Naruto: Amegakure Edition Pre-Alpha Rentry

Setting

The Known World

The Known World is a large continental body, dominated by a singular mass of land surrounded by smaller islands and archipelagos. Its people share a single, ancient history, with a majority of its past defined by rivalries and alliances between ancestral families and small, clustered territories.

Recent conflicts of ever-increasing scale have forced these pocket empires to merge into larger Nations, the Five Great of which - the Lands of Wind, Fire, Water, Lightning and Earth - emerged from the First Great War as the largest and most powerful empires seen in many ages. Those unfortunate, belligerent or powerful enough to resist collapsing into these five powers must carefully contend with their overwhelming economic and military power.

Within these Nations there exist isolated organizations of great influence, many dating far further back than any Nation of today. Noble Samurai Dynasties, who stood as the elite military forces of old - mysterious Shinobi Clans, who's shadowy, mercenary nature did not fade with their recent joining into Hidden Villages - and the Temples of Sohei, who's wisemen have studied and recorded the mysteries of Heaven, Earth and Man for time immemorial. These elite and strange individuals - characterized by their traditional masteries of supernatural Chakra Techniques - have played important parts in recent events, their favour or displeasure shaping the fate of the Nations.

The Second Great War

If the First Great War was a consolidation of small, warring states into the Nations known today, the Second Great War is the first true conflict between those Nations. With each of the Five seeking new territory, allies and resources to acquire advantages over one another, it is no surprise that diplomatic argument would escalate into border skirmishes and eventually outright war.

What none could have expected was the sheer scope and devastation such a conflict would cause. After the First Great War, hundreds of advances in technology and Chakra Techniques were developed by the fusing of previously secretive Clan, Temple and Dynastic lore into Nation alliances - such breakthroughs only had a few decades to help improve lives before they were put to the test in combat. In a few short years, the armies of the Known World would cause more damage than the entire First Great War, with no sign of stopping.

Though the war is principally between the Five Great Nations, it is in truth the lesser, smaller territories that have suffered the greatest. Conquered, forced into military alliances or used as proxy warzones, their people die in a war they do not seek to benefit from. Of the lesser Nations, only three have remained stalwart - the powerful Land of Whirlpools, who's mighty Uzumaki Clan even now repels invaders from multiple Nations - the clever Land of Frost, who's skill at diplomacy and espionage has allowed them to so far avoid the conflict - and the industrious Land of Rain, who's extremely advanced technology and strong alliance with the neighbouring Lands of Birds, Grass and Rivers have allowed it to resist the might of multiple Great Nations, for now.

Amegakure, City of Machines

The Village Hidden in the Rain - a misleading title for the sprawling, industrial city at the heart of the Land of Rain. Founded before even the First Great War, it has undergone radical evolution from a farming and mining community to the most scientifically and technologically advanced location in the Known World. Home to many guilds of craftsmen, researchers and inventors, it has overcome challenges of relatively infertile terrain and limited resources with sheer innovation.

Despite its miraculous success - or perhaps because of it - the city has been put under a great deal of devastation during the ongoing conflict. Seeking to invade, pilfer secrets, capture experts or simply deny their enemies such things, the three Great Nations of Fire, Wind and Earth have ravaged the City with Shinobi saboteurs and raided its borders with Samurai armies. Seeing little choice but to defend itself and unwilling to bow to invaders, the once peaceful Land of Rain has mobilized for war.

Still, advanced machines can only take an army so far. Lacking in any significant military infrastructure or local Samurai Dynasty, Shinobi Clan or Sohei Temple presence, its leaders have been forced into drastic measures. Mercenaries, released prisoners, conscripted refugees, turncoats and experimental supersoldiers from across all Nations have been brought here to bolster local forced, motivated by greed, loyalty, hatred or desperation to stand - outnumbered and overmatched - against the invaders.

Of late, it appears Konoha will be the one to escalate its attack, recalling some of its most powerful warriors such as the Uchiha and Hyuga to break the hardened, hastily erected fortress Amegakure has become.

Ranks

Rank measures the relative power of a character, giving them a defined number of free Perks and Technique Points to spend. They are commonly associated with ranks from the Samurai, Shinobi and Sohei, but this is not a hard rule - a particularly skilled Genin may be C-Rank, while a Jonin past his prime may have degraded to B-Rank.

For the purposes of Amegakure Edition, PCs are expected to be C-Rank or B-Rank, but the mechanics of all Ranks have been noted below.

E-Rank
Though the lowest Rank for Chakra-users, even this level of power would be enough to mark you as a common professional, were it not for present company. You are not normally trusted with any real duties by your peers, instead expected to train your talents further.

Samurai Rank: Conscript
Shinobi Rank: Student
Sohei Rank: Initiate

Perks Gained: 1
Technique Points Gained: 12

D-Rank
The lowest rank to be considered a true member of your order, you are nevertheless far from your actualized potential. Though you are still expected to learn and train above all, you are trusted with assisting your superiors in practical matters to obtain much-needed experience.

Samurai Rank: Kosho
Shinobi Rank: Genin
Sohei Rank: Joko

Perks Gained: 2
Technique Points Gained: 18

C-Rank
You have passed gruelling trials designed to test your abilities and mindset - and emerged a fully independent practitioner of your art. This is where most careers end, not least because you and your peers are to finally expect being sent to war and other dangerous assignments that need your hard won expertise.

Samurai Rank: Gokenin
Shinobi Rank: Chunin
Sohei Rank: Zagen

Perks Gained: 3
Technique Points Gained: 24

B-Rank
You are counted amongst the vaunted elite of your kind, selected for only the most dangerous or critical operations - your name is known to ally and enemy alike and your presence is considered by strategists. This is the maximum level most can achieve.

Samurai Rank: Hatamoto
Shinobi Rank: Tokubetsu Jonin
Sohei Rank: Shiho

Perks Gained: 4
Technique Points Gained: 30

A-Rank
The heads of Clans, Temples and Dynasties, or other terrifyingly potent figures who's names become the stuff of rumor and legend. Small Nations might only have a handful of these individuals at any one time, and even larger Nations cannot count on having many.

Samurai Rank: Daimyo
Shinobi Rank: Jonin
Sohei Rank: Sokai

Perks Gained: 5
Technique Points Gained: 36

S-Rank
Undisputed masters of the Shinobi, Samurai and Sohei that have earned their place through literal once-in-a-generation ability. Some Nations do not have individuals of this Rank at all, while even the largest may only have a few. You will go down in history as one of the strongest to ever live.

Samurai Rank: Shogun
Shinobi Rank: Kage
Sohei Rank: Daikyojo

Perks Gained: 6
Technique Points Gained: 42

Perks/Drawbacks

Though experience, training and hard work can often mean the difference between success and failure, sometimes it is one's inborn talents that carry the day, or one's failings that can lead to crushing defeat. Perks and Drawbacks represent these innate capabilities and deficiencies, they synergize with - or sabotage - all of your Techniques as is appropriate. They can represent raw genetic potential or disability, the result of such long term conditioning or improper action as to become 'natural,' or some form of scientific or supernatural blessing or curse.

Perks

Select a number of Perks as determined by your Rank. You may only select each Perk once, except for Bloodline.

Agile
Incompatible with Clumsy
Some people are just born fast. You are naturally swift, nimble, precise, flexible and coordinated compared to others. You make very few physical mistakes and can pick up skills that require speed and dexterity extremely quickly.

In combat, you are better at dodging, weaving, maneuvering and are more precise on the offence, you are also harder to unbalance.

Aware
Incompatible with Oblivious
Less an aspect of your literal senses and more a state of mind. You are always living in the moment - consciously or otherwise - processing your environment down to minute details at an incredible pace, even while distracted or asleep.

In combat, your enhanced perception and pattern recognition helps you avoid ambushes, read opponents and sense through illusion and distraction.

Blessed
Incompatible with Cursed
Something or someone out there likes you. For reasons nobody can rationally explain, everything just seems to go a little better for you than it should. Though never miraculous, it's consistent enough that you and others have noticed.

In combat, you are provided no obvious benefits, but often find coincidental, minor boons of good fortune to help dull failures or capitalize on success.

Bloodline
By some freak mutation or the result of carefully cultivated breeding, you have a source of supernatural power integrated into your very being. These often grant abilities analogous to lesser Techniques without using Chakra, but can be greatly empowered by such energy.

Create or choose a Bloodline Limit. You may select this Perk again to select a new Bloodline Limit or Evolve one you already possess each time.

Deep
Incompatible with Shallow
Normally, one's Chakra reserves are determined by measuring their Physical and Spiritual Energy. Your reserves are far deeper than they should be and regenerate significantly faster, vastly improving the number of Techniques you can use before exhaustion.

In combat, you can choose to overcharge your Techniques with your increased reserve, or moderate yourself and last far longer, as you wish.

Durable
Incompatible with Frail
Health is a complicated thing for most, not for you. Regardless of how you torture your body you always seem the picture of health and are highly resistant to injury, pain, fatigue, starvation, poison, disease and any other bodily hazard.

In combat, you can use your improved stamina to perform otherwise exhausting feats, or fight on in spite of crippling injuries and maladies.

Enhanced
Incompatible with Deformed
By means scientific or supernatural, you have ascended to something more than Human. You find yourself naturally and permanently above your fellow man in some aspects, but an imperfect process has crippled you elsewhere.

Select 2 additional Perks and 1 additional Drawback (except for Enhanced and Deformed) - do not gain Technique Points from the Drawback. These choices may be the same as Perks and Drawbacks already taken, stacking with them to dramatically increase the effect.

Genius
Incompatible with Dull
Your analytical thought processes, structured thinking and memory are greatly improved. You find academics, research and rote memorization to be far easier and can work through mental puzzles much more quickly than others.

In combat, your superior studies make you better at recognizing enemies and their techniques, reputations and tactics, and your memory ensures you learn from your experiences.

Intuitive
Incompatible with Blunt
Your abstract thinking, creativity and instincts are much sharper than the average person's. You can read people and situations much easier, have a talent for arts, languages and improvisation and have a more reliable gut feeling.

In combat, you are much more capable of improvising new strategies, reading your opponents and mentally adapting to changes in the situation.

Presence
Incompatible with Absence
Whether by conviction, attractiveness or raw force of charisma, your expressions - real or otherwise - are much more effective on others. You can appear intimidating, charming, pathetic, comedic, irritating or whatever else at will.

In combat, your social gambits are more reliable. You can taunt, feint, misdirect, terrify and pacify much more proficiently.

Strong
Incompatible with Weak
A simple but effective talent. You are not only bigger and build muscle easier, but the muscles you build are denser and more resilient. Such raw strength helps in all but the most delicate of physical tasks, from combat to labor.

In combat, strikes, blocks, stances and all of your feats of athletics benefit greatly from being more muscularly powerful. You can also use heavier, more powerful equipment without issue.

Unbreakable
Incompatible with Brittle
Perhaps you have a strong moral compass, perhaps you have grown numb from a tortured existence. Your mind is much harder to crack under pressure or emotion, making you far more composed and harder to mentally effect.

In combat, you are much harder to control, rattle, goad and intimidate, and are capable of maintaining absolute focus on the fight.

Drawbacks

Select up to 3 Drawbacks. You gain +3 Technique Points per Drawback taken. You may only select each Drawback once.

Absence
Incompatible with Presence
Your looks, demeanour, force of personality or some combination are lacking to such a degree as to compromise your presence. Regardless of your intent - be it trustworthy, charming, terrifying or whatever else - others are less likely to respond to your whims.

In combat, your social gambits such as taunting, feinting, misdirecting, intimidating or pacifying are significantly less effective and more likely to backfire.

Blunt
Incompatible with Intuitive
You have a straightforward, structured way of thinking to the point where it has become detrimental. You have poor creativity, instinct and difficulty understanding abstract concepts or adapting to new situations.

In combat, your tactics, no matter how solid, are always orthodox and predictable. Additionally, you take longer to mentally adapt to rapid changes in circumstance.

Brittle
Incompatible with Unbreakable
Your will and discipline are critically weakened by an emotional flaw. You may have a generalized weak mental strength, or choose a single emotion or vice such as rage, sadness, lust or laziness - these flaws are powerful enough to tempt, distract and even break you when you are not at your best.

In combat, opponents that recognize your emotional weakness can more easily capitalize on it to throw you off balance or break your spirit.

Clumsy
Incompatible with Agile
No matter how hard you train, you always seem to be more of a clutz than you should be. You are relatively physically slow, inflexible, imprecise and uncoordinated, with little finesse to speak of. Such impairments naturally harm nearly every physical task you commit.

In combat, your form, offence, defence and maneuverability are all constantly impacted by dozens of minor mistakes in your motions.

Cursed
Incompatible with Blessed
Either you have offended the universe, or something greatly enjoys turning your life into a twisted joke. No matter how well you prepare something outside of your control always seems to go just wrong enough to make your life harder at every turn.

In combat, although perhaps imperceptible, any matters of chance always seem to skew a little out of your favour, making everything just a little more difficult.

Deformed
Incompatible with Enhanced
More often than not the failed attempt at Enhancement, but sometimes an intentional curse. You have been degraded into something less than Human, permanently crippled in multiple areas - as a silver lining, your mutation at least offers some unnatural advantage.

Select 1 additional Perk and 2 additional Drawbacks (except for Enhanced and Deformed) - do not gain Technique Points from the Drawbacks. These choices may be the same as Perks and Drawbacks already taken, stacking with them to dramatically increase the effect.

Dull
Incompatible with Genius
Your logical reasoning and memory are highly impaired, rendering you an idiot in the eyes of most. You struggle remembering anything complex and have difficulty with academics, mental puzzles and organization.

In combat, you are much more unlikely to recognize or remember opponents and their techniques and are a slow learner when it comes to your own mistakes.

Frail
Incompatible with Durable
Something about your body is deeply wrong. You are chronically unhealthy and prone to sickness, injury, lethargy, fatigue and other maladies. Even when nothing is actively troubling you, you struggle with poor physical energy.

In combat, you physically tire much faster and are more susceptible to any attack on your body - from simple wounds to poisons and more esoteric methods of harming the flesh.

Incompetent
Despite your obvious talents in many areas, you have a bizarre mindset around a singular broad concept. You are not simply untalented and inexperienced in this field, but actively cultivate a dangerous level of incompetence that hinders your other efforts.

Select one Art. You not only cannot take any Techniques in that Art, but are also highly, irrationally incapable in it - reducing all of your abilities, such as recognition, defence and planning when directly dealing with the Art and its associated areas.

Oblivious
Incompatible with Aware
You live in a fantasy of your own mind. Though not necessarily stupid or weak-willed, you are inattentive to your environment - you often miss details or events entirely and are much easier to fool, distract or hide from, even at times where you are paying attention.

In combat, ambushes, illusions and subterfuge are much more effective on you, due to your lack of analytical or perceptive mindset.

Shallow
Incompatible with Deep
Counter to some developing inexplicably deep reserves of Chakra, your network appears to struggle in meeting the necessary quota for your body and mind - though this has no negative impact on your physical or mental abilities, it leaves less energy spare for Techniques and your reserve recharges slower.

In combat, you burn through your Chakra reserves at a vastly accelerated pace unless you intentionally underpower or sparingly use your Techniques to compensate.

Weak
Incompatible with Strong
You were never any good at building muscle, even worse what muscle you did build seems lethargic and low in power. You are much weaker than you should be relative to your training, both in bursts of power like striking and more passive strength like lifting and carrying.

In combat, your strikes, blocks and stances suffer from a lack of power, and you are likely forced to use lighter, flimsier equipment than you would otherwise.

Bloodline Limits

Kekkei Genkai - or Bloodline Limits - are odd expressions of genetics that integrate into the user's Chakra network to create biological mutations of supernatural power. Some - like the Sharingan - are well understood and passed through gene lines, while others are spontaneous evolutions caused by unknown phenomenon.

You must select the Bloodline Perk to acquire a Bloodline Limit.

To create a Bloodline Limit, you must first choose its effects - this cyoa uses 3 Technique Points as a basis. Then, decide its exact effects (Bloodline Limit abilities are usually stronger but much more specific than Techniques) by modifying the chosen Techniques how you wish. Remember that Bloodline Limits often have passive effects that do not cost any appreciable amounts of the user's Chakra, but may be augmented by using it - and further synergize with actual Techniques.

Example Bloodline Limit: Sharingan
Techniques: Illusory Projection, Physical Refinement, Sense Enhancement
Flavour:
The wheel eye of the Uchiha, unlocked by their Clan members during periods of mental trauma. These eyes dramatically enhance the fidelity, speed and precision of the user's eyesight and hand-eye coordination. Additionally, they can put people who look into them in minor illusions, and can channel their other illusory techniques through this ability.

Example Evolved Bloodline Limit: Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan (Early Part 1)
Techniques: Advanced Nature Transformation (Blaze), Command Projection, Hidden Technique: Tsukyomi (Command Projection + Illusory Projection) Illusory Projection, Physical Refinement, Sense Enhancement
Flavour:
Itachi possessed the rare Mangekyo Sharingan - an evolution of the Uchiha Dojutsu. This form allowed him to project black flames, implant commands into weak-willed individuals and wield the terrifying Tsukyomi - an advanced illusion that could trap a victim in their own reality.

Example Bloodline Limit: Demon Sage Body
Techniques: Sage Energy 3
Flavour:
The user's Chakra network is a hungry demon, constantly siphoning energy from around it to bolster its reserves. Though normally from the environment itself, prolonged contact can draw Chakra from people, objects and Techniques.

Techniques

Techniques represent skills learned through training and experience, rather than inborn talents. Whether through dedication and hard work or the boons of a quick learner, they build upon one's inherent strengths and cover for one's weaknesses. It is here where your abilities are truly defined.

Techniques are separated into Arts - specialized fields of learning who's constituent Techniques are highly related and often reliant on one another. They are separated into one Mundane, three Basic and three Advanced Techniques each. You must have at least one rank in the Basic Technique to purchase the three Basic Techniques, and at least one rank in a Basic Technique to purchase its corresponding Advanced Technique.

Techniques may be purchased at rank 1 for 1 Technique Point, upgraded to rank 2 for an additional 1 Technique Point and upgraded to rank 3 for 1 final Technique Point. Only rank 1 is necessary for proficiency with the Technique, but ranks 2 and 3 - expertise and mastery - significantly improve the efficiency, efficacy and useability of the Technique.

Some Techniques offer no abilities of their own, but instead enhance other abilities - such as Icon Mastery - this will be made clear in the description.

Technique Specialization

It is not uncommon for practitioners to develop preferences for the training and usage of some - if not all - of their Techniques. This can come from a desire to completely master one facet of a Technique at the cost of all others, or a lack of interest in a Technique save for an isolated element.

A character may select a Specialization for any applicable Technique they own. This hyperfocus on one aspect of the Technique dramatically improves its power, but it leaves the rest of the Technique underdeveloped.

Each Technique will list some Example Specialities - those with N/A may not have a Speciality taken.

Consider taking and coming up with Specialities wherever you feel as if a Technique is too broad and only want one aspect to be important to your character.

Chakra Arts

One of the Three Fundamental Arts, practitioners focus on the raw refinement of Chakra from Physical and Spiritual Energies, and their subsequent control of the output as a pure, translucent telekinetic force.

Chakra Circulation (Mundane)
By practicing breathing, spiritual awareness and the cultivation of one's network by mundane means such as diet, exercise and meditation, you increase your body's ability to store and regenerate Chakra - increasing reserves, recovery rate and the energy efficiency of all your Techniques. By bonding your flow with materials about you, you can also perform minor tricks, such as scaling walls, gripping equipment with additional strength and - at high levels - standing on water.

Example Specialties: Chakra Reserve, Chakra Regeneration, Chakra Efficiency

Chakra Projection (Basic)
Requires Chakra Circulation
You can expel Chakra directly from your body in various shapes - bolts, beams, balls, waves and the like - as a translucent telekinetic force to crush, pierce, slash or deflect. These projections are powerful, but somewhat expensive and dissipate rapidly once they leave your network. You may instead project this force into an item you are touching as an anchor, temporarily enhancing its physical abilities at significantly lesser cost.

Example Specialties: Defence, Object Enhancement, Offence, Utility

Chakra Manipulation (Basic)
Requires Chakra Circulation
Instead creating and projecting a force, you can spend a lesser amount of energy to manipulate and shape existing Chakra as if by telekinesis. This can be used defensively to interrupt, deflect or - for particularly skilled users - reflect others' projections, or to further control your own projections and imbued substances such as paper or cloth.

Example Specialties: Defence, Offence, Specific Substance/Type (Paper, Puppets, Etc.), Utility

Nature Transformation (Basic)
Requires Chakra Circulation
Select one of the five core elements - Earth, Fire, Lightning, Water or Wind - you may Project and Manipulate this element instead of raw Chakra at a small additional cost. Elements are notably more effective and versatile than raw Chakra, especially at their thematic specialties, but also possess the limitations of those elements as found in nature.

You may select this Technique multiple times, once for each of the five elements.

Example Specialties: N/A

Chakra Construct (Advanced)
Requires Chakra Projection
By imbuing your projections with a significantly increased amount of Chakra, you can create temporary, self-sustaining and more powerful phenomena such as barriers, weapons, perpetual expressions of force and more permanently enhanced objects. You can continue channelling Chakra into these constructs to maintain them.

Example Specialties: Barriers, Object Enhancement, Weapons

Chakra Animation (Advanced)
Requires Chakra Manipulation
Instead of focusing on your manipulations yourself, you can now spend additional Chakra to imbue a limited animus into your target - the more skilled you are, the more complex the conditions and responses. Guided bolts, flying swords and self-realigning barriers and - for the particularly skilled - temporary golems and familiars are all possible.

Example Specialties: Environment, Projections, Specific Substance/Type (Paper, Puppets, Golems, Etc.)

Advanced Nature Transformation (Advanced)
Requires Nature Transformation
By enhancing an element with Physical or Spiritual Energy, you may create a new quasi-element. Select one element you possess and create a new, more powerful, more expensive form for it by enhancing its 'physicality,' or 'conceptuality.' For example, Fire may become impossibly hot Blaze from conceptual enhancement, or the burning kinetic force of Ash from gaining physicality. As this is a direct upgrade of your core element, its effectiveness is also reliant on your proficiency in that element.

You may select this Technique multiple times, once for each new quasi-element.

Example Specialties: N/A

Combat Arts

Practiced most often by the Samurai, this Art is the simple application and extension of millennia of mundane physical combat traditions. Users have a strong grasp of martial arts, weapons, tactics and strategy.

Combat Training (Mundane)
You are practiced in the fundamentals of striking, blocking, dodging, stances, grapples and maneuvers - both with and without weapons and armour - as well as the mindset and perspective required to both follow a combat plan and act on instinct when necessary.

Example Specialties: Combat Sense, Unarmed, Weapons

Combat Expertise (Basic)
Requires Combat Training
You have further developed your intuition and reasoning for battle via hard won experience or extreme training. You are not only aware of more niche and complex small-scale tactics, but have honed your ability to read others' in the moment and to lead units. In every mental capacity, you are better prepared for conflict.

Example Specialties: Predicting Enemies, Tactics, Teamwork

Martial Arts (Basic)
Requires Combat Training
You have learned or developed a martial art - a style of fighting more complex and difficult, but more effective than the essentials you have already learned. It can be used with or without weapons. Create a mundane martial art and determine how it differs from the norm, include a defensive and offensive strategy.

Example: Dancing Fist - Uses graceful, flowing acrobatics to dodge, weave and counter attack.
Example: Gentle Fist - Uses precision to strike at enemy weak points or block with minimal force.
Example: Iron Fist - Uses raw power to brutally strike, crush and deflect.

Example Specialties: Defence, Mobility, Offence

Weapon Bonding (Basic)
Requires Combat Training
Although you have already learned how to handle most weapons, it is here that you truly learn to make them an extension of your body. This not only improves every mundane use of your weaponry, but also allows you to more easily use your weapon to enhance other Techniques and vice-versa.

Example Specialties: Assassin Weaponry, Blades, Bows, Clubs, Throwing

Combat Mastery (Advanced)
Requires Combat Expertise
Your mind is now capable of reading the flow of many battles simultaneously. By training this instinct in conjunction with logistics and strategy, you can actively dictate the flow of battlefields or even entire warzones, such is your sense for conflict and improved leadership.

Example Specialties: Leadership, Logistics, Strategy

Advanced Martial Arts (Advanced)
Requires Martial Arts
Incorporating the supernatural abilities of Chakra directly into a martial art allows you to advance it to a new stage entirely - capable of feats that even the most complex of mundane arts could not emulate.

Upgrade your martial art to contain a supernatural element. While Martial Art dictates your physical form, this Technique dictates how well it is enhanced by Chakra. It often emulated concepts from other Arts - users do not need to know these Arts, but the style often synergizes well with them.

Example: Mirage Dancing Fist - Use Illusion Arts to confound and confuse any offence, weaving mirages into your dodges and forcing your opponents to strike at aftermirages.
Example: Hyugan Gentle Fist - Utilize Chakra Arts to inject miniscule amounts of energy into your pinpoint strikes, crippling your enemy's Chakra network with a touch.
Example: Lotus Iron Fist - Use Physical Arts to dramatically enhance the raw power of your movements, striking through defenses with sheer might.

Example Specialties: N/A

Perfect Instrument (Advanced)
Requires Weapon Bonding
You have aligned yourself to a single weapon so strongly that it has developed an echo of your Chakra network. It is not only now far superior to its previous form in every way, but synchronizes with you and your Techniques perfectly and grows stronger alongside you. If your Perfect Instrument is lost, you may begin the process anew with a new weapon you are familiar with.

Example Specialties: N/A

Craft Arts

Technically the most common Art due to its usage - if infrequent mastery - by common civilians, most of its principles are concerned with improving one's other efforts by sufficient application, creation and improvement of materials and items.

Craftsmanship (Mundane)
Though tools, equipment and weapons may be ubiquitous to any profession, it takes a certain, specialized skillset to truly understand, improve and innovate on them. You are familiar with the fundamentals of science, engineering, artistry and the creator's trade - you can better maintain, tinker with and improve the quality of your equipment.

Example Specialties: Crafting, Inventing, Maintaining

Icon Mastery (Basic)
Requires Craftsmanship
It is well understood that Chakra responds to symbology - you are familiar with using and creating mundane symbols and artistry to improve your other Techniques with time, preparation and the right items. Paint the air with specialized inks improve Water, use music to empower Wind and Sound, wear ritualistic garb to enhance your Auras or even don a properly prepared warrior's armoury to enhance your physical prowess.

Example Specialties: By Theme/Art (Painting, Music, Fashion, Etc.)

Sigils (Basic)
Requires Craftsmanship
The common and essential practice of binding Chakra into complex symbols - typically inked into paper or carved into wood, metal or stone. With the right formulae, Chakra can be stored with a pattern mimicking another Technique the creator knows. When activated, the sigil uses the stored Chakra to produce the Technique's effects. Time consuming to make, they can nevertheless be invaluable to a well-prepared user. The best masters can even capture others's active Techniques into a sigil.

Example Specialties: Capturing Techniques, Storing Chakra, Storing Techniques

Tool Mastery (Basic)
Requires Craftsmanship
Instead of the supernatural, you have further refined your usage of simple mundane objects to assist in your efforts. These do not enhance other abilities directly, but your mindset for improvising clever uses expands with the quality of your craft. Use precisely carved tubes to shoot Wind like a bullet, channel Fire and Lightning through steel wire, or simply create more innovative tools for personal use.

Example Specialties: Crafting, Invention, Improvisation

Artefact Mastery (Advanced)
Requires Icon Mastery
Though many objects exist in the world with some supernatural powers, few hold the strength to be claimed Artefact. These items of power almost have minds of their own and require proper ritual and respect for their history and craftsmanship to be properly utilized. You have bonded with one such Artefact.

Select three Techniques. Your Artefact can use these on its own or empower your usage of them. The higher your rank, the more intune you are and the more it assists you.

Example Specialties: N/A

Sealing (Advanced)
Requires Sigils
Where Sigils can only store Chakra, energies and its various forms, Seals are a more potent variant that have been adapted to store physical objects - including persons. It is mostly used to carry great numbers of supplies in a scroll, but advanced practitioners have been known to trap persons - albeit temporarily - in elaborate trapping seals. The most advanced practitioners can even conjure marked targets to a corresponding seal through space itself.

Example Specialties: Imprisonment, Storage, Summoning

Machine Mastery (Advanced)
Requires Tool Mastery
Until very recently, technology had remained relatively stagnant for centuries - seeing incremental advances in crafting techniques at best. Most are therefore unprepared to use modern miracles such as radios, biohazard equipment and electricity - you are not only familiar with making and operating these machines, but can also use them to indirectly enhance your other Techniques.

Example Specialties: By Field (Chemistry, Electricity, Mechanics, Radiation, Etc.)

Curse Arts

Beyond the natural and spiritual realms, there are dark and esoteric wells of power that pool like stagnant water. So-called Cursed Energy is fickle and evil, it must be bargained with by knowledgeable sorcerers practicing arcane methods.

Occultism (Mundane)
You have studied the supernatural, including sources, users and expressions of such power. The knowledge gained of such phenomena is purely academic - but it allows you to more easily identify and read enemy Techniques and other strange abilities.

Example Specialties: By Art

Cursed Companion (Basic)
Requires Occultism
Most who practice Cursed Arts - recognizing the strain it puts on their body and mind - seek out alternative means to store, filter and channel Cursed Energy. This often take the form of a pact with a lesser evil spirit, bound ghost or a small animated construct - they are often poor combatants compared to Sage Companions, but act as powerful receptacles of evil energies and often have some cursed powers of their own.

Example Specialties: Constructs, Evil Spirits, Undead

Cursed Energy (Basic)
Requires Occultism
Drawing on Cursed Energy to bolster your own Chakra reserves is a surprisingly common practice, given the relative dangers. By practicing occult arts, you may siphon vast quantities of Chakra from your environment, particularly sources of supernatural power. Cursed Energy is hungry and manipulative, and demands a price for its power - most commonly, users sacrifice their own health or the health of others as payment.

Example Specialties: N/A

Spell Arts (Basic)
Requires Occultism
Rather than simply theoretical, your studies of the supernatural have extended to practical methods. Most Techniques benefit greatly from hand signs, words of power and ritual dances - you have mastered the art of rendering your other abilities more powerful, efficient and versatile by engaging in such efforts - the only costs being the time needed to perform them and their obvious nature.

Example Specialties: Hand Signs, Ritual Dances, Words of Power

Possession (Advanced)
Requires Cursed Companion
More than a simple partnership, you have tied your mind, body and soul to your cursed familiar. The sharing of your energies has imparted an echo of your Techniques for your companion, while you gain an echo of its supernatural traits as your own. You are also now aware of anything your cursed familiar is aware of and vice-versa, and may share Chakra with each other at distance.

Example Specialties: N/A

Cursed Techniques (Advanced)
Requires Cursed Energy
The delicate art of fusing Chakra and Cursed Energy in the right mixture results in Cursed Chakra. Using this in lieu of the norm can transform any Technique into a Cursed Technique - dramatically enhancing its power and giving it evil properties. The cost to this is the time, focus and effort required to combine one's own Chakra with Cursed Energy under their control and the natural dangers involved.

Example Specialties: N/A

Ritual Arts (Advanced)
Requires Spell Arts
Significantly more involved than signs, dances and phrases - this covers the knowledge needed to spend hours or even days crafting singular Techniques of truly extreme proportion. Given a day, the required resources and especially with a group, you can surpass even the greatest masters for a single, devastating release of a Technique you know.

Example Specialties: N/A

Divine Arts

If nature is the law of Earth, then Divine is the law of Heaven. An extremely common art amongst Sohei and other practitioners of enlightenment, it is the domain of priests, monks and philosophers who draw their inspiration from myth and faith.

Ceremony (Mundane)
The first step on the path to enlightenment is to understand the fundamentals left by the wisemen of the past. You have practiced astrology, theology, philosophy, history and other studies believed to house the wisdom of the universe. You are also more prepared to face spirits of all kinds with knowledge of their ways.

Divine Companion (Basic)
Requires Ceremony
Humans are not an ideal heavenly conduit even those who have dedicated themselves to the holy arts find themselves held by their earthly bodies. Many practitioners of Divine Arts find divine muses - ancestral spirits, celestially touched animals and stranger things still - both to inspire their journey and as a source of power. They are the wisest of the three Companions and primarily act as guides for their masters rather than servants or warriors.

Example Specialties: Ancestral Spirits, Celestial Familiars

Divine Energy (Basic)
Requires Ceremony
Divine Energy exists somewhat outside of the natural world, pouring to the earth from the heavens as starlight or pooling about places of spiritual significance. By attuning yourself to it through meditation, you can bolster your Chakra reserves dramatically by absorbing this blessed power. Divine Energy is moral, just and judgemental, it will only respond to users who further its goals and will violently punish those who use it for improper purpose.

Example Specialties: N/A

Cleansing (Basic)
Requires Ceremony
The most common act practiced by priests, shamans and other holy men is the exorcism of evil energies and the blessing of sites, items and peoples. Through proper prayer, symbol and intent you can purify the spirits of the land and of others. Those purified in such a manner have their burdens soothed, souls bolstered and bad fortune washed away. This technique is uniquely capable of countering and protecting Cursed Energy and other Techniques reliant on it.

Example Specialties: Blessing, Fortune, Purification

Ascension (Advanced)
Requires Divine Companion
You and your divine familiar have synchronized your spirits to such a degree that you have begun to take on each other's qualities. Through you, your familiar has gained a greater measure of physicality and access to your Chakra network, whereas you have ascended minor qualities associated with spirits, celestials and the heavens - as well as constant access to a powerful reserve of Divine Energy.

Example Specialties: N/A

Divine Techniques (Advanced)
Requires Divine Energy
By drawing Divine Energy into your form and carefully moulding it with your Chakra, you can create Divine Chakra. Utilizing this empowered energy transforms any Technique into a Divine Technique, with much greater power and holy properties. As with Cursed and Sage Techniques, the cost is measured in the time, focus and effort needed to create Divine Chakra and the backlash suffered for straying from the Divine Energy's morals.

Example Specialties: N/A

Nullification (Advanced)
Requires Cleansing Arts
Once a practitioner of the Divine Arts have learned to cleanse evil spirits and bad luck, they may go on to learn how to reject and dismiss any and all supernatural power. You may defend against, create wards for, disrupt and dispel the Techniques of others. This is particularly potent against supernatural creatures or foes who's bodies rely on powers to function, as their very forms are assaulted by your exorcism.

Example Specialties: By Art

Illusory Arts

Closely associated with the Shinobi, who have pioneered the Art for centuries, these Techniques focus on the control of information through misdirection, illusion and other subtleties.

Subterfuge (Mundane)
You have trained extensively in the arts of deception. From physical disguises and the fundamentals of shadowing, camouflage and stalking to more unique tricks like voice control, ventriloquism and sleight-of-hand. You have also developed the mindset required to exploit openings in an underhanded fashion with trickery and dishonourable tactics.

Example Specialties: Deception, Disguise, Stealth

Collective Hallucination (Basic)
Requires Subterfuge
Normally the principles of Illusory Techniques involve casting cultivated Spiritual Energy into the Chakra Network of the targets - this renders the illusion significantly more efficient and targeted, but causes great difficulty in fooling multiple enemies at once. By infusing one's illusions with a great deal of Spiritual Energy, they can be manifested in the real world. Such illusions remain entirely intangible, but will be perceived by all onlookers.

Example Specialties: N/A

Illusory Concealment (Basic)
Requires Subterfuge
A core component of any Shinobi's arsenal, the user reduces or conceals the sensory signatures of themselves, another individual or objects from the minds of others. This simple ability to muffle one's footsteps, blur one's image, soften one's touch or scrub one's smell from the air can prove critical to any stealthcraft when properly used. The more senses that are dulled and the more completely, the more Chakra this Technique costs.

Example Specialties: Sight, Smell/Taste, Sound, Touch

Illusory Projection (Basic)
Requires Subterfuge
At its simplest, this is the creation of sensory simulations within the minds of others, rather than reduction. Though most commonly used for minor tricks such as throwing one's voice, creating distracting sounds, casting shadow across a corridor or causing watchmen to shiver with cold, more advanced practitioners can create convincing, holistic illusions such as nonexistant combatants or even enact conversation through an illusory proxy. The more senses are effected and the more real the illusion, the more Chakra needed. Its primary weakness is its pre-programmed nature, the user must actively focus to change an illusion's state.

Example Specialties: Sight, Smell/Taste, Sound, Touch

Shadow Illusions (Advanced)
Requires Collective Hallucination
Once an illusion has been granted individuality, an advanced user can further infuse it with Physical Energy. Such illusions not only become universal, but gain a sense of quasi-tangibility. An illusory sword held by the mirage of the warrior can cut, while the hallucination of fire may burn, or an illusory bridge can be made solid enough to cross. This is a monstrously powerful Technique limited only by two critical weaknesses - an extreme expenditure of Chakra and a certain ineffectiveness of the illusion compared to the real thing.

Example Specialties: N/A

Illusory Transformation (Advanced)
Requires Illusory Concealment
After mastering sensory signatures through concealment, advanced Illusionists can begin to alter sensory properties of themselves, others and objects in different ways. Most commonly used as fluid disguises that fool even close inspection or else peddling an object as something else entirely - it is far more sophisticated than Projection due to its grounding in reality, and allows for subtraction as well as addition or and modification.

Example Specialties: Sight, Smell/Taste, Sound, Touch

Illusory Animation (Advanced)
Requires Illusory Projection
Perhaps the greatest flaw in Projections is the need for the user to focus on them to perform anything complex. This Technique allows the user to bypass this issue at a greater cost of Chakra. By infusing an illusion with a quasi-sentience through a great deal of Mental Energy, it can respond on its own to maintain a semblance of reality and can even broaden its effects when necessary - such as an illusory attack causing leaves to rustle or seemingly burning what was struck.

Example Specialties: N/A

Medical Arts

For thousands of years the Known World has practiced primitive forms of alchemy and physiology. Although modern sciences have dramatically improved the reliability and efficacy of surgeries and medicines, many ancient arts remain studied due to their unique supernatural effects.

Medicine (Mundane)
A familiarity with the mundanities of biology, herbology, chemistry, alchemy and physiology has granted you an understanding of poisons, medicines, first aid and surgery. You know how bodies work, how to better hurt or help them, how to make simple - but potent - remedies and maladies and how to use them both in and out of combat.

Example Specialties: Medicine, Poisons, Surgery

Poison Mastery (Basic)
Requires Medicine
The killer's arts, you have deepened your understanding with toxins, diseases and other maladies of the body. You are capable of developing and using substances of supernatural nature to cripple your foes in many ways - from attacking their organs directly to disrupting their Chakra Networks or more specific, tailored damage. At a higher level of proficiency you may even apply requirements to your attacks, such as effecting only a certain gender or activating under a specific circumstance.

Example Specialties: Chakra Poisons, Mental Poisons, Physical Poisons

Body Shaping (Basic)
Requires Medicine
By carefully manipulating certain organs, tissues or - at extreme levels of mastery - cells in the body, you can cause rapid growth, shrinkage or shaping of natural substances within yourself. Grow bones to use as spurs or armour, enhance musculature to improve your strength, or move your hair as an additional limb. These unnatural shapes are sustained by Chakra and often pose severe health risks if not dispelled before one's reserve runs dry. Due to the complexity and specificity associated with this Technique, most tend to focus on a single tissue type.

Example Specialties: Bone, Hair, Muscle

Elixir Mastery (Basic)
Requires Medicine
The healer's arts, you have spent much time in contemplation of various herbs and chemicals and how they might become elixirs and medicines. You can create and use various substances that temporarily improve the physical, mental and even spiritual processes of others. Pills that cause one's Chakra system to overflow, balms that dramatically accelerate regeneration, stimulants that push one's body to the limit and more are possible with this Technique - as with Blighting, more advanced practitioners can imbue requirements into their designs.

Example Specialties: Chakra Elixirs, Mental Elixirs, Physical Elixirs

Poison Projection (Advanced)
Requires Poison Mastery
Through experience and attunement with one's venoms, toxins and blights, you have discovered the art of transforming your very Chakra itself into a mimicry of these foul substances. You may project anything you would be capable of with your poisons into the bodies of others via a Chakra medium - a Technique that is highly energy intensive on its own, but can be made far easier by dissolving the substance itself into your Network before projection. Such a tainted well of Chakra also renders you more resistant to toxins and poisons as your body grows used to housing them.

Example Specialties: N/A

Substance Production (Advanced)
Requires Body Shaping
Where Body Shaping is limited to the substances present within your body, a broader understanding of biological processes can allow you to mimic and produce things beyond the Human norm. A spider's web, an octopus's neurotoxin, the electrical organs of some eels and more are possible. Some utilize these Techniques to lace their bodies with unnatural organs, while others project dangerous substances as their chosen animals might. As with Body Shaping, these strange growths are kept healthy by Chakra and must constantly be maintained or else risk catastrophic biological breakdown within the body.

Example Specialties: By Substance

Elixir Projection (Advanced)
Requires Elixir Mastery
By recognizing the connections between body, mind and soul - and subsequent connections with your medicines - you have found the way to empower and heal others through your Chakra alone. You may project anything you would be capable of with your medicines into the bodies of others via a Chakra medium - like Poison Projection, this highly expensive technique can be enhanced by imbibing the medicine itself beforehand. Many mystical healers use this power to project a healing mist that fights infection, energizes organs and accelerates healing all at once.

Example Specialties: N/A

Physical Arts

One of the Three Fundamental Arts, practitioners focus on the internal manipulation, production and circulation of Physical Energy to bolster their bodily abilities.

Conditioning (Mundane)
Sometimes the simplest habits are the most essential. By practicing proper diet, exercise and rest you have strengthened your body in many small ways. You benefit from a modicum of increased strength, durability, precision, speed and coordination from your improved physique, as well as the necessary experience in acrobatics and athletics to leverage them.

Example Specialties: Agility, Strength, Toughness

Physical Enhancement (Basic)
Requires Conditioning
By focusing Physical Energy on the muscles, you can expend your Chakra reserves to dramatically improve your raw bodily power. You can lift, jump, strike, push, run and more with a supernatural amount of power - further enhanced by your own natural abilities. The greater the strength exerted, the greater the cost in Chakra.

Example Specialties: ???

Physical Refinement (Basic)
Requires Conditioning
By flooding Physical Energy through your nervous system, you can use energy to significantly improve your bodily coordination. Your reaction speed, dexterity, agility, flexibility and other matters of bodily control are heightened in proportion to the amount of Chakra spent.

Example Specialties: ???

Physical Reinforcement (Basic)
Requires Conditioning
By pooling Physical Energy into your organs, your necessary bodily functions - from the circulatory system to the immune system - are greatly strengthened. Though this results in slightly improved performance in all areas, its true ability is to allow users to resist pain, fatigue and poison, as well as substitute needs for food, water, air and sleep with Chakra when necessary.

Example Specialties: ???

Chakra Impact (Advanced)
Requires Physical Enhancement
Instead of distributing power across your entire musculature, you have refined your technique so that you may focus an incredible amount of Physical Energy into smaller locations in your body. The possibilities of this Technique are many and varied, from simply striking with enough force to shatter a wall to leaping colossal heights or lifting incredible weights. Though it is more expensive and temporary than Physical Enhancement, its output far exceeds its predecessor.

Example Specialties: ???

Body Flicker (Advanced)
Requires Physical Refinement
In a rapid jolt of Physical Energy, the user accelerates themselves to an impossible speed to make a singular motion. While not a direct evolution of Physical Refinement, it requires its predecessor's extreme fine control to utilize. You may use this power to strike swifter than most could react, cover great distances to reposition in an instant or dodge an incoming blow. A significant Chakra consumption and relative simplicity of the movements are this technique's primary limitations.

Example Specialties: ???

Regeneration (Advanced)
Requires Physical Reinforcement
The precision, power and stability required to regenerate rapidly without causing catastrophic body imbalances prevents lesser practitioners from mastering this gift. You are in tune enough with your body to burn through your Chakra in an surge of pure regenerative power - diseases are destroyed, poisons are purged, wounds close shut and fresh blood fills your veins, though more severe damage may take longer and more complex uses to fully heal. It is dramatically more powerful than other healing techniques, but is limited to the awareness and specifics of your own body.

Example Specialties: ???

Sage Arts

Rather than seeking the wisdom of the Heavens or cursed sources, those who seek attunement to the Earth practice these arts. True Sages are often found contemplating the elements and wilderness for many years, but many find that even brief study of the natural world can teach many things.

Naturalism (Mundane)
The principles of navigation, survival, identifying animals, plants and geography are extremely common skills - particularly amongst rangers, hunters, sages and other wildmen. You have studied the forms and patterns of the elements, the plants and animals that live amongst them and the weather that they create. You are more capable of sustaining yourself and others in the wild and using its resources to your advantage.

Example Specialties: Animalism, Herbalism, Survival

Sage Companion (Basic)
Requires Naturalism
Humanity has bonded with animals since before recorded history - hounds hunt alongside archers, birds carry messages between villages and cultivated insects watch over crops. Your bond is deeper than simple training and you have learned to meld your Chakra with your natural companions - rendering them stronger, swifter and smarter than nature would normally allow. Most elect to bond with a single group or species with animals, as raising and cultivating such companions can take many years.

Example Specialties: By Group

Sage Energy (Basic)
Requires Naturalism
The chaotic, primal Nature Energy that suffuses the world can be found virtually anywhere, and is said to be the source of Physical Energy in Humans. It is unfiltered and wild, rendering it dangerous to the delicate and specific patterns of one's Chakra network - you have learned how to tame this energy and draw it into yourself to bolster your Chakra reserves. Absorbing this energy cultivates a wild mindset, so many users must choose between stoic meditation or abandonment of their civilized nature to revel in the impulses.

Example Specialties: N/A

Terrain Mastery (Basic)
Requires Naturalism
Tactics and strategy are often concerned with the shape of the land, the terrain between warrior and enemy, or the roads that need carved through the forest. You see nature truer and deeper for what it is, a source of endless advantages and bounties. You are not only significantly better at reading physical terrain and weather, but also adapting to the niche spiritual aspects of the elements and using them to empower your abilities - drawing on the elements for your Techniques or simply using the land as the well-honed instincts of animals might.

Example Specialties: By Terrain Type

Symbiosis (Advanced)
Requires Sage Companion
Once you have learned to share your Chakra with your animal companions, you may teach them to share their form with yours. You take on the animalistic aspects of bonded companions - whether literally, as with a hound's senses, or more intimately, allowing insects to nest within your flesh - your enhanced bond with your chosen animal augments you both, physically, mentally and spiritually as they become more like you and you become more like them.

Example Specialties: N/A

Sage Techniques (Advanced)
Requires Sage Energy
After learning to harness Nature Energy to bolster your own, you can further learn to harness its unique properties - an admixture of Nature Energy and Chakra produces Sage Chakra. By using Sage Chakra you can dramatically improve the raw power of any Technique - though they are wilder, more difficult to control and require a great deal of preparation.

Example Specialties: N/A

Domain Mastery (Advanced)
Requires Terrain Mastery
Master Sages have learned not only to draw power from the land, but also to offer their own power to the sky, sea and stone. This Technique involves spreading one's own Chakra into an environment so that it becomes familiar. The effects of this are wide-reaching and extreme, as every element, plant and animal present becomes more amenable to the user, enhancing all Techniques in the area in correspondence with the time and energy spent. With years of consistent practice, an area can even be permanently attuned to a user in such a fashion.

Example Specialties: N/A

Sensory Arts

In a world where enemies can sprint at blinding speeds or hide in impossible shadows, Human senses are far from adequate. Many traditions have spent centuries developing methods of bolstering one's awareness.

Perception (Mundane)
Training one's senses is a matter of diligence, experience and the necessary measures to maintain their health. Your sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing have all been sharpened by such practice - further, you have developed a stronger sense of instinct, pattern recognition and means of identifying what you are perceiving, both consciously and subconsciously.

Example Specialties: Hearing, Instinct, Sight, Smell/Taste, Touch

Sense Chakra (Basic)
Requires Perception
Every living being has an innate sense for Physical Energy, Spiritual Energy and Chakra - their network responding instinctively to its motions and concentrations about them. For most, this manifests as a subconscious sixth sense, you have learned to make it deliberate. You have a passive sense for Chakra, and may expel some of your own to feel through it for more accurate readings. Though beginners can only sense its presence and absence, more advanced users can determine its concentration and nature - such as another's mental state via their Spiritual Energy or physical health through their Physical Energy.

Example Specialties: Chakra, Physical Energy, Spiritual Energy

Sensory Enhancement (Basic)
Requires Perception
Pouring Chakra into one's sensory organs has a profound effect on their function. Although this ability does not offer any new senses - it sharpens your existing ones to a supernatural level. See detail from kilometres away, focus your hearing to hear breath and heartbeats, or even dull your senses such as removing your sense of pain or smell in the face of injuries or vile stenches.

Example Specialties: Hearing, Sight, Smell/Taste, Touch

Reading (Basic)
Requires Perception
A further elaboration on the arts of investigation and reading clues, you have a natural ability to notice the subtlest of details, piece together past events from evidence and even - at advanced levels - experience visions of the past surrounding an object or area. This can be immensely useful to investigators, but also learning much more about your quarry during tracking or researching through vast quantities of written information.

Example Specialties: Analysis, Research, Visions

Sense Energy (Advanced)
Requires Sense Chakra
By carefully modulating your existing sense for Chakra, you have grown accustomed to the effects of other energies on it. You may now sense Nature, Divine and Cursed energies just as easily as Chakra, Physical and Spiritual - more than simply assessing your opponent's techniques, you can determine more esoteric details like the karma of an individual or the sites of particularly good or evil acts via the feint traces, disruptions and echoes left behind.

Example Specialties: Divine Energy, Curse Energy, Nature Energy

Sensory Evolution (Advanced)
Requires Sensory Enhancement
Though the Human senses are sufficient for most tasks, particularly when enhanced as you have learned, there are some things they are incapable of doing. By carefully weaving Chakra through them, you can mimic natural or unnatural senses unavailable to mankind - seeing heat, feeling electricity or magnetism, keen echolocation or simply expanding the range of your senses to previously impossible levels are all common uses. Your prior training also allows you to use these new senses with a strong degree of proficiency, despite your lack of natural instinct for them.

Example Specialties: By New

Omens (Advanced)
Requires Reading
Those that find visions of the past and present to come easy might turn their minds to an infinitely more difficult art - the prediction of the future. The nature of time has been argued amongst philosophers, sages and scholars for as long as such Techniques have existed, but few doubt that particularly gifted individuals can seemingly predict events before they happen. At this level, you experience flashes of omens and can read into the future through means both esoteric and subconscious - though forcing the future is impossible, you can see things coming that no rational mind would.

Example Specialties: Instinctive, Ritual Reading, Visions

Social Arts

Perhaps the most important arts practiced by mortals, the ability to understand, communicate and influence one another is the pillar of civilization - some uphold its virtues, while others seek to twist others to their own agenda.

Socialize (Mundane)
Etiquette, charm, deception, intimidation and performance come somewhat naturally to Humans, but you know it takes practice to become truly proficient at them. You have become familiar with social customs, politics, reading the intentions and actions of others, and influencing them to selfless or selfish ends.

Example Specialties: Charming, Deceiving, Etiquette/Politics, Intimidating

Aura Projection (Basic)
Requires Socialize
Those who have practiced the social arts recognize the intangible quality of one's presence - subtle changes in voice, stance and other minor differences can significantly change another's receptiveness. By using Chakra, you project your will outwards in a way that invokes a reaction of your choice - a seducer's glamour, a commander's charisma, a tyrant's fear or even a practiced liar's aura of innocence. Masters of this technique can even cause reactions without themselves needing to speak or gesture, but it is mostly used to enhance one's other efforts.

Example Specialties: By Emotion

Combination Arts (Basic)
Requires Socialize
Though it is a common practice for multiple users to work together with their Techniques - multiple fireballs coalescing into one or two swordmasters striking at different angles - it takes a certain level of connection between practitioners to combine their energies directly into entirely new Techniques. When you and another with this Technique work together, you can temporarily mimic the effects of Hidden Techniques by combining their constituent parts.

Example Specialties: N/A

Communication (Basic)
Requires Socialize
Most Human communication relies on speech, writing or gesture. With this Technique, you may enhance or define new methods that are more effective or subtle. In addition to simple methods such as ciphers, secret languages and hand signs, you can use Chakra to imbue programmed meanings into forms of communication - a written sentence might carry a completely different meaning towards an intended recipient, or a perfumed disguise might trigger specific memories in a known target. At a true level of expertise, subjects may not even be knowing recipients of such effects.

Example Specialties: Ciphers, Hidden Meanings, Memetic

Command Projection (Advanced)
Requires Aura Projection
More complicated and difficult to perform, you have achieved a level of mastery that allows you to imbue commands into your aura projections. The more specific the command and more persuasive it is to the target's demeanour, the harder it is to resist - it would take a truly monstrous user or truly weak-willed target to command another to kill themselves or their allies, but more clever users have been known to subtly influence victims over time or make calculated concessions to persuade their minds.

Example Specialties: N/A

Communal Arts (Advanced)
Requires Combination Arts
Through social rites and rituals, masters of this Technique have been known to imbue their other powers into willing hosts, that they might nourish long-term or extreme effects with their own Chakra rather than - or in addition to - the user. A great Monk might distribute the duty of a permanent ward throughout the entire temple or a wicked sorcerer may force their acolytes to bear the burden of a grand ritual. The most impressive feats of this Technique may even outlast the user, with many Temples maintaining a single, spectacular enchantment form long-dead sensei through the daily rituals of their initiates.

Example Specialties: N/A

Connection (Advanced)
Requires Communication
Bypassing the senses and meanings mortals have learned to express themselves, you may connect to the mind of another more intimately. The sharing of senses, thoughts, words, memories and more are possible through this connection in a direct manner - with more experienced practitioners creating stronger connections over longer distances. This may also be used in conjunction with other Spiritual Energy Techniques, such as Command Projection or Illusory Projection, to devastatingly direct effect.

Example Specialties: N/A

Hidden Techniques

Though the core Techniques have been well-understood for centuries and have made for the foundation of even the greatest tales, there are always those who experiment to push their powers even further beyond. The spontaneous creation of a new Technique is practically unheard of - with those that came before having generations of history and development. Far more common is the blending of multiple Technique philosophies to create specific, monstrously powerful effects. These are crafted and cultivated in secret by Clans, Dynasties and Temples, kept secret from the rest of the world due to the danger they possess or the advantage they offer over others - hence the name, Hidden Techniques.

Hidden Techniques are as varied as the imagination, skill and will of their creators. What binds most of them is their unique blend of different Techniques. When creating a Hidden Technique, select two requirements - typically either Advanced Techniques or Basic Techniques from different Arts. The resulting Hidden Technique combines some of the themes from both to create either an enhanced or completely unique effect. These Techniques are otherwise the same as others, costing 1, 2 or 3 Technique Points for different levels of mastery.

Elemental Fusion (Hidden)
Requires two or more different Nature Transformations
Most commonly the realm of bloodlines - though a few particularly genius Chakra Arts users have emulated this power. The user fuses two, three or four of the five elements into a new form - capable of not only new forms of utility, offense and defence, but also dramatically more powerful from the benefit of each element added. More common, twin formations include Ice from Wind and Water or Magnetism from Earth and Wind. More complex formations, such as Dust from Earth, Fire and Wind are rarer and more potent still, but wildly more complex and exhausting to use.

You may select this Technique more than once, each time selecting a new fused element.

Example Specialties: N/A

Shadow Clones (Hidden)
Requires Shadow Illusions and Chakra Animation
Though masters of the Illusory Arts have been known to deploy quasi-tangible clones to fight for them, a few have discovered a way to make them truly real. Such shadow creatures are - for almost all intents and purposes - alive. When created, they siphon a colossal amount of Chakra from the user to form their own network and act as copies that can perform tasks for them, with their own minds, wills and instincts. They are incapable of learning or developing on their own and are ultimately doomed to an extremely limited lifespan, but the ability to near-perfectly replicate oneself can multiply one's effectiveness for a short time.

Example Specialties: N/A

Summoning Contract (Hidden)
Requires Combination Arts and Sage Companion
An ancient Technique developed by the Sages of old, users permanently offer a piece of their Chakra to the Great Sage Animals, who in turn permanently place a seed of their own power into the user. This connection allows the user to call upon the Great Sage Animals in times of need - who's semi-mystical energy allows them to slip through space and heed the call of their bonded disciples. The Chakra cost of this Technique is massive and the Sage Animals are more than capable of resisting or rejecting the call - but their individual power greatly eclipses all but the most proficient Shinobi, Samurai and Sohei, rendering their assistance a greater boon than most other Techniques could ever hope to match. Due to the complex spiritual politics of the Animals, users must create a contract with each Clan individually - it is almost unheard of for practitioners to call upon more than one.

Example Specialties: N/A