Origami Assassin

rulescharacter-creationmagical-traditions

• Race: Usually human, if questionably so, but some coralers, harpies & salamanders have all found roles in the court.
• Sex: Both.

A tool does not carve its own path. It is wielded by the hand that grips it. A blank sheet is an infinite canvas. Folded properly, it makes a million masks.

A Glassian court is porcelain masks hiding snakes. When your skin is white as snow, the two blend together. The Origami Assassin can no longer discern between their mask & their nature.

For two thousand years, Kain’s court instruments kept a grip on rebellious lords. The Emperor’s Thousand Hands served a dual purpose as a court’s weapons & chains. Priests for the priesthood, driven by a blade, just proved to be fuel for the revolutions & uprisings that followed in the end when the Second Phoenix left his post & tossed the realm to wolves.

The Origami Assassin, supposedly, does not want power. They want a task. Give them a name, a problem & a patron. Some say that it is the Origami Assassins who hide behind the thrones of the Lords, ruling not by iconography but by the knife they place on the throat of their employers. Some say that with Kain gone, there’s nothing beneath the mask.

Tradition Feature

• Origami Assassin: You are an instrument of the defunct Empire of Glass. A blade without a master is a dangerous thing. You live for bloodlust, violence, stealth, restraint, & the fine arts. Your antithesis is pacifism, protection, emotions, & nurture.
  • When you incapacitate or kill a character, restore 1 exhausted Spell Die.
  • You can only cast spells while touching a bladed weapon; a sheathed one is fine.
  • You can illustrate, sculpt, write, & compose as a competent artist in any mundane discipline. You are a master of origami.

Backgrounds

Spells

1. Papercut: Affected held thin object develops a lethal blade edge for [Dice] hours & may be used as a Throwing weapon with a +[Dice] Damage bonus.
2. Execution: Split [Sum] + [Dice]² Damage between any valid targets within reach of your current available movement this Turn; you may commit Actions to movement-enabling actions to expand your reach.
3. Escape Artist: Escape from [Dice] sets of bonds constraining your movement: ropes, handcuffs, magical prison gates, awkward or formal conversations; all bonds must be encountered & overcome within [Sum] hours, or the remainder are lost.
4. Lightning Strikes Twice: Make a melee Attack (as normal, sans Action cost) with [Dice] additional bonus Strikes. If you forego a Strike, you may draw & sheathe a weapon for free without additional Actions. If you forego two Strikes, your remaining Strikes occur so fast that viewers cannot observe that you attacked at all.
5. Paper Link: For [Dice] days, up to [Dice] + 1 sheets of paper are entangled together. Everything that happens to one sheet is duplicated to all others, including tearing, ignition, & ink or other fluids soaking into the sheet.
6. Origami Servant: Animate a single-sheet work of origami for [Dice] hours. They are mute, but capable of frighteningly intelligent action & interpretation of intent. One golem can move a coin or pen, carry itself at a Run of 25’ (or Fly if given wings), climb rough surfaces, & attack targets for [Dice] Damage.
7. Silence: Create a spherical cloak of overwhelming silence of up to [Dice] × 10’ diameter for [Sum] Rounds. At 4+ SD, the effect may be permanent until canceled. Spells cannot usually be cast in silence.
8. Whirlwind Blade: For the next [Dice] Rounds, at the end of a melee-only Attack, anything within a touched character’s weapon’s reach that wasn’t struck by a Strike in the Attack takes Damage as if struck by a Seven (halved Damage/effects) using any of the weapons the character used during the Attack.
9. Zero Point Edge: For the next [Dice] hours, a specific touched weapon does an additional [Dice] × [Dice] Damage of a chosen Type.
10. Flesh Folding: Touched target creature or object is flattened paper-thin for [Sum] Rounds. They may Save to negate with a −[Dice] penalty. While flattened, characters take doubled Damage & have a −2 penalty on all physical actions, but may move normally & can slip through any gap thin enough to fit paper through.
11. Paper Face: Fold a target blank sheet of paper into an origami likeness of a person you’ve observed for at least 10 minutes in the last [Dice] × [Dice] days. When the mask is worn, the wearer assumes the likeness & voice of the copied person. Unless given a jarring reason to question your identity, the mask cannot be noticed. The mask lasts [Dice] × [Dice] days.
12. Sealed Orders: Write a statement or command of no longer than [Sum] words on any kind of paper. Anyone of [Sum] Power or less believes it a genuine seal & treats it as if they would a genuine statement from the named authority. This doesn’t mean they respect that authority or will listen to them; persuasion rules Persuasion are still in effect. At 2+ SD, you may choose to have the paper quietly evaporate after a duration of your choosing.