[><] Overwrite Hazō-pilot. Admit that you are partially possessed by an Out entity, but that you have been ever since the Swamp of Death. Give examples of things over the course of the Quest that have clearly been hivemind influenced and don't make much sense otherwise.
(This is a bid to peer-pressure @Lysbeth Succubus into continuing this. Join up, guys!)
I did have another plot bunny in mind which could be grouped in rather than be its own thing. No promises on giving you what you wish for, though, being evil still very much comes with the territory of writing things >:3
"Give examples of things over the course of the Quest that have clearly been hivemind influenced" seems designed specifically to kill me, though. I may be on my third reread, but I didn't read the discussion and plan-making for this all until I got to where we are now, except when it was hard to understand and I had to check (mostly in the early game, for instance when Roki and PMYF started being discussed a lot, especially in spoilers, and it was a bit hard to follow at first because they were originally defined only in plans and player suggestions)
I guess I have a few in mind, still, but wow.
Expect me to be even more evil for that
I did have another plot bunny in mind which could be grouped in rather than be its own thing. No promises on giving you what you wish for, though, being evil still very much comes with the territory of writing things >:3
"Give examples of things over the course of the Quest that have clearly been hivemind influenced" seems designed specifically to kill me, though. I may be on my third reread, but I didn't read the discussion and plan-making for this all until I got to where we are now, except when it was hard to understand and I had to check (mostly in the early game, for instance when Roki and PMYF started being discussed a lot, especially in spoilers, and it was a bit hard to follow at first because they were originally defined only in plans and player suggestions)
I guess I have a few in mind, still, but wow.
Expect me to be even more evil for that
Everyone in fire seems to believe in nature spirits. "fire spirits, wind spirits, ect". The norm seems to be to treat them respectfully, at least if you want favorable winds or whatever, but they aren't worshipped.
Some of our ninja going on joint missions with the Hagomoro? Give a little insight into that plan of Asumas.
Reos Technique Hacking Lessons
Military reports from the Pangolin front line
Hazo gaining clearance to hear about some interesting but old, plot relevant mission (Noburis exciting Kakashi mission, that mission of Sasuke's, the early parts of Jiraiyas akatsuki hunt)
Brainstorming options for dealing with Jashin fallout:
Cheapest option: Immediately and publicly denounce Jashin, say we wanted to make sure he was actually gone. "He butchered a village the last time we contradicted him to his face, our reputation being sullied a little is worth safeguarding the lives of Leaf citizens."
Ready speech with Mari for tags.
Have Kei work with Shikamaru and Ino to support the story for tags/have them use fate point invokes to assist, a la sealing research assistance. "Obviously the Goketsu are not Jashinists, they are bullheadedly obsessed with improving civilian wellfare."
Use available fate points for invokes. Use Presence in speech to reduce rumors. Make sure to not have a sealing headache when this goes down.
Two much more costly options available to us, in addition to the above.
Publicly denounce jashin, Reveal 3D sealing to Asuma, get him to cover for us. "We were on an S rank mission. Fuck Jashin, He's on my list to kill after the dragons. Long live the hokage."
The below, but obscure exactly how close we are/have Hazo be less confident.
Publicly denounce Jashin, and hand Yuno over to the Hagomoro. "I hate Jashin with all my being. But one of our clansmen, a Isan ninja we took into our home, seems corrupted. We will hand her over to the experts for their judgement." Noburi will hate us forever, but might actually be the right thing to do if we can't convert her back. A very costly signal.
Seal Suggestions (Spoilered because they're mostly throwing ideas I like against the wall.)
Hazous Heavy Air
A wide area effect, modification of the air dome and the goo bomb. Affects the target zone and all adjacent zones with a shared border of 0. Rather than turning air into solid, stationary granite, all air within is turned into a clear, sticky, and low viscosity fluid. Those within the effected air suffer the following effects.
They must pass a TN 10 physique check or rapidly drown, unable to breath the now thick air.
They must pass a TN 25 physique check or suffer the penalties they would when fighting underwater.
They must pass a TN 50 physique check or take an AB penalty on all athletics rolls, and all movement moves one zone fewer than normal. If this reduces the zones moved to 0, they cannot change zones.
(Interactions with banshees and variants is left as an exercise to the physicists)
Jiraiyas Fantastic Force Flenser
Jonin tier modification of force wall, forms into the shape of a sword with dozens of invisible, rapidly spinning blades.
To use and not immediately eviscerate yourself, each turn the user must make both a TN 60 athletics and alertness check. Upon failure of either you immediately take stress equivalent to the shifts you failed the check by. You may not attack using the flenser if you fail either check.
Whenever you make a Melee Weapons attack using the flenser, you may either attack everybody in melee with you, or one target twice.
You gain a free tag each round on MW rolls for every ten points you beat the TNs by, not multitaggable.
The force flenser has weapons: 8 and ignores physical armor.
Monuments to the Thunder God
Dozens of stone pillars erupt from the ground in the affected zone. Lightning arcs between the pillars in a rapid pattern. All creatures who start their turn in the zone or enter the zone on their turn must make one of:
A TN 70 alertness check to notice the next lightning strike beginning to charge
A TN 70 athletics check to dodge the next lightning strike
A TN 40 Examination check to predict where the next strikes will occur.
Or buy the stunt "Stormwatcher" in advance to have memorized the patterns and auto pass.
On a failure the target takes stress equal to the shifts they failed their attempted roll by.
Each pillar can be destroyed by any direct physical attack roll of 50 or greater.
Once the lightning has struck 1d[Sealing AB] targets the pillars crumble to nothing, the chakra sustaining them leeched away
Unstable Explosive
An incredibly powerful explosive seal, with a dodge TN of 65.
However, due to the absurd amount of energy involved, it is unstable, and it's short timer starts immediately after infusion. Therefore, this seal must be infused during combat.
Electro Goo
Behaves as a goo bomb, except targets caught are forced to make a physique roll against a TN of 1/2 the goo bombs original TN at the start of their turn. On a failure they are stunned, and cannot take any action that turn other than thrashing to escape.
Magnetic Goo
Behaves as a goo bomb, except that each round the Chakra construct moves one zone north, dragging anybody caught in it with it. The goo acts last in initiative.
Caught targets that are dragged with the goo take stress equal the the border of any zones they are dragged across. The goo construct ignores borders of 4 or less when moving, but is stopped by higher borders.
Hunting Goo
Behaves as Magnetic Goo, except instead of moving north, the construct lunges towards the nearest chakra source within its sensing range. The target rolls vs 2/3 the goo bombs original TN, on a failure they are caught and dragged along with the rest of those that fail. (edited)
Sirens Call
Mind effecting sound based seal. Every round, all sentient creatures within earshot must roll resolve vs a TN. Upon failure, they must spend a supplemental action approaching the sound, and cannot intentionally move away from it.
The effects tapers off with distance, the TN dropping by 1 for each zone that is between the seal and the victim.
Paper Vaporization Barrier
Creates a one-way field centered on the seal, vaporizing incoming paper that passes through its outer border. To be thrown at seal masters to deactivate the seals on them.
Hoshigaki's Air Transmogrifying Wonder
Six Seal Elements, aligned in a pentagon centered on the focus seal.
Activation is a multistep process, starting with aligning the five border seals in a pentagon and activating them around the focus seal. Once activated, they must charge for at least one hour.
For 24 hours after the border seals have been charged, the focus seal may be activated. If it is, all air within the zone (not air inside people's lungs, though.) is transformed into Fire, Lighting, Earth, Air, or Water, decided at time of activation.
(Note, activating the Lighting or Fire replacement options usually kills the activator and destroys the seals, rapidly ending the effect.)
Hoshigaki's Suspended Solution
All water within the same zone as the seal behaves as though there is no gravity until the seal burns out.
[><] Overwrite Hazō-pilot. Admit that you are partially possessed by an Out entity, but that you have been ever since the Swamp of Death. Give examples of things over the course of the Quest that have clearly been hivemind influenced and don't make much sense otherwise.
Everyone in fire seems to believe in nature spirits. "fire spirits, wind spirits, ect". The norm seems to be to treat them respectfully, at least if you want favorable winds or whatever, but they aren't worshipped.
Do they have reason to believe hazou is worshipping jashin instead of just treating him with respect? Sacrificing people to jashin, which they might not be certain hazou did even if he came back in blood, could arguably count as treating jashin with respect instead of worship. Like noburi using medical ninjutsu could counts as respect instead of worship disease spirits.
Is life and birth not part of nature? Sounds like a nature spirit
Edit: okay killing humans only instead of animals does not sound like nature. But leaf doesn't know about that dogma
Do they have reason to believe hazou is worshipping jashin instead of just treating him with respect? Sacrificing people to jashin, which they might not be certain hazou did even if he came back in blood, could arguably count as treating jashin with respect instead of worship. Like noburi using medical ninjutsu could counts as respect instead of worship disease spirits.
Is life and birth not part of nature? Sounds like a nature spirit
Edit: okay killing humans only instead of animals does not sound like nature. But leaf doesn't know about that dogma
Bear in mind that now that the question of "Who is this Jashin guy?" has been raised and answered within Leaf society, "treating him with respect" means "treating the blood god whose servants sacrifice innocent people against their will and massacred countless heroes of Leaf at Nagi Island, and continue to be a threat to Leaf held at bay only by diplomatic restrictions, with respect". That's setting aside the part where he's a god with his own cult and a high priest who expects you to be building temples and converting Will of Fire worshippers.
Bear in mind that now that the question of "Who is this Jashin guy?" has been raised and answered within Leaf society, "treating him with respect" means "treating the blood god whose servants sacrifice innocent people against their will and massacred countless heroes of Leaf at Nagi Island, and continue to be a threat to Leaf held at bay only by diplomatic restrictions, with respect".
Considering leaf treats disease/plague spirits with respect, which must have killed countless of their own over the years, this doesn't seem that strange?
That's setting aside the part where he's a god with his own cult and a high priest who expects you to be building temples and converting Will of Fire worshippers.
Tsunade is the high priest of a cult for disease spirits (mednin) with their own buildings (hospitals) and presumably tries to convert people to join the mednin. So Leaf seems fine with that in the general case. But yes in the specific case of the cult of a bloody god they may be against converts while still being fine with respect (since converts implies higher devotion such as massacring innocents instead of respect which is just hanging his symbol at your wedding). But I don't know if Leaf knows that Hidan wants hazou to do the cult, I haven't kept track of which things Hidan said in public vs private.
Considering leaf treats disease/plague spirits with respect, which must have killed countless of their own over the years, this doesn't seem that strange?
Tsunade is the high priest of a cult for disease spirits (mednin) with their own buildings (hospitals) and presumably tries to convert people to join the mednin. So Leaf seems fine with that in the general case. But yes in the specific case of the cult of a bloody god they may be against converts while still being fine with respect (since converts implies higher devotion such as massacring innocents instead of respect which is just hanging his symbol at your wedding). But I don't know if Leaf knows that Hidan wants hazou to do the cult, I haven't kept track of which things Hidan said in public vs private.
I couldn't tell if you are actually serious. But spirits do not kill people to be sacrificed for that god. You see spirits as forces of nature that exist and accept the casualties.
A hospital is not a temple for respecting and worshipping disease spirits. It's a place to ward them off so that your family can survive after being sick. Hospitals aren't trying to convert you so that you kill off innocent people, instead they are teaching you how to ward disease spirits off.
Also there's a difference between murder and death. Disease spirits kill people and take them sometimes, but jashin cultist literally kills them in cold blood. There is literally no way that somebody will equate murder with disease spirits death.
Lastly, it doesn't matter if leaf knows or not know if hidan wants hazou to convert everyone. The fact that he continues to be repeatedly spotted with hidan will effectively spread the word on its own. Rumours doesn't care about facts man
Do they have reason to believe hazou is worshipping jashin instead of just treating him with respect? Sacrificing people to jashin, which they might not be certain hazou did even if he came back in blood, could arguably count as treating jashin with respect instead of worship. Like noburi using medical ninjutsu could counts as respect instead of worship disease spirits.
Is life and birth not part of nature? Sounds like a nature spirit
Edit: okay killing humans only instead of animals does not sound like nature. But leaf doesn't know about that dogma
No when the only thing people know about jashin cultist is that their cultist kill innocent HUMANS in cold blood, people aren't gonna assume they kill animals as well.
I'm being serious.
Hospitals warding disease spirits is plausible. It's also plausible that they convince disease spirits to leave via respect or worship.
I had already said that Leaf wouldn't want converts murdering innocents.
I think it is plausible that people would view disease spirits as murder
Needing to spend a bunch of updates fixing the latest developing disaster is starting to feel real familiar. They even tend to fall into the same categories each time. There's:
Marked for Politics, Marked for Economics, Angry Asuma, Cross Cannai, Mari Meltdown, Ami Advent, Orochimaru Ordeal, OPSEC oopsie, and Keiko Breako.
Is that all the major ones or did I miss some? Also I couldn't think of a good alliteration for Kei
Gigachad Noburi was a social problem in the first few dozen chapters of the quest and then he and Hazou talked it out and he basically has never had drama with Hazou since lmao
Hm, I think at this point the only Goketsu who hasn't appeared in at least an Interlude is Sasha, correct? She's in her final year of academy or something like that?
Tsunade is the high priest of a cult for disease spirits (mednin) with their own buildings (hospitals) and presumably tries to convert people to join the mednin. So Leaf seems fine with that in the general case. But yes in the specific case of the cult of a bloody god they may be against converts while still being fine with respect (since converts implies higher devotion such as massacring innocents instead of respect which is just hanging his symbol at your wedding). But I don't know if Leaf knows that Hidan wants hazou to do the cult, I haven't kept track of which things Hidan said in public vs private.
I'm being serious.
Hospitals warding disease spirits is plausible. It's also plausible that they convince disease spirits to leave via respect or worship.
I had already said that Leaf wouldn't want converts murdering innocents.
I think it is plausible that people would view disease spirits as murder
Personally, I want to hold out until we can step down in favour of Jiraiya. Not only does this leave the clan with Jiraiya in charge to safely steer it and not only does it free us up for whatever adventures we want, nobody would be surprised at all that we consider Lord Fifth, the founder of our clan, to be a more suitable Clan Head than ourselves.
That might work. If the two of them do the public announcement, it would send a very strong message. To Leaf, it reassures that Hazou is under control and loyal and tanking BS for the team etc...; to Hidan: Asuma is forcing Hazou's hand with the denouncement (that can be dangerous if it motivates Hidan to kill Asuma)
"That's right," Yuno said, fingering a terrifyingly familiar chain around her neck with her free hand. "I was very focused on training this afternoon, so I missed the evacuation signal when he came to look around the training grounds, and he recognised my colours and came over to ask if you'd finished converting the Gōketsu to Jashinism yet. And then he noticed Satsuko and asked about her, and I asked about Sanjin–we think they might have been made by the same smithing tradition because of how they're both made to spill lots of blood instead of just killing–and we ended up talking. I've never met anybody so wise."
"All right, Yasuo, it's your turn," Inori said with a smile. She gestured for the young boy to take the podium.
"Yes, Sensei!" Yasuo stood up immediately, struggling and failing to be discreet about swallowing the lump of stage fright that was closing off his throat. He did his best to stride to the front of the class, but he stumbled on the leg of Himiko's chair and everyone laughed. He blushed crimson and did his best to ignore it.
Inori suppressed her smile. Seven-year-old boys had delicate egos and it wouldn't do for him to think she was joining in the mockery.
Yasuo took his position behind the child-sized podium and laid his report on it. Inori could see that the pages were crumpled from where he had clutched them too tight in his nervousness; he took a moment to smooth them down.
"You've got this," she whispered, flashing him a reassuring smile. He smiled back, taking heart from the support.
"My book report is on 'The Sealmaster Tradition: Lineage of the Gōketsu, Generation One'," he read, the words stilted. "This book is the first in a series that talks about the sealing tradition that started with the Gōketsu family back in the Village Era and continues to this day. It lists who taught who and what they did. It is very exciting. There are stories of battles that were won using seals created by Gōketsu sealmasters. There are details of the invention of all the many, many seals that form the basis of modern technology. Those seals are what give Leaf its quality of life." He stumbled a bit on 'quality of life' but pushed on through.
Inori couldn't keep a frown off her face. That was clearly ripped from the blurb on the back cover. The words were original, technically, but he had clearly been reading the cover while he wrote them.
"The first Gōketsu sealmaster was Lord Gōketsu Jiraiya," Yasuo read. "He was born almost three hundred years ago in 1017. He was also known as the Toad Sage, the Fifth Hokage, the leader of the Sannin, the Hero of Nagi Island, the Scholar, and the author of the first fifty-eight volumes of Series One of the well-loved Icha Icha series."
Ooh, that was right! Series 287, Volume 29 should have dropped yesterday. She would have to check if her bookseller had gotten them in stock yet.
"He was—" Yasuo began, only to halt when Himiko's hand shot up.
"Yes, Himiko?" Inori asked. "You have a question?"
"What's 'Sannin' mean?" the young girl asked. "And 'Hokage'?"
"The Sannin were three very famous ninja," Inori explained. "We'll talk about them in history class this year. As to your other question...back in the Village Era, the various nations were each ruled by one person. The Hokage was the ruler of Fire Country, which is what we today call the Forest Province."
"But what about Parliament?" Himiko demanded.
"Parliament didn't exist while Gōketsu Jiraiya was Hokage," Inori said. "It was created about fifty years after he died the first time, mostly by Jiraiya's wife and son, and it was very different from what it is today. We'll cover that in the next unit when we go over the Great Transition."
"But—" Himiko cut herself off when Inori made a firm 'shush' gesture.
"There's a lot to talk about there," Inori said. "That's why there's an entire unit on it." She looked down at her young speaker. "Go ahead, Yasuo."
"Yes, Sensei." He took a moment to find his place, then continued. "He—Gōketsu Jiraiya, I mean—created the Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern seal that we still use to this day." He pointed up at the seals that ran across the ceiling. "He was the one who taught all the other Leaf clans how to make seals. Some of them thought they knew how to make seals but they were doing it wrong, so Lord Jiraiya took all their sealing stuff and fixed it and gave it back. That's why they call him the Scholar."
Inori suppressed a chuckle. That wasn't wrong, exactly, but hoo boy was it biased. At least three-quarters of Leaf's early sealing tradition had come from people who weren't Jiraiya. He hadn't 'fixed' the existing sealing traditions, he had standardized them. Still, that was a bit much to expect a seven-year-old to get.
"The most pro-lif-ic of the Gōketsu sealmasters was Gōketsu Kagoome," Yasuo continued. "He trained twenty-seven students and only one of them died. He is known for creating the Pressure-Activated Exploding Parmeter seal—"
"Explosion Perimeter," Inori corrected. "And it's 'Kagome'." Back in the halcyon days of university, she had done her senior thesis on Gōketsu Kagome. Untangling truth from myth where that man was concerned was more challenging than almost any other figure of his era. It had been fascinating.
Yasuo blushed again. "Yes, Sensei. Lord Gōketsu Kagome is known for creating the Pressure-Activated Explosion Perimeter seal, which made it safe for anyone to sleep in the wilderness, even civilians."
Another hand shot up.
"Yes, Daiki?" Inori asked.
"Why wasn't it safe to sleep in the wilderness? Were they worried about getting rained on? And what's a civilian?"
"Rain wasn't the problem," Inori said. "They had tents for that. There used to be monsters out in the countryside. Dangerous animals that would attack people while they slept at night. The Explosion Perimeter seal would cause anything passing through its field to explode. It could activate many times, which was unusual for motive seals of that time, and it could be used by civilians, which is what they used to call people who were born with inactive chakra systems, back before the activation process was invented." She waited for Daiki to put his hand down, then nodded to Yasuo again.
"Gōketsu Kagome also invented the first skymaster seal," Yasuo read, "which allowed for free flight and lasted for eighteen hours."
"It does not!" shouted Aiki, the class know-it-all. "It lasts for thirty-seven months of total operation, plus or minus three days!"
"Aiki!" Inori snapped. "We raise our hands, we do not interrupt. Apologize to Yasuo."
Aiki looked mutinous but no seven-year-old could withstand the withering eye of the teacher. The boy finally grumbled out an apology before sulking.
"To respond to Aiki's comment," Inori said, "yes, the modern skymaster seals last about thirty-seven months, but the first versions, the ones that Gōketsu Kagome invented, only lasted eighteen hours. They were also significantly slower than the modern ones, mostly because the shield bubble hadn't been added yet and so the wind quickly became a problem. Still, at the time this was absolutely miraculous. I suspect we're about to hear just how miraculous. Yasuo, please continue."
"The skymaster seal was responsible for ending the Warring Clans period," Yasuo read. Inori cleared her throat. "Er, the Village Era. This seal allowed Fire Country to unify all of the nations under the Council of Unity which eventually became Parliament."
That was leaving out a whole lot, Inori thought to herself. Mostly blood and murdering, and the Council of Unity was an evolution of the AMITY organization and the various infrastructure development organizations Leaf had been spitting out by the dozens at that time. Still, it was true; the military capacity of the skymaster seal had convinced Wind to apply for unification with Fire, at which point Lightning and Water had seen where things were going and joined the burgeoning Federation of Nations. Two years later, the civilians of Earth had been delighted to be brought into the fold, stepping across the dead bodies of most of Earth Country's ninja in the process. Still, it had been a surprisingly bloodless end to what history later called the Thousand Years War.
"The third Gōketsu sealmaster, and the last in Generation One, was Gōketsu Hazō," Yasuo continued. "He was also known as the Ninth Hokage, the Dragonslayer, the Innovator, the Builder, and the Rescuer among other names. He and his mother, Gōketsu Mari, are credited with creating the Federation Parliament."
Okay, that line was plagiarized straight from the book. She would need to talk to him later.
"Gōketsu Hazō was the inventor of solid state sealing, which became the foundation of all modern chakra-based technology," Yasuo continued to plagiarize. "His groundbreaking work was so far ahead of his time that sealmasters were still making new discoveries from his research notes forty years after he passed on. Among other inventions, he produced the first generation of the modern programmed construction seal, which encodes the blueprint of a building into its structure and then expands into that building two minutes after activation. Hazō's version was only capable of producing buildings under ten thousand cubic feet, but he worked throughout his career to enhance the detail capacity of his seals. By the time he was thirty, he could generate buildings equipped with running water and wall-mounted chakra conduits that would allow civilians to activate seals."
"Oooh, ooh!" Miwa said, bouncing in her chair and waving her hand frantically.
"Yes, Miwa?" Inori asked.
"Where did the water come from?" the girl demanded. "I asked Mom where the water in our walls comes from, but she didn't know."
Yasuo froze, looking frantically from his report to his questioner as he tried to find the answer.
"Hazō's initial version used a very large storage space as a water tank," Inori explained, saving the boy from having to admit ignorance. "His later versions used two spaces, one for cold water and one for hot. The problem with this was that once the spaces were empty there was no way to recharge them. Hazō and his uncle, Kagome, worked on this problem for twenty years and eventually solved it using technology which I suspect Yasuo is about to tell us about." She smiled at the boy. "Yasuo, was there something in there about rifts?"
"Um..." He quickly skimmed through his report. "Oh, yes! Gōketsu Hazō and Gōketsu Kagome are credited with the first-generation rifter seal. It was only capable of opening pre-existing rift scars but they found a scar that lead to the Pure Lands. They rescued Gōketsu Jiraiya, who had died four years earlier, making Jiraiya the first person ever resurrected."
"Gōketsu Yūdai was second," Aiki said smugly. "Then Tanaka Tomika, then Gōketsu Akane. He wanted to get Gōketsu Akane first but couldn't find her until later."
"Aiki." Inori's tone was sharp. "I said not to interrupt. For now, cover up. After class, detention." She mimed putting her hand over her mouth. Aiki pressed his hand to his mouth, glaring at her angrily. He would be required to sit like that for the rest of the class, an action he was well familiar with.
"To answer your question, Miwa," Inori said, "the later generations of the Gōketsu seal-based buildings, and all modern buildings, have large storage spaces in them to act as water tanks. Those tanks are refilled by way of a rift to one of the freshwater seas on the Deva Path."
More hands shot up, waving frantically.
Inori smiled and turned back to her speaker, who had been looking more and more nervous at standing up front. "Yasuo, well done. I know you have more in your report, but why don't you sit down? There's a lot of questions to explore."
PSA: Discussion about chapter 607 is on hold until tomorrow; this weekend will be a wholesome interlude
There have been a lot of questions raised about chapter 607, enough that the QMs are discussing to be sure that we didn't make any mistakes in our background work or timeline. We are all occupied this evening but we'll be having the conversation during the regular QM meeting (tomorrow morning Eastern time). We won't take questions until then but we'll get back to you as soon as possible afterwards.
In addition, so that there's no time pressure: Voting is closed. This update will be a light and fluffy interlude with as little stress as possible.