Lets get some action going!

[Matthew Walker]

Hey all. Looks like tons of people are starting to get characters approved and are ready to get into the grit of the Grail War. We should totally start up a mini-story arc to get some character interaction and conflict going.

I was thinking a situation where multiple masters are forced to team up since that's the best way to introduce peoples characters to each other, form alliances and rivalries, and generally start interacting on a scale greater than master to servant.

My idea is for a pretty basic macguffin plot since that sort of thing is simple, easy, and very conducive to group roleplay. The macguffin acts like a beacon of artificial Grail Energy that draws Grail monsters to itself. It's also rumored to be able to control said Grail monsters, a distinct tactical advantage for any magus trying to get at it. The Good team wants to destroy it to keep it from causing collateral damage to innocent civilians, the Evil team wants to nab it for themselves. Or more likely the Morally Ambiguous team and the Other Morally Ambiguous team both want some combination of both.

So waddaya think? Anyone want in? Anyone got good suggestions?

[Amaranta Bastillo]

I'm still in the process of summoning my servant, but I'm all up for it~
(hurhur)

I'd go for morally ambiguous myself, as we don't really have that many blatantly 'evil' characters yet.

[Miliardo Red]

VANDERDECKEN SEZ:
I'd imagine mini-Graal beacon would attract masters just because they can feel it, mostly because people having heard of it is kinda off. I'm not sure how any rumor would start; shadow-monsters are glitches in the system, not standard Grail options, so it can't be something old. And something made to control them? That'd have to be something ridiculously recent, not something widely enough known to start rumors.

But if we can make it fit, I'm all for the idea. Milly would be all over grabbing something like that or at least making sure nobody else has control over, if monster-mash powers are implied to be involved. And people forming lines of battle is a good opportunity to apply some squeeze.

Even if we can't make it fit, we can always have some monster jamboree growing downtown and the various mediating forces involved in the war can basically demand the Masters take care of it before someone normal notices.

However it goes down, I think it's a good idea to have some event force the masters to interact directly, either for or against each other.

[Matthew Walker]

That actually sounds like a much better idea than everyone going for one monster controlling macguffin. Sort of like the role Berzerker played in the original visual novel. His main narrative purpose felt like he was just supposed to be crazy overpowered so Our Heroes had to team up to beat him. Since we as master/servant pairs are all pretty balanced we can't have a PC be the main antagonist, so we use a massive grail monster incursion.

Since the main point of this is just to throw characters together and get some fun going simpler is better. What's simpler than "Grail monsters have appeared in Downtown Lucca. Are you a bad enough dude?"

[Miliardo Red]

VANDERDECKEN SEZ:
I thought the "Just-As-Planned" mob boss character was aiming for top baddy spot, and I certainly expect Miliardo to be various kinds of antagonist or at least an annoying asshole, but I can see what you mean; there WILL come a point where someone realizes Masters haven't stopped showing up and that the whole grail ritual seems to have run off the rails. At that point, focus is bound to shift less to "who's going to win?" and more to "what have we called up and how the hell do we stop it?"

Though I figure an initial shadow monster assault event to be less like Berserker and more like that wacko serial killer in Fate/Zero. Bad juju is threatening to blow this open, clean it up and get a prize/clean it up or Ciel will unplug your bowls with her bigass gun. Whatever gets the Masters moving together and interacting/killing each other, so as not to drift off into their own little thing.