TV-Series
Description
Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia is the patriarch of the Yggdmillennia clan of magi and serves as the primary antagonist of the Great Holy Grail War. Despite his true age of ninety-seven years, he maintains the appearance of a man in his late twenties to early thirties, possessing a tall and imposing build with long dark green hair tied back and purple eyes. He typically wears the black and white uniform of his clan along with a white cloak and carries a cane.
Darnic's history is defined by a deep-seated resentment toward the established hierarchy of the Mage's Association. Approximately eighty years before the story, he was a promising young magus who secured a marriage proposal into a prestigious lordly family. However, due to the impure and polluted bloodline of the Yggdmillennia clan, which could not sustain itself beyond the fifth generation, the arrangement was abruptly rescinded. Those who had welcomed him turned away, cutting the clan off from their dream of ascending to the ranks of the elite. This humiliation forged in Darnic an obsessive determination for revenge that would define his century-long scheme. He joined the Mage's Association and the Clock Tower as a second-rank lecturer in elemental transformation, though his students held him in low regard. Through exceptional political maneuvering rather than raw magical talent, he earned the title of "Eight-Forked Tongue" and attained the highest rank of Grand, though his actual abilities only reached the level of Brand or Pride.
Sixty years prior to the events of Fate/Apocrypha, Darnic participated in the Third Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City as the Master of the Lancer-class servant Fionn mac Cumhaill. During the chaos of that war, he accidentally discovered the location of the Greater Grail. Using his silver tongue, he enlisted the aid of Nazi Germany, which had a keen interest in the occult, and secured a massive military force to help him seize the Grail. After the war concluded with no clear victor and the three founding families exhausted, Darnic betrayed his allies. He arranged for the transport carrying the Greater Grail to pass through Trifas in Romania, where he murdered all the magi and soldiers who had accompanied him and hid the Grail beneath the Fortress of Millennia. For decades thereafter, he secretly modified the Greater Grail for his clan's use, all while outwardly presenting the Yggdmillennia as content to serve as a receptacle for disgraced and dropout magi. He allowed information about the Holy Grail War ritual to spread, unintentionally leading to the creation of imitation subcategory Holy Grail Wars around the world.
In terms of personality, Darnic is arrogant, persistent, and a master deceiver who takes pride in his ability to manipulate others. Though not a naturally hard worker, his decades of enduring contempt have gifted him an obsession with revenge twice as deep as an ordinary person's. He is a first-rate politician whose true strength lies not in education or magical research but in political cunning, betrayal, and double-crossing all who stand in his path. As the head of Yggdmillennia, he carries within him the accumulated grudges of magi who have been exiled to the corners of the world. Interestingly, he is not particularly fixated on the external honor of the Grand title itself, seeing it merely as a useful tool for establishing an independent faction. His likes include easily manipulated individuals of great physical strength, while his natural enemy is his own servant, Vlad III.
Darnic's primary motivation throughout the story is twofold: to exact revenge upon the Mage's Association that rejected him and his bloodline, and to reach the Root, the origin of all existence that all magi seek. He uses the Greater Grail as the symbol and tool for his clan's secession from the Association, declaring war upon them at the outset of the story. His research focuses on the human soul, and he has developed a forbidden form of magecraft that allows him to devour the souls of others and convert them into magical energy, a privilege normally reserved for servants. This soul fusion technique is what allows him to maintain the physical vitality of a man in his thirties despite being nearly a century old. However, the ritual is extremely dangerous, and even when performed under perfect conditions, the precision ratio of his body and soul degrades. Over the sixty years before the Great Holy Grail War, he has performed this ritual only three times, and each time, an entity that is not Darnic himself has gradually come to rule over him. If his calculations are correct, one more perfect ritual would mean he would no longer be Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia but someone else entirely.
As the leader of the Black faction, Darnic serves as the strategic core of the Yggdmillennia clan's efforts. He summons Vlad III, the legendary ruler of Romania, as his servant, recognizing that the king's immense fame on his home soil provides a decisive advantage. Although Darnic refers to Vlad as his lord and pledges loyalty rather than attempting to command him, this relationship is ultimately pragmatic, built around their shared goal of completing the ritual. Darnic acknowledges Fiore Forvedge Yggdmillennia as the most talented member of the clan and her potential to be his successor as elder. Among the other masters, he holds low expectations for Caules and his berserker, planning to use them merely as a distraction. Over the course of the Great Holy Grail War, Darnic's position shifts from confident mastermind to desperate opportunist. When the Red faction steals the Greater Grail and takes it aboard the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Darnic accompanies his servant into battle. Finding Vlad III at a disadvantage due to his weakened power inside the enemy fortress, Darnic uses a command spell to force his reluctant servant to activate his forbidden Noble Phantasm, Legend of Dracula, which transforms the king into the vampiric monster of his unwanted reputation. When the transformed Vlad turns on him, Darnic uses his remaining command spells to force his servant to pursue the Grail before completing his soul fusion technique to unify himself with Vlad, becoming the Nameless Vampire. As this monstrous entity, he attacks and transforms the homunculi aboard the gardens into more monsters. He is eventually confronted by Shirou Kotomine, who recognizes Darnic despite his transformed state. Darnic in turn recognizes Shirou from the past, shaken by the encounter, before being destroyed by the priest's Black Keys and reduced to ash. His will, however, remains within Vlad III's soul as it enters the Greater Grail, persisting even as the Grail is taken to the Reverse Side of the World by the homunculus Sieg.
Darnic's notable abilities, in addition to his exceptional political skill and his taboo soul fusion magecraft, include a thorough understanding of the Fuyuki Holy Grail system, which he was able to reproduce and modify for his own purposes. As a magus, he is by no means weak. While his actual magical ability does not reach the Grand level, his combination of tenacity, talent, and nearly a century of experience is formidable, and in a normal Holy Grail War or battle between magi, Darnic would be the victor against the elite masters of the Red faction, possibly even against them working together.
Darnic's history is defined by a deep-seated resentment toward the established hierarchy of the Mage's Association. Approximately eighty years before the story, he was a promising young magus who secured a marriage proposal into a prestigious lordly family. However, due to the impure and polluted bloodline of the Yggdmillennia clan, which could not sustain itself beyond the fifth generation, the arrangement was abruptly rescinded. Those who had welcomed him turned away, cutting the clan off from their dream of ascending to the ranks of the elite. This humiliation forged in Darnic an obsessive determination for revenge that would define his century-long scheme. He joined the Mage's Association and the Clock Tower as a second-rank lecturer in elemental transformation, though his students held him in low regard. Through exceptional political maneuvering rather than raw magical talent, he earned the title of "Eight-Forked Tongue" and attained the highest rank of Grand, though his actual abilities only reached the level of Brand or Pride.
Sixty years prior to the events of Fate/Apocrypha, Darnic participated in the Third Holy Grail War in Fuyuki City as the Master of the Lancer-class servant Fionn mac Cumhaill. During the chaos of that war, he accidentally discovered the location of the Greater Grail. Using his silver tongue, he enlisted the aid of Nazi Germany, which had a keen interest in the occult, and secured a massive military force to help him seize the Grail. After the war concluded with no clear victor and the three founding families exhausted, Darnic betrayed his allies. He arranged for the transport carrying the Greater Grail to pass through Trifas in Romania, where he murdered all the magi and soldiers who had accompanied him and hid the Grail beneath the Fortress of Millennia. For decades thereafter, he secretly modified the Greater Grail for his clan's use, all while outwardly presenting the Yggdmillennia as content to serve as a receptacle for disgraced and dropout magi. He allowed information about the Holy Grail War ritual to spread, unintentionally leading to the creation of imitation subcategory Holy Grail Wars around the world.
In terms of personality, Darnic is arrogant, persistent, and a master deceiver who takes pride in his ability to manipulate others. Though not a naturally hard worker, his decades of enduring contempt have gifted him an obsession with revenge twice as deep as an ordinary person's. He is a first-rate politician whose true strength lies not in education or magical research but in political cunning, betrayal, and double-crossing all who stand in his path. As the head of Yggdmillennia, he carries within him the accumulated grudges of magi who have been exiled to the corners of the world. Interestingly, he is not particularly fixated on the external honor of the Grand title itself, seeing it merely as a useful tool for establishing an independent faction. His likes include easily manipulated individuals of great physical strength, while his natural enemy is his own servant, Vlad III.
Darnic's primary motivation throughout the story is twofold: to exact revenge upon the Mage's Association that rejected him and his bloodline, and to reach the Root, the origin of all existence that all magi seek. He uses the Greater Grail as the symbol and tool for his clan's secession from the Association, declaring war upon them at the outset of the story. His research focuses on the human soul, and he has developed a forbidden form of magecraft that allows him to devour the souls of others and convert them into magical energy, a privilege normally reserved for servants. This soul fusion technique is what allows him to maintain the physical vitality of a man in his thirties despite being nearly a century old. However, the ritual is extremely dangerous, and even when performed under perfect conditions, the precision ratio of his body and soul degrades. Over the sixty years before the Great Holy Grail War, he has performed this ritual only three times, and each time, an entity that is not Darnic himself has gradually come to rule over him. If his calculations are correct, one more perfect ritual would mean he would no longer be Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia but someone else entirely.
As the leader of the Black faction, Darnic serves as the strategic core of the Yggdmillennia clan's efforts. He summons Vlad III, the legendary ruler of Romania, as his servant, recognizing that the king's immense fame on his home soil provides a decisive advantage. Although Darnic refers to Vlad as his lord and pledges loyalty rather than attempting to command him, this relationship is ultimately pragmatic, built around their shared goal of completing the ritual. Darnic acknowledges Fiore Forvedge Yggdmillennia as the most talented member of the clan and her potential to be his successor as elder. Among the other masters, he holds low expectations for Caules and his berserker, planning to use them merely as a distraction. Over the course of the Great Holy Grail War, Darnic's position shifts from confident mastermind to desperate opportunist. When the Red faction steals the Greater Grail and takes it aboard the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Darnic accompanies his servant into battle. Finding Vlad III at a disadvantage due to his weakened power inside the enemy fortress, Darnic uses a command spell to force his reluctant servant to activate his forbidden Noble Phantasm, Legend of Dracula, which transforms the king into the vampiric monster of his unwanted reputation. When the transformed Vlad turns on him, Darnic uses his remaining command spells to force his servant to pursue the Grail before completing his soul fusion technique to unify himself with Vlad, becoming the Nameless Vampire. As this monstrous entity, he attacks and transforms the homunculi aboard the gardens into more monsters. He is eventually confronted by Shirou Kotomine, who recognizes Darnic despite his transformed state. Darnic in turn recognizes Shirou from the past, shaken by the encounter, before being destroyed by the priest's Black Keys and reduced to ash. His will, however, remains within Vlad III's soul as it enters the Greater Grail, persisting even as the Grail is taken to the Reverse Side of the World by the homunculus Sieg.
Darnic's notable abilities, in addition to his exceptional political skill and his taboo soul fusion magecraft, include a thorough understanding of the Fuyuki Holy Grail system, which he was able to reproduce and modify for his own purposes. As a magus, he is by no means weak. While his actual magical ability does not reach the Grand level, his combination of tenacity, talent, and nearly a century of experience is formidable, and in a normal Holy Grail War or battle between magi, Darnic would be the victor against the elite masters of the Red faction, possibly even against them working together.