I adjusted it with your suggestions. To be honest, I did want suggestions since I made this entirely without outside input, so thanks. Also added the Skills spoiler since I didn't add it for some reason.
Drawn tokens go into a discarded Ledger, spending it, only refreshing when a scene ends (see 1.4). This means the Ledger depletes over a scene, and the flavor of your fiction shifts as it does: a Ledger running low on Opposed tokens feels like momentum is with you.
1.1 Asking the World a Question (Oracle Use)
When fiction is ambiguous and you need the world to answer ("Is the safehouse being watched?" "Does the Association already know my name?"), state the question as a yes/no, judge its Likelihood, adjust the Ledger, draw one token. Questions regarding the world have their own separate Ledger pool to draw from.
Likelihood - Adjustment before the draw
Certain - Remove all Opposed Likely - Add 2 Aligned 50/50 - No change Unlikely - Add 2 Opposed Impossible - Remove all Aligned
1.2 Taking Action (Task Resolution)
When a character attempts something with real stakes — casting a spell, sneaking past an someone, reading a bounded field, cracking a family cipher — draw a pull of tokens equal to the relevant Rating (see Character Creation, capped 1–5) from the Ledger, all at once, and resolve by majority color:
This pull's tokens go to the discard pile, depleting the Ledger for the rest of the scene.
1.3 Contested Actions
When two intentions directly conflict (your Reinforcement-strengthened block vs. another writer's Dead Apostle claws), both writers draw simultaneously and post both results in the open before either narrates the outcome — this prevents one party from writing the other's loss (or their own win) before the dice, so to speak, have actually landed. Whoever has more Aligned tokens (Root counts double) wins; ties favor the defender. Whoever wins narrates the outcome for their own character only; the other writer narrates their own character's reaction. Nobody writes another writer's character taking damage, being hit, or losing an item without that writer's own follow-up post confirming it.
1.4 Refilling the Ledger
The Ledger refills (all discards returned) at the start of each new scene — in this context, a one clearly-bounded sequence of posts (a heist, a conversation, a fight) — or immediately whenever it runs completely dry mid-scene.
2. PRANA & OD — The Resource Layer
Separate from Ledger tokens, each mage has a personal pool of Prana Tokens representing stored Od plus environmental Prana drawn through their Circuits.
Prana Pool size = Circuit Quantity rating (see 3.4), refreshed to full after a full scene of rest, meditation, or access to a leyline/workshop.
Every Skill use or Minor Mystery (Section 4) has a Prana Cost paid before you draw your action pull. Paying it is not optional and is not refunded on failure.
Running out of Prana doesn't stop you from acting, it means you’re drawing from a nearly-empty tank. Any spell cast at 0 Prana costs 1 point of Strain instead (track separately; 5 accumulated Strain drops you unconscious/collapsed, mirroring burnout.
3. CHARACTER CREATION — Building a Mage
Work through these steps in order. Every Rating is 1–5 and equals the number of tokens you draw for related pulls.
3.1 Concept & Archetype
Pick or write one: Clock Tower researcher, disowned family heir, self-taught mage, Church-affiliated individual, Dead Apostle (non-Ancestor) hunter, itinerant puppeteer, alchemist, curse-broker, Atlas Institute washout, mage outside the Association's reach (custom.)
3.2 Origin & Alignment
Drive: a core truth about the character's soul.
Your Drive grants a permanent +1 token to any pull thematically aligned with it, and a GM-less "temptation" clause: acting against your Drive's nature always draws from a Ledger with one Opposed token added, unremoved.
3.3 Magic Circuits
Quality (1–5): rank from Poor to Excellent. Sets your ceiling — you cannot use a Skill at a Difficulty exceeding your Quality without accepting 1 automatic Strain.
Quantity (1–5): sets your Prana Pool size and how many active/ongoing spells you can sustain at once.
3.4 Foundation (School of Thaumaturgy)
Choose two schools of magecraft to specialize in, called Foundations. Anything from Alchemy, Siberian Shamanism, Kabbalah to all sorts of other things from myth and academia can be Foundations.
3.5 Mundane Skills
Rate 1–5 each: Investigation, Combat, Social, Lore, Stealth/Subterfuge. Used for non-magical pulls.
4. CUSTOM MAGECRAFT — Skill Design Worksheet
Root Oracle doesn't ask you to pre-write individual spells. Instead, you design Skills: broad, versatile categories of magecraft that can produce a wide range of improvised effects at the moment you need them, not a fixed spell list. You still spend Prana and draw tokens exactly as before. What's changed is that the fiction of "what this can do" is a domain you interpret in the moment,.
4.1 The Skill Card
Fill this out once per Skill, and keep it on a card:
Field- How to fill it in
Name- What the mage calls this facet of their craft (e.g. "Reduction," "Coagulating Swordsmanship," "Kaleidoscope Thread")
Foundation - Which of your Foundations (3.5) it draws on — sets the Rating you draw
Domain - One or two sentences defining the conceptual boundary of what this Skill can touch — not a fixed effect. Broader domains are more versatile but harder to master convincingly; narrower domains are reliable but limited. ("Anything that can be stripped down to its most basic, essential form" is a Domain. "Shatter a lock" is not — that's a one-off trick, see 4.4.)
Core Rank - 1–5. The Skill's baseline Difficulty when used squarely within its Domain. This is the number you actually reference at the table.
Signature Applications - 3–5 example uses within the Domain, written as illustration, not an exhaustive menu. These exist so other writers immediately grasp the Skill's shape.
Structural Drawback - A true, permanent limitation baked into how this Skill works — not chosen per-use. It grants a standing +1 token on every Central-use pull (4.2) This is optional
4.2 Using a Skill: Scope Classification
When a player wants their Skill to do something, state the intent in fiction, then classify how central that use is to the Skill's Domain. In solo/duo play the acting writer self-classifies honestly; in group scenes, any writer can propose a classification and the acting writer confirms, or the Ledger settles a genuine disagreement via an oracle question (1.1: "Is this within the Domain?"). Mystic Codes can be created using the same system, just have some common sense with the limitations and capabilities of such things.
Prana Cost always equals the final adjusted Difficulty (before Elemental match discount, 3.3). Difficulty above your Circuit Quality (3.4) still costs 1 automatic Strain to force, same as any pull.
4.3 Worked Example
Skill: "Reduction" — Foundation: Alchemy (4). Domain: anything that can be stripped down to its most essential, basic form — objects, arguments, wounds, even people's stated motives. Core Rank 3. Signature Applications: distill a poison to its purest toxin; strip a lie down to the bare fact underneath it; reduce a complex ward to its one load-bearing rune. Structural Drawback: the caster cannot build or complicate anything with this Skill, only simplify.
Distilling a poison → Central, Difficulty 3, +1 token from the Drawback.
Reducing a person's cover story to the one true motive underneath → Adjacent (people aren't quite "objects," but it's a natural reading), Difficulty 4.
Trying to reduce a building to rubble in one shot → Peripheral (technically "reducing it to component parts," but it's straining the concept toward pure destruction), Difficulty 5, +1 Opposed added to the pull.
4.4 Minor Utility Mysteries (one-off tricks)
Not everything needs to be a Skill. For a single fixed, narrow trick that doesn't deserve its own Domain, things like General-Fundamentals that any trained mage picks up — just fill out a Name, Foundation, Effect (one sentence), Difficulty 1, Prana Cost 1, and skip 4.1–4.3 entirely. These carry no Structural Drawback and no Scope table.
5. THE BOUNTY BOARD — Proposing Missions
There is no GM to hand out jobs, so the Organization runs on cases the players bring to the table themselves. Any player may post a Bounty: state in fiction who wants what done, for whom, and roughly why. That's the whole requirement.
Whatever isn't already established stays genuinely unknown until someone asks. Is the client telling the truth? How dangerous is the target really? Is the pay fair? Don't decide these in advance— when it matters, ask the Oracle (1.1): state the question as a yes/no, judge its Likelihood from what's already true in the fiction, adjust the Ledger, and draw. The answer is real from that point on.
• Any player may accept a posted Bounty for their character, alone or with others, and may pool staff or Prana with other department heads — agree how a payout splits before the job starts, not after.
• If a player doubts a listing's accuracy, that's an Oracle question too (“Is the client's information accurate?”), asked before committing resources rather than assumed one way or the other.
• Payout is agreed by ordinary consensus at posting — what feels fair for the risk and effort involved — the same way any other detail of the fiction gets settled at the table. If the table can't agree, ask the Oracle whether the client's offer is fair, generous, or lowball, and let that steer the number.
• Completion follows directly from the mission's climactic pull (1.2): a clean Success pays in full, a complicated Success pays but with a string attached (a delay, a cut withheld, a favor instead of Marks), and a Failure pays nothing, though salvage or partial recovery is always fair game to argue for in fiction. A Root result is worth narrating as a windfall — extra pay, a rare item, a favor owed — at the table's discretion.
6. THE QUARTERMASTER'S LEDGER — Loot & Items
There's no shop inventory to generate and no item tables to roll on. Marks earned from Bounties buy whatever it makes sense for the Organization, a contact, or a black market to actually have— common sense is the only rule.
• If it's reasonable a place, person, or stash would have something, it's there. A quartermaster's cache has mundane gear and reagents; a black-market fence has stranger, pricier things; a target's safehouse has whatever that target plausibly needed.
• When it isn't obvious whether something's available, or a player wants to search, loot, or scavenge for something specific, that's an Oracle question (1.1): “Does this place have a working Mystic Code?” “Is there anything worth salvaging here?” Judge Likelihood from the fiction and draw.
• Prices work the same way payouts do (5.4) — agree a fair number for what it plausibly costs, or ask the Oracle if the asking price is fair, inflated, or a steal.
• A Root result on a search or scavenging pull is the table's cue to make the find genuinely notable, something rarer or stranger than what was being looked for, not just more of the same.
If the CC and magecraft stuff is unwanted, could just use the oracle alone.
Where there’s riches, there’s a way. Since time immemorial, this has been the way of the world. From the beginnings of civilization, to the modern day, it seems that dirty money always finds it’s way to the hands of those most willing to earn it.
Mercenaries, bounty hunters, headhunters. Whatever you want to call them. They’ve wandered this earth since the first murders of unrecorded history. All that matters is that money makes the world go around.
Even as mankind entered the Age of Man, they still kept their desire for violence and riches, industrializing their way into even greater forms of violence.
But there are certain kinds of death and bloodshed that aren’t so recognizable by the world— indirect famines caused by precise strikes, exchanges that lead to calamities down the line, and many other things.
The most mysterious are those of no logical cause. Disappearances where the victims were never found without a single sign of their struggle being found, deaths caused by seemingly unexplainable things, and downright unusual shit happening to people that can’t be explained.
Well, it turns out, there’s a world of moonlight right beneath the mundane one that shines just as brightly with the blood of the slain.
But, surely, you aren’t one of those scumbags that would kill for just a bit of cash, wouldn’t you?
Of course not!
You’re a member of the Berlin Hunter’s Organization! A totally not underfunded and understaffed bounty hunting board and organizing group that works for the high powers of magical society.
Most of you folks contact each other with a so-called “Magi-Net” that acts like the Internet that those stupid normals use, but it turns out that you have been assigned to work together with some team members. Trust me, this is a big deal! You’ll be handling various cases across the continent and the world around, which totally aren’t morally dubious whatsoever!
Now, with introductions finished, hopefully you’ll get along with your teammates.
Hello everyone. A GOAT has arrived with y’all with a new RP. This time, it’ll be GMless and have a unique rulebook complete with an Oracle system, so you can experience all the glory of a narrative experience with these adjustments. If you are interested, feel free to express such interest.
About me: I’m a rather frequent poster if my partner is also frequent in posting, but there can be some days where I can’t really post. Regardless, I consider myself a good quality and frequent poster when it comes to RPs, especially if the story gets juicy enough or the excitement ramps up.
About what I want: Pretty much what I want is pretty much an Isekai into the Arknights setting, either a transmigrator or reincarnation plot. Now the setting that the characters are from are either from Earth as in our world, or from existing fandoms. Specifically I’m looking for someone that’s into Fate or Jujutsu Kaisen to isekai with. Either or both is fine, and so is someone that wants to do another setting for the characters.
The problem with giving a child the body and capabilities of an adult was that their movements would be sluggish, their hands not used to the burden of adulthood, and their mind far too feeble to realize the burden of a true man.
The shooting down of the divine chariot that was Indra was a testament to the failure of a naive youth.
Tengoku should have never given the child that was Minoru a chance in combat. He was no great magus, nor was he a prodigy in combat, no matter how much his pride told him so.
Flames would wash over him. It was enough to shatter concrete, reducing it into ash and soot. It was special, yes, it was special enough that Tengoku could recognize it as Minoru writhed in agony within their mental landscape, the mummy of Ryomen Sukuna ever-so-slightly dripping more of its puss into the interior domain with every cry that the boy would let out.
For Tengoku, it was simply another pain that could be added to the endless, overflowing pot that was his mind.
It did damage, that was to be sure, burning the skin and muscle that was present on Minoru’s chest. Bone was even singed and cracked, threatening to expose the heart that the both of them shared to the outside world, and more severely, the flames that threatened to consume it.
But as Minoru panicked, Tengoku merely wrestled away control from the foolish child.
Tengoku scoffed, seeing as Minoru forgot to apply the principles of Ösel and Gyulü to his body before the moment of impact.
The old man had a level of respect for the boy, for his intuition and his ability to learn fast, but there was one thing that truly held him: hesitation.
And indeed, even though the old man could not hear the sheep girl’s thoughts, her sentiment was indeed acknowledged by him. There was no great familiar that he could conjure, but as the principles of Ösel and Gyulü washed over him and his wounds began to heal with speed that would shock even seasoned mages, Tengoku would merely stare at the distance between him and the girl that the boy had so foolishly targeted.
Only one thing was given to him in both the fields of magecraft and combat: unrivaled flexibility.
And in this particular case, as the flames began to dissipate, he could think of many options for him to embody, but one in particular seemed interesting to him.
He was reminded of the distance between gods and humans, heaven and earth, insects and man. Such things could never be crossed because of one thing: death. Humans could never climb the mountain that separated them from divinity, lest they gain the ire of the gods and be erased from existence. The earth could never hope to reach the sky, as the distance was impossible to cross, the touching of earth and the heavens ultimately resulting in the death of all creatures.
Likewise, an insect could never hope to attain the status of a man, as the information and wisdom of mankind would flood its feeble brain and leave it dead.
It was a bridge that could never be crossed, or in a more accurate sense: a bridge that never existed at all.
That was, until some two thousand years ago, when a sage and prince brought forth a bridge that would allow mankind to cross into and past the realm of the divine. He was sure his opponent knew it, even as they were most likely a mage that focused on western traditions.
God could never be crossed, Olympus could never be peaked, and the kami could never be escaped from.
A number of hand signs and chants were spoken forth into existence, even as the body of Minoru was struggling to move. Two mouths, two faces and four arms brought forth the possibility that Gautama Buddha brought forth into existence with the invocation of one particular deity and his mandala.
The broken mandala of Indra would fade away, and in its place, the spirits and daemons of Ryomen Sukuna begin to form a new one.
Instead of the torrent of lightning that greeted Indra, only a calm wind would emanate from Tengoku’s form, obfuscating his transformation.
In the end, the Phurba would be once more unsheathed, held in the right hand, while the vajra was held in the left. When the hand signs and chants were finally completed, they settled on a particular one: Ksepana, the sprinkling of the nectar of immortality upon mankind.
“No longer would mankind be held back by the cycle of death, for an escape throughout eternity had been found.”
It was as if those words were spoken with the invocation of the mudra. It was the first thing that could be found, but as the wind settled and faded away, the two faces would find themselves with another eye between them.
It was the eye of the destroyer, the one that conquered death in order to save a follower. The mandala floated behind his head, like a wheel of perfect harmony.
The once Asura-like form had transformed into one of a divine countenance: Yamantaka, Shiva, the conqueror of Yama. It had many names, but the deity had been invoked within his physical form. Instead of the furious and cursed appearance, golden hair would flow down his shoulders, and his five eyes would glow golden with a divine radiance.
His skin was a silver that would not be touched by death. Indeed, it seemed as if the sun itself had descended into the battlefield to face his opponent.
The mandala served to be the thing that allowed the bridge of death to be crossed. Practically, this meant that injuries would healed, adapted to with every turn of the mandala, fueled both by the magical energy of the magus it was being wielded by and the spirits within Ryomen Sukuna. The regeneration would be absurd, even more so than the gifts of the Gyulü would already allow, further bolstered by a boost in physical capabilities that further enhanced what the Ösel would conjure forth.
Furthermore, both the Generation and Completion stages were being used, further boosting the capabilities of the mandala. Meanwhile, the fifth eye that graced Tengoku’s form would serve as an offensive and defensive implement that would both shoot at his opponents and intercept projectiles to protect him from instant death.
His mind had been dissolved, fully immersed in the role that he was playing. There was no longer Mononobe Tengoku, but only the deity that had taken hims place. Only a shadow as left as both Tengoku and Minoru watched in their mental landscape, both engrossed in their little play.
His first action as the deity that conquered death was a single step forward, followed by a beam of crimson energy aimed at the archer that shot at Minoru’s feeble body. It was payback, even if Tengoku would never acknowledge his vengeance for his host.
“Perhaps trying to climb up the castle walls wasn’t exactly the greatest dish that we could have prepared for our feast.”
The voice in his head spoke, in a way that reminded him of old writings of long-dead poets combined with the attitude of some sort of food-obsessed monk. Minoru had gotten accustomed to the ramblings of the often mournful Tengoku, to the point that he had completely blanked out when his Servant proposed the plan to raid the castle that another pair of Master and Servant were occupying.
The strangely-dressed boy merely did a mental nod in the space that both he and Tengoku occupied. In his view, the monk’s attitude was merely a way to cope with his failures, hearkening back to the pleasures that he had rejected in his life in order to distance himself from his ascetic atrocities.
“So what exactly are we doing, old man?”
The reply of the old monk was instantaneous, instructions given to the inexperienced boy in a time and efficiency that rivaled that of advanced supercomputers in speed and bandwidth. It was the result of their symbioses, the dissolving of their true essences into one mixture.
“Ah…”
The boy would visibly be perturbed with the game plan that the centenarian had concocted, further exacerbated by the grim look that the old one gave him in their mental space.
“...If that’s how it’s going to be…”
Something stirred within both of their hearts, an object that they had both learned to despise to varying degrees joining them in their mental space. Previously, it was the massive corpse that hung over them like the distant horizon, but now, the space’s clear waters had become black and blood-red alike, like the puss and ichor that came out of a rotting body’s various stages of death.
It was unusual, intensely so, for them to resort to such a thing, but the opponent that they were facing was far too much of a threat to go easy on. The impact of their arrows against their Servant’s shield was enough to tell them that.
“Then I guess we shouldn’t pull our punches…”
The corpse of the infant-like mummy revealed its faces, smiling with rot and puss as it dripped down a torrent of vile matter upon the two of them. In the material world, a small hiss could be heard, as if a pipe was about to burst from released pressure, before a massive torrent of red gas and curses would release itself from Minoru’s body.
A portion of Ryomen Sukuna’s power had been harnessed within the mind and body, resulting in the release of countless curses. Those very same curses would be re-absorbed into the body of the hosts as the stabilization would continue, resulting in the great pillar reaching slightly into the sky to recede until the form of Minoru could once again be seen.
But there was something far too different about his form.
Instead of the long, silver hair that flowed down to his shoulders, spiky fields of black hair grew from his scalp. And instead of his modest height and build, a monster that stood over two meters tall and with a body that could be compared to that of the depictions of an Asura— four arms, two faces and two mouths, and muscular beyond belief— was present within the aura that was slowly dissipating.
Just as quickly as the nightmare was conjured, the Vajra that he held in his right hand would pulse, letting out an electric current into his new form. The phurba that was previously in his left hand was now sheathed on his hip, as it had no need in a battle of pure offense.
Daemons— deities— of a furious nature would be conjured up from the corpse of Ryomen Sukuna, converted through the countless wishes that were stored within. Their goal? To imitate the countless “gods” that surrounded the imitation of the god known as “Indra.” It was a lacking imitation, but it was the best that the two minds could create, the two pairs of Buddhas united together as if it was one whole deity surrounded by their mandala.
Their goal was rather simple: to increase their speed beyond the reckoning of modern man. The lightning would represent Indra’s victory over the beast’s that threatened mankind, a blinding speed that caused multiple booms to emanate from the monstrous Asura as it leaped forward and sprinted towards his target, lightning being embodied with every step, the Vajra further reinforcing the speed and elemental nature of his current form.
Magical circuits were enhanced, Od regeneration was bolstered, and the overall performance of magecraft was further pushed beyond the limits of normal mages. All, powered by the chanting and hand signs of two faces, three arms and two mouths that spoke of destruction in the way of the Buddha, for a single goal of striking down an opponent.
Name: Kagetsugi Minoru (影継 実), Monobe Tengoku (物部 天獄) Titles: The Worst Upon This Earth, Demon King, The Fallen Gender: Male Age: 19/136 Alignment: Neutral Good Affiliation: None Clock Tower Rank: Cause (Formerly) Command Spell:
Background
“You will die here.”
Who were these words directed at? A killer? A visionary? Perhaps even something in between? Nevertheless, it ended with corpses littering a place that should not have been stained with blood.
A sacred place was desiccated, the ashes that were left behind forming a place that could never be touched by mundane hands. At least, that was the story for one of them. The other one on the other hand…
He had forgotten his name and even the name of the family he was born into. Long ago, he was born into a family, those few British overlords that had decided to settle into the Indian Subcontinent.
But they were no mere noble family. They were those that were long ingrained within the world of magecraft, a branch family of a great family of the West sent to India to study the mysteries of the region.
It was only supposed to be a mere expedition, but as the knowledge and riches that could be extracted became abundantly clear, the founder of the branch family would create a much more permanent presence within the area.
The founder would marry with another mage that had travelled from England, and would father three children.
It is the life of the third child to be born that is of interest.
“You must not exit the estate.”
Those words were repeated again and again to him. As the third child in the family, he was not given priority in regards to being taught the mystical arts.
His father would take note of this, and would dote on the boy, as he did not have the responsibility of being disciplined. To hide him from the ugliness of the world, the father would lock him up in his estate, never allowing him to glimpse the world outside that boundary.
Even though he was not given priority and was sheltered, the one known as Elliot had an inherent wonder for the world that made him the antithesis of his father’s isolationist policy.
His father would go on various journeys and expeditions. Elliot was told that it was for the sake of the family’s mission— to record and relay the information of the Subcontinent to the Mage’s Association.
However, on one journey, his father would not return, and after days of searching his last known location, the man would be declared lost. Following his supposed ‘death’ his eldest son would take over as the head of the family.
It was this eldest son that would take pity on Elliot. After all, the child was like an infant, not knowing the joys and horrors of the outside world. With the founder dead, it was only a matter of time before the Clocktower would put more scrutiny on the family and potentially order them to return to Britain.
And so, the head would allow the third child to gradually become accustomed to the outside world. At first, it was of the more wealthy districts, accompanied by guards that would protect Elliot. But as time went on, the head would allow his brother to explore the more impoverished areas, and as the third son would learn more and more of the outside world, he would feel a great sense of pity and sadness for those outside.
His warped mentality would crumble even when he was in the wealthier parts of the outside world, seeing the suffering that was present. His naivety would be broken.
With his conception of the world destroyed, he would seek to mend the suffering that witnessed, to create the perfect garden that he knew the world could become.
It was in these moments of realization that he discovered the works and writings of the Buddha, and would become immersed in the path of arhathood.
Magecraft was a wonderful thing.
It was the one thing that allowed seemingly powerless humans to grasp the miracles of gods and monsters. And so, was it much of a surprise that the third son would begin to study it even more vigorously once he came to his epiphany?
In his years of self-study, Elliot would wander the Indian Subcontinent, absorbing much knowledge of the beliefs and religions of the people he encountered. Ultimately, he would put his faith in the path of the Buddha. But his mindset, that which had been broken by the suffering he witnessed, did not mend itself into something beautiful.
Instead, his view of the world would become distorted, and he would not pursue the middle path. In his twisted fervor, the third child would slowly fall into madness. In addition, in his travels, he would nurture a mask of someone that cared for the downtrodden whilst his sanity slowly decayed.
In his fervor, he would study more and more of what he saw in his family’s archives, learning of a sect of mages that utilized the framework of Western Magecraft with the the beliefs of the subcontinent and the greater Eastern world. Originally, they were Western mages that came through the paths of the Silk Road, eventually settling in Northwestern India and establishing a stronghold for the Mage’s Association there.
Once he finally found them, Elliot would become a loyal follower of their teachings, eventually reintegrating with the general western mage society once he had nearly reached his twenties. With their help and knowledge, he became a talented mage, eventually attending the Clocktower and becoming a proper mage of the Organization.
However, in his fervor, Elliot would commit a grave sin: that of mass experimentation on a village in Northeastern India. The sheer terror of his daemonic and spiritual experiments disgusted the Mage’s Association and the sect that raised him up once he showed them the result of his work. More importantly, he was risking the intervention of the Eastern mage societies with his foolishness.
He would be designated as a heretic, and would be hunted down to the point where he barely escaped further into the East,
Mononobe Tengoku.
That was the name he adopted in the new land that he had fled to.
Not much was exceptional about the land that he would inhabit. The same suffering and happiness that was present everywhere was present as well. Even though he had learned of the useful practice of self-mummification and had retrieved the bones of those clans that had betrayed the emperor, he would feel only sadness in his rituals.
Even when he had gathered a small following, the memories of his followers still haunted him. It was as if he was merely a husky waiting for death.
When he had purchased a set of Siamese twins from a freak show, he thought nothing of their existence but as sacrifices for his cause.
But as the twins would interact with him, as they would speak to him and share their thoughts with him, fervently declaring their loyalty, something impossible would happen: a bond would begin to develop between them and Tengoku.
It was realized that he looked at them not from an overlooking view, but from the same elevation and plane, did he realize all the suffering that he had caused.
He has become selfish in the best sense of the word.
Slowly but surely, his mind would begin to change, and when the twins were about to undergo the ritual of Kodoku, he objected to their sacrifice.
His followers did not listen.
Instead, they thought of him as going mad from his old age, and would dismiss all his exclamations. After all, the true Mononobe Tengoku would never object to such a thing.
He watched as the twins were locked in the room.
He witnessed them coming out of the chamber, covered in the blood of others.
And he could only watch in horror as they zealously underwent the process of self-mummification. Even as the mummy of the twins would be brought to different places of Taisho Japan, and would cause various disasters from their accumulating curses, he would only feel regret for his actions.
He would begin to despise his ideology of altruism, and would lash out at anyone who would visit his chambers.
Of course, such behavior would only reinforce his followers’ belief that he had gone senile.
As his last act of defiance, Tengoku would order his corpse be mummified into a skeletal form that was infused with the information of his existence and consciousness, and would order the few remaining followers that were still loyal to him to hide it away.
The old man would then inform the Mage’s Association of his existence within Japan, that he had not perished long ago in Southern India. This would lead to the entire sect along with Tengoku himself being wiped out by the Association.
The only thing that remained was the mummy, which was hidden away in the mountains in the same shrine where Tengoku’s puppet was stored.
It is said that upon his death, the old man’s face was that of a tranquil smile.
He was average, painfully so. Everything he did in life was either a failure or completely mediocre. Kagetsugi Minoru was his name, living in an average city with average parents. He thought he could tolerate it, but as he watched his friends and classmates become exceptional people, he could no longer bear with it any longer.
Even the people he saw as peers, as equals in the past, would far surpass him by the time he had reached highschool. He could not live such a life. So by the end of school, he would run. To where? He didn’t know, he just ran as far as he could, taking himself up the small mountain that overlooked his city,
There, he would find a strange place: an abandoned shrine deep in the woods. Something drew him to the place when he looked upon it, and even though he felt a sense of dread approaching it, he felt as if such a feeling would finally make him exceptional.
After all, an average, regular person would run, and never talk about the dread they felt ever again. And so,he would enter the premises of the shrine, the building that held within it the treasure that he hoped would make him special.
Unusually, he would find traces of activity that would mean that it was visited relatively recently, as opposed to the decades or centuries he expected it to be abandoned. Perhaps something was transferred here or taken?
In the shrine, he would find a strange box, and upon opening it, he found something utterly perplexing: a mummy, a corpse with two heads, four arms and four legs, upon its body a tag that had the words “Ryomen Sukuna” on it.
Unbeknownst to him, another mummy would emerge from the deepest depths of the shrine, sneaking up on him. The last thing he remembered was the sight of the decrepit thing’s face, seemingly twisted into a serene smile.
The next moment, he was in front of his home, sweating bullets. Upon spotting him, his mother would rush out, asking where he had been in a frantic voice. He had apparently been missing for weeks, but just as the situation was about to become clear to him, information would flood his mind.
Images of buildings, old enough to eclipse his lifetime by multiple factors. He saw many things, being raised by someone that was not his father or mother, and finally, the information would become coherent, giving him the knowledge of the existence of the Moonlit World, but not much else.
When he was ushered into his home, there was only one thing in his mind: he was exceptional. When he was given dinner, a voice would speak in his head, one that seemed oddly familiar to him: “Who are you?
”
After weeks of study and research, he had managed to contact parts of mage society. Nobody particularly impressive, not even a part of the Clocktower, but still, a pen pal that he could communicate with to figure out the present situation of mage society.
He learned of many things, nothing impressive, as it seemed mage society didn’t change much in his absence. With the knowledge that the two of them shared, the mundane world was much more impressive in its changes.
Especially the miracles of technology known as “cellphones.”
One particular tidbit of information intrigued him: that of a certain ritual happening in Switzerland. Needless to say, he was rather interested in the prospects of such a ritual.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t get into more trouble than he already had in life.
Personality
Although Tengoku is a man that has many regrets, he does not seek to escape from his past, but instead rebuild something new from the present circumstances that he finds himself in. He finds peace in the teachings of the Buddha, but is perfectly willing to let go of the past beliefs that he held in order to atone for his sins.
What he despises most are fanatics that stop at nothing for their cause, not seeing any error in their wrongdoings or even doubting anything that comes from their creed. Those that belong in dogmatic cults and organizations are the worst people imaginable in his mind, especially those that wish to harm and enchain others for their viewpoint.
Meanwhile, Minoru is someone that has yearned for exceptionalism, but now that he has earned the status of being extraordinary, even learning that he had dormant Magical Circuits, now turns to the man that he considers to be like a mentor: Tengoku himself. At first, he felt aimless, but now that he has learned of the regrets of pursuing nothing but one’s ambition, he only wishes to find peace in life.
Still, Minoru has seemingly impossible ambitions: to reach the heights of humanity’s hierarchy, to witness what is beyond the earth’s atmosphere, and finally, to join humanity in the stars. Nevertheless, he tries to keep himself humble and focus more on the present situation that he can improve upon.
Magecraft Information
Elemental Affinity: Earth and Water
Number of Magic Circuits: C Quality of Magic Circuits: B
Magecraft:
Attribute: Embodiment
The trait that is defined by the concept of taking external factors into oneself, mixing those things into one’s very existence. The existences that are closer to death and the concept of oblivion are far more effective to use with this trait.
Attribute: Deification
Defined within Tengoku’s vision as that which allows the desires of mankind to manifest and become something more than their living hosts. In other words, it is the trait that gives birth to daemons and elevates them to the status of divinity, retaining parts of their sources.
Mudra Hand Signs
A rather simple form of incantation that can be combined with verbal ones. Uses the Buddhist system of Mudras to use magecraft. Spiritual existences can also be used to help with the incantation process, significantly speeding up the time to bring about a spell.
General Fundamentals
Basic magecraft inherited through Tengoku’s family and learned through the archives they kept in their library.
Deity Yoga
The fundamental basis for Tengoku’s magecraft. It is the invocation of “deities” by dissolving oneself and becoming one with them. In the case of Tengoku, even his physical form is affected by such a process, allowing to fully engulf himself in the viewpoints of deities.
Its ultimate goal is to envision the enlightenment of the practitioner through the generation and competition stages. These stages allow the dissolving of a human into a deific form, the host of the deity allowing a better imagery to appear within the mage’s mind. By seeing themselves as something that is perfect, they themselves can gaze upon the true nature of the world.
Allows for a form of divination in its most basic form, but is far more specialized in using existences known as spiritual existences and grounding them to a vessel, allowing for a mimicry of their capabilities.
Generation Stage
The stage that concerns the conversion of desires into spiritual existences. To put it in simpler terms: it is the magecraft that is responsible for generating daemons. This is done through the dissolving of the mage’s mind and the incantations that convert desires and wishes into daemonic existences.
Through this, the third part can be actualized, allowing for the embodiment of these daemons into physical form. This stage is the naming of the daemons with divine language, giving them the traits that correspond with three different classifications.
The three different types of “deities” are as follows: fierce, which are those that take on wrathful roles in order to remove things in the way of the mage’s path; serene, which are those that take on peaceful traits and generally provide a restorative role towards the mage’s path; and finally, semi-fierce, who have the traits of both classifications, although are less specialized and thus weaker at each individual role.
In order to properly enshrine spiritual existences as “deities” their mandalas have to be fully realized as well. The mandala acts as a host of lesser spirits as well as the Buddha Field of the deity in question. Practically, this means either the bolstering of the daemonic existences through the help of other spiritual existences, or summoning these “lesser deities” for various purposes.
Completion Stage
The third stage of Tengoku’s magecraft. It is the process in which a spirit is able to become a so-called “deity.” By practicing various techniques that bolster the subtle body, which can be seen as the intermediary of spiritual and physical— the mind and magical circuits— enlightenment can be accelerated, leading a theoretical path to Truth.
Inner Heat is the core of these techniques, not at all involving those stages that involve death and the dreaming world. Instead, the waking world is the concern of this form of magecraft. The techniques can be separated into three particular classifications:
Tummo: Which is the fundamental basis for the two other techniques. It is the basic manipulation of the subtle body, using breathing as its core in order to access the bliss that can be drawn from magical circuits and the mind itself. In layman’s terms, it is a technique that boosts the performance of the magical circuits, mental capability, Od regeneration and general thaumaturgical capabilities of a mage. By using this, the strength of the “deities” can be further bolstered.
Ösel: The “bliss” that is briefly touched upon in Tummo. Normally, it is something that can only be experienced during unconsciousness or extraordinary circumstances, but through meditation and use of incantations, it can be experienced on command. Unlike other types of bliss, the mind of the mage is clear and further focused on their tasks. In practice, it allows a reigning in of the influences of the body and mind, giving immense amounts of resistance to the manipulations of such factors when active as well as boosting the capabilities of both. It gives greater control of daemonic existences that have been taken into the mage.
Gyulü: The practice of seeing one’s body and existence as nothingness— sunyata. When paired with the second technique, it allows an extraordinary amount of durability and robustness. Instead of giving resistance, it is instead the purging of already existing things such as injuries and the weakness of the mage’s reliance on its corporeal form. In the field, it can be used for rapid regeneration by purging harmful things and integrating parts of the world and environment into oneself to accelerate healing. It is what allows the fusion of deity and mage.
Buddha Field Expansion
The last technique in Tengoku’s arsenal. Seeing the world as merely another extension of one’s existence— or more accurately, oneself as the extension of the world— the Buddha Field of various deities can be coalesced and warped into one existence. All are one, even the Buddhas that have ascended past the cycle of Samsara.
Buddha Fields are combined into one existence, creating something an existence that resembles a Reality Marble. The boundary releases the information of a malformed and incomplete release, a broken Buddhahood that floods all the information that the Reality Marble can pull from the world around it in a way that creates a bolstering of both the mage and the spirits that exist within them.
All so-called "gods" are able to manifest within the boundary without much trouble, giving a tremendous advantage in both combat and general mage activities. While it maintains the resemblance of a Reality Marble, it is truly more like a workshop that can be erected in place in order to empower the spells of a magus and drastically decrease the time of their spell casting. Once set up properly, requires little maintenance compared to a Reality Marble.
Magic Crest: 120 years, first generation
Mystic Codes
Ryomen Sukuna
A cursed object and mystic code that Tengoku grew to hate. The latter is a mystic code that has absorbed countless desires and wishes, used as a receptacle and shrine that can be used to create daemons.
It is contained within the puppet body of Tengoku and Kagetsugi, allowing them to draw power from the countless spirits and daemons trapped inside. The spirits themselves can be used as a substitute for magical energy in powering spells.
However, the original purpose of the mummy was to release curses and absorb the desires, wishes and hatred of those around it on a tremendous scale. Instead of using its own power to create curses, it instead draws out the curses present within humans in a cascading effect, which both Tengoku and Kagetsugi are completely unwilling to use unless absolutely necessary.
When partially drawn from or fully absorbed into the puppet body where it is stored, it twists the form of the puppet into that of a four-armed, two-mouthed and two-faced asura. Such a form has increased physical parameters and can cause paralysis by the mere gaze of its eyes.
Vajra of Fury
A tool in the shape of a two-sided dagger that represents the furious deities that are stored within Tengoku’s puppet body. It emits golden lightning from its form, inflicting curses that give various conditions to those that it strikes. An object that can only be used to harm, it is not something that should be used for most situations where battle is not involved.
Phurba of Rejuvenation
A ritual knife that serves only one purpose: to heal and cure the sick of their ailments. It is a modest weapon that does not have a purpose in drawing blood. Emits maroon flames, that paradoxically, does no harm and instead heals others. Cannot be used to heal the one that is wielding it and it’s blade cannot be used to harm others.
Skeletal Mummy
A skeletal mummy that inserts itself within a host and replaces the existing system. Once inserted into a host, the memories, knowledge and consciousness of Mononobe Tengoku become present within the unfortunate soul that was drawn into the puppet’s presence. The process can only be completed on those that do not have active and awakened magical circuits.
The host is able to perform feats of physical strength, speed and durability that far exceed that of a normal human. Even their mind is bolstered against any threats that may intrude upon it. However, it’s true potential when it comes to storing spiritual existences within it.
A truly tremendous amount of spiritual beings can be stored within the mummy body, specialized in the act of invocation and temporary symbiosis with such beings. The art of using these spirits externally is also a feature, but it is not extraordinary.
Nonmagical Assets
Wrath and Peace
Both a set of skills for hand-to-hand combat and the ability to heal others with first aid. As someone that studied the deities of watchfulness and healing, Tengoku is able to perform both miracles even without magecraft.
His wrathful side gives him an immense amount of skill in martial art, while his peaceful side allows him advanced knowledge and practical skill in first aid. He endeavored to learn such mundane skills in order to truly embody the gods that he used in his craft.
Outdated Cell Phone
For all intents and purposes, not that bad when it comes to phones. But compared to the latest flagship, luxury phones? It pales in comparison. Still useful though.