Editing Nasuverse (section)

== Fate ==
Fate is the biggest part of the Nasuverse and the one most people know. It started as a visual novel all the way back into 2004, and has since ballooned out into a money-printing machine with an uncountable number of spinoff series. Entries in the Fate series are distinguished from one another by the text after the slash (/). You have Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero, Fate/Extra, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia... and most infamously, Fate/Grand Order. So no, it's not Fate Stay/Night. The series is called Fate.

The big focus of the Fate series is the Holy Grail War, in which seven mages get together in a not-that-big city in Japan and summon legendary heroes as their bodyguards and warriors. All of them duke it out for the right to touch the Holy Grail. Last man standing gets to wish for whatever they want. The whole thing was put together a couple hundred years ago by three of the great mage families in an effort to reach the deepest truth of the universe, known as the Root. The War part got involved when they got close to the finish line and started fighting to be the ones who actually got to cross it.

Due to the Fate being the most <s>lucrative</s> well-developed side of the Nasuverse, there's a lot of stories and spinoffs set in it. To keep the page to a manageable size, we'll just list down the original Fate trilogy (Zero, Stay Night and Hollow Ataraxia) and any Fate stories that expand on Servants.

===All About Servants and the Grail War===
A total of seven mages are selected to fight in the Grail War. Each one summons one hero, known as a Servant, and acts as their Master. It's the Master's job to strategize during the war, and the Servant's job to actually engage in combat. All Masters are given a set of three Command Spells, usually taking the form of tattoo-like symbols on their arm/hand by the Holy Grail upon selection. These Command Spells have several functions. The first and most important function is that it is effectively the contract between Servant and Master (and identifies Masters as such to others). Any individual with at least one Command Spell may create new contracts with other Master-less Servants provided both parties consent (which is why enemy Masters are usually targeted over their Servants). The second major function is that an individual Command Spell can be spent to issue an absolute order to their Servants. An order issued this way will force a Servant, willing or otherwise, to follow through on the command given. If it's against their desires, a Servant can attempt to resist the order, but ultimately they will be compelled to carry it out until it has either been accomplished or the command redacted by the Master. Lastly, as Command Spells are made of magical energies provided by the Holy Grail, a Master can expend them to supplement their own magecraft or their Servant's strength for a significant, albeit temporary, power boost.

Every Servant gets a Noble Phantasm, their greatest attack or ability. Revealing your Servant's Noble Phantasm is pretty much a dead giveaway as to their identity, because by definition an NP is something that most defined the Servant when they were alive. Most Masters keep this close to their chest for as long as they can, because all of a Servant's weaknesses from their old legend ''still apply''.

Traditionally, Servants summoned in a standard Holy Grail War belong to one of seven classes. Fate/Grand Order split them up into subcategories for the sake of implementing some gameplay balance ala Rock-Paper-Scissors, which will be reflected here:

[[File:ServantClass.jpg|300px|thumb|The seven classes of Servant. From top-center going clockwise, they're Saber, Lancer, Rider, Assassin, Berserker, and Caster, with Archer in the center.]]
====The Knight Classes====
* [[Fighter|Saber]], for swordsmen. "Saber" is a class and not a weapon because Nasu probably did an Engrish and thought the -er ending meant it was a name for someone trained in swordplay the same way archer is a name for someone who does archery. Considered the "strongest" class, mostly because it's well-rounded and heroes who qualify tend to be pretty strong and well-known, or the strongest incarnations of themselves. Among the most bloated of the classes, but some notable examples include Sigurd, Gawain, Rama, Julius Caesar and Lancelot. In FGO, Sabers beat Lancers and are in turn beaten by Archers, and focus on sudden burst damage through critical hits.
* [[Lance|Lancer]], a class for fast guys with long poking sticks. Lancers are commonly drawn from Gaelic myth. Their being Irish is something fans take the piss out of really often, because most of them have absolutely horrible luck. Despite the name, [[Derp|most, if not all, of the servants summoned as this class technically use]] [[Spear]]s and [[Polearm]]s rather than proper jousting lances (hell, out of the 40 or so Lancers available in F/GO, only ''two'' of them use actual lances, horseback and all, and they're technically the same (wo)man). Some other potential Lancers include Percival, Romulus, Hektor and Leonidas. Strong against Archers and weak against Sabers.
* [[Ranger|Archer]], the biggest meme of a class. The Archer from the first entry in the series spends most of his fights dual-wielding swords, and the Archer in the prequel doesn't even use a bow, preferring to fire swords as projectiles with magic. To Nasu's credit, Archers introduced in later titles would actually use bows (and in a couple of cases, a sling or a crossbow) as per their class title, and lore introduced in F/GO would acknowledge the growing prevalence of firearms. Still, the meme persists as it also includes the likes of [[Wat|jewelry-throwers, dolpin trainers]], and [[Dakka|Nerf Gatling Guns]]. Their signature class skill is Independent Action, making them less-reliant on their Master sugar momma/daddies for magical energy and better able to operate off on their own. The only catch is that this makes Archers more likely to work on their own agendas with or without their master's blessing. Aside Gilgamesh, some other noteworthy Archers are Tristan, Arjuna, Robin Hood and even Billy the Kid. F/GO sees Archers beat Sabers and get beaten by Lancers, and their abilities mean that their crits hit harder compared to other classes.
====The Cavalry Classes====
* [[Cavalier|Rider]], for pretty much anyone who's associated with a vehicle or mount. World-conquering leaders, famous pirates... Even being an infamous slut (i.e. "riding" people) is enough to qualify a hero for this class. The ''actual'' most well-rounded class, tending towards balanced stats, good mixtures of class skills, and more Noble Phantasms on average than anyone else. As one might expect, their signature class skill is [[Derp|Riding]], which gives them innate know-how on commandeering any sort of vehicle. Prominent Riders include Captain Nemo, Edward Teach (Blackbeard), Saint Georgios and Odysseus. Riders beat Casters and have a disadvantage against Assassins, and true to form their stats and abilities tend to be the most balanced of the lot.
* [[Assassin]], for the most legendarily dick-assed of dick-ass thieves. Per the "rules" of the original Grail War, an Assassin-class Servant is always one of the leaders of Hashshashin, all of whom took the name and identity of Hassan-i Sabbah. Because this would've meant an entire class would have a stupidly low pool compared to everyone else and lock out neat ideas (early information suggested Herakles would qualify), later entries retconned this to a unique feature of the Fuyuki Grail, with later entries introducing a wide variety of professional killers, martial arts masters, sneaks, and general murderers. Their signature class skill is Presence Concealment, which lets them turn invisible and not trip alarms, though actually attacking tends to break concealment... also rather like ''D&D''. They'd lose against most Servants in a straight-up fight, which is why they prioritize attacking Masters instead: even the highest ranks of Independent Action above only give a Servant a day at best if their Master croaks. Some examples of non-Hassan assassins include the Phantom of the Opera, Cleopatra, Mata Hari and Carmilla. Assassins have an advantage against Riders and are beaten by Casters, and their attacks and abilities make their team more likely to crit.
* [[Wizard|Caster]], for anyone actually good at magic. Artists, scientists and writers get to come too; the class is technically the broadest in terms of qualifications, though if you didn't actually know magic [[nerf| you're probably going to have weaker class skills in exchange for whatever weird thing you can do]]. Mocked for being fucked in the meta, since four of the seven core classes get free Magic Resistance as part of the deal, but they tend to have the ability to really turtle up in exchange, making a fortress-hideout and magical items with their Territory Creation and Item Construction skills... not unlike 3.5 wizards, really. A couple random examples include Merlin, Mozart, Asclepius, Hans Christian Andersen and even a weird incarnation of Thomas Edison. F/GO Casters beat Assassins while being beaten by Riders, and usually trade out offensive power over buffing their teammates (Hell, most of the highest-tier servants tend to be Casters ''because'' of their buffs).

====The Berserker Class====
* [[Berserker]], a class for heroes with varying levels of [[RAGE]] and/or general insanity. Berserkers range from incoherent roaring monster-men to "coherent every now and then," quantified by their Mad Enhancement class skill's rating. High Mad Enhancement strengthens them more, but makes them more difficult to control and harder to understand (either because they can only roar/growl or their speech generally focuses on whatever they're obsessed with). Originally a [[template]] that could be applied to any heroic spirit, trading sanity for increased performance, later stories instead focus on heroic spirits whose legends involves rage and madness (not to mention that constant roaring made for poor characterization). They also have a reputation for killing their summoners, either directly or by being mana hogs who suck their magical energy dry, whether accidentally or intentionally. Such angry boys and girls can include Beowulf, Darius III, Caligula and a ''very'' loose interpretation of Paul Bunyan. Berserkers have a Glass Cannon relationship with most of the other classes of F/GO, dealing extra damage to them in exchange for receiving extra damage from them as well. Berserkers make up for it by killing the enemy on the first turn, or simply not ''staying'' dead.

Fate is the most directly /tg/ subset of the Nasuverse, since Servants are traditionally given character sheets with ability scores, skills, and even alignments. These sheets aren't constructed according to the rules of any known RPG (while the base alignments are pretty standard ''D&D'', one Berserker has the alignment Lawful Mad), but it's fun to speculate about what kind of abilities these would actually correspond to within a real game.

=== Fate/Stay Night ===
[[File:FSNposter.jpg|220px|thumb|Say what you will about Takeuchi's intense sameface, he's got good character design.]]
Fate/Stay Night was the original work in the Fate series, released as a visual novel in 2004. It's where you get ancient memes like "People die when they are killed," and "I am the bone of my sword." The Holy Grail War depicted in F/SN is the Fifth Grail War, and it features the following heroes:

* Saber - King Arthur, but ''a girl.'' Her Noble Phantasm is Excalibur, which manifests its power in a slash that "cuts through everything." [[What | The actual attack is a gigantic laser beam that vaporizes whatever she points it at]], leading to F/GO's running gag where [[Lulz|you're only a real Saber if you fire sword beams of any sort]]. Saber is unique as a Servant (but only in this work) because she's neither a spirit (and therefore unable to dematerialize) nor even ''dead'' and instead sits around in Avalon answering calls to hunt the Grail. Heroine of the first story route, and one of the most popular (and lazily copied) characters in modern Japanese pop culture, Saber is an endearingly-earnest knightly woman type. 
* Archer - [REDACTED]. [[Derp | An Archer who prefers to fight up close even though he's not very good at it]], he actually isn't a legendary hero at all. At least, he's not a legend in the time Fate/Stay Night takes place. Impossible to discuss without getting too deep into spoiler territory, the original Archer is a complicated figure who varies widely between story arcs.
* Lancer - Cu Chulainn. His Noble Phantasm is the spear <del>Gay Bulge</del> Gae Bolg. The one who began the trend of Lancers having E-Rank Luck, but goes out like a man in every major route, earning much fan respect.
* Rider - Medusa. [[Derp | Isn't actually blind, despite the blindfold]]. Pegasus was born from her blood, so she gets to use it as her Noble Phantasm even though she isn't Perseus. Draws on a wider variety of sources than the prevalent Athenian version, ultimately cobbling them together into a coherent story of a fallen heroine who gradually turned into a monster, which is also why she's not got the snake-hair yet (she can become her monster form, but she would rather die). The sexy one, she unfortunately can't quite stand up to the sheer power the other Servants bring.
* Caster - Medea. Always wears a hood, but [[Elf | has pointy ears and is canonically the most beautiful woman in the entire game]]. She's still bitter about Jason cucking her, so she maintains a sadistic streak. Reenacting her legend in a way, she murdered her original Master, who was a real asshole to her, and fell madly in love with a random passerby who helped her as she was fading away. This one's completely loyal, though, leading to some touching scenes. Supplies herself with mana by sapping a little bit of life from everyone in the city. Her Noble Phantasm lets her sever magical contracts, most notably ''those between Servants and Masters''. Like Rider, she serves as a surprisingly dangerous miniboss, but unlike Rider, she never gets to ally with the protagonists.
* Assassin - Sasaki Kojirou, autistic samurai. The original example of a popular fictional tale come to life, Kojirou has never actually existed. Instead, the Grail brought in some nameless peasant of no note who [[Awesome | trained on his own and eventually became able to bend spacetime through sheer skill]] [[Derp | because he really wanted to kill a swallow]]. Has shit stats, only got a katana from his namesake ([[Katanas are Underpowered in d20 |which bends upon exchanging blows with a proper European longsword]]), and lacks a Noble Phantasm, but his [[Weeaboo Fightan Magic | ridiculous sword skills]] compensate for it as long as he can get close. Pretty chill guy who just loves to fight, but Caster used the vacant Assassin slot to summon him herself and bind him to her base's front door, so he doesn't get to do much besides serve as the odd boss fight.
* Berserker - Herakles. Monstrously strong as is, he gets a shitload of extra lives and resistance to things that kill him based on his Twelve Tasks. Theoretically unstoppable, he dies to let another character show off in every story route. Turns out Berserker is one of his ''worst'' classes, which is ironic because he was summoned by a "family" that participated in every Grail War, brought powerful non-Berserker heroes, still lost and finally decided "fuck it, why don't we just summon an extremely powerful hero with a passive NP and give them even ''more'' stats as a Berserker?". To drive the point home, in one route he dies to a weaker copy of ''his '''other''' Noble Phantasm'', which he has access to but [[Derp | can't use himself due to his mental degeneration]]. Still a cool guy despite the frothing rage, he's completely loyal to and fiercely protective of his Master, [[Awesome | managing to break out of chains designed to hold Gods when he sees her get hurt]].
* Archer 2 - Yes, there are more than seven servants. This guy survived the disaster that was the Fourth Grail War and managed to hang around afterwards. He is Gilgamesh. As pretty much the first hero ever recorded and a king, he's [[Derp | "King of Heroes"]]. All other legends are derived from him, and in his lifetime he [[Murderhobo | ignored his subjects and went around collecting everything there was to collect]], which means he has the original (and strongest) version of every artifact and can manifest them at will. This applies to pretty much anything humanity's ever produced, so it's no problem for him to summon the best car ever, or jet, or [[What | fishing rod]], or, if summoned in the future, spaceship... However, swinging swords is for losers, so he earns Archer status by launching them at his enemies. And, of course, when that doesn't work, he can just break out the [[Exterminatus | world-rending <del>sword</del> <del>drill</del> thing]] that even he respects. Gilgamesh being the strongest Servant, period, is '''very''' canon, with Nasu making sure to give him new powers whenever he's mentioned. However, while his ego is large enough to nullify any mental attack through sheer will, it also eventually brings him down without fail.
* True Assassin - An assassin summoned [[Rip and Tear | out of Kojirou's body]] during one of the routes. He actually is one of the leaders of the Hashashin. Showcasing what a real Assassin is like, he manages to bring down both Lancer and Saber by leading them to a stronger threat and helping it out. His proper title is Hassan of the Cursed Arm, whose Noble Phantasm manifests as [[Faptau|an extra-long right arm]] that allows him to crush your heart if he so much as touches you with it. F/GO reveals that he's actually quite an [[Kharn|affable, honorable guy]] when you're not on his hitlist.

There are also a whole fuckload of additional Servant classes (called Extra Classes) but they don't show up in F/SN.

Yes, that girl with the platemail-dress combo is King Arthur. The original novel actually puts a great deal of thought into this, with her whole character and backstory being deeply informed by having been a woman in a traditionally-masculine role who hid her gender from all but her closest confidants her entire life, though later titles were much more cavalier about it. She did spend some time [[/d/ | transformed into a man to beget an heir with a wife]], however, leading to one of the [[Meme | cheesier lines]] in Nasu's already [[Lulz | legendarily cheesy sex scenes]]. It's still a sticking point for a lot of people only tangentially aware of the franchise though, and the fact that Artoria is a beloved company mascot (and Type/MOON artist Takeuchi's favorite character ever) does her no favors.  For instance, that they were lazily coming up with excuses to clone her and reuse her character design was an old hat joke as early as 2015, but they keep on doing it anyway. Here in 2022, Artoria now has at least one variant/version of herself summonable in F/GO as every standard Servant class and has numerous other "Saber-face" clone characters who, while they aren't specifically her character, look borderline identical to her, bar personality differences. Almost every Fate series has at ''least'' one character that either is her or looks like her. They print out copies of her out like she's a goddamn currency at this point (not entirely exaggeration either; one event in F/GO even had her cowlicks as the event-only currency).

This also started the ''Fate'' franchise's long love-affair with gender-flipping other historical characters.  While in later titles, this was done in a mixture of cynical sex appeal-adding and the high-minded goal of making human history and mythology less of a goddamn sausage-fest, here it was done during the retool from their original plans as part of trying to make the title more marketable. Nasu's original plan was actually to have the main character be a girl and keep King Arthur as an actual king, but his artist and comrade Takeuchi convinced him they would do much better in the VN market if the protagonist was a male the audience could project on, and King Arthur was a girl. And thus, history was made.

All that aside, the actual plot of Fate/Stay Night follows Emiya Shirou, a boy who was adopted by Emiya Kiritsugu when the fallout from the Fourth Grail War turned Shirou's neighborhood into a burning hellscape. Ten years later, he gets wrapped up in the aforementioned Fifth Grail War when he unwittingly summons Saber. Oh, and that Archer has a burning hatred of him for some reason...

Almost all the characters are popular in their own right and frequently show up in spin-off material.

=== Fate/Hollow Ataraxia ===
A loose sequel to Fate/Stay Night, released not long after, and probably required reading if you liked the above. A fanservice disc in one part, and a backside of the original story in the other. Long after the Holy Grail War, Emiya Shirou is caught in a looping world of four days, which appears to be a mesh of every route, including ones which don't exist, all due to what seems to be a catastrophic miscast on Rin's part, and everyone gets into wacky hijinks.

In truth, the situation is much more complicated. The real story follows Bazett Fraga McRemitz, Lancer's original master, who should have been dead. In Hollow Ataraxia, she is brought back to life by what seems to be a mysterious, irregular, weak, and very angry Servant calling himself Avenger Together they go on a journey through the Holy Grail War's history in an attempt to untangle the mess of the ritual ''properly''.

Hollow Ataraxia has a full translation patch, you can play it. Voice acting was absent until the Vita rerelease, but patches have been made backporting it to the PC. The game would retroactively introduce the "eighth" servant class, and the one ultimately responsible for screwing up the Grail Wars in the Fate timeline:
*'''Avenger''': Don't think this is about [[Marvel Comics|superheroes]], servants summoned as this class [[Edgy|desire nothing but revenge, no matter how high the cost]]. They're so obsessed with getting even that [[Grimdark|the Grail War forbids anyone from summoning them as they're near-impossible to control...]] which is exactly what happened in the Third Grail War. The Avenger summoned in that case was Angra Mainyu ([[Skub|or <s>Angry Manjew</s>Aŋra Mainiiu if you want to be pedantic]]), the big evil cheese of Zoroastrianism. The people who summoned him expected a "god of evil", but all they got was some no-name villager that was once used as a scapegoat for "all the world's evil" and was promptly krumped... but the Grail viewed him as a mortal and granted the wish for all the world's evil, dooming the later Grail wars until he was dealt with. F/GO would at least poke fun at their inherent edginess by making them utter dorks when off the clock, and [[Dawww|genuinely viewing you as their friend if their affection was high enough]]. Their revenge ultimately trumps all else, though they'll at least make your death quick and/or painless. Aside Hollow Ataraxia's namesake Avenger, other notable Avengers include Edmond Dantes and Antonio Salieri. Avengers deal extra Damage against Rulers while being countered by Moon Cancers, and reduce their team's debuff resistance in exchange for activating their Noble Phantasms sooner, typically by gaining more energy from getting hit.

No adaptations of Hollow Ataraxia exist. Read the real thing.

=== Fate/Zero ===
[[File:FateDungeonBypass.jpg|220px|thumb|Kiritsugu deals with mages, Shadowrun style.]]

Fate/Zero is the prequel to Fate/Stay Night dedicated to exploring the backstory of Shirou's adoptive dad Kiritsugu. Originally released as a light novel in 2006, it got an anime in 2011. This was the first serious try at adapting Fate to anime since the disastrous 2004 adaptation of Fate/Stay Night. This has earned a position of major skubbery among Fate fans, since it brought in huge numbers of newfags. This entry in the Nasuverse tends to [[skub|start arguments]] about what amount of [[edgelord|edge]] is acceptable in the Nasuverse and whether or not Fate/Zero has too much of it. This owes to Zero's actual writing being done not by Nasu, but by Gen "The Urobutcher" Urobuchi. Yes, the Madoka guy. The one infamous for killing characters to generate easy drama because he can't figure out any other way to move the plot forward. Zero is still like that.

Anyway, Zero is about the Grail War that Kiritsugu participated in and that ended up with him adopting Shirou. Kiritsugu is a hardass who doesn't play by hoity-toity mage rules. Of the seven mages fighting in the Grail War, he's the only one using guns, and spends most of the time with his servant on the Sidelines while he handles things with [[/k/|firepower]]. He's pretty much playing [[Shadowrun]] while the rest of them are pretending to be [[Harry Potter]] villains.

Zero's cast of Servants is as follows:

* Saber - King Arthur. This is where we first hear of her as the "King of Knights." A lot of her relationship with Kiritsugu is post-facto foreshadowing and ironic reversals of her relationship with Shirou in Stay Night.
* Archer - Gilgamesh. This is the same arrogant dick from Stay Night. He summoned by a Master hoping for an easy victory, but barely lifts a finger to help him. Gradually develops an evil friendship with his buddy Kirei Kotomine.
* Lancer - Diarmuid ua Duibhne. If you thought Cu got it bad in Stay Night, very few suffer more than ol' Deermud. His Noble Phantasm is basic, but pretty useful: a pair of spears, one of which prevents any wound it makes from healing, and another that renders magical defenses powerless with a touch. 
* Rider - Iskandar. This is Alexander the Great at the height of his empire, so he goes by the name the Persians called him. He rounds out the trio of kings in Zero as "King of Conquerors." His Noble Phantasm is a Reality Marble that lets him call up everybody that's ever fought by his side in the past for a good old-fashioned gang beating. 
* Caster - Gilles de Rais. The famous murder-rapist of children maintains his fetish for Joan of Arc. When he crosses paths with Saber, he mistakes her for his beloved Jeanne. He gets command of lots of tentacles via the actual Necronomicon and continues to spend most of his time murdering children, but since he's not a proper fit for the Caster class... he's effectively a one-trick pony with that book.
* Assassin - Hassan of the Many Faces. Instead of one assassin, this Servant gives the Master access to a whole mess of Assassins that lack the superhuman abilities of a Servant. Their disposability makes them useful as scouts.
* Berserker - Lancelot. He spends most of the series incognito, only revealing his identity for a final duel against Saber. Notable for using his Noble Phantasm to [[awesome|hijack an F-15 fighter jet, dogfight with it against Gilgamesh, then turn it against Saber.]]

=== Fate/Extra ===
An alternate timeline spin-off for the PSP set in the Moon Cell, a supercomputer that is also the Moon. Rather than a free-for-all between seven Master/Servant pairs, this Holy Grail War is set up as a single-elimination tournament. Each week, one Master is paired up with one opponent, and so every week the number of Masters halves after the life-or-death duels.

The gameplay is sort of crap, involving a lot of grind in not-very-interesting geometric environments, but people like it because it's one of the very, very few games in the Nasuverse with an official English translation. Arcueid and Ryougi make cameo appearances, with Arcueid featured as a Berserker in one of the routes and Ryougi as a secret boss in the otherwise-unexplained Monster class. This was the first entry in the series to explore the backstory of Stay Night's Archer. 

Fate/Extra has a sequel, Fate/Extra CCC, which was not and still isn't in English. The best you get is playthroughs on Youtube with subtitles superimposed on the game text. Most have added the CCC fan translation to the "never ever" pile alongside the Tsukihime Remake. This is kind of a shame, because the opinion among grognards is that CCC constitutes Nasu's last great work, retroactively making all the grind in the first Extra game worth it.

CCC is followed by ''Fate/Extella Link: Umbral Star'', a musou-type game that takes place after Extra and CCC, and ''Fate/Extella Link'', a true sequel that deals with the aftermath of CCC, and introduces, among other things ''two'' versions of Charlemagne.

A remake of the first game as Fate/Extra Record has been announced, with an English release more or less confirmed from announcement (no official statement, but the official website has an English option). Unfortunately, a CCC remake [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Gk1-hESqw&t=1067 is in doubt because it would be too lewd]. Blame Sony.

The EXTRA series, aside from introducing now series-standbys like Emperor Nero and Altera/Atilla The Hun, introduces two unusual Servant classes to serve as its antagonists:

* '''Moon Cancer''': A glitch in the matrix, so to speak, the Moon Cancer is a servant class representing a hostile entity trying to take over the functions of the Moon Cell supercomputer. In the EXTRA games, this is a boss-only class held by both BB and Kiara Seshyoin, and for the longest time was considered one of the ''rarest'' of Servant classes in Fate/GO. In the latter game, for some reason, it is strong against the Avenger class, but is weak to Rulers (though this makes sense at least knowing that Rulers are meant to deal with Grail War aberrations).
* '''Alter-Ego:''' The Alter-Ego is what happens when a splice happens between multiple Spirit Origins, some of them divine in nature, to create a brand-new personality, and are [[Min-max]]ed up the wazoo. In the EXTRA games, various aspects of BB's persona (her Lust, her Greed, etc.) get mashed together with bits and pieces of goddesses from varying pantheons to create the Sakura Five (Meltylyris, Passionlip, etc.), while in Fate/Grand Order, this class includes beings who've subsumed divine origins through different means (see Ashiya Douman literally ''eating'' Aztec God Itzpapalotl and Slavic God Chernobog). In Fate/GO, Alter-Egos are strong against the three Cavalry classes, but are weak to the three Knight classes.

=== Fate/Apocrypha ===
An alternate timeline spinoff where a mage from the Yggdmillennia family worked with the Nazis to steal the Greater Grail in Fuyuki during WW2, resulting in the 4th and 5th Grail Wars never occurring. Instead, when it came time for a new Holy Grail War, this mage arranged it so that all seven servants would be summoned by fellow mages from the Yggdmillennia family as a single united force and dared the Mage's Association to try to stop them (Black Faction). The grail, noticing that all the summoned servants had banded together in a breach of protocol, triggered a failsafe that allowed seven ''more'' servants to be summoned in opposition of the originals (Red Faction, [[/v/|no relation]]), with the intent for the war to dissolve into a fairly standard "last-man standing" grail war once the factions were broken up, to be overseen by an impartial Grail-aligned Ruler-class servant. Notable in that it featured two teams of seven Master-Servant pairs (one in each of the Seven classes to a side) and the new Ruler class. 

Though a potentially interesting take on the more "traditional" Grail War concept, this entry was generally panned by the community for the mediocre writing and is most notable for its introduction of more [[Skub|high-powerlevel Servants]], as well as an outpouring of weeaboo [[RAGE]] when Jeanne D'Arc, one of Fate's poster girls and a fan favorite, hooked up with a random [[Mary Sue]] homunculus named Sieg that nobody even liked in the first place.

Because there are ''fourteen'' Servants involved in this spinoff (not counting Jeanne, as she's supposed to be neutral), we had to cut this part down to a few of Servants of note, either because of oddities or [[Meme|memetic]] contributions;
*Saber of Red - Mordred. Just like her "father", Mordred is a genderbent version of her traditional interpretation. She and her master (a [[Awesome|bounty hunting necromancer who uses a shotgun that shoots fingers as slugshots]]) operate independently from the rest of the Red Faction and serve as the protagonists from their faction. She ''was'' supposed to remain male during development, but since she would have debuted alongside Astolfo below and putting one femboy too many, something had to give. F/GO finally lets her meet with dear old "dad" (multiple versions of her no less), to Artoria's disdain whether it was due to the whole shebang at Camlann or Mordred stealing things from the treasury again.
*Rider of Black - Astolfo. One of Charlemagne's Paladins and a complete [[/d/|trap]]. His master really likes to force herself on him, to his chagrin. Takes a liking to Sieg and helps him escape the Yggdmillenia manor. Astolfo's popularity is such that not only is he now the effective face for the term "femboy", he has all but erased the traditional character from the Matter of France from the face of the internet.
*Assassin of Red - Semiramis, The Wise Queen of Assyria. Is the loyal second in command of the Red Faction, having been summoned by Shirou Kotomine as his personal Servant. Her Noble Phantasm, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, is a literal flying fortress that functions as the Red Faction's base of operations. While Servants can be summoned in other Classes if their legends allow it, Semiramis is unique in that she's one of the few Servants who can genuinely [[Multiclass]] as is, both as an Assassin ''and'' a Caster in her case, which is a good thing for the Red Faction as their ''actual'' Caster, William Shakespeare himself, is completely useless both due to [[derp|bad storywriting]] and [[Lulz|personal choice]].

Other Characters:
*Sieg - A formerly nameless homunculus from the Black Faction who managed to escape from his stasis tube before being harvested. When attempting to stumble out of the complex, Astolfo takes pity on him and helps him escape. Ultimately, one of the masters from Yggdmillenia finds him and accidentally destroys his heart with a magically charged punch, prompting Saber of Black/Siegfried to transplant his own heart into the dying homunculus. This, naturally, grants him immediate strength and revitalizes Sieg, [[bullshit|altering his projected standard lifespan of 3 years to just under 100 and giving him the ability to transform into Siegfried for 3 minutes at the cost of a Command Spell]]. This character receives a fair amount of (justifiable) hate due to his non-existent personality and the sheer number of abilities and skills just ''piled'' on him simply from the virtue of being in the right place at the right time. Jeanne also inexplicably develops a crush on him halfway through the series.
*Jeanne d'Arc - Token Saber-face of the show (alongside Mordred), Jeanne is the Ruler-class servant summoned by the Grail to oversee the Great Grail War and as it's impartial judge which she... only kind of does. For the first half of the story she attempts to remain impartial and she does (temporarily) unite servants from both factions against a greater threat. But, between her growing  attachment for Sieg and revelations about Shirou Kotomine's true nature result in her effectively siding with the Black Faction.
*Shirou Kotomine - Despite his stage name, Shirou is not related to the Fate/Stay Night Shirou ''or'' Kotomine in any way. A representative of the Church and commander of the Red Faction, Shirou usurps control of all the Red Faction servants from their respective masters (except Mordred and her Master, due to them wisely suspecting Shirou having ulterior motives). Is effectively the main antagonist of Apocrypha. His ''true'' identity is Ruler Amakusa Shirou, rebel leader and the ''apocrypha''l patron saint of Japanese Catholics, summoned in lieu of Avenger during the third Grail War and managed to persist after it. That Shirou was summoned "first" also results in Jeanne's power taking a hit.

Fate/Apocrypha only "introduced" one new Servant Class, but since it was hinted at in previous entries, it is no less important;
*'''Ruler''': Rulers are an unusual class of servant that are typically supposed to serve as unbiased mediators on the Grail's behalf. Servants of this class tend to be extraordinarily strong willed or have particularly divine providence, usually from God Himself. As avatars of the Grail's authority, Ruler servants are granted full autonomy and their own selection of Command Spells in order to compel any and all Servants summoned by the Grail when they deem it necessary. In F/GO, their authority over the standard servant classes is represented by a near universal defensive advantage against all non-Extra or Berserker classes. They are also vulnerable to Avengers and have full advantage over Moon Cancer servants. This is generally balanced out by the relative Ruler servants not being particularly offensive in nature, but that doesn't stop some of them from becoming Critical-Hit monsters. Aside from Jeanne and Amakusa above, notable Ruler class servants include Saint Martha and [[what|Sherlock Holmes]].

=== Fate/Prototype ===
As the name sort of implies, this was the "rough draft" of what eventually evolved into Fate/Stay Night. Though his more popular female incarnation is the face of the franchise as a whole, King Arthur is still very much a guy in the Prototype timeline, having been summoned in that timeline's second Holy Grail War by a young female mage (who was replaced by Shirou). Many of the characters are either earlier versions of the servants who appear in Fate/Stay Night or fill the same roles as the ones who were made to replace them, but there are some relatively prominent exceptions in both the plot and cast. No ''complete'' version of Prototype has been created, as Nasu doesn't feel particularly interested in revitalizing the original story himself.

Beyond personality differences, the only real changes to the servants involved are Gilgamesh becoming Prototype's Archer and Perseus replacing Medusa as Rider.

=== Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver ===
A prequel series to Fate/Prototype (you know, despite Prototype itself being incomplete) written by Hikaru Sakurai, Fragments of Sky Silver is a collection of volumes, each focusing on various characters during the events of the First Holy Grail War (of Prototype's timeline). In a parallel to Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night, King Arthur is also present as the summoned Saber in the prequel as well. Fragments of Sky Silver is notable in that Nasu has virtually no involvement with the story, only offering minor story elements and input on the servants (who, unlike Prototype's relationship with Stay Night, vary much more aside from Arthur/Artoria and a Hassan being involved).

=== Fate/Grand Order ===
Much like ''Fate/Apocrypha'', Grand Order takes place in a timeline that diverged from the one showed in ''Stay Night''.  where Marisbury Animusphere wins the 2004 Grail War, thanks to him summoning a ''Grand Caster''.  Instead of pursuing the Root as other Mages would, Marisbury would instead wish for the influence, prestige, and most importantly, the '''money''' to found the means to secure Mankind's future. By 2018, this would become the '''Chaldea Security Organization''', a gathering of the best of scientific and magical minds, which would go on to create a much more practical Servant summoning system, as well as the Rayshift, a means of time-traveling that would allow Chaldea to investigate temporal anomalies that could possibly negatively influence the present.  

Which is a good thing, as things soon go to Hell in a handbasket, and Chaldea has to scramble against an unknown attacker that seems hell-bent on making sure Humanity's history ''literally'' gets burnt to a cinder, all related to an obtuse prophecy that the world would end by 2016.

The series is infamous for the sheer amount of [[Skub]] it engenders, primarily due to its Gacha nature (in itself already infuriating, as randomness mixed with real money is never a good mix), as well as the fact that, since Nasu himself is writing the scenarios, everything else in the Nasuverse -- especially the promised Tsukihime remake -- have been on the backburners for an extensive period of time. With the recent Tsukihime remake finally being officially revealed/announced, it seems he's finally freed up enough to get some progress done. 

On the flipside, it ''also'' fleshes out many aspects of the Nasuverse cosmology that would otherwise not been given focus outside of obscure background material.  These can be pretty low-key revelations, to outright gonzo additions to the lore (the Greek Pantheon? Terraforming spaceships from another reality trying to recreate their makers' culture; the Aztec Gods? Space alien bacteria symbiotes leaping from host to host the Mezo-Americans started to worship).

The game has also shown just what could be done with the Servant summoning system, pushing things to the absolute limit on just what kind of "Hero" can be summoned (up to and including theoretical existences like ''fictional characters'' such as the Count of Monte Cristo), as well as introducing all sorts of summoning-related shenanigans like "twin summoning" (summon a Hero? You also get a chance at summoning their arch-nemesis for free!), "chain summoning" (summon Altera the Hun? If you have the mana to spare, you can THEN use her sword to summon Mars as a gigantic Mecha as well!), and the infamous self-summon (a dying Gilgamesh [[What|''summons his Archer self'']] using his body as a catalyst).

Currently, there are two main parts of the story (with a third currently in development), with two aside/interlude components.

:'''Part 1''': CHALDEAS determines, with absolute certainty, that a series of singularities that have appeared throughout human history will cause the complete destruction of humanity by the end of the year 2016. Though they had dozens of highly skilled masters set to counter these singularities, nearly all of them were slain due to sabotage on part of Lev; an agent who had been working from within CHALDEAS on behalf of the big bad responsible for the singularities. This left Ritsuka Fujimaru (Player) as the only remaining Master able to form contracts with and summon servants to combat the singularities. After forming a contract with Mash, the two embark to eradicate Solomon's (a Grand Caster and the architect behind the) Singularities to restore human history.

::'''Part 1.5''': This is an optional series of "Pseudo-Singularities" and can be skipped. Following the defeat of Solomon, a wide variety of organizations, such as the Mages' Association and the ''U.N.'' intend to investigate CHALDEAS due to their rayshifting technology and having tampered with the timeline (despite the fact that it, you know, saved humanity). During this process, a series of Sub-Singularities crop up. Though these singularities don't run the risk of annihilating the human race if left unchecked, CHALDEAS still dispatches Ritsuka to them to prevent them from causing lasting harm.

:'''Part 2''': Due to the untimely loss of director(s) Marisbury and Olga Animusphere as well as acting director Romani Archaman during the course of Part 1, Goredolf Musik is dispatched by the Mages' Association to take over as CHALDEAS' new director. However, various agents accompanying him used his takeover as cover to infiltrate and destroy CHALDEAS from within, paving the way for the Alien God (the new big-bad) and it's seven Crypters to descend upon the earth and utterly bleach it of all life. Ritsuka, Mash, Goredolf and a select rag-tag group of CHALDEAS survivors manage to avoid the bleaching by diving into "Imaginary Space" (functionally the Warp). When they return, they discover not only has the Earth been reduced to a white marble, but seven new singularity-like phenomena have taken root on the surface. Known as Lostbelts, each of these singularities alternate realities; specifically historically dead-end realities where humanity has ceased to develop or advance. Guarded by a Crypter, formerly members of CHALDEAS' elite team of masters who anti-climactically died during the very first attack on CHALDEAS, each Lostbelt risks supplanting Proper-Human history if allowed to grow strong enough. Thus, Ritsuka and the remaining members of CHALDEAS, now dubbed Chaldea (this is important, apparently) set out to prevent the erasure of humanities "true" timeline.

::'''Part 2.5''': Having finally collapsed the final Lostbelt, the remaining members of Chaldea are guided to return to the original CHALDEAS base in the Antarctic. Only to find they cannot enter it. As it turns out, Proper-Human History ''itself'' now identifies the crew of Chaldea as foreigners and is barring their access to "ground zero" of the bleaching. This is, in no small part, due to all the various foreign-sourced upgrades the crew made to their ship and the judicious use of extra-class servants Ritsuka had been summoning/commanding. Due to this, Chaldea must travel to a few focal points to, for lack of a better word (for now), recalibrate themselves so that Proper-Human History can recognize them once more. This part is currently ongoing.

Though the earlier works had rather basic storylines and characters, as F/GO began gathering traction, the writing has generally improved for much of the story and a notable jump in character design and animation quality has been implemented as time has gone on. It's good they're reinvesting their ludicrous profits, at least.

It's a very Love It or Hate It type of game, made worse by the fact that it's ''the most lucrative entry of the franchise'', raking in ''billions'' per year. Yikes.  Has produced two TV anime so far, as well as a movie. It also introduced the latest three servant classes to the franchise thus far;

*'''Shielder''': For Heroic Spirits known for their well... [[Shield]]s. Is the servant class of one <s>[[Skub|Mashu Martha Matthew]] [[Lulz|Mashpotatoes Eggplant]]</s> Mash Kyrielight, a human merged with the spirit of one such Servant, gaining access to their powers and becoming a demi-servant in the process. She serves as your number two throughout the game. As far as her gameplay mechanics go, she is the only servant who takes/deals neutral damage to all other servant classes across the board. Befitting her class title, she's also only particularly adept at defense, using her skills to reduce, negate or redirect incoming damage.
*'''Foreigner''': Move over Gilles, this is for servants with ''actual'' (in-universe) contacts to the [[Cthulhu Mythos]], [[Possessed|granting access to the powers of]] [[Daemonhost|whatever entity they contacted]], or they're literally out of this world (as with the case of the Voyager probe). Contrary to what you'd expect, servants in this category are quite ''sane'', either by consuming the madness that would normally follow or overcoming it entirely, giving them a proper advantage against the normally-insane Berserkers. A rather interesting handful of characters have fallen into this category, including Abigail Williams and a rather... loose interpretation of Van Gogh.
*'''Pretender''': One of the rarest servant classes. Pretender class servants are individuals who achieved fame and glory for the heroics they performed while posing as a completely different individual. Not to be confused with masked, disguised or anonymous individuals, these are people who quite literally assumed a completely different identity to perform their deeds under. There are extraordinarily few members of this class, nominally Oberon-Vortigern (Vortigern of Arthurian fame assuming Oberon of A Midsummer Night's Dream's identity in a faerie-infested Britain) and Hephaestion-Mnemosyne (fictitious twin sister of the ''real'' Hephaestion, corrupted with a program Chaldea whipped up). Fate/Prototype's Merlin (here the one who got genderswapped instead of Arthur) also artificially changed her Spirit Origin into that of a Pretender and went by the alias of Lady Avalon. Mechanically, these guys function as the inverse of Alter-Egos; they deal bonus damage to the knight classes and less damage against the cavalry classes. They also complete a new advantage triangle; they gain full advantage over Alter-Egos and are fully weak against Foreigners.
*'''Beast''': A surprise, to be sure, but now a genuinely summon-able class. These are extraordinarily powerful calamities that threaten total extinction upon the human race, if not just the complete destruction of the world. Beasts are the "Evils of Humanity" and as such are all formed from aspects of humanities vices (not too dissimilarly from [[Chaos Gods|a few other entities]] from [[Warhammer 40,000|a certain other universe]]). Usually, in an ironic twist, Beast candidates can only truly manifest as the genuine article out of a place of "love for humanity", though their interpretation is usually... extremely skewed, obsessive or blatantly delusional. In fairly typical Nasuverse fashion, though there are only seven catagories of Beast, there can be numerous entities within the same category (For example, there are two Beast III's, III/L and III/R, and at least four Beast VI's, VI/L, VI/R, VI/S and VI/G). Most of the Beasts or Beast Candidates are unknown, but notable known examples include Goetia (responsible for the entirety of Part I of F/GO), Cath Palug (Also known as Fou, F/GO's squirrel-dog mascot), Tiamat and the Alien God. For the one example (currently) available, summonable Beasts have true advantage against ''all'' of the standard servant classes, though they are ineffective against ''all'' extra class servants.


:'''Grand-Class Servants''': You might've noticed near the top of this entry that Marisbury Animusphere summoned a ''Grand'' Caster and might ask yourself "what the fuck is that?" As it turns out, the Holy Grail Wars use a dollar-store knockoff of a summoning ritual used by Alaya in order to summon Grand servants; Servants who represent the best of the best that Humanity has to offer summoned forth to fight against threats to the entire human race (Beasts). There are only ever seven Grand Class Servants at any given time, one for each of the standard servant classes. Due to them functioning as the ultimate pinnacle of their class, their stats are jacked up so high that normal Servants are considered "cheap imitations" and are basically what normal humans would be to a regular Servant. Under normal circumstances, it's impossible to summon Grand Servants; the sheer mana required alone is far and above what even the most skilled mages can ever bring to bear. In most cases, if one ''does'' manage to summon a Grand Servant outside the normal requirements, they're usually ''massively'' nerfed or otherwise handicapped to compensate. Said revalation also explains why Casters and Assassins get the short end of the stick in a Grail War; it's effectively a PvE system that has been poorly butchered to fit PvP, and Casters and Assassins are supposed to be running support or hitting priority targets while the other frontline classes wreck face.

:Grand Servants are fully intended to be impartial defenders of mankind and while they fill that role, they stand truly beyond compare. However, should a Grand Servant decide to aid a particular individual or organization, they must forfeit their rank as a Grand Servant. Upon doing so, they can temporarily bring their full, Grand-Ranked might to bear against a foe, though they will thereafter degrade into a "normal" servant. If they do this, they also seem to permanently forfeit their right to the title and the position will be left open for a new candidate.
::'''Grand Saber''': Unknown
::'''Grand Archer''': Open, formerly held by Orion of Greek mythology. Gave up his rank to help Chaldea shoot down a massive mech version of Artemis from orbit.
::'''Grand Lancer''': Open, formerly held by Romulus-Quirinus. Gave up his rank to help Chaldea defeat a mech version of Zeus and to stop a planet-sized version of Chaos (from Greek Mythology) from transporting to the LostBelt they were in.
::'''Grand Caster''': Held by Merlin. Formerly held by Solomon, who effectively deleted himself from existence to stop Goetia from incinerating humanity. Notable other candidates include Gilgamesh and Merlin (the female Fate/Prototype version).
::'''Grand Rider''': Held by Noah, of biblical fame.
::'''Grand Assassin''': Held by Tezcatlipoca. Formerly held by Hassan-i Sabbah (the first one). Gave up his rank to instill the concept of death into the goddess Tiamat so that Chaldea could defeat her.
::'''Grand Berserker''': Would have been occupied by Tezcatlipoca if he didn't end up occupying the open position to Grand Assassin.