The Holy Grail has been damaged.

During the Sixth Heaven's Feel ritual, an unknown event resulted in the object of the participant's desire being damaged in the closing moments of the battle. A temporary solution was devised to maintain the Grail's power until a more permanent solution could be found, four powerful mages chosen to act as conduits of mana to pour power into the Grail at faster rate than it could leak it into the world and secreted away in the city of Jigoku.

It only took a few weeks for the conduits to be kidnapped by four different groups or families seeking to exploit their connection to the Grail for their own ends, creating a tense cold war-like environment while each faction tried to scheme up a way to claim the other conduits. Perhaps it sensed a similar situation to a Grail War or perhaps the damage done to the Grail has been exacerbated by the separation from the conduits, but the worst outcome for the people of Jigoku has come to pass.

Servants were able to be summoned from the Grail..

A full set of seven for each conduit.

The Shattered War has begun.

Hi! Callos here and I've had an idea for a brand new Freeform game that I hope ends up going well! That being one based on the Fate/stay night setting which I've recently gotten into but I'll be honest...I'm very new to the whole thing and I don't know a whole ton about the Nasuverse or even the Fate-verse so I'm hoping the people who want to play know how things work!

The above is my very bare-bones concept to set things up for a few different factions within the city and plenty of chances for people to play different kinds of characters. Its meant to be filled in by the players once the game starts so I've left a lot it open for people to come up with ideas for. The only concrete facts are this...The Grail has been damaged (by what, who knows?) and triggered the Shattered War, a frantic battle for control of the four conduits being used to fill the Grail. The theory is that the group/family that controls all four conduits (who are people by the by) will be able to manipulate, alter, or even just use the Grail itself so there's obviously a whole lot of things on the line!

So who are the four factions? Well, to make this a bit easier to figure out I figured that no matter what the organization/family that runs a given faction is it would be easier if each faction had its own separate name. Both to keep easier track of them and to give the servants a way of referring to themselves so people know who is who (akin to Fate/Apophcyrca's method).

So what are the group names?

Swords
Staves
Cups
Coins

After the tarot suits. So the Saber of whomever the Staves conduit is would be referred to as Saber of Staves while the Saber for the Cups conduit would be Saber of Cups. So on and so forth.

So what sort of characters can someone play in this game? The two easiest types to mention are a Master or a Servant which anyone familiar with Fate/stay night will be familiar with as well. This means there are 24 possible Servants that can be played in addition to a single Ruler-type Servant that has been summoned to 'moderate' this impromptu war.

If you don't want to play a Servant than you can play a Master/Mage, regular person, or some kind of magical being (homunculus are a thing in Fate/stay night, right?). There's also four special characters available and that is playing as one of the four conduits but, as I imagine them, these are powerful mages who are spending all of their power to fill the Grail so are quite helpless at the moment but the goal of the Shattered War is to obtain these four conduits and said conduits probably have their own dreams and wants that might not exactly line up with the people who currently 'protect them'. So definitely possible to play one of those four as well!

One thing I do want to try with this game is a very simple one...its normal in a free-form role play for the same person to play multiple character but here are two very specific limitations on this.

1. The same person should try to not play multiple Servants if they can avoid it (to ensure other people have a chance to play as them) and if they want to play one regardless, they should NOT play multiple Servants of the same faction. This is to encourage the fact that just because a group of Masters and Servants belong to the same faction does not mean they get along or all have the same goal in mind.

2. A Master and their Servant cannot be played by the same person. In other words, if you make a Servant than look for a Master character you think is cool or played by someone you like and see if they want to partner up. Play up the dynamic between the two characters! And in the unfortunate case that either player disappears, we can try to figure something out to accommodate the situation in the OOC. Same goes for the Master. Find a cool Servant or person you want to partner up with and see if they want to give it a go!

Spoiler: Master Template
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Master

Name:

Age:

Gender:

Occupation:

Appearance:

Personality:

Bio:


Spoiler: Servant Template
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True Name:

Class: Pick Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Berserker, Assassin, or Caster. Ruler is an option as well but requires agreement from everyone on who plays them considering the role Ruler usually takes. In other words, don't worry about Ruler right off the bat.

Apparent Age:

Gender:

Skills: http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Parameters_and_Skills You can have up to three skills and you are not limited to the ones listed here, you can make up your own.

Noble Phantasm: http://typemoon.wikia.com/wiki/Noble_Phantasm You can have a maximum of three Noble Phantasms.


Name:
Type:
Rank: (E being the lowest rank and A+++ being the highest. EX is technically the highest but no one should have EX rank)
What it does:

Appearance:

Personality:


Remember, keep an open mind about your character ideas so they can be tweaked and adjusted so that everyone is happy in the game. Also because being super strong isn't the goal here..its telling an awesome story with cool people.

Simple Rules:
Spoiler
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Firstly, no godmodding (or godmoding). A far better explanation of godmodding than I can give is here.
Second, please remember that we plan to have a far more directed plot than Nexus. Please run any major spanners in the works past guys on this thread first.
Third, don't ruin anyone else's fun. I can't stress this enough.
Fourth, have fun!

New and Improved (but loose) Rules v.1.1!
These "rules" are more loose guidelines that serve another FFRPG very well so I adopted them into this one, because they work.

  1. Consider asking to join in fights before jumping in.
    Please respect that all plots might not be open. Alternatively, if you yourself want to keep a fight cordoned off from other participants, say so in the OOC, at the beginning of your post, or both.
  2. TALK major fights over with your opponent!
    This is to keep arguments about who's the better fighter, who should win, blablablablabla, out of the OOC. Of course, talk these things over in PM, or some kind of IM service. While arguments might break out over said PM/IM... It keeps it out of the OOC. Which is what we're trying to do here. On that note...
  3. Don't argue in the OOC!
    They make the atmosphere oppressive, they make things less fun, and generally unpleasant and maybe even make the arguments larger than they need be. So, if you have a problem with someone, try to talk it out in PM or IM before using the OOC.


These guidelines/loose rules might be viable to change or be added on to as issues come up, but the bases are covered pretty well.


I think this covers most of the important questions so I'm going to leave the thread like this for right now and see what sort of interest there might be in the game before proposing any characters or the like. Not going to lie, half expecting someone more versed in the lore to come by and smack me upside the head and tell me how all of this is wrong and can't happen or something. Hopefully not but just to make it clear...this is an alternate continuity from any of the Fate settings so hopefully we can bend canon here and there to accommodate the idea (and keep canon characters from cropping up).