Fate Strange Fake (Literature)

The novel-length prologue to an upcoming game, written by Ryohgo Narita, author of Baccano! and Durarara!!, first announced announced on April 1st, 2008... oh.

Although the text (this incarnation instead titled Fake/states night) was taken down from Narita's site after only one day, the "novel" —actually a prologue establishing the whole setup— was later included as a bonus with the second issue of the Type-Moon Ace magazine in 2009, with an afterword by the author and illustrations by Shizuki Morii. For a while, the whole thing seemed an introduction to a cast of characters who will likely never be seen again, until an actual serialization with accompanying manga adaptation began on 2015.

The story centers around a Grail War faultily copied from the 3rd Grail War in Snowfield, a small town in California, ten years after Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. When the 3rd Grail War occurred two centuries ago, a group of mages separate from the London based Mage Association decided that they would copy the ritual. Okay, they were only able to steal parts of it, but they could fill in the blanks for the rest. (Yes. They're FUDGING a ritual that involves a hole in reality, the most legendary and bloody legends brought to life, and a fight where There Can Be Only One.) They completely lost the Saber template, the definition of "Hero" gets even more blurry, and the participants are less sane. And nobody paid attention to the clusterfark that was the 4th and 5th Grail Wars.

This will end well.

So the rebel mages infiltrated the the U.S. Government and for 200 years manipulated events in Snowfield, California (Just north of Las Vegas) to replicate the Sacred Land needed to generate a Grail.

Master and Servant combos:

Archer: Gilgamesh. Yes, that Gilgamesh. If we're going by Nasu Canon, this would be a second copy from the original in the Throne of Heroes, unpolluted by the 4th Grail and who shouldn't have any memories of the events of 4th and 5th Wars or Hollow Ataraxia. Still a colossal dick, and for the most part wanted nothing to do with the War; more so when, upon summoning Gilgamesh, his Master immediately gets assassinated by a Magical Native American woman, Teene Cherke, who wants a prosperous, free nation for her people. Gil decides to stay in the War after hearing about Lancer and takes her on as his Master.

Lancer: Enkidu, the first sidekick. Gilgamesh's Best Friend; originally Enkidu's Master was going to use his Wolf Familiar as a sacrifice to summon Enkidu, but then the Wolf turned out to have a mind of its own and figured out how to summon Enkidu as its Servant. Enkidu has the "appearance of a woman." Whether this is Dude Looks Like a Lady or Gender Bender isn't known.

Berserker: Jack the Ripper. In this flawed copy, since Jack was already bloodthirsty, somehow turning him into The Berserker actually resulted in the opposite. He is now completely calm. Since nobody knew who Jack the Ripper was, Jack can shapeshift into any legend of Jack the Ripper he wants to be. His master is a doof, who used a toy knife to summon him. However, a Fake knife in a Fake Grail War worked just fine to summon a Fake Berserker from a Fake Hero.

Assassin: The Unspoken Hassan. Among the Hassan clan of Assassins, there was a woman who excelled at all of their techniques but was never allowed to become Hassan Sabbah. They became afraid of her, but their fear brought on a legend and she may have surpassed them all. Assassin has decided that the Holy Grail is a falsehood to her faith whether it functions the way the mages want it to or not, and has committed to destroying it. She even pulled out the heart of her Master when he summoned her. Unfortunately for her, her Master is the Dead Apostle Jester Calture. Jester had 5 more; and s/he is known as the 6 Hearted Revolver, with a body that matches each heart. It has decided that its goal is to crush Assassin's faith.

Caster: Alexander Dumas. ...Yes the author. Having not actually been trained as a mage, Caster is the weakest Caster in record and possibly the weakest Servant; however, he can "write" items into reality. His master is the Police Chief of Snowfield, who has a very loyal cadre of deputies--all mages. He has Caster write them up a batch of Noble Phantasms, the magic weapons of the Servants. So we have an army of magic-knowing, magic-wielding special ops.

Rider: There were a set of mages who looked at Zouken Matou's work on dark magical worms and thought to themselves...they can do better than that. So they experimented on their child daughter Tsubaki Kuruoka, and came up with Black Magic Bacteria and infected her with it. It put her into a coma, but made her into an exceptionally powerful Master. Apparently they were going to puppet their will into the Fake Grail War, and create their Servant as the First Emperor of China. However, their Servant got eaten from the inside out by Kuruoka's true Servant. The Pale Rider. Not a man or woman, but the legendary concept of the calamity called Disease, such as the Spanish influenza and the Black Death that killed off most of Europe. The Pale Rider rides people and when done with them, sends them into a coma where Kuruoka Tsubaki lives. The first people it possessed were Tsubaki's parents. The first thing they had to do in her dream world was buy her cake.

~~Saber~~ You: There is a hole in the ritual. There is no Saber class. But there is a Seventh Master. With no Servant to draw upon, you can draw upon the power of any Servant; but only 5 times. Each time is for a limited duration, depending on the power expended.

Tropes used in Fate Strange Fake (Literature) include: