To expand upon that what Bluemage said and keep it vague. The Holy Grail created during the war is suppose to grant any wish, once summoned. To summon a Heroic Spirit, defined as anyone in history (nonlinear and muliversal, as the source of them the Throne of Heroes is basically a mystic organ of the universe connecting many timelines/universes) that is heard of enough to actually be worth mentioing to any large group of people. Historical accuracy compaired to what people thing they were like is slanted torwards whatever their hype said about them. You can random summon for someone that matches up with your mind set... or have some personal item of the target summon for a catalyst. The older the legend the more power then generally get. Though that means having to actually supply the mana to them somehow. The civilian population is concidered a farmable resource by many of the participant mages.
I say suppose to grant any wish as, in the canon, the first two Grail wars ended in mutual anihilation. The third war, one of the three families that set it up came late to the party and didn't get a severant to participate with. Mages being rather commonly forged of warped or downright hidiously decayed moral fiber decided to tack on an eigth class of the seven actually built into the system. They weren't the family responable for setting up the class system and and managed to screw things up a bit, then summoned the eighth severant... Avenger. You know because they were 'wronged' by the world... not summoning fast enough and all. Avenger gets no bonuses from its class and relies entirely on its legend. Avenger died quickly due to being basically kamikazied by stupid people. Everyone else mutually anihilated each other again so no one actually called them on the eigth participant thing... though they'd probably respond with agreeing that was a great idea. This is exactly as bad an idea as it sounds. At least.
But the fourth grail war... only most of them participants died, some didn't even stay dead... Real Progress!!! Pity that one of them obliterated the Grail rather than actually making a wish. The explitive... How can we actually use the Holy Grail War for being amoral, power gaming munchkins if non of the participant actually tell us details. Clearly something is wrong with that guy. That is okay... now that we know surviving the war is actually possible, rather than a nessassary side effect of the system, we can prepare for the next war. Which is in 60 years as it will take the four lei lines that intersect there that long to repower the ritual.
The real problem here is that not only did the eighth class end up as not quite having a spot in the grail to be assimilated into as a power source like the other classes, meaning Avenger is sitting around brooding about his problem with running volleys of stupid people screwing him over as much as possible. Considering his back story is that one day some people got a cunning plan to rid the world of Evil for every and every. So they picked some little boy at random and literally dumped every curse in the world on him (this is self updating) and publicly had him beaten to death as a scape goat. Strangely this didn't solve the problem of Evil for all time... instead this made the boy's spirit rather upset with them. They dealt with this completely unforeseeable result by making a major religion that decided he was the source of all Evil and everyone should hate him forever. The ungrateful brat had the audacity to not appreciate their efforts... what is wrong with him. They are saving the world after all.
Why yes their is a viel with death penalty to those who discover mages on this world... why do you ask?
I say suppose to grant any wish as, in the canon, the first two Grail wars ended in mutual anihilation. The third war, one of the three families that set it up came late to the party and didn't get a severant to participate with. Mages being rather commonly forged of warped or downright hidiously decayed moral fiber decided to tack on an eigth class of the seven actually built into the system. They weren't the family responable for setting up the class system and and managed to screw things up a bit, then summoned the eighth severant... Avenger. You know because they were 'wronged' by the world... not summoning fast enough and all. Avenger gets no bonuses from its class and relies entirely on its legend. Avenger died quickly due to being basically kamikazied by stupid people. Everyone else mutually anihilated each other again so no one actually called them on the eigth participant thing... though they'd probably respond with agreeing that was a great idea. This is exactly as bad an idea as it sounds. At least.
But the fourth grail war... only most of them participants died, some didn't even stay dead... Real Progress!!! Pity that one of them obliterated the Grail rather than actually making a wish. The explitive... How can we actually use the Holy Grail War for being amoral, power gaming munchkins if non of the participant actually tell us details. Clearly something is wrong with that guy. That is okay... now that we know surviving the war is actually possible, rather than a nessassary side effect of the system, we can prepare for the next war. Which is in 60 years as it will take the four lei lines that intersect there that long to repower the ritual.
The real problem here is that not only did the eighth class end up as not quite having a spot in the grail to be assimilated into as a power source like the other classes, meaning Avenger is sitting around brooding about his problem with running volleys of stupid people screwing him over as much as possible. Considering his back story is that one day some people got a cunning plan to rid the world of Evil for every and every. So they picked some little boy at random and literally dumped every curse in the world on him (this is self updating) and publicly had him beaten to death as a scape goat. Strangely this didn't solve the problem of Evil for all time... instead this made the boy's spirit rather upset with them. They dealt with this completely unforeseeable result by making a major religion that decided he was the source of all Evil and everyone should hate him forever. The ungrateful brat had the audacity to not appreciate their efforts... what is wrong with him. They are saving the world after all.
Why yes their is a viel with death penalty to those who discover mages on this world... why do you ask?