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“The presence of chakra in our world is not a gift - it is a judgement.”
“No, it is not a judgement. It's a test. To seek out who is worthy of wielding power..”
“.. a judgement of true character and kindheartedness.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
“ＯＯＣ”
- No godmodding, powerplaying or making shit up in the IC. The standard stuff.
- No perfect characters (Mary Sue and Gary Stu).
- GM team has final say. Always. Like a certain regime in a certain time period. Ahem.
- One-lining not acceptable. Two lining isn't either. In fact just write two paragraphs.
- Consistency is key. We understand posting a little less sometimes. There's limits, though.
- RPG rules apply. Always.
“ＩＣ”
- Beware the gore; yes, it's allowed but don't overdo it. No blood showers.
- As for sexual content, take it to PM's and show us a fade to black; make it implied. What you do privately isn't our concern. It's RPG's concern, however, so suggest you abide the RPG rules.
- Death is possible. For all characters. Including GM characters. We love death.
- Love is also possible. Gay love, heterosexual love, alien love, whatever you want.
- Feel free to use images to illustrate - however, please consider that a written description is also required.
“Ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒ”
- Your character is a chunin or genin, or in rare cases, a jonin, but not Madara. No EMS, Rinnegan, whatever the hell you can think of. Keep it simple, but interesting.
- Be diverse and dynamic with creating your characters; don't be set in stone for what you want and be prepared to change your ideas as we go. This means; don't be an asshole if you don't get what you want. Either scrap the idea or change it to our liking.
- No tailed beasts for now. Why? Because you need to earn it ICly with our acceptance, not be gifted it. Nothing says 'I'm a bad writer' more than instantly writing in 200 of the most powerful things in your character.
- Kekkei Genkai are to be made unique. If they are Sharingan with 1 minor edit made into a new KG, then it's a no-go.
- Same applies to hiden. If they are shadow control with 1 minor edit, then it's a no-no.
- No elemental control kekkei genkai please. Overdone, this is Naruto, not Avatar. If you can make it interesting, try it, but if your KG is simply 'I can control the water' then we're not gonna accept it period.
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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.
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Note: N/A in front of a rank means 'no limit' within reason. You can use as many of these as you like although that doesn't mean you have to use every one of them. They also need to make sense. A character with an aptitude for high level lightning jutsu will probably have more of these N/A lightning jutsu than fire jutsu. Simple as that.
“Ｇｅｎｉｎ”
“Ｇｅｎｉｎ”
- 0 A-rank.
- 1 B-rank.
- 2 C-rank.
- 2 D-rank.
- N/A E-rank.
“Ｃｈｕｕｎｉｎ”
- 1 A-rank.
- 3 B-rank.
- 4 C-rank.
- N/A D-rank.
- N/A E-rank.
“Ｊｏｕｎｉｎ”
- 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.
“Ｋａｇｅ”
- 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.
Note: Kage-level characters will not be judged on their jutsu lists or anything of the sort, they will be judged on identity: are they interesting, are they worthy of the kage-level stamp and do they serve a good, useful purpose? That's because once you reach jonin status, it becomes really quite easy to pass into kage-level areas, and beyond kage there are no ranks. That means the power levels within kage-level characters fluctuate heavily.
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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.
