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[attr="class","field"]The notorious Mademoiselle Julie d'Aubigny was born in 1673 to a trainer of King Louis XIV’s court pages, a swordmaster in his own right. Starting in early childhood, she dressed in boy’s clothing and studied alongside her father’s pupils. During that time she learned to read, to draw, to dance, and of course to fence – a skill that would not normally have been available to a young lady in that day and age. Her skill astounded everyone that she came in contact with, including the Count d'Armagnac, who became her lover when she turned fourteen. He would later arrange for her marriage to one Sieur de Maupin, who left her not long after to accept work in the South of France. That was fine – she had plenty of other things to concern herself with.

Like Serannes. Julie fell head over heels for the accomplished fencer in 1987 and stayed at his side even after he killed a man in a duel gone wrong – a situation that she would later become extremely familiar with. The two of them fled the city after that and made their living performing. During that time she became well known for her signature male costumes, though she never did claim to be male. It was new, fresh – risqué, even. More than anything, it was exciting. It earned her a place in Pierre Gaultier’s opera company and many, many admirers. So, needless to say, she didn’t need Serannes much anymore.

One such admirer was a young lady whose parents, predictably, did not exactly approve of the relationship. They sent her away to a convent in an attempt to separate the lovers…but they had, of course, greatly underestimated Julie’s determination. In what was perhaps her most scandalous feat, she went to her lover and stole her away – but not before taking vows, replacing the girl with the stolen corpse of one of her fellow Sisters and lighting the building ablaze. When the affair finally ended and the girl returned home, Julie was charged with kidnapping, body snatching, and arson and sentenced to death. They’d need to find her first, though.

To her credit, she refused to let any of it interfere with her singing career. She skipped from town to town, still in her signature men’s attire, studying under master actors and fighting the occasional duel. One of her opponents, whose arm she just about amputated after he insulted her in Villeperdue, became yet another of her many lovers.

But about that death sentence. She knew she was going to need to deal with that sooner or later. In order to make yet another daring escape, she called in a favor and in doing so managed to convince the King that she’d be better off singing opera than dead. Her voice was, after all, beautiful.

She thrived after that. Her career blossomed and she served as a muse for several writers and directors who hailed her for having what they thought was the most beautiful voice in the world. It was amazing. She went almost overnight from an inexperienced street performer to a seasoned prima donna whose near photographic memory made reading her lines more than once completely unnecessary.

Still, she could never quite escape controversy. To be fair, she didn’t want to. She was just as well known for her torrid affairs and backstage antics as she was for her singing. On more than one occasion she was said to have beaten male singers for having insulted her or harassed the other women in her troupe.

On one occasion, she is said to have cornered one such offender in an alleyway on his way home from the theater. When he refused her a proper duel, she beat him senseless with a cane and stole his pocket watch. The next day, when he attempted to convince his colleagues that he had been mugged by some – male – strangers, Julie simply took out his pocket watch and forced him to beg for it on his knees in front of their peers.

Around 1695 her antics got her into trouble with the law once again. Her tendency to publically carry on affairs with other ladies got her challenged to many a duel, and while she won them all, dueling was not allowed in Paris at the time. It proved to be a minor
inconvenience, as she was on stage again within the next few years.

By the time she finally retired from the opera and – ironically – went away to a convent to live out the rest of her years, she had killed at least ten men in her various duels and maimed many others. She is remembered today as a tenacious, confident, and amazingly skilled young woman whose legend outlived even her. For more on that, take a trip to the Paris opera.

[attr="class","field"]Julie is nothing if not passionate. Everything she does she does with conviction – after all, there’s really no time for half measures in the grand scheme of things. She has been described by her lovers and admirers as brilliant, confident, and delightfully theatrical. Her various opponents, on the other hand, tend to think more along the lines of “sociopath”. While she draws the line at that, she does indeed acknowledge that she has a bit of an anger management issue. She’s never been all that good at taking insults – or direction, for that matter, unless it comes from an actual director while she is performing. When she is slighted, insulted, or challenged, she has a tendency to react violently. It may not happen at that exact moment, but you can expect to feel her wrath at some point if you invoke it. It will be swift and terrible. And probably also humiliating.

She’s a romantic at heart. Sure, her idea of romance is a bit unorthodox, but at the end of the day she appreciates a good love story just so long as it isn’t bland. As a performer, she lives in a world of things that are larger than life. Love is expressed with sword fights and dramatic rescues. If you’ve got an interesting tale to tell her, she’ll listen to it eagerly. She may even write you a song – she’s very playful that way.

And she’ll most definitely try to seduce you as well. Julie is unique in that she’s both a womanizer and a…mannenizer? If there isn’t a word for that, there ought to be one made up at some point. Her witty, “princely” charm is, in her opinion at least, quite captivating. In her entire life there’s been maybe one or two people who have not fallen for it, and she’s at the point where she’ll actually be more shocked than insulted if someone here decides to become the third. In the meantime, she can’t help herself. The heart wants what the heart wants.

Perhaps most importantly, she’s too clever for her own good. She remembers everything she sees and so she very rarely misses things. This also makes it extremely hard to throw her off her game. Far from humble, Julie is very aware of how brilliant she is, which contributes to her limitless confidence in a big way. It’s not over until the fat lady sings, and there don’t seem to be very many singing fat ladies participating in this war…unless someone’s gone and summoned Louis XIV without telling her. Hehe.

As for her wish…well, she thought long and hard about that. Sort of. There’s not much in her life that she’d change, but there are definitely things that she’d like to relive. Really what she wants is a chance to try all of it again in this absolute insanity that we call modern day. Imagine the trouble she could get into if the Grail granted her incarnation...

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• Julie is, in more ways than one, classically trained. She is a quick and elegant – each move is carefully calculated and cleanly executed. She’s the sort of person who doesn’t tolerate imperfections when it comes to either of her two crafts, which is amusing given how devil-may-care she is in other aspects of her life. Still, she manages to bring playfulness into it – there is the whole singing opera in the middle of battle thing, after all.
  
  Because she is so fast and so lucky, she can execute all manner of interesting tricks that less limber opponents probably wouldn’t dream of attempting. A lot of it’s just for show, but that’s a plenty noble cause all on its own. What’s a war like this but a big show?
  
  Though her skill is incredible and she’s more than capable of handling herself in even the most stressful of situations, her greatest weakness would probably be her confidence. At times it’s her best friend, but other times it’s her worst enemy. Perhaps the easiest way to illustrate it is to say that she’s the sort of person who, in this day and age, would most definitely do things for the Vine. Sometimes it’s spectacular. Other times you break your pelvis.
  

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• [attr="class","stat"]STRENGTH
  ▬ ▬ D
• [attr="class","stat"]ENDURANCE
  ▬ ▬ D
• [attr="class","stat"]AGILITY
  ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ A
• [attr="class","stat"]MANA
  ▬ E
• [attr="class","stat"]LUCK
  ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ A
• [attr="class","stat"]NOBLE PHANTASM
  ▬ ▬ ▬ B++
  La Maupin - This ability sets Julie apart from the conventional Assassin in that rather than wanting to go unnoticed, Julie would absolutely love an audience. An actress lives for the reactions of her spectators. As such, Julie gains a boost when any battle that she takes part in is watched by anyone other than herself and her opponent. If there are 2 spectators, a plus is added to each parameter. If there are 4 spectators, each parameter also gets a rank up.
  
• [attr="class","stat"]NOBLE PHANTASM
  ▬ ▬ ▬ A
  Prima Donna - Back in her day, Julie’s admirers hailed for having “the most beautiful voice in the world”. Parts were written specifically so that she would sing them. Stories were written about her various exploits – the public was absolutely mad about her. Interestingly enough, she had a habit of actually combining her two great loves – fencing and singing opera – when she dueled. Her opponents were often too struck by the sound of her voice to fight properly, which tended not to end well for them. She can’t help it – when she gets the urge to sing, she simply must sing! Her song can present itself in two ways, neither of which can be drowned out by something as simple as earplugs or simply covering one’s ears. If you’d like to escape it, you might as well deafen yourself.
  
  ...Well, alright, it's not that difficult. It actually comes down to your luck stat. Julie's songs knock her opponent off kilter, you need to be awfully lucky to land attacks in that state.Opponents with luck below B have next to no chance of powering through the song. A and B have a significantly higher chance of keeping a cool head, but it's worth noting that Julie's extremely high luck makes her quite hard to injure during a song unless you actually match her luck stat.
  
  Of course, you could just run away. Perhaps the easiest way to avoid the song is to abandon the fight altogether. She just might chase you, though - how dare you leave in the middle of a performance!
  
  It's also worth noting that Berserkers with high Mad Enhancement typically aren't hit as hard by these songs. Cavatina will usually succeed in calming them down, but Cabaletta will often enrage them. This only comes into effect in the upper tiers of Mad Enhancement - A and B.
  
  And now on to the songs themselves!
  
  Cavatina – A sweet, delicate melody that encourages calm and relaxation. The opponent will feel unbalanced, unfocused, and wholly unable to perform at their usual skill level. Victims liken this song to being drugged. Prolonged exposure can result in blurring vision and uncontrollable feelings of euphoria. So, at the very least, you’ll feel good. Julie will sometimes use this to attract potential opponents or spectators too her, as it really is a beautiful song.
  
  Cabaletta – A quicker, harsher melody. Rather than euphoria, victims feel intense anxiety and terror. Prolonged exposure can result in literal fear-induced paralysis. As with Cavatina, opponents are typically rendered unable to perform at their typical skill level when the song is in effect. Most of the time, Julie uses this to force opponents to retreat.
  
  Another interesting note about this skill is that it seems to operate similarly to Mystic Face in the sense that it encourages a kind of strange affection for Julie. This does not mean that the opponent will fall in love with her or anything extreme like that, but it tends to make them either reluctant or flat out unable to harm her due to the overwhelming and ethereal sound. In a way it makes her a bit more attractive than she would be otherwise, at least to those who appreciate art. And she certainly hopes that’s a good amount of people!
  
  She can sing for about an hour at a time before she'll need to take a rest.

• [attr="class","stat"]NOBLE PHANTASM
  ▬ ▬ ▬ C+
  Chevalier - As a master swordslady, Julie is really more suited for the Saber class than the Assassin class, though she can be summoned into either. She’s alright with it. Her agility and overall technique lend themselves to the Assassin class anyway. However, when she comes in contact with an opponent that also uses a sword – Saber or not – a “duel” is triggered. As long as that fellow swordsman remains engaged in combat with her, Julie is able to temporarily increase her strength and endurance parameters to that of a Saber. Her parameters therefore become:
  
  
  [attr="class","stat"]STRENGTH
  ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ A
• [attr="class","stat"]ENDURANCE
  ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ B
• [attr="class","stat"]AGILITY
  ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ A
• [attr="class","stat"]MANA
  ▬ E
• [attr="class","stat"]LUCK
  ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ A
• [attr="class","stat"]Presence Concealment
  ▬ ▬ ▬ C
  Hides one's presence as a Servant. Suitable for spying. The rank of presence concealment drops considerably when preparing to attack. However, this condition does not apply to poisoning something.
  
  An actress needs costumes. Julie spent the majority of her life in them to the point where it became almost impossible to imagine her offstage in actual women’s clothing. In the blink of an eye she could change herself from a dapper young gentleman to Pallas Athena. Here, Julie is capable of using her costumes and her superior acting ability to transform herself into a variety of different characters. So amazing is her stage presence that she is actually able to fool her opponents with her very aura. She can alter her presence ever so slightly as to suggest that she is someone other than, well, Julie. This doesn’t mean that she can trick opponents into thinking that she is some other specific Servant, but it ensures that her own personal presence is never possible to pinpoint exactly, which increases the likelihood of her being mistaken for someone else. She can choose to appear more powerful or more harmless when in certain disguises – and those disguises are quite good.
  
• [attr="class","stat"]Theater Magic
  ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ B
  Julie is rather famous for her ability to weasel her way out of…just about everything. She escaped the French authorities on more than one occasion, not to mention skipping out on a death sentence. A death sentence that she acquired when she set a convent on fire and proceeded to have a three month affair with a nun from said convent. Ahem.
  
  But yeah. This ability allows Julie to – quickly and safely – escape situations that she deems dangerous. If she’s decided to abandon a battle, chances are she’s going to succeed in abandoning that battle regardless of what her opponent attempts to do to trap her. As dedicated a duelist as she is, she’s not above skipping away and hiding until the heat dies down. A good actress always exits on cue – and she never misplaces her exit!
  
  And to help cover that exit, Julie has access to a slew of “special effects” from her old opera days. She has everything from smoke bombs to bright flashing lights to sudden extremely loud sounds. If you can find it backstage, you can bet she has it. It’s alarming how similar actresses are to ninjas when it comes to tools.
  
• [attr="class","stat"]Stage Presence
  ▬ ▬ ▬ C
  A good performer is untouchable onstage. They can’t be rattled – not by nerves, stray sounds in the audience, or technical malfunctions. Julie in particular was noted for her ability to remain in character and on point in even the most difficult of circumstances. Her amazing memory helped her to reach a level of focus so intense that it may as well have been supernatural. As a result, no amount of mental interference can affect her while she’s giving a performance. And you know what they say – all the world’s a stage.
  
  This ability has the bonus perk of making Julie immune to the instant death abilities. This doesn’t mean that they can’t hurt her – they certainly can – but her focus and awareness combined with her natural luck and speed prevent her being struck down by just one single blow or blast or beam – what have you.
  
• [attr="class","stat"]Unholy Terror
  ▬ ▬ ▬ C
  Though she was extraordinarily well loved for the erratic and unpredictable sort of person that she was, there was no question that trouble always managed to find La Maupin. Or rather, you’d find trouble If you ended up on the wrong side of her. As such, opponents will suffer one rank down to their luck parameter when fighting Julie. The best laid plans fall to pieces when faced with this human embodiment of mischief.