Watchers of No ImportanceBard's Note: "...Seriously, you in all honesty want to hear about those two? I barely gave a second thought to them while writing my masterpiece, for why else would I have their demise be offscreen? If it be Fools you want, surely I may interest you in a Puck or Falstaff? No, you truly are dead set on Claudius' ill-fated lackeys? Alright, if it pleases you..."True Name: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Alternate Classes: Assassins.
Source: Fiction
Region: England and Denmark, but now known the world over.
Armament: Basic Renaissance Era duelling swords.
Catalyst: A purported 'original' copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the 'Q1', seen as less authenticDescription: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were but minor characters in the Shakespeare masterwork Hamlet, in which they were Hamlet's 'friends' who were secretly spying on him on the orders of his usurper uncle King Claudius. They then were uneventfully killed off to either teach a cautionary tale about courtly intrigue and ambition, or just to amp up the death count depending on how you look at it. Beyond that, there's really not much more to say about them (er, they may have been named after Tycho Brahe's cousins), or at least, there shouldn't have been...
With Hamlet's massive fame in general, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern became by association arguably the two most famous 'background characters' in fiction, to the point where they've become synonymous with that term and discussions of what it truly means to not be 'plot vital'.
While their seemingly interchangeable personalities don't suggest them to be much more than bumbling royal layabouts, on closer inspection they are capable of surprising introspection, especially in regards to the nature of 'fate'. Granted, almost anyone would develop introspective habits hanging out with Hamlet...Alignment: True Neutral
Like: Theatre (before it got too 'real'), philosophising, lounging around, tennis.
Dislike: Plots both courtly and fictional, drama, monologues (by others anyway), 'Main Character Syndrome'.
Talent: Plot awareness.
Master: They will likely be summoned by 'one wishing to be a main character', so a Waver or a Sakura, even a Satsuki.Relationships: They usually relate better with Heroes not considered the 'main characters' in their own stories. They also like, but are cautious around, anyone who reminds them of Hamlet, so any Servant more scholarly, gloomy, and/or introspective.
Natural Enemy: William Shakespeare, and by association other author Servants like Andersen, Shikibu, and Kafka (animosity decreases towards authors more likely to write happy endings, like Dumas and Goethe). They have no idea whether to consider an average Clarke ending happy or not, so they're suspicious of him to be on the safe side.
Wish: Mostly just to live. Beyond just that, to become 'real' and not have to face either the insignificance of minor characters or the hardships of major characters.
Parameters
Attribute: Star, representing 'hope' for background characters and the 'unimportant'' everywhereStrength:
***** E
Endurance: ***** E
Agility: ****** D
Magic: ****** D
Luck: ***** E (A)
Noble Phantasm: ***** BClass SkillsMagic Resistance
Nullifies magic effects built up from encounters with magic.
- Rank D: The Watchers were from both before the modern age, yet from roughly a millennium after the Age of Gods. They had little encounter with the supernatural in their story, wherein ghosts were present but nothing they directly came across. Cancels Single-Action spells.Territory Infringement
Ability to bypass Bounded Fields and other security measures.
Personal Skills
- Rank E+: While the Watchers were employed as spies, neither were particularly good at their jobs, though people being likely to see them as just 'background characters' does aid in their infiltration.Watcher
Denotes a contract with their Master to observe from afar, letting them take centre stage.
- Rank A: As part of their deal, their Master's 'Plot Importance' is dramatically increased, to the level of a Hero or a Villain. As 'unimportant' as the Watchers themselves were, the people they regularly interacted with, such as Hamlet and Claudius, were of much higher plot importance. In return, the Watchers get to stick to the sidelines and not have their own Background Character skill nullified by minimising interaction with their Master. The downside of this 'contract' is that their Master's will become more inflexibly tied in with the 'plot', for better or worse (given the Watchers' own tale was a tragedy).Background Character
Status as a 'background character' not considered an important focus by the story's overall plot. This has the advantage of granting them more freedom from story causality or 'fate', thus increasing Luck whenever not interacting with the 'other main characters' (in this case Masters and other Servants).
- Rank A: The names 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern' are practically synonymous with the concept of a 'background character', to the point where they were frequently cut from productions of Hamlet for a time. Where most background characters would only pass as a Wraith, the Watchers have paradoxically built their entire Legend on their relative unimportance. In the few instances where they did ascend to 'main characters', it was precisely because of their background status.
When not directly interacting with Masters and other Servants, Luck increases to A Rank, much needed given how low it is otherwise.Espionage
The ability to register as 'harmless' or not a threat for purposes of spying, instead of hiding in the shadows.
- Rank C: The Watchers will barely even register as important to most people, which is for the better as when they are noticed, anyone of reasonable intellect can quickly figure out they're spies, or at least have some ulterior motive.Two As One
Existence as two Spirits functioning as the one Servant.
- Rank A: There simply cannot be a Rosencrantz without a Guildenstern and vice versa. Those without significant perceptive skills will find it nigh impossible to tell which is Rosencrantz and which is Guildenstern (despite the different colour cloaks). The Servants' own personalities will be blended together into an almost hivemind-like whole, the only real 'tell' is that Rosencrantz is slightly more cynical while Guildenstern is more reasonable.Noble Phantasms
Bad Quarto
When the Curtain Falls, the Heckling Shall Be As Ten Thousand HyenasRank: B-
Type: Anti-Heart
Range: 1-30
Max Targets: 1Taking the form of a play manuscript, this Phantasm is deployed in a near identical manner to Caster of Red's First Folio, but the difference lies in effect and production quality. The play and its replica actors crudely and ineptly stage the single most ridiculous moment of the Target's life, rather than expertly staging the most traumatic. It is said to be powerful enough to make someone die of shame.
The original play this Phantasm was based on was written by none other than the usurper King Claudius, which he was so ashamed of he threatened to kill anyone who even mentioned the play, though fools such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern found a way to stage it anyway. This Noble Phantasm gains an additional effect where, in 'Scottish Play' superstition fashion, simply hearing its name spoken reduces one's Luck stat by one. That is of little concern to the Watchers, given their own Luck Rank with their Background Character skill inactive is abysmal anyway.
Said play however has no basis within the original Hamlet, being a later addition to Watchers' Legend introduced by W.S. Gilbert (of '& Sullivan' fame). That it wasn't in Shakespeare may tie back into this Phantasm's name, with 'Bad Quarto' being the term for unauthorised early editions of Shakespeare's plays, one of these incidentally being the first publishing of 'Hamlet'.
Though originally created by Claudius, in a way this Phantasm reflects the Watchers' own personality quite well, being perhaps the ultimate expression of how absurd they see theatre as, or how absurd being a character in a story is.
| If summoned as Assassins... |
A/N: Squeezing in my second of two sheets, and one probably even more meta than Catherine's
