Style of the Gods: A Xianxia Style's Celestial Bureaucrat
- Thread starter Evenstar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
- Location
- ?
[X] Plan finding talent in mortals and ourselves
-[X][Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
-[X][Domain] Sort through the students who flocked to Asuka and look for good seeds.
-[x][Style] One Thousand Rat Bites
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
-[X][Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
-[X][Domain] Sort through the students who flocked to Asuka and look for good seeds.
-[x][Style] One Thousand Rat Bites
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
- Location
- ?
Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Plan finding talent in mortals and ourselves
- Location
- Brazil
[x] Plan Asuka Leads a Hunt
1409 - Year of the Rooster
Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Today, you're going out hunting.
The students beneath you are ready for a real test now, and the opportunity has come along; a Hellboar has been sighted in the nearby forest, 12 feet tall with serrated razor-tusks and murder in its eyes. While dangerous, such creatures are not particularly bright, and your novices have been drilled to face their fear and bring the giant down.
You go with them into the forest in the dawn hours, running herd on the formation and making sure nobody falls behind. A half-dozen novices are left gasping by the extended use of Grey Rat Flees The Hawk; you gather them together into a second group and have them trail the first.
You come upon the Hellboar deep in the forest. It's not hard to spot, given that it's crashing through the trees with a horrible squealing.
"Taro," you say to your best student. "Let the others drive it to you, then go in for the kill."
He nods, and tightens his grip on his iron knuckles. Planting himself directly in the boar's way, he takes a fighting stance and stares it down.
Your students form a V pointing towards Taro, and start yelling kiai at the Hellboar. It shoulders aside from them, picking up speed, and charges down the centre of the V directly at Taro.
He yells a challenge of his own, and then he Breathes.
Even for you, the motion is almost too fast to follow. Taro jumps over a swipe of the boar's massive tusk, and slams an axe kick down onto its bony forehead. He vaults right, out of the way of its charge, and smashes his iron knuckles into its side with a crack of breaking bone. Then he leaps backwards, behind the screen of the other students.
Three novices leap forwards yelling kiai as the hellboar squeals in pain and hatred, slamming into it from the right side with their own bone-crunching impacts. One even manages to shatter the beast's right tusk. As the creature turns towards them with rage in its eyes, another three apprentices strike from the rear, breaking the beast's back legs and shattering its pelvis.
You watch impassively as Taro darts in again with his iron knuckles, and slams them home where his axe kick already landed. The great beast squeals one last time; then it falls to the ground, dead.
You pick up the length of shattered hellboar tusk, careful of the serrations, and smile.
"Good hunting, everyone!"
Adare Kaname, Bureaucrat of Grey Rat Style
Fisher King: You take on the properties of the Style you're responsible for reflexively. Your personality feeds the style, and vice versa.
Cultivator 2
Legendary 2
Lunar 2
Wyld 3
Hunter 3
Warrior 1
Assassin 1
Artisan 1
Alchemist 1
Rich 1
Worldly 2
Prepared 5
Alert 4
Tranquil 1
Cooperative 1
Disreputable 4
Cowardly 3
Impolite 1
Vicious 1
Ghoulish 1
Style: Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens
Rigorous 2
Style of Legend 2
Yin Style 2
Chi Style 3
Beast-Killing 3
Killing Intent 1
Assassination 1
Artisanal 1
Alchemic 1
Varied Techniques 1
Strong Fundamentals 2
Survivalist 5
Rapid 4
Pacifist 1
Teamwork 1
Disreputable 4
Evasive 3
Difficult 1
Dangerous 1
Taboo-Breaking 1
Techniques:
Consuming Cultivation Focus
Grey Rat Persists On Corruption
10,000 Grey Rats Gather In Moonlight
Nimble Grey Rat Dances In Moonight
Grey Rat Is Kin To Thousands
Grey Rat Eats Behemoths' Corpses
Grey Rat Climbs Over Corpses
Grey Rats Swarm The Carcass
Grey Rat Flees The Hawk
Grey Rat Endures The Storm
Grey Rat Striking Method
Nimble Paws of the Grey Rat
Hero: Asuka Veran
Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens 5
Good Seed: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Protagonist: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Dead Hand: +10 to Atma rolls.
Bone Whistle: +10 to Cultivation rolls.
Goldfur Robe: +20 to Atma rolls, -1 Voracious
[ ][Asuka] Continue to train in Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens and develop another Core. Cultivation Check against DC 80, failure = injury or death.
[ ][Asuka] Work on developing Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens. Cultivation check at DC 80, success gains an additional technique for the Style. Failure = injury.
[ ][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
[ ][Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50.
[ ][Asuka] Try to impress your Master with a demonstration of what you can do. Cultivation check at DC??
[ ][Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
[ ][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
[ ][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
[ ][Domain] Encourage the new Grey Rat Sect to split from the Green Dragon Sect.
[ ][Domain] Encourage rumors about the new style to spread outside the Sect and attract new students.
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Scavenges To Live
Develop the ability to eat and drink raw ambient Life Atma, feeding on the spirit of anything in range of the technique. Build Path: Survivalist
[ ][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
Develop the ability to manifest black claws of Death Atma that kill what they touch. A hellishly dangerous technique. Build Path: Style of Legends.
[ ][Style] Grey Rat's Leaping Claws
Develop the use of the bow and arrow in the style, both to hunt beasts and humans. Build Path: Beast-Killer
[ ][Style] Bite of the Grey Rat
Develop "dirty" tricks for the style: bites, eye gouges, crotch kicks. Build path: Survivalist.
[ ][Personal] Try to renegotiate your deal with King Death for gentler terms.
[ ][Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Write in a fault.)
[ ][Personal] Hunt Demon Beasts to craft a Treasure for Asuka.
[ ][Personal] Use your influence over Grey Rat style to encourage its discovery by a larger group of practitioners.
[ ][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
The students beneath you are ready for a real test now, and the opportunity has come along; a Hellboar has been sighted in the nearby forest, 12 feet tall with serrated razor-tusks and murder in its eyes. While dangerous, such creatures are not particularly bright, and your novices have been drilled to face their fear and bring the giant down.
You go with them into the forest in the dawn hours, running herd on the formation and making sure nobody falls behind. A half-dozen novices are left gasping by the extended use of Grey Rat Flees The Hawk; you gather them together into a second group and have them trail the first.
You come upon the Hellboar deep in the forest. It's not hard to spot, given that it's crashing through the trees with a horrible squealing.
"Taro," you say to your best student. "Let the others drive it to you, then go in for the kill."
He nods, and tightens his grip on his iron knuckles. Planting himself directly in the boar's way, he takes a fighting stance and stares it down.
Your students form a V pointing towards Taro, and start yelling kiai at the Hellboar. It shoulders aside from them, picking up speed, and charges down the centre of the V directly at Taro.
He yells a challenge of his own, and then he Breathes.
Even for you, the motion is almost too fast to follow. Taro jumps over a swipe of the boar's massive tusk, and slams an axe kick down onto its bony forehead. He vaults right, out of the way of its charge, and smashes his iron knuckles into its side with a crack of breaking bone. Then he leaps backwards, behind the screen of the other students.
Three novices leap forwards yelling kiai as the hellboar squeals in pain and hatred, slamming into it from the right side with their own bone-crunching impacts. One even manages to shatter the beast's right tusk. As the creature turns towards them with rage in its eyes, another three apprentices strike from the rear, breaking the beast's back legs and shattering its pelvis.
You watch impassively as Taro darts in again with his iron knuckles, and slams them home where his axe kick already landed. The great beast squeals one last time; then it falls to the ground, dead.
You pick up the length of shattered hellboar tusk, careful of the serrations, and smile.
"Good hunting, everyone!"
Adare Kaname, Bureaucrat of Grey Rat Style
Fisher King: You take on the properties of the Style you're responsible for reflexively. Your personality feeds the style, and vice versa.
Cultivator 2
Legendary 2
Lunar 2
Wyld 3
Hunter 3
Warrior 1
Assassin 1
Artisan 1
Alchemist 1
Rich 1
Worldly 2
Prepared 5
Alert 4
Tranquil 1
Cooperative 1
Disreputable 4
Cowardly 3
Impolite 1
Vicious 1
Ghoulish 1
Style: Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens
Rigorous 2
Style of Legend 2
Yin Style 2
Chi Style 3
Beast-Killing 3
Killing Intent 1
Assassination 1
Artisanal 1
Alchemic 1
Varied Techniques 1
Strong Fundamentals 2
Survivalist 5
Rapid 4
Pacifist 1
Teamwork 1
Disreputable 4
Evasive 3
Difficult 1
Dangerous 1
Taboo-Breaking 1
Techniques:
Consuming Cultivation Focus
Grey Rat Persists On Corruption
10,000 Grey Rats Gather In Moonlight
Nimble Grey Rat Dances In Moonight
Grey Rat Is Kin To Thousands
Grey Rat Eats Behemoths' Corpses
Grey Rat Climbs Over Corpses
Grey Rats Swarm The Carcass
Grey Rat Flees The Hawk
Grey Rat Endures The Storm
Grey Rat Striking Method
Nimble Paws of the Grey Rat
Hero: Asuka Veran
Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens 5
Good Seed: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Protagonist: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Dead Hand: +10 to Atma rolls.
Bone Whistle: +10 to Cultivation rolls.
Goldfur Robe: +20 to Atma rolls, -1 Voracious
[ ][Asuka] Continue to train in Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens and develop another Core. Cultivation Check against DC 80, failure = injury or death.
[ ][Asuka] Work on developing Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens. Cultivation check at DC 80, success gains an additional technique for the Style. Failure = injury.
[ ][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
[ ][Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50.
[ ][Asuka] Try to impress your Master with a demonstration of what you can do. Cultivation check at DC??
[ ][Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
[ ][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
[ ][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
[ ][Domain] Encourage the new Grey Rat Sect to split from the Green Dragon Sect.
[ ][Domain] Encourage rumors about the new style to spread outside the Sect and attract new students.
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Scavenges To Live
Develop the ability to eat and drink raw ambient Life Atma, feeding on the spirit of anything in range of the technique. Build Path: Survivalist
[ ][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
Develop the ability to manifest black claws of Death Atma that kill what they touch. A hellishly dangerous technique. Build Path: Style of Legends.
[ ][Style] Grey Rat's Leaping Claws
Develop the use of the bow and arrow in the style, both to hunt beasts and humans. Build Path: Beast-Killer
[ ][Style] Bite of the Grey Rat
Develop "dirty" tricks for the style: bites, eye gouges, crotch kicks. Build path: Survivalist.
[ ][Personal] Try to renegotiate your deal with King Death for gentler terms.
[ ][Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Write in a fault.)
[ ][Personal] Hunt Demon Beasts to craft a Treasure for Asuka.
[ ][Personal] Use your influence over Grey Rat style to encourage its discovery by a larger group of practitioners.
[ ][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
Cultivator 2
Legendary 2
Lunar 2
Wyld 3
Hunter 3
Warrior 1
Assassin 1
Artisan 1
Alchemist 1
Rich 1
Worldly 2
Prepared 5
Alert 4
Tranquil 1
Cooperative 1
Disreputable 4
Cowardly 3
Impolite 1
Vicious 1
Ghoulish 1
Legendary 2
Lunar 2
Wyld 3
Hunter 3
Warrior 1
Assassin 1
Artisan 1
Alchemist 1
Rich 1
Worldly 2
Prepared 5
Alert 4
Tranquil 1
Cooperative 1
Disreputable 4
Cowardly 3
Impolite 1
Vicious 1
Ghoulish 1
Also no independent scene for Kaname? I wonder if those are related - historically we've gotten 6+ shifts on turns where we tried to remove a fault.
It seems possible that two shifts cancelled out in the background.
[X] Plan Sage Rat
- [X] [Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
- [X] [Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
- [X] [Style] Grey Rat Scavenges To Live
- [X] [Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Vicious.)
It's cool to see the style developing more! I want to cultivate our students for now, hopefully with a safer version of the style.
- [X] [Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
- [X] [Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
- [X] [Style] Grey Rat Scavenges To Live
- [X] [Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Vicious.)
It's cool to see the style developing more! I want to cultivate our students for now, hopefully with a safer version of the style.
Black Claws is back, and as Legendary Styles go, I like it better than Plague-Fist.
We don't want to poison the corpses we're hoping to harvest for parts, after all.
Personal cultivation again, which will hopefully remove Impolite - or at least counteract any difficulty increase from Black Claws.
Trying for Asuka's awesome thing.
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
-[x][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[x][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[x][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
We don't want to poison the corpses we're hoping to harvest for parts, after all.
Personal cultivation again, which will hopefully remove Impolite - or at least counteract any difficulty increase from Black Claws.
Trying for Asuka's awesome thing.
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
-[x][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[x][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[x][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
- Location
- Brazil
[X] Plan Grey Rat Chalenges the Heavens
-[X][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[X][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
-[X][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[X][Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. ( Impolite )
The idea here is to go after the high reward actions, trying to make a tresure, becoming a more legendary style and trying to atract Asuka's Master, and for the personal action we should remove impolite since the harder to use a style is the slower it will spread.
-[X][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[X][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
-[X][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[X][Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. ( Impolite )
The idea here is to go after the high reward actions, trying to make a tresure, becoming a more legendary style and trying to atract Asuka's Master, and for the personal action we should remove impolite since the harder to use a style is the slower it will spread.
- Location
- Pindorama
[X] Plan Grey Rat Strengthens his Style
-[X][Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50.
-[X][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[X][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[X][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
A plan that focuses on getting Asuka to the next Cultivation level now that she has some students under her wing. I don't know if the Hellboar action is time-limited or not, so I prefer the higher odds of the criminal's bone. Cultivation is chosen because that actually removed Impolite last time and therefore could be considered more efficient.
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
I will also approval vote this plan since it's basically the same as the one above; just with a Boar talisman instead of a Criminal one. It might even be better if the Boar is indeed time-sensitive, but higher DC means a 30% higher chance of being a "wasted" action, so I don't prefer it over mine yet.
-[X][Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50.
-[X][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[X][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[X][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
A plan that focuses on getting Asuka to the next Cultivation level now that she has some students under her wing. I don't know if the Hellboar action is time-limited or not, so I prefer the higher odds of the criminal's bone. Cultivation is chosen because that actually removed Impolite last time and therefore could be considered more efficient.
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
I will also approval vote this plan since it's basically the same as the one above; just with a Boar talisman instead of a Criminal one. It might even be better if the Boar is indeed time-sensitive, but higher DC means a 30% higher chance of being a "wasted" action, so I don't prefer it over mine yet.
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
-[x][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[x][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[x][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
-[x][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[x][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[x][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
Eh, not really feeling bow and arrow for our style you know.
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
We currently are leaning in the direction of Artemis, Death-variant. Bow and arrows would further that.
... Not that I'm voting for it at the moment, but I could see doing so if Black Claws wasn't the competition.
- Location
- USA
[X] Plan Sage Rat
[X] Plan: Master need to be polite
-[X] [Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50.
-[X][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
-[X] [Style] Grey Rat Scavenges To Live
-[X] [Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Impolite)
[X] Plan: Master need to be polite
-[X] [Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50.
-[X][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
-[X] [Style] Grey Rat Scavenges To Live
-[X] [Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Impolite)
Twisted Mind
ADHD Man!
- Location
- The Walled Commune (Florida)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
- Pronouns
- He
[x] Plan Legend of the Black Claw
-[x][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[x][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[x][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
-[x][Style] Grey Rat's Black Claws
-[x][Domain] Focus on developing the lone intermediate student below Asuka.
-[x][Asuka] Try to make something truly special from the Hellboar carcass. Atma check at DC80.
-[x][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a second Core. Cultivation DC40.
1410 - Year of the Dog
Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Tired of your simple life of shattering dummies with your mighty legs and scribbling away at documents, you return once again to cultivation and your contract with King Death.
Over many months, you sharpen your skills both on the training ground and at the negotiating table. King Death's bureaucrats are beaten back, at times with kicks and punches and at times with well-placed words. You're in the middle of a debate/duel with a 5th rank Kami when Lady Shingetsu sweeps into the room. With a flutter of her fan, she declares the matter settled: in her capacity as an agent of King Death, your case is won.
You feel the black claws spring out on your hands and feet as a new Core slams into place. Your etiquette and kung fu have triumphed again, and transformed you again.
With your own battles done, your thoughts once again turn to Asuka...
Your principal component for the work is one of the boar's mammoth ribs, curved and pointed where they meet the boar's sternum. Only three are intact after the bone-shattering punches your students dealt the boar; you prise them free carefully, and have your students haul them away from the carcass to a nearby clearing.
There, you have three shallow pits dug and flooded with water, and have the ribs each laid in one. You add Yin Atma to each pit with silver shavings off of coins, and Death Atma as well with bone ash harvested from the rest of the carcass.
You leave each pit to sit for three weeks so that the mixture can permeate the bone and soften it. Then, you have teams of students haul the ribs up onto dry land.
The first attempt at straightening one of the ribs ends with a crack and a snap of breaking bone. Not enough time to soak, or too much force? Perhaps it was simply too large. The second and third attempts go much better, yielding two long pointed bones a fist thick at the base and as tall as you are. Perfect for your purposes.
Over months you carve away at the base, narrowing the cylinder from a fist wide to a thumb wide. Gradually, a long haft forms under your hands, until nothing uncarved remains but a pointy fist-sized lump on the end of the haft. This you flatten and sharpen down to a broadleaf point, completing your mundane workmanship. If all you wanted was a spear to display on the wall, this would be enough, but you want a battle-ready weapon. That requires a complex pattern of reinforcing seals to strengthen the bone and fully unleash its potential.
The seals start at the base of the spear, a funnel and amplifier for the Atma poured into it, pushing it into a tight spiral that spans the entire length of the haft. Life and Death half-seals in two narrow bands, coiling over and over and over, compressing the Atma against itself as it twists towards the spearpoint.
At the base of the point, there's just enough room for one full seal on each side.
After long meditation and contemplation, you inscribe the spearpoint with Death on one side and Wind on the other. A killing wind as a final release for the coiling Atma.
It's complete.
You go out into the forest with it to test it. You can't know if it works until you feed Atma to it, and if it's dangerously broken you'd best not use it near your students.
You find a clearing far from the sect, and take a moment to clear your mind.
Then, you reach deep and pull Atma into the spear.
The spear screams, and vibrates in your hands -
But holds.
As you feed the spear more Atma, the scream stabilizes, weakens, and settles into a constant high wail.
You try a few experimental swipes with the spear, and it makes a tearing sound like a saw.
You casually swipe the spearpoint at a tree, and the tree falls apart, neatly severed.
You grin.
"I think I'll call you Whitefang," you say to the spear.
Some days after you build Whitefang, you loan it and your whistle to Taro. With two strong foci to guide him, he forces his way through another Step, and solidifies his fifth Core. He's officially an advanced student and your equal, now. And all thanks to the power of your bone charms and treasures.
Taro's a little reluctant to give you back Whitefang, but it knows its maker's hand. It might just be you, but the spear seems to rest easier by your side than his.
Adare Kaname, Bureaucrat of Grey Rat Style
Fisher King: You take on the properties of the Style you're responsible for reflexively. Your personality feeds the style, and vice versa.
Cultivator 3
Legendary 3
Lunar 2
Wyld 3
Hunter 3
Warrior 2
Assassin 1
Artisan 2
Alchemist 1
Rich 1
Worldly 2
Prepared 5
Alert 4
Tranquil 1
Cooperative 1
Disreputable 4
Cowardly 3
Vicious 4
Ghoulish 2
Style: Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens
Rigorous 3
Style of Legend 3
Yin Style 2
Chi Style 3
Beast-Killing 3
Killing Intent 2
Assassination 1
Artisanal 2
Alchemic 1
Varied Techniques 1
Strong Fundamentals 2
Survivalist 5
Rapid 4
Pacifist 1
Teamwork 1
Disreputable 4
Evasive 3
Dangerous 4
Taboo-Breaking 2
Techniques:
Consuming Cultivation Focus
Grey Rat Persists On Corruption
10,000 Grey Rats Gather In Moonlight
Nimble Grey Rat Dances In Moonight
Grey Rat Is Kin To Thousands
Grey Rat Eats Behemoths' Corpses
Grey Rat Climbs Over Corpses
Grey Rats Swarm The Carcass
Grey Rat Flees The Hawk
Grey Rat Endures The Storm
Grey Rat's Black Claws
Nimble Paws of the Grey Rat
Hero: Asuka Veran
Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens 5
Good Seed: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Protagonist: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Dead Hand: +10 to Atma rolls.
Bone Whistle: +10 to Cultivation rolls.
Goldfur Robe: +20 to Atma rolls, -1 Voracious
Whitefang: +1 Beast-Killing, Combat +20, Cultivation +20
[ ][Asuka] Continue to train in Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens and develop another Core. Cultivation Check against DC 80, failure = death.
[ ][Asuka] Work on developing Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens. Cultivation check at DC 80, gains an additional technique for the Style. Failure = death.
[ ][Asuka] Try to make a twin for Whitefang from the remaining rib. Atma check at DC80. Failure = Chance for injury or death.
[ ][Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50. Failure = chance for injury.
[ ][Asuka] Try to impress your Master with a demonstration of what you can do. Cultivation check at DC??
[ ][Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
[ ][Domain] Push Taro's limits and encourage him to continue striving for additional Cores.
[ ][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
[ ][Domain] Encourage the new Grey Rat Sect to split from the Green Dragon Sect.
[ ][Domain] Encourage rumors about the new style to spread outside the Sect and attract new students.
[ ][Domain] Popularize the production of bone Charms among the students.
[ ][Domain] Encourage further hunting expeditions among the students.
[ ][Domain] Encourage the students to spar among one another.
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Four-Limb Stance
Develop the style to incorporate movement on all fours like a rat. Build Path: Feral
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Devours The Flesh
Develop the killing intent and raw viciousness of the style, aiming to make it more suited to war. Build Path: Warlord
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Bites The Cat
Develop techniques specifically specialized to fighting stronger opponents, making the style a desperation weapon. Build Path: Hero-Killer
[ ][Style] Corrupt Grey Rat's Plague Fist
Followers of the style learn to hold deadly viruses and toxins inside their body and apply them to their strikes. Scarily effective, but kills practitioners in the training stage. Build Path: Style Of Legends
[ ][Personal] Go to see your friends in your Wyldfae village.
[ ][Personal] Attend to your responsibilities as a minor courtier of Luna.
[ ][Personal] Continue negotiations with King Death and his court.
[ ][Personal] Attempt to contact the court of the Zodiac Rat.
[ ][Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Write in a fault.)
[ ][Personal] Hunt Demon Beasts to craft a Treasure for Asuka.
[ ][Personal] Use your influence over Grey Rat style to encourage its discovery by a larger group of practitioners.
[ ][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a third Core. Cultivation DC60.
Over many months, you sharpen your skills both on the training ground and at the negotiating table. King Death's bureaucrats are beaten back, at times with kicks and punches and at times with well-placed words. You're in the middle of a debate/duel with a 5th rank Kami when Lady Shingetsu sweeps into the room. With a flutter of her fan, she declares the matter settled: in her capacity as an agent of King Death, your case is won.
You feel the black claws spring out on your hands and feet as a new Core slams into place. Your etiquette and kung fu have triumphed again, and transformed you again.
With your own battles done, your thoughts once again turn to Asuka...
Your principal component for the work is one of the boar's mammoth ribs, curved and pointed where they meet the boar's sternum. Only three are intact after the bone-shattering punches your students dealt the boar; you prise them free carefully, and have your students haul them away from the carcass to a nearby clearing.
There, you have three shallow pits dug and flooded with water, and have the ribs each laid in one. You add Yin Atma to each pit with silver shavings off of coins, and Death Atma as well with bone ash harvested from the rest of the carcass.
You leave each pit to sit for three weeks so that the mixture can permeate the bone and soften it. Then, you have teams of students haul the ribs up onto dry land.
The first attempt at straightening one of the ribs ends with a crack and a snap of breaking bone. Not enough time to soak, or too much force? Perhaps it was simply too large. The second and third attempts go much better, yielding two long pointed bones a fist thick at the base and as tall as you are. Perfect for your purposes.
Over months you carve away at the base, narrowing the cylinder from a fist wide to a thumb wide. Gradually, a long haft forms under your hands, until nothing uncarved remains but a pointy fist-sized lump on the end of the haft. This you flatten and sharpen down to a broadleaf point, completing your mundane workmanship. If all you wanted was a spear to display on the wall, this would be enough, but you want a battle-ready weapon. That requires a complex pattern of reinforcing seals to strengthen the bone and fully unleash its potential.
The seals start at the base of the spear, a funnel and amplifier for the Atma poured into it, pushing it into a tight spiral that spans the entire length of the haft. Life and Death half-seals in two narrow bands, coiling over and over and over, compressing the Atma against itself as it twists towards the spearpoint.
At the base of the point, there's just enough room for one full seal on each side.
After long meditation and contemplation, you inscribe the spearpoint with Death on one side and Wind on the other. A killing wind as a final release for the coiling Atma.
It's complete.
You go out into the forest with it to test it. You can't know if it works until you feed Atma to it, and if it's dangerously broken you'd best not use it near your students.
You find a clearing far from the sect, and take a moment to clear your mind.
Then, you reach deep and pull Atma into the spear.
The spear screams, and vibrates in your hands -
But holds.
As you feed the spear more Atma, the scream stabilizes, weakens, and settles into a constant high wail.
You try a few experimental swipes with the spear, and it makes a tearing sound like a saw.
You casually swipe the spearpoint at a tree, and the tree falls apart, neatly severed.
You grin.
"I think I'll call you Whitefang," you say to the spear.
Some days after you build Whitefang, you loan it and your whistle to Taro. With two strong foci to guide him, he forces his way through another Step, and solidifies his fifth Core. He's officially an advanced student and your equal, now. And all thanks to the power of your bone charms and treasures.
Taro's a little reluctant to give you back Whitefang, but it knows its maker's hand. It might just be you, but the spear seems to rest easier by your side than his.
Adare Kaname, Bureaucrat of Grey Rat Style
Fisher King: You take on the properties of the Style you're responsible for reflexively. Your personality feeds the style, and vice versa.
Cultivator 3
Legendary 3
Lunar 2
Wyld 3
Hunter 3
Warrior 2
Assassin 1
Artisan 2
Alchemist 1
Rich 1
Worldly 2
Prepared 5
Alert 4
Tranquil 1
Cooperative 1
Disreputable 4
Cowardly 3
Vicious 4
Ghoulish 2
Style: Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens
Rigorous 3
Style of Legend 3
Yin Style 2
Chi Style 3
Beast-Killing 3
Killing Intent 2
Assassination 1
Artisanal 2
Alchemic 1
Varied Techniques 1
Strong Fundamentals 2
Survivalist 5
Rapid 4
Pacifist 1
Teamwork 1
Disreputable 4
Evasive 3
Dangerous 4
Taboo-Breaking 2
Techniques:
Consuming Cultivation Focus
Grey Rat Persists On Corruption
10,000 Grey Rats Gather In Moonlight
Nimble Grey Rat Dances In Moonight
Grey Rat Is Kin To Thousands
Grey Rat Eats Behemoths' Corpses
Grey Rat Climbs Over Corpses
Grey Rats Swarm The Carcass
Grey Rat Flees The Hawk
Grey Rat Endures The Storm
Grey Rat's Black Claws
Nimble Paws of the Grey Rat
Hero: Asuka Veran
Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens 5
Good Seed: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Protagonist: +20 to Cultivation rolls.
Dead Hand: +10 to Atma rolls.
Bone Whistle: +10 to Cultivation rolls.
Goldfur Robe: +20 to Atma rolls, -1 Voracious
Whitefang: +1 Beast-Killing, Combat +20, Cultivation +20
[ ][Asuka] Continue to train in Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens and develop another Core. Cultivation Check against DC 80, failure = death.
[ ][Asuka] Work on developing Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens. Cultivation check at DC 80, gains an additional technique for the Style. Failure = death.
[ ][Asuka] Try to make a twin for Whitefang from the remaining rib. Atma check at DC80. Failure = Chance for injury or death.
[ ][Asuka] Focus on making more Charms from the dead criminal's bones. Atma check at DC50. Failure = chance for injury.
[ ][Asuka] Try to impress your Master with a demonstration of what you can do. Cultivation check at DC??
[ ][Asuka] Focus on being a good Master to the students who follow you.
[ ][Domain] Push Taro's limits and encourage him to continue striving for additional Cores.
[ ][Domain] Encourage Asuka's master to begin experimenting with Grey Rat Cheats The Heavens.
[ ][Domain] Encourage the new Grey Rat Sect to split from the Green Dragon Sect.
[ ][Domain] Encourage rumors about the new style to spread outside the Sect and attract new students.
[ ][Domain] Popularize the production of bone Charms among the students.
[ ][Domain] Encourage further hunting expeditions among the students.
[ ][Domain] Encourage the students to spar among one another.
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Four-Limb Stance
Develop the style to incorporate movement on all fours like a rat. Build Path: Feral
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Devours The Flesh
Develop the killing intent and raw viciousness of the style, aiming to make it more suited to war. Build Path: Warlord
[ ][Style] Grey Rat Bites The Cat
Develop techniques specifically specialized to fighting stronger opponents, making the style a desperation weapon. Build Path: Hero-Killer
[ ][Style] Corrupt Grey Rat's Plague Fist
Followers of the style learn to hold deadly viruses and toxins inside their body and apply them to their strikes. Scarily effective, but kills practitioners in the training stage. Build Path: Style Of Legends
[ ][Personal] Go to see your friends in your Wyldfae village.
[ ][Personal] Attend to your responsibilities as a minor courtier of Luna.
[ ][Personal] Continue negotiations with King Death and his court.
[ ][Personal] Attempt to contact the court of the Zodiac Rat.
[ ][Personal] Train to remove one of your personality faults and thereby improve the style you're responsible for. (Write in a fault.)
[ ][Personal] Hunt Demon Beasts to craft a Treasure for Asuka.
[ ][Personal] Use your influence over Grey Rat style to encourage its discovery by a larger group of practitioners.
[ ][Personal] Continue cultivating and attempt to form a third Core. Cultivation DC60.
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