First Folio

is the Noble Phantasm of Shakespeare. The ultimate play that Shakespeare invokes. Depending on the circumstances, when invoked, the effects may vary. It is a Noble Phantasm that doesn't deal any physical damage, but it is the worst possible thing to face for certain Heroic Spirits. Basically, there aren't any heroes who don't have some kind of guilty conscience.
Regardless of friend or foe, he institutes the target group as characters in a drama of his making. Then on top of that, he confronts the target with a difficult challenge. To heroes, it would be their past regrets; to anti-heroes, it would be the moment they lost themselves.Fate/Grand Order material I - William Shakespeare, p.304-313 Shakespeare can expose the traumas that everyone holds inside themselves, and by ridiculing or censuring them, he can completely break their hearts. In regards to the target's life, it replays the scenes that mentally damages the target the most. In Shakespeare's words, it inflicts despair. A theater Noble Phantasm meant for Heroic Spirits' spirits; a Noble Phantasm that closes the world, brings forth the script and forces the story along. Also, from the curtain rising to the curtain call, the target cannot receive or deal physical damage. The probability of being drowned and trapped within this Noble Phantasm is greater the more someone is confident of their physical strength. The only ones who can overcome this Noble Phantasm are those who can declare that they have not a single dirty stain on their lives. There are very few who can believe in something and have no regrets at all. If it's someone who can directly confront the trauma they hold, they might be able to somehow manage to overturn Shakespeare's piercing words. Though, when a Servant has had their heart broken by this Noble Phantasm, they receive the bad status of “absentmindedness”. In this state, they are completely defenseless, and as long as they don’t have a Noble Phantasm which automatically responds to malice, they can’t deal with any attack. This Noble Phantasm originates from the “first” book that was published as a collection of Shakespeare’s plays after his death. Therefore, Shakespeare himself did not directly participate in making it.
Franky goes feral (anime).gif|Frankenstein having a nervous breakdown and started to pulverizing the replica.
Fate apocrypha - Gilles.jpg|Shakespeare's replica of Gilles de Rais and Jeanne's breakdown.
The primary effect of First Folio is to "show a story" to someone by "setting a stage", where he will recreate places, events, and people from that person's life. The main purpose of this Noble Phantasm is to destroy the minds of his opponents by showing them images of their pasts while Shakespeare narrates their faults to them, leaving them both mentally and emotionally scarred. On its own, Shakespeare is only able to replicate individuals as he did when attempting to escape from Frankenstein whereby he created a replica of her creator that treated her with kindness rather than the revulsion he felt towards her in life, which threw her into an uncontrollable rage. With this level of power, the replica follows a script that Shakespeare specifies and is incapable of thinking or acting independently. When empowered by Semiramis' Hanging Gardens, he is able to replicate Jeanne d'Arc's entire life to her, including a replica of Gilles de Rais performing the many atrocities he had committed in life after the death of Jeanne. This replica of Gilles has some degree of independence and is capable of interacting with Jeanne and thinking on its own as the real Gilles would have done.Fate/Apocrypha - Volume 5: description on William Shakespeare's First Folio, translated by You at Beast's Lair.
An Anti-Heart Noble Phantasm that breaks the spirit of any and all great men. Shakespeare describes First Folio as something that "changes the world, but it doesn't move the world." It is a work that he was not able to write in life, and it is something that required a Command Spell so that he would not use it to write a tragedy about his Master, Shirou Kotomine. On its own, it cannot accomplish much, but Shirou believes that it can control the Greater Grail if combined with his own Noble Phantasms, Left Hand - Xanadu Matrix and Right Hand - Evil Eater.
==Development==
The original design for Fate/complete material IV is a tome that can alter or falsify the outcome of a phenomenon occurring within sight for a limited number of instances. While functionally useless in the face of an enemy that outclasses him in every attribute, it has a chance of inflicting death upon otherwise defeatable opponents if skillfully deployed. It is activated with the incantation "NON SANZ DROICT" ("Not Without Right"—the motto on Shakespeare's coat of arms).
In the initial storyboarding of the Fate/Apocrypha novel, it had the power to rewind time, but since that didn't have much meaning in terms of the story’s development, the idea was discarded. The fact that a sorcerer might make an appearance in a work after the prototype "Fate/Apocrypha" also played a big part in the decision. Instead, what emerged was a graded-up version of “The Globe”.
==References==
vi:First Folio
Category:Noble Phantasms
Category:Anti-Unit Noble Phantasms
Category:B rank Noble Phantasms
Category:Magical books
Category:Noble Phantasms introduced in Fate/Apocrypha
Category:Summon Noble Phantasms