Located in the eastern part of Wind Country, Sunagakure no Sato has a stable, hot climate accented by very cold nights. The village is surrounded by a partial caldera of sandstone and rock on three sides, with a massive stone wall blocking the fourth, allowing one narrow opening into the village. This opening is always guarded by highly trained shinobi, making the village nearly inaccessible. The entire village of Sunagakure is modeled around a giant compass, with main roads reaching out from the village center in all eight directions. Suna buildings are round in shape, and made of red adobe. This allows for sand to blow around the buildings during storms, and for easy, cheap repairs afterward. Because there is no room to expand outward in Suna, they build upward, connecting these adobe skyscrapers with enclosed pathways high above the narrow streets.
Sunagakure was built on the backs of nomads who banded together to seek refuge from Wind Country’s harsh deserts. Of these nomads, the famous clans of Suna were cultivated out of raw and untamed power. The people of Suna, and similarly from all of Wind Country, have learned to cope with these harsh climates - nearly unbearably hot days, freezing nights, and violent wind storms.
Much like how the village was founded, during the recovery after the Fourth Great War, desert nomads flocked to Sunagakure for protection. With no room inside the village, they built up small camps outside. Initially these camps were temporary, but after several generations were born here the land outside Sunagakure became home. With so little room, Sunagakure has had little choice but to build deep into the walls of the caldera they depend on for protection to make room. Progress has been slow, but steady. In time the nomadic camps and semi-temporary buildings outside of Sunagakure will be only a vague memory.
Suna Shinobi begin in the academy later than Kiri or Konoha, and graduate later than Konoha. Because students typically go into the academy more mentally prepared for the challenges that lie ahead, their overall quality of shinobi at graduation tends to be higher. In Sunagakure quality reigns over quantity, so while they have the least amount of shinobi compared to all Five Great Shinobi villages, their modest numbers are able to complete just as much work. If it weren’t for such high quality of shinobi in Sunagakure, they’d not be one of the Five Great Villages.
In the past generation there have been rising tensions with Mist and Stone villages as they have engaged in fierce competition over missions. This has been enflamed by a number of ‘incidents’ and skirmishes in which shinobi have been lost.
Regardless Sand will endure, for they are Forged by the Desert.
Possessed of a rare, yet subtle, kekkei genkai, Sunagakure’s Henzaki clan is virtually unknown outside of their village. Even within Sand, the most an average person knows about them is that they have some manner of secret technique, body modification, or bloodline which makes them hard to kill.
It is a bloodline, one which gives them an incredible ability to survive against adversity. Injuries which should be fatal prove only a minor inconvenience to the Henzaki.
The Henzaki have few defining characteristics as a clan, though many are swarthy and dark-haired. All are in good physical shape, their metabolisms self-regulating to prevent them from ever becoming over- or underweight. Henzaki virtually never get ill, and never seem to age past their forties.
A well-known fact among Sunagakure’s medic nin is that the Henzaki’s bloodline makes them all universal donors and universal recipients, both for blood transfusions and organ transplants.
Henzaki physiology has an incredible ability to adapt, responding to any changes in its environment or condition, every system function of their body reacting instantly with a single goal: maintaining the stability of their vital functions.
Effects: You reduce the severity of any Poison you’re afflicted with by 1 per Rank, and take damage from Poison every 2 IC, rather than every IC. If the poison’s Severity is reduced to half or less from this ability, all secondary effects of the Poison are negated.
Anytime you are given a Bleed status, you immediately take damage from it and reduce it (instead of doing so 5 and 20 IC later, respectively); a dramatic, grotesque spray of blood is optional to indicate this. Thereafter, you take damage from the Bleed status every 10 IC, rather than every 5, and reduce your Bleed statuses every 10 IC (rather than 20). Bleeding from sources other than the Bleed status is halved, and has its duration halved; if it does not have a set duration, it stops after 100 IC.
Suffocation effects do not force you to make Stamina rolls, but still apply normally. Even if you’re killed, you won’t truly ‘die’ until reduced to -200% HP; you’ll seem dead, all vital signs stopped, but will revive once you return to 1 HP.
Among those who’ve worked alongside Henzaki for any prolonged period of time, this is probably their most envied ability. A henzaki will heal in minutes from injures that take others hours to get over, and in hours will have recovered from wounds that might take days for ordinary people to recover from.
Effects: You regenerate 1 point of Vitality per Rank each Initiative Count, and twice that amount of HP. In a given day, you can only heal (Rank) times your maximums of each: Thus, at two ranks in this ability, if you had 1000 Vitality you could only regenerate 2000 Vitality in a given day. Additionally, for every Rank in this ability you have, pick a Wound category (Blunt, Piercing, Slashing, or Energy): You divide the total healing time necessary to recover from any Wound in that category by 1+(0.5*Rank), and may utilize Organ Mobility for Wounds of that category. Medical attention can not reduce it further; however, you can recover as if you had medical attention, even if you do not, thanks to your regeneration.
The secret to much of the Henzaki’s longevity, and their nigh-immortality, is their ability to control their body’s internal structure. If an organ has been punctured, they can force the wound shut or use another organ to put pressure on it. If a cavity in their body is hemorrhaging, they can force the lining to open and let it bleed out to relieve pressure.
Effects: You ignore any one wound you’re currently suffering from, so long as your Regeneration ability allows it. The wound doesn’t actually heal, but your body adapts in some fashion to function despite it. This lasts for 24 hours, -6 per severity the wound is above Minor.
You may alternatively elect to use this as an Interrupt in response to being wounded, and by spending a Willpower (in addition to the normal Chakra cost), you can negate the Wound entirely–you simply don’t suffer it, don’t have to recover from it, and so forth.
X is 1 for Minor, 2 for Major, 3 for Severe, and 4 for Critical Wounds.
As a result of their bloodline, Henzaki blood itself has a number of interesting, medically significant properties. Most relevant to shinobi, it can be rapidly metabolized by virtually anyone, and will induce temporary, rapid regeneration. It still tastes like blood, and since it has to be consumed fresh from the veins to be effective, it’s not a particularly appetizing product.
Effects: This requires you to be in melee range of someone, and still enough for the recipient to drink your fresh blood. Generally speaking, the Henzaki will cut open their palm or arm and suspend their regeneration for this to work, but simply biting them will suffice.
By suspending all the benefits of your Regeneration ability and allowing someone to drink your blood, you can give up 1 point of HP (not Vitality) per Rank every 5 IC which pass. Each point of HP restores 5 points of Vitality (not HP) to the recipient. A person cannot die while receiving blood from you.
However, if either you or the recipient moves (or is forcibly moved), or takes any other action, this effect is broken.
It’s unknown how the Hitori came to be, despite plentiful speculation on the matter. The first possessor of their advanced chakra nature, Scorch release, was a single person who lived nearly a century and a half ago. Some theorize that centuries of living in the desert and being exposed to its ‘natural chakra’ may have had a lasting effect on some of the native people.
Battles involving Hitori outside of the desert leave their mark for days, the dry air and parched soil lingering as if they’d brought a little piece of Sunagakure with them.
Hitori themselves seem the very opposite of what you might expect from a clan that dries up everything around them, the essence of energy and youth throughout most of their lives. They tend to be very outgoing, with fiery red hair and occasional groups of freckles on their face and arms.
They tend to train on the outskirts of Sunagakure and frequently function alongside the Juugo Suto for this reason, often posted outside the village proper–the fact that their powers are so inimical to life, even that of other shinobi, may have something to do with that. Unwelcome guests within the Wind Country are usually run off by the Hitori, who use their abilities in a subtle fashion to create living conditions that quickly become unbearable.
Though a relatively new clan within the village, their abilities have earned them prestige and a respected place within its hierarchy, and in some ways they’re considered to represent the spirit of the country they live in.
Hitori begin with 1 less Unique Point.
Hitori begin with Elemental Aptitude for Fire and Wind ninjutsu, along with the first rank of Elemental Affinity: Shakuton, which includes Katon and Fuuton.
Combining Fire and Wind chakra results in the advanced nature of ‘Scorch Release’; as the name suggests, it involves using extreme heat as a weapon, with powerful users being able to reduce opponents to ash or evaporate the liquid inside their body, sapping away their strength.
Any Katon or Fuuton technique can be converted to Shakuton as a Chakra +5, Speed +0 link, with the following changes:
Shakuton is weak to Suiton, and strong against Fuuton and Doton
This is a status effect. Every point of Dehydration applies a -1 penalty to the victim’s Stamina and Resistance rolls, and lowers the victim’s Physical Damage Bonus by 0.3. Dehydrate stacks fully with itself; Dehydration 3 added to Dehydration 2 makes a single Dehydrate 5 status, which applies a -5 to Stamina and Resistance rolls, and a -1.5 to their PDB. Dehydrate from the same source (person) stacks fully with itself; if you suffer Dehydrate from different people, only the highest severity applies.
There is one exception: Dehydrate’s Stamina penalty does not stack with Burns, and if you happen to be suffering from both status effects, you take the higher of the two, rather than both, to Stamina rolls: If you were suffering from Dehydration 2, and received a Burns 3, your Stamina penalty would be -3, and your PDB penalty would be -0.6. If you then cleared your Burns status, the Stamina penalty would lower to -2.
Any effects which reduce Stamina penalties reduce the severity of your Dehydration by the same amount. However, unlike Burns, Dehydrate is not cleared when failing a fatigue roll, and instead it is only reduced by half (rounding up) of its original value.
Outside of battle, this status effect goes away at a rate of one per minute.
You focus your chakra on a victim, and simply light them ablaze.
Effects: This technique ignores the normal rule that Shakuton can not inflict Ignite; X is the victim’s Dehydration status (and thus, if you use it on someone without it, this technique has no effect), and does enjoy Shakuton’s typical +CHA/30 Accuracy. Your target’s Dehydrate status is removed (after applying the Ignite) if they pass a status roll; if they fail, then their Dehydrate status is instead only lowered by half, rounding up.
You project your chakra out across the battlefield, with devastating results. The temperature rises, plants begin to wilt and wither, and hopefully nothing nearby is particularly combustible.
Effects: Everyone within the range except you has their Dehydrate status increased by 1+(CHA/50) when you activate this technique, and every 10 IC afterward, so long as you maintain its Upkeep. Anyone within the area with a Dehydration status (again, except you) takes a penalty to their Chakra Exhaustion rolls equal to their Dehydrate status, and has their Ninjutsu Damage Bonus lowered by 0.3 per point of Dehydration they have; this penalty remains until they leave the area (or remove their Dehydration status).
The Sand Foxes are not a ‘real’ clan, in any proper sense, and most members do not have any blood relation to one another. The clan often adopts orphans to raise and train.
What they lack in secret or bloodline techniques, the sand foxes make up for in training from a very young age to understand and be aware of the environment. It’s by no means cruel or harsh, but it’s more than what others go through.
Socially, they function much like any other clan, but have an unusually strong close-knit, even familial bond with one another. The sand foxes look out for their own. Within the village they’re respected, and usually return the favor. Many are introverted–at least around people who aren’t members of their clan–but few are sullen.
The Juugo Suto have a well-deserved reputation for being excellent trackers and firmly loyal to their village. Almost every team of shinobi sent to patrol the desert around Hidden Sand has at least one sand fox member, and even outside the Wind Country they frequently serve as scouts.
Juugo Suto have +5% Bonus XP.
Most clans pass on secret techniques as a rite of passage. The Juugo Suto have a somewhat different rite: once a member is ready they are left alone, in the middle of the desert, without provisions or equipment, and told not to return for at least a month; most of them aren’t even teenagers. It’s a testament to the clan that virtually every student is, in fact, ready to undertake this challenge, and returns safely to the village. It’s a testament to the ordeal that they inevitably return from their journey changed: quieter, calmer, and infinitely more aware of the world around them.
Effects: You are immune to surprise attacks. Attacks which would normally not end an opponent’s stealth still do not do so, but they receive none of the benefits of surprise attacks against you. Sneak attacks against you instead follow the normal rules for surprise attacks.
Desert is some of the most difficult terrain to navigate, but the sand foxes do it. They adapt to the harsh environment. It’s not that it gets any easier, or that they’ve learned any secret. They just face the obstacles, assess them, accept them, and do what they must regardless.
Effects: You base penalties from Visibility and Immobility status effects as though they are one severity lower than they actually are, per Rank. This does not change the actual severity of the status you are affected by (for things such as Hiding if you are suffering from a -6 or higher Visibility status effect).
Additionally, you reduce the maximum Immobility Penalty you can suffer from by 1 per rank.
The reductions to penalties is applied after determining the maximum Severity you can be affected by (from this ability any other effect which modifies the maximum severity you can suffer from either status effect).
In the world of shinobi, there is no such thing as hunter and hunted; one is both, at all times. The Juugo Suto are preeminently aware of this. That awareness, and their mentality of never taking their safety for granted, has led to no end of frustration for foreign shinobi trying to gauge the strength and frequency of Suna’s patrols.
Effects: For every rank you have a +1 bonus to Survival rolls, and anyone attempting to track you has a -1 penalty to their roll. If you are leading a group with a size of your (Survival Ranks/5) or less (including you), you may make a single Survival roll for all members, and anyone trying to track the group receives a -1 penalty per rank to their roll. Multiple Sand Foxes may work together, pooling their Survival skills for the maximum size, and using only the highest roll and penalty.
There are multiple sayings in Sand about a sand fox’s intuition. Some are jokes at their expense, often told by genin. And the clan bears them without comment, because among the jounin those sayings are proverbs.
It’s not, despite what some have speculated, anything supernatural. The juugo suto can’t actually watch every leaf in a forest at once, or hear a feather falling. All they can do, and all they need to do, is be calm, and watch, and listen, and know what about a setting is just a little bit wrong.
Effects: All enemies are treated as being 1 Stealth category lower than they actually are, to you; this mainly applies for reducing their Stealth bonus when you’re looking for them.
This does allow you to attack an enemy in Stealth 1, though you may do so only with ranged attacks, and then at a -3 penalty to Accuracy–you’re going by intuition, and essentially firing blind. Area-of-effect attacks do not suffer from this Accuracy penalty. Similarly, you are inherently aware of the presence (though not location) of anyone only in Stealth 1– they can’t sneak up on you.
Not actually a clan at all, Kairaishi is a term reserved for those in Suna who embrace a specific method of fighting: manipulation of weaponized puppets.
Learning to do so takes years of training, and with the exception of a handful of geniuses every few generations takes up almost all of one’s free time during their academy years. Most puppeteers learn everything they know being mentored by a master of the art, who will typically take only one student at a time.
One of the greatest assets of puppeteers is their ability to essentially multiply their forces on the battlefield. A skilled puppeteer can control several human-sized puppets at once, potentially tipping the numbers in their side’s favor.
Kairaishi begin with 1 less Unique Point.
With this technique, a Kairaishi can channel their chakra through one of their puppets to give it their own appearance. This is typically done in conjunction with a self-henge or with a secondary, physical disguise applied to the puppet in case the technique fails, as it suffers from the same limitations as Henge.
Effects: You disguise your puppet to look like you. This has all the limitations of normal Henge, but without any worry of a false impersonation, as you know how to look and act like yourself and how to make your puppet do so perfectly. Consequently, you gain a +5 to Espionage rolls against people figuring out your puppet isn’t you. Anything that detects normal Henge will also detect this technique, and if the puppet takes damage the technique ends immediately.
The Kairaishi’s signature technique and a unique ninjutsu, this allows the user to extend strands of Chakra from their fingertips and attach them to puppets. Using the puppets, they can attack and manipulate them from range while remaining relatively safe themselves. The better the user’s control over their Chakra, the better they can control puppets by the strands connecting them.
Effects: You gain control of 1 + X puppets which are uncontrolled on the battlefield, to a maximum of ten puppets. If they are not your puppets, you take a -3 to all actions which utilize them. While controlling puppets, you cannot make handseals, use weapons, or otherwise make use of your hands. You can use puppets while Hidden and using a puppet to attack while hidden does not reveal you, but it does lower your Stealth TN by 5 each time, and anyone who can see Chakra can see the Chakra Threads that connect you to your puppets, gaining a bonus on their Search action equal to the Upkeep from this technique to find you.
You can change the value of X (i.e., how many puppets you are controlling) as a Speed 4, Chakra 10 + X * 2 action based on your new number of controlled puppets; your Upkeep is then modified accordingly, rounding up.
While maintaining this technique’s Upkeep, you may use your Puppets in the following ways:
Chakra no Ito: Attack (Speed Varies) - You direct one of your puppets to attack. You may direct your puppet to perform any Unarmed or Grapple Taijutsu you know, as well as any Weapon Taijutsu you know and they have the proper weapon for. The Speed of this action is the Speed of the action you direct your puppet to take, and you pay a Chakra cost equal to the normal Stamina cost of the action you direct your puppet to perform. If it has both, you combine them into a singular Chakra cost.
Chakra no Ito: Move (Speed Varies) - You move one or more of your puppets. By default, the speed of your puppets is determined by their AGI, but you use /40 (instead of the normal /50) to determine how many yards they can move per IC; abilities you have do not modify this. For every puppet after the first you use this action to move at the same time, you increase the divisor for determining the movement of all puppets by 5 (so moving two puppets would be using each puppet’s AGI/45, three would be AGI/50, etc). Alternatively, you can spend 1 AP per IC spent on this action to move a puppet without lowering the divisor.
Chakra no Ito: Defend (Speed 3, 1 + X AP) - While controlling your puppets, you can use them to protect yourself. This is in all ways the same as the Take the Hit action, except that its Speed is lower, and you can utilize AP to move a puppet to get them into range to protect you; you can alternatively spend no AP to utilize the standard Take the Hit action using your puppet, but in that case you use its normal Speed (of 6).
Chakra no Ito: Puppet Show (Speed 0 Interrupt) - Every iterative of 25 IC after you activate Kugutsu no Jutsu, you can use this action to direct all puppets you control to make basic attacks on anyone they can reach, using whatever they’re equipped with. You can have all your puppets attack the same person, or direct them to attack different targets, as you choose. You can only direct puppets to attack in this fashion if you have been controlling them for the full 25 IC, and you did not use them in the above Attack or Defend actions for the past 25 IC. Attacks from puppets in this manner have their attacks Held Back, as per the ability, even if you do not have it. You may not spend AP to modify any puppet’s attack from this action, and you may not utilize any special abilities of your puppets with this action.
Anyone targeted by a puppet in this fashion defends against the puppet’s attack as if it were its normal Speed (so someone attacked by a Katana-swinging puppet would defend against Puppet Show as if it were a Speed 13 attack); if attacked by multiple puppets, you use simply the highest Speed puppet attack to determine valid defenses against all attacking puppets. Similarly, anyone attacked by multiple puppets at once can declare and use the same defense against multiple puppets (though you roll separately), and only has their IC advanced by the highest Speed defense they utilize. Thus, if Sasuke dodged two of Kankuro’s puppets and decided to Parry a third, he would only advance his IC by 3, for the speed of the Parry, rather than account for all defenses. Costs associated with either a puppet’s attack (such as Weapon Focus) or a Defense (such as Mizuhane) are paid for each instance they are used, however.
When your puppets are attacked you can advance your IC to direct them to perform defensive interrupts, let them get hit, or pay a number of AP equal to the Speed of their defensive interrupt to avoid advancing your own IC. If you are subject to attack alongside your puppets, you and your puppets are all allowed to take a defensive action, and you advance your IC only by the highest Speed interrupt taken amongst the group (though you can not elect to spend AP to avoid advancing your own IC), though if there are multiple Fatigue costs incurred, you pay for all of them.
A novice puppet master needs both hands to direct the motions of a single puppet, often using a finger for each joint or something similar. A master learns how to split their chakra threads, and with as little as the twitching of a single digit and modulating of their chakra flows gracefully direct their puppets.
Effects: The first time you take this ability you learn how to maintain Kugutsu no Jutsu potentially one handed; so long as you control five or less puppets at once, you can retain the use of one of your hands for making handseals, holding a weapon and so forth. Every Rank after the first, you pick between one of two options: Gain another Puppet, or decrease the IC interval of the Puppet Show action by 1.
The weapons of choice of puppeteers, which can range from the size of a small human to that of a towering animal. While each Kairaishi is given a basic puppet frame with which to utilize, every puppeteer takes the time to modify them, aesthetically and functionally, to fit their purposes. It is considered a rite of passage for defunct and shabbily-repaired puppets of former Kairaishi to be handed down to new genin with an expectation that their creativity and ingenuity will bring life to a puppet which would otherwise remain in disuse.
All Puppets acquired begin with 30 RES and AGI, with a basic frame of a head, torso, and a pair of arms and legs, and has three slots for upgrades. When in use, a puppet uses their controller’s DEX, and their controller’s CHA in place of STR. Regardless of a puppet’s attributes, they are only as good as the Kairaishi which utilizes them: A puppet’s RES is limited by, and can never be higher than, their controller’s DEX, and a puppet’s AGI is similarly restricted by their controller’s CHA. Puppets use their controller’s abilities and skills, but can never make Medicine, Research or Chakra Control rolls, and effects which modify derived stats (such as changing your damage bonus from /15 to /12) that the puppeteer might have do not apply to them, nor do upkeeps or effects which are personal to the Kairaishi (such as Chakra Strengthening, or Domu).
By default you can equip Puppets with any Small weapon, paying half the normal Ryo cost to equip them with it. This reflects adjustments made to attach the weapon to the puppet’s body and breaking it down as necessary to remove unneeded hilt space to integrate it into the Puppet’s frame, thereby making it impossible to use for anyone else, but grants a +3 to resist Disarm attempts. Puppets can not, by default, ‘two hand’ any weapon, or gain any bonuses for doing so. Puppets also have a basic slam attack you can utilize, which is a Chakra 8, Speed 8 action that inflicts (RES/10)d6 blunt damage; Puppets can not have Unarmed Focus or Power Attack applied to them, but you can apply Weapon Focus to any weapons your Puppets use, increasing your Chakra cost for their attack.
Puppets have RES*6 Durability, which is a measure of how much damage they can take, but is otherwise incompatible with Vitality or HP: Puppets can not be healed by Medical Ninjutsu or similar effects, nor do Puppets suffer Wounds. Effects which specifically deal damage to HP simply affect the Puppet’s Durability. Puppets are immune to Genjutsu and all status effects except for Immobilization and Ignite, however penalties from status effects that apply to their controller apply to their actions, as well as Wounds and Fatigue penalties. If a Puppet ever suffers from an Immobilization Penalty of -6 or greater, that puppet cannot act or be used with any part of Kugutsu no Jutsu.
Puppets can not have their Durability restored in combat, but on missions, assuming you have the proper tools, you can patch up a puppet and restore 10% of their maximum Durability per hour you have to work on it. Puppets reduced to 0 Durability in combat are considered broken, and can not be repaired until you can return to a village and have time enough to replace critical parts. For the purposes of sealing, puppets tend to weigh around twenty five pounds.
Puppets have a known weakness in the eyes of most Shinobi, which the Kairaishi are well aware: Once you’ve seen the arsenal of a puppet, you can anticipate how to deal with them and counter them effectively. To that end, Kairaishi are aware of that line of thinking and accordingly go to great lengths to keep modifying their puppets to catch their opponents unaware by a new trick or augment that they won’t anticipate. Every Kairaishi gains XP/100 Customization Points which can be spent on any of their puppets, though once you spend them, they are spent and can not be reallocated. You need not spend your CP as soon as you acquire them and can save them for later use if you wish. Puppet Upgrades utilize one of three of a Puppet’s default Upgrade Slots and accordingly are limited in how many you can apply to a single puppet, while Modifications can be taken repeatedly for the same Puppet and any restrictions to how many times you can acquire them are noted in the individual entries. In both cases you must choose when you acquire the Upgrade or Modification which puppet you are applying it to, which can not be changed later.
Modifications can be taken repeatedly and if there are limits to how many times you can take them, they will be listed in their individual entries.
— Quality
You gain 10 points you can distribute between a puppet’s RES and AGI on a one for one basis. Each time after the first this is applied to a puppet (read: it is tracked separately for each puppet), the puppet gains an additional point (second time is 11 points, third is 12, etc.), keeping in mind that a puppet’s stats are limited by your own.
— Synergistic Construction
A puppet of your choice gains an extra Upgrade slot. You can apply this Modification repeatedly to the same puppet, but each Upgrade slot after the first requires an additional CP: Granting a second extra upgrade slot requires 2 CP, granting a third extra upgrade slot requires 3 CP, etc.
— Additional Limbs
You can add an extra pair of legs or arms to your puppet. An extra pair of arms grants +1 to Grapple rolls so long as the puppet is not holding anything in them, though you can always use them to have the puppet wield additional weapons instead; An extra pair of legs grants +10% to the Puppet’s movement speed. You can apply this modification to any given puppet a number of times equal to its RES/20.
— Reinforcement
Your puppet gains 5 DR. You can apply this modification to any given puppet a number of times equal to its RES/10.
Upgrades have a listed XP cost (either as an ability, or an XP cost based on the rank of Jutsu it is) which you only need to pay for once, after which you can apply that Upgrade to none, or all, of your puppets as you wish. Installing any given Upgrade on a puppet requires a free Upgrade slot on the puppet (so if it has no more slots, you can’t add it to the puppet), and costs 1 Customization Point each time it’s installed in any puppet. Once an Upgrade is installed in a puppet, it’s set, and can not be removed. Upgrades which are not passive require the Puppeteer to use the Attack action to make use of them, and can not be utilized as part of Kugutsu no Jutsu’s Puppet Show action.
While most puppets are constructed as complete frames meant to be puppeteered as a whole, this upgrade allows the Kairaishi to separate its arms from its body, leaving the majority of its weight behind while enabling multiple quick attacks with any weapons it has. The downside, of course, being that the arms themselves are not as durable as the main body, and leaving them exposed can leave you with a half-broken puppet that has lost all its offensive capabilities.
Effects: As a Speed 2 * X action, you can separate your puppet’s arms from its body, allowing you to manipulate them independent of its main frame. X is the number of arms the puppet has and that you are separating from its main body, which then increases Kugutsu’s Upkeep accordingly; if you were controlling two puppets, and detached four arms from one of them, you’d have an Upkeep of (3+6/2 = 6), as if you were controlling six puppets, rather than two. While the arms remain detached, you can manipulate them as though they were puppets, with the following restrictions:
Special legs designed to go over any terrain, be it rocks, water, ice, or even vertically up cliff faces, these specially-made puppet legs allow the user to extend a small amount more of their chakra threads through to the extremities, accordingly allowing transference of the tricks shinobi learn with proper chakra control.
Effects: this Upgrade reduces any Immobilization Penalties the puppet suffers from that are based upon the ground by 2, and allows the puppet to benefit from their user’s Water Walking and/or Wall Walking abilities, if they have them.
A special contraption which essentially utilizes a special variant of an Exploding Tag to create a steady stream of fire in a targeted direction; it doesn’t see mass use beyond puppets because most Ninja would rather set and forget a Tag than have to be there directing it, but it isn’t as much of an issue for a puppet. While some Kairaishi briefly toyed with the idea of having tanks of combustible liquid or gas to combine with this, the tendency for their puppets to turn into bombs when hit by Katon quickly ended such pursuits.
Effects: This hits everyone in a Line 5 yards wide in front of it, out to its maximum Range.
Special, foldable wings can be installed inside the arms and/or legs of a puppet to allow them to glide and lift up with the wind, allowing for safe ranged bombardment by puppets ill equipped for close combat exchange.
Effects: The puppet can fly! Mostly. When moved you can move it vertically as well as horizontally. A flying puppet can not be used to carry people (and likewise, a puppet carrying anyone can not fly), but is immune to any effects reliant upon contact with the ground (such as some immobilization penalties) and cannot be targeted by melee-range techniques unless it has made a melee-range attack in the past 25 IC.
Normally Puppets can only utilize the smallest of weapons based upon the limited space of their limbs, but with clever construction (and some elongation), you can manage to fit even bigger weapons! Many Kairaishi swear by maximizing one’s Naginata Per Puppet ratio.
Effects: Each Rank and Upgrade is applied to each Puppet individually, but all instances of this Upgrade count as taking up a single slot on any given Puppet they’re applied to. The First Rank allows a Puppet to utilize all non-Large weapons of the Equipment section (instead of only Small weapons); The Second Rank allows a Puppet to utilize even Large weapons. The Third Rank allows a Puppet to ‘two-hand’ a weapon and gain the respective benefits for doing so.
This Upgrade allows a puppet’s equipped weapon(s) to be more discreetly contained and quick-released, enabling it to catch enemies by surprise.
Effects: The first time a puppet with this upgrade attacks with a weapon in combat, it’s considered an automatic Surprise attack. Additionally, if the equipped weapon used with this Upgrade is a Sword that has yet to be drawn, you can utilize the Iaijutsu ability with it. Each Puppet may only benefit from each of these effects once per battle, and the costs and acquisition of weapons must be paid for normally.
All puppets are hollow in certain places, but this Upgrade allows for a specific construction (and likely enlargement) of the puppet’s torso which allows for a spacious, shell-like area that’s large enough for a person to fit inside. At the Kairaishi’s discretion when installing this upgrade, eye slits can be placed to look out from, allowing for Awareness rolls at a -5 penalty.
Effects: This creates a hollow section in your puppet’s torso (and necessitates it to be appropriately large) that, as a Speed 8 action, someone can go in and out of and lock from the inside. The inside fits up to three people, though any more than one and it’s a bonding experience. While inside the puppet you may not perform handseals, attack, or be attacked, or control any other puppets. This Upgrade is incompatible with Trap Body (i.e., a Puppet can not have both of these upgrades).
With additional reinforcement and attempts to cover up the joints and weak spots of your puppet, you can make sure it’s more durable against whatever crazy ninjutsu it will inevitably get hit by.
Effects: Improves the puppet’s Durability by RES an additional time; this Upgrade can be applied to a puppet repeatedly, but each application of this Upgrade takes up its own slot.
By adding chakra-receptive sensors to your puppet’s head, you can see and hear what the puppet sees and hears, and throw your voice, allowing you to speak without revealing your own location.
Effects: This upgrade can be toggled on or off as a Speed 0 action. While using it, you suffer Visibility Penalties and make Awareness checks based on your puppet’s location and senses rather than your own. Additionally, you can use a voice modulator to speak from the location of your puppet to make it ‘speak’, either using your own normal voice or an intentionally distorted and unrecognizable version of it, though it lacks any sort of sophistication to let you impersonate anyone else’s voice, it does allow you to speak while Hidden without giving yourself away. This also grants Espionage and Stealth rolls that the Puppet makes a +3 bonus.
Ordinarily poisoning weapons requires you to apply them mid-combat for them to be effective, as they degrade quickly, but with this Upgrade, you can house special reservoirs that apply desired poisons to weaponry and aerosolize poisons from your puppet’s position, at your command.
Effects: This allows the puppet to perform a Speed + 10 Poison Weapon action (which does not add to an attack’s damage) when using their weapons, applying 1+(Toxicology Ranks/10) doses of poison to the weapon(s) the Puppet is using. Without this Upgrade, you would have to apply the Poisons to your puppet’s weapons yourself, which is usually rather inconvenient. The cost of the Poisons and access to them must be acquired and paid for normally.
It also allows the puppet to perform a special Speed 6 action to aerosolize a toxin, spreading any inhalation poison around itself with a 15 yard radius which persists for 30 IC and applies a -4 Visibility Penalty. You do not need to purchase the Smoke Bomb portion of this, but you do need to buy each dose of the Poison you wish to utilize in it (which it requires to function).
You add a singular prehensile appendage to the back of the puppet. In addition to the innumerable amount of fashion and customization potential you just opened up for your puppet, such limbs happen to be good at providing a point of counterbalance and improving aerodynamics.
Effects: With this Upgrade, Immobilization Penalties the puppet suffers from are reduced by 1, its movement speed is increased by 10%, and it gains +1 to Grapple rolls, as well as having an additional limb for use in a Grapple, if beneficial.
This Upgrade modifies the puppet’s torso to have an elaborate series of wires and launchers which, when triggered, fire toward and wrap around a target, then quickly retract to pull them into the puppet’s body to capture them within it.
Effects: When a puppet this Upgrade is installed in is attacked in melee, you can declare Trap Body as a Defensive Interrupt in response to the attack. The puppet is hit by the oncoming attack, though is allowed to automatically block the attack, and then the attacker must defend against this attack. Make a Taijutsu Accuracy roll (which is defended against as a Speed 12 attack); if they fail, they are Grappled by the puppet and locked inside the puppet’s Hollow Body. Unlike a regular Grapple, the defender can not move at all while Grappled, though the puppet can move and be moved as normal without the defender getting a chance to restrain the puppet. No Unarmed, Combo or Weapon Taijutsu can be used by the person trapped while the Grapple is maintained, though basic attacks and Grapple jutsu are possible. A puppet can only be grappling one person in this way at a time, and can not utilize this upgrade if it already has someone inside of it.
The Monkasei lineage–they haven’t organized themselves into a proper clan, despite gentle prodding from the village to do so–is viewed in generally good light by the people of Sand. Much of that comes from the fact that every member who displays their kekkei genkai is directly descended from the Third or Fourth Kazekage; the two weren’t directly related, but most likely had a common ancestor, since they possessed an identical, or nearly identical, bloodline. It also helps that the Monkasei, as a general rule, are fairly modest about their bloodline and heritage.
That advanced bloodline is the ability to create magnetic chakra, and seems to have actually gotten stronger in recent generations; the Third Kazekage was hailed as the strongest Kazekage his village had ever seen, rivalled only by the Fifth, but his control of magnetic chakra was limited only to iron dust; he did not possess an actual magnetic jutsu.
On the other hand, that may simply be a result of the passage of time. He may well have been the first of his kind, and he had nobody’s mistakes and successes to learn from. Even if the bloodline hasn’t grown more powerful, it has become more refined, and while the number of inheritors is fairly small, they’re flourishing and growing in number.
Monkasei begin with 1 less Unique Point.
Monkasei begin with Elemental Aptitude for Doton and Fuuton ninjutsu, along with the first rank of Elemental Affinity: Jiton, which includes Doton and Fuuton.
Though commonly referred to as ‘magnetic’ Chakra, in actuality it is a little more nuanced: Jiton can react with even non-ferrous metals, and Monkasei are never so obvious as to carry around dozens of pounds of iron to make use of their Kekkei Genkai. Rather, they tend to exert control over another substance–almost always Sand, though that might just be a matter of convenience, as it’s light-weight and there’s an infinite supply in their homeland–which is infused with a metal in some form or fashion to thereby control it. Previous Kazekages were known for their Iron Sand and Gold Dust usage, but every Monkasei has their own preferences as to how they utilize their talent, and it’s not known whether the choice is simply a matter of preference, or if different Monkasei can control different metals better than others.
Note that while you are manipulating some amount of metal, Jiton-converted techniques are ‘Sand’ techniques, not ‘Metal’: a Jiton Tremorsense would let you do so on Sand, not on Metal. Likewise, Jiton Earth Shaping would let you shape magnificent sand castles, not manipulate metal walls or objects.
Any Fuuton or Doton technique can be converted to Jiton as a Chakra +5, Speed +0 link, with the following changes:
This is a status effect, applied to the Monkasei, representing their control over their element–in this case, metal-infused Sand–and the ease of which they can utilize it the more their chakra is infused into it. While exhausting to maintain control over so much material, Monkasei have learned to turn a weakness into a strength, in the following ways.
All values of X are based on your current Charge status:
The last benefit can be confusing! So, for example, as long as your Charge was 4 or more, your Jiton Wind Cutter would have all of its damage dice rerolled once if they came up as a 1. This can be done automatically if using the Dice Golem bot by adding ‘ro1’ to the damage dice calculation, meaning Wind Cutter would be typed as the following: (2d4ro1*5+ NDB * Speed). Higher Charge levels than 4 would never increase Wind Cutter’s ability to reroll its dice above 1, because it is capped at (die size/4), rounding down, thus, 4/4 = 1.
So long as a Monkasei has access to some sort of solid ground (i.e., is not floating in the middle of the ocean), and has a few handfuls of their choice of metal shavings, a Monkasei can apply pressure to rock, soil, wood, or similar surfaces and materials to, essentially, pulverize them into miniscule splinters and shavings to be made use of. Most Monkasei prefer to carry around materials already infused with their choice of metal to avoid this process (and to avoid showing its usage off to anyone), but in times of need, Monkasei can gather up more material to make use of their kekkai genkai. If you ever have to ask whether you can bore through a material with this jutsu, assume the answer is ‘No’.
Effects: This is used as a link with any Jiton technique which creates Sand; the technique creates triple the normal amount. X is based off of the Rank of the Jutsu (E=1, D=2, etc). Thus, an E-rank Jiton would create six gallons of sand, instead of two, at Chakra +5, Speed +1, Seal Speed +1; a D-rank Jiton would create twelve gallons at Chakra +5, Speed +2, Seal Speed +2, etc.
Keep in mind that ‘Sand’ is more like ‘weathered and eroded bits of dirt and stone’, but it works for a Monkasei’s purposes.
No one likes Sand. It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere. Which the Monkasei tend to use to their advantage in order to slow down and debilitate their opponents through tactical, frustrating maneuvering that makes everything chafe.
Effects: This can be added onto any damage-dealing Jiton Ninjutsu; X is the Gallons of Sand utilized in the Jutsu, while Y is the Rank of the Jutsu it is used with. In addition to the attack’s normal damage and effects, anyone hit by the technique also takes a (1 +Y) Immobility Penalty, though in doing so you ‘use up’ the gallons of sand the jutsu required which stick to, and slow down, the movement of those affected.
Against someone already suffering from an Immobility Penalty caused by Sand Coffin you stack the Immobility Penalty as a single status (unlike normal), but the amount is reduced to Y, rather than (1+Y). Thus if you used a Jiton Earthworm Sabaku Kyu, it would initially apply a -2 Immobility Penalty; if hit again while still suffering from Sabaku Kyu’s Immobility Penalty, repeated applications would only increase the Immobility Penalty by 1.
Once the Sand is no longer applying a penalty to someone, it is added back to the battlefield for use. If used with a Jutsu which already applies an Immobility Penalty (such as a Jiton-converted Clay Bullet), you replace it with Sand Coffin’s penalty, although any special rules regarding the status remain, and apply to the total penalty from Sabaku Kyu: a Clay Bullet with Sabaku Kyu could be removed with a grapple roll (removing the entire penalty with a high enough roll), while a Retsudotensho with Sabaku Kyu will have anyone in its effect retaining their full Sabaku Kyu-applied Immobility Penalty until they leave the area, not fading over time (at which point it ends immediately).
Once a target is encased in enough Sand, it’s a simple, yet devastating, measure to utilize their control over Jiton to crush a person in much the same way they crush up rocks or dirt.
Effects: X is the current Immobilization Penalty of your target from Sand Coffin, which ends immediately when you use this technique. This technique can not be dodged (as the sand is already stuck to, and on, the target), though other defenses could be utilized (such as Block, if you were doing so when targeted by this technique): the target is simply crushed from all sides by the sand that’s been piled onto them. If you inflict a Wound, you inflict a Blunt, and Slashing Wound of one tier lower, to a minimum of Minor.
When Sunagakure initially organized itself into a formal village of Ninja, the Sabechi were the tribe most resistant to allying themselves with those who had been their rivals for generations. They fought against change and the alliances that were being made, relying upon nature for their survival against what quickly became a much larger force.
In doing so, they resorted to extreme measures. While no Sabechi ever confirmed as much, it is suspected that they tried all manners of profane rituals and struck bargains with the most dangerous and amoral of the species to be found within Sunagakure, which is how they began to produce a poison from their own blood.
Eventually they did assimilate into the village, sufficiently impressed by the collective force of the tribes. For a long time they voluntarily segregated themselves, but over time they formed bonds with the Henzaki and the Hitori in particular, impressed by the former’s talents and admiring the Hitori’s spirit. The three clans, often teamed together, form an odd balance of sorts; a Sabechi’s dark humor, a Henzaki’s withdrawn neutrality, and a Hitori’s overzealous enthusiasm.
Members of the clan are not a very vocal sort, with a sense of humor that is often classified as ‘twisted’. While well-mannered, most Sabechi have a sense of wit which invariably carries undertones not fully understood by those they converse with until well after they’ve spoken, making those that meet them frequently question just what they meant.
The blood of a Sabechi is poisonous. Aside from minor conveniences, like it being harder to give them transfusions and the sabechi as a whole being ineligible for blood donations, it can also be used in combat as a very potent toxin.
Effects: For every rank of this ability, you gain one Poison Point.
Poison Points are spent to modify your body’s natural poison, which begins as a Severity 2, Duration 20 Poison, with a +1 bonus to its Toxicology rolls for every even rank you have (+1 at rank 2, +2 at rank 4, etc). No more than RES/20 Poison Points can be spent on a single aspect of your poison, and once you have spent your Poison Points, you can not ‘unspend’ them to modify your body’s poison—once they are spent, they are allocated. However, you may choose to use less than your full value of any aspect: Your poison might have Paralytic 3, but you could choose to make an application of your Poison be only Paralytic 1, if you wish.
The reason for doing so is that when you utilize your poison, you take Vitality (or HP, if you have no Vitality) damage based upon the squared value of each aspect of your Poison, added together. So, if you had a Festering 2, Paralytic 4 poison, you would take (4 + 16 = 20) Vitality damage every time you used it.
The most common method of using a Sabechi’s Rustblood is by coating weapons with it, as a Speed 5 action which inflicts the above listed damage to yourself, and grants you 1+(Toxicology Ranks/5) doses worth of your poison to a melee weapon, or poisons up to that many thrown weapons. The Poison is considered a Contact poison, though unlike normal, it is not limited in what weapon types it can be applied to.
Because the poisonous nature of their blood is dependent upon the unique physiology of the Sabechi who produces it, it will break down rapidly outside of their body. This prevents it from being stored for any significant amount of time, and means it can’t be used to lace food or drinks. Likewise, it means their poison can not be converted into a Poison Smoke Bomb through the Aerosolized Poisons ability.
When you utilize your poison you must specify what effects it has (and decide upon the time of its application how potent it will be).
You may spent your Poison Points on the following effects, each costing one Poison Point and able to be taken multiple times:
— Convulsant Your poison causes erratic muscle spasms. While not enough to imitate full-blown seizures, it is still effective at debilitating its victims. This inflicts Shock 1 per rank.
— Festering Your poison is especially deadly, taking a longer than normal amount of time to metabolize. This increases the Duration of the poison by 5 per rank.
— Hallucinogen Affects the senses and mental functions of its victims, causing temporary disorientation and delirium. It inflicts a -1 Visibility Penalty per rank.
— Irritant Your poison causes an allergic reaction to others, causing the victim’s body to attack itself to try and get rid of it, causing irritation and inflammation at the site. It inflicts a Burns 1 per rank.
— Necrotic Your poison causes rapid cell death, and aside from generally taking longer to fully heal, it inflicts a Immobilization 1 per rank.
— Neurotoxin Your poison causes a temporary overload of the nerves, which stops proper brain function for a few moments. Can be deadly in the midst of combat, where every second counts. It inflicts Stun 2 per rank.
— Paralytic Your poison debilitates the victim’s muscles, slowing their ability to react. This inflicts Paralysis 1 per rank.
— Virulent Your poison is especially toxic to others, increasing its Severity by 1 per rank.
Constant exposure to the Sabechi’s own venom eventually has their bodies produce antibodies to a variety of poisons, enabling them to quickly shrug off even the nasiest of toxins.
Effects: You reduce the duration of any Poison you sufer from by RES/(5-Rank), and any secondary effects by 1 per Rank, to a minimum of 0. If the Poison has multiple secondary effects (such as a King Cobra’s poison which inflicts Shock 2 and a -4 to all skill rolls, in addition to its Poison 2 for 200 IC), the reduction applies to all of them (at Rank 2 you’d negate the shock entirely and have -2 to all skill rolls for 200-RES/3 IC)).
Every Sabechi has a way to deliver their poison naturally, without the aid of weapons—such is the nature of their bloodline. As their skill expands and chakra develops, it’s not unheard of for a Sabechi to begin manifesting other mutations.
You choose one of the following mutations below at creation. For every 2000 XP you have, you can lower your maximum Willpower by 1 to acquire an additional mutation.
You may take the Weapon Focus ability for “mutations”, allowing it to apply to any attacks made with your Sabechi clan mutations.
The Stinger and Quills mutations are essentially weapons that in certain ways behave like basic unarmed taijutsu: They can not be disarmed or destroyed, they can be parried as either unarmed or as a weapon (as the defender prefers), they do not reduce the effectiveness of blocking, and they can be used with uniques, abilities, and weapon taijutsu of the appropriate type(s) they count as (which is listed in the their entries). Because they are a sort of weapon, they can never be used to perform unarmed jutsu, nor do they gain benefits from anything specific to unarmed attacks.
Saliva is treated by the Sabechi as a Ranged Taijutsu attack, but is considered a ninjutsu projectile for the purposes of defending against it. Like the Stinger and Quills, they do not reduce the effectiveness of blocking, and it can benefit from any unique or ability which modifies Ranged Taijutsu. Because it does not have any specific Type, Weapon jutsu are incompatible with it.
The most obvious of all the mutations and the signature feature of the clan, a Sabechi’s stinger is far more potent than a scorpion’s, even though they look about the same. It’s much longer than it looks, able to extend over the Sabechi’s shoulder or around their side to strike those in front of them.
Effects: You have a flexible tail with a curved tip. It grants you an extra limb for use in grapples, grants you a +2 to Grapple rolls, and you can make attacks with it against someone you’re grappling without suffering its regular accuracy penalty. Attacking someone you’re grappling with it also allows you to make called shots against them at no penalty to your Accuracy. You can inflict your Sabechi clan poison on hit with your Stinger, and do not have to pay its normal Vitality cost for doing so.
While not true ‘needles’, some Sabechi actually have the ability to straighten the hairs on their head, which tend to be much thicker than normal hair, enough so to inject trivial amounts of their poison. When used in groups, however, it can be quite deadly.
Effects: You can throw a single Quill, using the above stats, or throw multiple at once, in which case you treat it as a standard Multithrow. If you use at least three Quills, you can deliver a dose of your poison with them.
These are considered Senbon and may be used in all the same ways Senbon can, although they do not retain their shape for long once thrown and thus can’t be stored for any jutsu or usage that requires them to be prepared ahead of time (like Raining Needles). This also means that quills are considered expended after use and thus unable to be retrieved and reused.
While these are not actual Senbon and may not be used for Jutsu that require Senbon to be prepared (like Raining Needles), you may utilize Senbon-specific abilities as if they were (meaning Combat Acupuncture, Senbon User, and Surgial Precision apply to them if you have them), although Senbon User allows you to use RES, rather than DEX, in place of STR to determine your damage bonus with your Quills (regular Senbon still use DEX in place of STR).
Your saliva is poisonous in addition to your blood, which while it tends to hamper relationships in a lethal way, does give you another way in which to utilize your body’s toxicity. Those that have it swear by its usefulness.
Effects: This attack uses your Ninjutsu Damage Bonus, and you can apply a dose of your poison with this attack. It deals Energy wounds (due to its caustic nature), and can benefit from the Improved Ranged ability if you have it.
Frequently mistaken for sweat by their enemies in battle, Sabechi with this mutation tend to enjoy trading blows with their opponents, crippling them as the fight goes on.
Effects: When you activate this mutation, you specify the potency of your poison and take the normal damage for its use. Thereafter, you deliver a dose of your poison to anyone who strikes you with an unarmed attack, requiring the normal Resistance roll to prevent. As a Speed 6 action while you maintain the upkeep, you can change the potency of your poison (and take damage, as normal).
While this is maintained, however, a new dose of poison is automatically applied to your skin (and therefore, deducted from your Vitality) every time you poison someone, and damage after the initial application (when first using or changing your poison’s potency) is halved as your body efficiently creates additional doses. The drawback is that when your life is in peril, your body naturally begins to guard core systems: Oily Skin can only deal Vitality damage to yourself to apply additional doses, and if you have no Vitality with which to pay for another dose, this mutation will immediately stop working.