App for bravenewworld

[ofpromisedvictory]

PLAYER INFO

Name: Nerdo
Contact Information: Nerdorama
Time Zone: US Central Time
Characters Played: Rise Kujikawa, Isabela


CHARACTER INFO

Character Name: Saber, aka Arturia Pendragon
Character Canon: Fate/Stay Night

History: Legend, 12th century, beginning, etc.

AU History: Long, long ago, during the age of war between the gods and humans, many heroes rose up to protect mankind. The most well known in Union were the Savior and her companions, but the existence of other cultures points to many other heroes who did their best to, if not keep the peace, at least protect mankind.

One of these people was a person named...well, history can't quite agree on the name or the gender of the hero (the learned scholars of the old world being notoriously absent-minded about both), but the person herself is fairly sure she was a young woman named Arturia. Renowned far and wide as a trainer on the level of champions, she held the loyalty of her chosen Pokémon much longer than most of the world through her devotion to their well-being as well as that of the humans under her protection.

Of course, eventually, the fight against the Pokémon consumed all who chose to take up arms, in one way or another - Arturia was betrayed and killed by one of her own Pokémon as it came to see the gods' plan as better for the future of the world. Arturia did not begrudge this betrayal, actually...she had come to deeply regret her course of action and died with no thought on her mind but the intense wish that another champion of mankind could have taken her place and done things differently.

There are many mysteries as to what happens to the soul after death. Reincarnation is a possibility, certainly, but that's reserved for people who transcend mortal boundaries in some way. Those consumed by grief, pain, or regret when they die are much more likely to become one of the undead, which is one of the means by which Ghost-type Pokémon are created. After Arturia was laid to rest with her sword by the few remaining humans who knew of her, a curious thing happened. Rather than passing on to whatever fate normally awaits the dead, Arturia's soul possessed her own sword, creating a Honedge.

For many hundreds of years, the newly born Pokémon remembered nothing of its previous human life, simply floating about haunting its tomb with the stoic, thoughtless patience of most Honedges, content with its place in the strange ecosystem of the dead, buried, and mobile. However, as time passed, memories of its previous, human life began to slowly seep back into its consciousness as unfamiliar thoughts, expressions, and dreams. Perhaps it was because Arturia's legend lived on in obscure tales and began to spread, giving power back to her soul. Perhaps it was because Arturia's dying wish, that another champion could have saved mankind in her place, came true in the only way it could have through the Savior. Perhaps it was simply the stubbornness of a human soul. Either way, the human-turned-Pokémon-turned...both was found by an expedition that unearthed Arturia's tomb and made her way to Union, fascinated by the strange new peaceful (?) world she found herself in and searching for a place in the new reality. Keeping her confusing human memories to herself for the time being, she introduced herself as Saber, a Honedge who spontaneously developed Shifting ability, and quietly started observing.

Canon Personality: Like most major characters in her franchise, Saber is in many ways a living analysis of idealism, heroism, and what it means to be an Ideal Hero and still be a flawed, human person. Saber in particular is defined by the conflict between her idealistic desires, and the persona she takes on to achieve those, and her actual personality as a human being.

Saber's outer demeanor is a very consciously constructed one, and to no one's surprise given her nature, a very "old-fashioned" one. As the King of Britain, later known as the King of Knights, Saber consciously embodies the ideal of a knight as best as she can. She is poised and formal, sometimes to the point of coldness, and is never less than honorable and loyal, even when fighting honorably risks her quest or her existence or remaining loyal means working for someone she despises. She will not - psychologically cannot, without being magically compelled - go against her own desire to fight in as clean and innocent-protecting a manner as possible, even if she's essentially given up the rest of her existence to fighting. She does get somewhat more pragmatic between Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night, however. After the various debacles caused by her insistence on treating duels as friendly competitions in the prequel, her attitude in the original story is closer to "end fights as quickly and cleanly as possible to minimize collateral damage".

This ideal of knighthood is all well and good, of course; it's the core of her legend. It has also, like every other attempt at consciously being a hero in the Fate/ universe, caused her no end of problems, and there is a definite dark edge to it. Saber represses her emotions to a distressing extent and has done so all her life, causing her to seem cold and even otherworldly to others. During her life, adhering to this persona essentially caused the downfall of her kingdom, and as a Servant it is one of the factors holding her back from ever achieving her wish. It also reaches the point for Saber in her "afterlife" that she hardly even wishes to be treated as human, considering herself first and foremost the blade of her Master (she's also not fond of being treated as a woman, but given her experience as a resident of Europe the first millennium AD or as an acquaintance of Shirou Emiya, that's simply a matter of wanting to be allowed to do things like be king or fight battles.)

The formal and poised "King of Knights" persona very rarely goes away entirely, but spending any time with Saber at all (as a friend or an enemy) also reveals another side to her personality that's a bit more self-indulgent: Saber likes fighting and competition. While not outwardly arrogant, unless you consider primness the same as arrogance, Saber takes a definite warrior's pride in her abilities, and relishes a chance to prove them against an enemy, or pass her knowledge on to others. She even has a slightly petulant sore-loser side in this regard, when she's not distracted by the battle actually being important, expressing almost childish jealousy when Shirou prefers Archer's fighting style to hers, or sulking when she fails embarrassingly at some modern activity. Demeaning her skill at arms, as Shirou tends to do in the Fate route, presses this issue of pride to the point of making her actually angry. Her seriousness also doesn't always manifest as emotional repression, as she's quite passionate about combat and other contests, throwing herself determinedly into many different activities without ever losing either a stoic expression or serious enthusiasm. Then, of course, there's her exposure to modern food after a lifetime of medieval British fare, which can best be described as rapturous - again, showing Saber's talent for taking the mundane just as seriously as climactic magical duels.

As a Servant, rather than a King, all of her poise, skill, and stoicism is in service to a single goal, and that's to use the Grail's power to become a better king or, later, to have never been king in the first place when she decides, in retrospect, that she was never worthy of it. The King of Knights is a self-deprecating perfectionist on a grand scale, and while she won't throw away her honor to do it, she maintains an almost laser-like focus on erasing herself from history because of her own lack of pride in her achievements, symptomatic of a deep insecurity. She keeps up her knightly persona, but her lack of confidence in her previous decisions motivates her entire character for the "present" of Fate/Zero and especially Fate/Stay Night, at least until she begins to understand very late that she can have other priorities, and it takes the entirety of canon for her to realize that she can accept the past as the past and start living for herself, which brings us to who she is beneath her persona.

The final layer to Saber's personality is one that she doesn't want to admit to, even to herself, and it takes focused personal consideration by others that she only received after coming to the future for her to even admit it exists, let alone show it to anyone. Saber has spent most of her life - all of it after drawing the Sword in the Stone, and a good bit before that - ignoring herself as a person in favor of the ideal self described above. Saber never allowed herself a chance to grow up as anything approaching an ordinary teenage girl, instead locking that part of herself away and gradually forgetting about it. When it comes out, however, the difference can be striking. Saber didn't mature gradually in the same way as most people, so when her "young lady" side does come out, it's with a surprising amount of vulnerability. Her affection for small animals, especially lion cubs, is the stuff of legend, and she otherwise shows quite the girlish streak when she lets her guard down, having never had a chance to indulge that part of herself before. Saber's smiling, affectionate, "hair-down" side is something even she's forgotten, not believing herself worthy of happiness, but it still exists. The people in the present who come to care about her do their best to bring it out, even temporarily, which is enough (along with all of the rest of the insanity of the Fourth and Fifth Holy Grail Wars) to have her start reconsidering her perspective on what's left of her life, and perhaps that she's worthy of at least having a little bit of fun before she dies and her legend ends.

But only a bit. She still has, in every instance, a Grail War to fight.

AU Deviation: While the basic concept of "warrior from the past deals with modern life and serious questions of self-worth" is the same, Saber's history is markedly different due to the different setting, meaning her personality is similar overall but very different in details.

The MOST obvious change is the fact that Saber is, in fact, a Pokémon, rather than a time-displaced superpowered human. She has memories of her previous life - vague and generally unpleasant ones - but her current identity is as a Pokémon who happens to be able to shapeshift into a human, colored by the experiences she had in her previous life. She's a Pokémon, but also has a human mind that makes her think heavily about how a Pokémon is "supposed" to behave. This gives a similar outward expression to canon for different reasons - that of a calmly loyal warrior-servant, because that's what her past life believed Pokémon were meant to be. She constantly assesses herself in terms of strength and how well she supports people around her, even to the point of being vaguely depreciative toward Pokémon who are NOT loyal followers of human or Enlightened leaders - call it an old-fashioned attitude. She would be far more comfortable in a structure where she follows orders than otherwise - like canon outwardly, but rather than an ideal of a knight, she's trying to live up to an ideal of a Honedge, which has its own quirks. She might even seek out a human "Trainer" to guide her, although she could also throw herself into an organization like the Swords of the Savior and have a similar effect.

The second most obvious change is lack of an overriding goal - Canon Saber has bet her whole existence on one day attaining the Holy Grail (or apparently a Holy Grail but whatever) and while she's not willing to sacrifice all of her principles for it, it does inform every one of her actions when summoned as a Servant. In this universe, Saber has no such "quest", leading her main focus to be curiosity and reconciling her Human, Pokémon, and Enlightened identities. At the same time, she's fascinated by the Savior, who she considers the fulfillment of her dying wish - a human who was able to save as many humans and Pokémon as possible by taking a different path. This manifests as (outwardly stoic) curiosity about Union in general and the Savior in particular as her overriding sense of purpose for now, rather than a quest for a cup and the ability to retroactively QQ out of kinghood.

Canon Abilities: Okay. Bear with me here. Canon Saber has an eclectic variety of abilities, most of which aren't going to matter in any way whatsoever here since she's a Shifter and bound to the powers of her Pokémon form, but as an overall checklist:

1) Saber is a Heroic Spirit (sort of), the magically incarnated form of a legendary hero and technically a kind of ghost inhabiting an artificial magical body. She's many, many times stronger, faster, tougher, and more magically capable than a normal human being, able to fight toe-to-toe with similarly superpowered individuals with little difficulty unless fighting a serious minmaxer (which is unfortunately all of them). However, she does require a regular source of magical energy to continue existing and using her abilities, which is SUPPOSED to come in the form of a magical contract with the mage who summoned her, although it can also be gained through more physical means.
2) Even without being a Heroic Spirit, Arturia is one of the finest swordspersons to have ever lived (which is why she qualifies to be "Saber" to begin with). She can match almost anyone in a direct, face-to-face duel, and has a few other abilities granted to her in the form of her Noble Phantasm (read: secret weapon artifact), Excalibur. Namely, Excalibur can disguise itself by turning its blade invisible with air magic (also handy for trolling people in duels) or unleash its magic power in an enormous building-wrecking magical laser beam (which unfortunately doesn't do much for its disguise power) that can kill basically anyone or anything she comes up against in her canon.
3) Arturia also has two other Noble Phantasms, representing The Sword in the Stone (aka Caliburn) and the ideal of Avalon (embodied in Excalibur's sheath). The former is only relevant for one fight in one route of Fate/Stay Night, but she does manage to kill someone seven times in one hit with it (it's relevant, trust me). The latter comes up repeatedly as a means of giving Saber's Master a form of regenerative immortality, or even more impressively, giving Saber herself an absolutely perfect defense against any attack.
4) As one of history's greatest heroes, Saber has a plethora of other miscellaneous abilities, like a strong resistance to magic (even able to shrug off one of the Command Spells that are meant to give a mage absolute control over their Servant with difficulty, though two can still compel her), the ability to instinctively ride any natural creature or vehicle, the natural charisma to lead a nation, a keen instinct for battle almost to the point of limited prescience, and a raw magical power closer to that of a dragon than a human, which lets her basically do whatever the hell she wants physically by throwing enough magical energy at it, from forming magical armor to running up a skyscraper, even though she never learned anything we'd call "spells". Also, randomly, the Lady of the Lake gave her the ability to walk on water. It's handy when wearing plate armor, but makes learning to swim incredibly awkward.

Enlightened Abilities: Saber is a Honedge Shifter, making her Type Steel/Ghost, giving her the ability No Guard, and granting the starting moves (at level 12) of Tackle, Swords Dance, Fury Cutter, and Metal Sound. See Bulbapedia for the abilities she'll gain as she levels up and evolves.

Starter Pokémon: Starting with no Pokémon.

Notes/Special Considerations: The biggest thing would be Saber's past life as Arturia in the War era, which I plan to leave entirely as vague past-life memories without any particular connection to the events of today. Saber is a different person from Arturia, and that's half of the character arc I want to do with her. That said, I will probably ask for a player plot or two to rediscover more about her past life in particular (not the War in general), possibly to match up with evolutions.

Per Revision Request, Saber will not remember anything of her past life outside of blurry generalities. If I can be of any assistance with mod plots regarding the Cataclysm, though, let me know.

I'd also like to imply that Arturia was a regional Champion at some point, just because I feel like there's neat parallels with canon (most powerful leader and de facto protector of a country, position open to kids as young as ten? Sounds like the Sword in the Stone legend to me.)

And with said revision request this bit isn't really relevant either.

Also it'd be neat to introduce her as a "Wild Pokémon" on a ruins-delving log, but that depends entirely on if there's a group doing one soon who'd be cool with it.

SAMPLES

First-Person: http://zubatopia.dreamwidth.org/7449.html?thread=1157145#cmt1157145

Third-Person: [Brackets indicate action and internal thoughts in the Q&A]

-What would you say the role of Pokémon is in your life?
[She looks confused.] Er...I am a Pokémon, albeit with a rare ability. If you'll permit me to reverse the question, I seek to be a helpful member of society like any other Pokémon.

Except for wild Pokémon, that is. Most of them.

-What do you feel your role in your city is?
[Well, that makes much more sense as a question.] I am most confident in my ability as a protector. If I can grow strong enough to defend the humans and other Pokémon here from harm, I feel like I will have fulfilled my role.

-To what lengths would you go to rescue your allies if they were lost in the wilderness?
I would comb the area where they were lost until they were found, without question. I have the advantages of not needing much as much sleep or food compared to humans.

-What does the story of the Savior mean to you?
[It's difficult to tell on her face, but her expression does get much more distant.] The Savior is...an ideal human, to me. One who could protect her people and her Pokémon without fear or favor, and who could sacrifice herself rather than others for that cause. She is...definitively something worth living up to.

-What aspects and traits do you respect most in your individual fellow man?
Are you really...[she sighs]. If you mean my fellow Pokémon, I believe we are each suited to a specific role and should, within reason, accept outside guidance in achieving it - loyalty, honesty, and strength are our most important qualities. If you mean humans, it is complementary to the important traits of Pokémon. Kindness, wisdom, and clear vision are all worthy of respect in a human.

-The gods of old have returned. How would you be judged if you were chosen as a representative of humanity?
[She fidgets uncomfortably and clenches her jaw.] May I answer a different sixth question?

-What would you say is your greatest duty, and why?
My greatest duty is to protect the living beings around me. Humans, Enlightened, and Pokémon as well. I am unworthy of saying I can protect everyone - I know that to be impossible - but perhaps by striving, I can achieve something...