Conceptual Conception

Artoria
Class: Saber
Master: Emiya Shirou
Alignment: Lawful Good
Sex: Female
Height: 154cm
Weight: 42kg
Armament: Armour, Sword

STR: B
CON: C
AGI: C
MGI: B
LCK: B
Noble Phantasm: C

Legend
Once up on a time, there was a king in England named Arthur Pendragon. He was the legendary king who staunchly defended the land from the invading Saxons for a long period of time.
The name Arthur, written in the fashion of Romans is “Artorius”. Its feminine form is “Artoria”, which is the true name of Saber.
Artoria was born between Uther Pendragon and a Queen hailed from the rival kingdom. She grew up under the guidance of the True Magician Merlin, and became the king after pulling out the Sword of Selection. Later, she led Lacenlot, Gawain, and other famed knights to achieve innumerable deeds. They engaged the King of Saxons at the Battle of Badon Hill and brought peace to the land of Britain. Because the Scabbard of the Holy Sword stopped her from aging, Artoria continued to reign as the ideal king. It was ironic that Queen Guinevere and the serving knights grew more distant from Artoria precisely because she was too ideal. In the civil war that raged at the end of her reign, she crossed blade with her very own son, Mordred. At that instant, she pledged her service as a Heroic Spirit after death in exchange for striking a pact with the World. The one wish she hoped the Holy Grail could realise was “redo the selection of the king”. In legend, the body of King Arthur was transported to the Fairyland – Avalon, where he is healing his wounds in serenity.

Tactics
Saber’s ability is maximally unleashed while engaging in an honourable face-to-face single combat. It is a method of battle that is full of chivalric honour, and it is also one that suits Saber's sense of aesthetics. However, this does not mean she dislikes strategising. Because she is also a capable military commander, she tends to loath fabricated strategies that have no concrete basis. She fine-tunes her strategy meticulously. While on the battlefield, she further adapts her actions in response to the ever-changing dynamics of combat. Naturally, Saber despises cowardly actions, strategies or not. For this reason, in the Fourth Holy Grail War, her compatibility with the cool-headed, achieving-his-goal-at-all-cost Master Emiya Kiritsugu was the worst.

Class Abilities
Magic Resistance: A
Artoria boasts the highest rank of resistance to magic amongst the Servants. She is capable of completely neutralising grand sorceries involving magic arrays and instant contracts. Even modern magi of the highest level cannot wound her directly with sorcery. Artoria is able to resist an action force onto her powered by one stroke of the Command Spell. Such is the extraordinary rank of Artoria’s Magic Resistance, sufficient to shake the very foundation of the Servant System. If the opponent is someone who attacks with sorcery, Artoria will charge without fear and determine the outcome of the battle with a slash.
Also, as her “Pendragon” name shows, Artoria is the holder of the Element of the Red Dragon, charged with the task of protecting the kingdom. She carries the very magical power of the Dragon. This humongous magical power is also the source of Artoria’s Magic Resistance. Due to the characteristics of Dragon, Artoria has much trouble with existences such as Siegfried, who is associated with tales of “Dragon extermination”. If she is targeted by “Dragon-slaying Sorceries”, it is possible that Magic Resistance will not function to its fullest extent.
In the story, Artoria retained her Magic Resistance of A while having Emiya Shirou and Rin as Masters, regardless the two’s differences in power and characteristics. On the other hand, while having Matou Sakura as her Master, her Magic Resistance decreased to B as a result of Blackening.

Riding: B
Since “knights” are soldiers who are proficient in mounted warfare, Saber’s rank in Riding is very high. Chariots can be ridden the same way. Motorcycles and automobiles are treated as “modern mounts”, thus a high rank in Riding is also applicable. It is unclear if Riding is applicable to aircrafts. Saber’s Riding was elevated to A while having Emiya Kiritsugu as Master. However, Artoria can ultimately only control normal mounts. She cannot control Pegasi, Griffons, Dragons, and other Magical Beast, Divine Beast Ranked Phantasmal Species. This is due to her Class not being Rider, as well as the fact that she was a King in the Age of Man, thus did not have the fortune of having “Legends of Riding Phantasmal Species”.
Artoria rode a motorcycle in the Fourth Holy Grail War, but did not have the opportunity to demonstrate her Riding ability in the Fifth Holy Grail War. Provided with the appropriate mount, the battles might have developed differently.

Personal Skills
Instinct: A
Instinct is the ability to instantly identify “the best personal course of action” during combat. Because this skill allows for the prediction of trajectory, it is possible to avoid attacks from firearms. At rank A, it is essentially in the realm of predicting the future. Through this ability, it is possible to negate the penalties inflicted by visual and auditory interference to a certain extend.
Being able to discern Cú Chulainn’s ultimate technique certainly reflects her skills, but having exceptional Instinct also helped her immensely.

Mana Burst: A
The ability to reinforce one’s weapon and body through the infusion of magical energy. By reinforcing the ability of the body to a great extend using magical energy, the physically fragile Artoria was able to fight head on with monsters such as Berserker. At rank A, even a stick can become a weapon of great power.
Executing large-scale body reinforcement through Mana Burst is only possible with Artoria’s immense magical power.
(Translator's Note: This is basically analogous to Strengthening/Reinforcement Sorcery.)

Charisma: B
Artoria possessed high Charisma, and reigned as the king of England. The morale of military forces she commands is extremely high. However, this strong influence is still insufficient to build a vast empire spanning the world, so it remains at rank B (enough to rule a country).
Caption: Artoria, the protector of the British Isles. Even with her Charisma, she could not avert the fall of her kingdom.

Noble Phantasms
Invisible Air
Rank: C
Type: Anti-Unit
Range: 1~2
Maximum Targets: 1 Object

A barrier that renders the blade hidden by entangling it with layers of wind, and altering the light refraction rate. It is closer to a sorcery than a Noble Phantasm. By using this barrier, Artoria can attack without the opponent recognising the sword’s reach and trajectory. Since concealing one’s Noble Phantasm also conceals one’s true identity, Invisible Air was highly effective at the early stages of the Holy Grail War. It also has other advantages such as increasing attack power and accuracy. Entangling the sword with wind and using the wind as the blade enhances the attack power, while having an “invisible weapon” provides an advantage in accuracy. (Translator’s Note: It is probably more “decreasing opponent's evasion” in RPG terms.) Since the advantage of Invisible Air lies in “invisibility”, the accuracy increase will not occur while engaging opponents who possess Eye of the Mind or do not depend on vision.
In the Fourth Holy Grail War, Artoria unleashed the condensed air and used it as a long-range weapon that mauls down groups of enemies --- “The Iron Mallet of the Wind King”.

Excalibur
Rank: A++
Type: Anti-Fortress
Range: 1~99
Maximum Targets: 1000 Persons

The greatest and most powerful Noble Phantasm of Artoria (Translator’s Note: Not Avalon?). It is the strongest and most majestic holy sword that symbolises King Arthur. The pinnacle of holy swords. Excalibur was not forged by mankind, but crystallised within the Earth, using the wishes of mankind as the basis. It is one of the ultimate God-forged weapons, a Last Phantasm. Originally cared for by the Faeries of the Planet, it was passed into the hands of King Arthur through the Lady of the Lake.
Excalibur converts the mana of the wielder into light, and as the sword is swung, the light is released from the tip of the blade like a laser beam and destroys everything in its path. Of course, the mana consumption is extreme, thus it cannot be fired consecutively. In the Fourth Holy Grail War, the beastly giant sea monster summoned by Caster was completely incinerated by this Noble Phantasm. Excalibur is classified as an ‘Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm” due to its magnitude and destructive power.

Avalon
Rank: EX
Type: Bound Field
Maximum Targets: 1 Person
The sheath of Excalibur, a Noble Phantasm with its origin in the Fairyland Avalon where King Arthur rests. The wielder will heal from any wound, and the aging process will cease. Unleashing the true name of Avalon will deploy a Bound Field that provides the greatest defence. A Noble Phantasm that annuls the interference of True Magic; its existence is equivalent to True Magic.
In legend, losing this sheath casted an ominous shadow onto the life of King Arthur, eventually cascading to the collapse of the kingdom. In modern times, the Einzberns excavated Avalon at Cornwall and passed it into the hands of Emiya Kiritsugu. Afterward, it was planted into the body of Emiya Shirou to save his life, eventually becoming the link that led to his bond with Artoria. In Fate Route, Artoria learned that Shirou was her “sheath”, which led the duo to emerge victorious in the Holy Grail War.

Saber [Servant]
Heroic Spirit of the sword. One could not qualify for this Class if all his parameters except MGI did not meet a certain threshold.
The true heroine of this story. She was the young girl knight who forged a contract with Emiya Shirou and fought in the Holy Grail War.
She was loyal, faithful, and diligent. The knight's pride covered her femininity.
If we were to remove this facade, then we could recognize that she was no different from a young girl her age.
Saber was peevish and tenacious. She loved games of chance and would focus to the extent of ignoring her surroundings. Saber loved to eat and would be energized by the prospect of having good food. She worried about being defeated in front of her favorite partner. Mmm, Saber was truly a fastidious heroine.
Her true identity was King Arthur.
She disguised herself as male and ruled as the king, but had the misfortune of dying in the subsequent civil war after establishing peace in her empire.
The King Arthur in the story of Fate was an amalgamation of historical facts and legends. Saber's name before becoming king was Artoria.
It must be tough to live in a palace while disguising her gender.
The greatest problem was probably producing an heir, but that was solved by Merlin through magecraft.
In the story, the line "I know how to please a man" was from experience.
Saber's aging process was halted the moment she pulled out the Sword of Selection. The age of her body was probably a year younger than Shirou.
By the way, King Arthur was the Crimson Dragon that guarded Britannia.
Saber's father Uther Pendragon produced an heir with the Dragon Factor according to Merlin's plan. As a result, Artoria was born human but carried the magical power of Dragons.
Magic Circuits were unnecessary, Artoria generated mana just by breathing in harmony with the coursing of her blood. It could be called a "Magical Furnace" that was worlds beyond what mages had to offer.
---Fate/Stay Night was originally her story.
The main theme during early development of Fate was "a story about the Holy Grail and King Arthur", and it had remained unchanged until now.
A young girl knight fighting in the Holy Grail War.
I wanted to believe that the dream at the very end would befit her life.