Synodiporia: Jaunt History/Skills Gained

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JAUNT HISTORY

+ The Cursed Kingdom; investigator
+ The Ivory Tower; infiltrator
- The Labyrinthine Shoal, The Last of Us, The Solstice Masquerade
+ The Harrowing of Harrogate; infiltrator
+ Doki Doki no Gakuen; investigator
+ The Digital Frontier; infiltrator
+ The Marches of Purgatory; investigator
- Questing Country
+ The Lightning Age; infiltrator
- Children of the Night
+ Escape from Junkworld; investigator
+ Code of Dishonor; infiltrator
- Roman Holiday, Villains and Vigilantes, Lightside/Darkside
+ The Haunted Isle; investigator
+ Pogémon!; investigator
+ Olympus Upended; infiltrator
+ Shopping Trip (Walkabout); infiltrator

SKILLS GAINED

Hermit's Favor
Mark

Acquired during the Digital Frontier. The mark of Hermit's favor takes the form of a lantern with an IX on it. It appears as a marking on the feathers on Shuu's left side, the equivalent of his ribs in human form.

His mark is designed in a very minimalist style. It takes the form of the outline of a Japanese-style paper lantern with the letters IX inside.

Hermit's Favor
Neutrality

Once per week, persuade someone that you are only present to act as an observer. In that situation, you will be accepted as an observer as long as you do not interfere with any other person’s actions or choices or attempt to accomplish any objective (for example, if stealing or smuggling something, you could not invoke this ability to conceal an object and get away safely even if no-one suspected you of the theft).

Liminal Space
Portal Creation (Stationary)

The ability to create a portal entering or exiting Liminal Space at any time, not only at the beginning or end of a Jaunt. If you are not in Liminal Space, the portal must be within ten feet of you. If you are within Liminal Space, it must open onto your last crossover point into Liminal Space. You may open no more than one portal every six hours and hold it open no longer than ten seconds, but the portal can be any size (within reason).

Liminal Space
Hammerspace I

The ability to bring up to twenty-five pounds of objects into Liminal Space at a time and have them remain present when you’re not looking at them or carrying them (object permanence). This also permits you to open a small portal and retrieve those objects from liminal space whenever you wish. Objects stored in Hammerspace do not experience the passage of time, and so do not go bad or change while in storage. Requires Portal Creation (Stationary) OR Object Portal.

Liminal Space
Teleportation I

The ability to open a personal-sized portal for a split-second and step through it to another point within fifty feet, once per teleportation skill possessed every six hours. Requires Portal Creation (Stationary) OR Object Portal.

The Ivory Tower
Botany

Expert-level botany knowledge.

The Digital Frontier
Constructive Enlightenment

Once per week, gain one artistic, scientific, or architectural skill, granting you savant-level ability in that field. For as long as you choose to exercise that skill, you may not eat, drink, sleep, or communicate directly or clearly with others. Cannot use in conjunction with Assist, Interrogation, or Sift, but can use in the same week as another Program Faction skill.

The Digital Frontier
Control Panel

The ability to call up a screen that displays the current status of a 128-foot hex and all beings and effects active within it. Can also message any other control panel within 3 miles when in range of a signal tower, or 128 feet elsewhere.

Escape From Junkworld
Stellar Education (Specialized)

Basic generalist knowledge about other planets and their species and politics, or about a specific specialty area, such as cybernetic or alien medicine, the history of other cultures, or any imaginable sort of space-aged collegiate-level education. This skill may be taken multiple times for multiple specialties, or for doctorate-level knowledge in a specialty.

Specialty: alien medicine. Taken 1 time.

Comments

The Lightning Age

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Backstory
The man who became known as Iwamine-sensei was once a boy named Ichijou Utsuro, first son of the wealthy Ichijou family. Prominent fixtures in the Kingdom of Uchinaa court, the Ichijous sought to increase their standing by offering their son (more specifically, his intellect) to the court, so he could become a servant of the royal family. Thus, young Utsuro was taken from his family, his name erased, his face concealed, and he began training to become one of Uchinaa's infamous Masked Senseis.

Unfortunately, while Utsuro excelled at the scientist side of his training, he did rather poorly at the ninja part. In his teens, this lack of physical skill led to a terrible accident that left the nerves on the right side of his body irreparably damaged. Unwilling to let his prodigious intellect escape court control, Utsuro was rechristened Iwamine Shuu and sent to the court physician for training.

Shuu quickly grasped the tenets of medical practice. He showed a particular affinity for the science of alchemy, brewing complex and esoteric potions with scornful ease. He was soon promoted to court physician in his own right, though he left the doctoring to his fellows and functioned as more of a royal potions master, brewing medicines, ointments, and other concoctions for the royal family and their favored courtiers. While this gave him political and social standing and soon made him wealthy, Iwamine-sensei cared little for such mundane luxuries. He even ignored the Ichijous' attempts to adopt him back into the family, as they hoped to take advantage of his rising star. Unfortunately for them, filial duty and familial honor were also mundane matters that Shuu did not care for.

With no political or social maneuvering to occupy him, Shuu quickly grew bored of the standard and approved texts he brewed from. He began seeking more esoteric knowledge, delving deep into the practices of the Uchinaan shamans, even seeking knowledge that the shamans themselves shunned.

The good doctor soon developed an unsavory reputation for his obsession with strange and dangerous mixtures. The reputation was furthered by the mysterious deaths of a brash young buck or two (or three or four...) of the court. Though they had clearly expired due to complications from ingesting some strange potion, there was no way to connect them to Iwamine-sensei, and the incidents were quickly swept under the rug. They were only third- or fourth-born children, after all, and from rather lowly families besides. Iwamine-sensei was a genius! His scholarly reputation enhanced the international standing of the court! Surely such a noble intellect had nothing to do with those sad, unfortunate deaths.

And so Shuu was left to his experiments and research until two years ago. Two years ago, he finally (apparently) took actions that could no longer be ignored. He was accused of subverting the royal heir, Noriko-hime, by plying her with terrible, addictive elixirs. Due to the individuals involved, the incident was kept extremely hush-hush, and as such it is not clear what exactly happened -- though rumors have certainly leaked out to the rest of the world. Was Iwamine-sensei merely accused, or actually made to stand trial? Was he exiled in disgrace, or did he flee arrest? Was he guilty, or simply a convenient scapegoat? Whatever the details, the final result is the same.

Two years ago, the famed Iwamine-sensei left the royal court of Uchinaa to set up shop in a some back alley of the Floating Market. And there he has brewed, sold, and doctored in peace ever since.

Appearance
In this setting, Shuu appears closer to his mental/developmental age than his physical age. As such, he looks to be in his late thirties, as opposed to late twenties. He tends to dress in clothes of shabby but good quality, in a style that befits his scholarly status. His day-to-day clothing is in a sober style that melds traditional Uchinaan styling with more continental fashions.

Basically, he dresses like Saito in the opening scene of Inception (waist-up view and various shots including a full-body). However, his colors tend to reflect Chukar partridge coloring (as a way to tie in his true form). So: lots of brown, cream, and black, with red and purple accents. His clothing includes no markings of familial or political affiliation.