NAME: 「هڠ تواه」 (Hang Tuah)
CLASS: 「Ruler」
GENDER: 「Female」
APPEARANCE: 「They say that her earrings shine like the sun, that the texture of her clothes is like brushing one’s fingers over the water’s surface. In her boots, anyone could walk a thousand miles. Most peculiar is her hair; white locks of wise, old age intertwined with youthful, jet-black vibrance.」
ALIGNMENT: 「Neutral Good」
PERSONALITY: 「”Never shall the Malay vanish from the Earth.”
Hang Tuah’s legacy in Malaysia is legendary; her tale is one that commands praise and her life was the definition of the upper class’ values—notably, unwavering faith and allegiance to one’s sultan. She is the embodiment of those ideals and was as well renowned for her natural attunement to spirituality. Though during her life she did not act in the capacity of her saint, it was through her deeds and actions that she shone like the most brilliant light for all prestigious Malayan people to look toward and emulate.
Her dedication was such that she would sooner turn her weapon toward a lifelong friend than toward her sultan, and her humble upbringing—as well as her experiences in the role of aid alongside the sultan to foreign lands—made for delicate speaking patterns. This does not, however, imply any sort of inherent gentility in her capacity as a warrior. She was lively, ferocious and tenacious. Her raw murderous intent is so overwhelming as to be tangible when battle is within her reach, and the thrill of it wanes not throughout an engagement.
To the contrary, she is like a predator that grows all the more daring and dangerous as it corners its prey. To fight for her sultan was to live and she relished that. In a strange way—albeit lacking a Ruler-class Servant’s conventional qualities—she is perfectly suited to the role. Whether it be to the Grail or to a Master, she endeavors to uphold all responsibilities set upon her and is a proxy for the judgement and doctrines that guide her hand. The infallible embodiment of an ideal.」
HISTORY: 「A legendary kris, whisked away by a river and lost to time, surfaces once again—along with it, its famed wielder. Hang Tuah.
Born to parents employed as woodcutters, Tuah was the essence of a so-called “Miracle Child.” Meditation came as naturally to her as breathing and the spirits of the world around her were tangible, known things. In ten years, she made four close friends: Hang Kasturi, Hang Jebat, Hang Lekir and Hang Lekiu. It was the spirits that called to mountain paths on which others would lose their way, and so—leading her friends—she took them to the top of the mountain, where an old hermit had taken up residence. That man, they had told her, knew the art of silat and all of its secrets.
The guru received those whom the spirits had guided with open arms and did agree to teach them silat. They toiled for years, trained and practiced meditation. When the guru saw in Tuah’s movements perfection and in her arms strength that could shatter his home of rock, he bade them to make their way back down to the world where they could seek their own destinies. He could teach them no more, for an even greater master was in their midst.
Before their departure, he bestowed upon Tuah three slim swords and in doing so noted they—though well-cared for—were of no particular make or quality. A master of silat would nonetheless find use in them, he added, as only such an individual would be capable of properly using them all simultaneously as intended.
The five friends’ foray into Malacca was the true beginning of Tuah’s legacy, and the first mention of her emergence is attributed to an event in Kampung Bendahara. Tun Perak had brought a party of royal guards along with him to investigate a series of violent crimes in Kampung. Unfortunately, upon being attacked by the very criminals they sought, his guards fled—it was instead Tuah’s friends that happened upon the skirmish and fought in their steed.
When Tuah arrived, however, her mere manner of walking and the vicious aura she exhibited drove the men to abandon their weapons and flee in fear. Impressed by the friends’ courage and Tuah’s peculiar air, he invited them to return to the capitol, where they were presented to Sultan Muzaffar Syah and awarded positions in his army. He invited Tuah to remain at his side and it was then she began her career as his personal aide—the service she would dedicate her life to.
There are a number of romanticized recountings of Tuah’s deeds from thereon out, though a succession of events is confirmed by nearly all accounts: in attendance to a gaudy marriage alongside the sultan, Tuah was insulted by Taming Sari, a master of martial arts and a warrior who claimed that she could dance but not defend herself. With permission from her sultan, Tuah engaged Sari in battle. In spite of being armed with the famed Keris Taming Sari, a kris which rendered her opponent all but invincible, Tuah’s strength and prowess made her his equal. Eventually, she snatched the weapon from him and overpowered him.
As a reward for claiming victory, the sultan bestowed the Keris Taming Sari unto Tuah, which would become intimately entwined with her destiny.
Armed with the kris and sheathe, she attended innumerable other engagements as a prestiged laksama with Siamese and Acehnese, and in spite of constant and exhaustive battle always emerged unscathed and victorious. It was her outstanding success that lead other members of the Malacca sovereignty’s royalty to slander her name, who accused her of an affair with one of the sultan’s favored concubines. In light of this, the sultan demanded that she surrender the Keris Taming Sari and admit herself to the executioner’s block.
Even these duties she fulfilled—the executioner was unable to bring himself to kill Tuah in spite of this and instead, with the help of Dato Bendahara who believed Tuah innocent, hid her away among the remote mountains of Melaka.
Once again, it was the spirits who received Tuah and for a time kept her concealed from the world, while she nursed the wounds left by the sultan’s decree and made peace with her convictions.
In her place, her good friend Hang Jebat was awarded rank as the most outstanding warrior beside her to be found in the sovereignty, and the sultan bestowed upon him the Keris Taming Sari. Once Jebat learned of the events that lead him to his status, he was overcome by bloodlust and fury and went on a rampage, intending to slaughter all in the way of his path to tear the sultan’s flesh asunder.
Dato Bendahara, at this time, informed the sultan that Tuah still lived, and he decided to call upon her in realizing that they had no other choice—though a formidable warrior on his own, it was with the Keris Taming Sari that Jebat was invincible and so unbelievably lethal. None else could challenge him. Tuah, receiving the sultan’s message, was shown out of the mountains by the spirits that had provided her solace and made her way back to the capitol.
There, she was faced with a furious Jebat. For the first time, he experienced the full weight of Tuah’s vicious aura and immediately understood that she intended to fight him. She neither waver nor hesitated. There was no reprieve in the engagement that commenced and throughout seven ceaseless days of grueling combat, where every single one of the Keris Taming Sari were as lethal as the rest, Jebat’s sanity degraded further and further. He was reduced to a desperate monster in front of Tuah’s eyes, and though at first he attempted to reason with her and to implore her and to bargain with her, there came a point where there was nothing left in his body but his fury. He became a vengeful vessel.
After seven days, Tuah finally stole Keris Taming Sari away from Jebat and dealt a single killing blow to her dear friend. In the aftermath of their battle—overcome with grief—she retreated from the sovereignty and into the mountains once more. There, she was guided by the spirits a final time to a river. She decided to throw her kris into its waters. If it surfaced, she would return to the sovereignty, elsewise she would vanish from the world. As simply as that, she discarded Keris Taming Sari to the waters, and—unable to see its glistening sheathe emerge from the current—disappeared, leaving nothing in her place.
Her intangible legacy, however, was one that the upper-class and those in service to the sultan would forever aspire to and idolize.」
WEAPON: 「Her three, slim swords tucked into her sash with their blades crossed. Though without any renown of their own, they are as spectacularly durable as Tuah herself in that they served to parry Keris Taming Sari for seven consecutive days of combat. They’re lightweight—their size allows her to hold two in one of her hands at any moment and all three are kept out when she fights. Usually, one of the blades is either kept airborne, as if it were being juggled, or is stabbed into the ground to be retrieved during a motion.」
PARAMETERS: STR — B
CON — A
AGI — A
MGI — D-
LCK — E
CLASS SKILLS: 神明議決 (God’s Resolution) 「Rank C」— The privilege of a Ruler-class Servant to use Command Seals on other Servants, as bestowed by the Holy Grail to its “mediator.” For a war in which there are seven other servants, the total number of Command Seals that Tuah possesses is 7. They are usually kept concealed underneath her left forearm’s bandaging.
真名看破 (True Name Discernment) 「Rank C」— The privilege of a Ruler-class Servant to discern another Servant’s name, parameters and skills. In order to assess another Servant in this way, Tuah must first engage them in combat, at which point their first action or attack will expose them to her.
対魔力 (Magic Resistance) 「Rank B」— A natural resistance to curses, attacks and other antagonistic magical methods which renders spells of B-rank or below null. Resilient, isn’t she?
PERSONAL SKILLS:
Form of Silat「Rank A」— Though silat has come to refer to a collection of various martial arts and styles that share similarities throughout an area of Southeast Asia, the style which Tuah employs is its “original, intended form.” Lacking—or free from—the dissemination of techniques and intermingling of martial arts with particular traits passed down through time, the inception of the style found its inception in a woman witnessing combat between a hawk and a tiger, who thereafter adopted a style based on that exchange. Manifested as a Personal Skill, Tuah’s silat is a “mastery of battle exhibiting instinctive ferocity.” She is able to utilize mostly every form of traditional weaponry that can be likened to any which was present in her sultan’s armory during her life with proficiency. As well, her movements during combat are surreal—she both strikes with the spontaneous, ferocious power of a tiger and soars over her opponent as if she had the wings of a hawk.
カリスマ (Charisma) 「Rank C-」— The capability to sway and influence others. Though in life she was simply a faithful subordinate to her sultan, Tuah’s legacy and what her identity has come to embody for her culture renders her words “worth heeding, and always appealing to sincerity.”
NOBLE PHANTASMS:Name:
Keris Taming Sari
Title:
“Beautiful Shield,” “Flower Shield”
Rank:
B
NP Type:
Anti-Unit
Range:
2~30
Maximum Number of Targets:
1 (+Huang)
Description:
Its sampir and batang embroidered with gold leaf and gems, Keris Taming Sari is a beautiful kris that even when sheathed is immediately recognizable at a glance. Its blade is composed of 21 different divine metals left over by the forging of the bolts of the holy Ka’aba and in total it possess three properties: it acts autonomously and fights on its wielder’s behalf from its sheathe, bestows upon its wielder a “Flower Shield” which renders them effectively invincible, and always deals fatal wounds. It is a weapon which though classified as “Anti-Unit” was employed by Tuang throughout her life to overcome numbers of enemies at once throughout many battles while never allowing her to be harmed.
Keris Taming Sari, though able to be wielded like a normal kris, is always “autonomous from its sheathe,” in that as long as it is at some point sheathed, it will fly out in order to fight on behalf of its wielder. This is a peculiar quality in that it’s very specific—if the kris, after being unsheathed, is at some point taken into the grasp of its wielder or another, this quality is rendered null until it is sheathed again. It cannot simply be taken from the air and used regularly and then resume acting autonomously without being sheathed. This is not a quality of the sheath but of the kris itself(unlike Excalibur, to which distinct properties were assigned to it and others to Avalon, all of Keris Taming Sari’s qualities belong to the kris itself.)
Secondly, when unsheathed, the Noble Phantasm renders its wielder “impenetrable.” This is distinct from the quality of being “invincible,” as the latter implies that the wielder is immune to harm—Karis Taming Sari, rather, produces a barrier much like petals of gold around its wielder which does not allow harm to reach them as long as it is in their possession. Because the Noble Phantasm instantly unsheathes itself when its wielder is in danger, the barrier’s activation is synonymous with the detection of a threat which—whether supernatural or natural—the Noble Phantasm itself perceives within a radius of 30.
Third, wounds dealt by Karis Taming Sari are “lethal wounds” in that there is a curse implicit in the damage they inflict—the wound is “supposed to be fatal,” so it will not heal naturally nor will healing magic serve as a salve for the damage. For all intents and purposes, as long as the Karis Taming Sari that inflicted the wound continues to exist, the wound will remain.
