Shugenja

Shugenja:

"Burn like fire. Flow like water. Dance like the wind. Stand with the strength of a mountain.
Do all these things, and the wisdom of the universe will be yours."

-Shiba Ningen, Master of the Void, Taken from Way of the Shugenja, AEG publishing, 2002

((The descriptive text of a shugenja is mostly copied from Way of the Shugenja.))

When compared to the number of bushi, courtiers, magistrates, or monks, shugenja are remarkably rare. Perhaps one in a thousand persons is born with the gift to channel the kami. Those whom the kami will answer are usually found within bloodlines that have demonstrated a profound ability to channel the elements. Other families produce virtually no shugenja whatsoever.

Peasants and other members of the lower classes generally regard shugenja with a mixture of awe and fear, due to their rarity as well as their power. To the peasants, the ability to channel the kami makes a shugenja something beyond human, like the Fortunes themselves. Bushi on the other hand, respect but do not fear shugenja. Most simply do not fully understand magic, and prefer to rely upon their martial training. In a way, the strength of the bushi is like the katana, the warrior and the blade of the Empire, while the shugenja are the wakizashi, the status and honor of the Empire. Courtiers are respectful of shugenja, due both to their high religious standing and the impressive poiwers they wield.

The life of a shugenja is often a cloistered one. The aiblity to commune with the spirits requires a lifetime of study and meditation. Many shugenja prefer to stay in their temples and shrines, preparing their spirits to serve the interests of their families, clans and Emporer. Others perfer to serve the Empire by living within it. Those who are seen in public are usually performing some duty on behalf of their lord or their temple, but may be anomalous wanderers seeking to understand the elements by broadening their own experiences. Occasionaly, shugenja eschew the traditional lifestyle entirely, living and working amoung the common people. Some are interested in personal glory. Others embrace a hedonistic lifestyle, using their magic to enchance their enjoyment of life. These, however, are exceptiopns rather than the rule.

To become a shugenja, the kami choose who wields the power of magic. All shugenja schools have teachers skilled in noting the signs of magical potential, and dispatch these individuals to local cities and villages to keep an eye open for those with talent. Most of those who become shugenja are born to the samurai caste, but occasional peasants have the gift as well.

Shugenja schools search diligently for those with the gift of magic, but many who hear the voices of the kami tragically never realize their potential. Some peasants simply become talented farmers, able to predict the weather or tend livestock with great skill, never realizing that their true talent derives from their connection to the kami. In very rare cases, a peasant with the ability to communicate with the kami masters the basics of magic. These individuals are essentially indistinguishable from ronin sjugenja. Some less fortunate individuals are driven mad by the voices of the spirits.

Like any other aspect of samurai life, the shugena must have a coming of age ritual to mark his passage into adulthood as a fully capable member of his clan and empire. This ritual, Gempukku varies from clan to clan.

Shugenja do vary from clan to clan, but even more so from school to school. Shugenja schools are usually found in the families of certain clans, and rarely ronin brotherhoods exist...but they are usually discouraged by the major clans and torn apart by offering fealty to their most skilled members. Bloodspeakers are a cult of evil shugenja who use blood magic (maho) in order to cast spells. They have no allies, except in the court of the shadowlands. They are determined to bring about the ruin of all creation, and have no loyalty aside from that purpose. To be a bloodspeaker is a death wish in the empire.

Shugenja have critical roles in many traditional ceremonies. They are needed for the blessing of crops, social promotions, undertaking important duties, naming of newborn samurai, cremation, gempukku, marraige, purification of the unclean and in seppuku.

After selecting your clan and family (note: you may select one not listed above), you then select your elemental focus (which usually is the same as your family's/dojo's focus, but may vary. Whatever your focus is all but bars you from using spells of the opposing element. So a Earth shugenja can hardly use Air spells, and vice-versa. Fire shugenja cannot use Water spells well and vice-versa. To become a void shugenja, one must take the Ishiken-do benefit, attainable only by being in the ____ family of the dragonfly clan.
Casting System:

The shugenja partitions the kami to create spell-like effects. Each shugenja has 5 basic stats: air, earth, fire, water and void (void may not exceed 1 unless your an Ishiken-do). These stats represent the amount of elements you can manipulate in a single spell casting.

Elemental Detection: Depending on where the shugenja is, the kami exist in various amounts. For each level you gain in this class, you can sense a number of non-void kami equal to your levelx3. To do this, simply spend 6 whole seconds concentrating on the area.

After focusing yourself, in an official mission, the staff member proceeding over the turns will tell you the next turn exactly how much of each element you can detect in an area.

This ability is useful many times not only for determining how much of an element is available to use to cast spells, but is also helpful in determining the location of other shugenja, magical items or even breaches in the elemental realms.

A shugenja may attempt to cast a spell without knowing how many are kami in a given area, but attempting to call too many to help you in casting the spell may result in the spell fizzling and the kami simply ignoring your partitions to cast that spell.

Spellcasting: A shugenja casts spells dependent on the amount of kami in an area and the amount of power a shugenja has. A shugenja can essentially produce effects dependant on which elements he powers the spell with. However, the shugenja cannot exceed each of his 5 elemental stats, which increase by 4 every time it levels.

Example: Tadaka is a level 1 Shugenja. Like all first level shugenja, he must put 1 point in every element, with 1 extra point to be placed usually in his "master element". His barred element gets a single point increase as well, but from this point on it will take him 2 points to increase it a single level. It only takes him 1 point to increase his specialty element 1.5 points however. You cannot use "half-a-kami" in spellcasting, however this does mean it only takes 2 points to raise a stat by 3.

Air: 1 (barred)
Earth: 2 (specialty)
Fire: 1
Water: 1
Void: 1 (cannot exceed 1)

And after he levels once, getting 4 points, lets assume he levels like this:

Air: 1 (barred)
Earth: 5 (specialty)
Fire: 2
Water: 2
Void: 1 (cannot exceed 1)

Now lets assume he uses elemental detection. He detects 6 air kami, 6 earth kami, 6 fire kami, 1 water kami and 6 void kami (6 is his cap)

Now lets assume he is fighting on a slope and wants to trip his opponent by making a gyser of mud. Since there is only 1 water kami to help him in the area, he asks that kami to mix with 2 earth kami to make this gyser of mud to trip his foe. He GM would then post the effects of mixing these kami in this situation. If Tadaka was able to add another water kami to the mix of spells, the resulting mud would be wetter. If he added more earth, the mud would have been more rocky and thicker.

A table of already used and acceptable spell effects (for use or comparison) will be posted elsewhere. Information on kami can be found there as well.

Now after casting, Tadaka might want to sense the elements around him again. Even though he used 2 of the earth kami in the area and only detected 6 (meaning he can assume there are only 4 left), he now detects there are 6 earth kami still! This is not because a new kami came into the region (which is possible) or because the old kami that helped him in his old spell are ready to be used again. This is because there were actually 15 earth kami in the area, even though he could only detect 6!

All members, except for ronin and outlaws of course, of this class are automatically part of the samurai caste.


Clans:

Ki-Rin Clan:

Bear Clan:

Wolf Clan:

Rabbit Clan:

Fox Clan:

Crane Clan:

Dragonfly Clan:

Sparrow Clan: Shugenja of this clan specialize in fire magics, calling upon those to bring fire to one's enemies; because of their life in the cold climates of their borders, Shugenja of the Sparrow specialize in fire magic not only for its damaging properties but because they believe it brings life. Warmth and heat are life giving properties and as such are cherished above all else. Those who are of Sparrow that join this particular class gain a bonus if they specialize in fire, as fire is the predominant element from this clan. Clan members could specialize in another element, however it is looked upon poorly against fire in this region.