How to Play

Role-playing will be mostly the same as other online roleplays—making posts describing their actions and dialogue, as though writing parts of a story.  Players should always wait for a response when doing something that greatly affects another player.  As the GM, I will also occasionally interject to describe parts of the situation that other players have no control over.

This roleplay will largely be freeform.  You can do whatever you want to achieve your goal of winning the Holy Grail.  You can forge alliances, betray your friends, whatever tickles your fancy.

Whenever you are performing an action that requires input from me (such as scanning, analyzing, or combat actions), make sure to bold the action so I know what to respond to.

Summoning

The first thing your character should do is summon their Servant.  Once all Master and Servant characters have been approved, you are free to summon your Servant at any point before the War begins.  You can gather intel and plan your strategy together, but you won’t be allowed to search for opponents or join combat yet.  The Holy Grail War begins when the seventh Servant has been summoned.

To summon a specific hero, Masters must use a catalyst—usually an item or rare artifact from the hero’s past. If you are going this route, I have a pre-determined list of available heroes, and I will to tell you if yours is available.  I will send you a short description of the catalyst and where your Master may have found it.

Otherwise, with a raw summoning, a random hero is picked. With this route, Masters are more likely to get a Servant that is compatible with their personality, though they have no way of knowing who will be summoned.

Although the war takes place in Fuyuki, the Servant does not need to be summoned there.  It can be summoned anywhere in the world, as long as they arrive in Fuyuki by the time the War begins.  The summoning ritual only requires a summoning circle and the following chant; as the Grail itself is doing the summoning with the Master's assistance. The chant need not be exact; the general idea is enough for the Grail to accept the contract.

Let silver and steel be the essence.
Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation.
Let black be the color I pay tribute to.
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall.
Let the four cardinal gates close.
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate.
Let it be filled. Again. Again. Again. Again.
Let it be filled fivefold for every turn, simply breaking asunder with every filling.

From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,
come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance!

Days

In order to make sure that everyone roleplaying does so within a fairly consistent frame of time, I will be separating everything into “Days” that last from sunrise to sunrise.  Whenever a character is done for the Day, announce it in bold.  You can’t continue roleplaying until every other character is done for the Day as well.  Once all characters have finished for the Day, I will announce the start of the next one.  If I feel that one or more characters are carrying on for too long after the others have finished, I may pressure them to hurry and finish.

Bases

Before the start of the War, every Master must choose a base of operations within Fuyuki city, selected from the map.  This should be messaged to me personally, and can be kept secret from the others until discovered.  Players cannot invade other Master’s bases until they search for them manually, or are invited there.

Searching

Much of this war will require searching for other Masters and Servants, be they in their base of operations or travelling through the city.  All Masters with an active Contract leak distinct mana that can be identified by other Masters and Servants.  To locate other players, announce that you are scanning the area for mana signatures.  As the GM, I will tell you which directions from where there is mana emanating, and about how close and strong it is.  By repeatedly moving in the direction of the mana and scanning, a player can hone in on the enemy.

Note that two Masters/Servants within 100 yards of each other will instantly be aware of the others’ presence, making a sneak attack very difficult to pull off.  Masters and Servants may also mask their signature through the use of Magecraft, but must remain stationary and inactive in order to do so.  If they move out of the area or engage in combat, they will become detectable again.

Analyzing

Every Servant possesses the innate ability to analyze another Servant’s abilities and stats.  Say that you are analyzing the enemy, and I will list any stats and attributes that are being sought.  There are some exceptions to this rule; some Servants possess abilities that make analyzation impossible.  Masters can analyze other Servants as well, but this requires a One-Verse Spell.

Traps

Some players may wish to set a trap for an unwitting enemy.  If your character wants to prepare a trap or spell and you do not want to post it publicly, send me a message detailing your preparation so I can approve it.  If you set off a “trap” that you never mentioned having prepared ahead of time, I will consider it retconning and against the rules.

Health and Mana

Servants will constantly lose mana, and Masters will constantly regenerate mana.   In order to sustain a Servant, a Master must supply their Servant with mana, and watch this balance carefully.  The rate of mana consumption and regeneration can be affected by many means.

Masters regenerate mana at 100MP/hour, but cannot regenerate health without the aid of magecraft.

Servants will lose mana at 50MP/hour when in their Material Body.  They will lose it at only 10MP/hour when in their Spiritual Body.  For Berserker-class Servants, this rate is doubled to 100MP/hr in Material Body and 20MP/hr in Spiritual Body.

Masters can transfer mana to their Servant at a maximum rate of 100MP/hour.  On average, even a nearly depleted Servant can replenish their mana within 4 to 5 hours with minimal activity.  Masters can limit their transfer of mana to Servants, except in the case of Berserker.  Berserker’s forcibly drain their Master’s mana, and should their Master run out of mana, they will die as their life force is drained by their Servant.

Mana Sources

Aside from their Master, Servants also have other ways to replenish their mana.  There are a few locations in Fuyuki City that have high concentrations of mana—called “leylines”—and are detectable by scanning.  While remaining inactive atop a leyline, Servants can absorb an additional 50MP/hr.

Masters can give extra mana to their Servant through having sex, but this is unnecessary in the large majority of situations, as the Master should already be naturally supplying what the Servant needs. This physical transfer is usually only needed if something is interfering or blocking the transfer of mana through their established contract.

While usually considered a last resort by good-natured Masters, additional mana can be restored through the consumption of human souls.  A Servant may kill an innocent (non-magus) human being and devour their soul to instantly gain 50MP.  This act is frowned upon by the Church, and abusing this to an unreasonable level may result in the Mediator setting a bounty on the Servant.

Clashes

Finally, we come to the topic of combat.  Minor exchanges of attacks for the sake of storytelling can be roleplayed through words alone, but a character attempting to deal serious damage to another will require a CLASH.  This is a rock-paper-scissors type of contest.  WATER beats FIRE, FIRE beats WOOD, and WOOD beats WATER.

The player initiating the attack, must announce their action in bold type, and then enter this code (take out the * mark).  It will randomly select from the three available choices.

Code:

[*roll="CLASH"]1[/roll]

The defending character also enters the code.

I will then describe the result of the exchange.  In the event of a tie, the result of the CLASH will depend on the specific actions being taken by each character.

During combat, CLASHES will be done in order of Agility ranks. In normal circumstances, no human can ever outspeed a Servant, so all the Servants go first, then the Masters. Of course, any player can skip their turn to start a CLASH, such as if they want to continue defending.

Saving Throws

Saving throws are useful for getting out of hairy situations. Players can make saving throws in an attempt to avoid lethal damage, powerful spells, or some other extremely dangerous threat.  For example, if your opponent uses a Noble Phantasm that will likely kill your Servant, and you lose the CLASH, you can use a saving throw to escape death at the last moment.

Most saving throws are based on the LUCK check, but occassionally saving throws are made using other stats: such as a STRENGTH check if a Servant is trying to break out bindings, or an ENDURANCE check if a Servant is being affected by a poison.

Enter this code to make a saving throw (take out the * mark):

Code:

[*roll="Saving throw"]1[/roll]

It will select a random number between 1-100, and if it is equal to or less than the Servant’s stat, they successfully avoid the threat.  There is no limit on saving throws, but you're only allowed to make them in really precarious situations where you really need it!

Be a Good Sport, Play Fair, Have Fun!

Remember to play fair.  If you know something that your character doesn’t, make sure to roleplay fairly. And most importantly we should all try to have fun!  Due to the nature of the War, characters will be getting killed all over the place, so be a good sport if your character loses!

Just adding this in so everyone sees it, if you need to do multiple Clashes or Saving Throws you just substitute the 1 out for however many rolls you have to do. So for example if your attack is targeting 5 people, you can do 5 rolls, like this:

Code:

[*roll="CLASH"]5[/roll]  (without the *)

Damascus carried out 5 launched of one (CLASH.) :

, , , ,

Same goes for Saving throws, if you need to more than 1, such as in Rider's case:

Code:

[*roll="Saving throw"]2[/roll] (without the *)

Damascus carried out 2 launched of one (Saving throw.) :

,