Looking pretty good so far! As an initial minor nitpick though, his "Affiliation" would automatically be Konoha and Akimichi Clan, since it accounts somewhat for how others perceive their allegiances. If any of those are ones he is secretly against (like in the case of a double agent PC), you could specify (True) or (False) additionally.
@Lewascan2 What would Calorie control fall under? It's not technically a bloodline limit or chakra affinity.
It could theoretically be copied if taught to someone else (or otherwise stolen), but that's largely mitigated by the fact that said justu is only viable if you're willing to go full W I D E like the Akimichi in order to have enough spare calories to actually make it useful and not potentially dangerous to yourself. It's got limited use, and the Akimichi basically have the market cornered on what it's used for. I'd also note on this topic (as I think I see what you're getting it specifically) that I used the word "usually" as far as being unable to be duplicated by outsiders. So, you'd still put Akimichi techniques in Bloodline, which is intended to include "Hiden" jutsu as well.
I'll edit the Bloodline section to be a little clearer on this front, I think. Thanks for asking that.
@Eobard Thawne@Gerlando@Duthguy@Letter Bee Glad to have you (or at least have your interest)! XD Feel free to shoot me some character concepts and any other questions you might have if you have something brewing already.
An Isekai Upon This Land of Accursed Tropes- Naruto Mass-Isekai CS
Name: Nabiki Uchiha [Hannah Livingston] Titles: None. Gender: Female. Age: 0 Affiliation: Konohagakure Village, Uchiha Clan. Physical Description: Coal-black hair and eyes, as is typical of her ancestry. Will likely peak at 5’5-7” in height at adulthood. Hair grows to hang straight and be kept roughly chin-length.
Personality: Cautious and suspicious, yet usually outwardly silver-tongued and sardonic, Nabiki is a naturally private girl that is -at least in a general sense- fairly pleasant and amiable, yet possesses a sharp tongue and occasionally spiteful temper, along with a rather ruthless sense of justice. She is creative and fairly power-hungry, determined to exploit this new life to her best benefit and achieve immortality (or the closest she can manage). Though she is no sociopath, she has a frightening talent for dehumanizing those that meet certain criteria, allowing her to deal with them callously. It can be said she means well in the end, but she is certainly an example of power revealing one's true nature.
Likes: Sweet and spicy food, reading and writing fiction, sparring, gaining power, discovering secrets and acquiring knowledge, the thrill of specifically doing and getting away with something she shouldn't, seeing "justice" done unto evil.
Dislikes: Pumpkin flavored anything, bitter food, wind messing up her hair, infringements on freedom and human rights, Genjutsu, being humiliated or humbled, the military, being beholden to any authority she did not specifically choose and approve of.
Fears: Death, threats to her mind, selfhood and free will.
Dream: Immortality... probably. Before, she lived day to day and hobby to hobby, never quite sure where she wanted to end up at the end of it all. She just knew she wanted to be happy in the end. So, maybe if she can just give herself endless time to figure things out, the answer will be revealed to her.
Short Biography: Hannah never had much in the way of grand ambitions in her past life. She'd worked a number of minor, mediocre jobs but never really found a true calling in life. One could perhaps call her a drifter, a jack of several trades, master of none, who preferred to indulge online hobbies. Her flighty attitude led her to never want to settle for one thing and fully commit out of a professed desire to "not spend her life on something she wouldn't enjoy". Yet, in the end, she could never find that one thing that sparked her interest and so languished in mediocrity. The things she was truly passionate about didn't make enough money to truly live on or were locked behind time and experience requirements she wasn't able to provide, and Hannah came to believe somewhere in her heart that -in many ways- she was simply born in the wrong era. She was adrift and aimless, struggling to find a path and growing more concerned and downtrodden the longer it evaded her. The beginnings of depression and hopelessness were beginning to creep in by the time she met her untimely demise and was brought before Kami.
Once the initial fear and panic were worked through, Hannah saw the opportunity for what it was, recognizing the world Kami described. Grief largely set aside, she made the choice to be reborn into the Uchiha Clan of Konohagakure in the only family that she had any surety would be mostly safe if things went as they were originally destined to, and so, she would be born as the younger sister of Itachi and Sasuke Uchiha, one year the junior of the latter. Born in a time of grief, recovery and reignited grudges, Nabiki sits at the epicenter of a brewing calamity. After the recent attack of the Nine Tailed Fox, the Uchiha (whose eyes have been historically known to be capable of controlling it) have been placed under great suspicion and observation, forced to all live in a single section of the village and stewing in increasing resentment and hatred from the undeserved mistrust and isolation.
Her online experiences delving into various escapist stories and fandoms mean Hannah was very well acquainted with the Naruto setting, canon and fanon alike. Well... pre-Boruto anyway. While she's aware vaguely of a few particularly crazy things that went down, she mostly knows nothing about the sequel to Shippuden and generally prefers to pretend it doesn't exist.
Inventory:
None yet.
Skills:
Languages - English and Japanese: Having a language that (presumably) doesn't exist in this new world allows her the advantage of making unique coded messages that (among other things) would only be immediately legible to other PCs. Having learned enough Japanese to parse the more archaic local version, she has the early opportunity to spy on conversations that wouldn't be held in front of anyone but a baby and can waste spend less time on learning the local version of Japanese fully, furthering her "Genius" reputation.
Calligraphy: While her dexterity has naturally temporarily suffered due to her age and physical abilities, writing was Nabiki's passion in her past life, and while most of that was done using keyboards, learning Japanese correctly required a steady hand to depict kanji and hiragana. She is therefore a deft, practiced hand with articulating the local linguistics, and if she wanted to, she'd find herself having an easier time with Fuinjutsu (at least the drawing of it) than the average person.
Poker Face/Acting/Manipulation: A result of roleplaying and being in many customer service industries in her life, when she actually tries, Nabiki is an able manipulator and deceiver, having even been told in her past life she was "quite the negotiator". Concealing her true feelings is second nature to her, and "playing a part" is something she can slip into like putting on her favorite shoes, wearing whatever face she needs to in order to get what she wants.
Martial Arts: At one point, due to increasing disillusionment with cerebral pursuits, Hannah pursued Tae-Kwon-Do and generally found it to her liking, enjoying the feeling of self-improvement and the ability to vent her burgeoning battle junkie tendencies under controlled conditions. Owing to her nature as a drifter, however, she advanced decently high but never committed enough to reach black belt, bowing out before the finish line. Despite this, she got far enough to successfully attain an instinct for the "flow of battle" as well as largely ridding herself of the burden of hesitation inflicted by a peaceful society. As a result, if she were ever to get into a real fight, especially one of life and death, she would immediately resort to ruthlessly efficient violence, rather than freezing or cowering like the average civilian.
Tropes:
Early Sharingan: The combined trauma of a violent death and being reborn awakens her bloodline at birth from the stress. Grants access to the Sharingan at its first stage, but this obvious awakening draws undue attention and expectations even before she can walk.
Chakra Sensitive: A combination of awakening her bloodline limit -experiencing the draw of chakra- early as well as her memory of a life without chakra makes her particularly aware of the presence and flow of chakra from even an early age, able to feel it far more distinctly and intuitively than the common person. Allows her to manipulate chakra with greater finesse and could likely make her a skilled future sensor if she chose to pursue it.
Chakra Affinity:
Fire (Uchiha) and Wind (Personal).
Bloodline Limit:
Sharingan (One tomoe): While active, provides (at a basic level) chakra sight, near perfect memory of things seen with it, the perception of the world in slow motion, prediction of movements, copying jutsu and -with eye contact- the ability to use the Sharingan as a Genjutsu casting focus without any other motions or hand-signs.
Jutsu:
None yet.
Current Goals:
Short Term: Survive and gain power and independence. Survive and/or avert the Uchiha Massacre.
Long Term: Escape the shinobi system and live life to the fullest. Gain immortality if at all feasible.
Extra: Any bonus trivia you feel it might be neat to include could go here in this totally optional section. If you have any music you used as inspiration for character creation or other tunes that serve as themes for them, feel free to include them too.
It started, as many such tales tend to, with a crash. More specifically, the sort of crash that results when one decides to introduce a fleshy unsuspecting human and a high-speed construct of metal into the same general area. The sort of crash that results when a roller coaster doesn’t get as much maintenance as it should. Or when Truck-kun or Ambulance-kun decided today was your lucky day! This was, needless to say, neither pleasant or painless as far as ways to go for you.
Not for any of you.
Yet, without warning, you soon find your drifting, disembodied soul pulled into a space between spaces, a mysterious goddess -introducing herself only as “Kami”- beseeching your group of misfortunate souls, taken before your time, for aid in saving her world. Unfortunately, she has little to offer you, she claims, in terms of rewards other than the chance to live again (which some might say is a pretty good deal all on its own).
Kami tells your disembodied souls a tale of woe, of a terrible future gone mad, as the natural course of Fate and Destiny was suddenly and mysteriously twisted into an warped mess. She is unable to perceive the cause, nor oppose it directly. According to her, divine treaties presently prohibit the gods from interfering overtly in the mortal plane; yet, what is occurring now, she suspects, can only be the work of another of her kind breaking the covenant. Because of that, she now has a bit of room to work with.
Which is where you come in.
Kami presents herself as the Lifegiver, the master of the Wheel of Reincarnation and the flow of souls. Through this, though she cannot strike living beings in the world dead directly, she has the capacity to incarnate souls into new bodies. Even under the divine treaty, she has retained this much authority to interfere with the world, according to her natural role. Once a soul enters her realm, she has free reign, and she's prepared to reincarnate all of you into her world with your past life memories intact, hoping your presence can disrupt whatever terrible plans may be afoot for her realm.
Naturally, questions are asked by several, and thankfully, Kami had some answers to give. She is able to describe her world and some of the recent events that have occurred on its surface, and upon her doing so, several of you certainly don't fail to notice how familiar it sounds. Kami cheerfully explains that such knowledge is exactly why she has chosen you, knowing that most of you have a rough idea of how things should have been destined to go in the future... and subsequently will be some of the best to identify what is wrong where Kami's clouded sight cannot.
For those that think to ask, Kami provides that she can at least catalyze a reincarnation into a specific family or bloodline; though, she can only do so within a certain reason and only after a certain point in time, unable to precede the Nine Tails attack on Konoha. For those that care less, Kami promises to reincarnate them as close together as she can arrange, so that her champions can most easily unite. Any questions about incarnation into new bodies are rebuffed gently but firmly. Your old bodies are dead, and -more importantly- lack the local chakra systems. The best way to acquire the local tools to survive is to start from the ground up.
And so it would be that for those that heard Kami's plea and chose to accept, you awaken soon after in the body of a wailing infant, a bright and dangerous new world laid out before you to flourish in... should you be up to surviving it.
INFORMATIONAL
In summary, potential players, what you are looking at is a Naruto Mass-Isekai, as a group of unwitting reincarnates soon come to find that the world they might have first assumed was canon... has been warped into something one might define as a "Bad Fanfic abomination", rife with exploitable tropes and fanon. The world's Fate and Narrative sport grave wounds, as the future twists under the machinations of an unknown overarching threat.
Tonally speaking, this RP is potentially to have a few dark or possibly disturbing and/or mature themes, especially several themes that are rather unnerving if you remove them from the vacuum of an eye-rolling "bad fanfic" and actually had to deal with them in reality (if you've had any experience with Naruto fanfiction, you can probably guess what I mean). That's not to say there's isn't room for humor, of course, but the tone of the world definitely leans more to the serious than comedy. Essentially, we aren't writing crack here, and the world won't generally respond amiably if it isn't taken seriously. In fact, in a sense, you could say the world takes itself too seriously in general, deliberately evoking cringe edginess in accordance with the corruption caused by Bad Fanfic Tropes.
This is functionally an open-world sandbox, where the endgame is shaped by the actions of the PCs. To help facilitate the feel of a "collaborative story", players are given a lot more control over the world than you might normally expect, able to create or manipulate NPCs and be the direct cause of major events (within a certain reason). This structure is largely to take much of the burden of micromanaging such an expansive world off myself and allow things to flow more smoothly, without a single poster (myself) being the crux of interactions with the world. Of course, there's limits, and important NPCs, like the Third Hokage, notable villains and most named characters, are generally the domain of only GMs to portray unless permitted otherwise.
Speaking of GMs, knowing myself as I do, I know my muse is a fickle creature, and it's not guaranteed that my inspiration will hold completely steady at all times, which could lead to unfortunate and undesirable delays. To mitigate this, I'm in the market for some co-GMs to help run important NPCs and plan world events. If my muse takes me elsewhere or IRL otherwise drains me too much to write, I'd like to have backups that can keep things ticking in the meanwhile.
If you are totally new or otherwise inexperienced with the Naruto fandom, don't feel afraid to join anyway. Playing a reincarnate without metaknowledge or localized savvy is perfectly viable too and adds some extra flavor to the cast. This RP concept welcomes all comers, so don't be afraid to ask questions if you need any quick or dirty lore drops to help participate.
If all that sounds like a good deal to you, here's some more details on how I hope for this to work.
1.) Cooperative storytelling comes first. Above all else, in concept, this RP is preferably more of a collaborative story than it is a proper RP. Everyone has the freedom to do their own thing, but they should at least make it interesting and be aware of how their actions might affect other players' enjoyment. At least, that's how I'd like it to work, but only time will tell.
2.) I won't tell you not to power-game within the bounds of reason, as this setting's power system is rather... flexible at the upper levels. Powerful characters will be permitted. Of course, you need to justify the growth of that power sufficiently IC, but generally speaking "overpowered" isn't a taboo concept, given the party's primary enemy. You just have to work for it, and make sure it's interesting. Be aware that the world won't just roll over for the PCs by default the way it would for a normal "bad fanfic" protagonist; while the PCs have meta-knowledge advantages, they don't innately have fate on their side. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.
3.) Due to the interesting way I want to run this, I actually intend to give players a lot more freedom than the usual fair, even to the point of allowing limited control of NPCs. As long as they are unimportant, no-name or original entities, you largely have free reign as long as you give me a heads up first before introducing a new notable NPC. Allowing players this sort of control takes much of the burden off me having to run such a massive/expansive world. Beyond that, however, leave the results of actions open ended unless given the go-ahead otherwise. Basically, (if it comes up) no auto-hits/dodges against other players or powerful NPCs unless it's already been hashed out OOC. While you can't just go out and control or kill important figures (like Danzo, for example), to random civilians on the street or nameless OC shinobi, you have permission to do whatever... within reason. I'll generally try to leave this up to participant's best judgement, but don't abuse the privilege; the power of hard retcon can and will be used to retroactively nullify anything that steps over the line.
4.) Meta-gaming is discouraged. While the OCs are (unless you choose otherwise) assumed to have at least some level of meta awareness of the Naruto setting, they shouldn't be magical mind-readers, able to adjust themselves to dialogue they shouldn't be aware of, like thoughts or events they didn't personally witness/experience.
5.) Keep it cordial OOC. Nothing complicated.
6.) I generally expect a certain level of writing to help with immersion and legibility for fellow participants. As such, preferred post length is 2-3 multi-sentence paragraphs, but longer posts are encouraged and welcome. That said, a shorter post is better than no post at all, just as long as it moves your character along and responds appropriately to the most critical IC stimuli. At absolute minimum, however, a single multi-paragraph post should be expected to respond sufficiently. In short, avoid one-liner posts or long walls of text.
7.) GM's ruling is final, but that goes without saying. I hope to not need to exercise that much, but the biggest thing I will control wholly is what tropes and world-building the setting has been warped by. Anything that would have major or disruptive setting implications needs to go through me first before being approved.
8.) I won't make any particular posting speed requirements, as in my personal experience, the "obligation factor" has the capacity to damage motivation severely. I'll simply ask participants to try to respect their fellow writers by not leaving them hanging where possible or finding a way to narratively disengage the interaction so things aren't deadlocked if you need to take a hiatus. In short, at least trying to wrap up an existing interaction, no matter how abruptly, before dipping.
A trope as is relevant to this RP is a specific common narrative theme or occurrence, identified and isolated from the story itself. What is defined as a trope is determined by its presence in the relevant media. It's a replication of a narrative tool or warp slotted into other stories. Tropes are effectively storytelling tools, defined by how commonly they appear, sort of like a meme but in a narrative sense.
It's like "this isn't even my final form" is a trope across ridiculous amounts of fiction, expressed any time the seemingly defeated final boss (or protagonist) reveals another power/transformation under their sleeve. That's a trope.
If you read a ton of Naruto (or any fandom's) fanfics and then sat down and listed out several things you read that remained present across all -or many- of those stories, those things would likely be tropes. Like "pink banshee" Sakura, asshole/"hnn" Sasuke, Naruto getting banished, everyone and their grandma going out of their way to use Japanese honorifics, insults or attack names (often badly translated).
You can create your own tropes, of course, but if you're struggling to understand the concept, here's some examples to hopefully get across what I mean. Though, to preface, it should be noted, that many tropes require a certain amount of foundation or particular circumstances to acquire and can't just be chosen like picking a new spell in a video game.
Crystal Memory: Flexible and subjective to the series being used for the insert, this is the trope of the reincarnate/insert somehow always retaining perfect -or at least nearly so- memory of their metaknowledge and past life, unaffected by time and what should be the natural degradation of memories.
Fandom Omniscience: Much like Crystal Memory but much bigger. Rather than the author setting the insert's knowledge at a certain level and leaving it there regardless of developments outside the story to the lore, this plays out almost like the character can effectively just read/watch the manga/series/wiki in their head. Basically, the author probably has those open in another tab.
Chakra Awareness: A classic that manifests in various ways. The trope is that some excuse is made why the MC should be aware of their chakra more keenly than the average person. Usually, this is played out as a hyper-awareness of what they simply didn't have before reincarnating, with chakra basically being a brand new limb that they can't manage to ignore, suddenly being filled and surrounded by it.
Early/Stress Induced Bloodline: The trope of the MC awakening a hidden or condition-gated bloodline due to "exceptional" or stressful circumstances. This trope is usually accompanied by a certain amount of "fudging" the requirements for awakening that certain bloodlines possess.
Yin Chakra Imbalance: Being a reincarnate, with memories of being an adult naturally shifts the chakra balance of these individuals more towards Yin, the spiritual component, than Yang (the physical component) at the moment of birth. This makes them more proficient in techniques that rely more on the spiritual or mind component such as Genjutsu at the expense of having less than average proficiency in pure physical Taijutsu.
Unwavering Precision: Usually a trope with the prerequisite of starting with low chakra reserves. Normally high chakra reserves mean more waste and a harder time with control in casting techniques, and low reserves generally mean the reverse. With this trope, the MC will always maintain the same insane precision they had when they had little to work with, even after they build up their reserves by various or sudden means. Usually, no matter what it is, they never have trouble maintaining their proficiency, almost like they maxed of chakra control as a video game skill.
As far as character sheets go, these may start off fairly basic, but they should be expected to be updated many times as things progress, accounting for any developments to the characters brought about by the IC. I've done my best to cover what should be necessary without bogging things down, but if there's anything in this template you think I've missed that would be particularly important, let me know. I'm absolutely open to potential improvements.
Name: The name they were given upon their rebirth (though, you can include their past name too). Titles: Includes any nicknames they acquire due to their actions, along with their shinobi rank (if acquired). Gender: Self-explanatory. Age: Self-explanatory. Starts at 0. Update as needed. Affiliation: List out any factions they might be a part of (village, clan, etc). Physical Description: You can stick with something basic if you like. An image header is an acceptable substitute for this section. There's no particular need to match an image to their age starting out; you can use a FC that depicts how they will most likely grow up too.
Personality: Self-explanatory, but as a guideline? Try the Kakashi method. Likes, dislikes and dreams for the future. It doesn't have to be in-depth, but at least provide a basic grasp of who the character is. Fair warning, Kami's domain of souls mean she has seen everything about these potential "heroes", and in the pursuit of not actively making the world worse, she will not have provided this rebirth opportunity to anyone that would clearly abuse it and her world for unrepentant evil. Basically, no effectively Chaotic Evil alignments.
Short Biography: This can be as basic as you like, but it should effectively be a short, clear summary of who the character was in their past mundane life. And it should mention what circumstances they've been reborn into in this new world and life. It should also mention briefly how familiar the PC was with the Naruto world/series prior to being reborn.
Inventory: What possessions are important to your character? This can include what they have on them and what they simply have available as an easy asset at home or the like. Most likely starts empty. This would include any weapons, sealing scrolls, tools or other materials they have of particular note.
Holder:
Skills: Both mundane and ninja, update this growing arsenal as needed. You can include skills from your past life, which may potentially provide unique advantages; though, naturally, those skills should be entirely mundane, since your past life lacked any supernatural aspects.
Holder:
Tropes: These are special advantages, unique to this world. They are notably distinct from regular skills and are more like "inherent advantages" or "cheats". It encompasses the act of taking advantage of the warps in reality known as "fanfic tropes". When you have successfully done so, a trope should be added to the list you have acquired. You might start out with a trope or two under your belt right out the gate, depending on your circumstances.
None.
Chakra Affinity: Your chakra affinity is inherent at birth and starts predetermined, allowing you to learn and use jutsu of that type more easily. Given that it's a natural inclination, it's not normally possible to expand your chakra affinity with training, even if you can use other jutsu types, so only one or two elements are usually natural for you. If you're part of a particular bloodline, you may have an additional affinity common amongst your clan.
Holder:
Bloodline Limit: This encompasses any genetically inherited abilities you might have, including the Sharingan, Byakugan, Uzumaki bloodline, Ice Release and Bone Release, amongst many others. These abilities (and the jutsu they often allow) are usually completely unique to your lineage and cannot be replicated even by bloodlines that have the capacity. As far as what to put here, list any bloodline limit you have along with all derivative abilities and jutsu, keeping the latter separate from your main jutsu list. Any clan-unique jutsu -otherwise known as Hiden Jutsu- should go here as well, even if there aren't (technically speaking) derived from and dependent on a bloodline limit to function, like Akimichi and Nara.
Holder:
Jutsu: The bread and butter of the setting, bullshit ninja magic using the cultivated energy of chakra. Update this as you acquire them. Unless allowed otherwise, you should start out with this section empty.
Holder:
Current Goals: Pretty straight-forward. What sort of things are they planning to do with their new life? Optional, but a nice thing to have perhaps; it can help sort of plot out your character's path. Short Term: Long Term:
Extra: Any bonus trivia you feel it might be neat to include could go here in this totally optional section. If you have any music you used as inspiration for character creation or other tunes that serve as themes for them, feel free to include them too.
(This next section may be subject to change, as I'm still trying to strike a particular balance of progression that hopefully avoids any real focus on "stats" or anything really "gamer-adjacent". So, I might not be fully happy with this yet.)
One of the advantages of going fully narrative and starting from zero is that it puts all participants roughly on the same level. No-one starts out overpowered or shining brighter than the rest, and everyone has to work for what they have available at each notable event. You start with (mostly) nothing and have to work for everything, actively writing out how and when you acquired each resource and ability, rather than just throwing out a backstory and claiming you acquired all these [insert assets/powers here] in that time.
The earliest portions of this RP will consist of the PCs growing up, with each year providing them greater and greater capacity to improve themselves across a wide spectrum of possibilities. This "from zero" structure is also meant to help better manage the potential butterflies caused by the PCs actions, but that's a bit of a digression.
As newborn infants, lacking fine control of your bodies or speech. you have very little control in all aspects of your lives, unable to influence the world around you in any meaningful way. There's not much to do except focus inward. To avoid a narrative slog, the earliest years of each PC's life should be possible to summarize in a single post each. That is, from years 0-1, for example, you should be able to succinctly lay out everything you do that year in a single post. That being said, having little else to do can be an advantage for you, being a baby with an adult's mind. Even if the time you can stay awake is limited by your infant body's need to sleep more, the time you spend awake can be used to accomplish one Major Goalpost.
Major Goalposts: There's only so much time to train, so many paths you can walk. Depending on how wisely you spend that time, you can accomplish greatness. As such, you can describe ways you might be aiming to increase your personal capabilities, and GMs can award you Tropes and Traits accordingly as occasional bonuses. As you grow and become more capable, you'll gain the capacity to better manage your time and take on more paths of training, but starting out, you'll only have the capacity to succeed in one or two goalposts a year. Each year increases what you can accomplish in that timeframe until you eventually reach a point where you are operating in much smaller time increments to accomplish goalposts, like months or weeks.
It started, as many such tales tend to, with a crash. More specifically, the sort of crash that results when one decides to introduce a fleshy unsuspecting human and a high-speed construct of metal into the same general area. The sort of crash that results when a roller coaster doesn’t get as much maintenance as it should. Or when Truck-kun or Ambulance-kun decided today was your lucky day! This was, needless to say, neither pleasant or painless as far as ways to go for you.
Not for any of you.
Yet, without warning, you soon find your drifting, disembodied soul pulled into a space between spaces, a mysterious goddess -introducing herself only as “Kami”- beseeching your group of misfortunate souls, taken before your time, for aid in saving her world. Unfortunately, she has little to offer you, she claims, in terms of rewards other than the chance to live again (which some might say is a pretty good deal all on its own).
Kami tells your disembodied souls a tale of woe, of a terrible future gone mad, as the natural course of Fate and Destiny was suddenly and mysteriously twisted into an warped mess. She is unable to perceive the cause, nor oppose it directly. According to her, divine treaties presently prohibit the gods from interfering overtly in the mortal plane; yet, what is occurring now, she suspects, can only be the work of another of her kind breaking the covenant. Because of that, she now has a bit of room to work with.
Which is where you come in.
Kami presents herself as the Lifegiver, the master of the Wheel of Reincarnation and the flow of souls. Through this, though she cannot strike living beings in the world dead directly, she has the capacity to incarnate souls into new bodies. Even under the divine treaty, she has retained this much authority to interfere with the world, according to her natural role. Once a soul enters her realm, she has free reign, and she's prepared to reincarnate all of you into her world with your past life memories intact, hoping your presence can disrupt whatever terrible plans may be afoot for her realm.
Naturally, questions are asked by several, and thankfully, Kami had some answers to give. She is able to describe her world and some of the recent events that have occurred on its surface, and upon her doing so, several of you certainly don't fail to notice how familiar it sounds. Kami cheerfully explains that such knowledge is exactly why she has chosen you, knowing that most of you have a rough idea of how things should have been destined to go in the future... and subsequently will be some of the best to identify what is wrong where Kami's clouded sight cannot.
For those that think to ask, Kami provides that she can at least catalyze a reincarnation into a specific family or bloodline; though, she can only do so within a certain reason and only after a certain point in time, unable to precede the Nine Tails attack on Konoha. For those that care less, Kami promises to reincarnate them as close together as she can arrange, so that her champions can most easily unite. Any questions about incarnation into new bodies are rebuffed gently but firmly. Your old bodies are dead, and -more importantly- lack the local chakra systems. The best way to acquire the local tools to survive is to start from the ground up.
And so it would be that for those that heard Kami's plea and chose to accept, you awaken soon after in the body of a wailing infant, a bright and dangerous new world laid out before you to flourish in... should you be up to surviving it.
INFORMATIONAL
In summary, potential players, what you are looking at is a Naruto Mass-Isekai, as a group of unwitting reincarnates soon come to find that the world they might have first assumed was canon... has been warped into something one might define as a "Bad Fanfic abomination", rife with exploitable tropes and fanon. The world's Fate and Narrative sport grave wounds, as the future twists under the machinations of an unknown overarching threat.
Tonally speaking, this RP is potentially to have a few dark or possibly disturbing and/or mature themes, especially several themes that are rather unnerving if you remove them from the vacuum of an eye-rolling "bad fanfic" and actually had to deal with them in reality (if you've had any experience with Naruto fanfiction, you can probably guess what I mean). That's not to say there's isn't room for humor, of course, but the tone of the world definitely leans more to the serious than comedy. Essentially, we aren't writing crack here, and the world won't generally respond amiably if it isn't taken seriously. In fact, in a sense, you could say the world takes itself too seriously in general, deliberately evoking cringe edginess in accordance with the corruption caused by Bad Fanfic Tropes.
This is functionally an open-world sandbox, where the endgame is shaped by the actions of the PCs. To help facilitate the feel of a "collaborative story", players are given a lot more control over the world than you might normally expect, able to create or manipulate NPCs and be the direct cause of major events (within a certain reason). This structure is largely to take much of the burden of micromanaging such an expansive world off myself and allow things to flow more smoothly, without a single poster (myself) being the crux of interactions with the world. Of course, there's limits, and important NPCs, like the Third Hokage, notable villains and most named characters, are generally the domain of only GMs to portray unless permitted otherwise.
Speaking of GMs, knowing myself as I do, I know my muse is a fickle creature, and it's not guaranteed that my inspiration will hold completely steady at all times, which could lead to unfortunate and undesirable delays. To mitigate this, I'm in the market for some co-GMs to help run important NPCs and plan world events. If my muse takes me elsewhere or IRL otherwise drains me too much to write, I'd like to have backups that can keep things ticking in the meanwhile.
If you are totally new or otherwise inexperienced with the Naruto fandom, don't feel afraid to join anyway. Playing a reincarnate without metaknowledge or localized savvy is perfectly viable too and adds some extra flavor to the cast. This RP concept welcomes all comers, so don't be afraid to ask questions if you need any quick or dirty lore drops to help participate.
If all that sounds like a good deal to you, here's some more details on how I hope for this to work.
1.) Cooperative storytelling comes first. Above all else, in concept, this RP is preferably more of a collaborative story than it is a proper RP. Everyone has the freedom to do their own thing, but they should at least make it interesting and be aware of how their actions might affect other players' enjoyment. At least, that's how I'd like it to work, but only time will tell.
2.) I won't tell you not to power-game within the bounds of reason, as this setting's power system is rather... flexible at the upper levels. Powerful characters will be permitted. Of course, you need to justify the growth of that power sufficiently IC, but generally speaking "overpowered" isn't a taboo concept, given the party's primary enemy. You just have to work for it, and make sure it's interesting. Be aware that the world won't just roll over for the PCs by default the way it would for a normal "bad fanfic" protagonist; while the PCs have meta-knowledge advantages, they don't innately have fate on their side. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.
3.) Due to the interesting way I want to run this, I actually intend to give players a lot more freedom than the usual fair, even to the point of allowing limited control of NPCs. As long as they are unimportant, no-name or original entities, you largely have free reign as long as you give me a heads up first before introducing a new notable NPC. Allowing players this sort of control takes much of the burden off me having to run such a massive/expansive world. Beyond that, however, leave the results of actions open ended unless given the go-ahead otherwise. Basically, (if it comes up) no auto-hits/dodges against other players or powerful NPCs unless it's already been hashed out OOC. While you can't just go out and control or kill important figures (like Danzo, for example), to random civilians on the street or nameless OC shinobi, you have permission to do whatever... within reason. I'll generally try to leave this up to participant's best judgement, but don't abuse the privilege; the power of hard retcon can and will be used to retroactively nullify anything that steps over the line.
4.) Meta-gaming is discouraged. While the OCs are (unless you choose otherwise) assumed to have at least some level of meta awareness of the Naruto setting, they shouldn't be magical mind-readers, able to adjust themselves to dialogue they shouldn't be aware of, like thoughts or events they didn't personally witness/experience.
5.) Keep it cordial OOC. Nothing complicated.
6.) I generally expect a certain level of writing to help with immersion and legibility for fellow participants. As such, preferred post length is 2-3 multi-sentence paragraphs, but longer posts are encouraged and welcome. That said, a shorter post is better than no post at all, just as long as it moves your character along and responds appropriately to the most critical IC stimuli. At absolute minimum, however, a single multi-paragraph post should be expected to respond sufficiently. In short, avoid one-liner posts or long walls of text.
7.) GM's ruling is final, but that goes without saying. I hope to not need to exercise that much, but the biggest thing I will control wholly is what tropes and world-building the setting has been warped by. Anything that would have major or disruptive setting implications needs to go through me first before being approved.
8.) I won't make any particular posting speed requirements, as in my personal experience, the "obligation factor" has the capacity to damage motivation severely. I'll simply ask participants to try to respect their fellow writers by not leaving them hanging where possible or finding a way to narratively disengage the interaction so things aren't deadlocked if you need to take a hiatus. In short, at least trying to wrap up an existing interaction, no matter how abruptly, before dipping.
A trope as is relevant to this RP is a specific common narrative theme or occurrence, identified and isolated from the story itself. What is defined as a trope is determined by its presence in the relevant media. It's a replication of a narrative tool or warp slotted into other stories. Tropes are effectively storytelling tools, defined by how commonly they appear, sort of like a meme but in a narrative sense.
It's like "this isn't even my final form" is a trope across ridiculous amounts of fiction, expressed any time the seemingly defeated final boss (or protagonist) reveals another power/transformation under their sleeve. That's a trope.
If you read a ton of Naruto (or any fandom's) fanfics and then sat down and listed out several things you read that remained present across all -or many- of those stories, those things would likely be tropes. Like "pink banshee" Sakura, asshole/"hnn" Sasuke, Naruto getting banished, everyone and their grandma going out of their way to use Japanese honorifics, insults or attack names (often badly translated).
You can create your own tropes, of course, but if you're struggling to understand the concept, here's some examples to hopefully get across what I mean. Though, to preface, it should be noted, that many tropes require a certain amount of foundation or particular circumstances to acquire and can't just be chosen like picking a new spell in a video game.
Crystal Memory: Flexible and subjective to the series being used for the insert, this is the trope of the reincarnate/insert somehow always retaining perfect -or at least nearly so- memory of their metaknowledge and past life, unaffected by time and what should be the natural degradation of memories.
Fandom Omniscience: Much like Crystal Memory but much bigger. Rather than the author setting the insert's knowledge at a certain level and leaving it there regardless of developments outside the story to the lore, this plays out almost like the character can effectively just read/watch the manga/series/wiki in their head. Basically, the author probably has those open in another tab.
Chakra Awareness: A classic that manifests in various ways. The trope is that some excuse is made why the MC should be aware of their chakra more keenly than the average person. Usually, this is played out as a hyper-awareness of what they simply didn't have before reincarnating, with chakra basically being a brand new limb that they can't manage to ignore, suddenly being filled and surrounded by it.
Early/Stress Induced Bloodline: The trope of the MC awakening a hidden or condition-gated bloodline due to "exceptional" or stressful circumstances. This trope is usually accompanied by a certain amount of "fudging" the requirements for awakening that certain bloodlines possess.
Yin Chakra Imbalance: Being a reincarnate, with memories of being an adult naturally shifts the chakra balance of these individuals more towards Yin, the spiritual component, than Yang (the physical component) at the moment of birth. This makes them more proficient in techniques that rely more on the spiritual or mind component such as Genjutsu at the expense of having less than average proficiency in pure physical Taijutsu.
Unwavering Precision: Usually a trope with the prerequisite of starting with low chakra reserves. Normally high chakra reserves mean more waste and a harder time with control in casting techniques, and low reserves generally mean the reverse. With this trope, the MC will always maintain the same insane precision they had when they had little to work with, even after they build up their reserves by various or sudden means. Usually, no matter what it is, they never have trouble maintaining their proficiency, almost like they maxed of chakra control as a video game skill.
As far as character sheets go, these may start off fairly basic, but they should be expected to be updated many times as things progress, accounting for any developments to the characters brought about by the IC. I've done my best to cover what should be necessary without bogging things down, but if there's anything in this template you think I've missed that would be particularly important, let me know. I'm absolutely open to potential improvements.
Name: The name they were given upon their rebirth (though, you can include their past name too). Titles: Includes any nicknames they acquire due to their actions, along with their shinobi rank (if acquired). Gender: Self-explanatory. Age: Self-explanatory. Starts at 0. Update as needed. Affiliation: List out any factions they might be a part of (village, clan, etc). Physical Description: You can stick with something basic if you like. An image header is an acceptable substitute for this section. There's no particular need to match an image to their age starting out; you can use a FC that depicts how they will most likely grow up too.
Personality: Self-explanatory, but as a guideline? Try the Kakashi method. Likes, dislikes and dreams for the future. It doesn't have to be in-depth, but at least provide a basic grasp of who the character is. Fair warning, Kami's domain of souls mean she has seen everything about these potential "heroes", and in the pursuit of not actively making the world worse, she will not have provided this rebirth opportunity to anyone that would clearly abuse it and her world for unrepentant evil. Basically, no effectively Chaotic Evil alignments.
Short Biography: This can be as basic as you like, but it should effectively be a short, clear summary of who the character was in their past mundane life. And it should mention what circumstances they've been reborn into in this new world and life. It should also mention briefly how familiar the PC was with the Naruto world/series prior to being reborn.
Inventory: What possessions are important to your character? This can include what they have on them and what they simply have available as an easy asset at home or the like. Most likely starts empty. This would include any weapons, sealing scrolls, tools or other materials they have of particular note.
Holder:
Skills: Both mundane and ninja, update this growing arsenal as needed. You can include skills from your past life, which may potentially provide unique advantages; though, naturally, those skills should be entirely mundane, since your past life lacked any supernatural aspects.
Holder:
Tropes: These are special advantages, unique to this world. They are notably distinct from regular skills and are more like "inherent advantages" or "cheats". It encompasses the act of taking advantage of the warps in reality known as "fanfic tropes". When you have successfully done so, a trope should be added to the list you have acquired. You might start out with a trope or two under your belt right out the gate, depending on your circumstances.
None.
Chakra Affinity: Your chakra affinity is inherent at birth and starts predetermined, allowing you to learn and use jutsu of that type more easily. Given that it's a natural inclination, it's not normally possible to expand your chakra affinity with training, even if you can use other jutsu types, so only one or two elements are usually natural for you. If you're part of a particular bloodline, you may have an additional affinity common amongst your clan.
Holder:
Bloodline Limit: This encompasses any genetically inherited abilities you might have, including the Sharingan, Byakugan, Uzumaki bloodline, Ice Release and Bone Release, amongst many others. These abilities (and the jutsu they often allow) are usually completely unique to your lineage and cannot be replicated even by bloodlines that have the capacity. As far as what to put here, list any bloodline limit you have along with all derivative abilities and jutsu, keeping the latter separate from your main jutsu list. Any clan-unique jutsu -otherwise known as Hiden Jutsu- should go here as well, even if there aren't (technically speaking) derived from and dependent on a bloodline limit to function, like Akimichi and Nara.
Holder:
Jutsu: The bread and butter of the setting, bullshit ninja magic using the cultivated energy of chakra. Update this as you acquire them. Unless allowed otherwise, you should start out with this section empty.
Holder:
Current Goals: Pretty straight-forward. What sort of things are they planning to do with their new life? Optional, but a nice thing to have perhaps; it can help sort of plot out your character's path. Short Term: Long Term:
Extra: Any bonus trivia you feel it might be neat to include could go here in this totally optional section. If you have any music you used as inspiration for character creation or other tunes that serve as themes for them, feel free to include them too.
(This next section may be subject to change, as I'm still trying to strike a particular balance of progression that hopefully avoids any real focus on "stats" or anything really "gamer-adjacent". So, I might not be fully happy with this yet.)
One of the advantages of going fully narrative and starting from zero is that it puts all participants roughly on the same level. No-one starts out overpowered or shining brighter than the rest, and everyone has to work for what they have available at each notable event. You start with (mostly) nothing and have to work for everything, actively writing out how and when you acquired each resource and ability, rather than just throwing out a backstory and claiming you acquired all these [insert assets/powers here] in that time.
The earliest portions of this RP will consist of the PCs growing up, with each year providing them greater and greater capacity to improve themselves across a wide spectrum of possibilities. This "from zero" structure is also meant to help better manage the potential butterflies caused by the PCs actions, but that's a bit of a digression.
As newborn infants, lacking fine control of your bodies or speech. you have very little control in all aspects of your lives, unable to influence the world around you in any meaningful way. There's not much to do except focus inward. To avoid a narrative slog, the earliest years of each PC's life should be possible to summarize in a single post each. That is, from years 0-1, for example, you should be able to succinctly lay out everything you do that year in a single post. That being said, having little else to do can be an advantage for you, being a baby with an adult's mind. Even if the time you can stay awake is limited by your infant body's need to sleep more, the time you spend awake can be used to accomplish one Major Goalpost.
Major Goalposts: There's only so much time to train, so many paths you can walk. Depending on how wisely you spend that time, you can accomplish greatness. As such, you can describe ways you might be aiming to increase your personal capabilities, and GMs can award you Tropes and Traits accordingly as occasional bonuses. As you grow and become more capable, you'll gain the capacity to better manage your time and take on more paths of training, but starting out, you'll only have the capacity to succeed in one or two goalposts a year. Each year increases what you can accomplish in that timeframe until you eventually reach a point where you are operating in much smaller time increments to accomplish goalposts, like months or weeks.
I'm going to be honest with Lewis gone and how an OC is such an important part of that ship I'm really struggling to move things on.
I'm not dropping this... I just need to find time to think things through so if anyone wishes to declare their loss of interest feel free.
First of all, I'd like to sincerely apologize for falling off the face of the planet. Had some things taking my attention away for a decent while. Combined with my muse being a fickle little shit, and I ended up dipping without saying a word. And worse, seems I held a lot of other people up in a critical way, which... Damn, again, sorry about that; I feel like a heel.
So, I don't know if this is still going in any capacity, but I can hopefully at least move some things. I dunno if my muse is still with this RP unfortunately, but I'll see if I can get us out of this apparent deadlock above Coruscant.
The Covenant delegation's arrival aboard the Malevolence II was observed with interest and anticipation by its commander. As the alien vessel of rather unique form entered the docking bay, Sinnali's senses in the Force caressed its structure inside and out. It wasn't an act of a tangible sort, of course, but even so, through her blindsight technique, she gradually got a feel for the shape of the ship and found herself appreciating the uniquely sleek contours it displayed.
Despite being rather less "sleek" than their vessel, the aliens that departed it were no less interesting, tall creatures with lanky, deceptively muscular limbs, fleshy mandible-laden heads, filled with teeth, sitting upon long necks. It was interesting to consider them from an evolutionary perspective, as -if she didn't mis-recall- long necks typically were a trait of prey creatures, allowing them to more easily watch their surroundings, like a periscope. Though, the hunched postures these creatures had didn't seem like it might facilitate that movement. Not to mention the glimmering armor... and weapons.
No, Sinnali had seen all manner of biology paired with all manners of culture and capacities. And whatever else these beings were, they were clearly warriors of at least some note; it would behoove her to respect them as such. Not that she'd had any intent of doing otherwise.
Smiling pleasantly, Sinnali returned the bow of one who took the lead, introducing himself as Remas "Be welcome as honored guests and allies in this critical time, Shipmaster Remas and Blademaster Vikti. I am General Sinnali, co-Commander of this vessel. My second, General Grievous, has delegated the arrangements of alliances to me and so shall remain absent for the time being." Nodding to the Covenant leaders and the Jedi, she folded her arms. "There is indeed much to be discussed, and with any fortune, our conveyances will be fruitful."
Finally finished with the pleasantries, Sinnali listened to the Jedi Master Qui-Gon speak, as he provided them an overview of the crisis at hand. Sinnali's pleasant smile faded a bit at the tale of slaughter in the Jedi Temple, replaced with a more somber neutrality. She allowed a small echo of her sympathies to escape her mental barriers in Qui-Gon's direction, as she nodded, one gloved hand rising to pinch her chin.
"My condolences," she finally said, meaning it.
While she had obviously had her issues with the Jedi as an institution and their rigid ideology, the malice she had once harbored for them had long-since faded in its majority. Her grudge was with those who had wronged her specifically, not the Jedi Order as a whole, and despite her Master's schemes, she'd never quite shared his enthusiasm for ending the Jedi... Not that she was planning to stop him, of course, but then again, it wasn't like she'd ever claimed to be a good person. She simply found it to be a shame and a waste to exterminate something so wholly, especially to the degree of discarding their knowledge as inferior simply because it wasn't the Dark Side.
Which was why she couldn't help but be disappointed in the devastation the Replicators had caused. The potential loss of so much knowledge... of so much potential in so many budding Force users... It was a tragedy. Truly.
She raised a brow behind her blindfold, as Teal'c stepped in before any further elaboration on the situation could commence. Bemused, Sinnali received the handheld computer, her other brow rising to join the first, as she felt out the contents. While seeing screens had been something that had taken her a while to figure out as an expansion of her blindsight, once she'd learned to discern colors and even sensations like heat, things got a lot simpler.
Which is why she had little trouble now perceiving the lines of code trailing down the small screen. She blinked in astonishment at the proposal to alter the Ion Cannon's frequency, turning the idea over in her head, as one hand rubbed her chin thoughtfully. She focused on the numbers running across the screen, mulling them over in her head and making a few broad estimations, before slowly nodding.
Turning to Teal'c, she said, "We might be able to. Admittedly, the idea has never been seriously considered before, given that the weapon was already quite sufficient as-is, but recalibrating the Ion Cannon to fire at a different frequency should be possible. In theory." She waggled the handheld computer in her hand. "I presume this has the capacity to digitally transfer those calculations of yours? If so, then best we get them transferred to appropriate personnel sooner than later."
Pausing, she tilted her head and chuckled. "Of course, we'd welcome any further expertise of yours in this matter when it comes to adapting these calculations to our weapon. I would perhaps send you the schematics of the Ion Canon to get a second opinion on compatibility, but I suspect General Grievous would strenuously object to having that data in outsider hands. Security reasons, you know." Shrugging her shoulders with a wry smile on her lips, she added. "Of course, as long as the data doesn't change hands from our systems to another, I don't see any issues with having an expert simply observe it on our own equipment." She shot a glance at the Covenant delegation's landing ship. "We are among technological peers, after all; judging by these calculations, I doubt our Ion Canon is much of anything your universe hasn't seen before, but I'd prefer not to toss protocol aside on a whim."
Noting for the benefit of newcomers, I'm reposting an existing approved PC into the new character tab and not just dropping a new sheet there willy nilly as my submission. There will be a few other sheets likely posted in such a manner as other "legacy" characters that were active before the need to create a new thread arose. XD
"Mou~~! It's a shame really. I gave them everything, you know? The keys to the future, to pull themselves from their filthy rut of pollution and stagnation! They had so much potential, could have revolutionized the world and salvaged their reputation... Instead, they would pervert my work? Use it for war and decimation, rather than creation and advancement? Well, if that's how it is... then they should know they deserve every bit of what's coming to them~." Appearance: A tall, shapely woman with a distinctly unnerving air to her, her gaze almost hungrily taking in everything around her. Her emerald-green hair and oddly colored eyes are "natural", and her demeanor gives off the distinct impression of a predator surrounded by prey. Even when affecting a friendly air, she seems like an opportunistic viper, ready to strike. Dresses extremely eccentrically -even salaciously- in a rather combat-impractical green and black cyberpunk dress, almost as if bragging about her A-Rank status visually, despite not doing so verbally. Rain or shine, formal or informal, she seems unbothered by the conditions and boldly flaunts her body as though she were her own magnum opus... a far from incorrect assumption. Her form is inhumanly "perfect", to an uncanny degree that often sets other humans on edge, ironically imperfect in its perfection. The observant may pick out the utter lack of blemishes on her skin, the way she never needs to bathe for cleanliness except as a luxury, the way she takes far fewer meals than needed, and more besides. Height: 5'10" Weight: 147 lbs. Build: Shapely, but strangely toned.
Name: Lei Qingshe (Jormungandr (black ops codename), The Snake - 6th of The Zodiac) Age: 21 (appears 18) (Born 2001, Year of the Snake) Nationality: Chinese (defector)
Noble Arm Name & Appearance: [Ouroboros], a 5 foot tall green and black cyberpunk tower shield with bladed edges and spikes.
Noble Arm Rank: A
Power: B+ (Creations) Speed: B- (Analysis speed) Range: B+ (Creations) Persistence: D+ (Self-Modifications) Precision: A Potential: D
Due to self/NA modifications and the nature of her NA's power itself, Qingshe's original ratings have become subject to... fluctuation. Her original true classification of B has been, in practice, found to vastly undersell her tactical value, both on and off the battlefield.
Noble Arm Characteristics:
Value: Evolution
Element: [Data] ("Lightning")
Growth: Depth
Type: Support
Range: Variable
Modified -using its own powers turned against it- from its original state as a mere dated tower shield into a cyberpunk construct of the future, Ouroboros is far more resilient than the average Noble Arm, its biotech structure making it capable of withstanding ludicrous force and even visually repairing itself if damaged. It can hover independently of its user's grasp, utilizing a magnetic force to orbit the user, often trailing just behind them. It has basic light-bending cloaking, allowing the user to keep it discreetly summoned. However, that cloaking doesn't hold up under combat conditions where it must physically obstruct an attack. Due to its modifications, it provides basic access to its powers even when not summoned at all.
Considered to potentially be the true core of her Noble Arm's power, Qingshe seemingly possesses some manner of "shadow world" formed of green-black biotech "fluid". Accessed through her malleable shadow, she can seemingly drag targets into it or expel them. It seems to be some manner of extradimensional plane, as teleportation experiments have thus-far failed to take others to or from it. Qingshe seems to have full control of what and who can pass through her shadow when and where she desires, but it is closed and impassable by default. She is known to be one of the most capable of The Zodiac at taking live prisoners, along with being able to transport large amounts of equipment and materials with ease. Those that have reported on their experience within the shadow world have only been able to describe a single room with no exits, furnished most often as either a prison or lab, but there was no sign of the other objects she was known to possess at the time. It is conclusively clear then that Qingshe has some level of control over the shape of her shadow world and that it is both larger than expected and able to "sort" targets she drags into it into separate sections of itself.
The functionality of it is also unknown, but swallowing targets into her shadow also seems to allow Qingshe to rapidly reverse engineer them and the principles behind their creation, her scientific knowledge and talent expanding at a rate that boggles the mind.
In the outside world, Qingshe's primary public usage of her ability is through shaping the green-black biotech "fluid" of her shadow, expanding and shaping it into a multitude of forms limited only by her technical, practical knowledge and personal experimentation. It can take on any material composition she understands in any quantity, shape or size permitted by the size of her shadow. Spears, blades, spiked walls, barriers and other more mundane and utility objects alike, she can shape her shadow any way she likes and never seems to run out of the "fluid" used to create workings. The shadow can be shaped in the blink of an eye, acting at the speed of thought to do her bidding.
Any fluid that becomes separated from the whole either dissipates if it was unshaped or becomes in truth the object it was shaped into, entirely free of Qingshe's domain unless she should swallow it again. Most formless constructs take on a similar green-black cyberpunk look as her shadow, but Qingshe can just as easily form objects with entirely normal appearances. The "fluid" cannot be reverse engineered, as it simply "becomes" in truth what it was shaped into once separated from the whole. The "fluid", both unshaped and not, remains under Qingshe's psychokinetic control until separated from the main mass.
Further, with her "understanding" of targets comes the ability to both repair and "innovate". Beings inside (or partially within) her shadow world can be healed through converting the "fluid" into new mass that then becomes independent of the whole. With the right level of understanding and the right subject, she can perform genetic modification to allow inhuman biological base capabilities or even add cyborg enhancements to those that either cannot be healed otherwise... or desire to become more than human.
As her shadow grows, she can both more rapidly expand it and create larger and more complex objects. Or, at least, this is what she allows others to believe. While it has a grain of truth to it, her shadow can at any time travel speeds in excess of hundreds of feet per second, able to transform vast swathes of land into her personal playground in moments. This is hardly hyperbole, as expanding her shadow is akin to transforming the surface of the world around her into a facsimile of her shadow world. She has a basic awareness of anything in physical contact with her shadow and can hear through its surface and exit her shadow at any location it covers. With sufficient widespread coverage, she can thus act as a makeshift teleporter for herself and others.
While the durability of her constructs depends on the material she transmutes them into, her growing shadow itself is effectively a space-time gap and is thus generally impervious to anything that cannot pierce such things, allowing her to ward large areas against collateral damage.
List of Creations (to be expanded):
Qingshe's personal "battlesuit": A salacious, dress-like affair, its weave far more durable than one might expect, even more-so than Qingshe's modified body, a feat in itself for such... form-fitting material.
Holder.
Qingshe's magnum opus, her own body, heavily genetically, biologically and technologically modified. It is hard to say if she can truly still be called human. Although she would argue that the answer is not just "yes", but that the same would hold true for anyone else that underwent similar or divergent modifications to become what she truly believes is the next step in human evolution, one where humanity takes things into their own hands, rather than any "god".
Qingshe's body is now formed of the same biotech fluid that comprises her shadow world, malleable in unnatural ways and divorced from humanity except by the barest technicalities and most outward appearances. Visually, the primary signs of her transhumanism are now "naturally" green hair and slitted, reptilian eyes that seem to shift between green, yellow, blue and red as her mood shifts. Less obvious is the smooth hairlessness of her body below the neck, devoid of blemishes and "flaws", becoming distinctly unnervingly imperfect in its perfection. Her hair and body retain an almost shine of health even without maintenance.
Beyond the visual level, the changes are far more severe, as Qingshe sought to become a "perfect lifeform" and even today continues to tweak and modify her alterations as improvements present themselves. The extent of these modifications are unknown to either the public or intelligence, but they are confirmed to be drastic.
On the surface, Qingshe's Noble Arm would seem to have unlimited Potential, endlessly spawning new abilities, weapons and utilities, but the terrifying reality is that such is far from the case, not in the conventional sense. No, Qingshe possesses but a single ability of vast breadth, a multifaceted chimera that she has made extensive and creative use of over the years, and her Noble Arm has not given up a single new power since obtaining it. It is an ability that suits her wholly, growing ever stronger that more she learns and experiences, and her Noble Arm has dedicated all of its capacity to this with no room for any other ability.
To explain her ability, we must reach to the conceptual root nature of Noble Arms. Derived from Occult Programming Language as they are, every Noble Arm ultimately has a designated function as a "program" in the grand System that governs reality. A Noble Arm usually accesses a single "skill tree" of sorts, often multiple. Instead of accessing multiple, Qingshe's ability delved deeply into a single tree and shot for the stars.
Qingshe's ability is to have access to and control over an isolated "programming test zone" in the System. Her ability's true nature and element is [Data Manipulation], and all that it does is derived from this. In essence, her ability allows her to peer upon, dissect and manipulate the "code of reality", limited by her personal understanding and only so long as her manipulations occur while they are inside the "test zone", otherwise perceived as her "world of data". This "test zone" exists entirely within the raw data realm that can perhaps be perceived as the "upper planes" of reality. Because of being attuned to this specific form of [Data], Qingshe's ability also makes her Noble Arm one of the rare few that can interact with unstructured Occult Programming Language, enough to make Qingshe a fair hand at it on the side.
Qingshe can draw things into her test zone or expel them freely, converting targets into data or vice-versa. When doing so, she expands a "shadow" across surfaces from her position, which she must maintain physical contact with to keep open. The shadow -it should be noted- is centered on her physical body, not her soul or the Noble Arm itself. Her body is used as a conduit to transfer energy to the portal. Anything that she has created from the ground up can be freely controlled as long as it's not physically separated from the shadow, after which point it becomes entirely independent in theory. As long as it does not, however, she can freely control what she expels and retract it at any time, allowing her to exert some measure of power on reality that pales in comparison to her grasp of her personal data space.
Her shadow's range caps out at 2 kilometers from her position in any direction and can extend to any size and shape within that spherical range as long as the environment provides, able to manifest across nearly any solid surface, including water tension. Because she draws energy from the System itself instead of a personal reservoir, Qingshe doesn't -strictly speaking- have a limit on how much she can create and never seems to run out of mass. The real problem is her stamina, as her body being a conduit to pass energy through her shadow gateway puts incredible and painful strain on her body, enough to paralyze her from the electric currents... Or, so it used to. In her pursuit of transhumanism, she has heavily modified her body to handle this strain and can now casually reach and sustain heights she never could have dreamed of touching as a child. Solving this stamina issue is what largely propelled her to the heights needed be considered A-Rank.
To boil her ability down, it can best be summarized in three parts:
A): She has the ability to access and manipulate an expanding "world of data" that's gateway and unshaped internals take visual form and manifestation as electrified ooze. It grows larger the more "knowledge" it absorbs.
B): She has the ability to draw energy from said "data space", largely in the form of electricity, which uses her body as a conduit to empower her shadow and pass things to or from the data realm.
C): She has borderline omniscient and fine awareness of the data world through which to best manipulate it, and it effectively radically expands her memory capacity in order to store more knowledge and most efficiently access anything she knows.
Tech Wiz: An effective super-genius in many scientific fields (especially biochemistry and genetics) Intrigue: Skilled in deception and navigating social environments. Inhuman Mentality: Has an incredible mental resilience and pain tolerance. Cook: Can cook edible and safe food, despite any rumors to the contrary. Though taste is... debatable. Polylingual: Knows most major languages (English, French, Chinese, Russian, Japanese etc.). Soldier: A former -and current- soldier of sorts, she has undergone standardized martial training. It's nothing she's particularly passionate about, but she's not useless in CQC, and her unconventional methods of fighting tend to even the odds. Despite being a creature of modern lab comforts, she's no slouch in survival skills, and she can handle a gun with... well, not the best of them, certainly. But she won't fall behind. Occult Programming Language V1: Qingshe has long studied the mysterious occult practices that are currently quietly attributed to the advent of Noble Arms after being misused on a worldwide scale during World War 2. This gives her a grasp on the concepts behind Noble Arm functionality. Though, hers is not as strong as the advanced V2 language developed by the Paragons of Science. Still, she is capable of creating comparatively rough "magitech", like restraints that bind, suppresses or otherwise weaken Noble Arms.
A snake in more than one sense of the word, Lei Qingshe is manipulative, sly and proud of her power, yet restrained enough to avoid megalomania. Analytical and introspective, she has a powerful grasp on her own nature and desires, along with the will to see them through at any cost. To the public, she is simultaneously caring to those under her care, often with a strangely motherly bent... while also being horrifyingly ruthless to her enemies, willing to casually commit abject atrocities for the sake of the slightest sliver of progress in her research and victory as a whole. This juxtaposition often makes it difficult to tell where her "lines in the sand" are, assuming she has many at all, and it is further unclear whether she holds any true morals or if she simply puts on airs of civility so as to not be treated as an uncontrollable threat.
Qingshe can oft be described as "married to her work" with both little interest or time to dedicate to other pursuits, a state of affairs she is satisfied with... or so she tells herself. She seems to find no greater joy in anything but advancing her knowledge, ravenously gorging her mind on any biological or technological subject she can grasp. Driven to an admittedly obsessive degree, she is an avid transhumanist, and were her definition of a potential "humanity" not so broadly inclusive, she'd likely be a shoe-in for the interests of the likes of the Paragons of Science. Despite her loose morals, she is never cruel for cruelty's sake and, in fact, despises such things as being "wasteful" of "human resources". Self aware as she is, she acknowledges that her beliefs and attitude are in opposition to the widely held "common sense". As such, she lives by the adage of "faking it till you make it" as a social chameleon, often affecting a playful and mildly seductive air... Genuine or not, despite her disdain for the current "weakness of the flesh" that is "plaguing" humanity, she admires humans as a whole for their will to survive and capacity to evolve mentally... and especially physically.
When she cares to be, she is bold in her opinions and unrepentant in her views. She believes that she is correct and that others will inevitably understand her way of thinking or be outgrown by her, and that is all that she needs to feel validated. She believes that in the face of Noble Arms upending peace and disturbing prosperity, the core concept of humanity must evolve to meet them to once more manifest a world where "all men are created equal". In her mind, once all humans are supernatural beings in their own right, Noble Arms will be mostly obsolete or equalized. In other words, at her core, she seeks to bring humanity peace again... but most would perhaps disagree on the price that is reasonable to pay for that future.
On the whole, Qingshe despises the Big Three. In particular, she blames the Downward Descent for fanning the flames, vices and sins of her home country into a new world war instead of using her technology to escape their pit of stagnation, and she views them and their agents as no better than animals and plagues upon the world that have thrown away their humanity for nothing. At one time, she had seen much in the Paragons of Science to admire; however, after discovering that the advancements and power they offered were a poisoned chalice rather than true, freely given boons to humanity, she grew resentful, viewing it as a betrayal of the glorious image of evolution she had pictured. Even were The Seven Virtues' price for their power tenable, Qingshe would -perhaps ironically- be unnerved by them and their claims, and their proposed ideals for what humanity should be set an ominous pit in her stomach that... something just isn't right.
Likes: Research, progress, small animals, useful things, staying up late, junk food, spicy food.
Dislikes: Stagnation, ignorance, waste (resources, time, etc), obstacles to her studies, getting up early, The Big Three (especially The Downward Descent), excessively sweet or sour food.
Fears: Losing sight of herself. Death.
Enter: Lei Qingshe. Codename: Jormungandr. "A monster in the shape of a human", they call her. Something "beyond". The next step in Arms Master evolution. It certainly doesn't help that she is known to those with an ear to the ground to have been a key figure in the rapid military advancement of China in the past half decade. Her origins and recently acquired lack of firm loyalty to any cause or nation make her intentions suspect, and yet, her power and willingness to -at least ostensibly- use it for good in the present day make her aid impossible to deny, given the stakes.
To the majority of the public, she is known as The Snake - 6th of The Zodiac, China's most well-known and public group of "superheroes", acting as blatant -if effective- PR for the nation to both its citizens and the world at large. The group, composed of all A-Rank Arms Masters or the equivalent in some manner, handles large-scale disasters and crimes. To those with more access to far more sensitive intelligence, however, they are also known to be a ruthless nigh-unstoppable black-ops hit-squad that do China's dirty work seemingly without qualms. It is also known to such intelligence operatives that Qingshe was heavily and seemingly unashamedly involved in many of the worst of China's concealed biological war-crimes and human experimentation. In fact, she was at the forefront of those advancements, seemingly leading the charge with a frightening zeal.
While she isn't exactly blasting it on the airwaves, there are many -often suppressed- clips from Q&A's, other private or public conversations and classified leaks that clearly demonstrate Qingshe has a zealous belief in advancing and further accelerating the evolution of humanity, even partially agreeing with the ideals of The Paragons of Science and The Seven Virtues on occasion. Her dedication to "progress" is to the point that there are rumors that she was mad enough to test her human experiments on herself... resulting in her becoming something more.
Thus, with her track record of loyalty and unwavering dedication, her abrupt disappearance 11 months ago came as a shock to the public in large. Behind far more secure closed curtains, however, a different worry has sprouted in light of the fact that she has violently defected and gone AWOL from China's grasp. The reasons are unknown, but she did do great damage to their research facilities and classified data on her way out. The only thing left of Qingshe's former lab complex is an unnervingly smooth crater...
Current Goal: Short Term: To acquire more "materials" and further her research... Hmm? Oh yes, and to save the Philippines. Sure, that too. Long term: The human condition is weak... but it could be less weak. To improve humanity... and make the sacrifices worth it.
Military or Civilian Rank: QRS Special Liaison (LNO), R&D Consultant, Medic and Volunteer Arms Master Soldier.
Aku the Samurai
Izurich
Otreas
Auz
Urizen
rexgn
Thayr
FernStone
