Premise
For centuries, the elusive Holy Grail has been sought after. Believed to be able to grant any wish to whoever obtains it, many battles have been fought to find the Grail. 200 years ago, however, the three "Founding Families" (the Matou, Tohsaka, and Einzbern families) established a tournament to decide who would win the free wish granted by the Holy Grail. In this tournament, seven mages would be chosen to summon a Heroic Spirit of legend as their servant, a warrior of history brought to modern times through a magic summoning ritual. These heroes of legend would fight each other to spare the lives of the mages, and the last Servant would win the Holy Grail and the wish that comes with it for themselves and their Master. Every 50 years or so, these tournaments are held.
They are known as the Holy Grail Wars.
This roleplay, based on the Type-Moon franchise Fate/Stay Night, and more specifically the anime adaptation of the prequel Fate/Zero, takes place in an AU to the Fate/Stay Night universe during the most recent Holy Grail War in modern-day Japan, in the fictional Fuyuki City. Players will be apping as two characters: a Master from the present and the Heroic Spirit, or Servant, that fights for them. The goal of these characters is to defeat all 6 of the other Masters' Servants through whatever means they deem necessary, and to be the last ones standing to claim the Holy Grail and grant their wishes. This RP will put you into the Holy Grail War against each other to see who will come out as champion in the end.
Masters and Servants
This roleplay requires you to sign up as two characters: a Master and a Servant.
Masters are mages that compete in the Holy Grail War, and are the ones already existing in the present time. Mages who enter the Holy Grail War have some reason for wanting to join or for wanting the Grail, usually to have their greatest wish fulfilled (though joining for the joy of it is not out of the question). They may be experts in modern magic or merely know the basics and learned how to summon a servant, but they have to have some knowledge of magic to qualify. However, they do not actually battle in the Holy Grail War, or at least they aren't intended to (some take matters into their own hands). They often use magic for self-defense or for tracking, though. Instead of fighting each other, the Masters use...
Servants. Also known as "Heroic Spirits", a Servant is a legendary hero or warrior from history, brought back through time and summoned to do battle for the Master in the Holy Grail War. They are bound by magical contract to the Master and so long as that contract holds, the Servants are obligated to stay by their Masters. The Servants' inclusion is intended to spare mage lives by having them fight one another instead of their Masters, and the goal to win the HGW is to kill the other six servants (who vanish back to their own time when killed). Masters put mana into their Servants to maintain their presence, though, so killing a Master causes the Servant to eventually vanish regardless (unless a different mage exploits a loop hole and creates a contract with them to preserve them). These Servants are each put into a different class, listed below. They are powerful beings with several abilities, and for the most part they do the battling in the RP. They can be adaptations of characters from mythology, legend, or real history.
Servant Classes
There are 7 classes your servant can be summoned with, one of each per Holy Grail War. This means that each mage in a war will have a servant with an individual class, and none will double up on each other. Servants are more often referred to by their class than by their actual names (example, the main series servant Arturia Pendragon is almost exclusively called "Saber" by others, including the master). The seven available classes are:
Important Terminology
The following is a list of important terms you'll need to know for the RP. Associate yourself with them and it'll help you greatly. No you can't just ignore or skim this section this is relevant to the game as a whole.
Mana: Mana is magical energy within mages. It is what allows them to use their own magical techniques and, more importantly, maintain their Servants in the Holy Grail War. Servants need their Masters to supply them with mana in order to keep them in the modern world, and a loss of this mana means that the Servant will eventually disappear. Overuse of mana can make it difficult to use magic and maintain Servants which puts stress on the Master. No special ritual is required to supply mana to the Servants.
Command Seals: A Command Seal is a symbol that appears on a Master's right hand when they form a contract with a Heroic Spirit. These command seals allow the Master three "commands" for their Servants; these commands must be followed by the Servant, no matter what, whether by their will or not. They can be activated at any time and, once activated, they cannot be denied by the servant until the contract has ended. For example, you can spend a Command Seal to have your Servant kill someone they refuse to, or to be told NOT to kill someone, or even to kill themselves. So long as it's in the realm of possibility, the Servant must follow the command. However, once a command is ordered, part of the seal fades on the Master's hand. Once all three have been used, the Master is no longer able to win the Holy Grail War, and the Servant no longer has to follow the Master's commands. All previous commands issued are no longer in effect, and the Servant can choose to turn on their former Master, continue to follow them by choice, or whatever they please. Use these commands scarcely. The different Command Seal appearances for each class can be seen below, based on the seal designs from Fate/Zero.
Noble Phantasms: A servant's most powerful attack, weapon, skill, etc. is known as the Noble Phantasm. Each Servant has one Noble Phantasm (and ONLY one *glares at Gilgamesh*), and it is often seen as the "Special Ability" or "Secret Weapon" for the Heroic Spirit. A Noble Phantasm is seen as the embodiment of a Heroic Spirit's being, symbolizing their existence and their legacy in history based on the facts and legends surrounding them. It can be a physical weapon, an abstract concept, an ability, a curse, a specific attack, a change to the environment, or anything that symbolizes the Heroic Spirit as a whole. They are considered the trump card in a Servant's arsenal, so they are often kept secret until the right moment (Noble Phantasms will be censored in the apps when posted publicly). Canon examples of Noble Phantasms include Arturia Pendragon's sword Excalibur, Alexander the Great's summoning of the Macedonian Army in a pocket universe, Diarmuid's spears that can cut off mana supply, and Gilgamesh's ability to summon his treasures from the Gates of Babylon. Noble Phantasms also generally have fancy names ("Gates of Babylon") and can be very excessive and extremely powerful, so feel free to get creative and push the power of these.
Gameplay
Gameplay for this RP is rather simple. You will begin the day after all of the Servants have been summoned, and will be left to your own devices to start things off. You are free to engage others in battle, to keep your identity a secret, to watch over others, or to simply interact. It will be rather free-flowing in the structure, so you'll be able to do basically whatever you want.
Occasionally a mission will be sent out by the Church, who oversees the Holy Grail War. This is a rare instance, but if a Master or Servant causes too much trouble, the Church may offer a useful reward for defeating them. Keep in mind that this means reckless rampaging has a consequence, so don't just murder everyone you want in Japan, for it may put a bounty on your head. The Servants' purpose are to maintain lives, so killing innocents can cause difficulties for yourself in the game.
Battles will be fought in normal RP style. This means that normal rules of not killing without permission is in place. However, as it is a tournament, it is encouraged that you allow yourself to lose at some point to progress the RP; if everyone planned to win for sure, the RP would never end. That being said, defeat does not count you out of the RP. If your Servant dies, although you are out of the Holy Grail War, you are allowed to continue playing as your Master for the sake of interaction and such. Also, if your Master dies, it is technically possible to forge a new contract with your Servant to a Master who lost his own Servant before he runs out of mana; that, however, is a loophole that requires consent on both halves, as well as my own permission before it is carried out. Those rules aside, gameplay is fairly standard. A day and night system will likely be incorporated to keep track of time.
Rules and Tips
Here's a list of the general rules for the RP:
-No spamming. You can have short posts, but keep them one at a time and try to keep it at at least a paragraph of text.
-Keep battles fair. Dodge and attack responsibly, and don't just let nothing affect you or give zero chance to counter attacks.
-Post OOC in this thread, though minor OOC notes are allowed main-thread.
-Wait for GM acceptance of your app before posting.
-NPCs are permitted for plot purposes, but do not take control of another's NPC without permission.
-Clearly note your location at the start of each post. While I am not strictly sticking to the canon layout of Fuyuki City and allow creativity with setting, the Wiki page may help you come up with locations.
-Maintain the tone, please. Silly characters and scenes are fine, but remember that this is for the most part a very serious RP, and it is expected that the tone remain semi-consistent.
-Please refrain from excessive breaking of the 4th wall. The occasional lampshading is fine, but as an extension of the tone rule, just be careful with it.
-Masters are original characters only.
-Servants must be human or mostly humanoid.
-The following is a banlist for potential Servants based on canon characters within the Fate series:
-Servants based on important religious figures such as Jesus Christ will be rejected.
-Read GD's Roleplaying guide for reference.
-If you're told to keep something secret for the plot, KEEP IT SECRET.
-Have fuuuuuuuuuuun.
And here's some helpful advice to keep in mind for applying!
-Be creative with your servants! Take liberties with their design to make them your own. Fate has a tendency to over-anime people, which results in stuff like King Arthur being a young woman, so feel free to make your servants more interesting design-wise than just how they'd look in real life.
-Noble Phantasms are, essentially, all overpowered. However, as long as the possibility to fight back exists, basically anything goes with them, so feel free to push your boundaries on that one so long as it doesn't instantly kill anyone or prevent a fair fight.
-Masters and Servants often have juxtaposing outward goals and personalities. Keep that in mind if you're struggling with character ideas!
-Don't know if your character is "historical" enough? A good rule of thumb is that if nobody alive today was alive at the same time as them, they should easily qualify.
-Don't just be in it to win it. If losing the Holy Grail War furthers character development, feel free to, you don't have to die if you lose!
-Cooperate with other players for battles to make them more interesting!
-Do research on your Heroic Spirits, it will help a TON in designing their moves, personality, and design.
-Don't concern yourself too much with the Mage's abilities. They're often simple things like enhancing weaponry, healing, some fire magic, the like. Don't feel the need to go in-depth on their magic if you don't intend them to have a hand in the fighting.
-If you want to drop out of the game, please state whether you'd like your Servant or Master killed and it can be arranged to eliminate you from the tournament.
-I'll remove anything you want hidden or spoilered from the public apps, so feel free to mark areas you want spoilered, such as name or parts of backstory.
Applications
To apply for the roleplay, you'll have to fill out two apps: one for the Mage that will be competing in the Holy Grail War and one for the Servant that will be fighting for them. Once roles are decided on, you will PM your apps to me, and I will approve them or improve them from there. Once it's approved, I will personally post them in the thread to make it official, omitting certain spoilers, including identity and Noble Phantasm of the Servants. I'll omit anything requested to be omitted as well; if you want a detail of your app hidden, type it out in italics in the PMed app. It will be removed from the public app.
Important: Claiming Classes and Player Count
Something you may have noticed is that the set-up allows only 7 players in the RP. With me planning to sign up for it, that decreases player count to 6. That seems unfair, doesn't it? And what happens if multiple people want the same class? That's what this section is for. You see, if we gain significantly more than 6 potential players, I intend to host two separate Holy Grail Wars, letting hopefully everyone in (and potentially allowing for a few second apps if space needs to be filled in the second game). This thread would then become the OOC thread for both RPs and the two would play out consecutively in AUs of each other. It'd allow for up to 14 players (including myself), and if we only got 10 or so I'd permit apping for both RPs to fill in slots.
EDIT: Enough interest has been confirmed. The RP is now split into two separate Holy Grail Wars: Fate/New Dawn, and Fate/End Dusk.
In regards to choosing classes, the fairest way to do so is to have all people who intend to app state what classes they would be willing to RP as. I urge you to give multiple classes, even if you lean heavily towards one, as some classes like Saber are incredibly popular from the get-go. I also urge you to at least have an idea in your head for who you plan to app your servant as when you make this claim, unless you don't mind what class you get. Once we have the interested people accounted for, I will organize their requests and try to assign everybody one of the classes they hoped for, and will try to make it so everyone is happy with what they got. Once everyone's assigned, they can send in their apps via PM. Hopefully this will resolve any compromises before they happen.
I, personally, will settle for any class.
That being said, please start coming up with ideas and backup ideas, and please tell me if you're interested and in what classes! I'm hoping for enough to fill two games up, so please, don't hesitate to share your interest and join! Though note that if you state your interest and are assigned a class, you WILL be expected to send in your apps, so keep that in mind.
With all that said, let the Holy Grail War commence!