With the RPG planning topic dead and the actual approval system in limbo, I figured I’d at least get a little bit of feedback here.

A little while ago I played the visual novel (Looks like a video game, but it’s basically a choose your own adventure book with music) Fate/Stay night and I thought that with some modification it would make a cool RPG.

The Holy Grail. Ancient legendary heroes. Welcome to the world of fate/stay night and the Holy Grail war. Every so often, the great Holy Grail comes into contact with this world. This is a Holy Grail in name only, this object may not even be a Grail, regardless of its true identity, it has an enormous amount of magical energy, enough to make the wish of whoever obtains it come true. The Grail summons seven heroic spirits from the past as “servants” to serve eight “masters.” However, only one master/servant pair can receive the grail. Thus a Holy Grail war is held, in which the masters fight with their servants until only one pair remains. But this time something is different. Many servants have been summoned, far more than the seven servants of wars before. Who will win the Holy Grail in this, the largest Holy Grail war ever? That is for you to decide!

The masters are not chosen at random. A specific summoning ritual must be completed, so in order to become a master, one must be skilled in magic.

Magic: Magic is a complicated force, hard to understand. But the rules of magic are well defined. Spells must be verbally activated, the more powerful the spell, the longer the incantation. Spells take magical energy, if a mage tries to use magic with no magical energy remaining, they will most likely perish. Finally mages are bound to secrecy regarding the use of magic, those that expose the existence of magic to the general public face great consequences form the magic association.

Servants are spirits of great heroes from the past. They each have their own motivations for joining the war, and have just as much to gain from the Holy grail as their masters do. Servants are at a completely different level from normal humans (even mages) only a servant has any hope of matching another servant in combat. Servants are armed with great Noble Phantasms. These Noble Phantasms distinguish the heroic spirits, and they usually take the form of weapons, or skills possessed by the hero. For example, King Arthur has the Noble Phantasm “Excalibur” which is a sword of great strength. However Hercules has “The Twelve Labors” rather than being a weapon, Hercules’s Phantasm allows him to come back from death eleven times. Effectively giving him twelve lives, one for each of the great labors he preformed while alive. When not being used in combat against other servants, most servants take a spirit form; this form hides the servants’ presence from other servants. As part of the contract formed between servants and masters, the servants are sustained through the magical energy of their masters. Also as part of the contract, a servants master is given three “Command spells” these spells allow the master to control the servant, each spell can be used to give the servant an absolute order that they must obey no matter what.

Classes: Each servant is represented by a class; the class of a servant gives a general sense of their abilities. For example, and archer servant would be good at range, but not as good in close combat. Each Heroic Spirit is assigned to a class based on that Spirit’s strengths. For example, Robin Hood, would probably be an Archer class servant.

The overall goal of the war is to defeat the other masters and obtain the Holy Grail. Masters can be defeated one of three ways, the death of the master, the death of the servant, or the removal of the command spells. Bear in mind however, that a servant can exist for a short time without a master, and if a master looses their servant, it is still possible for that master to form another contract with a different servant. If they can find another servant that is. Servants are usually addressed by their class name, so as to hide the identity of the Heroic Spirit from their opponents. If you know the identity of a Heroic Spirit, it is easy to figure out what that servant’s strengths and weaknesses are. Keep in mind that the use of a Noble Phantasm almost always gives away a Spirit’s identity, as the Noble Phantasm is representative of that hero. Masters working together is not unheard of, but keep in mind, today’s friend may be tomorrow’s enemy.

Like every Holy Grail war before, this war is occurring in the Japanese city of Fuyuki

(I’ll draw up a map in paint later)

-Use IC: for in character actions, and OOC; for out of character actions. For example:

IC: Saber blocked Lancers blow, and countered with an attack of his own. “Watch out for his Lance!” Robert shouted at Saber.

OOC: Does anyone want to join forces?

- Please avoid god-modding. God-modding is hard to define, but it is basically unfair play. Auto-hits and posts like “I kill Lancer” would be considered god-modding. If you are unsure, just ask yourself “Would I be okay with someone doing this to me?” remember that the other players want to have fun too.

- No killing player characters without the explicit permission of that player.

- Obey global BZP rules

- Please read this post and follow the rules of the universe

- Just because you read it in someone’s post doesn’t always mean that your character knows it. Keep your knowledge and your characters knowledge separate.

- Have fun J

Member Name:

Master Name:

Gender:

Nationality: (The Holy Grail war is known to mages all over the world

Specialty: (every mage has one kind of magic that they are best at)

Physical Description: (Height, eye color, clothing, hair color, etc.)

Bio: (Who is your character, why is he/she fighting? What do they like? Dislike? What is their personality like?)

Servant true name: (Just because they are called “Heroic” spirits doesn’t mean they are heroes, for example Medusa is summoned in the visual novel) No ideas? Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_hero

Servant Class: (only one of each class please, the original seven classes are: Archer, Saber, Rider, Berserker, Assassin, Lancer, and Caster. For additional class ideas look for examples in videogames such as Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy.

Noble Phantasm: (Don’t be afraid to tweak the myth a little bit, for example Rider in the visual novel had an attack that she could use with a Pegasus named Bellephorn, after the hero that rode the Pegasus in Greek Mythology. Be creative, but try to stay somewhat constant. For example, don’t give Robin Hood the bow of Genghis Khan.)

Servant physical description:

Servant Bio: (The attitude of the master usually effects what servant is summoned. A master who believes In doing anything to win would summon a servant who holds a similar opinion.)