Talk:Shu Izanagi

Future Purchases List

Abilities

Craft 5 (Weapons)

More Instruction

More archery

get some goddamn magic swords

Spheres

Correspondence (Indra's Net) 1 & 2

Matter because goddamn you have to do all your crafting yourself.

Quests

My Blade is My Soul

When an Akashic fights using a weapon as part of his Do, he fights using that weapon as an extension of the self. It ceases to be an exterior element, but is instead part of the soul of battle that the Akashic warrior possesses, a melding of thought and will and force. However, not all weapons are created equal. Just as the enlightened seek transcendence, so too must their implements. To truly transcend a weapon, one must master it not just in battle, but in all things. One must learn the craft that forged that weapon, in order to turn it towards enlightenment.

Of course, the enlightenment of the blade is a different enlightenment than that of the Mage- but not a lesser enlightenment. Only a different path. To know the soul of the blade, one must forge a bond with it, both in battle and the forging.

Guide to Ninjas

It has come to my attention that my concept for Shu has really diffused over the while, to the point where he really isn't behaving like an martial artist ninja guy. So some things I need to keep in mind are:

1. When in doubt, go out and find trouble. High risk, high reward.
2. When in doubt, punch things. An Akashic can always use punching things as a focus for his Magick.
3. Don't spend too long in a planning phase- or if people are dedicated to doing a planning phase, announce and make sure you're heard, that you're going with one of the ideas you had and doing it. PM if necessary.
4. Play the character you are, not the character you think you want to be. Shu is statted as a combat monster with limited social skills. Play him as such. No more long winded philosophical bullshit- it accomplishes nothing and wastes him as a character.
5. Shu is a student of the old ways- and invested in the old ways. Even without Achronism, he shouldn't be super tech guy. Go out and hit things, or otherwise take care of things in the old manner. Shu isn't equipped to do super modern fighting, so he should rely on his strengths.
6. Be a real ninja. How does a ninja stop a truck? He jumps on the roof and shoves a sword through the cab. How does a ninja stop a rampaging boomer? He cuts off its limbs. Be theatrical.

Ninjaology

Alright, so two years prior to the current game date, Shu's clan was killed by ninjas under a technocracy/order of reason contract. For whatever reason this triggered some sort of psychic feedback and Shu forgot how to use the Mind Sphere and Do- and became a ninja. He was an akashic FIRST, and then a ninja second.

When he got thrown into the modern world, he began returning to being an Akashic, because he can't get by being a ninja alone- so that means relearning the Mind Sphere, and Do, and focusing on more akashic things.

His current concept is that he's an Akashic warrior- honorable to a code of his own- and he believes that the technocracy needs to be defeated in order to do the other stuff he needs to do. His Story is about rediscovering the pieces of himself that he's lost, and figuring out what he needs to do. This leads to the next part, goals:

Primary Goals

1. Break the Technocracy of its strangehold on Japan.

2. Revive the Izanagi Clan

Secondary Goals

1. Revive the Izanagi Sword Style

2. Follow up on his commitments and the word of bond he's given for various plots.

True Enlightenment

Do is a path to enlightenment, and perhaps the truest of paths. While other traditions believe they have found the secrets to true awareness, they cloud their perception and blind their senses. While their strength cannot be denied, they take strength from their falsehood and refuse to see that their paths are yet incomplete.

Do is The Way, and those who are ready to tread the path of Enlightenment walk it. Whether they learn from a mentor or invent it themselves, those who are ready, are. Those who are not, fail. It is a simple and elegant truth, just as the true nature of existence is simple, but elegant.

It is the height of hubris to assume that because one walks the path of The Way, that those whom walk other paths have nothing to teach the Walker. There are many roads to reach this point, and many skills that may be learned. What exists, exists, but the physical world is but one part of a three-aspected whole. Can you truly say that the knowledge the other walkers have mastered is meaningless, when you have not studied it yourself or incorporated it into your being?

Of course not. A student must always be willing to learn, even if he does not yet see a purpose in what it is he is mastering.

Lesson Tracker

Red Leaves Part 2: Shu can't rely on being all melee all the time. He needs a ranged option. But at the same time he's unwilling to rely on the technocratic sciences of firearms- artless weapons as they are. A more traditional ranged weapon, like a bow as it fits into Akashic Study is ideal.

SF0 Liz Memorial Heist: Shu needs to become a teacher, to pass on his knowledge but moreover to give them the skills needed to keep them from ignorance- from unbalancing the foundations of time itself, or having dick all for situational awareness, being unable to meditate or knowing nothing about medicine: these are all key skills that Shu is versed in and nobody else (but Westin or Cara) seem to have any clues about. And that's a problem.