The Backstory:
The Holy Grail War is a ritual that has been ongoing for two hundred years. Established by the Tohsaka, Matou, and Einzbern families, the Three Founding Families, as a means to grant otherwise impossible wishes to the winner of the competition. Ultimately the competition is for possession of a Relic considered to be a Possible Holy Grail. A Relic of such power should have the ability to grant the user any wish they desire.
Masters:
The holy grail chooses Seven masters to participate in the competition. More often than not these are Mages of a high caliber with great desires to have their wish granted. Three of the masters are always from the founding three houses, while the other four are usually chosen out of the greatest of the generations wizards and mages.
These mages are to participate in the battle royale known as the holy grail war. They use their skills, and wits as mages, as well as Seven incredibly strong Familiars known as Heroic Servants.
To Enter into the holy Grail war a Person need only say that they have a desire to win. Usually there can only be one master per Magical house, but there are exceptions.
Summoning:
Before the holy Grail war officially begins the Seven masters are given the opportunity to summon their servants into the world. To do this all they need do is buy/collect an artifact of the Heroic spirit that they wish to summon. Aavalon is used to summon king Arthur. The Item can be either specific to the hero, or more general. however the more specific an item the greater the chances are you'll summon your intended target. Summoning king Arthur by the use of Avalon is all but guaranteed. Using a shard of wood from the round table could summon any one of the many knights who once sat at it.
Catalysts can be bought for 100,000 Geld, for a basic catalyst. Mages without much in the way of money can go on missions to steal catalysts from museums, or even rival mage houses.
The actual summoning process is actually relatively simple. Requiring a magical circle drawn usually in blood, as well as a small formalized chant.
Each summoning will require their own thread.
Servants:
A servant is a powerful familiar summoned by the holy grail to each of the participating masters. A servant is usually a well known hero or myth, like King Arthur, though at times they can simple be ideals or concepts.
A Servant is granted to each of the seven masters. Each servant fills a particular class: Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Berserker, and Assassin. Only one member of a class can be summoned per war, and the same hero can only be summoned once per war.
While a master can request to summon a specific class they may not always get their wish. A single hero could qualify for any number of classes, and could be summoned into any one of those roles.
Upon summoning a servant the master must choose their noble phantasms. Each class has a different number of points they get to use when purchasing noble phantasms.
The war will continue until there is only one servant left standing. At which point the holy grail will appear granting the winning team any wish that they desire.
Command Seals
A master is designated by the grail granting them a red tattoo somewhere upon their body. This tattoo is known as a command seal. A command seal isn't just a badge of office, they also serve as powerful spells.
At the beginning of the war a master is granted three command seals. A master can use one of their command seals to give their servant a command that they can not disobey. This can be anything from forcing them to disengage from battle, to making them commit suicide.
They can also be used to have a servant do things that would normally be impossible. Like having the servant teleport to their location, or having them swing their blade with a strength that would normally be beyond them.
Finally the command seals can be used to replenish a masters own mana supply. At the cost of a single command seal a Master will return to full mana instantly, even while in the middle of battle.
Additional command seals can be rewarded by the moderator of The War. These however have to be earned, and not freely given.
For stat boosting purposes a command seal will boost one of the servants stats to an A-Rank for a single round. If the servant already has an A-Ranked stat that you wish to boost it is upped to an EX-Rank.
