MAIN GOAL ⫻ Amara doesn’t have a goal, currently. She’s at a point in her life where she’s not sure what she should be doing, let alone what she wants to be doing. What she wants out of life itself, however, is to have a purpose that fulfills her. So far, she hasn’t found it.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Take it a day at a time, get through it and look out for one another. Amara believes in toughing things out and that nothing worth doing is ever easy. Amara wholeheartedly believes in punching up when it counts, on behalf of the ones who can’t. As far as she’s aware, every other Amara shares her outlook on life to some extent.

SECRETS ⫻ There are some things Amara takes pride in, and others she does not. Most of the things she isn’t proud of were done during her PRA days. She did good as an agent, but some things keep her up at night. Amara doesn’t like to talk about just how high up the chain she found herself before quitting. Of course, anyone with the badge and a bit of clearance could easily dig it all up.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Lesbian

FEARS ⫻ Amara is afraid of dying in obscurity. Dying itself doesn’t scare her, but she wants to die in peace, when people would miss her.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ Amara was fun to be around. She knew when to get serious, and knew when to be easygoing and enjoy life. From time to time, she may have been a bit too tough for others to tolerate, but she always made it up to them in the end. Her chill demeanor certainly helped others keep their spirits reasonably high, especially when the death toll got worse.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ Back in the day, Amara was a mix of the commander and the general. She’d spend two or three days plotting out battle plans like a chess grandmaster with the other intellectual members. And then she’d spend the next week executing them and being a powerhouse on the battlefield. Her phantoms protected the injured and got them to safety, shot up apparitions like it was open season and took blows for others that would kill the living.

FLAWS ⫻ Everyone has their reasons for fighting. Some take up arms for an idea, others fight and die for the people they love. But Amara is the exception. She doesn't have anything grounding her, nothing to feel conviction for. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing anymore, and it's not easy to change that.

The earliest memories Amara has are not bonding with her mother and father, learning to walk for the first time, or even learning to speak her first words. Though she has those memories just like anyone else, Amara first remembers seeing herself. All of the countless trillion versions of herself, stretching across a boundless field overlooked by a castle. Its presence was like the bedrock of everything in the scope of existence to her young mind, and she saw it every single night, long before she had the words to even understand it. By the time she was 12, she began to really grasp this. Her parents never understood it to be anything more than just a child's active imagination whenever she'd bring it up, but the paranormal opened itself up to her at a time before most Adepts were taught about what magic itself even is. At an age where the children of paranormal families were learning how Lux and individuals spells behaved, Amara was learning about the Army of One and the All-Verse's strange nature. At an age where paranormal teenagers were learning the fine nuances of magic, Amara was being trained, in secret, by her long-dead counterparts to fight. In her dreams, she saw the counterparts of herself that had lived longer and would tell her of the things they all faced. Amara was essentially raised by an Apparition to be a soldier, behind the backs of the Blind, and fight for the causes that she considered worth her efforts.

And then, the Snake happened.

Amara met a girl at school named Bianca, who happened to rope her into the antics of the Sycamore Tree Coven, along with a few other antics between her and her girlfriend. (Sometimes literally between them.) Everyone has their own story to tell about how the battle went down, and their own personal traumas. But Amara? She endured it all, never allowing herself to feel the pain because it wasn't what she was trained to do. On the battlefield, her phantoms stepped through reality by the dozens, enough to match to tide of apparitions summoned by the world-ending threat. She took up the responsibility to make battle plans when others wouldn't, and personally oversaw the rescue of many friends. It wasn't all perfect, even if she got to relax sometimes like the others, but they all pulled through.

To many of the Coven's members, it was all just temporary. They came together to fight, but not to last. Everyone fell apart, and Amara's role in that was more to keep the peace and help everyone fall apart gently. It wasn't long until everyone packed up and left. Amara made sure to keep contact with the friends she made, and told them to call her if something crazy happened again. She left to get her life in order, and to decide what she wanted out of it. She didn’t go to college or find a girl to settle down with, but the next few years of her life were still the most eventful ever. Amara never swore off her magic, she would use it occasionally when it was convenient. A phantom would hold a wrench while she fixed her car on the side of the road, or help her carry things indoors when no one was looking. Or at least, no one she noticed.

She found herself crossing paths with the PRA, an agency dedicated to keeping the peace and protecting the Blind from magic. This resonated with Amara, and so she sought them out more intensely, eventually getting a chance to have a proper conversation with them. She explained how she had a desire to protect others from the dangers of magic and had her own experience in doing that very thing. So she trained, and trained, and trained some more, until she became a full agent. Thanks to Amara’s particular brand of magic, she was put on dozens of missions in multiple roles. She would run overwatch during stakeouts while her phantoms did ground patrol, direct gunfight in eliminations, and evacuations when no one else was available. It was rough, but Amara found it fulfilling, so she kept climbing.

Eight years in the PRA turned her into a senior agent. But after climbing the ladder so long, after getting involved in so much of the broader operations, Amara’s appreciation for her line of work had faded. At a higher level, the PRA were just like mundane cops, more concerned for stamping everything out and disregarding others to make ends meet. All too often she’d argue with her superiors about the right course of action, about whether or not a cursed Blind should be killed for everyone’s sake or whether or not an adept who was just defending themselves should be put away for life. Little things added up, and the PRA’s absolute lack of accountability meant she could only take things up with internal affairs, who never gave a shit.

Amara found herself at a fork in the road. The PRA weren’t the good guys to her anymore, just a bunch of heartless pricks. So one day, after her missions became shittier and shittier, she tossed her badge in her boss’s face. Amara walked out and quit, but she doesn’t know what she’s doing anymore. Just like years ago, she was winless again. Amara settled down somewhere, bought a house and decided to take a break from things while she got her life together. Months later, she got a call from Auri, telling her about the murders. Amara was hesitant at first, and only told Auri she would consider coming back. But after a week or two to think about it and get her things into a suitcase, she’s coming home.

TYPE ⫻ Aberration, Adjoined

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Army of One

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ The All-Verse is a theoretically infinite place, with counterparts of every single person spanning across them. In one of these universes, a counterpart of Amara died, and became the progenitor of the Army of One. Amara bonds with other version of herself from across realities, allowing all of them to work together. The Army of One consists of every single dead counterpart of Amara in all of existence, and has the ability to bond with the living, who will then join the collective in death themselves. Every Amara across the All-Verse shares a few universal constants: They protect others, show no fear in the face of disaster, and die for what they believe in.

Living and dead Amaras are separated into two categories for convenience, soldiers and phantoms respectively. This distinction is important to make, since there are quite literally billions of each. As one of the soldiers, the Amara King who occupies Shimmer is connected to the Army of One, and can call on the phantoms to assist her however she may need it. This includes summoning them in a fight, having extra hands for moving things, or managing information. Phantoms can appear at her location the moment they think she needs assistance, and will defer to the living soldiers for direction if they aren't sure what to do. Amara has a numbers advantage up her sleeve at every opportunity, and can always outsource her problem to someone else if she can't solve it herself.

Phantoms are essentially magical foot soldiers. They are fully sentient and sapient, and follow Amara’s orders to the best of their ability. Their strengths lie in using numbers and strategy to solve problems. Where some can throw giant fireballs at their enemies or teleport across the country in seconds, Amara and her phantoms work to execute strategies and methodically come out ahead like a game of chess. Her phantoms are capable of using guns, and fighting with all the other skills that Amara herself has, since they are quite literally her.

Limits ⫻ The Army of One is numerous beyond comprehension, but so is the All-Verse itself. So, to avoid leaving any one universe without backup, every living soldier is only able to call on up to five phantoms at a time. This isn’t a matter of the abstraction’s strength, but is a deliberate decision made by the collective. Therefore, power-boosting abstractions can’t make more phantoms appear. It would take a particularly extreme crisis for an exception to be made, such as the Stygian Snake waking up again.

Also, the phantoms being technically undead doesn’t do anything for their toughness. A solid shot from a gun would be enough to phase a phantom out of reality for a while. This doesn’t kill them, but it does take them out of consideration. Phantoms always emerge from a short distance around Amara, which is important because if one is sent deep into enemy territory, another can’t simply take its place right on the spot after someone shoots them.

WEAKNESSES ⫻

Anyyyything else?

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Ken's family was killed. By whom? Ultimately he's still trying to figure that out. Most of his adult life has been spent tracking the trail of his family's artifacts and protecting the Emperor from their Fiends meant to prevent his progress. While he loves his Second Family in the Sycamore Tree Coven, he loves the idea of avenging his clan and restoring it to an honored position just a bit more. Despite his pleas, the other Palette Clans are in no open position to help, and as such his ultimate goal is to achieve that revenge and redemption himself. Isolated from his culture and hiding in an equally strange world of magic, one day he will return to the way of life he was born into. He has vowed this not only to the Emperor, but to the spirits of his Family which he carries close.
But for now, something new is Amiss in St. Portwell, his refuge from the charred remains of his temple, and perhaps it will lead to new clues in his ultimate journey.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Ken is a person who knows loss. He knew it before Father Wolf, before the Stygian Snake even. While he can empathize with those who have lost loved ones in the most recent tragedy, he is a man who is isolated somewhat by his own pain. As a teen, when he assisted with the War against the Snake, he still knew the joy of his people's mutual love and respect for the trials they together knew. He hoped one day that he would lead the branch, but not in the way he does now. Living his life in hermitage, traveling from Verse to Verse like a wandering hunter in search of prey, these tendencies only serve to remove him further from the cycle of life that many of his dear companions know.
In spite of this, his bonds with the Adepts of St. Portwell were born of better, simpler times. These feelings still drum up feelings of great love and ultimately pride. He considers himself lucky to be included among them, and when he is among his Covenmates, he manages a jovial and friendly outward-facing demeanor that somewhat diffuses his otherwise intense desire for action.

SECRETS ⫻ There's only one big secret that Ken makes sure is kept no matter what: Where he's been. Only a select few of his closest Covenmates even have a clue that he travels like he does, and he makes it a point to insure that they stay as uninvolved in his private family business as possible. Not only does he not trust them to keep the artifacts of his family safe should he find any, but he believes his secrecy on the matter is a key factor in protecting his Covenmates and preventing his greatest fears from coming true. Aside from that, he is hiding a small stash of artifacts that are not involved with the Coven; rather he uses them as bartering currency with Adepts of other Verses in order to get vital supplies on his long excursions.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Lonely? Please hold him, he's sad.

FEARS ⫻ While previously alluded to, Ken's greatest direct fear is the repetition of history: That due to his meddling with forces beyond himself, he'd stumble upon something that would give his enemies reason to target his friends. Despite his drive for revenge, Ken wouldn't be able to live with himself if that quest were to fall back on his Covenmates. After all, none of them deserved it. In response, Ken isn't an overly welcoming individual when it comes to his personal property or personal space if he's meeting the occasional familiar face outside the Shimmer. Beyond this, he has Emperor Toad to worry about, who isn't fussy about offerings but is most certainly fussy about feeling protected. Thus, there are certain occasions where he will ask trusted friends to stay in his cabin and protect the Emperor and his new shrine hidden in the nearby hills outside St. Portwell. Both parties are left fairly lonely without one another, despite their vaguely antagonistic.

REPUTATION IN OLD COVEN ⫻ In the days of the War against the Stygian Snake, Ken's position was strange. He was, by all accounts, a hostile combatant at first. Some key Sycamore Tree members had "gathered" artifacts that belonged to the Palette Clans. It was Ken's first assignment to track the thieves down and bring the artifacts back. When he arrived, he made his pursuit, but found that those thieves who had absconded with the artifacts were using them to combat a Grand Apparition: A Multiversal threat, and something that permitted him to exercise his right among the clans to authorize the temporary requisition of the items in question. From there, he became a willing ally and eventually a well liked, but somewhat isolated, member of their ranks.

ROLE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE STYGIAN SNAKE ⫻ Ken played a role of advisor and combatant, assisting and working with other Coven Members who were struggling to develop and control their Lux. While the more gifted flaunted their skills, Ken worked with the rest to make sure that when the time came, everyone would be pulling their weight. In the climactic conclusion, the final battle, Ken's own natural talents shined as he reached deep into the Emperor's Kingdom to summon the Imperial Toad Court: Powerful Apparitions attached to the Gama Pact who provided stalwart defenders and fierce attackers in the final effort.

FLAWS ⫻ Ken's so used to being alone and doing things his own way that he rarely has the mind to make contact with a friend on his own, never mind including them in his plans or adventures. While the gentle guiding hand isn't gone, Ken has lost a great deal of patience since the massacre of his clan, leading him to make more rash decisions with less patience and a lot less concern for his safety. While he knows he has duties, there's a near bloodlust that he feels when he thinks of his desire for revenge, and it urges him ever onward toward danger that he's often unsure of his ability to overcome. Therefore, it may be just a hair worse that he's become somewhat cocky about it all; that his continued risk taking has wounded him gravely but he simply has no plans of stopping. In a strange way, he wonders if he actually likes what's happened to him.

Kenshiro Murakin isn't from St. Portwell. He's not from America, or even the continental North America. His past has little baring on the local area, and were it not for one incident some twelve years ago involving theft of one of his Clan's ally's most sacred scrolls of Sealing, the two locations would never have been connected. However, some teenagers in a city called St. Portwell were having Apparition troubles. That same time, Ken was coming into his own as a man of his clan; and he was being trusted to reconcile the problem. Due to his gifts and talents, he was selected as part of the team and dispatched to track the thieves to their source. When they arrived in St. Portwell, a strategy of blending and patient waiting was adopted, leadership opting to wait for the scrolls to be used in order to best track their position by the nascent energy they were filled with.
A week passed before they were wrapped up in a conflict that they had never intended to be wrapped up in; a conflict which led to an ominous situation as only Kenshiro managed to escaped from the attack by the Stygian Snake with his life intact. It turned out he only escaped because of the efforts of the Sycamore Tree Coven; the very same small army of young people who managed to steal the scrolls he was looking for. Understanding that his own allies had perished at the hands of the danger here in St. Portwell, Ken decided to dedicate himself to assisting in their plight and overseeing their usage of Clan property until such a time that the threat was eliminated. While he was unable to bolster their effort with more bodies beyond his own, he relished in being able to display a natural sense for instruction to an audience who was not only willing, but in dire need of trained guidance.

Kenshiro became Ken, had English imprinted into him by a Pink Lux user, and despite all the danger in St. Portwell, he had something of a Rumspringa for himself. He discovered the somewhat decadent culture of Western America that he'd been hidden from for so long, and beyond that he had made lasting friendships and relationships with people who accepted him despite his constant culture shock. By the time the Stygian Snake was neutralized and he had to return home to Japan, he didn't want to. He vowed that one day he would come back to St. Portwell as the head of his clan, and he would establish connections between them and the Sycamore Tree Coven.
For a time after his return, things went as normal. Despite his first mission taking almost two years to complete, the Clan Daimyos readily recognized his effort once they were exposed to his memories and experiences through a trusted source. After such an effort, Ken was fast-tracked toward leadership as well as a teaching position of his own. A couple years passed and Ken never made it back to St. Portwell, but he stayed busy as he began his life among his family again. Despite this, his fond memories remained there, though his village's hermited existence prevented the exchange of letters and correspondence from those American Heroes.

One fateful night, Ken's village was attacked. Demons, Fiends, barreled their way through the township under magical camouflage, rending the clan heads and any leadership they could find before stealing the clan scrolls and artifacts and disappearing into the darkness like they'd never been there. Ken and a few other Clan Toughs pursued the fiends into their own realm, but lost them in the endless hopping before they could catch up. They fell into a trap, catching Ken in a moment of foolishness as he expended too much energy to teleport the rest of them to safety.
He attempted to push the teleportation, but as he immerged on the other side, he found that only he had actually made it out. What sprawled in front of him was a scene more horrible than he could have imagined. In their pursuit, the away team had avoided the Cursed Flames that descended upon the village, burning the souls of the people there and leaving a vacant, hollow town of corpses. Bereaved and in fear, Ken rushed for the main temple at the top of the hill, where he found the flames leeching away the essence of their Patron Apparition. Forbidden from adjoining by the pact between them, the great toad accepted being sealed into Ken's Channeler, using his own blood to draw 蝦蟇(Gama - Toad) on the headband's front. Near exhaustion, Ken carried out the sealing and instinctively teleported himself far from that place.

Winding up in the only other place on Earth he felt comfortable, Ken woke up the next morning on a St. Portwell rooftop overlooking the bay facing west toward the Pacific Ocean. He felt like in that moment his life was over: but the power within the headband spoke through their shared Golden Lux energy. Words of encouragement from a soul that had seen his ancestors walk the same Earth that he'd been born to for hundreds of years.
"We have rebuilt before, Grandson. We shall rebuild again. The pact remains unbroken."
He had argued and cursed and raged at the spirit, and the infinitely patient wisdom of the Toad Emperor held its last protector's hand through each step of the grieving process as they came. For a year, the two slept in the wilderness in illegal dugout hideaways as Ken regained his confidence and desire for action. The Emperor, on occasion, recalls being thankful that he'd been sealed as he had, otherwise the faith of his single worshipper may not have been a strong enough tether to the world of cognition... But eventually Ken immerged from the woods and managed to find some of the remaining Sycamore in St. Portwell.

The heartbreak he felt hearing about the schism and how it broke the Coven he loved apart wasn't so bad; he'd come to accept loss of what he loved. But what he couldn't accept was that nobody seemed to want to fight to put it back together. Nobody wanted, he felt, what he wanted. Some tried to pull him into their mundane world hidden among Blinds. He tried to play along for another year or two, but ultimately found that his desire to right the wrongs of the past far outweighed his desire to live in peace. He craved action once more, and despite having found a place that The Emperor accepted to settle into again, Kenshiro craved the taste of his own mountain. Their true home. But he felt he couldn't go; that if he had nothing to restore, nothing to show those dead bones and rotten posts that he was back to reclaim their souls, then there was no reason to go.
His pride in his survival, and his anticipation of a future of his own design: These two emotions gave him the will to cast like he'd never done before, and before long he would begin to use his abilities in order to hunt across the Allverse for the trail of the Fiends who killed his family. Occasionally, Emperor Toad accompanies Ken as a sealed apparition, acting as an amplifier within Ken's Channeler in order to increase the effectiveness of his magic. Ken begs him to do so just about every time he heads across the threshold of realities, but his reckless nature and trigger happy attitude make the Emperor more than a little nervous; thus such a thing is withheld for only the most dangerous and dire situations.

With his latest excursion spanning back before Father Wolf began its rampage across the Sycamore Tree Coven's members, Ken is returning to a situation that he's completely unaware of. Though, he will have text messages and voice messages on the phone he left behind, so his arrival will not be uncalled for. Just unheeded for some time.

TYPE ⫻ Adept

ABSTRACTION ⫻ Purple and Gold Lux, with a metal fronted headband as the Channeler.

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ One would be forgiven for thinking that Ken's abilities come straight out of the panel of a comic or manga; but the truth is that art will always resemble life. Some of the most creative people have their third eye opened, and simply reap the rewards by telling stories of worlds that don't exist to the bulk of mankind. For Ken, the world of "Ninjutsu" is just the native expression of magic passed down through time honored tradition over a period of close to a thousand years of Japanese history. Unlike those mundane Adepts, Ken was brought up Kindled from a very early age, and has since amassed knowledge and mastery over a great number of spells involving his personal affinity, perhaps more than an Adept of his age normally would. Only, Ken hasn't developed a single spell of his own: He's learned every single one from one source or another involved in his upbringing and teaching.

Ken's Spellbook can be boiled down into three disciplines.

The Hundred Scrolls of Master Kai ⫻ All Palette Clan Adepts receive basic educations through the teaching and methodology of the Ten Path Sage, "Miracle" Kai. His famed Hundred Scrolls are a collection of spells he thought that all his disciples across the various Lux Disciplines should learn from, mastering what their abilities permit them to in order to best perform in their particular field. As a Dual-Lux Adept, Ken had the capability to access twenty out of the hundred scrolls, all of which he had at one point mastered; but as some go without material component or consistent practice, they've faded into his memory to be replaced by more complex magics.

• Enlighten: A simple verbo-somatic Purple spell which removes the weight of worn equipment until recast. Can be channeled to increase the effect, turning the Adept or an effected object weightless as well.
• Haste: A somati-material Purple spell allowing the user to increase their perceptive capabilities by warping time for a very small part of the brain. This grants the user vital moments to make micro adjustments to the body and split second decisions with more consideration. Requires small bundle of copper wire for a single use of 3 seconds maximum over a 24 hour period.
• Hazy Doppelganger: Verbo-somatic Gold spell summons a number of minions that are able to mimic a single target object or individual within a meter (3ft) of the caster. Requires an exponential amount more energy per minion and per summon, limiting the overall volume of entities summoned at a given time. They are also entirely ethereal creatures, unable to do any harm and immediately banished once the effected target experiences a sudden change in momentum or if the spell is recast.
• Dummy Buddy: A Verbo-material Gold spell summons a single entity that is of equal weight and size to the caster. The minion is a non-combative entity, cannot defend itself, and is banished a short time after taking damage. Only one Dummy Buddy minion can be summoned at a time, as the only time Dummy Buddies become aggressive is in the presence of another Dummy Buddy. Requires a small vessel filled with wood shavings or clay.
• Send and Receive: A pure somatic Purple spell that swaps the user with an object within a 10m(30ft) radius that is of similar weight to the user. The transition is instant, and will only be successful if the targeted object isn't rooted or bolted down by some force other than its own weight.
• Kai's Caches: This is a somati-material Purple spell requiring a legitimate gold coin to use. A portal is opened to one of Master Kai's many secret caches, where weapons and tools are said to multiply within through magics lost to the Purple Clan. Channeling the spell with the usage of additional material will expel a large number of bladed and heavy weapons such as knives, swords, spears and axes. The main drawback is that gold is in short supply, accompanied by a lengthy somatic input that cause some Purple Clan scholars to consider this ability a Ritual Spell.
• Skin Jack: A Gold spell requiring a somati-material input. A minion is summoned that takes on the form of a large, wet cloth that can be stuck to a surface. The Skin Jack acts as a net trap that can be placed to walls, ceilings and floors in order to trap corridors and entryways. Using more of the material component can change the properties of the Skin Jack, making its surface texture smoother or rougher, as well as a version that can be worn over the user's body as a clothing mimic. Requires rawhide string made from predator throats, and only one can be summoned at a time. Summoning a second will banish the first, as will using any other Gold spell while the Skin Jack is deployed.
• Beacon Beetle: A somati-material Gold spell requiring the carcass or molting of any beetle species native to Shimmer. Summons a small beetle attuned to the user's energy, which the user can sense with directional accuracy up to 3km (1.8M) away.
• The Dojo: A Tri-Component Purple spell meant to trap a single touched target in a temporal arena where time is slowed to a comparative crawl. Originally used for assassination attempts, this spell finds use as a force equalizer that allows the user to focus on an individual target in a situation where they would otherwise be outnumbered. Requires a true hourglass to be smashed over the target as both material and somatic components, and covers a sphere of space roughly 30m(90ft) in diameter and traps the target for two minutes, or until they lose consciousness.
• Phantom Hands: A verbo-somatic Purple spell that effects a basic telekinetic "mage hand" effect. Allows objects up to half the user's weight to be picked up and affected by touch spells with a 5m(15ft) range. Channeling this spell applies an effect capable of lifting more weight at a longer distance (1.5x user weight, 15m(45ft) distance), but removes its ability to apply touch spells from a distance.
• Smoke Sprites: A somati-material Gold spell which summons minions made out of smoke. These sprites flit about in all directions horizontal and vertical, spreading themselves thin until they're too wispy to remain associate, at which point the minion is banished. It's a basic level spell that requires a ready-made source of smoke, causing some Gold scholars to debate if it's a Ritual spell or not, which it clearly isn't thanks to technology.
• Observant Ancestors: A somati-material Gold spell that summons a stationary minion in the shape of a small statue that is able to observe its surroundings through sight and sound, and can be given very basic commands in order to use it as an early warning system, subtle spy or even a cunning distraction. The material is generally a fresh meal, and can be substituted for substantial offerings of fruit or other raw foodstuffs.
• Secret Paths to Nowhere: In his time, Master Kai was said to have walked the soil of a thousand realms. Utilizing a Ritual process requiring a sword made of a certain type of metal being resonated at a particular frequency, the user can channel Purple Lux into the blade and form a particular character in the air. This character is cut into the fabric of reality, and corresponding to the thousand realms, one is able to step through the gap and follow Master Kai's secret path to the destination. This spell requires a great deal of energy, leaving the user vulnerable both before and after making a jump between worlds. In addition, Master Kai's pathways are a thousand years old; not all of them lead to places that are safe to be anymore.

The Gama Pact ⫻ His Father before him had been head of the Branch, whose specialty as one of the Noble Gold Boughs was guardianship of one of Japan's Legendary Apparitions, or Spirits as they call them. The Emperor Toad, like his contemporaries tended to beneath the other Boughs, once worked with Sage Kai in developing a pact which would see his patrons worship and protection in exchange for assistance and strength when it was most needed. The Gama Pact is a summoner's guide to the world of Amphibians, and details the Toad Empire in structure like a bestiary or warlock's grimoire. Specific rituals summon greater minions of the Toad Emperor from their marshland realm, while lesser servants are readily available through quick access spells.
While unable to recreate the Hundred Scrolls for personal use, Toad Emperor's consistent tutelage and guidance of Ken has allowed the Gama Pact to live on through its sole heir in its entirety.

• Salamander Jester: A somati-material spell that summons a troupe of acrobatic, fire breathing salamanders that reach close to the 2 foot mark. Occupying the First Ring of the Gama Pact, they are the most basic Toad Empire summon, requiring only a pile of ash to be summoned from as a spawn point. These salamanders, summoned 8 at a time, are generally obedient if not mischievous creatures prone to starting fires after accidentally (or purposefully) harming one another. Under a skilled leader, they are capable of causing havoc at the point of a needle: Their hyperactivity and particularly dangerous fire breathing can make them quite dangerous in certain environments where flammable materials are plentiful.
  The Salamander troop is banished once they've expended their allotted energy through use of their fire breathing, general mischief, or if they've been damaged by anything bigger than a house cat.
• Tree Frog Scout: A somati-material summoning spell calling upon the smallest and most numerous of the Toad Emperor's army. Tree Frog scouts, summoned from the bark of swamp-bound trees, range between a few centimeters wide to around a foot in total diameter depending on the amount of energy used and bark available. While the larger variants are summoned at up to ten a time, and can be found carrying small daggers and other weapons slicked with poison from their deadly excretions, the smaller variants can be called forth up to a hundred at a time, at which point they make up for their lack of weaponry by excreting different reactive chemicals and toxic agents that can form anything from smoke to nauseous gas and even explosive glycerides.
  Large Scouts can remain in a dormant state for up to a 24 hour period taking no energy from the user in that time, and are banished by either taking damage from anything bigger than a badger, running out of their allotted time/energy, or successfully attacking their target. Smaller variants can lay dormant for up to four hours, and can be set off early by any explosive device wide enough to cover the effected area. Otherwise, without immediate direction, the frogs will simply loiter until they expend their energy and collapse without effect.
• Pacman Tough: The first "Upscale" of the Gama Pact, this Ritual spell summons the Bosses of the First Ring. These Pacman Toughs, at between three and four feet wide, are stout district leaders who are summoned when enough of their lesser kin are offered up as a hearty meal. Up to six Toughs can be spawned at once, and each function independently of the other at the behest of their summoner. Once summoned, these toughs do what they're best at, and begin to rough up whatever they're directed toward. If they can't outright pop their target into their mouths and eat them whole, they will bite with steel jaws, punching and kicking with their piston-like limbs until the target eventually disappears among the rain of blood and viscera.
  Their skin, while moist, is thick and layered in fatty tissue making it a nightmare to grapple against them. With all six pummeling a target at once, their strength and tenacity can become overwhelming. Like their lesser counterparts, they will disappear when their allotted energy has burned up over a maximum of thirty minutes. Impact damage will not cause them to disappear, and they must either be crushed entirely, or something must pierce them from inside their gaping mouths.
• Bullfrog Mercenary: A somati-material summoning spell utilizing money as a material component, up to a hundred dollars can be spent to summon ten bullfrog soldiers of various sizes up to four feet tall. These soldiers are equipped with unique weaponry ranging from clubs to spears, and their powerful frames allow them to fight with surprising strength and speed. These humble mercenaries are, under a skilled commander, a well drilled force capable of applying their particular weapons where they're most needed and supporting one another's weak points.
  However, they aren't exactly loyal to the Emperor, and while the summoner's money may be good, there are morale issues that can see them prematurely flee the Summoner's field of influence, banishing themselves back to the realm from whence they came. Otherwise, they are lightly armored and possess basic level Emotional Fields as magical defenses. They can be banished by technical mortal wounds, or if by some miracle they can make it to the end of their energy supplies after up to an hour.
• Toadskin Trooper: A somati-material summoning spell involving a pre-written scroll signed with ink blessed by the Emperor Toad as a material. This sub-contract summons up to 6 five foot tall Rock Toad Troopers equipped in heavy armor. These troopers carry pot-guns; wide-bellied steel cannons that hold grape shot loads alongside powder charges. These Troopers will attempt to maneuver and position in coordination with the summoner and one another, lining up a perfect crossfire to catch the target in. Once voided, the pot cannons become clubs and shields at once, their girth turning mundane blades and firearms with their thickly walled sides while providing a heft necessary to clobber a man to death.
  While armored, it is still old school ceramic plates. Good for deflecting swords and catching bullets, the tiles tend to break and shatter on impact leaving the armor overall less effective as time passes and a fight rolls on. That said, they can take a brutal impact and get back up thanks to their loose skin and densely packed muscle fibers. As with the Pacman Toughs, impact damage without a crushing effect will not banish them; only a significant enough piercing wound applied to the torso or head, or some rending attack that would sever their bodies outright, will banish them. Otherwise, they have a twenty minute contract before returning to their posts elsewhere.
• Goliath Brute: The Second "Upscale" of the Gama Pact, this Ritual spell summons the most robust and single minded of the Emperor's army. The Goliath Brute is summoned one at a time through sacrifice of enough lesser minions of the Second Ring. Standing at just over thirteen feet tall, these massive amphibian berserkers stand on hunched backs and powerful legs and often carry some of the biggest weaponry the Emperor's Armory can supply. While not particularly intelligent or cunning, the Goliath Brute is an unwavering wall of muscle can lift boulders in its arms and crush them with its kicks. They're able to jump with incredible speed to unexpected heights, often letting their weight slam down upon their enemies rather than trouble themselves actually aiming to swing.
  While other summons are banished by some sort of damage threshold, unless this particular greater minion is killed by magical damage or by some act of God in the form of overwhelming physical damage, simple wounds won't be enough. However, the Goliath is a stupid brute that is difficult to wrangle even for experienced Gama Summoners; and as such can be easily manipulated by mind altering Lux energy.
• Cane Guard: A high energy requirement somati-verbal summoning spell summons three Cane Toad Guardians who stand at six foot tall each. These guardians fight to prove themselves to their Daimyo and their Emperor, and are heroes of the Toad Empire. Unlimited in their energy consumption, the guardians draw directly from the summoner's energy. They are completely dependent on the summoner's upkeep, and piggyback off the emotional field in order to adeptly defend themselves from magical attacks. All three guardians are skilled warriors equipped with the finest weapons in the Toad Emperor's Armory, including metal/ceramic armor and vibrating steel swords meant to convert kinetic energy into independent sawing power.
  While these skilled and patient combatants are able to hold their own against low level Adepts and Apparitions, they're difficult to hang onto for very long as a summoner, as they require a constant channel of one's own energy to continue their pressured onslaught against a target or targets.
• Salamander Priestess: A difficult to perform somati-material summoning spell requiring the dust of pearls to be sprinkled into water blessed by the Emperor Toad himself. The Salamander Priestess, unlike her lesser kin, is a composed giant salamander woman standing just over five feet tall. Calling upon the resonant energy of the Toad Empire's hidden realm, the priestess is able to mend wounds and reinvigorate bodies for a short five minute period of time before she begins to go on about how it'll be noticed if she's gone any longer. After that, she elects to leave the influence area of the summoner and is banished to her realm.
  Otherwise, any damage done to her or unfavorable conditions in weather such as too extreme of a temperature or too dry of an environment will cause her to expend energy at an accelerated rate. If it's intense enough, it just plain counts as damage and the Priestess' pampered form disappears back into the smoke its summoning caused initially.
• Cane Daimyo: The final summoning of the Gama Pact's Third Ring, this Ritual spell requires the presence of the Emperor Toad directly, as well as two Salamander Priestesses and a Cane Toad Guardian. While the two priestesses channel energy directly from the Emperor into his chosen champion, the summoner is swallowed in order to pass along Lux directly to them. Saturated by Lux, the Toad Emperor is able to remold the Can Guard into his own image. This Daimyo is directly linked to the Summoner like a mirror puppet, and the two entities share an equalizing of energy as one nears the point of adjoining.
  With the influence of the Emperor, a barrier is kept between the two entities that never lets them fully adjoin. While their combat ability is significantly increased as a duo, the overall energy constraint of this final summoning is exponentially higher than any other as the Daimyo uses its chameleon-like ability to copy and mimic spells with the summoner's Lux. In order to maintain the symbiosis, both Priestesses must remain alive and summoned, meaning that once their allotted energy is depleted, the Daimyo cannot remain in the Shimmer and is banished like any other dead minion.

Ten Ton Takedo's Teachings ⫻ Lastly, as the nephew of the Purple Clan's main branch household, Ken was permitted to study advanced combat techniques designed for Purple Lux Adepts by one of the venerated Tournament Kings. His great great granduncle, "Ten Ton" Takedo, developed a signature style of Aikido utilizing Purple Lux's propensity toward Telekinetic power. From there, Takedo further molded it for practical use on the field, incorporating Karate, Jit Kun Do and weapon training. Unlike general spellcasting, the specific usage of these powers requires a particular somatic stance to be drawn with the body, as well as unique breathing techniques being implemented.

• Ready Stance: The most basic stance in Takedo's school, Ready Stance allows the Adept to better circulate their Lux through the body by manipulating one's frame into a position where breathing is easiest. In this stance, both legs are spread apart in an A frame shape, while both arms are held up at chest level and winged outward. The fist and the hand meet one another in the center of the chest. All other stances of the school are derived from this neutral position, and for a competent Adept, it should be easy to manipulate oneself into a better position.
  Attempting to cast Purple spells from this stance decreases their overall draw on the body's energy stores and allows more than one to be channeled at the same time.
• Offensive Stance: Assuming a low ready position, this stance instinctively shifts the Adept's Lux flow toward the arms and the legs. This facilitates a more effective style of striking and grappling as verbal shouts and grunts are used to project telekinetic force in different ways. Most commonly, strikes are given additional power and a short range increase by casting matching telekinetic blasts simultaneous to the Adept's own blows. If range doesn't matter, telekinesis is used to manipulate the mass density of the limbs which increases the damage of direct strikes.
  For more range, a small wormhole style portal can be generated mid swing with the fist entering the hole and one spot and leaving in a completely different place.
• Defensive Stance: This is the core that the entire school was predicated and built upon when Ten Ton Takedo began his journey. A stance hand built for strike redirection and ultimate defense, the Adept assumes a low guard position that transitions smoothly with its counterpart the Offensive Stance. With the stance tightened, Lux distributes itself toward the epidermis with each deep and intentional breath the Adept takes, creating strong anchor points for telekinetic padding and temporary shielding to develop. Simply, blows against the Adept are turned away as strong bursts of Telekinetic energy dampen the incoming force.
  In addition, the entire body experiences a shift in mass density. A small layer of outward projected telekinesis prevents a second opposing layer from crushing the Adept, and the two form a high density barrier that causes the Adept's physical form to act as if it were an incredibly heavy and dense object.

LIMITS ⫻ For most of Ken's spells, there are very specific material requirements that ask him to be prepared for a situation he may never even get into. Carrying material components for close to twenty spells at all times is just impossible without some serious pocket artifact. Beyond that, some of the material costs are either time consuming and too tedeous to gather or quite literally too expensive, rare or risky for him to supply them often. Alongside that, his combat potential and ability to function hinge on him being able to cast these spells consistently over a long period of time, leaving him playing with his cards close to his chest while he waits for an opening to strike. On the flip side, a great deal of energy can be expended at once if the necessity arises, but this can leave Ken totally exhausted and ultimately defenseless for at least an eight hour period afterward.
As for the Toad Empire's minions and summons, Ken can only utilize one ring at any given time, meaning that if he's summoned Scouts, he cannot summon another minion besides Jesters and so on through the hierarchy.
Utilizing his advanced combat stances is a process entirely dependent on the Adept's ability to freely breath, meaning that if at any point in time he's without oxygen circulation for more than a few purposeful moments at a time, the stance will lose all effect. At that time, the effects must be reapplied.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ Curse of the Natural Order:
In his attempt to save his Guardian Spirit from certain doom, Kenshiro put his life and well-being on the line. Wretched otherworldly living fires consumed the Lux in the air around their hidden village like a gas leak, stoking incredible blazes of black and blue flames that danced across the corpses of the dead. In his escape, it was inevitable that he would make contact with these cursed flames, and so a curse was passed along to him in turn.

Whether the flames had twisted humors or they were made for something like this specifically, the curse placed upon him is both poignant and deadly. Specifically linked to the usage of Gold Lux, this curse piggybacks Ken's own energy, occasionally sapping it from his body. This wouldn't be so detrimental if the Lux simply went to waste, but the Curse is both a leech and a saboteur.

With the likelihood of effect rising in tandem with the amount of Lux sapped, this bleed-off is redirected through the curse's complex and arcane formula into a summoning all its own. The spell produced by the Curse ushers in a Fiend of varying degrees of complexity dependent on the amount of energy expended by it. This Fiend hails from a world so far inaccessible to Ken, whose masters are those he believes slaughtered his kin, and will actively focus their attention on him and any active summons he's arranged.

While the initial effect doesn't prevent its associated summoning from happening, this isn't necessarily a good thing: With some of his spells requiring multiple previous successful summons to work, the result of a single high level Gold spell being the Curse's trigger can result in a double-casting, both draining Ken of all his Gold Lux reserves and potentially harming him by overdrawing from his vital energies directly.

Face Claim is Shuntarō Yanagi, whose movies I have never seen.
Ken is my anime love letter stamped and delivered to the Recollection Allverse.
The Emperor Toad is NOT being targeted by the Temple of Charming and Graceful Individuals.