@eaglejarl @Paperclipped @Velorien
What is Yuno's estimate for how fresh the Yūma's trail currently is? We've been discussing it on discord and we must be seriously close by now. Confirming whether we are right would have a big impact on how we should proceed in the plan.
She guesses that he's no more than 5 minutes ahead of you at the pace you've been setting. Could be less if he slowed or stopped.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

Does Pangolin Earth Armor qualify as a jutsu that would damage the spectres? Or is this a "try it and find out" sorta deal.
HDK.

You're right about the quote I listed -- but Air Dome uses the same description text, and does have a bottom. Maybe we should just ask.
Air Dome does not have a bottom, actually. The reason skywalkers have a bottom is because the walls of the dome have width and skywalkers set the dome's internal diameter to zero, meaning that the walls of the dome are touching one another and thereby provide a platform.
 
She guesses that he's no more than 5 minutes ahead of you at the pace you've been setting. Could be less if he slowed or stopped.
Has he substantially increased his pace? Last mention has him stumbling and lurching (not even in a straight line!), compared to our party of rushing uninjured ninja.

If the trail is only five minutes old, then we're onto as far away as Yūma could travel in those five minutes, which can't be more than two minute's travel for our group.
 
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If the trail is only five minutes old, then we're onto as far away as Yūma could travel in those five minutes, which can't be more than two minute's travel for our group
The literal quote says he's 5 minutes ahead of us, NOT that the trail is 5 minutes old.

Anyway, @Cariyaga now that we have confirmation that Earth Domes don't have bottoms, do you still think they'll be useful?

IMO the shades will just ghost out the bottom.
 
The literal quote says he's 5 minutes ahead of us, NOT that the trail is 5 minutes old.
That makes less sense. As I said where you quoted, five minute old blood means we're only a few minutes behind. When we first found the trail, it was only ten minutes old. We should have been less than five minutes behind Yūma at the very start, let alone after two scene breaks of travel and hot dropping a sixty-foot cliff he climbed down!
 
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The literal quote says he's 5 minutes ahead of us, NOT that the trail is 5 minutes old.

Anyway, @Cariyaga now that we have confirmation that Earth Domes don't have bottoms, do you still think they'll be useful?

IMO the shades will just ghost out the bottom.
I think it'll likely add a Barrier for them to have to cross, but -- certainly less so.
 
That makes less sense. As I said where you quoted, five minute old blood means we're only a few minutes behind. When we first found the trail, it was only ten minutes old. We should have been less than five minutes behind Yūma at the very start, let alone after two scene breaks and a sixty-foot cliff!
I don't get your problem with this tbh. 10 minutes old can be 10 minutes behind, it could be 20. We aren't all out sprinting down the tunnels when we can't see out of our Zone.
 
New stunt available!

Stunt: Earth Infusion
Cost: 125 XP
Prerequisites:


  • The Sealsmith stunt
  • Sealing: 40
  • Earthshaping XX or another source of infusable material. The crystal from the cave in Honey is infusable. (We're obscuring the exact level of Earthshaping required as it is information Hazō does not have access to; nonetheless, he is confident he can imbue stone with the requisite quality for making 3D seals given greater skill in Earthshaping.)
  • Someone to teach you OR sufficient 3D seal reference material (see below)
Effect: Grants the double-cost skill 'Primordial Sealing' at level 0. This skill allows the creation of three-dimensional seals. Hazō is confident that there is sufficient overlap with regular sealing that some of his existing knowledge will be useful with three-dimensional seals. (In mechanical terms, part of the Sealing skill will be applied as a bonus to Primordial Sealing.)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 
Yuno gave a warm smile. "Thank you, Hazō. Satsuko and I were worried. It happens all the time, this thing where I share my feelings and people freak out and then won't tell me why. Even Kichi got uncomfortable when I tried to talk about my relationship with Isan, and he was very relaxed about ending people's lives. You know, he'd have made a good Jashin cultist if he'd survived the war. I bet there are other people like him who still would."
First they tell you to get good at killing. Then they get scared when you follow the letter of the principles they claim to believe in better than they do. Almost drives a girl to Jashin, it does.
"That's right," Yuno said. "It was really sad. Right before he died, he was boasting how Ami said she thought he was ready for a higher position in the FGP, and she was even willing to pull some strings to fix his reputation with the rank-and-file by getting him onto one of those deep raiding squads that are really only meant for ANBU and jōnin candidates. I hope he got to massacre lots of enemy civilians like he wanted before he died."
Tell her why Ami arranged Kichi's death.
The silence stretched a while, long enough for Yuno to notice the tracks of a greater needlemouse and make sure they gave it a wide berth.
Great fun imagining the tracks of a greater needlemouse are the size of needle pinpricks and why they would need avoiding. Lesser needlemice cousins are worse at stealth, leave larger tracks of course.
"Then make them," Yuno said without any particular emotion. "Nobody outside the cult accepts being sacrificed either, so you sacrifice them through force because it's what's right. Lord Jashin is already guiding you in that direction. It's why all the seals you invent for the sake of Uplift are seals for killing people, not seals for, I don't know, making the soil more fertile or making women more fertile. It's why he gave you Mari, who hurts people for you without ever telling you, instead of Ami, who ends wars by persuading people to be nice to each other. It's why he sent the Great Prophet to teach you about murder instead of leaving you alone to carry on with the Uplift you were already working on.
Jashin is an ethereal creep in a death world, dropping dollar bills for acts he maybe approves of. Right thing to do to self reflect, pick up dollars you can use to stave off death without letting the creep influence your choices in one direction or another.

...good luck unraveling this knot, Noburi.
"The more I talk to you about this, the more it makes sense," Yuno said with a trace of exaltation in her voice. "Everything I went through in Isan… maybe it was for this moment. Isan is defined by tradition, and my life was defined by tradition, and that's why I know that tradition is the most powerful force in the world if you can shape it, and a wall that you can't break down by being nice to people or using arguments that make sense or giving them things they ought to want. This is how I help you–not just by killing people who need killing, but by making sense of my life in Isan and teaching you how to use the same power, but in Lord Jashin's name."
*whistle* Hidan has a talent for twisting traumatized people into purveyors of trauma. No fixing Yuno without being honest about how true we think Isan's traditions are. Or any traditions. And long term coping strategies for her anhedonia and calibrating her moral compass in a messy world. The golden rule and a loving, trusting family go a long way.
As a ninja, there was little more honourable than stabbing an enemy in the back.
"Never heard of you. How good a ninja can you be?"
"Ah, but you have never heard of me."
"Good," Yuno said. "I finally have a family, Hazō, and I don't want to see us divided. I'll talk to Noburi tonight, once he gets back from the hospital. Now come on, we have to reach the safe zone before it gets dark and the chakra chinchilla swarms erupt."
Chakra chinchilla swarms erupt at dark because too warm in their luxurious coats during the day? Not dangerous, but must be avoided because contact with fur spurs 1d10 hours of stroking.
 
Someone just caught up, I see. :>
Making my way through. :)
Noburi sat quietly in the corner, trying to look like an indefatigable, ever-reliable Gōketsu pillar of support. The person Akane had been. The person the clan needed right now. Not the person he actually was, hurting and confused, and not sure exactly who he was angriest with.
:(
Mari looked exhausted. Her perfect makeup did nothing about the slumped body language she was only willing to show in front of family. Kei looked remote the way she did after too much time using the Frozen Skein, when the answers didn't come and she had to be yanked out by (very gentle, non-contact) force before she risked overstaying her welcome in that scary inner world. Snowflake mostly looked anxious, though there was a spark of happiness in there at being invited to participate in a Gōketsu council that lifted Noburi's heart just the teeniest bit.
Love reading about these four. Some days carrying the weight of the world, some days young kids blindly making their way - and carrying the weight of the world.
Yuno? Well, he was too late for that. Yuno had already told Noburi. Told him that her broken instincts were backed by a real-life god now. Told him that his years of work trying to set her free had gone up in smoke, just like that. Told him that Hazō had put his seal of approval on the whole thing. He would hear Hazō out, because that was what reasonable, level-headed people did, and the clan needed Noburi to be reasonable and level-headed more than ever. But if Hazō couldn't provide a damn good reason for why he'd pushed Yuno with all his strength instead of pulling her back from the edge…
Akatsuki leaves a wake of pain without spilling a drop of blood. Not that there was a shortage of spilled blood. And the pain from the wake is because the wake plans on spilling blood.
"Hazō, the Nara have been fielding inquiry after inquiry with regard to your declarations of Jashin worship. Some have sought information on Jashin, since it is unprecedented for a Leaf clan head to publicly confirm a claim of heresy, and a handful of intelligent shinobi seek understanding before condemnation, in case the obscure religion of Jashinism is in fact somehow compatible with the Will of Fire in the same way as the Church of Youth. Many more question whether the Nara are aware of the truth of the situation, and indeed whether our continued trust in you indicates a willingness to tolerate or even embrace a heretical faith.
Ino navigates this battlefield more deftly than I ever could, and it is just as well, since as your lover she is somehow expected to be aware of the detail of your religious inclinations."
Good friends.
"Then there is your fierce feud with the Hagoromo. On the first day after Hidan's visit, they were in fact all but silent. I nearly dared to hope for the impossible, that this latest claim was too extreme even for them, but it seems they were merely stunned, having previously accused you of many and varied efforts to undermine Leaf's moral fabric, but never gone as far as to suspect you of membership of a cult inimical to Leaf and the WIll of Fire. Now, they have elected to dedicate themselves to the cause, labouring to foreground in public perception the fact that Hidan sought out you and you specifically, implicitly expecting your allegiance rather than demanding it, thereby 'proving' your conversion at some point in the past. Whether they sincerely believe they have finally received an explanation for your iniquities or are merely seizing a unique opportunity, I cannot say."
Huh. Ask Mari to false flag them doing something to us that crosses Asuma's line and be done with it?
"People are looking funny at me at the hospital," Noburi added.
:(
"Wait, what?" Noburi and Hazō asked in unison.
Jinx! You owe me a soda.
@RandomX2 delivers the MfD fanservice we've really been waiting for: Gōketsu Gaku in all his glory, by Ninomaru Kokuzu.

View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_ywggl4iuL8j-iJ5nlGs8URdkTI7jc21/view?usp=drive_link

Gaku! 💙 Such a poor, innocent looking sleeping clan head. Reminded of a crab gif, crawling on a deep ocean pipe. Splorched into a tiny hole millions of years of natural history never could have warned it about. Sucked into Uplift... but shrugged off the splroching! The man is a crab of steel! Becoming our sassy, indispensable cornerstone.
 
A few clarifications about things that have been said by your (moderately) humble author:

  1. Satsuko (Yuno's axe) cannot harm the shades. This is reflected in the narrative and the rolls but I had made contradictory statements on Discord.
  2. Noburi should be at 798 CP, everyone else at full.
  3. I unfairly slandered Paper in my earlier Discord statement when I said that I wrote in that update that Daizen was "a newly-frocked chūnin" but @Paperclipped pumped him up when he did the rolls for me. Apparently I got this exactly backwards; he nerfed Daizen from what I had originally sketched out. I apologize for my cheese brain.
It should be noted that Daizen was likely a reasonable(ish?) representation of a new(ish) chūnin with a good build. Various people have commented over the years to the effect that he was OP, but that seems to be in part based on anchoring to Hazō's stats. Daizen was older than Hazō and thus more experienced. He was also a combat-focused ninja instead of being a research spec like Hazō.
 
Noburi should be at 798 CP, everyone else at full.
Okay, this is good, since boost and WW are single cost for him, we can spare the chakra to Summon our two ninjutsu Dogs, and then top him back up to 1/4 (500cp) with the rest of the party.

We probably only have 1 fight left, and 500 m down means we can tunnel out in approx 2 casts of TE, for 52 CP. That's assuming 12.5 m Zones, which is quite small compared to some Zones we have seen.

Satsuko can't hurt the shades. So our damage dealers are Hazou and Noburi. Noburi primary. Hazou can deal at most 2 stress (for GS at Effect:2)

It's possible that PEA could let Hazou deal 3 stress, but we'd need to beat their toll by 13+ for that to matter and it doesn't seem likely. Plus we don't know if it even works, the shades ignore the Armor effect, and it's hella expensive in comparison. Doesn't seem worth it.

So let's have Yuno play defense and establish Blocks and Manouvers.

Kei should try to use training tags (Weapons:2) and Electrocution seals. Plus IMO Nara jutsu, but there was some weirdness there from some of the playerbase.

It has been established (by Paper on Discord) that Kei wasn't using full power tags due to FF concerns, but training tags should be safe.

I think that mostly covers it, lmk if you have additional tactics ideas, I'll post a protoplan tonight.
 
Daizen was older than Hazō and thus more experienced. He was also a combat-focused ninja instead of being a research spec like Hazō.
Daizen was also noted to be an idiot and probably didn't display the other desirable traits of a chunin even once he hit chuunin strength

The chuunin exams did test combat strength but it mostly tested the wiles and intellect of the contestants
 
Can we even level up primordial sealing without infusing a seal? If we could, wouldn't sealing students do that before their first seal unlike what harumitsu did if I recall correctly? If sealing students did that, why is the death rate of new sealing students so high that sealmasters are nervous about teaching students?

Edit: oh maybe we need to infuse a seal to buy the stunt, but not to raise the skill level. We just bypassed the infusion requirement with downloading the great seal
 
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Can we even level up primordial sealing without infusing a seal? If we could, wouldn't sealing students do that before their first seal unlike what harumitsu did if I recall correctly? If sealing students did that, why is the death rate of new sealing students so high that sealmasters are nervous about teaching students?

Edit: oh maybe we need to infuse a seal to buy the stunt, but not to raise the skill level. We just bypassed the infusion requirement with downloading the great seal
My guess would be that there's a firm cap on how high you can raise any skill without practical use. Sealing 5 is basically useless, but you could probably get it from reading textbooks.
 
Yall Hazō can cast Bleeding River Impairment as an aoe jutsu. He has the skill. We'd be attacking with one, so we'd need the shades to be Blocked so they couldn't dodge. The jutsu is weapons 2, so it should be able to do some damage regardless of the low level.

Alternatively, MEW cast on an object in the air counts as a chakra construct. Combos of Kei throwing kunai/hazō mewing them should be able to hurt the shades
 
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Yall Hazō can cast Bleeding River Impairment as an aoe jutsu. He has the skill. We'd be attacking with one, so we'd need the shades to be Blocked so they couldn't dodge. The jutsu is weapons 2, so it should be able to do some damage regardless of the low level.

Alternatively, MEW cast on an object in the air counts as a chakra construct. Combos of Kei throwing kunai/hazō mewing them should be able to hurt the shades
You can't Block like that for one.
Rules Doc said:
Block
To perform a block, declare what specific type of action the block is intended to prevent and make a skill check using an appropriate skill. The total of that roll is called the block strength. During the exchange, any time a character wants to perform the action that's covered by the block, he must roll against the block and meet or exceed the block strength to be able to perform that action. If he fails, he cannot perform the action in question. If he meets or exceeds the block strength, the action resolves normally, with benefits for extra shifts if the roll beats the block strength by a wide margin.


Blocks that affect one person can prevent multiple types of action. Blocks that affect multiple people can only affect one action. Example: "I want to prevent anyone from leaving the room" (multiple people, one action) vs "I want to prevent that guy from doing anything" (one person, multiple actions).


Unless stated otherwise, a block lasts until the end of the round. You can do it again on the following round, but you'll need to spend your action again and the strength of the block will be the result of the new roll.


It is possible to create a block outside of combat, e.g. when bodyguarding someone you could say "I am Blocking against damage done to my protectee".

  • If you are attacked from surprise…
    • ...and you were doing something else that was taking up your full attention, then the block does not apply
    • ...if you were focused on maintaining the block, then it does apply
  • If you are attacked but are not surprised...
    • The block works as normal -- you can choose to apply it, in which case you forfeit your Standard action for the round, or you can choose to do something else. If you choose to apply it, then it is in effect from the start of the round and will work against people with a higher initiative than yours.

In either case, the block follows the normal rules, including the fact that it ceases at the end of the round.


See Shifts and Stress for an example
Nothing in there says we can prevent dodge rolls with a block. That's pretty crazy, and it has serious implications.

You can do stuff like preventing attacks and the like, but not preventing people from dodging your teammates attacks.

If your argument is that they need to leave the Zone to dodge, no they don't, it's been established many times that enemies get to roll Ath to defend against explosives (another AOE effect) even when they don't bother to move Zones.

How is Hazou supposed to cast MEW on a kunai that's already been thrown? That doesn't even make sense. Are you arguing that he has the reaction time necessary to cast MEW on the kunai as it passes him in the air? That seems ridiculous to me.
 
@Sir Stompy
Blocks that affect one person can prevent multiple types of action. Blocks that affect multiple people can only affect one action. Example: "I want to prevent anyone from leaving the room" (multiple people, one action) vs "I want to prevent that guy from doing anything" (one person, multiple actions).
"I want to hold that guy down so he can't dodge" requires preventing multiple types of action, so it can't be done to a group. It can absolutely be done to a single target.
Multiple Earth Wall creates [Effect] granite prisms of total volume 1 m^3 each, with minimum dimension 0.25m along any one side, which must emerge from a surface the caster's chakra can reach. (Note that this enables casting on the surface from underground.)

If this surface is the earth itself, the prisms produced by the technique are actual granite. Otherwise, the resulting constructs dissolve after about 30 seconds or when shattered.

If a user has at least one unused Supplemental Action during an initiative phase, the user can reflexively cast a substantially scaled down technique to e.g. defend from incoming ranged attacks. Casting the technique reflexively:
Adds 10 Strain (+2CP) from Adjustable Casting Time
Reduces the range to melee of the caster (-1 Range, -20 Strain, -4CP)
Always produces a chakra construct (lose Adv: Conditional Permanence, -10 Strain, -2CP)
Reduces the duration of the chakra construct to mere seconds (-1 Duration, -20 strain, -4CP)

Overall, this cuts 40 Strain (8 CP), bringing the price to 25(23) CP. In addition to narrative effects at QM discretion, the user gains a Tag on a newly created environment Aspect for defense.
The range is casters zone, so as long as the surface is in zone we should be able to cast MEW on it. The surface might need to be .25meters long at minimum, it's not clear if that's referring to the wall specifically or both.
So Hazō is in melee with a shade, Kei tosses a kunai through the shade, Hazō mews it inside the shade.

The kunai/mew combo is actually less important than just the reflexive casting, though. Shade attacks and Hazō reflexively slams a MEW between its legs.
 
@eaglejarl @Velorien @Paperclipped

Heya, we're thinking about the Electrocution seals as a source of energy damage for the ghosties. We're wondering if
1. We have any of the seals on us
2. If it's within a declare for us to have them on us
3. If the seal would work as a melee weapon buff, doing raiton damage.

Raiton is electricity except for when it causes headaches - I don't think making an okay energy-punching-buff should cause too many issues and seems in line with what Raiton energy is supposed to be good at (punching stuff, not powering computers)

I guess the headache would be us immediately slapping the seals on Satsuko then being gremlins about conductivity or something- may I suggest leaning into deniable Satsuko weirdness as a counter to any gremlin issues that may arise?

Like, doing the testing with other people gets them zapped and we can't figure out if that's chakra weirdness or a variable we failed to account for (like the axe being sapient to guide the Raiton ooooOOOOoOooO)
 
I want to hold that guy down so he can't dodge" requires preventing multiple types of action, so it can't be done to a group. It can absolutely be done to a single target
The distinction I'm making here is that Blocks prevent actions and dodging an attack is a reaction. I admit it's kind of ambiguous. So let's ask @Velorien @eaglejarl @Paperclipped can you use a single target Block to prevent someone dodging an attack?

Why I don't think you should be able to do this - Imagine you have Anne fighting Bob and Charlie. Charlie is a MW user, and he beats Anne's Athletics to establish a Block that prevents her from dodging. Then Bob kills her in one hit with a Fire ninjutsu.

Since she can't dodge at all a hit of 45 will fill her stress track and Take her Out. However she rolled a 55 Ath vs Charlie's 60 MW Block. In ordinary combat she would have taken 2 stress from Charlie, none from Bob and no Consequences.

But since this MW Block prevented her from dodging, she took 15 stress from the attack.

The kunai/mew combo is actually less important than just the reflexive casting, though. Shade attacks and Hazō reflexively slams a MEW between its legs
This is accounted for in the mechanics, it'll be an invokable Aspect. Not an attack involving ninjutsu, which is what the shades are vulnerable to.
 
The distinction I'm making here is that Blocks prevent actions and dodging an attack is a reaction. I admit it's kind of ambiguous. So let's ask @Velorien @eaglejarl @Paperclipped can you use a single target Block to prevent someone dodging an attack?

Why I don't think you should be able to do this - Imagine you have Anne fighting Bob and Charlie. Charlie is a MW user, and he beats Anne's Athletics to establish a Block that prevents her from dodging. Then Bob kills her in one hit with a Fire ninjutsu.

Since she can't dodge at all a hit of 45 will fill her stress track and Take her Out. However she rolled a 55 Ath vs Charlie's 60 MW Block. In ordinary combat she would have taken 2 stress from Charlie, none from Bob and no Consequences.

But since this MW Block prevented her from dodging, she took 15 stress from the attack.


This is accounted for in the mechanics, it'll be an invokable Aspect. Not an attack involving ninjutsu, which is what the shades are vulnerable to.
You've outlined how preventing someone from dodging via a block is strong, but not how it doesn't make sense.

Think about the tradeoffs your team made. You're giving up action economy to set a block TN that needs to beat at least two, potentially more rolls from Anne. The example you gave, she literally just needs to use an invoke and she beats the block

It also requires Charlie staying in the line of fire, with obvious consequences for getting caught up in AOEs. Then what happens if Anne beats the MW Block during her entire turn? Or when she tries to dodge the fireball? Crispy Charlie.

The tag the seal makes is 'Electrified', and Aspects are True. It's worth looking into.

Edit: ah misunderstood the bit you were talking about. Yeah, the MEW thing is definitely using the jutsu in non-standard ways, but it'd be hitting them with a chakra construct created by a ninjutsu. That seems like something that would damage them. Also we've already killed a jonin by using MEW in nonstandard ways, so nyeh
 
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"I got a note sent to me yesterday with a drawing of an axe splitting a barrel in half, which I think is meant to tell me that she's staying with Fujisawa.
Never a good sign. Knowing Isan, hidden meaning in the message based on wood grain and direction barrel is bisected.
I just hope she's not trying to convert her."
Fujisawa can be scary persuasive.
"Shit," Mari muttered. "I really should've seen this coming. Maybe I should have kept her indoors until he was gone or something."
If she took the bullet for Yuno and Hidan converted her... Mari would be the scariest Jashinist.
"I remain confused on one point," Kei said after he trailed off. "While I can comprehend your judgement in choosing to deceive Yuno, was it not sufficient to affirm Hidan's claims and proceed immediately to persuading her of the need for silence? You appear to have invented, with remarkable but not uncharacteristic spontaneity, an entire ideology that validates Jashinism by associating it with Uplift-adjacent virtues. Were we to attempt to rescue Yuno from the chains in which Hidan has enmeshed her, our only counter-offer to the darkness of Jashinism would be the enlightenment of Uplift. Now, I no longer see how it may be done, nor why you would destroy the possibility."
"I admit this leaves me at a loss," Kei said. "Hazō, is it your intent to free Yuno from Jashinism or to convert her to your fictional version for the purposes of furthering your cover? You have gathered us here on the implication that you desire the former, yet with your actions you have only promoted the latter. You cannot have both."
"The second is offering an alternative. Now, Hazō, you've shut down the most obvious, Leaf-friendly path to that, which would have been using the same desire for violence, but to protect instead of murdering. Unfortunately, now she thinks that's part of Jashinism as well, so it doesn't really matter which she does because they both serve the same goal. That means we're going to have to lean extra-hard on the non-Jashin violence we've got left, which is apparently killing chakra beasts, and maybe summons if you can find the kind of summon who's willing to fight her to the death on the Human Path over and over again."
Maybe drawing a false connection, but if we were honest with Yuno, this is Mari and Kei asking us to gaslight her. They were not upfront with us about their thoughts about Akane's disappearance. Yuno is yet lower in the circle of trust. Delicious, patterny goodness to show known gaslighters flummoxed to see truth not abandoned for convenience.
Not to mention that, I don't know if you've noticed, but I have a reputation within the clan. People know I'm the master of persuasion and deception and genjutsu who you send out when you need a target manipulated. I don't start on a level playing field against somebody who's got reason to be suspicious of my motives."
Too lonely. Remedy?
"The first, most basic thing I think we need to do is make sure Yuno feels understood by her family. We're not going to break Hidan's influence over her as long as she thinks she has no one else she can turn to. We have to show her that we understand and accept her, and there's no way to do that without spending time with her and actually getting your head around how and why she thinks the way she does.
Is there a useful psychology test to steal for this? Respond to questions from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree?" Compare to a control group? Not singly focus on her, but help her understand our mindsets. Effort on all parts to meet in the middle. Not endlessly encourage change, but support what is mutually healthy and attainable.

Useful questions? Who is Yuno? Who does Yuno want to be? Is that something Yuno can be? Who does Noburi want Yuno to be? Is that still Yuno or who Yuno wants to be? Questions reversed for Noburi.
"Are you sure?" the vendor asked, leaning close. "Didn't he murder his girlfriend? Not Lady Yamanaka, the one he was cheating with."
Oof, and the sales pitch was going so well.
"You all know of Hidan, the S-rank ninja from the former terrorist organization Akatsuki. A man who believes that death is..." He paused, shaking his head and allowing his lip to curl in disgust.
Yes, good showshinobi play it up for the back row.
Likewise, there's no need to cause a fight in the streets of Leaf against a man who believes that 'collateral damage' is a phrase that falls in the same category as 'honey candy and adorable puppies'."
Collateral damage tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, scythes swing for thee.
Mari smiled, not taking her eyes off Hazō. "Wait until you hear the rest of it," she said quietly. "I gave him three options, mild, medium, and hard. He took the hard option, looked at it, and told me to stop being such a wimp."
Oooooooooooo.
"As such, I say this to whomever has been spreading these lies: I forgive you. I forgive you, and I ask that you forgive me for whatever slight you feel I have done to you. Whether I have spoken to you a careless word or served you too bitter a tea during council or forgotten to send a gift on your birthday, I ask your forgiveness. I invite you to come to the Gōketsu estate with your grievance that I may apologize in person." He shook his head. "No, that's not enough: I will go to your estate to apologize. Send me a message so that I know where to go and I will be there within the hour. After I have apologized, we can discuss ways to work together to forward the interests of Leaf.
Spicy. Most contrition that anyone has ever contrited. Please never take us up on this offer.
"Hidan brought me here," Hazō said, keeping his eyes on the town and his voice as steady as he could manage. "He had this sick game in mind and forced me to play it. Go into the town, ask them to tell you the story. Ask them if they think I'm a Jashin worshipper." Finally, he looked over. "And be gentle with them, please? Civilians tend to panic when they see any ninja, let alone a large group. Try not to frighten them."
💙 this scene.
If this doesn't convince you..." He shrugged helplessly. "I hope it will convince you."
When words fail...
"Will it convince them?" Hazō asked the air, not opening his eyes.

"Uncertain," Shikamaru said quietly. "It assuredly will not hurt."

"C'mon, Shika," Hazō said, a smile in his voice. "Take off your 'cautious Nara' hat and give me your best guess. I won't hold you to it."

Shikamaru sighed in irritation. "I cannot say. Some of them will be convinced, probably. The rest will be pushed towards belief although they may not cross the boundary fully."

Hazō nodded to himself. "Good enough," he whispered.
Great chapter! Eager to see how intraclan relations evolve in the upcoming in-game year.
 
You've outlined how preventing someone from dodging via a block is strong, but not how it doesn't make sense.

Think about the tradeoffs your team made. You're giving up action economy to set a block TN that needs to beat at least two, potentially more rolls from Anne. The example you gave, she literally just needs to use an invoke and she beats the block

It also requires Charlie staying in the line of fire, with obvious consequences for getting caught up in AOEs. Then what happens if Anne beats the MW Block during her entire turn? Or when she tries to dodge the fireball? Crispy Charlie
A couple responses, I'm outlining how the tactic can be used for two opponents with rough parity where one has a sidekick to completely steamroll the other. I don't feel that reflects the world the mechanics emulate.

This situation is no different from regular combat in it's dangers, and it's extremely strong compared to both just attacking. It turns the Block into a save or die roll.

If you look at Headhunter, another save or die roll, that needs someone to have Taijutsu 80 before it hits eff 40. That's roughly the standard for save-or-die rolls.

This is parity plus another ninja. That's extremely easy to do. That's why it doesn't make sense, because it doesn't match with the worldbuilding.

Also I said nothing about AoEs. Imagine single target Fire ninjutsu, like WW is single target.
Edit: ah misunderstood the bit you were talking about. Yeah, the MEW thing is definitely using the jutsu in non-standard ways, but it'd be hitting them with a chakra construct created by a ninjutsu. That seems like something that would damage them. Also we've already killed a jonin by using MEW in nonstandard ways, so nyeh
Pre FtD mechanics, sure. But that jounin was completely unable to move. I'm confident that you can't use MEW as an attack. Read the description on the Rules Doc. It's mechanical effect is to create a taggable Aspect, that's what it will do.
 
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