@Players: I apologize in advance for dooming all of us.
@GMs: Is this broken? If not, is it too similar to Frozen Skein?
Shattered Heart (Boodline of the Kakero)
This sensor bloodline grants an instinctive ability to analyze patterns in the environment, manifesting as a form of hypersensitive empathy.
Practically, this means that its holders can intuit that some things are "lost", displaced from their native pattern: and that some patterns are "broken", missing some critical component that would make them whole.
This has the following benefits:
- The ability to notice extremely subtle disturbances, such as those left behind by a set trap, camouflaged ninja, or cover-up.
- The ability to blend into existing patterns without disrupting them.
- The ability to make intuitive leaps by observing how a new piece of information fits into a larger pattern. This ability is most likely to manifest in extremely complex, multilayered environments where there are many patterns to observe: it is also particularly likely in circumstances where one pattern strongly correlates another, especially in a symbolically meaningful way.
The reasoning that leads to these startling insights is rarely if ever explicable, but they can be unnervingly precise.
- The ability to rapidly immerse oneself in an archetypal role, by intuiting the confines of "expected behaviour" and staying firmly within them.
- Similarly, the ability to rapidly internalize and act upon new orders or duties.
- An unusually deep understanding of one's own nature, leading to strong Chakra control and unusually high willpower.
Unfortunately, this hypersensitive empathy is a double-edged sword. Its common issues include:
- The inability to dehumanize the enemy, resulting in unusually high trauma rates.
- The perception of deceit as damage both to the world and the self, rendering lying extremely stressful.
- Treating the mending of trivial flaws as more important than one's own well-being.
- Inability to rest or relax in most non-Kakero-maintained environments.
- Stubborn adherence to pattern in the face of all reason.
- Stunted social skills, due to the inability
to engage casually with others.
- Depression and anxiety, due to the inability to stop noticing all the world's flaws.
The following flawed coping mechanisms are also common:
- Social flightiness, due to attempting to socialize without becoming close to anyone.
- Establishment of a "domain", a set of people, places and things that the bloodline holder treats as literal parts of themselves. (This is an attempt to cut down on information overload by specifying exactly which things the holder cares about. In practice, it leads to the holder trying to micromanage their relationships, destroying them in the process.)
- Being unable to "put down" an archetypal role used as a social mask: becoming overly invested in status games and maintaining one's position.
- Misanthropy, cynicism or outright nihilism, due to believing the world is fundamentally flawed.
- In cases where bloodline holders are unable to cope with its abilites, it has been known for them to attempt to "turn off" their own sense of empathy. This kind of repression is both inherently damaging and rarely successful: when it does succeed, it results in a sociopathic manipulator who has an uncanny awareness of their victims' weak points. Those of the Kakero that are distrustful and cunning enough to hide this downslide from their own clan often go on to become highly dangerous missing-nin.
