heretic_blade | app for erku

Player Info:
Name: Xander
Over 18?: y
Contact: journal PM/discord glitzkrieg#0673
Characters Currently In Game: n/a

Character Info
Name: Assassin (Okada Izō)
Canon: Fate/Grand Order
Canon Point: post-lostbelt 3
Age: 27

Background:

Personality: Note: I will be referencing events that happened in Fate/Type-Redline. While it's a different canon, Izō is the same person in both.

Izō is very rude and crass. He is not refined at all and sees no reason to carry himself as something he isn't. He's blunt in his language and has no interest in softening the way he speaks. His line for the Master's birthday is extremely crude in its wording and his general speech is very rough. He also doesn't hold back what he thinks about other people or their ideas; many of his voice lines for other Servants are adversarial.

He's also fairly prickly when it comes to other people. He likes to keep them at arm's length, if only to maintain his image as a manslayer. In general, he tends to snap when people even do something so simple as sit next to him. While he puts up a fuss, he'll generally just deal with it and be surly about it instead of enforcing his personal and emotional space. In Type-Redline, Maxwell's Demon tries to sit next to him, only to get yelled at and gently threatened; he simply ignores Izō's protests and sits next to him anyway. Izō doesn't fight it anymore than that and continues the conversation as before.

He's not very smart and doesn't make decision for himself when someone else is in charge. Given the choice between deciding for himself and listening to someone else, he's more likely to blindly follow. Unfortunately, this leads to him being very easy to take advantage of. Even in his historical life, Izō was little more than a useful idiot for the assassination group he worked for.

While he may not be very smart, he is good at observing people and understanding what makes them tick – intelligence that arms him. He was a very successful assassin in life and he had to make up for his shortcomings somehow. One thing he likes to do is unsettle people by finding something they're sensitive about and use it to dig at them. He does this in canon with Okita Souji by calling out the Shinsengumi and their 'legacy', which makes her angry enough to attack him. He's good at baiting people to get the responses he wants.

He responds very well to praise, especially when it comes to his abilities. He will do a lot for a person that talks up his ability with a sword and not question it too much. It doesn't take much to get him to do what one wants him to do, the right mixture of praise and enthusiasm are enough. Again, this makes him pretty easy to take advantage of, for better or worse.

He's very arrogant in general, especially when it comes to his swordsmanship and abilities. He calls himself a prodigy and a genius with the sword. He takes any criticism of his abilities very personally and hates to be laughed at. Any perceived mocking of him is met with violent threats. Most of his arrogance is covering up his insecurity and a deep-seated inferiority complex from being used and betrayed so many times in his life; all he can do is put up an arrogant front to draw attention away from it.

His arrogance extends to other swordsmen, too, and he looks down on most others as being inferior to himself. Many of his voice lines that are specific to other Servants are dismissive of their abilities. For example, his line for Yagyu Munenori is “An instructor for the Shogun, huh? What a pompous title for just fencing in a dojo”, which completely disregards any actual ability he may have. His line for Okita Souji puts his abilities above hers, “Tennen Rishinryu, Okita Souji, huh? I don't care if they call you a genius. My sword would best yours”, again completely disregarding her actual abilities in complete arrogance.

Violence is a first response for Izō. Any sign of disrespect is met with him drawing his sword. De-escalation is not an option, all he knows is to escalate a situation. This is generally all bark and no bite, though, and he will back down if someone stands up to him. He reacts violently to perceived disrespect from his Master in Type-Redline when she refused to use a Command Spell to finish off Saber, going so far as to draw his sword on her. She doesn't back down and he eventually goes off to sulk.

Izō can be a nice person if he's so inclined. He gets along with people of similar temperament or those that either play off of or ignore his arrogance and boasting. He's nice enough to the Master during the Imperial Capital Grail War, even if he sees helping them as only part of a job. Even though he has a one-sided adversarial relationship with Ryouma Sakamoto, he willingly helps him out. He even feels bad for injuring him when he expected Ryouma to get out of the way of his sword strike.

Powers: Izō is a Servant, meaning he is stronger, faster, and more durable than a normal human. They can take a huge amount of damage, are capable of running very quickly and for great distances, jumping long distances, and their reflexes and movements are faster and greater than that of a human.

His body is made of ether, not of flesh and blood, despite the fact his body behaves as a human's. A Servant has two forms: Spirit and Material. Material is the solid, human-like form that they use to interact with the world at large; Spirit is a noncorporeal form, where they are still aware, but they cannot interact with physical objects -- it's a form used to preserve mana, as they have no form to maintain and therefore use no mana to exist. He also requires a steady supply of mana from his Master to exist.

Like all Servants, he has a Noble Phantasm (a weapon or ability owned by a Heroic Spirit):

Shimatsuken - Settlement Sword

It is not his sword, but rather his own unorthodox swordsmanship. He can reproduce any sword technique with a glance. This is limited to techniques he knew during his lifetime when he's first summoned, but he can increase his strength with sword techniques witnessed after his summoning. His ability to copy techniques is limited to single-target attacks and cannot be used to copy abilities that rely on a Noble Phantasm.

Being a Servant, he has a number of skills (note: anything in quotes is quoted directly from translations of the Fate/ materials books)

Presence Concealment B

Signature skill of Assassin-class Servants. He can hide his presence as a Servant. This is typically used for spying; his rank also allows him to disappear and be extremely difficult to detect. This ability is diminished when he's preparing an attack.

Manslayer A

A specialized sword skill for cutting down humans with a blade. "A practical form of swordplay focused on nothing but victory, unsuited for one whose soul seeks out the truth of the blade. Yet that is why it is strong, and so brittle."

Mind's Eye (False) C

A natural talent to foresee/sense and avoid danger on the basis of an innate 6th sense, intuition, or prescience. It also lets him sense what's beyond visual obstructions, such as walls, to a degree.

One with the Sword, as Swift and Nimble as a Falcon A

This phrase was used to describe his skill with a sword when he was seeking out training in dojos during the Edo period. While he never studied any school or art seriously enough to be initiated into any of them, he has a natural talent and skill with the blade that rivals masters of any art.

Inventory:

Three Saint Graphs -- basically magical clothing sets. They can be damaged, but never permanently destroyed, and will regenerate to their original status after some time or when he reverts to Spirit Form.

A matched katana and wakizashi set. Nothing special about them, but they are his Noble Phantasm. They change appearance depending which Saint Graph he has equipped.

Samples: TDM top level