Class: Assassin Gender: Female Approximate Apparent Age: Mid-teens Personality: Assassin is what happens when you crush someone’s psyche and give them a few thousand years to spend on top of it. Years look like minutes to her. To use a metaphor, it’s not unlike slowing down a movie so it reaches a hundred-hour duration. The good parts and bad parts both last a lot longer. Fortunately, Assassin is in a short period of good mood thanks to what she believes to be her last thought, a disposition which should hold for the rest of the War. This is a rare occurrence, as happiness for her typically only happens about 1% of the time.
She’s not nearly as crazy as her most famous moment would have you believe. She’s certainly been affected by her experiences, but as long as you leave God out of it, she’s actually pretty stable. At least in regards to her actions. There’s quite a bit of resentment at other people for shunning her the moment they saw her, which does manifest in some snark, but Assassin had the benefit of actually living through quite a bit of history, and is ironically more familiarized with modern life than many other Heroic Spirits. She’s still not very picky about food, due to reasons that are explained in her story.
Obviously, Assassin has never had the opportunity to live as a normal girl, and it isn’t even a possibility in her mind anymore. When the time you’ve lived makes everything seem so insignificant, the little things slip under the radar. Truth is, despite her outside demeanor, Assassin can be incredibly insightful. Having had quite a bit of time to think during her life, she could have very well made her living as a philosopher if it weren’t for her condition.
Killing is a bit of a complicated point with her. She doesn’t mind doing so, but not because of heartlessness. In her mind, killing is the reminder that her very essence, her origin, will always remain attached to her, and she can’t separate herself from the act that took away the only two people she ever truly cared about. The reason she doesn’t mind is because she considers an existence linked to it her punishment, one that has been bestowed by God, and thus, cannot be renounced.
History: Assassin is the firstborn, the very first human in the world to be born of another. She is also the first to have committed a murder. Her younger years weren’t precisely a barrel of fun. Humanity had just been casted away from Eden, so it was pretty much just trying to grow fruit from sub-par soil, day after day. Indeed, she could have just resorted to her brother’s methods and started to hunt, but Cain always held a bit of hesitation at driving a blade against another living thing.
In truth, Cain always held some resentment against her parents. As a farmer, she took the brunt of their decision, seeing arid deserts and meager crops for the majority of her life, with nothing but stories about the lush green paradise with no sin she could have lived in had they not eaten of the apple. Perhaps it was this idealization that led to her holding God in higher regard than them. Cain knew that God must have known about her true feelings of dissatisfaction, but she figured that things would remain okay if she didn’t act on them. Her brother, Abel, proved to be the exception to this. As someone who had no part in deciding their living conditions, Cain always held the company of her brother in high regard. It could be said that he was the thing she valued most in the entire world, beyond her own devotion. You don’t grow attached to a lot of stuff when you’re usually too busy with work to even think about anything else.
But she didn’t act on her hate. Not for some time. More than a decade passed, and nothing that could truly infuriate Cain ever came up. This being the beginning of humanity, she had taken to work at an extremely young age, and had kept herself occupied with such ever since. To her, the announcement that God was asking for tribute was the BC equivalent of a schoolgirl entering a singing contest. After spending months trying to actually grow something good out of little more than dust, she presented her work. God didn’t like it. He very much favored Abel’s sacrifice of his firstborn sheep.
She was the one who put work into her offering, she thought. Was the sacrifice of others valued over one’s own work? If so, she could sacrifice something far more valuable to her than a mere sheep. She could give to God the thing she valued the most in the entire world. At the time, the concept of murder wasn’t even a thing. What is now a very tempting prospect for a certain kind of person took Cain a whole month to think up. God’s reaction was unexpected. The moment Cain saw it, she immediately took to hiding from him.
Obviously, the ruse was short-lived. God asked Cain where Abel was and, even though she was perfectly aware he knew, in His omniscience, the sheer guilt stopped her from answering truthfully. Cain had talked to God many times before, being one of four humans in the entire world, but this was the first time it hadn’t been on friendly terms. She was punished to live an eternal life, haunted by her actions.
She didn’t argue it. Despite having the imagination to invent entirely new concepts, the thought of going against His will didn’t even cross her mind. She did, however, plead to not be killed herself, and was thus punished with not only the inability to age, but what amounted to a big neon sign warning everyone that killing her was a very bad idea. Cain could have very well taken her own life, but she never attempted so. Not because of sin, no. She doubted Heaven would ever be a possibility for her ever again. Instead, she wanted to make God’s punishment count for something. If His will is for her to live in suffering, then she damn well will. That decision accounted for thousands of years wandering the desert, countless sessions of despair, and very, very rarely talking to anyone. Staying alive was a struggle, as she was stripped of her ability to grow her own food, and few were willing to give any to her, but she was determined to live until God told her it was over. Cain never attempted to cover up her mark, which resulted in everyone knowing they were looking at the first murderer at first sight.
It’s unknown just how long Cain lived. Whether you call it fortune or bad luck, she didn’t see a lethal accident until thousands of years after receiving her curse, having the roof of a building fall upon her. Cain lived for twenty seconds after figuring out what was happening. During the first ten she considered this just another event born of her bad luck. The next five were spent thinking if this was caused by her Lord. The next four considered this a sign that he had been satisfied with her suffering. By the last second, her mental functions had died enough to stop her from remembering her thought at the time.
It wasn’t long until she was summoned by the Grail, yet even then, she couldn’t figure out a reason for it doing so, not having a wish of her own.
Fighting Style: Cain is pretty much the worst Assassin ever if you judge her with a traditional one as the standard. Unlike most, she never actually trained for her role as one. Indeed, before her only murder, she was a crop farmer, and the curse bestowed upon her resulted in her having little motivation to train her skills. While her Presence Concealment helps diminish the shortcomings of this fact, she is an exceptionally bad physical fighter, just a little above Caster (not this War’s Caster, who’s actually better than her). She’s still more powerful than most humans, but in direct combat, she’s unlikely to be able to kill them.
She does, however, have the mindset required for one. Cain does not show off more of her skills than she needs to, having long since figured that showing off brings nothing but trouble. She relies on backstabbing targets with her nameless knife. Naturally, not being a Noble Phantasm, it’s not enough to kill Servants. She is not nearly as impulsive as she used to be; thousands of years of wandering deserts are a pretty good incentive to change your ways. She still doesn’t like to be one-upped, though, and she’s much more likely to resort to Noble Phantasms if her opponent uses their own. Jealousy forms a big part of Cain’s personality, as it tends to show that someone is more deserving of what she considers her true father’s love.
Stats: STR – D END – A+ AGI – A MAG – E LUC – D NP – A
Skills:
Natural Body (B): Cain does not age, due to her curse. Given her status as a Servant, this skill has little effect on her anymore.
Presence Concealment (A): Cain cannot disappear completely, but she will emit absolutely no prana signatures, and people will be naturally inclined to ignore her presence, which grants her protection in crowds and bad weather. This skill disappears the moment she attacks.
Servant
Gender: Female
Approximate Apparent Age: Mid-teens
Personality: Assassin is what happens when you crush someone’s psyche and give them a few thousand years to spend on top of it. Years look like minutes to her. To use a metaphor, it’s not unlike slowing down a movie so it reaches a hundred-hour duration. The good parts and bad parts both last a lot longer. Fortunately, Assassin is in a short period of good mood thanks to what she believes to be her last thought, a disposition which should hold for the rest of the War. This is a rare occurrence, as happiness for her typically only happens about 1% of the time.
She’s not nearly as crazy as her most famous moment would have you believe. She’s certainly been affected by her experiences, but as long as you leave God out of it, she’s actually pretty stable. At least in regards to her actions. There’s quite a bit of resentment at other people for shunning her the moment they saw her, which does manifest in some snark, but Assassin had the benefit of actually living through quite a bit of history, and is ironically more familiarized with modern life than many other Heroic Spirits. She’s still not very picky about food, due to reasons that are explained in her story.
Obviously, Assassin has never had the opportunity to live as a normal girl, and it isn’t even a possibility in her mind anymore. When the time you’ve lived makes everything seem so insignificant, the little things slip under the radar. Truth is, despite her outside demeanor, Assassin can be incredibly insightful. Having had quite a bit of time to think during her life, she could have very well made her living as a philosopher if it weren’t for her condition.
Killing is a bit of a complicated point with her. She doesn’t mind doing so, but not because of heartlessness. In her mind, killing is the reminder that her very essence, her origin, will always remain attached to her, and she can’t separate herself from the act that took away the only two people she ever truly cared about. The reason she doesn’t mind is because she considers an existence linked to it her punishment, one that has been bestowed by God, and thus, cannot be renounced.
History: Assassin is the firstborn, the very first human in the world to be born of another. She is also the first to have committed a murder. Her younger years weren’t precisely a barrel of fun. Humanity had just been casted away from Eden, so it was pretty much just trying to grow fruit from sub-par soil, day after day. Indeed, she could have just resorted to her brother’s methods and started to hunt, but Cain always held a bit of hesitation at driving a blade against another living thing.
In truth, Cain always held some resentment against her parents. As a farmer, she took the brunt of their decision, seeing arid deserts and meager crops for the majority of her life, with nothing but stories about the lush green paradise with no sin she could have lived in had they not eaten of the apple. Perhaps it was this idealization that led to her holding God in higher regard than them. Cain knew that God must have known about her true feelings of dissatisfaction, but she figured that things would remain okay if she didn’t act on them. Her brother, Abel, proved to be the exception to this. As someone who had no part in deciding their living conditions, Cain always held the company of her brother in high regard. It could be said that he was the thing she valued most in the entire world, beyond her own devotion. You don’t grow attached to a lot of stuff when you’re usually too busy with work to even think about anything else.
But she didn’t act on her hate. Not for some time. More than a decade passed, and nothing that could truly infuriate Cain ever came up. This being the beginning of humanity, she had taken to work at an extremely young age, and had kept herself occupied with such ever since. To her, the announcement that God was asking for tribute was the BC equivalent of a schoolgirl entering a singing contest. After spending months trying to actually grow something good out of little more than dust, she presented her work. God didn’t like it. He very much favored Abel’s sacrifice of his firstborn sheep.
She was the one who put work into her offering, she thought. Was the sacrifice of others valued over one’s own work? If so, she could sacrifice something far more valuable to her than a mere sheep. She could give to God the thing she valued the most in the entire world. At the time, the concept of murder wasn’t even a thing. What is now a very tempting prospect for a certain kind of person took Cain a whole month to think up. God’s reaction was unexpected. The moment Cain saw it, she immediately took to hiding from him.
Obviously, the ruse was short-lived. God asked Cain where Abel was and, even though she was perfectly aware he knew, in His omniscience, the sheer guilt stopped her from answering truthfully. Cain had talked to God many times before, being one of four humans in the entire world, but this was the first time it hadn’t been on friendly terms. She was punished to live an eternal life, haunted by her actions.
She didn’t argue it. Despite having the imagination to invent entirely new concepts, the thought of going against His will didn’t even cross her mind. She did, however, plead to not be killed herself, and was thus punished with not only the inability to age, but what amounted to a big neon sign warning everyone that killing her was a very bad idea. Cain could have very well taken her own life, but she never attempted so. Not because of sin, no. She doubted Heaven would ever be a possibility for her ever again. Instead, she wanted to make God’s punishment count for something. If His will is for her to live in suffering, then she damn well will. That decision accounted for thousands of years wandering the desert, countless sessions of despair, and very, very rarely talking to anyone. Staying alive was a struggle, as she was stripped of her ability to grow her own food, and few were willing to give any to her, but she was determined to live until God told her it was over. Cain never attempted to cover up her mark, which resulted in everyone knowing they were looking at the first murderer at first sight.
It’s unknown just how long Cain lived. Whether you call it fortune or bad luck, she didn’t see a lethal accident until thousands of years after receiving her curse, having the roof of a building fall upon her. Cain lived for twenty seconds after figuring out what was happening. During the first ten she considered this just another event born of her bad luck. The next five were spent thinking if this was caused by her Lord. The next four considered this a sign that he had been satisfied with her suffering. By the last second, her mental functions had died enough to stop her from remembering her thought at the time.
It wasn’t long until she was summoned by the Grail, yet even then, she couldn’t figure out a reason for it doing so, not having a wish of her own.
Fighting Style: Cain is pretty much the worst Assassin ever if you judge her with a traditional one as the standard. Unlike most, she never actually trained for her role as one. Indeed, before her only murder, she was a crop farmer, and the curse bestowed upon her resulted in her having little motivation to train her skills. While her Presence Concealment helps diminish the shortcomings of this fact, she is an exceptionally bad physical fighter, just a little above Caster (not this War’s Caster, who’s actually better than her). She’s still more powerful than most humans, but in direct combat, she’s unlikely to be able to kill them.
She does, however, have the mindset required for one. Cain does not show off more of her skills than she needs to, having long since figured that showing off brings nothing but trouble. She relies on backstabbing targets with her nameless knife. Naturally, not being a Noble Phantasm, it’s not enough to kill Servants. She is not nearly as impulsive as she used to be; thousands of years of wandering deserts are a pretty good incentive to change your ways. She still doesn’t like to be one-upped, though, and she’s much more likely to resort to Noble Phantasms if her opponent uses their own. Jealousy forms a big part of Cain’s personality, as it tends to show that someone is more deserving of what she considers her true father’s love.
Stats:
STR – D
END – A+
AGI – A
MAG – E
LUC – D
NP – A
Skills:
Natural Body (B): Cain does not age, due to her curse. Given her status as a Servant, this skill has little effect on her anymore.
Presence Concealment (A): Cain cannot disappear completely, but she will emit absolutely no prana signatures, and people will be naturally inclined to ignore her presence, which grants her protection in crowds and bad weather. This skill disappears the moment she attacks.
Noble Phantasms:
Mark of Cain (B)
Origin of Murder – Window to the Record (A+)