Info/Crit
Schierke's app baaarely squeaked by, and the largest concern was the less-than-meaty canon section. To address this, I'm putting a meatier canon explanation here. Since this relates to playability concerns somewhat, this post doubles as a crit post! Comments are screened, and I'd prefer that you comment anonymously.
Berserk is an on-going dark fantasy manga that has been running in some form or another since 1988. The story concerns Guts, a badass swordsman with a ridiculously huge sword. At the tender age of 15 he joined the Band of the Hawk and helped the leader, Griffith, win the 100 Year War for the kingdom of Midland. In this time, he gained friends, comrades, massive amounts of homoerotic tension, and eventually fell in love with the female soldier Casca.
Then things went wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. After rescuing Griffith from a year of torture, he manages to activate this freaky stone egg called a Beherit and summons a bunch of demons called "The God Hand" who offer him all the power he could ever want...all he has to do is sacrifice the Band of the Hawk. This is what Griffith does, turning into Bondage Rapist Batman. Guts and Casca survive the ensuing bloodbath, but Guts loses his right eye and his left arm. Casca loses her sanity, and both of them are imprinted with the Brand of the Sacrifice, which attracts swarms of ghosts, bad spirits, and undead whenever the sun goes down.
Guts wanders for two years, killing servants of the Godhand ("Apostles"). Eventually, after rescuing Casca from the Inquisition, Guts begins to head for the homeland of his elf companion, Puck. He is joined by a former servant of the Vatican, Farnese, her servant Serpico, and shonen retard thief Isidro.
Schierke joins the party after the party stumbles upon the witch Flora's home in a Sacred Grove. She is assigned to rid the local village of trolls, and Flora hires Guts and party to assist her in exchange for talismans that will help suppress the curse of the Sacrifice Brand. The troll extermination doesn't go quite as planned, as Schierke's bitterness toward the villagers coupled with her relative inexperience lead her to lose control of her water spell. After a harrowing rescue mission, the party returns to find that a band of Apostles has set Flora's home on fire, and the senior witch is in fact going to die. During this battle, Guts inherits the Berserker armor and it falls on Schierke's little shoulders to dive into his mind and bring him out of his rage.
From here, Schierke joins the party permanently on their quest to Elfland, and continues to provide "backrow" support with her spells, but her most important role is to keep Guts from losing himself in Berserker rage.
In general, she's pedantic and prideful about being a witch. She thinks that "the whole world" is wrong for joining the Church and shunning the Old Ways (why yes, she IS your teenage Wiccan rebellion. Only they're actually burning people at the stake in this manga). So she has a chip on her shoulder about being on her own and around people from the outside world. Isidro's shonen retarditis drives her a bit nuts, so she's prone to whacking him with her staff or hypnotizing him into acting like a monkey.
However, after getting into a BAR FIGHT with the party, Schierke has begun to accept the brutish "outside" world. She has also taken a liking to the party in general and fights to keep everybody together.
Her elf companion, Irvarella, looks after her and also teases her about her schoolgirl crush on Guts.
Phew. I hope that helps fill in some gaps.
Berserk is an on-going dark fantasy manga that has been running in some form or another since 1988. The story concerns Guts, a badass swordsman with a ridiculously huge sword. At the tender age of 15 he joined the Band of the Hawk and helped the leader, Griffith, win the 100 Year War for the kingdom of Midland. In this time, he gained friends, comrades, massive amounts of homoerotic tension, and eventually fell in love with the female soldier Casca.
Then things went wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. After rescuing Griffith from a year of torture, he manages to activate this freaky stone egg called a Beherit and summons a bunch of demons called "The God Hand" who offer him all the power he could ever want...all he has to do is sacrifice the Band of the Hawk. This is what Griffith does, turning into Bondage Rapist Batman. Guts and Casca survive the ensuing bloodbath, but Guts loses his right eye and his left arm. Casca loses her sanity, and both of them are imprinted with the Brand of the Sacrifice, which attracts swarms of ghosts, bad spirits, and undead whenever the sun goes down.
Guts wanders for two years, killing servants of the Godhand ("Apostles"). Eventually, after rescuing Casca from the Inquisition, Guts begins to head for the homeland of his elf companion, Puck. He is joined by a former servant of the Vatican, Farnese, her servant Serpico, and shonen retard thief Isidro.
Schierke joins the party after the party stumbles upon the witch Flora's home in a Sacred Grove. She is assigned to rid the local village of trolls, and Flora hires Guts and party to assist her in exchange for talismans that will help suppress the curse of the Sacrifice Brand. The troll extermination doesn't go quite as planned, as Schierke's bitterness toward the villagers coupled with her relative inexperience lead her to lose control of her water spell. After a harrowing rescue mission, the party returns to find that a band of Apostles has set Flora's home on fire, and the senior witch is in fact going to die. During this battle, Guts inherits the Berserker armor and it falls on Schierke's little shoulders to dive into his mind and bring him out of his rage.
From here, Schierke joins the party permanently on their quest to Elfland, and continues to provide "backrow" support with her spells, but her most important role is to keep Guts from losing himself in Berserker rage.
In general, she's pedantic and prideful about being a witch. She thinks that "the whole world" is wrong for joining the Church and shunning the Old Ways (why yes, she IS your teenage Wiccan rebellion. Only they're actually burning people at the stake in this manga). So she has a chip on her shoulder about being on her own and around people from the outside world. Isidro's shonen retarditis drives her a bit nuts, so she's prone to whacking him with her staff or hypnotizing him into acting like a monkey.
However, after getting into a BAR FIGHT with the party, Schierke has begun to accept the brutish "outside" world. She has also taken a liking to the party in general and fights to keep everybody together.
Her elf companion, Irvarella, looks after her and also teases her about her schoolgirl crush on Guts.
Phew. I hope that helps fill in some gaps.