D
DrowsyPangolin
Guest
Original poster
Here we are, one Saber. As promised, I'll drop her if there's no room. True to my M.O., she may well require some modification if she gets consideration. In the meantime, I'll finish up my Master.
[spoili]
Servant[/spoili]
True Name: [spoili]Cordelia[/spoili]
Class: Saber
Alignment: Neutral Good
Stats
Strength: A+
Endurance: A+
Agility: B
Magical Energy: C
Luck: B
Class Skills
Magic Resistance - Rank B
Saber can cancel spells with a chant below three verses. Even if targeted by High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals, it is difficult for her to be affected.
Riding - Rank C
Saber can flawlessly ride vehicles and animals that received a proper training and adjustment.
Personal Skills
Charisma - Rank B
Saber possesses sufficient charm and talent for uniting to lead a nation as its Queen. The morale of military forces she commands is extremely high.
Pioneer of the Stars - Rank A+
Saber possesses the unique Skill given to heroes that became turning points in human history. All difficult voyages and challenges which are considered "impossible" turn into "events that can be realised". By honing herself into an invincible existence and riding into battle personally against hordes of enemies whose only objective was her death, back then she became a person who can take the only possible condition of failure and transform it into a path to victory. Her original Rank in this Skill is C, but she managed to raise it thanks to the determination of her Unfaltering Diamond Heart.
Unfaltering Diamond Heart - Rank A+
A super-composite Skill combining Determination of Steel with Imperial Privilege. Saber's resolve and tenacity are already beyond any human, allowing her to learn any talent she finds to be needed with unyielding willpower. In this case, the relevant Skills are Riding, swordsmanship, fine arts, Charisma, Eye of the Mind (True), Knight Tactics, Disengage, and Battle Continuation. It is thanks to this Skill that despite a Servant being a static existence, it is completely possible for Saber to grow further as both a person and a Heroic Spirit.
Weapon
Blunt sword
Noble Phantasms
Cair Lerion
Cage of the King's Reason
Anti-Unit (Self) Class
Rank C-
A pair of golden vambraces. They are incredibly durable, and Saber often uses them as shields in battle, but they do not offer an ideal amount of protection. Their properties forgotten, they sat innocuously among crown jewels for years until they became lost to time.
A crystallised form of Saber's unshakeable sanity, they are a mental armour as much as they are physical, defending her from effects that damage her psyche and distract her from her goals. With Cair Lerion, Unfaltering Diamond Heart, and her potent Magic Resistance, it can be said that it is all but impossible to damage her mind by force.
In addition, they aid the healing of her body, repairing wounds and replenishing stamina at a rate that allows her to fight for days on end without rest. It is not a miraculous blessing that renders her invincible, but it is an invaluable edge against Servants superior to herself in destructive power, especially as she is armed only with a sword that is beaten enough to qualify as a club.
Each vambrace possesses these effects independently, albeit weakly, and so it is theoretically possible to pass one to someone else to share their effects. However, because they are weak on their own, Saber is reluctant to do so in the first place.
███████
Shattered Crown of XXXXX
Anti-Unit Class
Rank D
A sword without a single trace of mana left inside it, blunted and broken from overuse, even its tip long since snapped off. A sorry excuse for a blade that has suffered all manners of fatigue and yet still was not lowered for a single second. It is entirely possible to even pity it, and yet it was somehow still sublimated into a Noble Phantasm.
Worn and degraded, the blade will continue to take damage in battle, deteriorating further and further every time Saber uses it, but no matter how damaged it becomes, it will never break. If it can degrade with use however, then it is not out of the question that it might be able to be repaired...
[spoili]
Cortana
Restored Crown of Mercy
Anti-Fortress Class
Rank A++
A Last Phantasm, a holy sword of incredible strength, the symbol of the Isle that was fought for endlessly by the King of Knights, the blade that coronates the sovereign of Britain, the child of the Sword of Selection from so long ago. The Golden Sword of the Victorious, which crowned the king of Albion, was destroyed and reforged by the Lady of the Lake. If Excalibur can be called the "remade form of the premature Caliburn", then Cortana is similar to the "completed state of Caliburn", a sister to the lost blade that never came to be.
It is a divine sword of justice, forged in the same fires and from the same steel as the unbreakable Durandal using Caliburn as a model. With its true name released, it unleashes an arc of silver light that fells any and all it strikes, cleaving the earth and sky alike without restraint. However, the damage it inflicts is almost never lethal. It relentlessly and brutally pushes the target to their utmost limits, inflicting exactly enough damage to break their spirits and quell their murderous intent, but so long as this is possible, this is all the blade will do, and its victims will be left alive so long as they are willing to surrender. For those like Saber herself however, with indomitable willpower and refusal to back down, mercy is truly impossible.[/spoili]
Personality
"I am a Saber-class Servant. I am a knight. But first and foremost, I am a queen. I hail from a fallen kingdom where the skies burned black with hatred and the ground was soaked in scarlet ichor, and I fought to save it as it fell. I laboured day and night to become a titan of war, and I surpassed every one of my knights in combat so that I would be fit to defeat every army that opposed me personally. This sword was not forged by me, but I wielded it regardless until it was but a blunt slab. I suffered millions of wounds, but I did not once hesitate as I moved on to my next opponent. Despite this, I did not hate them in the least, and I did not kill a single one of them, because while they fought with conviction, they fought with good in their hearts, and to slay a good person would cause me to lose sleep at night. I did not kill anyone that day, or the day before, or the day before, because to watch a good man become great is what brings me happiness. I fight for that reason, for those ideals, and no matter what, I won't lose to anyone."
Saber is a firm, solid young woman whose emotions are like steel. She carries herself with weight and she fights with unparalleled brutal force. A paragon among paladins, she never exercises a modicum of restraint, never shows a hint of exhaustion, and never gives an inch to submission. Her decisions are final and her mind is unshakeable. Once she has made an oath, no force on Earth is capable of making her go back on her word. Her personality is not that of a human, but rather that of a force of nature. In that sense, to call her "unstoppable" would not be an exaggeration in the least.
Despite her fearsome determination however, she is inherently good at heart, and so long as there is even the slightest chance that an enemy will correct themselves, she will adamantly refuse to kill them, and a Master who would force her to is chief among "people that cannot be forgiven". That is a small group indeed, and she is willing to show mercy to any and all, believing that everyone deserves a second chance. That does not mean that she will not respect the convictions of her opponents however, and if she feels that it matches her own and it cannot be swayed, then she will honour that conviction in a battle where she will not patronise them with the kindness of clemency. She believes there is virtue even in darkness, so it is unlikely that any Heroic Spirit or even their Masters would be people she deems irredeemable.
She is very willing to discard the law in favour of what she believes to be right, and she is the kind of person who can forgive even murder. To her own Master, her steel will make its front first, as if evaluating them, but she will slowly warm up to them as they demonstrate their light to her. Indeed, she is before everything a queen, so it is only natural that she adores everyone around her.
Legend
[spoili]
Cordelia was the youngest and most favoured daughter of King Lear of Britain, who ruled the isle for sixty years after the twilight of Arthur's reign, in the dawn of the Age of Man.
Lear, as he grew old, began to lose his mind. When the time came to divide the kingdom among his three daughters, Cordelia's sisters flattered him relentlessly, and at the advice of Lear's nobles, they were granted the provinces of Albany and Cornwall. Cordelia however, secure in her relationship with her father, felt that he did not need her to lower herself to a peon: she loved him as a father, not as a king.
For that, she was given nothing, and not a single suitor was blessed to be her husband. Eventually, even the King of France, Aganippus, attempted to court her, and even then while she was allowed to marry him, Lear was reluctant, but it ultimately saved him. Cordelia's brothers-in-law quickly moved to seize the throne from the king, exiling him to France, where he begged for Cordelia to reclaim their homeland.
―――"For pity's sake, this is completely your own fault, you senile old man!" she chided at the time.
She and Aganippus raised an army and sailed into Britain again, but what she saw horrified her. Soldiers, knights who she recognised, merely following instructions, yet killing and being killed in turn. There was no evil on that battlefield, but there was still so much death. Aganippus was victorious, but Cordelia vowed that this would never happen again.
Lear became king again, ruling for three years before he was finally on his deathbed. Aganippus died shortly after, leaving Cordelia to a peaceful and prosperous reign. Britain was quiet, never once showing aggression towards another nation, such was her vow.
Her nephews, Cunedagius and Marganus, soon came of age to rule Britain whilst Cordelia held the title of queen. Their impatience manifested into anger; the princes found it unacceptable that this woman, who refused to go to war with anyone or sentence a single person to death, who would allow all the evils of the world to remain alive just in case they decided to repent, was the one who ruled Britain.
They raised armies against her, knowing that she still had her vow to "never kill a single good soul again". They were aware that she could not retaliate, she could not condemn an army to fight without a single drop of blood spilled.
They underestimated her.
She took up one of the few swords left from the Round Table, and she trained. She fought against every one of the elite knights of Britain over and over to grow stronger than each and every one of them, and in time, she fought the armies of the princes herself. She defeated those armies, whose only purpose was to kill her, over and over, until her body finally gave out.
She was captured, imprisoned to be placed on trial, displayed with her blunted, broken blade to mock her. She was to be executed, she was certain of that.
Thus in the end, the only person Cordelia would kill in her lifetime was herself.
Because even now, in this dark hour where she did not have a single hope of a happy ending left, she was still a queen.
She would not lose to anyone.[/spoili]
Summoning Catalyst
One of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom
Alright, so first and foremost, homegirl is strong, like reeeeaaaallllly strong. Tbh the CS reads like what I would expect for a Ruler rather than a Saber.
First and foremost, the base stats are a little high. If STR and END are going to stay at A+, the other stats should really come down a bit. Maybe drop AGI and Luck by a rank? Honestly, with how things ended up turning out in her legend, I could see Luck taking a two rank demerit.
Now then, on to the skills. This is the section that needs the most workshopping. Charisma feels a bit high, but it could slide by. Pioneer of the Stars feels out of place on her though. I get that she's a turning point for her people in her legend, but from my understanding Pioneer only applies to people who changed the course of humanity as a whole, and even then it seems to be limited to people like explorers and inventors. I'm just not seeing how she qualifies for it. That being said, replacing it with another skill would probably be for the best. Now then... Unfaltering Diamond Heart is straight broken. Determination of Steel and Imperial Privilege are arguably some of the strongest skills out there, and combining them kind of cranks that up to 11. Having a skill tied to her determination is fine, but considering all the other skills it encompasses it just comes across as way too strong. Like I said earlier, this seems like a skill that would really only fly on something like a Ruler, and even then it's very strong. Out of everything in the CS, this I think is the thing that needs to be reworked the most. Like I said, a skill encompassing her willpower and determination is cool, but at the moment it feels like it just makes her good at all the relevant things.
As for the NPs, Cair Lerion seems fine, depending on the speed and extent of the healing. The stamina bit and the ability to keep fighting tie in with her theme of willpower and perseverance, so I'm cool with that. Cortana is strong, but it seems to be a more forgiving Excalibonk, so if her skills and such are toned down I don't see a real issue with it.
She is still the 'extra' Servant in reserve if we get enough people for eight pairs, but I figured it would be best to go ahead and give her an overview, as it seems like we might have a solid chance of going over the cap. If I misunderstood anything about her let me know.
Also @Shizuochan Artem is accepted! I'll add him to the character list.
