APP: EL NYSA.

OOC

Handle: Tomo
Contact: benthic @ plurk; monkeypop @ gmail
Over 18? Yep!
Characters Played: N/A!

THE CHARACTER

Character Name: Cu Chulainn/"Lancer"
Series: Fate/Stay night
Canon Point: his last appearance in the Unlimited Blade Works route
Character Age: somewhere in his 20s, minimum, physically and mentally.
Background: This wiki link covers both his historical myth and his role in the game itself; please ask if you need anything more!

Personality: Perhaps Lancer's personality can best be summed up by an observation Shirou Emiya makes of him in Fate/hollow ataraxia: when Lancer expresses his belief that you don't necessarily have to hate your enemies, Shirou realizes that he also means the opposite, and that Lancer liking someone doesn't necessarily make them his friend, or afford them any safety from his spear.

That contrast lies at the core of Lancer's personality, both in the Fate/ canon and within his historical legend. He is a man deeply informed by the past he lived in, both in terms of his own experiences and the culture in which he grew up. The concept that you can't have a rowdy good time with someone today and then end their life on the battlefield tomorrow, without regrets, is to him a "boring" modern invention. It isn't that Cu feels nothing for the people he connects with—it's that he's an experienced soldier from another era, and he carries with him a separation between business and pleasure that the modern world might consider brutal. Fighting may be a grand old time for a man like Cu who loves excitement and challenge, but the joy is in the act itself and not in the subjugation of his opponent. After all, he's spared his worst enemies and killed his closest loved ones, all in the name of the path he chose to walk. How could he live with himself if he were doing it for anything less than the oaths he swore to himself and his king?

He is a man of principles and codes, reflective of his Celtic origins; his myth is closely tied to the concept of geas, oaths that, when kept, are a source of great power, and when broken can be a hero's downfall. As a Heroic Spirit, this part of Cu's personality hasn't changed a bit. He remains a person who lives by the principles he sets for himself. In doing so, he can temper the regrets that come with living a hard, fast, conflict-riddled life (and afterlife). It isn't that he carries no weight on his back from everything he did and experienced—but, because he spent his life true to his lord and doing his very best by the promises he made to others, he's able to move forward with his head held high rather than drown in the agony of a life hard-lived. His very origin as a hero came when, as a young boy, he made a decision about his own future that he committed all of himself to: to be a great hero in his youth and then die young, having burned his candle at both ends. The strength to select a path in life and stick to it no matter what it brings gives Lancer a nearly unshakeable core of self-awareness, confidence, and dedication.

Of course, this core is only nearly unshakeable, and it's his weakness as well: a man who lives according to his principles is a man who will die when his principles come into conflict with themselves. Such was the case in his legend, and such is the case in some timelines/installments of the Fate/ canon as well; in still others, he's seen to hesitate when his personal feelings lead him to make promises that he then feels beholden to later despite his usual way of doing things or his personal desires, as when he promises Rin that he'll go easier on Archer. But Cu Chulainn has never been terribly concerned with fear of his own death. After all, throwing his life into his pursuits until it snuffs out entirely is a decision he made long ago.

Maybe that's why he lives so entirely in the moment, both in his relationships and his leisure as well as in battle. In his downtime, Cu appreciates life to its fullest, whether that's by picking up women, carousing with friends who may be enemies by the dawn, or just sitting on a dock fishing for hours on end, soaking in the experience of being. It wouldn't be a life well-lived without enjoyment, after all. He seeks connections with others, and makes them easily; even his enemies often find themselves somewhat charmed by how down to earth and true to himself he is. To him, there's no conflict in this. Battle is another thing to take joy in. Why shouldn't someone who made a good drinking partner also make a strong opponent, and provide a thrilling fight to the death?

Deep down, Cu is both a good, honorable person, and a deeply selfish one, as might be expected of a man living by such principles. He is the epitome of a recurring theme in Fate/Stay night: the hero whose heroic deeds can only be aimed in certain directions, because it's impossible to save everyone. In Cu's case, that direction is wherever he decides to point them. His orders come first, and his personal feelings come second, but that doesn't mean his personal feelings never come at all. He may not take any pleasure in murdering civilians to maintain the rules of the Holy Grail War, but neither does he regret doing so—but when the rules don't interfere, he'll go out of his way to protect people he personally likes. And then again, when there are rules binding him to turn on them, too, he will, no matter how much he dislikes doing so.

When he's living outside the strictness of any regulations, self-imposed or otherwise, Cu is really just a fairly normal guy who wants to enjoy life. For as much as he's a product of very old traditions and even now sticks by his old promises, he is adaptable in his own way; maybe it's just that people in any era are drawn in by a man with his confidence, and so he pulls them along for the ride with his overwhelming personality. His love for life and deriving enjoyment out of every facet of it spills over into his interactions with others, with him generally encouraging people to loosen up and have a good time—and becoming irritated with them if they're hellbent on harshing his own good time, whether by being downers, needling him right back, or forcing him into distasteful situations. But above all else, his principles of loyalty to one's fellows and one's promises are always with him, and he harshly judges those who would do something like betray his or anyone else's trust. Fighting him to the death and killing him brutally is entirely forgiveable—and he hardly sees why anyone else shouldn't feel the same way—but abusing trust? That's just wrong.

They're ancient codes, but following them has formed the basis of Cu Chulainn's entire life and beyond, and he's not about to stop until it kills him.

Powers/Abilities: I have a deep sympathy for anyone who has to go through this section for a Fate/ character.

• Being a Heroic Spirit: Lancer is a powerful spirit with abilities that go far beyond human abilities, such as increased strength (an ordinary human throwing a punch at him wouldn't even rock him), speed (as a Lancer, he's among the very fastest of Servants), and healing abilities (Servants are able to heal up wounds that would easily kill an ordinary human).
• Spirit Form: As a Heroic Spirit, he can also dematerialize, leaving him invisible and intangible to anyone not another Heroic Spirit. He cannot teleport, though.
• Lancer: He is, of course, an expert user of mid-range weapons such as the spear, a master of the technique.
• Gae Bolg: His magical weapon/Noble Phantasm, a cursed lance. See the two sections below for more details.
• Magic Resistance: This Lancer-class skill means that Cu is immune to people attacking him with magic, to a certain extent; powerful enough magic will still hit him.
• Battle Continuation: He will not die unless delivered a wound that is decisively, unavoidably fatal, such as having his heart pierced or his head cut off or enough of his body completely destroyed. A wound that's just really bad is one he's capable of surviving and even continuing to fight through, and even fatal wounds won't kill him instantaneously.
• Protection Against Arrows: He cannot be hit by projectile weapons/attacks unless they're unusually magical/special ones.
• Disengage: Cu excels at escaping a battle intact for whatever reasons he may have. If he's engaged in battle and the tide of it is against him, or he simply gets called away, he has the ability to . . . run away, basically, to lick his wounds and strategize. He's apparently so good at this that it's a special ability that gets a name.
• Runic Magic: Cu doesn't use magic himself often, preferring to fight with a lance, but he is also a magus capable of using rune spells to various (largely unexplained by canon!) effects, such as attacking with fire or creating a bounded field that forces warriors into battle.

The canon itself is inconsistent on how these things work and plays a neverending game of exceptions: this spear is unavoidable except for this time, projectiles can't hit him except for this time, and so on. As a player, I'm more likely to operate on rule of funny-type logic (e.g. allowing someone to throw a frying pan at his head and for it to hit, rather than invoking Protection Against Arrows—unless it's funnier for both players for Protection Against Arrows to kick in against a frying pan).

Power Nerfs (if applicable): I'm fine with anything whatsoever on the above list being nerfed as needed; I'm not seeking to nerf anything for my own purposes, but neither am I invested in playing much with how OP Fate/ characters can be. His Noble Phantasm, Gae Bolg, could be considered reality-altering, though on a very specific and minimal scale: releasing his spear's true name reverses the cause and effect between "thrusting the spear" and "being stabbed with the spear," meaning that the effect of being pierced through the heart happens first and is thus unavoidable (i.e. you can't stop or dodge the thrust of a lance if the lance has already killed you before it's been thrust). That power applies only in that single circumstance of "reality," so it's not like Cu can warp reality around him or mess with time and space in any other context, but I'm still A-OK with it being nerfed, along with anything else the mods see fit!

Inventory: The only things he will have with him are the clothes on his back (an armored bodysuit) and Gae Bolg, his spear; this weapon is something he can materialize or dematerialize at will. Its powers were explained in the previous section, for the most part. That wiki article goes into a lot of deep lore that frankly doesn't mean much in a practical sense: as a cursed weapon, it has the ability to inflict wounds that will not heal (har har) as simply as an ordinary stab wound would, but for the most part, it's just a spear, and the cause/effect warping powers don't apply unless it releases its true name.

Incentives: Honestly, Cu just likes to fight; although he's also not a guy who will throw himself into any battle for the sake of battle, giving him something fun to do against a powerful opponent is a strong incentive. He also has a deep, if unique, sense of honor, and is extremely loyal to those he feels obliged to, so as long as it doesn't go against his principles in some way (or against a stronger standing order), he will go into battle if told to. If it needs to be done, that's all there is to it. He's a guy who makes promises and deals and holds himself to them as well, so some kind of situation where he swears to do something in the future in exchange for something now is always possible. In short, while holding his own safety or that of any loved ones hostage will generally not work on him, just being in a position of power over him—whether directly, by agreement, or by force—and giving him the word to do something is often enough to get him to do it.

SAMPLES

My TDM toplevel and threads! Let me know if this isn't enough; I have a few more I can link.