The Unavoidable Skill Sheet
Breed: Shinju
Path: Gukutsushi
Breed Gifts:
Flow of Aura (Level One) - The Kitsune has a feel for "personality of place" and the psychic impressions left on an area by strong emotion. Walking across a field, she might sense a century-old battle. In a house, every room might hold a different scene of births, deaths, sickness, argument, grief, joy or thanksgiving.
Truth of Gaia (Level One) The ability to sense whether others have spoken truth or falsehood.
Imperial Authority (Level Two) - Shinju know their place in the society - the top. They can take advantage of this by gazing into another's eyes and exerting their personality. An animal will fawn and defer to them. A human will immediately assume that the Fox is of a higher caste, better family, senior management, low-number Party membership - whatever is appropriate. Shen of weak will are similarly affected.
Past Whispers (Level Two) - While Flow of Aura grants the Kitsune psychometric insight about the emotional past of an area, this Gift lets the shinju tune in on the very thoughts impressed on a place. Fragments of thought (those spoken aloud, in particular), if intense enough at the time, can still be heard echoing years later.
Scent of Beyond (Level Four) - The Kitsune can bring all his senses to bear on one spot with which she is familiar (even an Umbral site) , no matter how far away that spot is. The shinju senses the site from a point of view as if she were standing in the middle of the area being scanned.
General Gifts:
Mother's Touch Mother's Touch (Level One) - The Kitsune is able to heal the wounds of any living creature, aggravated or otherwise,
simply by laying hands over the afflicted area. She may not heal herself, spirits or the undead with this Gift.
Courtly Speech (Level Two Court Gift) - When acting as an envoy, hengeyokai find it only polite to speak in the tongue of one's host. This Gift allows a hengeyokai to speak any of the Changing Breed tongues as if he were a native. The nuances of a Hakken growl, the pheromonal cues of the Kumo, even the electrical speech of the Same-Bito - this Gift grants mastery of all. However, it does not grant knowledge of written symbols, nor does it work on human language.
Moon Dance (Level Two) -The Kitsune becomes completely invisible provided no moonlight falls on her. She may step in and out of Luna's gaze as many times as she likes, appearing and vanishing over and over. Lunes teaches this Gift (and presumably included the exception to keep an eye on the little tricksters).
Puppeteer's Secret (Level Three)-All Kitsune pick up a few illusions, and a few fox tricks. Not being noticed is the most important of both. This Gift won't turn the Nine-Tails invisible; even better, it makes him one of the crowd. If a Fox using Puppeteer's Secret is standing around the police station, everyone just knows he's part of the squad. At the Party meeting, everyone assumes he's a faithful, if dull, member. Wherever he goes, he's been there for years-he's the familiar face; the friend of a friend; the loyal, nameless supporter; the small-timer trustworthy because he hasn't an angle to call his own. Deer and other well-camouflaged spirits (whose mortal representatives blend into the scenery or die) teach this Gift
Waking Dream of Unity (Level Three Court Gift) -This Gift was devised when the simpler Gift of Mindspeak proved to he too inefficient for regular courtly use. It, too, places a group of hengeyokai into silent communication by sending waking dreams into their minds, but is much easier to utilize.
Whelp Body (Level Four) - With this Gift a Gukutsushi may deliver a devastating curse upon a foe's body, causing it to weaken or palsy. Many consider the use of this power on a foe to be a declaration of unending war. Either a pain-spirit or a spirit of disease teaches this Gift.
Path Gifts:
Clear the Mind (Level One) -This Gift imparts the secret of quelling the anger in others.
Glib Tongue (Level Two) This Gift makes listeners hear whatever they wish to hear. The Dreamweaver can say anything, even total gibberish, but anyone listening will agree heartily. While this Gift is not a way to talk a millionaire into signing over all his goods, it is a superb method of talking one's way into a party, making fast friends or avoiding being caught in a lie.
Dreamspeak (Level Two) - The Dreamweaver can enter another's dream and thereby affect the course of that dream. The kitsune does not have to be anywhere near the target, but she must know or have seen the dreamer.
Fan-Shadow-Robe (Level Two) - The Kitsune can alter her appearance. This Gift does not allow perfect, detailed control - the Fox may not duplicate another's appearance exactly, reproduce complicated patterns, garments (i.e. uniforms) or equipment, for instance - and does not cloak the Dreamweaver's actions. (Her arms are where they appear to be, but the gun may seem to be a democracy leaflet...)
Shadow-Fan-Flowers (Level Three) - One entity within the Dreamweaver's sight sees a vision and believes. The illusion is perfectly detailed; the Gukutsushi directs motion, color, light, everything.
Moon-Fan-Face-Shadow (Level Four) - The Kitsune may take the exact likeness of any other human, shen or animal.
Jyu-Fu:
Perhaps the most intriguingly distinct Kitsune trick is the art of Ju-Fu, the paper magic. The Foxes were bewitched with the idea of paper when they first found it - much as humans across Asia revere the substance. In Japan, paper is a religious symbol, and it is part of funerary rites across the Middle Kingdom. Injapanese, kami is ahomophone for both spirit and paper, and the Kitsune use the term to refer to their paper-spells just as they refer to the Kami, the spirits of Gaia made flesh
(Hengeyokai: Shapeshifters of the East, pg 152)
Element Child (Level One) - The Kitsune can create a small amount of one of the basic elements by destroying a kami bearing that element's symbol. The Kitsune prepares the kami by writing a mandala showing the elements in relation to each other. When he wants to activate the kami, he must fold it into an appropriate shape (airplane, shuriken, water bomb or the like) and throw it where he wants it to be.
Lantern (Level One) - In Japan, will-o'-the-wisps are considered the work of foxes. By Grafting a paper lantern or similar kami, the Kitsune can later infuse it with an eerie light. The light may take the appearance of captured lightning, moonlight, an evil reddish glow, or whatever effect the Fox had in mind when creating the kami.
Eyes of the Wall (Level Two) - This trick really creates two kami: the Fox takes a paper and cuts a hole in it, leaving the cut-out hole someplace useful. The Kitsune can then put her eye to the hole in her half of the kami to see what the cut-out would "see." She can even get each side's view by looking through alternate sides of the hole. Kitsune who fly kites as a hobby are particularly enamored of this trick.
Banishment (Level Three) - This kami is used against spirits who have traveled from their home realms. By brandishing the pictogram and demanding that the spirit return home, the Fox may force devils back into the Yomi World or Crab Soldiers back into Umi, for example.
Paper Beast (Level Three) - This kami is always fashioned in the form of an origami animal, or with the pictogram of an animal painted across it. When the Kitsune spits on the paper, the replica immediately grows to the full size and likeness of its "original", and obeys the Kitsune's commands.
Walk (Level Four) - This last-minute escape route allows the Kitsune to vanish from sight as she tears the kami, reappearing in the Mirror Lands in the form of her choice.
"Borrowed" Gifts
Voice of the Mimic (Level One Tengu Gift) - This Gift allows the Tengu to imitate any sound or voice she has heard; voices, accents, inflection, music, crashes, thunderbolts -anything.
Gift of the Cricket (Level Two Khan Gift) - Although the Khan are mighty warriors, their first duty is that of gathering secrets. This Gift is another trick designed to aid them in such affairs, permitting them to hear things through walls and across streets as if they were in the very room of the sounds' origin.
Blood Scent (Level One Same-bito Gift) - The Same-Bito using this Gift gains the ability to sense shen; something about the
blood of hengeyokai and other creatures alerts their senses.
Dark of Night (Level Three Hakken Gift) - Use of this Gift causes temporary blindness in a chosen victim; they can see nothing but
inky blackness. Using this Gift in formal duels is a grave offense.
Path: Gukutsushi
Breed Gifts:
Flow of Aura (Level One) - The Kitsune has a feel for "personality of place" and the psychic impressions left on an area by strong emotion. Walking across a field, she might sense a century-old battle. In a house, every room might hold a different scene of births, deaths, sickness, argument, grief, joy or thanksgiving.
Truth of Gaia (Level One) The ability to sense whether others have spoken truth or falsehood.
Imperial Authority (Level Two) - Shinju know their place in the society - the top. They can take advantage of this by gazing into another's eyes and exerting their personality. An animal will fawn and defer to them. A human will immediately assume that the Fox is of a higher caste, better family, senior management, low-number Party membership - whatever is appropriate. Shen of weak will are similarly affected.
Past Whispers (Level Two) - While Flow of Aura grants the Kitsune psychometric insight about the emotional past of an area, this Gift lets the shinju tune in on the very thoughts impressed on a place. Fragments of thought (those spoken aloud, in particular), if intense enough at the time, can still be heard echoing years later.
Scent of Beyond (Level Four) - The Kitsune can bring all his senses to bear on one spot with which she is familiar (even an Umbral site) , no matter how far away that spot is. The shinju senses the site from a point of view as if she were standing in the middle of the area being scanned.
General Gifts:
Mother's Touch Mother's Touch (Level One) - The Kitsune is able to heal the wounds of any living creature, aggravated or otherwise,
simply by laying hands over the afflicted area. She may not heal herself, spirits or the undead with this Gift.
Courtly Speech (Level Two Court Gift) - When acting as an envoy, hengeyokai find it only polite to speak in the tongue of one's host. This Gift allows a hengeyokai to speak any of the Changing Breed tongues as if he were a native. The nuances of a Hakken growl, the pheromonal cues of the Kumo, even the electrical speech of the Same-Bito - this Gift grants mastery of all. However, it does not grant knowledge of written symbols, nor does it work on human language.
Moon Dance (Level Two) -The Kitsune becomes completely invisible provided no moonlight falls on her. She may step in and out of Luna's gaze as many times as she likes, appearing and vanishing over and over. Lunes teaches this Gift (and presumably included the exception to keep an eye on the little tricksters).
Puppeteer's Secret (Level Three)-All Kitsune pick up a few illusions, and a few fox tricks. Not being noticed is the most important of both. This Gift won't turn the Nine-Tails invisible; even better, it makes him one of the crowd. If a Fox using Puppeteer's Secret is standing around the police station, everyone just knows he's part of the squad. At the Party meeting, everyone assumes he's a faithful, if dull, member. Wherever he goes, he's been there for years-he's the familiar face; the friend of a friend; the loyal, nameless supporter; the small-timer trustworthy because he hasn't an angle to call his own. Deer and other well-camouflaged spirits (whose mortal representatives blend into the scenery or die) teach this Gift
Waking Dream of Unity (Level Three Court Gift) -This Gift was devised when the simpler Gift of Mindspeak proved to he too inefficient for regular courtly use. It, too, places a group of hengeyokai into silent communication by sending waking dreams into their minds, but is much easier to utilize.
Whelp Body (Level Four) - With this Gift a Gukutsushi may deliver a devastating curse upon a foe's body, causing it to weaken or palsy. Many consider the use of this power on a foe to be a declaration of unending war. Either a pain-spirit or a spirit of disease teaches this Gift.
Path Gifts:
Clear the Mind (Level One) -This Gift imparts the secret of quelling the anger in others.
Glib Tongue (Level Two) This Gift makes listeners hear whatever they wish to hear. The Dreamweaver can say anything, even total gibberish, but anyone listening will agree heartily. While this Gift is not a way to talk a millionaire into signing over all his goods, it is a superb method of talking one's way into a party, making fast friends or avoiding being caught in a lie.
Dreamspeak (Level Two) - The Dreamweaver can enter another's dream and thereby affect the course of that dream. The kitsune does not have to be anywhere near the target, but she must know or have seen the dreamer.
Fan-Shadow-Robe (Level Two) - The Kitsune can alter her appearance. This Gift does not allow perfect, detailed control - the Fox may not duplicate another's appearance exactly, reproduce complicated patterns, garments (i.e. uniforms) or equipment, for instance - and does not cloak the Dreamweaver's actions. (Her arms are where they appear to be, but the gun may seem to be a democracy leaflet...)
Shadow-Fan-Flowers (Level Three) - One entity within the Dreamweaver's sight sees a vision and believes. The illusion is perfectly detailed; the Gukutsushi directs motion, color, light, everything.
Moon-Fan-Face-Shadow (Level Four) - The Kitsune may take the exact likeness of any other human, shen or animal.
Jyu-Fu:
Perhaps the most intriguingly distinct Kitsune trick is the art of Ju-Fu, the paper magic. The Foxes were bewitched with the idea of paper when they first found it - much as humans across Asia revere the substance. In Japan, paper is a religious symbol, and it is part of funerary rites across the Middle Kingdom. Injapanese, kami is ahomophone for both spirit and paper, and the Kitsune use the term to refer to their paper-spells just as they refer to the Kami, the spirits of Gaia made flesh
(Hengeyokai: Shapeshifters of the East, pg 152)
Element Child (Level One) - The Kitsune can create a small amount of one of the basic elements by destroying a kami bearing that element's symbol. The Kitsune prepares the kami by writing a mandala showing the elements in relation to each other. When he wants to activate the kami, he must fold it into an appropriate shape (airplane, shuriken, water bomb or the like) and throw it where he wants it to be.
Lantern (Level One) - In Japan, will-o'-the-wisps are considered the work of foxes. By Grafting a paper lantern or similar kami, the Kitsune can later infuse it with an eerie light. The light may take the appearance of captured lightning, moonlight, an evil reddish glow, or whatever effect the Fox had in mind when creating the kami.
Eyes of the Wall (Level Two) - This trick really creates two kami: the Fox takes a paper and cuts a hole in it, leaving the cut-out hole someplace useful. The Kitsune can then put her eye to the hole in her half of the kami to see what the cut-out would "see." She can even get each side's view by looking through alternate sides of the hole. Kitsune who fly kites as a hobby are particularly enamored of this trick.
Banishment (Level Three) - This kami is used against spirits who have traveled from their home realms. By brandishing the pictogram and demanding that the spirit return home, the Fox may force devils back into the Yomi World or Crab Soldiers back into Umi, for example.
Paper Beast (Level Three) - This kami is always fashioned in the form of an origami animal, or with the pictogram of an animal painted across it. When the Kitsune spits on the paper, the replica immediately grows to the full size and likeness of its "original", and obeys the Kitsune's commands.
Walk (Level Four) - This last-minute escape route allows the Kitsune to vanish from sight as she tears the kami, reappearing in the Mirror Lands in the form of her choice.
"Borrowed" Gifts
Voice of the Mimic (Level One Tengu Gift) - This Gift allows the Tengu to imitate any sound or voice she has heard; voices, accents, inflection, music, crashes, thunderbolts -anything.
Gift of the Cricket (Level Two Khan Gift) - Although the Khan are mighty warriors, their first duty is that of gathering secrets. This Gift is another trick designed to aid them in such affairs, permitting them to hear things through walls and across streets as if they were in the very room of the sounds' origin.
Blood Scent (Level One Same-bito Gift) - The Same-Bito using this Gift gains the ability to sense shen; something about the
blood of hengeyokai and other creatures alerts their senses.
Dark of Night (Level Three Hakken Gift) - Use of this Gift causes temporary blindness in a chosen victim; they can see nothing but
inky blackness. Using this Gift in formal duels is a grave offense.