Some twelve years ago, winter had just arrived. It was a generic winter - cold, but not too harsh. But as time passed the temperatures continued to drop. At first it was considered to be 'just a harsh winter' until the winter lasted into spring, into summer, into fall, and into winter again. The winter did not pass - the people were unaware at first, considering it an extraordinarily powerful heat of cold, at least for the winter at first. Then, they started thinking it was just.. something strange, but something that would pass - perhaps a test of the Sage of the Six Paths. But, over time, people lost hope and began acknowledging that this was a terrible blizzard, a spell of dry cold that killed all their crops.

The death toll started rising, due to freezing to death, lack of food, lack of other resources, or simply combat. Yes, combat. Despite the relatively peaceful time period, the cold gave rise to conflict over scarce resources. After four years, the winter 'subsided' and made way for a permanent dry cold permafrost. The ground was frozen solid most of the time, and the ground stayed infertile. It stayed cold - colder than any time before it. The entire shinobi world was frozen solid.

For six more years - a grand total of ten years - this went on. Permafrost meant there was not enough food for the villages and people starved, racking up the deathtoll even higher. Small conflicts arose. At first, conflicts over grievances, perceived slights, perhaps some about stolen supplies. Gradually this became conflict over territory. And after that, it became war for entire countries. But where as before there were alliances, it seemed to be every man, or village, for themselves at this point.

But once the ten year mark was reached, the permafrost dissipated, and made way for fertile muddy soils again. The conflicts slowly disappeared too, but there were still visible tensions between the countries. People felt like they had to take revenge for their murdered brothers, and alliances were made between those villages that hadn't fought each other as much. Konohagakure was at the center of it all - a hub, so to speak, for diplomacy, trade and politics. But that isn't to say that Konohagakure benefited from it. Not at all.

With normal relations continuing, Konohagakure felt increasingly pressured to pick sides. Sunagakure wanted an alliance with Konohagakure, Amegakure petitioned for the support of Konohagakure, Kumogakure had warned Konohagakure that any alliance made by Konoha would be seen as an act of aggression, etcetera. In short; Konohagakure had no options available that wouldn't anger someone.

For two years the 'new spring' lasted, before rumors of dropping temperatures and a 'second winter' started coming in from the North-East. Nothing serious has happened - yet. But the mere mention of dropping temperatures seemed to be enough to recreate tensions. The five kages have been arguing back and forth ever since. And, while they are kages, they are not the peaceful, calm and noble kages they were before. The winter has transformed people - made them more ruthless and aggressive. All of them are respected shinobi. They are powerful and strong, worthy of the title. But above all else, they are prepared to prove themselves. It seems the days of peaceful negotiation are coming to an end. Make way for the Second Winter.

And in the middle of this all is you – a shinobi of little renown, no merit, not yet had a chance to test your meddle. Will you survive this biting cold, or will you perish like so many before?

Besides the rumours, there are some that whisper about these winters being man-made. These rumours are seen as just that - rumours, with little credit or merit. But perhaps it is worth investigating. But you are under the Hokage's orders, so one way or another, you'll have to wait for the Hokage's orders to see if you can even investigate these claims or not.

Your character will be placed in Konohagakure, how they got there is up to you. As all characters will be of acceptable teenage ages, they will all remember the harsh times of the winter. Therefore, please go sparingly on the 'happy go lucky' characters that are everyone's friend. These were harsh times and we ask that the characters represent that in some way or form. Of course your character can be nice and happy, but explain why they are this way despite the fact that the winter claimed many lives.



The roleplay will start off in the 'New Spring' which means that there will still be fertile soils, rain, and other nice things like that. But gradually we will expand into the 'Second Winter' and the investigation as to what is causing this. Along the way we will meet interesting characters that are detrimental to the plot. Some of which, in our opinion, are very original and have their own personality and history that is unique to this roleplay. (Yeah, this sounds like a sales pitch.)

In terms of OOC information about the setting and plot, we feel it will be important to outline what you can expect. There is a larger overarching plot that we already have in mind - of course, you did not think we randomly inserted a 10 year long winter? There is more to the story. But the RP will start out with us forming teams, and doing missions and slowly uncovering the secrets of the winter. We hope to recreate the feeling of Naruto through this process - character growth through the missions, connecting with your teammates, and perhaps some epic story along the way.

This RP will also feature a more slice-of-life approach, although that label is debatable. We will of course still do plenty of missions, but we like character interaction as much as the fights in Naruto, and as such we place a prominent focus on the character interactions as well as conflicts. Don't worry, you can still beat up bad guys. Another thing that is important for us is balance and we make sure to review each sheet adequately.

If you want a powerful missing nin so you can slap your powerdick around, it's probably best to look elsewhere. It is our philosophy that if you are truly a good roleplayer, you can defeat anyone using one technique. Like the ancient saying goes; it is better to master one technique than to be mediocre at a thousand. Good writing will always trump a character that has the most overpowered jutsu's crammed into it.



Yes, we have rules. No, we don't enforce them like a nazi regime. We are capable of subjective logic and rationality (we hope) so if you bend a rule for the purpose of fitting the RP better, more power to you. But yes, we will get annoyed if you break them constantly. Previous RP's have shown we need these. Sadly.












Because Naruto is a diverse world with diverse techniques, with some more balanced than others, we have chosen to make several rulesets for characters for each rank. This is to avoid situations with, for example, a chunin who has the rinnegan, fighting some chunin who barely has a single B rank technique. It's also to avoid broken jutsu, such as Flying Thunder God, being used to cheese fights. It might seem like a fun thing to give your characters, especially if they have a historical reason for having that jutsu. And I agree, it's a fun niché thing that makes it more interesting. But looking at pro's and con's for these kind of jutsu, we have to decide that ultimately it's not worth it, because that means your jutsu will give you pleasure, but it will detract that of those that go up against your character, or those that wanted something similar but got denied. It's put in place to avoid bad situations where two people cannot reach an ultimatum about fights. Simple as that. We do not accept arguments about these things, they're set in stone.

If you feel like your character might have, for instance, an extra A-rank jutsu.. that's possible. We might accept that if you can justify it to us in a PM or in an OOC comment. For example, two A-rank jutsu that form a combo, but are otherwise not that useful, is perfectly acceptable. But if you justify it by saying 'Oh he's a prodigy, he was like Sasuke and is just super cool like that.' then we're gonna not accept that.

• 0 A-rank.
• 1 B-rank.
• 2 C-rank.
• 2 D-rank.
• N/A E-rank.

• 1 A-rank.
• 3 B-rank.
• 4 C-rank.
• N/A D-rank.
• N/A E-rank.

- Only accepting these if a chunin was already made and it was deemed satisfactory enough. Otherwise, on request (for plots, or team leading)

• 1 S-rank.
• 3 A-rank.
• 4 B-rank.
• N/A C-rank.
• N/A D-rank.
• N/A E-rank.

- Never accepting kage level characters. We'll ask you to make them if we need one.

• N/A S-rank.
• N/A B-rank.
• N/A C-rank.
• N/A D-rank.
• N/A E-rank.

General bans refer to simply not being allowed to have this jutsu on any character, in or out of battle.
Combat bans refer to bans for combat only, meaning they are allowed outside of combat.
Limit jutsu refer to jutsu that are allowed, in and out of combat, but have limited usage.

• Flying Thunder God Jutsu - general ban.
• Body Flicker Technique - combat ban.
• Body Replacement Technique - limit jutsu, 3 uses per battle.
• Chimera Technique - general ban.

The Winter war was the first real shinobi world war. It involved the five major powers as well as including some smaller villages. As the winter crept up on the villages, slowly they began getting belligerent, and Kumogakure gathered it's forces to enter Iwagakure. As a result of this, Sunagakure, not wanting to lose any potential gains, also entered Iwagakure. They entered a three-way war, with Kumogakure fighting Iwagakure and Sunagakure simultaneously, while these two also fought each other.

Kirigakure, who was allied with Kumogakure, sent over forces to help Kumogakure. Mostly Kirigakure spent their time assassinating people that were considered powerful, as well as thieving and stealing from the countryside.

Iwagakure gave up a lot of land at first, hoping Sunagakure and Kumogakure would be satisfied with their new lands, but found quickly that neither of the two countries intended to back off. Then Iwagakure began fighting back, taking back some territory and pushing back the enemy forces.

Konohagakure spent most of their time guarding the borders - they were relatively unscathed at first due to neutrality, except for Kumogakure and Kirigakure shinobi that found their way into Konoha territory, and pillaged and looted there.

When Sunagakure offered them an alliance, it was denied at first, but later on accepted as the threat of Kumo- and Kirigakure nin grew. As a result they were dragged into the war, and began engaging Kumogakure and Kirigakure nin more frequently. In due time, they were also engaging Iwagakure teams that had entered Sunagakure, Kumogakure, or sometimes Konohagakure territory.

Somehow, Iwagakure nin and Konohagakure nin managed to avoid killing each other. Despite the Tsuchikage not wishing to befriend Konoha, it seemed like the troops on the ground wished to avoid the bloodshed. As a result, there were only ever minor clashes and minor wounds.

Konohagakure managed to hold on to their borders. Contrary to Konoha, Sunagakure actually lost a small bit of territory in the form of a mountain range to Iwagakure. Kumogakure managed to take some of Iwagakures territory but also lost some, so in the end, it seemed like they had not made any real progress.

Kirigakure came out of the war richer, but was now disliked by all countries. Even Kumogakure disliked their ruthless and savage ways. But, the alliance still stood. The same could not be said for Sunagakure and Konohagakure, because the signed peace treaty enforced that Konoha end their alliance with Sunagakure. This was unwelcome at first, but when the Kazekage was later assassinated and the suspected murderer took his position, it was seen as a good thing the alliance had been ended earlier.

Notably, the Land of Iron was left unscathed. The already harsh conditions of the mountains and snow meant that with the arrival of winter, the area only got colder. The shinobis were of the opinion that 'nothing could be gained' in the Land of Iron, so they left it alone. Ever since, the land of Iron has isolated itself and no longer accepts visitors from Shinobi countries.



As we are roleplaying in an alternate universe, some things have changed. Some are changed for the sake of simplicity on our end (it's rather hard to write off some of the clans for example) and some were changed for the sake of the roleplay and making it more interesting. Most of these changes will have happened inside of Konohagakure. The roleplay takes place when Konohagakure as a village has existed for some fifty-seventy years.

Konohagakure was created as a result between the cooperation of the honorable Sarutobi clan, whom included many people within their clan and grew from the inclusion of smaller clans into their fold. They contributed manpower and the Will of Fire to the construction of Konohagakure. The Hyuga clan were their faithful 'ally' in this endeavor and made up the diplomatic and military aspect of the early Konohagakure settlement.

The first ten years of Konohagakure were spent in relative peace, being among the first village to be constructed that grew in size quickly, compared to smaller villages like Amegakure. Konohagakure quickly became the hub of diplomacy, trade and politics.

With time their lands grew too as smaller villages swore fealty to Konohagakure and joined their ranks, moving their forces to Konohagakure and building residences there. It quickly became the shinobi capital of the country of fire.



The first hokage was Hyuga Jurou, the head of the Hyuga clan. He was alongside the Sarutobi when the village was first constructed and, alongside the Sarutobi clan, made it into what it was today. He was chosen to represent the village as a Hokage due to his prodigial prowess in battle, diplomatic mind, and his 'noble' ancestry. Furthermore, the presence of a dojutsu user on the seat of power of Konohagakure also meant they received international respect.

He was primarily known for his long reign, which went by without a hitch. A whole 30 years. Primarily he invested a lot of time in lawmaking, governing and international relations. This included trade, threats of war, and alliances. Under his leadership Konohagakure briefly saw an alliance with Sunagakure, but this was quickly ended as a result of an assassination of the Kazekage.

After thirty years, Hyuga Jurou died as a result of illness, already being quite old at the time. He passed peacefully, despite the turbulent time where new villages were being created out of blood and steel. His student and adoptive son, Enchiro Kishimoto took over as hokage.



With Enchiro Kishimoto at the head of state, the village saw a grand total of one year without any problems before problems found Konohagakure. In his second year of reign, he found Konohagakure at the mercy of a blizzard, innocent at first, but quickly becoming deadly. Despite best efforts to retain the peace, his efforts failed, and Konohagakure quickly found itself defending their already scarce resources.

During his reign he also found himself on the battlefield - something the first hokage had never had to deal with - and showed off the skills of a kage. Much like the other kages, it was proven here that a kage was a force to be reckoned with.

When he was wounded during a skirmish versus Kumogakure elite shinobi, he decided to stay on the battlefield to protect the unit that he was with - as a result, his wounds became worse and frostbite set in.

When the fight was over, every person in the unit came home safe, but the same didn't go for his arm and leg. A year after the winter ended, he abdicated as a result of stress and war wounds, saying 'A man who can't use his full strength cannot protect his country'.

A vote would be held for the next hokage.



The vote would point out Mawari Mōri as the next hokage. The vote was narrow, with a tiebreaker included within. She was considered 'too much of a hothead' to bear the title of hokage, but her power and skills ultimately meant that she was chosen over a lesser candidate who was more calm and collected. As the council stated later, 'a great kage has to be strong enough to enforce their rulings, but these rulings can be made by great strategists behind the scenes'.

And, true to that saying, she went on to pick her runner up candidate as a council advisor when a spot freed up. During the single year that she has stood at the helm of the village, she has managed to make some minor changes. First and foremost, she has made it clear to the rest of the world that Konohagakure will no longer be pushed around.

This angered Kumogakure greatly, and made Kirigakure slightly wary. Sunagakure however seems more willing to enter an alliance than before. Iwagakure seems to be holding back slightly - they have not yet said anything in relation to Konohagakure and will likely continue to not say anything.



Kumogakure remains largely the belligerent and hostile village in the world, largely in fact due to their large military. The saying that dogs that bark don't bite, that saying doesn't go for them. The Raikages have notoriously all been loudmouthed militarist shinobi. Never the less, they are respected for the worthy shinobi they bring forth and pose a serious threat. The only reason they have not yet crushed Sunagakure, Konohagakure or Iwagakure is because they have a lot of internal problems relating mostly to politics. That's the reason why three of them have all died at the hands of assassins.

They are commonly allied with Kirigakure - their island nation is considered 'unimportant' for conquering, and thus the Raikages have mostly just focused their eyes elsewhere. The alliance is uneasy and it is not uncommon for 'friendly fire' to occur on a battlefield. Never the less, the Raikage ensures Kirigakure that he will defend them if the need arises.



Kirigakure similarly finds itself at the center of attention in most cases when it comes to hostility. But, contrary to Kumogakure, whom favor outright military power and large armies of shinobi (large for the time, which isn't large as we know it) Kirigakure favors precision strikes. Their numbers are lower than that of Kumogakure, but one can be certain that any surgical strike was committed by Kirigakure nin.

They are masters of stealth and, for the most part, operate in loosely organized teams with a high amount of decision making vested in the jonin. The Mizukage holds power, but ultimately the loose island nations has to contend with a large amount of corruption and loose cannons.

They seem to thrive largely on theft and banditry, which during this time period, was still considered a valid strategy.

Sunagakure is frequently associated with Konohagakure and their on-off alliance. Currently they are not allied, due to the ending of the Winter (and thus, the war) having included a treaty that ended the alliance. The alliance was never rebuilt due to suspicions that the new Kazekage was somehow involved in the death of the former Kazekage.

Their primary business right now is trade, as there are few places suitable for agriculture. As a result they are quite wealthy. They have good trade relations with all nations (even their enemies, Kumogakure and Kirigakure) and export and import anything from low cost goods like food to luxurious weaponry and ornaments.

Iwagakure is an isolationist country at this time, not engaging in political and diplomatical ties with the other villages for the most part. They prefer to work on their own village, expanding it's reach and performing missions.

During the Winter war they tried to stay away from the conflict, giving up large amounts of land to Kumogakure and Sunagakure before eventually striking back and driving out the enemies. When it was clear that neither Sunagakure nor Kumogakure would let them live in peace unless they were fully annexed, they struck back. By extent that meant they fought against Konohagakure and Kirigakure too.

But Konohagakure shinobi never actually fought in Iwagakure, and any skirmishes between Konohagakure and Iwagakure shinobi typically ended quickly and in a friendly manner. There was a mutual respect between them. This was contrary to Kirigakure shinobi, who fought purely to gain spoils of war.

The Land of Iron has remained isolationist - they refuse to answer any diplomatic envoys and typically do not accept shinobi into their borders. Ever since the Winter, they have lost a lot of manpower. The already harsh conditions were made even harsher with the cold, and nothing more would grow in the area. As a result, a lot of Samurai died, leaving only the strongest.

As a result, it seems like those samurai that remained have become rather strong. Their small numbers are accounted for by this, meaning that an invasion still seems unlikely. A common trait they have now too seems to be insanity - the many deaths, cold winter and isolation means that many of them are not used to the same social interactions as the shinobi are, and similarly, gave them strange cultural and social traits.

Reserved again. Also, I will be making a hokage and a chunin, most likely.

debating between gale style or just transferring my Asuma like character.@Buddha

@pkken Your call, honestly.

@BladeSS4 I'll grade/review it once I'm back from whatever I have to do tonight.

@pkken Pretty dope so far.

I like it.

@Thecrash20 Add a [indent] before | Ｗｅａｐｏｎｓ: |. Then add a [/indent] behind ''Describe the weapon, tool or objects appearance, and describe it's potentials and weaknesses. tl;dr how powerful is it and what does it look like. Be reasonable.'' and add a [/indent] behind ''Repeat this form as many times as you need.''. Then add hider tags.

I'll have a second look at my own coding to see if I can simplify it.

@Buddha I found an easier solution. Move a [/indent] from 'Repeat this form as many times as you need.' under the jutsu's and move it to the very end of the CS, before the hider tags.

@Hillan

Judging by your post on the other Naruto Role-Play, I assume that you all are not accepting the Mokuton as a Kekkai Genkai?

@Dirty Dan Hillan wasn't saying Mokuton is bad (in fact I think he likes it) but more so that Mokuton isn't a KG related to the Senju - there is no evidence of that. In fact evidence points out that only Hashirama had mokuton and it was "his" and not the Senju's release.

In short: we are allowing it but keep in mind that simply being a Senju doesn't give you mokuton automatically.

@Dirty Dan Hillan wasn't saying Mokuton is bad (in fact I think he likes it) but more so that Mokuton isn't a KG related to the Senju - there is no evidence of that. In fact evidence points out that only Hashirama had mokuton and it was "his" and not the Senju's release.

In short: we are allowing it but keep in mind that simply being a Senju doesn't give you mokuton automatically.

Ah, I wasn't implying that he thought it was 'bad'. I was simply asking, going off of his post's tone.

Not sure if I will be joining just yet. I'll wait to see the characters, first.

@Hillan

Judging by your post on the other Naruto Role-Play, I assume that you all are not accepting the Mokuton as a Kekkai Genkai?

Exactly what my partner said. Wood Release's perfectly fine. I just do not think it's something tied to the Senju clan. Maybe Hashirama's kids would be more likely to get it, but it's not inherently Senju, no advanced Chakra Nature is, some clans just have the genes for it. (Like the uchiha pretty much all having Fire.)

Can I leave the family connections and bloodline blank? As explained in my bio they were slaughtered and records of them ever existing were destroyed. My birth name is also blan.

About JUTSU. Can I have one that allows near instantaneous movement during combat? Basically, my sword conducts only my character's chakra and also is very electricity absorbent. My kekkei genkai is to transform myself into pure lightning, my sword absorbs that lightning at which point I turn back into regular form after making contact with the sword. Also I can mark someone, super charging them with my polar opposite when I'm in lightning mode and strike them with lightning speed.

Edit: And the ability of my sword to absorb lightning is manually activated.

@Dirty Dan That's fine. I'll be making the hokage sheet tonight and set the bar for what I hope others will strive for.

@Bishop Even if they are dead and wiped they still exist. You can write them in and then do a [s][/s] strikethrough.

For the jutsu I'll need to see it to judge it. If it's like FTG then no.