Talents are things which differentiate your character from the rank-and-file ninja. Jutsu, skills, and abilities are all things which are fairly common. True, most ninja won’t know A-ranked Suiton jutsu–but knowing them is less a sign that one is “special”, and more an indication that you’re an advanced ninja. Talents are somewhere between uniques and abilities: They’re not fundamental aspects of your character, but instead things you’ve learned or developed over time, that are genuinely hard to come by in an average shinobi. In a more meta sense, talents are a way of getting rare, exclusive abilities for your character. And the best part, they’re totally free!
You get talents automatically as your character gains experience. You get talents at the following XP milestones:
Thus, a 3000 XP character would have two talents! You don’t have to choose talents as soon as they’re accessible. If you get to 1500 XP and aren’t sure what you want, it’s perfectly alright to hold off until later. There are no penalties for waiting until later to pick talents.
Talents are divided into two broad categories: Enhancements and Capabilities. You can take “Enhancement” talents repeatedly, whereas most “Capability” talents can only be taken once.
Enhancements are ways in which your character is just plain better than the rank-and-file ninja. They’re things you’re able to do that can’t be taught or learned, fundamental parts of you. These are all passive benefits.
Capabilities are a bit different. They’re things you’ve learned how to do, rare or esoteric techniques that anyone could, in theory, learn, if they had the opportunity and dedication. Most of the talents listed in “Capabilities” can be acquired through other means–for example, some skilled shinobi might be willing to mentor an up-and-coming student in how to perform medical jutsu, or you could make a deal with a missing nin to help them abduct victims for unethical experiments in exchange for them teaching you how to use Fuuinjutsu (coughRyuucough).
That said, those things are usually very difficult to acquire, and may come with strings attached (which may not always be visible). Learning these things through talents carry no such requirements or downsides. You can have any RP justification you want (within reason), such as being the student of a renowned medic nin in your village, but there are no requirements beyond purchasing the talents.
All your actions have their Speed reduced by 2. This functions exactly the same as spending AP to reduce their Speed, and follows all the normal rules for doing so; it can also be combined with AP to lower an action’s Speed further. However, because Celerity takes place automatically, it still applies in situations where you’re normally prohibited from spending AP (such as Surprise Attacks). You may choose not to apply this talent, or only partially apply it, to a given action if you wish.
You’ve got an astonishing array of skills, even for a ninja. You gain any two rank benefits you currently or previously qualified for.
Ordinarily, a shinobi can only sign a single summoning contract (at least, the ones listed in the PHB–special summoning contracts don’t typically count for this). With this talent, you can have multiple! Not sure how you convinced the various summon animals to be okay with this, but congratulations. Note that this only gives you access to additional contracts, it does not give you a second one in itself. You need (and may) only take this talent once.
You acquire a single rank benefit. This can be from a rank you’ve never had, and even one exclusive to another village (such as taking Hunter Nin when you’re a Leaf Chuunin).
You have an additional XP/200 Skill Points. You may only take Skill Specialist once.
In the human body, there are eight ‘gates’ along the body’s chakra circulatory system responsible for regulating the flow of chakra, and by extension providing physical limiters to the body for its own protection. You may take this talent twice. Each time you take it, you gain access to the hidden potentials of the gates. The first time you take this talent, you gain the ability to open the first three gates; the second time gives you access to the fourth, fifth, and sixth gates. Learning how to open the Seventh and Eighth gates is not officially condoned or taught by any ninja village due to their self-destructive nature, though inevitably there will be some who figure it out and may be able to teach you, if you can find them and convince them to do so. Click the header of this section for more information about how these work.
You learn martial ar–Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! It’s a not-quite forbidden technique, and probably the most powerful of the cloning techniques usable by ninja without advanced bloodlines. Unfortunately, it’s also very draining on the user, almost prohibitively so. Click the header of this section for the rules for this technique.
You’ve signed a blood contract with one of the various species of intelligent, super-powered animals that ninja are able to call upon. How this happens varies; some shinobi have mentors who, as part of training an apprentice to be their successor, will offer them the chance to sign one of these contracts. With this talent, however, you probably took the ‘natural’ approach: a ninja who hasn’t signed a contract and attempts to performing the Summoning Technique will instead be “reverse-summoned” to the home of whichever animal species they have the strongest affinity for (which can change over a ninja’s life). There, they will usually be given an opportunity to sign a blood contract before being sent back to where they came from. Pick a single summoning contract–you now have access to it, as described in “Summon Contracts.” To actually summon any of the creatures, or use any of the techniques, provided by this talent you first need the C-rank ninjutsu “Kuchiyose no Jutsu.” If you have this talent, you may purchase that technique without meeting the normal requirements for learning C-rank jutsu.
Medical jutsu are particularly difficult to learn compared to normal techniques, due to the extreme amounts of precision, and knowledge of the human body, they require. You got someone to teach you the principles of medical ninjutsu, or were one of the rare few who managed to figure them out yourselves after months of exhausting study. This talent allows you to learn Medical Ninjutsu.
In addition to the chakra within shinobi–and indeed, in every living being–there is chakra permeating the entire world. Normally, this matters no more to shinobi than the oxygen in the air they breathe. It’s possible to learn how to access this natural chakra, which is what you’ve done with this talent. Natural chakra use is broken down into three tiers: Enlightened, Adept, and Sage. The first time you take this talent, you gain access to the Enlightened tier and Adept tiers. The second time you take it, you gain access to the Sage tier. Click the header of this section for the rules concerning how Natural Chakra works.
You have access to two of the rarest, deadliest poisons in the world: that of the golden dart frog, and the blue-ringed octopus. As the villages tend to have very small supplies of these venoms on hand (if they even have any at all), this usually involves shady contacts or harvesting the toxins yourself. You cannot take this talent before you have 35 ranks of the Toxicology skill. With it, you are able to purchase doses of Golden Dart Frog or Blue Ringed Octopus poisons (found in Chapter 8) using Requisition or Savings. Each dose costs 1000 Ryo; unlike normal poisons, the price does not go down for buying them in bulk. You can have a maximum of two doses (of the same poison, or one of each) purchased with Requisition at a time. After using one, you must wait until the next OOC day to replenish your supply.
Seals as in sealing techniques (Fuuinjutsu), not handseals! These are advanced, highly specialized techniques; they’re not necessary to be a ninja, by any means, but they can be useful. You understand enough about the principles above fuuinjutsu to use some of the more advanced techniques. Most of the time, this is because you got someone (a sensei, or a jounin who you did enough favors for) to teach you, but some particularly eruditious students are able to piece together what they need to do on their own. This allows you to learn Sealing ninjutsu.