Ninja (FiD)

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As a ninja you are a stealthy shadow, rarely revealing your powers except to your inner circle. Your identity is secret to the world, not to your team.

A ninja creates a magical emptiness that ambient magic rushes to fill. It is very discreet, but difficult to project over distance.

Ninja and Chi are opposite sides of the same coin — Yin and Yang. They share a focus on the self but differ in outlook and honor. Where Chi is direct and strives toward ideals, ninja obscure themselves and seek inner balance.

Many ninja serve clans or secret orders; others follow a personal creed. As a ninja working outside a clan, you might be fulfilling an old obligation, acting on a long-term secret mission, hailing from a destroyed clan, or pursuing a personal goal.

Touchstones: This playbook draws from the many fictional ninja with mystic powers. As a ninja you might be known as an assassin, lin kuei, shadow warrior, or shinobi. Only ninja use these titles, though most groups have something similar.

Jubei Kibagami (Ninja Scroll 1993), Elektra Natchios (Daredevil 2003), Oboro (Shinobi: Heart Under Blade 2005), Yukio (The Wolverine 2013).

Trauma Condition — Void

To use ninja arts, your presence must melt away, creating a void that magic can fill.

Self: Powers used on yourself are instant, silent, and immune to detection.

Touch / melee: Powers within weapon reach take a moment and require a single spoken trigger (usually the name of the Form). They use normal rules for Powers, they can be heard and detected.

Range: Activating powers at distance takes long enough that they are useless in open combat, though still effective when used from ambush.

Special Abilities

When a special ability refers to Area, Duration, or Range, these are based on your tier, see page 221.

Power Veil

You and your powers are difficult to detect. This improves your position by two steps against supernatural detection and one step against mundane observation. Position better than Controlled is safe so long as you achieve at least Limited effect; failure gives Controlled Consequences.

Reaching Veil

You treat any target within Tier + 1 meters as if you were touching it when using powers or special abilities. This bypasses the touch-delay of Void but does not reduce the penalties for ranged powers beyond this limit.

Shadow Veil

Create an illusory duplicate within Range, taking level 1 harm "Shadow Drain." This harm only impairs your powers that target others, but repeated use may knock you out. The clone acts as a Cohort Expert (trickster) (p 96), it cannot attack or interact physically and lasts for Duration or until dispelled or struck by sunlight. Common uses:

1. Assist (p 134) on stealth, misdirection, and sneak attacks, suffering no Consequences.
2. Protect (p 135), sacrificing its existence.

Shroud Veil

Roll Finesse and touch an item that is Potent, affected by a Power, or is or under the effect of an Alchemical, Gadgets, Magic Item, or Ritual . On success, its supernatural operation is suppressed for about a minute. This is mainly useful to bypass locks and alarms created by powers, but can also weaken powers used against you in melee. Improve your position when confronting such things you can reach out to touch.

Sound Veil

Anyone you attack in melee is momentarily silenced, the sounds they make swallowed by the void. This limits Consequences to those not involving noise or alarm and improves Position on a surprise attack.

Vision Veil

At the start of an encounter, you may begin hidden if concealment is within Range. When you Resist being detected or attacked, you may move within the Area. If you reach concealment, you become hidden but leave behind a token (hat, mask, scarf).

Additional Playbook

Select another playbook. You gain immediate access to its Inventory and XP conditions. From now on, you can choose its Special Abilities. You can take this special ability multiple times, each time selecting a new playbook. Prerequisite: To select a playbook, you need an action rating of one in each of its starting actions.

Powers

You can learn these powers, expending a Special Ability for each. You cannot select powers marked in red.

Abyss, Air, Animal, Barrier, Darkness, Death, Earth, Electricity, Fire, Ice, Flux, Illusion, Kinesis, Life, Light, Metal, Mind, Order, Plant, Space, Time, and Water.

Influential Shadows

˄ ˅ Daiyu, an informant.

˄ ˅ Jian, a wandering monk.

˄ ˅ Kazuo, a shadow warrior.

˄ ˅ Lin of many faces, a spy.

˄ ˅ Yun Wei, a schemer.

Inventory

◯, ◯, ◯ Darklight Goggles.

☐ Darklight Lantern.

☐ Fine Burglary Gear.

☐ Light Camping Gear.

• Darklight Goggles ◯: Goggles that let you see in the invisible light of a Darklight Lamp. Vision is sepia-tinted. Gadget.
• Darklight Lantern ☐: A lantern that emits invisible light. Gadget.
• Fine Burglary Gear ☐: A set of lockpicks. A small pry-bar. Vials of oil to silence squeaky hinges. A coil of wire and fishing hooks. A small pouch of fine sand. Refined for your use to give increased effect.
• Light Camping Gear ☐: Bedroll, cooking pot, tarpaulin, fishing line, snares, all personalized and chosen to be lightweight. This gear allows a single downtime action when camping. Lacking camping gear does not allow any effective rest.

XP

• Every time you roll a desperate action, mark xp in that action's attribute.

At the end of each session, for each item below, mark 1 xp (in your playbook or an attribute) or 2 xp if that item occurred multiple times.

• You addressed a challenge with stealth or stillness.
• You expressed your beliefs, drives, heritage, or background.
• You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas during the session.

Starting Actions

Finesse 2

Prowl 1

4 points by choice, no higher than 2 in any one.