CernunnosWP (ケルヌンノス, Kerununnosu?) is a God from Celtic mythology that appears within the English Lostbelt in Fate/Grand Order.
Profile
Background
Cernunnos was a Celtic Beast God active prior to 12,000 BC, taking a human as his priestess.[2] With the coming of the White Titan in 12,000BC, Cernunnos retreated to Avalon.[3]
Proper Human History
Within Proper Human History, the Fairies of the Beginning forged Excalibur, which was used to vanquish the White Titan. Cernunnos later "passed on" at some point long before modern day, "enjoying a leisurely retirement in the world of gods on the other side."[3]
Lostbelt
Within the history of the British Lostbelt, the six Fairies of the Beginning failed to forge Excalibur. He and his priestess returned to the World to enact punishment towards the fairies upon notice of this failure which had caused the world to be destroyed in the first place by the White Titan.[3]
Still within the history of British Lostbelt, a forgotten legend was told that when the six Fairies surfaced, there was only a huge ocean, devoid of land and mountains. Cernunnos emerged from the ocean alongside an animal sitting on its shoulder that was presumed extinct. The Fairies desired land, but Cernunnos, being a God, demanded sacrifices, so the Fairies decided to offer their joys and their wills to the horned God. Granting the wish, the God brought the land that would be known as Britain and once finished, it succumbed to slumber.[4]
It was later revealed the legend was a fabrication to cover up the Fairies' original sin. The Six Great Fairies tasked with forging the Holy Sword to defeat the White Titan in 12,000 BC failed to complete the task. All of Earth's civilizations and landmasses were wiped out by the White Calamity, leaving just an endless ocean behind. Cernunnos was sent from the Inner Sea of the Planet to punish the Fairies, though it was a gentle soul who did not wish to do so. Cernunnos also saved a single human woman, the only survivor of the White Titan's attack. The God allowed them to live on its body, but was unable to make new land as the six Fairies desired, so, under the guise of a festival, they betrayed Cernunnos' trust by poisoning it and used its corpse to form the foundation of a new British Isle.[5]
Cernunnos' existence, along with its legend, is unknown to most of the Fairies due to Morgan eliminating all mention of it from the history records, hence the reason of why there is not concept of God nor priest in her Britain.[4]
Cernunnos in the Great Pit.
Though its soul is long gone, Cernunnos' corpse, located at the bottom of the Great Pit in the center of Britain, has been accumulating curses upon curses for thousands of years. Should it awaken it would mean the destruction of the entire planet.
Appearance
Cernunnos is depicted as a giant, round, and furry creature with horns. Nemo cannot get exact readings on Cernunnos' height, mass or volume; all he can tell is that, by comparing it to Camelot castle, the height of Cernunnos above the pit is over two kilometers. Both him and Goredolf Musik state that the scale of such a creature is absolutely impossible to exist, not even in the deepest ocean. Grimm the Wise implies that Cernunnos was not originally this big, but the tens of thousands of years stewing in the curses of the Great Pit has caused it to grow to impossible size.[1]
It can summon many arm-shaped curses, one of which is known as the Calamity of Norwich (ノリッジの厄災, Norijji no Yakusai?), shrouded in shadow and growing numerous long, thin arms of its own.
Personality
Cernunnos was a gentle giant who did not wish to punish the six Fairies who failed to forge the Holy Sword, despite that being its assignment. Cernunnos allowed them to live on its body, and saved a single human who survived the White Titan's destruction of the Earth.[5]
The current Cernunnos is a mindless, soulless corpse. Its rage at the six Fairies' betrayal continues on however, and seeks to punish them now for their sins. But even in such state, it somehow managed to protect Fairy Britain to the very end in its own way, absorbing every lingering curses filling the land onto itself in an attempt to cleanse the Fairies from their sins and becoming the seal restraining to certain extent the full manifestation of the Insect of the Abyss.[6]
Role
Fate/Grand Order
Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain
In Aesc's expedition to the Great Pit, Mash offers herself to descend there and see what lies at the bottom. After going down for about 7 kilometers, she managed to spot a glowing red light in the middle of the miasma before losing consciousness after being exposed to the poisonous environment surrounding the God. Ordering Mash's quick retrieval and after realizing the identity of the being in the Pit, Aesc seems perplexed about the Celtic God dying in such place.[7]
The Calamity of Norwich.
Every hundred years a Calamity strikes the Fairy Kingdom of Britain, with an especially dangerous Great Calamity every thousand years. What a Calamity is can vary, ranging from tyrant kings to wars among Fairies. Cernunnos appears as a Calamity in the city of Norwich during the time of Chaldea's arrival in the Lostbelt, with the Fairies hoping for the Child of Prophecy to save them.[8]
The first sign of its presence is a high gathering of Moss. The "Calamity Pool" also foretells its approach, swirling dark clouds in the sky above the city of Norwich. However it later turns out the Calamity Pool is actually Morgan's "Water Mirror" spell, and the reason it seems to precede the Calamity's arrival is because she knows when it will strike and begins casting ahead of time.[8]
The Calamity attacks Norwich and is fought off until it retreats by Mash Kyrielight and Ritsuka Fujimaru. This averts the prophecy, as it said that Norwich was supposed to be destroyed and the Calamity was supposed to be fought by Artoria. With the Calamity retreated, Morgan's Water Mirror that was intended for it strikes Mash instead, sending her 2400 years into the past.[8]
When investigating the Cernunnos' mural in Londinium (at the time unaware of what it is depicting), Fujimaru sees a brief vision of the Priestess of the Alien God.[9]
Cernunnos emerging from the Great Pit.
After the Coup d'Etat overthrowing the Queen, her successor, mutilated, was thrown out near the edge of the Great Pit. Crawling to the Pit, she calls for Cernunnos, referring to it as the only being Morgan was afraid of. After expressing how tired she was of the fairies' madness and how much she wanted to escape from it, she threw herself into the abyss, becoming part of the Cernunnos' core and succesfully reanimating its corpse.[6][10][1]
Abilities
Its Saint Graph Designation is Berserker. As the Calamity of Norwich, his Noble Phantasm is "Come" ("おいで", "Oide"?). As Enshrined Deity Cernunnos, his Noble Phantasm is "Don't Go" ("いかないで", "Ikanaide"?)
In its Calamity of Norwich form it terrifies Fairies by its nature, causing mental disruptions in all Fairies who look at it, such as Gareth just looking at it being enough to make her faint and erratic panic in hiding Fairies.[8] Cernunnos is able to create nigh-uncountable hands made of curses, each akin to the Calamity of Norwich. In fact, the Calamity of Norwich is just one of Cernunnos' many, nigh-uncountable "hands",[1] with each cursed hand having innumerable fingers,[6] and each hand capable of splitting into even more hands. A single one, such as the one at Norwich, caused the creation of thousands of Moss that emerged with it from the sea, each Moss capable of growing in size with the consumption of Fairies, something Moss are not normally able to do. It is stated that if the Calamity ever touched land, the whole city of Norwich would be destroyed.[11]
The tens of thousands of years spent in the Great Pit, an entirely separate dimension like a bottomless pit of curses, caused Cernunnos to have gathered so much Magical Energy that it has the potential to destroy the entire planet if awakened. Sherlock Holmes believes there has never been a more powerful God of Curses that Cernunnos right then, awakening from the pit. Nemo can't get a read on his Saint Graph Designation and states that Magical Energy measurement is impossible. He later has to estimate that the amount of contaminant emission from its Great Pit is 640 million tons, and it and the Magical Energy count are still rising as the contaminative curse layer expands; a Tsunami of curses that will drown Britain.[1] However, should the Fairy of Paradise ring the Pilgrim's Bells and then return to Avalon, then Cernunnos' curse shall be weakened; it will not vanish entirely, but it cannot get any stronger.[5]
Merlin states that, although he was a pretty strong God initially, Cernunnos' flesh has become bloated over the thousands of years, and has become as thick as Spirit Cave Albion; a soulless corpse with a layer of curses as thick as 400 kilometers of stratum of the planet. Such is the magnitude of his power that, once Cernunnos and his overflowing curses leave the Great Pit his corpse was dropped in, then there is no chance of defeating him even with the Holy Sword's protection. Predicting this, Merlin wore down his own Saint Graph casting spells on the Great Pit in order to allow for time to be rewound two hours into the past, to an hour before before Cernunnos awoke; by looking into the dreams of the Great Pit, Merlin was able to make it so that the current reality around the Great Pit with the escaped Cernunnos is a "dream" that the God is having, and to have him wake up from there. The lifting of the dream caused Merlin to vanish but the Great Pit and Cernunnos to be reset, but once he awakens, Chaldea will have only an hour to defeat him before his curses overflow and he becomes unstoppable.[12][6] Merlin also explains that as long as Cernunnos' neverending punishment of the Fairies remains, then new Calamities will never stop arising from his curse and spread to Proper Human History, each Calamity on par with a smaller-scale version of Goetia's Human Order Incineration Incident.[12]
Holmes states that, as a curse driven by flesh, physical attacks may not be effective, and that the correct approach would be to exorcise it with a spiritual attack, and that one blessed by Grimm the Wise and Artoria Caster is the only way such an attack could possible provide interference. However, despite this, Cernunnos' takes no lasting damage and is able to regenerate from any defeats and terminations of his magical signature, as he is able to propagate curses faster than they can be damaged. Despite Merlin assurance that Cernunnos' soul was destroyed long ago, Grimm the Wise realises that Cernunnos has a Divine Core; the sacrifice of Baobhan Sith as she fell into the Great Pit while cursing the Fairies for their betrayal of her and her mother revivied his Divine Core. As such, the curses can't be defeated unless their source, his Divine Core, is destroyed; it's now pointless to chip away at his skin, Cernunnos needs to be blown away entirely along with his Divine Core to be defeated. [10][6] Seemingly because of absorbing Baobhan Sith when reviving his Divine Core, Cernunnos also possesses her Skills of Grimalkin and Fairy Bloodsucking.[13]
Although Cernunnos wanted the Fairies punished, he didn't want them to all be destroyed;[1] even after betrayal and in death, he is still a protector of Fairies.[6] To that end, until Cernunnos was destroyed completely, his very existence prevents the Insect of the Abyss from achieving their full power and causing the Collapse, destroying Fairy Britain before then destroying Proper Human History and the planet itself.[6][14]
Variants
- Blazing Enshrined Deity Burnunnos
- Surging Enshrined Deity Oceanunnos
- Loving Gaze Enshrined Deity Succunnos
Development
Creation and Conception
Cernunnos was designed by Yoshikazu Takenouchi (studioBB) in Fate/Grand Order.[15]
In Avalon le Fae Synopsys, a collection of Kinoko Nasu's first draft notes for the British Lostbelt, Nasu describes Cernunnos's original planned design as the following:[16]
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« One of the three prophesized calamities. The Curse Calamity. The only God in the British Lostbelt. It died 12000 years ago. Was originally a 4-meter tall carefree beast with deer antlers. After death, the curses (negative emotions) of the Fae turned it black, and those 12000 years' worth of curses enlarged it into the Mud Giant form he appears with. About 2000 meters tall. Primitive curses made manifest. A giant and repulsive stationary object. It shrieks as it crawls out of the giant hole. It is humanoid, but its arms droop down, barely ever moving. Its feet won’t be visible. It’ll be stretching out of the Hole of Curses, so it won’t be visible from the waist down. I want it to look like it probably has legs but we can’t be sure. Something close to those white ghosts with oversized drapes you often see in manga. Leave only some faint light where its eyes are supposed to be and the antlers as vestiges of what it once was. Since it spent 12000 years rotting at the bottom of the ocean, putting some coral and algae on him is a valid idea. » |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Chapter 26
- ↑ Reminiscence
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Famitsu - Fate/Grand Order 7th Anniversary interview with Nasu and Takeuchi - Translated by Comun
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Chapter 18
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Chapter 27
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Chapter 29
- ↑ Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Fragments 7
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Chapter 9
- ↑ Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fae: Fae Round Table Domain - Chapter 11 Section 6
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Chapter 24
- ↑ Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Fae Round Table Domain: Avalon le Fae, Section 4: Gloucester (I)
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fay: Fae Round Table Domain, Chapter 28
- ↑ Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Cernunnos Battle Skills.
- ↑ Fate/Grand Order: Cosmos in the Lostbelt - Avalon le Fae: Fae Round Table Domain - Prologue
- ↑ https://note.com/studiobb/n/n68b26fe0568c
- ↑ Avalon le Fae Synopsys - Translated by Comun








