Penthesilea

Composed, brave, and honorable, Lancer is the apex of what one might expect from a military commander such as herself. As she has surmounted the pain which previously held her back, her only wish is to meet others on the battlefield with a mutual respect as warriors. Given these traits, she would likely get along with Servants such as Cu Chulainn, Ushiwakamaru and Li Shuwen.    Given the circumstances before her death, Penthesilea is understandably reserved about revealing her face to others. It would take an extraordinary Master for her to reveal her identity (much less anything beyond that), and an even more exceptional one to earn her trust as a friend.
  Likes: Her sister  Dislikes: Her face (it's complicated), Achilles (also complicated)  Natural Enemy: Servants with True Name Discernment  Armaments: Halberd, Shield, Armor

Antokhí Arḗïos

The helm and armor granted to Penthesilea by her father Ares. While the Noble Phantasm itself only provides above-average protection to the user, its auxiliary effect is what Lancer truly desires. Given that Ares's armor was crafted to have him appear as an ordinary warrior, this Noble Phantasm conceals Lancer's True Name, status, gender, and face from any onlookers, allowing her to fight without prejudice or revealing her identity. It is also able to prevent the effects of Bewitching Visage from affecting those around her, much to Lancer's relief.    This Noble Phantasm would be known as Aντοχή Ἄρειος in Greek.

Skíptoro Éridas

A wicked halberd which Lancer obtained at a terrible cost. The tale goes that Penthesilea was visited by Eris during a certain tragedy, who then offered the weapon to her as a gift of mourning. Penthesilea would eventually take the weapon to battle during the Trojan War, where it would bloodily claim the lives of countless warriors. The circumstances regarding the gift are strange, but some speculate it was in part to punish Ares for his infidelity and in part a divine joke.    The halberd is a Divine Construct capable of piercing through most protection with ease, provided the caveat that each use of this trait will harm Lancer in turn. The weapon itself will encourage the user in whispers to keep using it as it drains both the wielder's and the enemy's magical energy, sapping as much as it possibly can while still keeping its holder alive. Given this, Lancer is not required to reveal her True Name while using this weapon but must do so when using its effect.    This Noble Phantasm is written in Greek as Σκήπτρο Έριδας.

The last major queen of the Amazons and the younger sister of Hippolyta. Penthesilea once led a peaceful life on the island of Themiscyra: a talented warrior, beloved by her people, and an honorable as the second-in-command to her dear sister.     However, that idyll did not last.     After that fateful day where Hippolyta was killed as a result of divine interference, Penthesilea's life made a turn for the worse. She was thrust into filling the gap her sister left by taking up her role as the Amazons' leader. The approaching Trojan War forced her to rally her troops in preparation for battle, both to atone for her sins and to perhaps find some solace for her sister. Most of all, her closest confidants were slain one by one, and then that warrior said...

Words which were lost to time.    To rewind a bit, Penthesilea's life and the tragedies that followed came as a twisted form of divine retribution. To start from the very beginning, those who became queen of the Amazons were cursed to be slain by a warrior. Heracles' murder of Hippolyta was one such instance spurred on by Hera's manipulation of the Amazons, leaving him no choice but to kill her for the Eris then thrust upon Penthesilea a cursed spear by taking advantage of her grief, sealing her demise at Troy without a sliver of a doubt. With the gears of fate having set her course, she then went on to fight against the Achaeans during the Trojan War, coming face-to-face with Achilles in a one-on-one duel. From this point on is where the truth began to blur.    Penthesilea fell into a deep grief during the period between her sister's death and the Trojan War. It began to eat away at her during her days ruling Themiscyra, with hazy memories and clouded words painting the landscape of which her life became. It was only after a divine prophecy that she was convinced to sail for Troy with her twelve most trusted confidants, arriving just in time to even the odds against the Achaeans. However, it was still not enough. She watched as her comrades fell one after another, and by the time she stood against Achilles she could barely lift her weapon. She was still able to put up a fight in spite of this, but was fatally pierced through the chest during a decisive moment. As she laid there on the brink of death, Achilles said to her:    "You fought gracefully, warrior whose name I do not know. I am honored to have crossed spears with you."    And that was it. A few words which were only spoken and heard by two equals on the battlefield. Yet despite it all, fate proved ever more cruel for her. Stories of their encounter distorted and muddied the truth in the perception of the masses to the point where Penthesilea herself forgot what was said that day. It was only after facing off against and defeating Achilles in a Holy Grail War that she was able to remember the truth, leading to the Penthesilea seen here.

Heyo! I haven't participated in one of these for a while, but here's my rendition on Penthesilea! I've actually had the idea to make an adult Penth ever since I saw her Agartha manga design (which I should note isn't actually the design of this Penth, though it is somewhat inspired), but I never really had a definite reason to go through with my concept until now. That being said, here are some really rough notes that I jotted down somewhere along the way.    I developed the based concept of this Penthesilea with a few specific goals in mind, being to: 

• Make her character more in-line with depictions of Penthesilea in mythology (my main sources were Smyrnaeus and Virgil as mentioned in the brief description of her at the very top) 
• Make her more in-line with Hippolyta/develop their relationship beyond what it actually is in Fate 
• Fix Achilles's relation to her (because he comes off really badly in actual canon, something that's been discussed quite a bit on the server) 
• Humanize Penth a bit more, since personally I find it pretty hard to relate to Zerksilea (which I suppose is what makes her a Berserker)

However, I did run into some roadblocks during my initial draft, being that: 

• Penth actually doesn't have that much mainstream info on her. Besides the two sources I mentioned, the only real stuff is more medieval chivalry shenanigans that don't apply to Fate (or how I wanted her character to work). She doesn't even show up in the Iliad which I totally assumed she did before actually researching. 
• Canon showed up at my door. I didn't want to rewrite reality too much as I wanted her to be able to slot into canon without much trouble, but the more I learnt about canon the more I had to adjust my plans. For example, I originally wrote her under the assumption that Hippolyta's death was caused by Penth while she was aiming for Theseus (as it is in one telling of the story), but later on I learned that it was actually because of Herc taking her sash and additionally because "dying to a hero" was the fate of any Amazon queen. Of course, that in of itself led into more issues since that meant Achilles was always meant to kill her meaning that I couldn't pass off her death as something that could have happened any time as a consequence of war. This continued for a bit as I adapted to the new info I got, eventually culminating into the Penthesilea you see here now.

Overall, I'm decently satisfied with how she ended up. While there's a few things I'd probably change later on, I'm happy to add her to my roster of Fanservants. Thank you for reading this profile to the end!    Signed,  Thorne