Kisa/Gifts
Kisa is a rank 2 (Kiko), Kitsune; Shinju, Doshi
Gifts 1
• Airt Perception - Using this Gift, a Kitsune can roughly identify a spirit by its airt — the trail left in the wake of a spirit’s passing. Treat this exactly as a Kitsune identifying and tracking animals (by scent or by looking for tracks, at the Kitsune's discretion), but apply it to spirits instead. Note that Kitsune may not be able to go everywhere spirits do to follow the trail — remember, spirits can fly.
• Blessing The Blade - The player spends one Gnosis and rolls Wits + Rituals (Difficulty 7). The weapon will do aggravated damage against other shen (supernatural beings) for one scene only.
• Diagnose - The Kitsune focuses on her target. Her player rolls Perception + Medicine (difficulty 7). One success reveals the target’s general health. Each additional success gives more specific information. Zero successes fail to determine anything, while a botch produces a false (and possibly dangerous) diagnosis.
• Enemy Ways - This is a danger sense. With a successful Perception + Stealth roll the Kitsune can pick up hints as to the nature of enemies in the area. Usually a Kitsune who uses this Gift successfully can pick out the number and type of his opponents; with five or more successes sometimes more can be learned.
• Flow Of Aura (Upgraded) - The player rolls Perception + Empathy vs 7. With one success, the shinju has a vague idea of past events, with three, more detail emerges, with five or better, she senses the precise emotional texture and depth. (The book actually depicts /events/ up to two centuries ago with three plus successes.)
• Resist Toxin - The player rolls Stamina + Survival. Success nullifies the effects of most conventional poisons, and adds three dice to the Kitsune's Stamina for purposes of resisting Wyrm-enhanced poisons. The effects last for the scene.
• Scent Of Running Water - The difficulties of all rolls to track the player increase by two. This Gift becomes an innate ability to the player who learns it. She need not expend any points or make any rolls. However, the player may still leave a scent behind if she decides to do so voluntarily.
• Scent Of The True Form - The player can tell automatically when someone is a Kitsune; anything else requires a Perception + Primal-Urge roll. It takes two successes to detect vampires, faeries or other shapeshifters as such, and it takes four to detect fomori or mages.
• Scholar’s Friend - A simple yet helpful Gift, this secret allows a Kitsune to read a book, scroll or tablet in any written language. This talent doesn’t teach the fox any new language, nor will it help her understand esoteric concepts or missing bits of text. The Kitsune spends a Gnosis point, rolls her Willpower and begins reading. The difficulty of the roll depends on the obscurity of the text: Language Difficulty - Modern Language 5, Scholarly (Latin, Sanskrit) 6, Archaic or dead (Aramaic) 7, Common pictograms (classic Egyptian) 8, Obscure pictograms/code (Sigils of Mu) 9, Personal codes/lost cuneiform 10. Only one roll is allowed per reading session. The Gift lasts for one hour per success, and the Kitsune must rest her eyes for several hours after finishing. A failed roll doesn’t necessarily mean the werefox couldn’t read the text; it may mean that she read it wrong. Storytellers are advised to keep the difficulty of the roll secret, and to base the information given on the success of the roll. One success lets the fox get the general idea, while four successes or more indicate complete understanding.
• Seduction - The player rolls Charisma + Subterfuge; the target resists with a Willpower roll (both difficulty 6). Each success increases the depth of emotion; one is a mild crush, five or beyond a haunting obsession. The Storyteller is encouraged to surreptitiously roll this for pure mischief or subplot every now and then, particularly if the Fox uses the Gift often.
• Sense Magic - The player rolls Perception + Enigmas. The difficulty is based on the strength and subtlety of the magic. The Kitsune cannot tell the exact nature of the magic, although vague clues such as “Gaian” or “blood magic” might be granted with sufficient successes. The radius is 10 feet per success.
• Sense Wyrm - The player rolls Perception + Occult. The difficulty depends on the concentration and strength of the Wyrm’s influence. Sensing a single fomor in the next room would be difficulty 6, while detecting the stench of a Bane that was in the room an hour ago would be difficulty 8. Vampires register as Wyrm-tainted, save those with Humanity Traits of 7 or higher.
• Silent Running - The player spends one Gnosis point and rolls Intelligence + Subterfuge. The Kitsune leaves behind no physical traces of his passage for the rest of the scene, and any magical tracking attempt raises its difficulty by 1 per success to a maximum of 9.
• Spirit Speech (Upgraded) - Once learned, this Gift allows the player to understand the communication of spirits intuitively. Particularly alien spirits may be difficult — or, in the case of many Banes, outright painful — to understand.
• Stolen Moments - The Kitsune must touch the target of this Gift and spend one Gnosis. A successful Gnosis roll against the target's Willpower is required. Success means that the target has the last 15 minutes of his or her life erased from their memories. There is no obvious way to retrieve the stolen moments, although certain extended rituals or Umbral quests might do the trick.
• Toxic Claws - This Gift requires the expenditure of one Rage point and a turn of full concentration. For the remainder of the scene, the Kitsune’s claws inflict an additional die of damage and leave residual Wyrm-taint on anything she slashes.
• Wyrmling Kinship - The character rolls Charisma + Primal-Urge, difficulty 8, to make the Wyrmlings more inclined to conversation, rather than violence. Each success reduces the difficulty of all Social rolls with the Wyrm's minions by 1. The Wyrmlings may attempt to resist this effect by rolling Willpower against a difficulty of 4 + the Kitsune's successes.
Gifts 2
• Bolt - The Kitsune calls a bolt of raw elemental force to strike his foe — fire, lightning, and freezing wind are all possibilities. The player spends one Rage point and rolls Dexterity + Occult, difficulty 6. The target suffers aggravated damage equal to the successes rolled; the range is 50 yards.
• Enduring Warrior - The Kitsune spends one point of Rage. From that point, she recovers one Health Level per turn, exactly as do Garou. The effect lasts the scene.
• Ghost Speech - No dice need to be rolled and there is no cost. Kitsune may speak with Yin spirits, Wraiths and suchlike either in the Yin Realm or the Middle Kingdom. If using crossovers with Wraith, treat all Kitsune with this Gift as Mediums.
• Moon Dance - The Kitsune become completely invisible provided no moonlight falls on her. She may step in and out of Luna's gaze as many time as she likes, appearing and vanishing over and over. Lunes teach this gift (and presumably included the exception to keep an eyes on the little tricksters. System: The Kitsune spends one gnosis point; however, the effect lasts the entire night. This gift does not mask a Fox's scent, sound or any other sensory cues; just vision.
• Past Whispers - While Flow of Aura grants the Kitsune psychometric insight about the emotional past of an area, this Gift lets the Shinju tune in on the very thoughts impressed on a place. Fragments of thought (those spoken aloud, in particular), if intense enough at the time, can still be heard echoing years later. The player rolls Perception + Occult (difficulty 8). As with Flow of Aura, the greater the number of successes, the greater detail the Fox receives.
• Spirit of the Fray - Once the character learns this Gift, its effects are permanent. The kitsune may add 10 to all her initiative rolls, which will nearly always ensure that she strikes first. If she chooses, the Kitsune may spend a Gnosis point to add another 10 to her initiative roll. Remember, though, that doing so prevents her from spending Rage to gain extra actions; shifters can’t use Rage and Gnosis in the same turn.
• Ten Chi - The kitsune spends a Gnosis point and knows the following: Whether he is in the Yin, Yang, Yomi, or physical Realm, where the meaningful "cardinal points" are, and what direction home is from where he stands.
Ju-Fu and kami
(In Werewolf terms, kami — lowercase and italic — refers to Kitsune Ju-Fu spells, while Kami, uppercase, refers to the entities described in the Werewolf Storytellers Handbook.)
What is Ju-Fu — Ju-fu is paper magic. The Foxes were bewitched with the idea of paper when they first found it. In Japan, paper is a religious symbol and it is part of funerary rites across the Middle Kingdom. In Japanese, kami is a homophone for both spirit and paper, and the Kitsune use the term to refer to their paper-spells just as they refer to Kami, the spirits of Gaia made flesh.
What is a kami — A kami is the method of working a miniature rite, storing a mystical effect for later, and is highly useful. In times of plenty, the Kitsune can set some of their Gnosis aside for times of want, in the form of Ju-Fu. Spirits that might hesitate to be bound to a fetish don't mind temporary talens like the kami — after all, there's no way they'll be bound into such a fetish for all that long.
What material can be used to make a kami — Once a Kitsune learns a Ju-Fu "Gift", he may create the appropriate kami at any time by painting the ideogram on an appropriate piece of paper (or in some cases, by instead using a special origami folding technique.) The paper must be natural and easily destroyed; photocopier paper or magazine pages are out of the question! In some cases the Kitsune may create a kami out of papyrus, cloth, birchbark or even skin although she must spend an additional Gnosis to properly invest such a substance with power. Similarly the ink must be of natural origin — octopus or squid ink is lovely, but blood, mixtures of water and lampblack, ochre and egg yolk or any other natural stain works well. If a Kitsune uses unnatural materials of any sort, the difficulty to create the kami is raised by 3; if the difficulty rises above 10, the Ju-Fu is impossible.
Pre-made kami — Each kami require the expenditure of at least one Gnosis point to create; thus limiting the number of kami available to any one Fox; Gnosis isn't that easy to recharge, after all. There is also a die roll specific to each trick; however, the Fox can only know whether he was successful or not at the time he activates the kami. If the Kitsune fails, the kami holds no power, but the Fox still pays the gnosis cost. Unless otherwise noted, any rules apply at the time of the kami's creation rather than the time of activation.
Creation and destruction of kami — The Storyteller may allow the Kitsune to roll Dexterity + Calligraphy or Origami to do a particular beautiful job, reducing the difficulty to create the kami by 1. However, such art isn't necessary of success; any symbols of folds vital to create a kami are taught when the Fox learns the "Gift". Obviously, if a kami is destroyed prematurely, its power is lost; even an activated kami that provide ongoing effects immediately cease working if the host-paper is destroyed.
Ju-Fu 1
• Paper Speech - By crafting an origami figure or special pictogram of a specific creature or animal, the Kitsune may communicate with such creatures at will, apparently in their native tongues. When she activates the kami, an illusion of the represented creature overlays the Kitsune's own image in the subject's mind; the Fox's speech is then translated into the appropriate language of scent, body language, and so on. The Kitsune herself hears the creature's responses as Kitsune-go in her own mind.
The player spends a Gnosis Point and rolls Intelligence + Animal Ken (difficulty 6) for the Kitsune to craft the kami. This can be used to speak other human or hengeyokai tongues, although the roll is Intelligence + Empathy, the difficulty rises to 8, and the Gnosis cost is two points. The duration is one scene.
Ju-Fu 2
• Labyrinth - By hiding this kami in a room and speaking a word of binding, the Kistune can prevent anyone from leaving. A person who climbs out the window finds himself coming back in through the door, and so on. People can still enter the room as usual — leaving is the tricky part. As the kitsune must be present to activate the effect, she is trapped inside along with any other prisoners until the kami is destroyed.
The player rolls Wits + Enigmas, difficulty 8; the Gnosis cost is three.
Rites
• Rite of Binding - A Kitsune can attempt this rite only in the presence of a spirit, and it is usually performed in the Umbra. When attempting to bind a spirit, a Kitsune must first spend a number of Gnosis points (minimum one). Each point of Gnosis spent reduces the spirit's Gnosis rating by one. The Kitsune's player must then roll Willpower (difficulty of the spirit's adjusted Gnosis). The number of successes indicates how long the spirit may be forced into service (one week per success). In the case of a talen, the spirit is bound until the object is used.
• Rite of Cleansing - This rite can be cast upon more than one person or object, but the leader must spend one Gnosis point on each extra thing or person in need of cleansing. The difficulty level equals the Gnosis of the spirit that inflicted the contagion (maximum of 10). Only one success is required. If the rite is performed at dawn, the difficulty level of the rite is reduced by one. Note that this rite cannot heal wounds or damage caused by contamination; it only removes any existing contamination.
• Rite of Talisman Dedication - The cost is one Gnosis point per object dedicated, and a Kitsune may never have more objects bound to himself than his Gnosis score. Certain particularly large objects (Storyteller's discretion) are considered more than one of the purpose of "cost". For the purposes of Dedication, an entire set of clothing is considered one item.
