Class: Assassin

True Name: Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada

Alignment: Insane Good

Lore:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomás_de_Torquemada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqdvyXHhwI

A name synonymous with the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, widely considered the blackest chapter in the history of the Catholic Church. Of course, as anyone even remotely familiar with the secret orders of the Holy Church knows, the Inquisition very much exists today, and not just as the ordinary Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The vanguard of the vast forces the Church controls are the Executors of the Assembly of the Eighth Sacrament, the sacred assassins whose blades and miracles exist for one purpose alone — to exterminate heretics. Heretics, in this case, meaning supernatural evil — Clock Tower magi, Dead Apostles, and all manner of demonic beings.

It is no surprise, thus, that nearly all of the Spanish Inquisition’s feared Inquisitors were also Executors of the Assembly — its first and most notorious Grand Inquisitor the foremost among them. This is because in addition to its publicly-known purposes of the conversion of Jews and Muslims, and enforcing adherence to Catholic theological dogma among such converts, the Inquisition also served as a way to purge Spain and the wider Iberian Peninsula of the magi, vampires, and other threats to both the Church and humanity as a whole hiding within its midst. While not truly among the greatest living Executors in his time — Assassin was never a member of the Burial Agency — his skills as a leader of the Inquisition were second to none and he was highly formidable as a hunter of heretics to boot.

The stories of the Spanish Inquisition may have been exaggerated — it was in truth less brutal and more fair than secular courts at the time, especially after the first fifteen years in which it was headed by Assassin — but the individual whose name is synonymous with it is not exactly innocent himself. A hard-headed, zealous crusader against all things pagan and unholy, Assassin is a violent, unpleasant, and narrow-minded individual who the Vatican regarded as a liability despite his skills, and eventually recalled from service as Grand Inquisitor for his cruelty. His personality is further corrupted by the legends told about him as a Servant, making him a figure that even most Masters from the Holy Church would find difficult to tolerate. Nevertheless, he will remain loyal to a Catholic Master without a fault, seeing as his zealotry also makes him highly subservient to Church authority. He is an individual that one would not ordinarily trust with the Holy Grail, and any Master with a lick of sense about them will dispose of him by Command Seal if possible before taking the cup.

Faceclaim: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/211705326704001024/669337620915945482/image0.jpg

“Angelic” form: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/521607301954666513/830401734257672192/image-asset.jpeg

Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A84T7XHufWA

Theme of Assassin’s “angelic” form (sorry but I had to): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JvmVilCQV0

Stats:

Strength B(A)
Endurance D(A)
Agility A+
Mana C
Luck B
NP A

Class Skills:

Presence Concealment C+: While Assassin did hunt Dead Apostles covertly, the Inquisition he led operated completely publically, with some chapters even going as far as attempting to expose the existence of magecraft to the general public through the trials in order to rob the magi of their greatest advantage. As a result, his rank in this skill is middling for an Assassin-class Servant, though compensated for by his other abilities as an Executor.

Personal Skills:

Innocent Monster C: A skill granted to Assassin due to the key role that Assassin’s mythologized crimes play the public consciousness as a piece of the Spanish Black Legend. The Black Legend began its life as a bit of propaganda from the age of European imperialism, the idea that Spain’s imperialist practices were more brutal than those of other European nations, but over time morphed into the persistent idea that the Catholic Church was a uniquely bad actor in European history, responsible for everything reviled about the continent. The Spanish Inquisition became synonymous with all of the depravity of the Catholic faith, both real and imagined — intolerance for other creeds, and enforcement of religious law by cruel torment and the threat of the burning stake. This led to the real history (or at least, the parts of it known outside the world of thaumaturgy) being greatly distorted. No doubt, Assassin was never exactly a good man, and under his command the Inquisition committed all manner of crimes that the Church eventually stripped him of his position for, but thanks to this Skill, the eprson Assassin becomes as a Heroic Spirit is significantly “larger than life”. His capabilities as an Executor are enhanced to be on par with a member of the Burial Agency, and while he was cruel and prone to violence in life (having been recalled as Grand Inquisitor as a result of this) he becomes even more so as a Servant, yet again bearing a closer resemblance to one of Narbareck’s dogs more than a respectable Executor of the Church.

Executor A+: A composite skill representing the standardized training in both magecraft and martial arts given to all Executors of the Holy Church, possessed by those among their number recognized enough in publicly-known history to become Heroic Spirits. It encompasses, among other things, the use of Church Sacraments as a magic foundation, including the various Baptism Rites and the creation of Scriptural Weapons, techniques related to stealth and the identification of supernatural beings, and advanced martial arts training that allows one to match the acrobatic agility of a Dead Apostle despite having a human body. Due to his Innocent Monster Skill, Assassin’s already impressive capabilities as an Executor are top-class, equivalent to a typical member of the Burial Agency. While terrifying in combat, Assassin also specializes in investigative fields, using both his theurgy and non-magical skills to identify, track, and expose the weaknesses of his foes.

Torture Technique A: In addition to his role as an Executor, Assassin served as the leader of the Spanish Inquisition, and as such was especially skilled in interrogation, torture, and persuasion. This Skill represents his talent and expertise in these fields, especially as they relate to the “confession of sins” and bending of others to his will. Assassin can completely break the minds and bodies of living humans and Servants alike, and is granted the implements to most efficiently do so. He is especially skilled at forcing those he has captured to submit to his will, press-ganging them into his service via a brutal “conversion”.

Mystic Eyes B+: The most striking thing about Assassin’s appearance, aside from his advanced age, is the presence of the ornate eye patch covering his right eye. Such coverings are frequently worn by Executors of the Church both in the past and present, and as any magus worth their salt knows, someone dealing in matters of magecraft with such an accessory more often than not possesses a powerful Mystic Eye that they wish to protect. Assassin’s Mystic Eye is a Gold-ranked compound eye incorporating various kinds of mental interference, giving him the ability to compel, hypnotize, and generally assail the mind of those he tortures. This grants him a potent edge in his “conversions”.

NPs:

Auto-Da-Fé: Sin and Punishment

Anti-Unit

Rank E~A

Targets: 1

A crystallization of the most infamous and feared punishment of the Inquisition, the public torture or execution of a heretic by a tribunal. This Noble Phantasm resembles a Reality Marble, but is in fact simply a spiritual construct “layered over” the World rather than an entirely different mental world overwriting it. It takes the form of an open-air amphitheater, with rows upon rows of seats filled with the spectral forms of men and women clad in ominous clerical garb, their faces invisible below their all-concealing hoods. When this “trial” is brought forwards, the target of the Noble Phantasm will have the majority of their body completely paralyzed and unable to act, rendering them helpless to effects. What proceeds will be a quick and concise show trial with little in the way of genuine jurisprudence, essentially amounting to a heavily biased and rage-fueled condemnation of the individual by means of listing off their alleged sins and crimes against both the Church and their fellow man. The target need not have actually committed any of the actions in question for this Noble Phantasm to work, but it is far more effective if at least some of the actions mentioned are genuine.

Upon the conclusion of the show trial, a “punishment” will be manifested proportionate to the sins of the target, with genuine crimes counting significantly more than false accusations. Assassin can choose the specific form of the punishment, with it typically taking the form of a violent, bloody execution which the target will be helpless to resist. Burning at the stake, torture by rack or wheel, or beheading by executioner’s sword or axe are the most common ones, but this punishment can also manifest as more abstract things such as a mental attack that imposes feelings of guilt onto the target regardless of whether they feel genuine or not. Whether the punishments designed to kill or physically harm the target succeed in doing so is dependent on the sins that they are manifested from, with a sinless and falsely accused target receiving only minor injuries, and a genuinely guilty one with a large rap sheet having their life snuffed out with ease.

La Leyenda Negra: Blackened Legend of the Holy Church

Anti-Unit (Self)

Rank A+

Targets: 1

Assassin’s trump card, a dread Noble Phantasm born of his and the Inquisition’s central role in the aforementioned Black Legend. It is the crystallization of the popular consensus about the Inquisition — that it was a horrific atrocity transcending its historical context, condemning the Catholic Church as a whole. This Noble Phantasm allows Assassin to shed his historical identity and True Name entirely, having the entire weight of the Black Legend forced onto his concept, making him into a “fallen angel of the Catholic faith”. While still a Servant in the Assassin class container, Assassin’s concept as a Heroic Spirit is greatly distorted through his identification with the broad concept of “the Church is evil”, making him less Tomás de Torquemada than he is the dark side of the Holy Church incarnate and closer in nature to a Berserker. He no longer appears human, taking a form similar to a warped, monstrous angel, fusing the eldritch geometries of the divine with the humanoid shape. His Strength and Endurance stats are raised to A rank, and his theurgy is massively enhanced, becoming oriented entirely towards destructive purposes. The “angelic” Assassin is capable of both raw destruction through heavenly incineration, as well as more creative uses of weaponized thaumaturgy such as trapping an opponent within a Bounded Field made of condensed hatred for their sin, or transmuting an area into a a “lake of fire”.

Such a destructive and mighty Noble Phantasm, of course, comes at great cost — granting Assassin the might of the Berserker class also comes with its madness. His zealotry reaches the point of genuine insanity, then melds with a tiny spark of the genuine divine, making communication or reasoning with him completely impossible. He is effectively no longer sentient, becoming a living weapon designed to lay waste to the “heretics” around him. All vocalizations that the “angel” issues forth take the form of incoherent raving in tongues which no man possesses knowledge of, and strange noises that living beings that only genuine angels can produce. While he is “programmed” to spare both his Master and clergy of the Holy Church, any other living things register to what is left of his mind as demonic abominations and heretics to be destroyed, and will be annihilated by him using as brutal means as he possibly can. In addition to this loss of coherent thought comes an enormous additional cost in magical energy to maintain his anchor to the world. However, this should concern his Master little, seeing as the “angelic” Assassin feeds on whatever is left of his victims, instinctually acting to squeeze out every last drop of mana from them as he executes them and use it to continue his rampage.

Even as the zealous madman he is, Assassin is not quite depraved enough to consider the use of this Noble Phantasm worth the enormous costs. He sees himself as a killer of heretics, and the fallen angel birthed by this trump card is a threat to anyone but his Master and other members of the Church that may be present. He would not sacrifice his own blessed sapience merely to destroy a foe, even under order from his own Master. The only conditions under which he will use it are if he is compelled to do so by use of Command Seals (much like the ultimate Noble Phantasm of a certain Romanian Lancer), or if the person issuing him the order to transform is a high-ranking member of the Holy Church. He is loyal to the Vatican to a fault and will always obey their orders.

• • •

As the Executors are part of the Inquisition, Torquemada is basically soft-confirmed as an Executor in canon. Also “heretic hunting” is mostly hunts for vampires and Association magi in canon, so it’s most likely that’s what the Inquisition really was in the Nasuverse.

The Auto-Da-Fé NP basically looks like the Hellfire scene from Disney’s Hunchback, lol. Just imagine that when he summons the Inquisition.

The second NP is not the result of literal angels. It’s the result of a bunch of really powerful concepts being forced onto Torquemada. This is basically the result of one person supernaturally shouldering 300 years worth of demonization of the Church. An actual angel is…significantly weirder than that.

Fun fact — I didn’t have the idea of him having a Mystic Eye until I saw that art from Nat and remember how Strange Fake has Executors with Mystic Eyes using eyepatches to protect them. I felt it might be a fun little detail to include with him. I’m proud of what I did with it though.

Edit
Pub: 12 Aug 2021 09:34 UTC
Edit: 06 May 2022 12:47 UTC
Views: 34