seal, her Master's death, her Master attempting to give up his rights as her lord, the end of the alleged Tomoe Gozen's servitude imbues Saber with the effects of Battle Continuation (Rank A), Instinct (Rank A), Clairvoyance (Rank A) and an elevation of her Luck stat to A+. If her Master dies or attempts to give up his rights with Command Seals still unused, they will instantly be absorbed into Saber's person and converted to raw prana for her to distribute among her parameters as she sees fit. With all of these powers at her disposal, Saber designates one enemy who must die before she gives up the Grail War and fades away. (In the event her Master has been killed, the target will be the killer, regardless of Saber's input.) The vast increase in her power and her last charge may only be stopped with one of three conditions:

1. Her target's head has been removed from his body.
2. She suffers an undeniably lethal wound that overrides even Battle Continuation, such as the removal of her own head or the complete annihilation of her person, which is likely only to be achieved through the use of an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm.
3. A time of three minutes passes.

In the event of the third condition, Saber will fade away but not without activating the second and final, hidden phase of the Noble Phantasm. Fueled by her anger and frustration, Saber will lay a vicious curse on her target, instantly dropping the target's Luck to E and one other attribute at random by a full rank. This curse will linger for the rest of the war, unbroken and unwavering. In the event that the target enjoys a high degree of Magic Resistance, the curse's effects may be diminished. Luck will only suffer a single full-rank drop and the other, randomly chosen stat will be affixed a negative modifier that activates whenever the afflicted shows hostility toward a woman.

Notes

Old idea of mine that I'm dusting off. I waffled for a while on whether she should be the "real" Tomoe Gozen or a Kojiro-flavored wraith. I went with the latter because that's what I was going to use in a story featuring some hot shot magus who thinks he's smart enough to hack the Grail and summon a Japanese hero with a home turf bonus. The Grail spazzes out and compromises to satisfy its Western-only rule and the Master's obviously Japanese summoning by giving him a fake Japanese hero with some random samurai woman who sort of fits the bill. The implication is that this fudging of facts is what the Grail defaults to when Medea tries to tweak it in the Fifth and gets Kojiro.

The Mystic Eyes and the curse are a nod to the idea that this particular woman was actually low-tier magus before she went samurai. Her mother used her talents to get in good with the lords as a concubine, but Fake Tomoe was more interested in fighting her way to the top on her own merits than putting the mind whammy on some guy as his mistress and sleeping her way into luxury. I had considered giving her Witchcraft as a Personal Skill, but she's really more of a swordsman or an archer than a spellslinger. What little magecraft she uses is mostly an ace up the sleeve to mess with the enemy's head. She's fighting some guy and then - BAM! - Mystic Eyes to make them swoon mid sword fight.

Edit: Upon further consideration, I've removed her zanbato NP. It just didn't make sense, and it ruined the Kojiro parallel I was aiming for as a Japanese wraith posing as a fictional samurai who gets by purely on sword skills and that one, unorthodox Noble Phantasm they each have. Fake weapon = fake hero was a weak justification and just kind of dumb.

[Imperial]

Servant: Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons
Class: Archer
(Alternate Class: Lancer)
Gender: Female
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Stats:

Strength - C
Endurance - A+
Agility - C+
Mana - C
Luck - E
Noble Phantasm - A

Background:
The pride of the Amazonian kingdom, ruling over the warrior-sisters as their greatest queen. She was in fact, only their second, sired by a union between the war god Ares and the first of the royal line, Queen Otrera. Though already formidable in their own right, the Amazons did not achieve their true fame as a culture of fearsome fighters until Hippolyta took the throne. So great was their fame and the fear of their martial prowess that Heracles was tasked with claiming the Ares-granted belt of leadership that symbolized Hippolyta's right to rule as his Ninth Labor. Already familiar with Heracles's great strength and even greater feats by word of mouth, an impressed Hippolyta offered up her girdle with no resistance at the sight of his impressive physique. Unfortunately, Hera, Heracles's ever spiteful enemy, would take the form of an Amazon woman to spread the rumor that the half-god had actually abducted their queen, viciously dragging her away by the hair to take her girdle and her pride as his slave-concubine. A war party attacked the boat, and Heracles took up his bow to defend himself. Amid the storm of arrows, Hippolyta was gravely wounded, and the son of Zeus slew nearly a dozen of her people in the ensuing fracas. Fortunately, Hippolyta struggled through the wounds assumed to have killed her and called off the attack. Unfortunately, the wounded warrior would later come to learn that Heracles's companion, Theseus, made off with her sister, Antiope, to make her his wife. Already on shaky ground with the loss of her divine belt and the disgruntled Amazons who thought she had taken an outsider (and a man!) such as Heracles too lightly, Hippolyta declared war on Athens in order to punish its king and rescue her sister. The subsequent and bloody Attic War was a disaster, as an Amazon named Molpadia killed Antiope in the chaos (perhaps to spare her the shame of being Theseus's woman or perhaps as a simple misfire of her bow or a misaimed spear), and Hippolyta was rumored again to have died of the grievous injuries she sustained in that last battle. In reality, she was spirited away from the carnage and attempted to heal her reeling nation over the last weeks of her life. Once healthy enough to go on a hunt again, she was tragically struck by a spear thrown by her sister, Penthesilea, meant for a stag. This time, Hippolyta did not survive.

Class Skills:

Magic Resistance - A (Naturally C)
This Skill naturally enjoys a two rank bonus thanks to the effects of Archer's Noble Phantasm.

Independent Action - B
This Skill exists at something of a low rank for a sovereign queen behold to no one but herself because Archer was, first and foremost, the queen of her people. However, she was not above acting against what some might say where their best interests with her friendly relations with Heracles. By the same token, she is not above striking out on her own to pursue what she feels the best course of action in a Grail War, but she only does so on rare occasions unless partnered with a particularly vexing Master.

Personal Skills:

Charisma - A (Naturally B-)
Though a capable leader in her own right, a great deal of her people's adoration stems from the effects of her Noble Phantasm, which cultivated a sense of dedication to their queen that bordered on a curse. When the Phantasm leaves her, she is still a commanding, inspiring figure, but there is a possibility of her followers acting on their own, as evidenced in the attack on Heracles or the tragic end of the Attic War.

Divinity - B
The daughter of Ares and a mortal woman in a kingdom full of women who prided themselves on Ares's blessing

Eye of the Mind (False) - B-
An innate talent bestowed upon her by her lineage. This Skill suffers a penalty when Archer acts impulsively in the interest of inflamed emotions.

The Mark of Themiscyra - A
Hippocrates famously wrote that Amazon mothers had a habit of putting a red-hot iron to a baby's right breast so that the body might devote more strength and attention to the right arm and shoulder, making them better archers. He is not alone in furthering this image of the scarred Amazon who burns or severs a breast in the pursuit of martial excellence. So ingrained is it in the mental landscape of modern man that now all Amazonian Heroic Spirits are affixed with this Skill, even if the legends of the ritual are now dismissed as hearsay and folk tales erroneously recorded as fact. True to the legend, a Heroic Spirit with this Skill will see a boost in her STR stat in proportion to her wounds. A light scrape will cause no noticeable difference, but something more traumatic stands a chance of giving the Amazon a full Rank Up. The effect is also cumulative. A series of light wounds will increase an Amazon's strength with each new mark, just as a more severe injury will see greater returns in her power. In a sense, wounding an Amazon is the worst thing for an enemy to do, as it only allows her to strike harder and put more power into her arrows. This effect is strong enough that an Amazon could conceivably match Heracles himself in strength, although the Amazon would be so close to death that it would be a largely useless effort.

Noble Phantasms:

The War God's Favor

The Gilded Girdle of Otrera's First

Anti-Unit (self)
Rank B

A gift from Ares to the first of his Amazonian daughters to symbolize her right to rule and all but guarantee it. So long as Hippolyta wears this golden, glimmering Noble Phantasm, she will enjoy the benefits of A-ranked Charisma and A-ranked Magic Resistance, as befitting of a queen. The cult of personality that springs up around her borders on hypnotism, and the blessing against harmful magecraft assures that no magus shall lay her low. Though devised primarily as a defense against mental interference magecraft, it is just as impregnable to all other forms. Furthermore, as a piece of armor, however small, it also conveys a small bonus to her AGI and already impressive END so that she might avoid or weather the blows of her many enemies. If this Noble Phantasm is lost to her, she loses these boons and the belt will be nothing more than a trophy. However, if it is freely given, it will retain a measure of its former power, though somewhat reduced because Ares did not intend for it to be worn by anyone other than an Amazon.

The War God's Flock

Ornithes Areioi

Anti-Army
Rank A

This flock of deadly creatures once lived on the cost of the Black Sea, where they stood guard over an Amazonian shrine to their patron, Ares. They numbered in the thousands, rising like a malevolent cloud to rain death upon their enemies with razor sharp feathers fired like arrows. They are, in fact, cousins to the Stymphalian Birds that were the object of the Sixth Labor, though the Arean Birds, as they are now more commonly known, differ from Heracles's enemies in that they are defenders first and foremost. They do not rampage across the countryside, poisoning it with their toxic droppings or snatching up men to satisfy their hunger. They are a more withdrawn, almost contemplative breed of Phantasmal Beast. However, when one without the blessing of Ares or his people draws too near to their appointed charge, they swill swoop down upon the interlopers just as viciously. With a prayer to her father, Hippolyta will designate a particular point or structure as a place that must be defended, at which point a small flock of the birds will gather. As she is not her father and there are no shrines to him in Japan, she does not enjoy the power to command the entire, thousands-strong flock. Instead, hers will number somewhere in the hundreds, depending on how much prana she is willing to part with and how vital the designated point happens to be.

Further complicating the matter is her other Phantasm. Without it, she loses much of her legitimacy in their eyes, and the birds cannot be reassigned to another location. They may attack Hippolyta's Master or any other allies that do not smell of Ares. If it remains in her possession, it is possible to migrate the flock to another defensive point and even pull a few dozen away as scouts or a hunting party.

Notes

I actually gave Hippolyta a background this time, and that's to reflect the fact she has so many variations on her story. The very first one I read cast her as the Amazon that Theseus takes back to Athens, where she gives birth to his doomed son, Hippolytus. Later on, I read the version where Herc kills her in the crossfire with the Amazons during his Labors, which is apparently the most popular version of her death, but even those accounts are split on whether he did it accidentally or he killed her in a rage when he thought the approaching Amazons were part of an assassination attempt. There's even dispute over whether she wanted to give him the girdle or he snatched her up and dragged her off like a caveman, which is popular in classical art. And, of course, there is yet another spin on it that says she died in the war with Athens and yet another where it is the too-obscure-for-her-own-good Penthesilea who accidentally kills her and kicks off Penthesilea's own death at Troy when she runs off to fight the Greeks in penance.

So I spun them all together to make her a lady who just won't die. I almost gave her a lower-ranked Battle Continuation or some sort of super Disengage for that reason. Less fighting past lethal wounds and more surviving things that should have killed her and coming back to fight another time. But I just gave her great Endurance that gets bumped up even higher by the Girdle Phantasm. You may have noticed that I called it a belt a few times, too. That reflects the translations, which usually opt for girdle but occasionally say belt. Depends on the translator. I also flirted with giving her Military Tactics. She was a warrior-queen who lead her people in at least the one war, and it would be a boost when using her Birds Phantasm. But I decided not to because birds aren't really an army that can use tactics. At most, she can say, "Go kill those things." I'm not sure if Phantasmal Beast is the right designation for them. They're Ares's watchdogs, which implies Divine Beasts, but they're not really insanely powerful or intelligent, which makes me think Monstrous? I don't know how that works.

I almost made The Mark of Themiscyra a Noble Phantasm, but I figured if Numeral of the Saint can be that powerful and stay a Kkill, it's fine where it is. It's also easier this way because I can recycle it as Amazon-wide trait. Besides, Noble Phantasms are meant to be special, unique to and the pinnacle of that Spirit, so a shared one probably diminishes what it really means to be a Noble Phantasm.

The Girdle has been boiling in the back of my mind ever since I saw that a B in Charisma is sufficient to rule a nation, and A is compared to a curse. So I went with that, and it fell into Hippolyta pretty naturally because she loses control of her Amazons as soon as the girdle is gone.

This also would have tied into the characterization I planned to give her in a story about one of Apocrypha's faux Grail Wars. She gets summoned into the same war as Theseus, who becomes her main target. In a perfect world, she gets to kill him in the present, win the Grail and go back in time to assassinate Theseus aboard Herc's ship, heading off both the battle at the boat and the Attic War. Through some convoluted magus means I had not yet devised, Hippolyta learns that Theseus was telling the truth when he said he loved Antiope. His "theft" of Antiope was no such thing. He swept her off her feet, and she willingly left Theymiscyra to get away from Hippolyta's controlling nature, made worse by the girdle. Eventually, Hippolyta would come to hate the girdle, once her most prized possession, for brainwashing her people and driving Antiope away.

[Funderfullness]

Kudos for not giving her a "Summon an army of Amazons" NP.

[Imperial]

Kudos for not giving her a "Summon an army of Amazons" NP.

If I ever do that, I want you to take me out back and put me down.

[Funderfullness]

Class: Berserker

Alternate Class: Assassin

STR: C+
END: C
AGI: C+
MGI: D
LCK: D

Class Skills

Mad Enhancement (B): Parameters are increased by one rank, but most of the Servant's sanity is lost.

Personal Skills

Divinity (D): Berserker is a daughter of Hecate, and she is often conflated with the sea goddess Ceto,

though her monstrous nature and her conflation with the dragoness Sybaris decreases her favor with the gods.

Monstrous Strength (B): Denotes Berserker as a legendary monster, allowing a temporary increase in STR.

Innocent Monster: (A): Due to her legend, Berserker can transform her lower body into that of a massive

snake or lion, or merging the two into a draconic creature.

Seduction (D): The ability to sway others to lower their guard through allure. Once seduced, victims yield an

increased amount of prana should the Servant absorb their essence. This skill would normally be
Rank A, but being placed in the Berserker class reduces it.

Noble Phantasms

Lamia's Sweeping~The Child Has Been Strangled (D-A, Anti-Unit)

A strike that increases in rank the younger the target is. This depends entirely on Berserker's point of view,
so if she perceives an enemy to be a child or childlike, it's power changes accordingly. As a side effect of
being a Berserker, she cannot close her eyes and constantly obsesses over the image of her own dead children,
causing this Noble Phantasm to gain an additional constant Rank-up.

Breaker Lamia~All-Seeing Sockets (A, Support)

An ability apparently bestowed upon Berserker by Zeus. In order to ease her traumatized soul, he gave her the
ability to remove her eyes, losing her physical sight but gaining the gift of prophecy. By gouging out her own
eyes, Berserker gains Precognition, able to see the future and the path to achieve it in her mind's eye. Since
this power depends on calculation, Mad Enhancement causes it to be unfocused, generally only functioning to
help Berserker achieve whatever goal she currently has in mind. Healing magic or a Command Spell can cause her
eyes to regenerate, sealing this Noble Phantasm.

Background

Queen Lamia of Libya was a mistress of Zeus, causing his jealous wife, Hera, to transform her into a child-eating
monster. She ate her own children first, and her grief and despair causes her to start stealing and devouring others.
Throughout the centuries, Lamia became a name for the monsters with the lower body of a serpent that would be feared
in Europe for their seductiveness and thirst for blood, akin to a vampire or succubus.

Alternate appearance

[Lycodrake]

MONMUSU - Lamia the First
yesss

[asterism42]

Set her on Loli-Jack and watch the sparks fly. Grisly sparks.

[Kat]

>adoring monsters.

I will never understood monmusu folks, it's beyond my comprehension.

[You]

>adoring monsters.

I will never understood monmusu folks, it's beyond my comprehension.

Just wondering but is there like an otome game with monster guys?

[Kat]

Please no.

[Seika]

I started work on this … some time ago.

There were many things I was expecting when I de-lurked to join BL. That it would one day prompt me to increase my Middle Mongolian legal vocabulary was not one of them.

Picked it up again this year, had to redo even what research I'd done thus far because my notes hadn't been meant to be referred to after nearly two years' break, and finally completed it. (This being an unfamiliar period/history/set of legends/language to me, my bibliography section is rather full. You should take a look at it).






Seven-hundred-year-old Old French manuscripts, and the legalities of succession in the early Mongol Empire as presented by deeply biased historians - and often left untranslated from the Middle Mongolian. Researching this was something of a pig. But, hey, cool warrior princess. Worth it.



Appearance

As the inscriptions lit, Lord Elias El-Melloi rubbed his hands together. His family had spared no expense in the construction of this summoning circle, and to see them all vindicated was worth a chuckle or two.

Power filled the air.
Ether gathered.
Light shone.
And his Servant appeared.

Well.

That was a very … nice … jacket. Good material, if he was any judge (and a gentleman always understands the quality of his suits, so Elias was confident in his assessment). Clung tightly to his Servant's thickly muscled arms and broad shoulders as she towered over him.

Definitely a she. Very definitely.

He couldn't avoid the thought circling his head any more. The jacket really wasn't the point – the breasts that it left completely bare were the actual issue here. And – well, loincloths might not normally be the height of modesty, but this was pretty damned small and tight even by that low standard.

He'd summoned a bondage enthusiast. Jesus bloody wept.

And so she spoke.

“I am Rider. Who claims to be Master of the Khan of Khans?”



Qutulun Chagan wrestling, as depicted in Westernised style by le Maître de la Mazarine in a manuscript of Marco Polo's Travels.
Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Division occidentale. Manuscript Français 2810, fol. 95v.



A man in the Mongolian zodog shuudag.


Name: Qutulun Chagan
Class: Rider
Gender: Female
Master: Elias El-Melloi
Alignment: Lawful Good

Parameters
Strength: B+
Endurance: C
Agility: B
Magic: E
Luck: A
Noble Phantasm: B+

Class Skills

Riding: B++
Skill as a mounted warrior.
Able to manage almost any vehicle or mount with superhuman ease.

A princess of the Mongols, most famed of all the races throughout history for their horsemanship. Qutulun was remarkable even among her tribespeople, able to encourage her steeds to extraordinary feats that outdid anything her opponents could have expected. Though the time of the Mongols was well after that age when the Phantasmal Species passed to the Back of the World, Qutulun has a limited ability to tame the specific beasts known as Pegasi.


Magic Resistance: D
Rejection of enemy magecraft.
Cancels single action spells.

The magecraft of the Mongol tribes in Qutulun's time was mostly divinatory in nature. Though she sometimes had need to call upon a shaman when she was a ruler, she never had cause to learn the actual operation of magecraft or a manner to resist it.


Personal Skills

Eriin Gurvan Naadam: A
Worth as a true Mongol, determined by prowess in the three Mongol “contests of men” - archery, wrestling and riding.
Bonus damage while unarmed, shooting with a bow, and on horseback. At this high level, further bonuses to defence and to accuracy are received.

The three traditional Mongolian arts of war, the mastery of which led them to the conquest of an empire greater than Rome, or China, or Macedon. Though they are named the sports of men, Qutulun was never defeated when competing in the trials, and refused all suitors who failed in this way as too weak to become her husband.


Charisma: B-
Ability to lead a nation and its armies.
Sufficient to be a monarch.

The most favoured of all her father's children, Qutulun often rode at his side when he went to battle. She learned well Qaidu's great skills of generalship and command, and contributed vitally to his campaigns. Her gender being well known, it was impressive indeed that she could still command loyalty in both war and peace from her people, but she was unable to convince the Mongols who were not traditionally under family's leadership to follow her.



Noble Phantasms

Aï-Yaruq

Falcon Seizes Its Prey

Imported across the empire from far Turkey, Aï-Yaruq, or “Moonlight” is a startlingly pale grey stallion who lives up to his name. He is Qutulun's war horse, in accordance with the precept of a sometime ally of her father's, Toq-Temür. He would say that, rather than favour dark-hued and bay horses, on which gore cannot be seen, the splashes of blood on a grey are the proper and worthy adornment of a warrior. (He used to call them the proper adornment of a man, before Qutulun beat him in the ring).

This was the one of all her herd that she used to take on campaign with her father, and the means by which she used to perform her most famed tactic in battle. Aï-Yaruq is a descendant of an ancient line of Pegasi, though his blood is heavily diluted. Nevertheless, he can be urged to call upon the power of his ancestors for a brief time, manifesting wings and gaining an extreme boost to AC and Magic Resistance. Qutulun used this to take off from her position at her father's side, swoop down on enemy commanders and, capturing them, return again to Qaidu with the prisoner. For obvious reasons, this inflicts severe morale and tactical penalties on enemy forces against which it used, stacking as each leader is plucked away.

Rank: B+
Type: Anti-Unit/Anti-Army
Range: 10-70
Maximum Targets: 1 person/500 people

Zodog Chagan

The Twelve Thousand Trophies

"The Pure Wrestler's Coat": the original model for what would come to be the traditional Mongolian wrestling attire – a short jacket with full arms but no front to it, since men refused to believe they had been defeated in the ring by a woman, and would demand to see the proof of Qutulun's gender. Though made of the finest materials, when Qutulun is summoned it is a pure white, unadorned by any unnecessary stitching or decoration. However, it applies a curse to any opponent that willingly faces her in battle. Upon their defeat, images of their most treasured possessions – and for a hero, there can be nothing more treasured than the proof of their status, the Noble Phantasm – appear upon the back of the jacket. For their death, or cowardly retreat, they have forfeited the rights of ownership to Qutulun, and she will ruthlessly summon up the power of heroes through the magic of this artifact. However, the curse runs two ways. If Qutulun survives defeat at the hands of another, every order given to her by the victor has the force of a Command Spell. For wealth, she wagers her freedom, confident that she can never lose it.

In life, this jacket accumulated the images of some twelve thousand horses, since every man who came to challenge Qutulun had to bet at least a hundred horses from his herd. For her part, she would wed whosoever proved stronger and more skilled than her in the wrestling ring. Despite every noble man in her father's kingdom, and many beyond, stepping up to the fight, she was never defeated. Even the great and noble prince of Pumar, to whom her father begged her to yield and who offered up a stake of a full thousand horses, she still overthrew.

Rank: B
Type: Anti-Unit
Range: 1-50
Maximum Targets: 6 people

Biljiur Soqosun

Cursed Empire Founded on Brother's Blood

“Lark and Fish”: the bow of Genghis Khan in his boyhood, with which he killed his first man. This was his half-brother, Beqter, who had stolen certain morsels – a single lark and a fish – from Genghis' hunting. By this murder, Genghis proved himself very much the ruthless leader who would one day conquer an empire stretching across all of Asia.

Though this bow was Genghis' when he was but a boy, Genghis was hardly an ordinary boy. Any other warrior in the prime of his life would be hard-pressed to string and fire it, and each shot requires a Strength check for even for Qutulun, mistress of archery. The damage and range is commensurate with the difficulty, and Biljiur Soqosun will launch arrows that can cover miles and still pierce plate armour. In the hands of Genghis, it was rumoured that the arrows could fly from one end of the lands he had conquered to the other, but his great-granddaughter – even as the rightful Khan of Khans and the true inheritor of the bow – cannot hope to accomplish the same feats as the its original owner.

Unknown to all its owners, a curse has lain on the Biljiur Soqosun, ever since Genghis' kinslaying. Enterprises achieved by its use will collapse at one point or another, with the closest of family and friends turning on each other. This can be delayed by months, years, or lifetimes by one with sufficient Luck, Magic Resistance and pure will, but still inevitably comes to pass.

Rank: C-
Type: Anti-Unit
Range: 1-99
Maximum Targets: 1 person



Legend
Qutulun Chagan, “Pure Fortune”, was the eldest daughter of Qaidu, who was the eldest son of Qoshi, who was the third son of Ögetei Khan of Khans, who was the third son of Genghis, the Great Khan of Khans.

Though the sons of Genghis had settled the rulership amicably, in accordance with their father's wishes, and given the title Qa'an (that is, Khan of Khans) to Ögetei, their own sons were far less wise. First, Güyük Qa'an, eldest son of Ögetei usurped his own nephew, Shiremün, who had been nominated to the Qa'anate by Ögetei.

But a rule, once broken, cannot easily be mended. The Ögeteids regretted backing the elder claimant after Güyük's death, when Möngkë Qa'an, son of Genghis' youngest son, Tolui, took the throne and purged Ögetei's house when they pushed Shiremün's claim. Their lands and fortunes were confiscated, and dozens slain. It was a swift fall from the oath – sworn to Ögetei even by many who took part in Möngkë's usurpation – that “so long as there remains of all the race of Ögetei Qa'an 'a piece of flesh a cow wouldn't eat if it were wrapped in grass and a dog wouldn't look at if it were wrapped in fat', the Mongols will accept it as Qa'an rather than place another on the throne.”

And as the Ögeteids had found, so did the Toluids. After Möngkë's death, a full civil war sprang up between two of their candidates. Arïq Böke, sixth son of Tolui, was first acclaimed Qa'an, but Qubilai rose up against him. Thus, Arïq Böke gathered back the dispersed sons and grandsons of Ögetei, tempting them with the power that they had once had. At Arïq Böke's eventual surrender, one of these Ögeteids refused to back down, and continued to fight for his rightful position of Qa'an. This was Qaidu, and his greatest ally in the war was his daughter, Qutulun.

Qutulun was simultaneously a great warrior champion and a general for her father. When the famed European traveller Marco Polo came through the Mongol lands, he visited the court of Qaidu and would late tell of how greatly Qaidu held her in esteem and how they went into battle side-by-side. Qaidu went so far as to grant Qutulun freedom from any arranged marriage, to which she responded by setting up a contest of arms – any man who could beat her in the ring, wagering his wealth to do so, would be her husband. None ever did, for Qutulun could not be overcome by any man in the Eriin Gurvan Naadam – the three Mongol contests of men – whether archery, riding, or wrestling.

The war of this father and daughter blazed throughout their lifetimes. Qaidu had taken the lands of the Chaghatayids, the second house of Genghis' sons, but this still left the empire divided between the houses of Genghis' second and third sons, and those of his first and last. Worse, while the Jochids of the Golden Horde could be reasoned with, the Toluids set themselves against their Ögeteid kin as implacable enemies. As the war raged on, it grew from a familial dispute into a fight for the soul of the Mongol nation itself. The Toluids had settled themselves in the rich cities of China and Persia, while Qaidu and his allies swore oaths to “dwell in the mountains and the plains and not spend time near the cities, nor graze animals in cultivated areas, nor make exorbitant demands on the common people.”

The battle which decided the war fittingly took place near Qara-Qorum, which Genghis had made the capital of his empire, but which Qubilai had abandoned for the cities of China and his stately pleasure domes. Qaidu's army, spurred on by their Khan and his daughter, fought for three days against an army supposed to be a full hundred times their size, but were being slowly ground down while their reinforcements tarried. On the night of the third day, Qutulun remembered the lessons of Genghis, which were the reasons the Mongols now warred against each other. As he had once down, she ordered each warrior to light several fires, and the enemy commanders, forgetful of the Great Khan's ways of war, were deceived and thought Qaidu's allies had come in the night. For fear of a fair fight, they held off long enough for the reinforcements to arrive in truth. Then Qaidu, Qutulun, and their ally Du'a Khan, ran down the enemy and defeated them to capture Qara Qorum at last.

But Qaidu would not live to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Wounded during those terrible first three days of battle, he sickened. His physicians, incompetent to a one, failed to treat him properly, and he died on the ride back to his lands. His successors divided themselves – Qutulun had been nominated by him as the next Khan, but this was disputed by her elder brother, Chapar, and by Du'a Khan of the Chaghatayids, who said that as a woman she should “be working with scissors and needle. What's your concern with kingdoms or subjects?” Orus, the third brother, supported his sister's right to the throne, and rallied the majority of the Ögeteid army to their side.

Yet, without Qaidu Khan's reputation behind them, the rightful leaders of the Ögeteids could not sway the Chaghatayid Mongols behind them, and could control far fewer lands and troops than the undiminished house of Du'a Khan. They were defeated, and their claims unfulfilled. Qutulun eventually retreated to her father's secret burial place, where she undertook an oath of guardianship. She lived a long time there, until the troops of Qubilai's successor, Temür Qa'an, discovered her. She died bringing down an avalanche on their heads, setting another snowy tomb over her father's grave, herself, and a thousand enemy troops.


In a Grail War
Qutulun's obviously a pretty heavily-focused single target fighter, with three anti-Unit Noble Phantasms and skills further focused on duels. She wants to find an enemy, smash them up with skill and judicious use of her Noble Phantasms, and take their NP. Then start snowballing from there, growing stronger with each iteration of “find opponent, beat up with own power and stolen NPs, steal their NP.”

As a thirteenth century CE HS, she's got only middling stats, so she does need to get herself rolling on some vulnerable targets quickly (for which some extra support/trickery/weird abilities from her Master wouldn't go amiss), or else she's going to get steamrolled by whatever Heroic Spirits in her War are just rawly powerful.

If she were written about in a Grail War, I think she'd be interesting as a sort of mid- to late-game boss, who freaks the protagonist's team out enormously by having Noble Phantasms which very distinctly belong to multiple people, showing off their power (and also being resultantly more difficult to ID). Almost a mini-Gilgamesh who has to fight smarter because she doesn't have the stats, sheer breadth of NPs, or last-resort EA to revel in carelessness.

Her wish is a little alike to Artoria's, in that she wants to redo the selection of the ruler. Of course, she isn't Artoria, so she wants her father to have had a fair crack at being the proper Qa'an that he should have been by rights. She's also pretty confident that if Qaidu's power were totally secure, and he made the nomination of her as heir to one and all, she'd be able to pull off the inheritance properly a second time around, and give the Mongols their first enthroned female Qa'an. (There had already been some female regents while the convocations to acclaim the designated Qa'ans were waiting to be held). This is a bigger assumption than she recognises, but she's a prideful woman even after her defeat and later death.

As a side note, the Mongols at this time had known of Christianity for a long while, and there were prominent converts among the noblity so, despite being a Tengriist, she should have a sense of what the Grail is supposed to do from her life as well as from the information dumped into Servants.

Notes

Aï-yaruq (as Aigiaruc) is the name in Turkish that Marco Polo gives to Qutulun – here, I appropriated it for her horse. Minus the part where her horse is literally a bird-crossbreed, the feat of swooping down on enemy commanders and just dragging them off into the middle of her own army is also directly from (a manuscript variant of) Polo.

Zodog Chagan is Chagan for the idea of it being 'original' and, of course, for Qutulun's second name. I recognise now that I've made something supposedly original which Gilgamesh would hate for thieving from proper owners. Excellent.

Biljiur Soqosun is more of an invention, to round out the third of the Eriin Gurvan Naadam and fit her a bit more closely into the NP-heavy Rider class. But the way Genghis started out, killing Beqtur, seemed to go very well with the familial strife of the Mongol empire in Qutulun's time, so I ran with it.

I've stuck with Genghis over Chingiz/Chinggis/whatever, for sheer recognisability's sake, though that would have been more consistent with my other romanisations. (Likewise, Khan over Qan, though that would make the link to Qa'an more obvious).

Qaidu may well have not wanted to become Qa'an, instead seeking only to restore an Ögeteid Khanate, but it's more fun to give Qutulun ambitions of ruling the
entire Mongol Empire. Likewise, modern scholars are more sceptical than they used to be about his supposed insistence on traditional Mongol life, but it's an interesting story element.

Asfor my fiddling with the actual history of Qutulun:

• The idea to imitate Genghis at Qara-Qorum is attributed just to Qaidu.
• Most of the primary sources say she supported Orus as Khan on the condition that she could get to command the army and to rule through him, rather than him using his sway with the army to support her claim.
• The part about being nominated herself as Khan by Qaidu is from a secondary book I didn't have a lot of respect for, despite getting itself professionally published, so I doubt its authenticity.
• Most sources do have Qutulun eventually marrying – not from a loss in her challenge to suitors, but because of political pressure and because of unsavoury rumours about incest with her father. The husband's a bit of a non-entity and adds a sour note to the whole thing about her victories and her independence, so I wrote him out.
• The manner of her death is incredibly inconsistent between sources, so I picked one (dying defending her father's tomb) and jazzed it up with a victory-in-death avalanche.

What the hell kind of journal has the first article in the first issue be “Fish in the Secret History of the Mongols”? And, so help me, I actually needed to read it.

Bibliography
Anonymous. c.1230 Mongγol-un niγuca tobčiyan (trans. Onon, U. 2001. as The Secret History of the Mongols. London: Routledge)

Barthold, V. V. 1962. Four Studies on Central Asia. Leiden: E.J. Brill

Biran, M. 2013. Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia. New York: Routledge.

Buell, P. D. 2003. Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire. Lanham: Scarecrow.

Ghiyāś ad-Dīn Muḥammad Khwāndamīr. c.1524. Ḥabīb as-siyar (trans. Thackston, W. M. 2012. as Classical Writings of the Medieval Islamic World – Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties: Vol. II: Khwandamir. London: I.B. Tauris)

Polo, M. c.1300. Les Voyages de Marco Polo de Venise. Stockholm FC manuscript. (Marco Polo – c. 1350 Old French manuscript; images made available by the National Museum of Sweden in partnership with the World Digital Library).

May, T. 2013. The Mongol Conquests in World History. London: Reaktion Books

Moule, A.C. & Pelliot, P. 1938. Marco Polo: The Description of the World. London: Routledge (Marco Polo – variant texts and English
translation)

Naran, B. 2000 “On the Documentation and Construction of Period Mongolian Names”, http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/baras...mongolian.html (accessed 03 Feb 2015).

Pelliot, P. 1930. “Sur la légende d'UΓuz-khan en écriture ouigoure”, T'oung Pao, Second Series 27: 247-358.

Pelliot, P. 1959. Notes on Marco Polo, Volume I. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale

Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadani. c.1311. Jāmi' al-tawārīkh (trans. Boyle, J. A. 1971 as The Successors of Genghis Khan. New York & London: Columbia University Press and trans. Thackston, W. M. 2012. as Classical Writings of the Medieval Islamic World – Persian Histories of the Mongol Dynasties: Vol. III: Rashiduddin Fazlullah. London: I.B. Tauris)

Rybatzki, V. 1996. “Fish in the Secret History of the Mongols”, International Journal of Central Asian Studies 1: 1-19

Rybatzki, V. 2003. “Middle Mongol”. pp 57-82 in Juhanen, J. (ed.), Mongolic Languages. London: Routledge.

Société de Géographie de Paris. 1824. Receuil de Voyage et de Mémoires. Paris: Société de Géographie de Paris. (Marco Polo – properly printed and edited Old French text and Latin translation)

Street, J. 2008. “Middle Mongolian past-tense-BA in the Secret History”, The Journal of the American Oriental Society 128, no. 3: 399-422

Street, J. 2013. Street's Text of the Secret History of the Mongols. Initially published online at https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/jcstreet/web/SH-24UHlg.htm; retrieved from http://altaica.ru/SECRET/e_street.htm 07 Feb 2015

Thompson, M.A. 2008. A Study of the Analogical Extension of the Mongolian Hidden-n Declension in Colloquial Standard Khalkha. Indiana: Indiana University

Weatherford, J. 2010. The Secret History of the Mongol Queens. New York: Crown Publishers

[Lycodrake]

The time and energy put into this beautiful to behold.
Also I like learning more about the Mongols.
Very, very superb work, Seika.

[asterism42]

Fuck yeah Princess Khutulun. The best princess ever.

I've been toying with a few ideas, like Calais Rider or St. Lucy Caster. Dunno if they really work, though.

[Fafnir]

I'm pretty sure that was more research for a single Servant than Nasu ever did for seven.