Ninja (FiD)

Starfox's Blades in the Dark fan page

A ninja works magic inversely to most other magician, instead of channeling power through themselves into the world, they create a magical emptiness which ambient magic will seek to fill. This method is very discreet and the ninja mindset and powers emphasizes stealth.

Many fictional ninja have abilities form other playbooks, like Savant or Weapon Master.

Touchstones: Fictional ninja with mystic powers. Ninjas, Taoism, Naruto.

Big Trouble in Little China" (1986), Ninja Scroll" (1993), Shinobi: Heart Under Blade" (2005), Doctor Strange" (2016).

Trauma Condition—Void

Finger signs and meditation is used to invoke magic on yourself silently, but using magic on others requires you to verbalize loudly enough to be heard in the area the target is in when you release the power. This is a simple word, often the name of the Form of the magic you are using. To utilize ninja arts, your presence must melt away and create a void that magic can fill. You constantly minimize your own presence, something that soon becomes second nature, but creating a magical void outside yourself takes time. Affecting something you touch takes a few seconds. Affecting something further away takes a full minute, making magic like this useless except against an entirely unaware opponent. You can use powers at range as a part of an ambush, as your word only comes at the very end.

Special Abilities

In addition to the listed powers, you have access to these special abilities.

1. Motion Veil: You may expend your special armor to resist a consequence that would allow others to notice you, or to push yourself for a feat of speed or acrobatics.
2. Phantom Veil: At the start of a fight, you are always in hiding if there is concealment within range of your tier (p 221).
3. Power Veil: You and your powers are difficult to sense. Power and supernatural effects that detect you or powers you use start out at no effect and must have their effect increased to work at all. This improves your position by two steps in such a situation. It has no effect on mundane observation.
4. Reaching Veil: You use powers and special abilities as if you were touching any target within a number of meters equal to your tier +1.
5. Shroud Veil: You can touch an item affected by a Power, Ritual or that is an Alchemical, Gadget or Magic item to suppress its operation for a minute. This is mainly useful to bypass locks and alarms created by powers, but can also weaken powers and potent weapons used against you. Improves your position when confronting powers in things you can touch.
6. Sound Veil: Anyone you attack in melee is momentarily silenced, the sounds they make swallowed by the void within you. This improves position in connection with stealth and changes the type of consequences you suffer with such an attack.
7. Substitution: When you resist a consequence caused by an enemy attack, you can move up to the range of your tier (p 221), leaving behind an inanimate object with some token of yours, such as a hat or coat. If you reach concealment you are now hidden.
8. Powers: Air, Animal, Barrier, Darkness, Death, Earth, Electricity, Fire, Ice, Flux, Illusion, Kinesis, Life, Light, Metal, Mind, Order, Plant, Space, Time, and Water.

Challengers

˄ ˅ Daiyu, a martial artist

˄ ˅ Jian, a healer

˄ ˅ Kazuo, the shadow

˄ ˅ Lin, a ninja master

˄ ˅ Yun Wei, heir to power

Inventory

◯, ◯, ◯ Darklight goggles.

☐ Darklight lantern.

☐ Fine burglar kit.

☐ Light camping gear.

• Darklight Goggles ◯: Goggles that lets you see in the invisible light of a Darklight Lamp. Vision is sepia-tinted. Gadget.
• Darklight Lantern ☐: A Lantern that does not shed visible light. Still hot and vulnerable to falls. 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. Roughing it out with this gear allows a single downtime action to remove stress. 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 1

Prowl 2

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