Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[_The_Bomb]

Chakra Metal Synthesis
​

SIDE NOTE: Chakra Golems and the Endgame of Marked for Death
Part 2: Synthesizing Chakra Metal with Currently Available Abilities and Resources

Part 1: What is Chakra Metal?
Chakra-conductive metal (henceforth called "chakra metal") is an extremely powerful and impossible-to-acquire resource that has tempted the thread since the very beginning of the quest. Fanon Naruto typically depicts it as lightweight, extremely tough, and with the unique property of being "unaffected by any and all chakra-based attacks." Annoyingly, these useful facts appear to be exclusive to the fanon, as official canon is incredibly sparse on details and says little beyond the fact that, when forged into a blade, the weapon can serve as the origin of its user's techniques and may have additional properties when chakra is channeled into it. Nevertheless, chakra blades, especially when equipped by an elite-jōnin, are an obscenely powerful combat asset.

As of yet, we have not verified that chakra metal has the same properties in the MfDverse as it does in canon Naruto. Even with the power and wealth of a clan, it's not something that can be easily acquired. We haven't even seen it in-story, let alone had the chance to purchase it. No amount of money can buy chakra metal because no one is selling it. It's a strategic-class resource that's beyond the reach of even a Hidden Village. The only confirmed examples of chakra blades are Asuma's wind-enhanced daggers and the legendary swords wielded by the Seven Swordsmen of Mist.

Contrary to what you would expect from its extreme usefulness and complete absence from the story, chakra metal deposits themselves are not impossibly rare. Instead, chakra metal's scarcity comes from the sheer danger involved in acquiring it. According to Itachi, chakra metal is rare "but no more so than gold, and there's plenty of that around if you look for it. No, chakra metal is rare in society because it's so dangerous" (Chapter 338: Metal to the Core). Although it's not completely confirmed, we strongly suspect that there is chakra metal in both the Greater Forest where we obtained the Porcupine Scroll and in the center of the Swamp of Death. The fact that we know of two separate potential sources, both of which are extremely dangerous, seems to support Itachi's claim. Additionally, when speaking about what is considered a useful contribution to Konoha for Asuma's contest, EagleJarl said this about chakra-metal mines:

All contributions must be useful. "There is a deposit of chakra metal under the Tsuchikage's Tower" is not helpful, because there's no way to get to it. "I have reports that there is a deposit of chakra metal on an island in the middle of the Kaiju Ocean" is mildly useful, but not as useful as "I found a chakra-metal mine on an island in the middle of the Kaiju Ocean, proved it, and have set up facilities for extraction. Here's the ownership papers, I can take a group of guards/miners out there tomorrow."​

From this, we get the sense that even "reports that there is a deposit of chakra metal" is not more than "mildly useful," which supports the idea that the cause of the scarcity is not a lack of chakra metal deposits. Although not stated outright, EagleJarl also heavily implied that the Tower would consider a chakra metal-mine to be enormously valuable if and only if the facilities are already set up. From this, we can gather that confirming the chakra metal's existence and setting up the mining facilities is the truly difficult part. This makes perfect sense if the extraction of chakra metal is extremely dangerous and is the true cause of the scarcity.

From this point forward, most of our information on chakra metal comes from this one encounter with Itachi. Based on the fact that his initial claim about the cause of the scarcity seems to be supported by everything we've seen in-story, he seems to be a trustworthy source. He also is an S-Rank ninja with access to a substantial amount of hard-to-acquire information and even learned about chakra metal directly from Nagato, the world's best export on chakra dynamics. It is highly likely that the rest of information on chakra metal he gave us is an accurate starting point.

According to Itachi, acquiring chakra metal is dangerous for two main reasons. The first is simple, chakra metal can only form in extremely chakra-rich environments. Unfortunately, said chakra-rich conditions mean that those environments have a very high concentration of chakra predators with even more powerful abilities than normal (Note: Kagome believes that chakra beasts come from open portals to "the Animal Path." The fact that there is a connection between the chakra density of regions and the quantity and abilities of the chakra beasts in said region may be a sign of the portal's location, a sign that chakra beasts are attracted to these regions, or a sign that chakra beasts evolve from ordinary animals in presence of large amounts of chakra. This merit's further investigation.) Obviously, it is very difficult to set up and guard a base of operations in the middle of such a dangerous area.

The second reason chakra metal is so dangerous to mine is the process that creates chakra metal also frequently creates extremely powerful chakra golems. To be more specific, "the rocks around a chakra metal nodule often acquire a sort of pseudo-life. They can swim through the surrounding rock, carrying the nodule with them at their core like a heart. Occasionally one of these things accidentally breaches the surface, at which point it stumbles around causing horrific damage" (Chapter 338: Metal to the Core). Aside from raising an interesting connection between chakra and the ability to create life that may be an integral part of the true story of the Sage of Six Paths, this statement gives us both the reason why there is so little chakra metal available and the reason why artificially synthesizing it could be an extremely bad idea. Chakra metal deposits are often guarded by chakra golems. On its own, this would not explain why Hidden Villages don't just send a team of combat jōnin to destroy the chakra golems, collect the chakra metal inside of them, and then set up a mine in the now unguarded area.

Unfortunately this idea doesn't account for the fact that these chakra golems are so extraordinarily dangerous and powerful that even Hidden Villages would struggle to destroy one. When Hazō brought up the idea of destroying them and harvesting their chakra metal core, Itachi frowned and said, "I know of three people who have ever fought one and survived: Nagato, Konan, and Jiraiya. Konan didn't manage to hurt it at all and half her papers were shredded before she escaped. Nagato killed his through application of one of the Rinnegan's more powerful abilities; we were in Earth Country at the time, right on the border with Bear. After the battle there was a pass in the mountains that hadn't been there before….[Jiraiya] only survived because Tsunade got to him within minutes. If she hadn't been there he would have died, and if she weren't as good as her reputation then he would have lost his arm. He was on complete bed rest for a month" (Chapter 338: Metal to the Core). Chakra golems are endgame threats that are capable of going toe-to-toe with the most powerful S-Rank ninja we've seen in the entire story. Hidden Villages would love to equip all their jōnin with chakra weaponry, but the risk of encountering a chakra golem and losing a massive amount of military power makes it nonviable. Any force strong enough to successfully guard a chakra-mine from the horde of powered-up chakra predators that will inevitably besiege it will also be too strong to be casually expendable and won't be sent anywhere near a chakra golem.

In summary, chakra metal is a rare resource that can be turned into extraordinarily powerful weapons. Despite its value, it's virtually non-existent in ninja society. It cannot be bought for any amount of money and is so dangerous to mine that it may as well be impossible for even a Hidden Village. Even a relatively small supply of it would be extraordinarily valuable and would have strategic implications for the military of whatever village possessed it. In other words, the ability to artificially synthesize chakra metal is very much worth pursuing.

End of Part 1

 

[_The_Bomb]

SIDE NOTE: Chakra Golems and the Endgame of Marked for Death

According to Itachi, a single chakra golem could easily kill all but a few of the strongest S-Rankers ever to be mentioned in-story. There are likely many chakra golems roaming beneath the surface of the Elemental Nations. They occasionally surface and cause what Hidan's colleague calls "horrific damage."

The existence of chakra golems has disturbing implications for what Marked for Death will look like in its endgame.

In the beginning of the quest, the biggest danger to the main characters was always the flora and fauna of the Swamp of Death. This falls into a category of conflict known as Man vs. Nature, where the danger stems from animals or forces of the environment. These adversaries cannot be negotiated with, only fought, escaped from, or survived. In contrast, much of the conflict after escaping the Swamp of Death has been Man vs. Man, where we are pitted against other characters who have their own motivations that run contrary to our interests. Unlike fighting a mindless animal or force of nature, it is often much better to respond to human opponents by bargaining, negotiating, threatening, or just convincing them of something. That's why Marked for Death has shifted so much away from the "punching and fighting" that EagleJarl loves; in most circumstances, there are simply more effective and less risky solutions to deal with Man vs. Man conflicts then with fighting.

It is important to note that, despite a longstanding focus on Man vs. Man conflict in the main storyline of Marked for Death, Man vs. Nature has always been a theme of the story. Every few chapters there will be some lines of dialogue that remind us that the flora and fauna of the Human Path are unspeakably dangerous to its inhabitants. Everything from the grass to the sheep in the Elemental Nations can and will cause a horrific death. (Interestingly, the Seventh Path is not like that, implying that there's some major lore affecting things from behind the scenes, potentially related to nature chakra and/or the Animal Path.) The true reason why the lives of civilians are so horribly and why human ninja arts are exclusively focused on combat is that the Human Path is a deathworld. The main characters may have had only a few Man vs. Nature conflicts since they grew stronger and started avoiding particularly dangerous settings, but chakra predators still routinely massacre civilians and occasionally kill ninja, like Neji's cousin, outside of our line of sight. At the very least, deadly nature will always be a concern of the players in the capacity of Uplift, even though the main characters have long since grown too strong for it to threaten them directly….

It is at this point that chakra golems screw things up. Chakra golems are a naturally occurring phenomenon. They cannot speak or be negotiated with, only fought, escaped from, or survived. Chakra golems are an opponent more akin to a walking force of nature than a man and they are most definitely powerful enough to threaten the main characters. As chakra golems remind us, Marked for Death is not done with Man vs. Nature style conflicts, it is merely in the stage where most of them are either beneath our notice or powerful enough that we stay far away from them.

Naturally, this stage is drawing to a close. Just as chakra metal incentivizes us into conflict with chakra golems, other rewards beckon us to brush against other unspeakably dangerous forces of nature. Sealing, for instance, is a constant battle against horrific sealing failures and uncontrollable Out entities. The more interesting the seal we try to make, the harder the target number we need to meet and the worse the consequences for failure. And there are some very interesting seals that the thread wants Hazō to eventually pursue. Similarly, Project Necromancy will undoubtedly pit us against some truly terrifying things when we attempt to cross over into the Naraka Path to yank a few souls back to the world of the living. The more tempting the reward, the more dangerous the challenge the QuestMasters can justify having us face in order to acquire it. Once we start pursuing the truly good stuff, the only things that we are going to face will be forces of nature that cannot be negotiated with; only fought against, escaped from, or survived.

In fact, we are already fighting against these sorts of things. There are walking/swimming/flying memetic-hazards called Dragons that have escaped from their prison in the Out and are threatening to destroy the paths. There is quite possibly an open portal to what can only be described as a Zetsu-dimension full of tentacled plant roots that were only contained because they appeared mere feet from a scythe-wielding S-Ranker with the power to literally summon Death. Even now, the plant is tunneling through the granite box containing it and will promptly take root and begin growing and consuming exponentially should it ever escape confinement. We do not know much about the Tailed-Beast, but we do know that they are the remnants of a force so threatening that the Sage himself could not destroy it, only seal it away. From what little we know about them, The Five appear to be exactly the same. One only needs look at Kei's horrified outburst to see that:

"You imbecile!" Keiko's hands slammed against the table between them, knocking over cups of half-drunk tea. "Do you not understand!? A monster is sealed because it is too powerful to slay! Too powerful to be defeated! Every seal is a recognition of surrender by the human race, a delaying action fought against inevitable extinction! Do you not imagine we would have destroyed them if we could, a thousand times over? Even the Sage—"​

Marked for Death is filled to the brim with existential threats and we are increasingly forced to fight against them. Whether it is due to our desire to obtain rewards or because an uncontrollable force of nature slipped its leash, it makes no difference. Once again, the quest will enter a stage we must regularly go against creatures that cannot be bargained with, only fought against, escaped from, or survived. Whether or not we accomplish any of those depends entirely on how well we prepare for when that day comes.

 

[Inferno Vulpix]

So here's some crude assumptions to establish a baseline:

Let's assume that Jiraiya spent about 10% of his waking hours writing notes and stuff, except for Sealing notes which would probably include more writing.

We know that about 20% of his output is sealing notes, and if we assume that Sealing as an activity creates 3x as many notes for the time invested then Jiraiya spent about 6.7/86.7 of his time Sealing. In other words, averaged across J's life we can crudely assume 7.7% of his time is spent Sealing and 92.3% of his time is spent doing the many other things Jiraiya did.

I hear '40 years' tossed around so let's assume that's how long he's been doing things. 40 years is 233,600 waking hours (assuming 8h a night). Using the above numbers that's 17,969h doing Sealing and 215,631h doing other stuff.

Again, we assume 10% of his time is spent writing notes, except Sealing which is 30%. Thus we get 21,563h of note-writing from other things and 5,391h from Sealing, for 26,954h spent writing overall.

We can use this as a SAN check as-is, since the time spent to write it should be comparable to the time needed to decode it. This would suggest something on the order of 4.5 years to decode it all. Another way to take it would be to use the writing speed numbers described above (1,800 letters per page, 100 letters per minute) to conclude that Jiraiya wrote about 89,647 pages over his career, which would take (using same numbers) 26,954h (because same numbers), i.e. 4.5 years to decode it all.

These values are highly sensitive to things like 'how much of J's time did he actually spend writing things?' You can see that the 4.5 years pretty much maps to '10% of his career, plus some change from Sealing generating more notes'.

Another factor you could introduce is that Jiraiya might take more time to think up what to write, and thus write at a slower pace than can be decoded. This could easily reduce the number of pages by half or even more. A reverse factor could be shadow clones, if J made use of those to write more.

The main point, though, is that 90k pages is the rough upper limit of reasonable approximations of Jiraiya's lifelong output. The previously-estimated 2,700,000 pages does not fit with what Jiraiya could have reasonably written in his lifetime.

How does this jive with what Hazou said about the quantity of boxes left to us? Well, assuming Hazou was telling the truth about how many boxes there are (1000-1500), then they're only 3.3% as space-efficient as google says should be possible for modern paper. Factors that might contribute to this:

• Thicker paper
• Larger script (fewer letters per page)
• Boxes not being completely full
• Scrolls or books or other paper-containing objects bulkier than sheets of paper.

These can go a long way, but eyballing things I can't personally see them reaching less than 10-20% space-efficiency, so it might be worthwhile to decrease the total number of boxes to some degree. If we cut the total number of boxes by a factor of 5, reducing it to 200-300 boxes in total (of which 40-60 are Sealing (of which we gave 3/5 of the next box)) then the overall space efficiency rises to 16.7%, and the above factors could properly explain the discrepancy. Alternatively, if Hazou was bluffing about how many boxes there were, then that could also neatly solve the problem.

Edit: ROUND 2

After some (surprisingly unhelpful) conversations on Discord, I'm going to recalculate a little bit and try to establish a broader range of reasonable values.

It was mentioned that J's Spy Network work would likely involve a lot of writing, perhaps more than his Sealing work. Let's assume that, averaged across his entire ninja career, about 30% of Jiraiya's time was spent doing spymaster stuff. We now have a ratio of 7.7:30:62.3 between Sealing:Spymastery:Misc.

The useful information I did get from the conversation persuaded me that Jiraiya would have spent less time writing in his non-spymastery, non-Sealing day-to-day life. Not zero, because of things like his philosophical writings and Icha Icha, but maybe less than 10%. So let's ballpark 5% of the time for Misc., 30% of the time for Sealing, and, say, 40% of the time for Spymastery. Taking the same 40 years timeframe, that maths out to 5,396h of Sealing-writing, 28,032h of Spymastery-writing, and 7,277h of Misc. writing.

Now, let's add a discount to that. Writing is slow and 'writing time' isn't going to go as fast as you can copy text (which is the source of the numbers used above). My intuition says that for Misc. the discount should be large, as J is doing things like writing about philosophy and stuff, that the discount for Sealing should be middling-large, as it's technical work and putting already-brainstormed interactions and stuff down to paper, and that spymastery discount should be middling-small, as much of it is presumably managerial-style work that probably isn't as difficult on the text-generating-speed.

So, let's assume a discount of 80% for Misc., 60% for Sealing, and 40% for Spymastery. The numbers then turn into 2,158h for Sealing, 16,819h for spymastery, and 1,455h for Misc. (messes with the 1/5 sealing ratio but whatever). Now that these discounts have been applied, we can calculate about 68k pages in this version, which would take about 3.5 years to transcribe.

Given that discounts were not applied to the first estimate of 4.5 years, it can be assumed that the 4.5 years would likely become less than 3.5 years after discounts. I think it reasonable to estimate 3-3.5 years to properly transcribe everything. This does not account for time spent cracking codes, or any slowdown Kagome might experience in the decoding process (that is, it assumes that Kagome knows every key and can decode in his head without slowing down at all. This may be far or not far from the truth.)

Using the above calculations that Kagome has been working at this hobby-speed for 57 days and full-time for 40 days, if we assume Kagome's version of 'hobby speed' is 75% full-time speed, then we get about 83 full-length days of work on this, out of 1095-1278, meaning Kagome is about 7% done decoding, and that he has 1012-1195 days left until he is finished.

Given the large amount of spy network contributions in this model, Kagome could probably save a lot of time by only decoding until he knows that the notes in front of him are spy network notes, and then setting them aside alongside the cipher key so the Tower can decrypt them on their own. If so, we could apply another discount to the spy portion of the notes, say 75%, and reduce the total time needed to about 1.3 years (~489 days), of which he has completed 17% and has 406 days remaining.

 

[eaglejarl]

There is an extensive list of stuff that came in through the contest and is now available to you. Here are a few examples:

Jutsu

• Detect Chakra. A non-elemental jutsu that gives you a momentary flash of awareness of the strength and location of all chakra sources within a certain range (range based off jutsu level). This includes animals, plants, bugs, ninja, civilians, etc.
• Wind Shaper. A jutsu that allows you to form constructs out of air. They are invisible but solid. They can be formed in mid-air but cannot be moved, so you can use them as a jumping-off point.
• Wind Fountain Field. Creates fountains of air.
  • Duration is 30 seconds.
  • Once per round for the duration you can create a melee-sized fountain of anabatic wind somewhere in your zone.
  • Treat it as an attack jutsu to determine if you hit an unwilling target. Roll (Level) vs their Athletics.
  • The wind doesn't normally cause damage but it will throw medium-sized objects (e.g. people) into the air. This is useful for deflecting kunai, throwing enemies around, or giving yourself a boost on your leaping.
  • If there is a ceiling to smash the person into then the fountain WILL cause damage. This works like a standard (Level) vs Athletics roll.
  • The wind always goes up (i.e. directly opposite the shortest-path line to the center of the earth, since the players will definitely ask about reference frames), not at an angle.
  • The bottom of the fountain must be on a solid, unmoving surface. (The ground, the floor, a skytower, etc.) Moving objects (e.g. a board that you dropped off a skytower) are not valid targets.
  • The fountains persist until the jutsu expires, then dissipate.
• Chameleon jutsu. Grants a bonus on Stealth checks. (This is the one that Tanaka Yoshi submitted.)
  

 

[Velorien]

Additional information

At the start of the update, you can expect to receive the following news:

- Twelve chūnin and a jōnin had been lost to patrols over the last two weeks
- Messengers have just started coming in saying that Rock is taking out Leaf observation posts all along the border
- Estimates say 20-30 more ninja have been lost today, half of them chūnin, three of them Hyūga

 

[Velorien]

[questions about the war]

Click to shrink...

"It should be understood from the beginning," Shikamaru notes, "that far too much of Leaf's intelligence reports were lost during the Collapse and a tremendous amount of our institutional memory, in particular first-hand accounts, was lost in the battle where the Third lost his life and then in the Battle of Nagi Island. What we have is fragmentary and highly speculative. I would be more surprised if much of it were correct than if it were wrong."

What kind of force estimates do we expect Rock's defenses to contain?

Click to shrink...

1) Rock's force levels are highly speculative. Best estimates put them between 1,000 and 3,000 ninja overall, although Shikamaru thinks it's closer to the bottom of that range.

What bloodlines/notable jutsu/specialty seals do we know about?

Click to shrink...

2a) Rock has no known summoners, nor have they ever been known to have a summoner.
2b) Rock has only four known bloodlines: The Tama Clan, known for their advanced intelligence; the Majima Clan, known for the Dust Release which turns things to dust; the Katsumi Clan, which is reported to allow the user to cause anything they look at to explode; and the Fumi Clan, which has shown the ability to create massive suits of earth armor around themselves, amounting to an enormous golem figure fifty feet tall with the user embedded somewhere in its body.
2c) They have two jinchūriki, the Four-Tails and the Five-Tails. Reports about them say that the Four-Tails can take on the form of a massive ape and leaves incinerated corpses and charred battlefields behind. The Five-Tails is a master of taijitsu who can destroy anyone he touches with a single blow.
2d) They have several clans that occupy a military position similar to that of the Ino-Shika-Chō -- they lack bloodlines but their clan-secret or techniques are functionally indistinguishable from such. Specifically:

The Shirogane are weapon users of mythic skill.

The Shikaku have the ability to temporarily give themselves body parts of various animals, granting themselves greatly enhanced speed, strength, and so on. If they give themselves wings they can fly for short distances. The exact parameters of that flight are unknown.

The Atae can animate small objects for a short period, for purposes of espionage or combat.

The Yudan specialize in traps, some of them jutsu-based.

2e) Shikamaru suspects that some of the intelligence reports of these clans' abilities may be exaggerated. He gives no credence whatsoever to the reports of special and powerful jutsu owned by individual ninja, since those inevitably have low report numbers and are given under circumstances that are likely to be exaggerated.

What are the terrain features in and around Rock?

Click to shrink...

3) All of Earth Country is desert. Not the "all sand and nothing" desert of western Wind Country, the kind of desert you would see in the Australian outback. It's mostly flat with localized hills in certain areas, so sight lines tend to be long but there will be patches of brambles and bushes that provide hiding places. The area immediately around Rock (the capital) has broken ground with modest hills, lots of cracks in the ground, and little vegetation. The single (known) entrance is through a cave mouth about five yards across and four yards high, secured by a heavily-fortified gate. You have no idea why they chose to build there; presumably there is an underground water supply and other life-supporting elements.

What weather conditions can we expect?

Click to shrink...

4) Hot, dry, and the occasional dust storm so dense that it blocks vision over more than a few yards. Shikamaru is unsure if there is a chakra-related component to these storms or if they are a purely natural phenomenon. [Note from the QMs: This translates to "We don't care if these things make sense given real-world atmospherics for that terrain so don't bother looking it up."]

What forces do we have available for the assault?

Click to shrink...

5) A dozen jōnin with various specialties, eighty chūnin, and a couple hundred genin if you need them. Essentially all of them are mostly fire jutsu that amount to 'set a thing on fire by touching it/breathing on it'.
Asuma wants the majority of Leaf's forces at home for defense, or at least nearby, including Tsunade, Orochimaru, and Naruto.

 

[faflec]

I suppose that you find that amusing, and I think I understand why, but also take in fact that I don't even know if Hyuuga or Uchiha even exist inside this fanfic, for all I know it could be that there is no eye technique whatsoever, and if you could help me with getting around and understanding the ins and outs of the fundamental laws of this fanfic setup I would be grateful until the day I die.

Btw, if you can't understand what I was asking for help was, it is basically like this (example): Naruto finds himself on another planet where he doesn't know the mechanics of how something works, like does this place have the trees I know, is the air the same here, or whatnot.

Click to shrink...

Alright, so...Spoilers.

Spoiler

• We don't know how true-to-canon a lot of people are. Don't ask what happened to Obito. Hazou doesn't know.
• We don't know a lot of techniques other people have. Don't ask if the Mangekyo Sharingan exists, because HAZOU DOESN'T KNOW (a Tsukuyomi-like technique was used, but it is unclear if it is Tsukuyomi).
• Lots of clans are OC because Kishimoto isn't great with worldbuilding outside of Leaf. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE OC BLOODLINES AND POST THEM WHERE THE QMS CAN SEE YOU. THEY WILL MAKE THEM CANON AND USE THEM TO TRY AND KILL YOU.
• We are in ~12th century Japan/Asia, meaning no computers, no radios, and no guns. If you are unfamiliar with what 12th century Asia is like, it sucks.
• The world of Marked for Death is worse than normal, because this is a deathworld, meaning literally everything has evolved ways to try and kill you. The reason everything is out to kill you is because chakra exists, and has seeped into the natural flora/fauna. Meaning they can use chakra for their own taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, etc.. All of which is used to kill you.
• Ninjas are extremely powerful due to the ability to use chakra, bloodlines, and generally better quality of life. Consequently, they represent an absurdly overpowered upper class who can slaughter significant numbers of civilians without having to worry. In other words, the canon plot point of "Haku's family of ninjas is killed by civilians" or the "armless Zabuza is killed by Gato's civilian mercenaries" never happens. Because ninjas are bullshit.
• It is generally accepted that the Sot6P was responsible for giving chakra to the world. Whether this is true or not is yet to be definitively established.
• Word of QM says that Zetsu, Kaguya, and the Moon's Eye Plan do not exist. This is because those plotlines are dumb.
• All summons are in a different dimension. A literal different dimension, you can't walk to Mount Myōboku. Legend has it that the Sage created said dimension, and the Summoning Scrolls to allow communications (and other things) to go between said dimensions. There are a lot of legends about the Sage.
• Hashirama still formed Leaf, with many other villages responding in kind soon after. Madara still exists, betrayed Hashirama, and lost their battle. It is unclear if Madara survived or not.
• Villages consist of mostly clans with bloodlines who joined forces in order to avoid getting slaughtered by big villages (though some exceptions still exist). Civilian-born ninjas are considered barely above missing-nin in the sense that they have no loyalty to any clan, though things are improving. Somewhat.
• The Land of Iron is an impoverished shithole. The leader, the 'Liberator', attempted to overthrow the ninja order due to the oppression of ninjas, and supposedly had some way of enhancing the civilian population to be capable of fighting ninjas. The ninjas did not like the idea of being overthrown and banded together to stop that. Which means that they slaughtered the lot of them.
• The three ninja world wars still happened. Kakashi still got the Sharingan, and nobody knows how he didn't die in the process (12th century tech should not have allowed a successful eye transplant). Uzugakure was still destroyed, because they were insanely powerful sealmasters and an international coalition didn't like the idea of them having power. Shit went down, nobody knows exactly what happened. The entire invading force, and Uzugakure, went poof and vanished.
• Yagura is...not insane as he was in canon. He's still an authoritarian asshole who introduced significant oppressive laws in Mist and generally made the quality of life there shit...but he's not stupid. No massacres of clans (save the Kaguya, who were still, apparently, insane), no 'kill your teammate to graduate the Academy'...that would be self-destructive. So it didn't happen. He's still the Sanbi Jinchuriki, or was until [SPOILERS].
• Akatsuki exists, with all canon members save Tobi (unseen) and Zetsu (retcon'd) having made an off-screen appearance. Their motivations are still unknown to us.
• Orochimaru still left Konoha. His true motivations are unknown (but probably still sinister).
• Naruto is still the Kyuubi Jinchuriki (blah blah or was), but Konoha treated him kindly because neglecting your jinchuriki is dumb. He's openly the Yondaime's son and Jiraiya's godson, and Jiraiya pretty much raised him. Properly, this time. He is far more skilled than he was in P1 of canon, and was able to defeat Zabuza with his abilities (NB: Zabuza is the thread's bogeyman and a low-S class ninja here. He's not a scrub like in canon).
• The Hyuga Incident is unknown to have actually happened.
• The Uchiha Massacre still happened, but Itachi spared Sasuke and civilian Uchiha. Whether the massacre was ordered or not is unknown to the playerbase.
• Many of your expected characters may be somewhat OOC due to QMs deciding that their canon selves, and the reasonings for them being like this, is dumb. Hinata acts far more confident because Hiashi would not neglect his daughter and heir apparent in such a dumb ass way. The Hyuga as a whole are elitist as fuck (they're kinda assholes, you know?). Tenten got characterization.

That's the background. Now, since the players decided to semi-mind control our main character (Hazou)...

Spoiler

• We fled Mist as missing-nin and went to hide in Leaf. Which was a mother fucking dumb ass decision, since Leaf has a whole fuckton of sensor-types. We (Hazou, his teammates Noburi and Keiko, their sensei Mari) escaped the budding hidden village and left them all to die horribly.
• We got recruited into Jiraiya's off-the-books spy network and infiltrated the quoteSecond Coming Of The Liberatorunquote. Which was a front for Orochimaru's sneks. We got a new teammate (Akane), who is a female, and less insane, version of Rock Lee.
• Kagome joined the party. He is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who reguarly fears mind-control chakra plants being inserted into his various orifices. He is also an explosives sealmaster and likes blowing stuff up.
• We traveled to Tea and mucked around finding a Summoning Scroll. In the process we rediscovered a truly Hidden Village (since they isolated themselves for four hundred-odd years) and proceeded to upend their entire social structure by taking their sacred artifiact (the Summoning Scroll) and leaving. Keiko signed the Pangolin Summoning Contract, and got a cute little Pandaa.
• We traveled to Hot Springs, a demilitarized zone known for its resorts and...well, hot springs, to steal a message. We proceeded to kill a Jonin, two civilians, and a Chunin (?), and wrecked part of an inn. We were also spotted. This resulted in Hot Springs allying with Mist in order to kill us, since Yagura still retained his murderboner for missing-nin, and polarized the continent because Mist gained access to a continental front to send its ninjas to attack other countries like Leaf.
• Jiraiya made us go to the Land of Rice, which isn't openly controlled by Orochimaru. We kidnapped a biosealer (if you know Worm, think Bonesaw) and cut off parts of her face.
• We got to interact with Leaf-nin (yay!) and then got stuck in a killbox (NAY!). Jiraiya kicked us out.
• We fled to Iron, Snow (which is an inhospitable shithole where barely anything lives), and then to some small summer islands south of nowhere. In the process we discovered that a seal we had access to let us cheat out flight (Skywalkers). We promptly sold said seals to Jiraiya in exchanged for becoming Leaf-nin and his adopted clan. We also sold seals that allow for airborne platforms (Skytowers) to the Pangolins.
• Flight is a big deal in this world. A ninja who can fly has an obscene advantage over a ninja who can't. Leaf promptly began planning to decapitate Mist's leadership in order prevent the next Ninja World War. They then carried out their plan, using Naruto as bait. They mostly succeeded, except Hiruzen died fighting Yagura. Apparently he had a bad day.
• Unfortunately, Akatsuki managed to find out about their battle and kidnapped Naruto and Yagura. And slaughtered everyone else save Jiraiya*, who barely managed to get out alive.
  • *Naruto's Jonin-sensei, Nakamura (yes, not Kakashi), survived because he fled when Akatsuki attacked. Zabuza faked his death, although Hazou doesn't know that.
• Jiraiya took the position of Godaime Hokage by threatening to murder the clans if they didn't comply, and also fulfilled his promise to us by adopting us as his clan. Hiashi is pissed at this and has been plotting to overthrow Jiraiya and take the hat himself.
• We went on a long-term courier mission with Minami Nikko, a member of a potentially allied clan. Who then died, and her clan blamed us and we lost a fuckton of money as a result. We are now broke.
• The Chunin Exams started (yay!) in Mist (NAY!). We went because not doing so would show weakness, and Jiraiya's position is tenuous.
• Keiko solved our problems by selling Pangolins more Skytowers. More on this later.
• We went to the Chunin Exams. Mist was a bunch of petty assholes, but we managed to make the tournament (where we are now). It was looooooong.
• It turns out the Pangolins are the Summoning Realm's equivalent of Nazis. And we just kickstarted their expansion and genocide of their races. But we can't stop givin them Skytowers, since then we'd be broke again and our position would be FUBAR. Oh noes.
• Hazou's mother got to go to Leaf as a "diplomat" (yay!) and then proceeded to turn our adoptive mother into a suicidal mess (NAY!). Jiraiya responded by beating the fuck out of her and kicking her out of Leaf (yay?). Tsunade has been trying to help her. Akane (our ex-girlfriend/teammate/fellow ex-missing nin) tried to do it a different way. Tsunade popped her. Akane's funeral is scheduled for next week.
• We are now at the tournament. Leaf has won every single one of their matches unless they were fighting against fellow Leaf-nin. Noburi lost to Hinata, which is bad because it makes the Goketsu look weak relative to the Hyuga, their political rivals.

That's a...condensed summary.

 

[eaglejarl]

Well,
but now that I think about it...

This is a sealmaster meme in-universe, isn't it? Oh Sage.

Click to shrink...

Ah, I wasn't familiar with that. Thank you.


Topic change:

I was reading through some earlier chapters and found myself amazed at the long-term nature of some of what's happened.

Chapter 23: The team meets Jiraiya. He sends you to investigate the Liberator
Chapter 30: Since you did a good job with the Liberator, Jiraiya give you a lead on where to find the Pangolin Summoning Scroll (although he claims not to know what animal it's for)
Chapter 51: Keiko becomes the Pangolin Summoner
Chapter 116.2: The team sells skywalkers, a jōnin, and the Pangolin Summoning Scroll to Leaf in exchange for clan status.
[somewhere in here, offscreen]: Recognizing the military significance of skywalkers, Leaf baits a trap for Mist, aiming to draw out and ambush their major military force. It works; the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (USoUD) is fought. Hiruzen and Mei are killed, Naruto and Yagura are taken by Akatsuki.
Chapter 124: Jiraiya becomes Hokage and starts the search for Naruto
Chapter 177: At the Chūnin Exams, Team Uplift meets Team Bloodrage
Chapter 183: The Mist Oyabun points the team towards Team Bloodrage as interesting
Chapter 185: Team Uplift talk to Team Bloodrage and discover that they are shady as hell and probably related to Akatsuki in some way. They immediately pass this information to Jiraiya
Chapter 209: Jiraiya returns from capturing Team Bloodrage and turning them over to the Yamanaka for interrogation. They reveal that they are a peripheral part of Akatsuki's network, along with the name and location of their handler
Chapter 213: Noburi and Kakashi go off and capture Team Bloodrage's handler, who provides information on Akatuski and their doings, including a hint to where Naruto might be
Chapter 256: At the Chūnin Exams, word arrives that Gaara has been taken. Zabuza shows up and is about to leak information about the USoUD, news of which would likely have ignited a war
Chapter 257: Hazō distracts Zabuza long enough for Jiraiya to take him outside and prevent him from spilling the beans
Chapter 260: The Battle of the Gods (BotG) is shown, in which a large plurality of the military force in the EN fights against Akatsuki and...wins? Kinda? Anyway, Naruto is recovered, Jiraiya dies, Tsunade and Hiashi are badly wounded, and many Leaf jōnin die
Chapter 261: Hazō becomes head of Clan Gōketsu
Chapter 263: You learn Mist funded the Liberator to gain a foothold on the continent, which they got later after you demolished the Hot Springs inn. Could Rock's attack be because of hidden EN politics... influenced because of that? That would mean Rock's attack is directly due to what you did there and then. It would have been decided once when you helped get intel on the Liberator, and then a second time after the Cold Stone Killers incident.
Chapter 277: Hyūga Hiashi becomes Hokage
Chapter 294: Orochimaru fought alongside Leaf in the BotG and, as a result, Jiraiya pardoned him. He returns to Leaf.
Chapter 300: A series of massive sinkholes drop various buildings into the ground, killing the Hokage and the senior leadership of most of Leaf's major clans. The perpetrators of this attack are theoretically unknown, but it's clear to everyone that Rock survived the BotG relatively unscathed and must have recognized Leaf's weakness after the BotG. The fact that a bunch of their ninja show up to 'help with reconstruction' and claim a valuable chunk of land from Fire Country as payment, is an amazing coincidence. I think this is where Asuma becomes Hokage, but it might have been a chapter or two later, or in a non-story post.
Chapter 457: For some unknown reason, Rock attacks in force. Asuma declares war.

All of these dominoes have completely reshaped the Elemental Nations, and they are ultimately down to Team Uplift.

---

EDIT: Added @Lysbeth Succubus 's entry on ch263.

 

[Inferno Vulpix]

Alternate Universe Infosheet:
As of The Mission that Time Forgot, Part 2, we are aware of the following universes:

1. Kagami Yūsuke's reality
2. Kōgami Yūna's reality
3. Captain Kaga Miyu's reality
4. Professor Ka Gimon's reality
5. Mei's reality
6. High Watcher Kuge Maya's reality

It is not certain that Kagami Yūsuke's reality is our reality, but it seems likely: in Part 1 of the interlude, which followed Kagami Yūsuke, we hear of the Raikage and Fire Country and nothing seems to contradict our reality.

We will now detail what we know about each reality, including possible connections to Kagome Yū the Complete Being, before discussing connections that do not fit neatly into any prior sections.

---

Kagami Yūsuke

• Male
• Personality: low self-esteem
• Raised in Cloud
• Research sealmaster, almost finished Implosion Seals
  • Was not particularly careful
• Worked in crypto, privy to secrets of almost all levels
• Already a bit conspiratorial, even before becoming Kagome Yū
• Underequipped in terms of explosives
• Already hideously bad at deception
• Ayako status: Kagome's crush, boyfriend of Yasaka, died in Mōnai castle failure

Kōgami Yūna

• Female
• Personality: Haughty and vindictive
  • Considers herself the best loremaster of her country/organization
    • This polity has a 'Council' that sent her on the doomfort mission
      • On the council is "Lady Uzumaki", a rival loremaster to Kōgami
  • After "the War", she swore to not shed civilian blood again
• Instead of "Fire Country", the region is known as "Fire Province"
  • "Firelord Madara" seems to rule it, but was brought to the bargaining table by Kōgami after she discovered the Sharingan's weakness
• Something called "the Great Seal" exists on Nagi Island, whole but unpowered
  • (suggests our reality's Pein did not construct his ritual from whole cloth but merely built a way to power an existing array)
  • Kōgami helped Whirlpool find and secure it before it could be used
• Surgeon General Orochimaru apparently remained within good society, grudgingly adopting ethical constraints
• The Sage's brother is known to exist, from 'ancient and terrible scrolls' that Kōgami found and deciphered
• Research sealmaster. Likely inventions:
  • Kōgami's Spatial Distortion Seal, which blows enemies to chunks and sends the chunks Out
  • Recursive Implosive Seal
• "Greater Banshee Seal" seal exists but is not known to have been invented by Kōgami
• Met her end field-testing the Recursive Implosion Seal in a doom fortress made by the Spiritual Society of Sublime Slithering Superiority, Orochimaru-imitators.
• Ayako status: unknown

Captain Kaga Miyu

• Female
• Personality: paranoid and abrasive, though willing to apologize when she's too harsh
  • Carries exceedingly large quantities of seals
  • Even when adding invective to sentences, refuses to swear
• Lives in a world where Lupchanzen are real and taken over Nara Shikaku and most likely most of the world
• Led three teams into Facility Zero, a Lupchanzen-controlled doom fortress
  • Facility Zero is also allegedly where Lupchanzen were created. Mission goal is to find a way to defeat them
  • Genjutsu seals used to defend the master workroom, apparently indication of significant value
  • Either the entire facility or some part of it is known to the Lupchanzen as the Origin Shrine
  • Previously assaulted by Jiraiya, who fell here (perhaps 12 years ago)
• Seems to belong to "the Resistance", credits Team F and Master F for helping her escape "the farms"
  • Referred to as 'Subject 3314' by Lup-Shikaku, likely her designation from the farms
  • Had a Lupchanzen Detector Seal originally invented by Jiraiya but subtly sabotaged by the Lupchanzen before the Resistance got it
• Research sealmaster, invented some take on explosive seals
  • The likely self-named Kaga scale is used to rate explosions based on three qualities
  • Uses force walls in her trapmaking
  • "Kaga's Joy", a kamikaze seal that turns all of the user's chakra into 'raw destruction', apparently sufficient to erase Facility Zero from existence
    • Triggered a sealing failure when interacting with all the storage seals she had filled
• Ayako status: her 'one and only...', seems to have died or worse in the raid of Facility Zero

Professor Ka Gimon

• Male
• Personality: coarse and unkind, at least with respect to mishandling of sealing
• 'Professor' in his case does not necessarily mean teaching to a class-sized audience, as he has an apprentice
• Met his end when his apprentice infused an incomplete seal
• Ayako status: unknown

Mei

• Female
• Lives in a world where "the Last War" is a thing, living as a scavenger in a lost city
  • The implication seems to be that civilization has ended in this reality, and there are only disorganized remnants of humanity
• Met her end from a stray leftover seal finally failing
• Personality unknown
• Ayako status: unknown

High Watcher Kuge Maya

• Female
• Personality: serene in the face of certain death
• Met her end when a panicking sealmaster triggered a deliberate sealing failure
• Ayako status: unknown

---

Near the end of the update, we receive the following lists:

• city streets/fortress corridors/cavernous depths/emergency tunnels/…
• a city he'd erased/a maze made of bio-horrors/Facility Zero/the cursed ruins/.../Ayako

In each there are four elements before a '...'. The first three easily match to the first three component Kagomes:

• Kagami Yūsuke: 'city streets' and 'a city he'd erased'
• Kōgami Yūna: 'fortress corridors' and 'a maze made of bio-horrors'
• Kaga Miyu: 'cavernous depths' and 'Facility Zero'

The fourth, 'emergency tunnels' seems to match Professor Ka Gimon but 'the cursed ruins' is more likely to refer to Mei.

Ayako's presence at the end of the second list is a clear nod to Ayako existing in multiple, possibly all shown realities. It is likely that the Kagome component of each universe is close to their own Ayako in some way.

---

Here's a quick summary of each world and its apparent overall condition:

1. Kagami Yūsuke: ninja cold war as hideous monsters slowly whittle away the meager scraps left of humanity. The usual
2. Kōgami Yūna: seems to be a more unified world (under Whirlpool?) diverging from what appears to be a different end to the Warring Clans Era
3. Captain Kaga Miyu: Lupchanzen are taking over the world and hope of stopping them seems bleak
4. Professor Ka Gimon: unknown, but the existence of 'Professor' as a job title is kinda hopeful
5. Mei: post-apocalyptic, after the Last War destroyed civilization
6. High Watcher Kuge Maya: Somehow there's a powerful organization that has its act together enough to intervene against deliberate sealing failures, which is a good start in my book

Moreover, there are some familiar faces to note: Kōgami Yūna's reality contains an Orochimaru and Captain Kaga Miyu's reality contains a Jiraiya and a Nara Shikaku. Ayako exists in the realities of Kagami Yūsuke and Captain Kaga Miyu. The other three realities do not have enough information to say one way or the other.

The existence of familiar faces like this suggests either a recent divergence point between these universes or a convergence factor. If, for instance, Lupchanzen were only invented by the Sage in Captain Kaga Miyu's reality, and in our reality he had some other bright idea instead, we would expect centuries of butterfly-effect divergence quite at odds with Jiraiya and Nara Shikaku. Therefore, either Captain Kaga Miyu's reality only diverged from ours in the last hundred years or so (in which case our reality has Lupchanzen as well but they've simply not yet been unleashed), or there's some force or principle ensuring the existence of Jiraiya despite the butterfly effect.

edit: so it turns out Kagome specified the Lupchanzen being made by Whirlpool after the creation of Leaf, which means things could easily work out such that the Sage in our reality never made Lupchanzen but we still get Jiraiya and Shikaku anyways. The other worlds are less clear though, and the overall point stands to whatever degree we spot divergence shared with familiar faces.

---

Name analysis! I'm not the best with this stuff, but there's some clear trends to analyze. First up is the K-g-m- consonant structure, where each consonant is followed by a vowel of some sort. This applies to five out of six names: Kagami Yūsuke, Kōgami Yūna, Kaga Miyu, Ka Gimon, Kuge Maya. Mei is the odd one out, though she does fit the last third of the pattern, and it's possible that the name we saw is the short version of her name.

Next up, 'y-', y followed a vowel, is found in four of the six names, in every case after the relevant K-g-m- sectioni: Kagami Yūsuke, Kōgami Yūna, Kaga Miyu, Kuge Maya. It should be noted that in three out of four of these cases, the 'y' is followed by a form of 'u', and in two of them the 'u' is an extended 'ū'. Ka Gimon and Mei are the exceptions to this rule.

Thus, you can divide each name up into the following sections:

• Kagami Yūsuke
• Kōgami Yūna
• Kaga Miyu
• Ka Gimon
• Mei
• Kuge Maya

---

Oh, and there's the chakra elephant in the room, the Shift that made this all possible. We can assume this is the mechanism behind Shifts because it tells us itself that a "CORRECTION/shift" will be implemented. Of particular note is that it happened because Kagami Yūsuke was deemed "ANOMALOUS/forbidden", likely as a result of the sealing failure. This, critically, tells us that Shifts serve a purpose, and happen for a reason. Combine this with the highly procedural nature of its 'internal narration' and it seems likely that this mechanism which creates Shifts is created.

Which raises the question: by who? Is it just part of chakra? Is it something deeper than even that?

Even more concerning is, well, Kagome Yū was created from a variety of Kagami's multiversal counterparts, who also died in sealing failures, right? However the cause, whatever the means, information has traveled between universes. This is something within the realm of possibility, and given that this information (presumably) became directly relevant to the operation of the Shifting Thing, it's likely that this Shifting Thing is multiversal in scope.

---

Looking from the other perspective, we can hopefully figure out what universes each of Kagome's theories comes from:

• Kagome's knowledge of lupchanzen is clearly from Kaga Miyu's reality, where they were very real indeed
  • This suggests, incidentally, that sky squids are real in both our universe and Kaga Miyu's, and in her world the Lupchanzen had control of them
• Kagome's knowledge of Dummy, the Sage's brother, likely derives from Kōgami Yūna's reality, where ancient scrolls had indeed been dug up. As corollary, this includes:
  • Dummy's creation of the Ten-Tails
  • Bloodlines being jutsu created by Dummy and implanted by the Sage
  • Dummy's Shadow Clone going awry and 'cursing' himself into turning people into explosive clones at a touch
  • Sage/Dummy lifeforce-stealing
• Kagome's time in crypto is at minimum from Kagami Yūsuke's reality, and likely serves as a way to help contextualize much of his inherited knowledge
• While Kagome believes the Watchers are a Lupchanzen facade, other people in Kagami Yūsuke's reality believe they exist. Meanwhile, they are definitively real in High Watcher Kuge Maya's reality, in which they do seem to be serving a role in preventing intentional sealing failures

We have no solid leads on the following memories:

• The original Henge, which allowed ninja to transform into birds and fly
• Kagome's knowledge of the six paths
• The Sage and Dummy branwashing people they just killed and then resurrecting them
• The Sage bodysnatching Hokages to continue running Leaf
• Leaf running a Tailed Beast Breeding Programme which led to the Nine-Tails' attack.
• War jutsu
• Rock digging too deep and awakening the Nameless Fear
• Hidden Depths
• The 7th path being a prison for the other sages, who were forced to permanently transform into Summon animals
• Chakra being a parasitic artificial intelligence
• Knowledge of Ninshu, which is mentioned in Kagami Yūsuke's reality but only during Kei and Shikamaru's wedding
• The origin of Sealing
• Knowledge on the Akatsuki.
  • On all of them being summoners, which is only somewhat correct in this reality.
  • Hoshigaki being an Ancient user of the original transformation jutsu.
  • Deidara being a Dragonlord.
  • Hidan being the summoner of Death.
  • Kakuzu having 4 summoning scrolls, Fire, Lightning, Water, and Wind.
  • Sasori being the Golem summoner.

Note, something being on the 'no confirmed leads' list does not mean it's from our reality or actually untrue or whatnot. It just means we don't know yet. Even the items where we do think there's a connection to a specific universe, that's only speculation on our part.

If you're reading this and remember something Kagome once said that's not here on this list, let me know and I'll add it and draw whatever connections I can! If we ever stumble upon any other new information I'll add that too, and if you need to find this again it's threadmarked under Informational and I keep a link to it in my sig.

 

[Paperclipped]

PSA: A NEW RULE FOR CHARACTER PYRAMIDS HAS BEEN ADDED​

In the Rules, the following rule has been added:

"If your highest level skill has Aspect Bonus N, you must have at least 2 stats at AB N-1, 3 stats at AB N-2, and so on."

This means that you must have a full pyramid beneath your highest AB, though you may have any number of columns once that condition is met.

Examples:

VALID: 1x 60, 2x 50, 3x 40, 4x 30, 5x 20, 6x 10
This is the minimal pyramid that achieves a 60 stat under the new rule.




INVALID: 1x 60, 1x 50, 1x 40, 1x 30, 1x 20, 1x 10
This was the minimal pyramid that achieved a 60 stat under the old rule. Green means necessary and present, red means necessary but not present.




VALID: 4x 60, 4x 50, 4x 40, 4x 30, 6x 20, 6x 10
Columns are still allowed, as long as a full pyramid is somewhere in there. Green means necessary stats, blue means not necessary stats.



INVALID: 1x 60, 1x 50, 3x 40, 3x 30, 4x 20, 5x 10
This is Akane's pyramid.



F.A.Q.:

What will happen to currently invalid characters, like Akane and Kei and all the NPCs that don't quite fit the new rule?

All such characters will be treated the same way. No stats will be lowered, but the character will not be allowed to raise up a new capstone (i.e. increase their maximum AB) until they are valid under the new pyramid rules.

For Akane and Kei, this means you cannot vote in a training plan that raises a stat to the 70s until they are valid under the new pyramid rule.


What about ninja like Rock Lee and Gai, who focused exceptionally hard on one thing only?

Quoting the Rules:

• Senior ninja acquire lots of overlapping or flat-out redundant jutsu. Why? Because they need new skills in their skill tree in order to push primary skills higher.
• Senior ninja are good (or at least competent) at everything, not just at "See/Dodge/Punch". (Gai and Lee may be exceptions to this rule, or might simply have hidden depths.)

The newly added rule brings mechanics in line with the intended narrative.


Won't jounin and S-rankers have ultra-broad bases with many unused stats? For example, under these rules, jounin (60 max) need 15 stats <40 and S-rankers (80 max) need 21!

S-rankers are often exceptions.

Yes, and this level of diversity is expected. In the narrowest case, there is less room at the top of the pyramid than you think and many important stats will be forced into lower tiers (the narrowest jounin has only 6 stats >=40).


This makes people like Jiraiya and Hiruzen the default S-ranker build, rather than being exceptionally diverse. How is that justified?

1. All S-rankers are by definition exceptions, and are created bespoke every time. The pyramid rules cover the typical use cases (genin-jounin) best. S-rankers get special jutsu, stunts, etc.
2. If you have 1x 80 and 2x 70 for your combat stats, then your 60s and 50s fill out with crucial support stats (Sub, CR, Resolve, Physique, Buff jutsu, Stealth, Deceit, etc), allowing you to leave most skills at chuunin level and below. Hiruzen and Jiraiya with 3 or more 80+ stats and 12 or more 60+ stats, able to compete with jounin in their specialties, are rare.
3. S-rankers are defined more by their unique, game-winning abilities than by their raw stats alone. Many S-rankers have jounin stat lines.

Doesn't this mean that we'll need to spend XP on useless jutsu, or that QMs will need to spend spoons on designing useless jutsu, just for pyramid filler?

See the redundant techniques line above. This also creates interesting tradeoffs: learn another element for better (more diverse) techniques there, or learn redundant techniques of your own element?

Also, once it becomes a concern, the QMs are open to the possibility of leveling a placeholder technique to be filled in via Declaration later.


How are we supposed to make it to S-rank if we need to level all these extra stats?

S-rank is more about your unique, game-winning abilities than your stats. It should never have been possible to get a 90 stat with as little as 20k XP. This is correcting that oversight.


Won't a lot of NPCs have to be rebuilt?

First, there's no up-front work, as we're not lowering any stats. Second, almost all NPCs we have already adhere to this rule anyway.


Won't this make all NPC builds basically the same?

Kind of, yes. The room for variation drastically narrows as most NPCs hew close to the optimal pyramid or its variants (ignoring special stunts that may interact with the pyramid rules and such).

Is this a problem? No. Ninja are smart and very dedicated to getting stronger. In a vacuum, most ninja should naturally tend towards very optimal pyramid arrangements, even if specific allocations of XP here and there may be suboptimal.

Said another way, this nerfs Hazou's spreadsheet vision, which was never intended to be a power of his.


Give it to me straight. Are we being nerfed?

Yes and no.

Yes: Almost all NPCs matched the pyramid rules, so comparing the column builds to the pyramid builds, you're being nerfed.

No: Most NPCs are not S-rankers, and once your stats start to cap out, your buffs and hax become crucial. The Gouketsu buff stack is extremely strong and diverse. Comparing the pyramid Gouketsu to pyramid normal ninja, you're being buffed.

Overall, we expect this to have little effect in the short term, be a nerf in the medium term, and be a buff in the long term. We expect the medium term nerf to be balanced out by the more diverse stat arrays you'll need to have, which will hopefully encourage more missions and dynamic gameplay as you search for S-rank tricks (which is now appropriately difficult to reach on stats alone).


I have more questions/I don't like this change!

Please ping @Paperclipped with your questions.