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dlaprobably · 1 year ago

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Servantember, Day 8: Captain James Misson (Pretender)

A salty sea dog to start the second week's worth of Servantember drawings, Captain James Misson! The legendary captain of the Victoire, Misson is best known as the founder of the fabled pirate utopia of Libertatia (or Libertalia), a democratic society that stood up for its people's freedoms and against authoritarian rule, distributing loot evenly amongst its population. Despite its sturdy fortifications and sprawling reach, its location has proven elusive, and while it lasted 25 years, far longer than most pirate outposts of its kind, there are few contemporaneous accounts of its existence. There are few records of Misson himself, for that matter, with many regarding him and Libertatia as nothing more than a story. And yet, here he stands, man, myth, and legend, as a Pretender Rider class Servant!

Fell down something of a research rabbit hole with this one it took me some time to climb out of, but it's my longest and most detailed profile yet, so I hope you enjoy it if you're reading this!

Lore Notes:

-On his initial summoning, Misson will appear a younger, more swashbuckling sort of man, the years having yet to take their toll on him, rather than the shabby-coated figure depicted above, who will typically only appear to Masters with whom a mutual trust has been established. He maintains the same unquenchable thirst for adventure and belief in his dream regardless of his age, and takes great delight in storytelling, relating tales of his own exploits and those of fellow rogues with equal pleasure.

-His ship, the Victoire, sails swiftly and silently, catching foes unaware and leaving no trace, an ephemeral vessel much like Misson's own unwritten voyages. It behaves much like a ghost ship, but appears the very picture of a dignified, undamaged warship when sighted. Its crew is invisible to enemy eyes while aboard, and consists of a motley assortment of lesser-known seafarers and long-forgotten names fearsome in their own time, many of them acquaintances of Misson himself in life. A skilled naval tactician well respected by his sailors, the good captain's Voyager of the Storm skill is at an A+ rank.

-Is as competent a duelist as he is at the helm, and a crack shot with pistols as well, with near supernaturally quick reflexes. He was known as a captain and a leader rather than a combatant, and loathed needless bloodshed, but claims to have taken a few pages out of the books of his piratical peers for this summoning. He'd still rather avoid direct confrontation, but needs must when the devil drives.

-Thomas Tew, Misson's contemporary and co-founder of Libertatia, is absent from the crew of pirates captaining the Victoire, having his own distinct Spirit Origin as the more well known pirate out of the two of them. Much as he would appreciate the help, Misson doesn't begrudge his absence, certain he has his own business to take care of.

-Misson's Noble Phantasm is Libertatia, a Reality Marble bringing forth the legendary settlement and its surrounding seas, allowing captain and Master alike to mount a strong defense while the Victoire remains on the offense. Raised forts forming an octagonal shape in the harbor, each armed with forty cannons, with the living spaces and the town proper below. Apart from its combat functionality, the town is as abuzz with activity as it was in its heyday. There's no shortage of resources to make withstanding a prolonged siege possible, but the firepower on hand and on loan should make short work of foes inexperienced at sea. Stray cannon fire from the fog enclosing the Reality Marble will hammer down on opponents, the hopes and dreams of captains throughout the ages who aspired to reach the place but never could, channeled into fighting on the captain's behalf. As well positioned and defended as the place is, it did eventually fall, and the fortifications do have their limits, and even in its empowered form as a Noble Phantasm. Dream or reality, Libertatia is as liable to fall as any fortress.

-In reality, there is no Captain James Misson. Attempts to find the location of Libertatia or other contemporary accounts of him have come up empty, and the most detailed account of him and his elusive Libertatia is a likely fictitious chapter in A General History of the Pyrates. A biographical tome published in 1724 about many of the Golden Age's most famous buccaneers, names such as Blackbeard, William Kidd, and Calico Jack Rackham among them, A General History helped solidify the modern idea of the era's pirates and their stories, and was a major inspiration for fictitious tales of piracy for over a century afterward, Treasure Island and Peter Pan being two notable examples. The Servant appearing in Misson's place is Captain Charles Johnson, A General History's mysterious author.

-Captain Charles Johnson is himself about as much of a ghost as Misson, with no records existing of a captain by his name, which is considered by most historians to be a pseudonym. Some theorize he was a genuine pirate or captain, others believe he was simply a particularly knowledgeable writer. A playwright by the name of Charles Johnson staged a play titled The Successful Pyrate about the career of Henry Every, but he seems to be entirely unrelated to the captain. Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe and hundreds of other works, is by far the most popular suspect, but a questionable one. Yet another candidate is printer Nathaniel Mist, who published some of Defoe's works, with the latter spying on the former on behalf of the British government. Johnson himself is keeping mum on who he is, and it hardly matters, given he's been summoned as Misson and Johnson rather than whoever he might really be.

-As a Servant, Johnson amounts to little more than the ideal of a pirate in the public consciousness, his appearance reflecting that. For what it's worth, he does seem to believe in the ideas he espouses, and thoroughly sympathizes with his subjects, which is why he saw fit to immortalize them in the written word. He might exaggerate with some, or dream up entirely fictional ones for the stories he couldn't justify ascribing to any existing ones, but every story gets somewhat out of hand after being passed on a few times, the wilder ones tending to be the more memorable ones.

-His Noble Phantasm as Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates, allows him to invoke the skills and feats of the figures he wrote about, granting him the skills in direct combat that Misson was never attested to have but others were credited with, for one. Libertatia is an extension of this Noble Phantasm, but is treated as a separate one tied to the Misson aspect of this Spirit Origin, and can be used in conjunction with A General History's more... general effects. If a "true" Captain James Misson were ever summoned as a Servant, he would have Libertatia as his Noble Phantasm, but the odds of that are exceedingly low given the lack of evidence for him. Still, Johnson had to get the idea from somewhere, and he'd be the first to say not to dismiss the possibility. At full power, A General History can summon a mighty fleet of the famous pirates themselves and their ships, their chronicler calling upon their legends to do battle and make their names once more. Maintaining both A General History and Libertatia at their maximum potential simultaneously would expend a frankly ludicrous amount of magical energy, but the resulting tale of adventure that would come out of it would more than make up for it.

-All in all, Johnson changes little as a Servant with the revelation of his true name, remaining the same jolly salt as when he's known as Misson, just more honest about the nature of his existence. A figment kept alive by the figments he kept alive in a sort of equivalent exchange, as long as there's people to keep reading and telling the stories, he's satisfied with his accomplishments.

-Other pirate Servants seem to be aware of both Misson and Johnson as separate individuals but perceive him as either of them at different times, which suits him fine. He's never been summoned alongside Thomas Tew, but that would doubtless make matters even more confusing.

Design Notes:

Unsurprisingly, I was big into pirates as a kid and it never went away, so it was a matter of time before I wrote up a pirate fanservant. I've been incredibly disappointed with Fate's canon handling of pirate Servants thus far for the most part (Blackbeard's writing has been improving in recent years but I maintain that the foundation for FGO's version is so broken there's only so much fixing they can try to do, the less said about Bonny and Read and how badly they botched them the better, Bart has one of my favorite designs in the game but every time he opens his mouth I want to cry, Drake is the only one that's actually cool even though she has very little to do with her historical counterpart from what I've seen), and I wanted to try my hand at doing a proper one not bogged down in a single bad joke for a personality.

I hadn't actually read any of A General History of the Pyrates before working on him, but it had been on my reading list for a long time and I had been aware of Johnson as a figure. The idea of him as a Servant first came to me when I was trying to think of legendary or fictional pirates that could qualify as Servants in contrast to the thus far historical ones, and while Johnson definitely existed in some capacity as the author of the book, it interested me how little we know about the guy for how influential his book was. As I looked more into the book, I looked into Misson, and while I initially had Johnson in mind as a Caster, the ambiguity of his identity and of Misson as his fabrication felt perfect for the Pretender class. The rest as they say, was history. Design-wise he's an amalgamation of Captain Hook, Long John Silver, and various other fictional pirates I had on the mind at the time, including this post, fitting enough for how he takes form, with the patchwork on his coat being extremely subtle symbolism for the fact that he hasn't taken the time out to buy a new one (and that he's a patchwork himself, incidentally). I imagine he does have a proper walking cane, but he uses the sword sometimes when he wants to seem dramatic or look cool. With that, I'll leave you to your own adventures, and wish you safe travels and good days over the horizon!

#fate grand order #fgo #fanservant #dla arts #servantember

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dlaprobably · 1 year ago

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Servantember, Day 4: Marie Tussaud (Caster)

Still doing these! Going to be making an effort to get these up more often, as I've got quite a few to get through and want to continue the ones I had yet to draw eventually. This is around the point where I started to come up with more detailed lore for some of these, so this one will be a bit on the lengthier side!

Day 4's idea was Marie Tussaud, wax sculptor and wax museum founder also known by her title of Madame Tussaud! Tussaud first made her name sculpting contemporary celebrities, such as Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin, under the tutelage of family friend Philippe Curtius. Narrowly avoiding the guillotine during the Reign of Terror, she was put to work sculpting the likenesses of those who weren't as fortunate. In later years she traveled to England, where she would eventually set up her famous exhibition.

Lore Notes:

-A relentlessly perfectionistic artisan who takes her work, the immortalizing of humanity's great heroes and legends, incredibly seriously. If a job is to be done, it ought to be done well, and she holds others to similarly high standards as she does herself. She can be a harsh critic but takes care to be a constructive one, and is much harsher on her own work than she is that of others unless it's truly careless. If your work does manage to impress her, consider yourself lucky, as she's much friendlier to those in her good books, but this is much easier to do than she makes it appear.

-Does no fighting herself, but uses wax-based replicas of other Heroic Spirits as her forces. They lack the full power of their properly summoned counterparts, and are rather less durable on account of their composition, but as detailed below, her support abilities imbue them with further power and the necessary magical energy to sustain their numbers, making it a mistake to underestimate them.

-Tussaud's Territory Creation skill is key to her operations, as it allows her to establish not only a workshop, but a museum in which to display her works. The museum's daytime operations and visits from the public allow its wax figures to passively gather magical energy while at rest, with the rate of gathering depending on attention given to the particular display. Her Waxen Legacy skill grants a small boost in combat power to replicas on display during the day, with the increase in power scaling on the figure's existing fame. Lesser-known figures are likely to benefit greatly from the attention brought to them, while it won't make much of a difference to already famous figures.

-Her Noble Phantasm, House of Wax, comes into play during the museum's nighttime hours, when the wax figures awaken in their powered-up forms to defend the museum like a fortress. While Tussaud will often send them out at night to face other Servants directly, they benefit more from the magical energy deposits the closer they are to the museum and their displays, and thus excel in a defensive capacity. Tussaud is also more easily able to make repairs on the fly from within the museum, and as a Caster not suited for direct combat, holing up in her workshop is the best strategy for her.

-A sort of sub-Noble Phantasm of hers exists in the form of the Chamber of Horrors, which she typically keeps partitioned off as a last resort. The more sinister figures dwell there, anti-heroes, villains, and even a few phantasmal beasts. While they remain open for the public during the daytime in their separate room, and she puts the same amount of care into their crafting as she does the more heroic figures, she fears what might happen if she were to let them loose at night.

-Her summoning as a Heroic Spirit has made her all the more philosophical about the nature of her craft, as it could be said that she does the work of the Throne of Heroes on a more mortal, individualized level. While Servants' manifestations are influenced by a great variety of factors, such as shifts in a figure's historical or societal perception, the territory in which they're summoned, and the influence of other legends on their own, her renditions are sculpted entirely through her artist's point of view, at her discretion. The Throne lacks sentience as far as she can tell, and thus lacks an artistic vision, but has nigh-unlimited magical energy to draw upon, and has no need for the medium of wax. She is the only self she's aware of, and thus can't speak as to how true a version of herself she is, as the Throne's recreation of Tussaud. Is she no more than a wax sculpture herself?

-May actually be made out of wax??? As far as her word goes, she's flesh and blood, insofar as any other Servant is, but some of her habits give reason to doubt this. She dines on wax food without batting an eye, and often draws a bath of hot wax to relax in at the end of a long day without any ill effects. She makes heavy use of her tools, but her and the wax almost seem to become as one in her sculpting at times in a rather literal sense, though it could well be a trick of the light. It may just be that she's taking advantage of her newly gained, if limited, resilience as a Heroic Spirit to satisfy curiosities of hers, but she offers no insight on the subject.

-Detests John of Nottingham, a fellow waxworking Caster-class Servant, for his lack of respect for his sculptures in both the crudeness of their crafting and their intended purpose. If summoned in the same environment as him, makes a point of rescuing his waxworks and, should they so wish, molding them into proper forms more to their liking.

-Is well aware of how fitting "Caster" is as a moniker for her, and has a sensible chuckle at it when it's brought up.

Design Notes:

Tussaud seemed like an interesting idea to me as a rather different sort of artist-based Servant, where most of the canon ones are painters and writers. I'm aware there's an "official" Tussaud design that was drawn for some Fate comedy manga as part of a competition, but I still wanted to do my own take on her. Her appearance was meant to evoke both the image of the distinguished, aristocratic Madame and the more practical craftswoman, hence the apron over the frilly dress, and while I considered going with a poofier powdered wig look for the hair, I settled on the slightly fancy-looking bun. Her work in progress is based on the infamous Bootleg Saber/Sader figurine, but whether she's resculpting her into a more accurate depiction or whether this is her grand design, who can say! John of Nottingham, referenced in her lore notes, is another one I've drawn, and he's only a couple of days after Tussaud, so you'll be seeing him real soon.

#fate grand order #fgo #fanservant #dla arts #servantember

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