The Holy Grail Wars: The War of the Holy Grail is the competition that decides the ownership of the Grail through intense battle royale. A cycle of 60 years is needed for the Great Grail to amass enough mana to summon the Servants. The participants are 7 Masters and their Servants. It appears as a battle royal that lasts until only one stands, but the real point is to fill the vessel of the Grail with the souls of the Servants. Defeated Servants turn back to being pure energy and should disappear from the timeline they are incarnated into, but the function Grail of the Einzberns is to stop that temporarily and collect them. The Grail selects the magi who will summon the Servants, the Masters carrying three Command Spells to have the Servants obey them. The magi are then called Masters.
A Master A designation given to an individual, usually a Magus, who has formed a contract with a Spirit called a Servant as their Familiar. The Master provides the Servant with Prana and a sort of "passport" into the modern era in return for the services of said Servant. In order become a Master, a person must successfully summon a Servant through use of a specific Formal Craft ritual. Upon completion, the Master must formalize a contract with the Summoned Servant by acknowledging their respective roles. The process creates a link between the two, allowing the Master to support the Servant with their Prana or an external source. In every known case, with one exception, Masters only occur through the power of the Great Grail of Fuyuki City. The Grail both selects prospective Masters according to their need and provides the majority of the energy needed to manifest and maintain the Servant. It also provides the Command Spells which grant limited control of the Servant to the Master.
((Note the red mark on his hand are command seals))
A Servant: Servants are Heroic Spirits summoned by the Holy Grail. Once summoned, they can be classified as familiars as long as they are bound to a Master. Servants are legends from the past, present, or future. Because summoning even one heroic spirit is a miraculous occurence, summoning seven in their pure forms would be beyond the Holy Grail's power. Thus, to facilitate the process, Servants are summoned into one of seven vessels prepared beforehand. These vessels are classified based on their primary roles. Heroic Spirits can be summoned into any "class" that reflects the abilities they had in life.
Although too powerful to be controlled by humans, the prospect of having a wish granted by the Holy Grail serves as incentive cooperate with a Master. A Master who is chosen to participate in the Holy Grail War possesses three Command Spells that, when invoked, forces the Servant to obey the Master's orders.When summoned, Servants are imparted with knowledge of technology, culture, science and terms of the era they were summoned into, as well as skill in at least the language of their Master, if not all languages. This is largely to prevent Servants from eras significantly before the era of a Grail War in question from suffering crippling culture shock which would otherwise prevent them from fulfilling their duties, and also enable them to blend with that era society. For example:
A Rider who is terrified of modern vehicles.
A Caster who believes that electronic devices are evil magic.
A Saber, an Archer and a Lancer who are scared and helpless against firearms.
A Berserker who cannot comprehend the modern surroundings and thus go on a rampage.
An Assassin who is utterly flummoxed by modern security systems.
Thus, without such knowledge, their potential would be crippled. This knowledge does not just cover history but all aspects of "modern" life during the Grail War in question, to the point that Servants can find things that would have been unthinkable in their lifetimes mundane or even worthy of scorn. Servants can revert to spirit form when not in battle at will to reduce the burden on their Masters. In this form they can pass through inorganic substances that aren't dense with mana; they are also invisible to the naked eye (except for the Master they connected with) and most forms of scrying in this state, facilitating the concealment of their identity. They cannot be affected by normal interference when dematerialized, but need to materialize for battle. As Human Spirits are they able to consume the souls and minds of people and convert them into energy. Their basic abilities do not change from such nourishment, but they become tougher and their magical energy capacity increases. It is to be noted that originally, the Servant system was designed to summon only the souls of "true" heroes - benevolent, honorable, and selfless protectors of humanity and justice. But since the corruption of the Holy Grail in the third Holy Grail War, evil spirits can be summoned. These entities can still be considered to be Heroic Spirits if they were widely worshipped, respected, or feared in life.
Noble Phantasm: They are the embodiment of the ultimate mysteries of a hero that symbolizes his existence through historical facts and anecdotes. They can be general weapons, such as sword, lances, or bows, support items, such as rings and crowns, or they can be abstract concepts, such as abilities and curses. Considered to be their trump cards, they are activated by channeling prana into them and releasing their true names, and this can only be done by their true owners.
