Post by songstress on Nov 10, 2006 1:29:14 GMT -5
Style Description: This fairly young style is based on observing the behaviour of nocturnal creatures. Bats, owls and even insects were studied intently by prominent minds. The resulting style uses knowledge of your surroundings, clever counterattacks and cheap tricks as effective weapons against your enemy. It aims to incapacitate the opponent in order to deliver more powerful, sometimes fatal, blows.
Echoes masters demand utmost devotion and loyalty from their students.
The ultimate proof of this is that, in order to actually be taught more than the very basics of the style, its students must give something precious up - their eyesight. The obvious disadvantage this gives them is compensated through a technique invented specifically for this purpose, known as the Midnight Hymn. This technique allows the style's students to perceive their surroundings, even if it takes extensive training to take this beyond noticing basic shapes and movement.
The actual fighting taught by Echoes of Silence is only useful at arm's reach, even though other aspects of the style are more profitable at ranges. This means that, not only do Echoes users not employ long-range fighting devices, but are also suspectible to long-range fighters themselves. Also, because you may not get many good shots, may users like to use weapons to add the extra force they believe is (and often is) needed to bring an opponent down. Because of the way they fight, they tend to favour short-range hand weapons, such as concealed weapons and daggers, over middle-to-long-range weapons like swords and spears.
The style teaches you to wait for your opponent to come to you, rather than go to them. The user will draw his opponent to him, then make him take the first swing. The user then dodges that first swing, and delivers a blow in the window of opportunity. In theory, this seems easy enough. In practice, it's very difficult.
Grappling is taught and relied upon by many practitioners of the Echos in varying degrees. From simply grabbing hold of your enemy’s arm of sleeve, to trying to toss them to the ground and pinning them to the floor. The reason for this is simple – if you’re holding onto your opponent, then you know where he is. Again, this is another reason why many students favour knives as they’re much easier to use in a grapple than a larger weapon.
Again, because you may only get one or two good strikes, the style teaches or to place them well. At lower stages, "placement of strikes" is usually synonymous with "cheap shots," meaning that rookie users will most often go for kidneys, throats, eyes, crotches and other basic pain-causing areas. More highly trained users have knowledge of certain pressure points, which they use with deadly precision.
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Style History:
In every village, there is always at least one, usually several, elder or retired Ninja who have grown weary of today's shinobi youth. One of them decided to do something about it.
Juun Atemi, a long-serving, retired, Jounin of the Sound Village had watched the youngsters for years as they pretended to be Ninja, or had boasting contests over who's Nindo was the most profound. Ten years after his retirement, he was finally fed up. He gathered his most skilled former colleagues, rounded up whatever scientists where interested and basically anyone else with the will and ability to help. He then sat down in a meeting with the collective group of around fifty people and essentially brainstormed for two weeks.
It hadn't taken too long before they realised that it would be necessary to devise a method to prove and ascertain a young Ninja's devotion to the Shinobi way. Further into the discussion they also decided that students would have to be introduced to the harsh reality at an early point. These two ideas boiled together in the mind of one scientist. He rose from his chair, and announced to the discussing, arguing mob that he had found the perfect solution.
Any young Shinobi wanting to learn the true Way of the Ninja would have to give up their eyes.
At first, there was an outroar. What could that possibly lead to? It was stupid and dangerous, and that's all it was. But as the scientist explained his idea, the outroar died down and was swiftly replaced with curiosity. The idea was to device a system that would let students fight without the use of their eyes, but not replace it. They'd device a fighting style which one, in order to master would have to give one's eyes up. He forgot one crucial detail, though. How to pull it off. It took several years, but the final product came out just the way it was intended. At that point, Echoes of Silence was born.
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Human Echolocation
A phenomenon observed in a select portion of the blind and certain remarkable individuals, Human Echolocation is a well known and documented ability. Vision and hearing function in almost exactly the same the way and while human’s have evolved to rely more upon the light reflected from objects (sight), we are more than capable of learning to perceive the vibrations that come from or reflect off objects (sound) in much the same way.
How can people learn such a skill though, you ask? Simply put, the area of the brain most concerned with sight actually has nothing to do with sight at all and, actually, it deals almost totally with spatial relations. Someone without the benefit of sight – or someone who has trained to go without it (like a marital arts master) – turns this area of the brain loose on their other senses and thus derives a fairly accurate picture of their surroundings; accurate enough in fact, to provide one the ability to perceive an object and to recognize the location (where it is), dimension (how big and the general shape), and density (how solid something is) of the world around them. Location itself is usually broken down into distance from the observer, direction (left/right, front/back and high/low) and dimension refers to height (tall or short) and breadth (wide or narrow).
In all aspects, it truly is a phenomenal skill, but – while it can replace sight for everyday life…even to the point of allowing a person to ride a bike through a busy town – it’s still a poor substitute for the detailed orientated sight human society is based off. It provides a sense of normality, but not a substitute.
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The Midnight Hymn
The Midnight Hymn is a special skill that was developed by Sound Scientists for the purpose of fighting without the ability to see. Taking careful notes from, and conducting extensive study on the giant bats that have pledged their loyalty to the Sound, they were able to create a skill that mimicked the biosonar abilities of the bats they worked along side. Using chakra to enhance the user’s ability to produce ultrasonic vibrations (explained as a series of ultrahigh frequency “clicks”), and coupling that with both their practice with the Midnight Hymn and chakra to augment their hearing to receive the signals they are able to get a far better replacement for sight than normal Human Echolocation alone.
It was quickly discovered, in the various technological institutions of the old Sound, that while an easy skill to pick up with a bit of chakra training and a blindfold, the Midnight Hymn’s effectiveness would never be truly unlocked unless their was no other substitute for the Hymn. Consequently, a person’s sight would have to be sacrificed entirely to remove the conditioned reliance on sight and allow a warrior to focus only on the Hymn.
The way the actual sensing works is just like any other sonar. The user’s ultrasonic clicks are sent out at regular intervals and, by registering the time it tekes between the sending of a click and its return from certain points in the vicinity, the user can tell how far away an object is, what shape it is and generally what it’s made out of. In fact, the Midnight Hymn works on the same principles of Human Echolocation but it enhances them to a much higher degree. Interpreting these sounds is quite easy once you get the hang of it, but mastering it is considerably harder and achieving a skill to completely replace sight is no small feat.
Use
In everyday life, a user of this style relies very little upon his Midnight Hymn as a general rule of thumb. Because, while it requires only the smallest amount of chakra to maintain, keeping it up constantly for hours at a time is beyond tiring and nigh impossible for all but the most legendary of shinobi. Usually, a student will utter a series of Hymn clicks once every few minutes or upon entering a new area (such as going through a door) in order to accurately map his surroundings onto his mind’s eye, and before then moving to rely upon his other senses and his natural echolocation to navigate and interact with his environment.
However, in a more tense situation such as a patrol through a forest with known enemy activity, a student may increase the amount of clicks he utters to provide a constantly updating map of his surroundings. Usually, this pace is modelled after the bat’s from whom the skill was developed: a number of clicks equalling 10 – 20 a second carefully kept in time with the user’s breathing pattern, heart rate and movements is the most efficient way of using the Hymn.
In battle though, the user must go far beyond even that. Increasing the number of clicks to well over 200/sec, the user enters a state called terminal buzz where he becomes totally focused on uttering the clicks and interpreting the returns. Using this level of the Hymn, a user is able to keep up with – nay, surpass – a sight using ninja and for a few brief and hectic minutes, the level of detail that was once lost with the user’s eyes returns in the heat of combat.
Improvement:
As the user progresses along the tree, he will spend more time unconsciously training his ability to decode information gathered by the Midnight Hymn, while slowly working out whatever flaws he has in his actual use of it. This is represented at each stage as what it can and cannot be used for. Apart from how good the user is at determining detail, it also handles "visibility" range. This represents the area the user can focus on while using the Midnight Hymn in battle. If he takes no other action during a post (such as patrolling or mind mapping an area), the user can extend his range up to twice his battle range. He can extend it further, up to three times it battle length, but that requires him to reduce his field of "vision" to one third of what it usually is.
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Advantages and Disadvantages
Although created to replace sight, the Midnight Hymn is only similar to it in overall function. As it actually uses sound waves to perceive physical objects rather than reflected light from surfaces to view the world, it has certain distinct traits that can either help or hinder an Echo’s of Silence student.
Advantages:
All-visual genjutsu are mostly negated as the user can’t exactly see them to be affected (though likewise, he won’t see what his teammates see so that may cause problems) and on a similar note any jutsu that requires eye contact will fail on a Echo’s student because they don’t have eyes… Similarly, the Hymn is not limited to the same field of vision a normal person is restricted to. Their peripheral “sight” is far superior to a normal person and it can boarder on 180 degrees for advanced users and user’s of this style tend to be much better at located things behind them or perceiving subtle shifts in the environment and things such as mist or fog don’t hamper them all that much. Overall, they loose one sight but become far more perceptive with the others.[/u]
Disadvantages:
Most users are still completely blind. Colours and light are lost on them – thus making hiding in the shadows a difficult endeavour unless duly instructed by an ally (though such shadows don’t hide enemies either) – and certain types of ninjutsu have no physical form (such as a katon or ration) so detecting them with the Hymn is all but impossible (though other senses may allow for this). Opaque yet solid surfaces act like walls. Windows are recognizable for the sound they give off when the Hymn strikes them but unless the user is touching the window they won’t be able to see what’s on the other side. Additionally, realistic statues might be mistake for people at first glance, and certain types of bunshin might be impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Also, while using the Hymn itself, it is impossible to speak.
And naturally, if the user is rendered deaf, unable to speak or unable to mould chakra the Hymn becomes unavailable.
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Miscellaneous Notes
Enhancement Jutsu: There are a few techniques designed to increase the user's senses, which might seem like an easy way to improve the Hymn's effectivity. While Jutsu which improve senses other than sight and hearing can be used, it is impossible to use the Midnight Hymns and a hearing-enhancing jutsu at the same time. This is because of the fact that increasing one's hearing requires molding Chakra to the ears, and so does the Hymn. Molding Chakra in two different ways in the same place is impossible, and thus the user has to choose between the hearing-enhancing jutsu and the Midnight Hymn.
Puppets: Most puppeteers have the ability to sense what their puppets are sensing. Since the lack of sight in Echoes students is because of their lack of eyes, and puppets normally do no have this problem, they are usually able to see through their puppets. However, they cannot use the Hymn through them, nor do the puppets benefit from the user's increased other senses.
Other senses: The Midnight Hymn exists to replace sight, but not the other senses. In fact, since Echoes users are blind in day-to-day life, they develop their other senses beyond those of most Shinobi, mainly those of sound, touch and smell. They are therefore slightly quicker to identify and react to sounds and feelings. This has the potential to save a user (and his team mates) from traps and ambushes, by having him react a few fractions of a second early to the sound rustling leaves or the feeling of a trip wire.
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Ritual of Initiation:
Most users of the Echoes style start at an early age. It is rare for Hiyoutori or Senshi to learn it as second Taijutsu styles, but not completely unthinkable.
In the case of a beginner, training starts during the Academy years. This mostly consists of teaching the student how to perform the Midnight Hymn, while slowly introducing other aspects into the training. Upon graduation into a Kitaeru, the student is faced with a decision: give up their eyes, or cease training permanently. Teachers pick their students very carefully, and thus it is seen as quite a dishonour for a teacher to have picked a student who will not go through with the procedure. The student is not kept in the dark about this decision, though. They know about it from the start, so most of them have already made their decision.
Hiyoutori and Senshi go through similar experiences, with some basic training followed by making the decision when they are considered to be ready.
The procedure itself is rather simple. The subject is put under anaesthetic, and their eyes are removed. Usually, they are replaced with marble like they sometimes are in people who loose them. Normally, they are completely blank, but sometimes they have designs, if requested by the student. They never depict an actual eye, though, in order to set Echoes users aside from those who have accidentally lost their eyes. Often, students will cover their eyes, but it is not encouraged, discouraged or even noted among the disciples of the Echoes of Silence. It is simply a matter of personal taste.
Once this is through with, the student is considered an initiate of the style, and starts to advance along the tree. It occasionally happens that a particularly zealous student will attempt to blind himself to prove his worth. This is generally considered to be a dangerous and stupid thing, although the student is usually awarded some admiration for his devotion.
Note: Please state in the character's profile if there is a design on their eyes, and if there is, what the design is.
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Stage One:
Requirements: 5 Speed, 3 stamina
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength +2 stamina (special techniques sacrificed)
This stage in training is all about preparation, getting the basics down, and training in using the Midnight Hymn, basic speed and stamina-building exercises and the like.
Echoes: The Midnight Hymn is quite limited at this stage, and is more a supplement to the user’s other senses rather than an abject replacement. It’s range is only 50ft in a very narrow 90 degree field of vision and the user has a bit of trouble tracking moving object – or anything below the size of a beach ball for that matter.
Senses: While none of the user’s senses are noticeably beyond the human norm, they have learnt to interpret the information they get from them to a higher degree than their sighted peers.
Directed Strikes: "Striking your opponent's vulnerable points" is little more than a sentence to users at this stage and while they might be able to conceive of kicking their opponent in the shin they’re not likely to do much more than that.
Regular Techniques:
Name: Midnight Hymn
Type: Ninjutsu
Description: The most basic Ninjutsu technique of the Echoes of Silence. This allows the user to perceive his surroundings without actually seeing them, as described above.
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Stage Two:
Requirements: Speed 8, Stamina 6, Tactics 6
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength +2 stamina (special techniques sacrificed)
At this stage, the user begins the real training. Firstly, they’re taught how to accurately counter attack an incoming enemy, in addition to dealing with the blow should they fail. Because the Midnight Hymn is still developing, grappling takes precedence here as the preferred form of combat as a method of keeping an enemy close and his location known at all times and a small number of grasping techniques or simple trips are taught to facilitate this.
Echoes: The user has progressed a bit further. The user can make out slightly more detail, and doesn't have much trouble picking out moving objects. The smallest noticeable item is about the size of a kunai, and their range has increased to 75ft. For the first time, the user’s Field of Vision (FOV) has increased ever so slightly to a 100 degree FOV.
Senses: While the user has gotten over the basic stage of adjustment, their senses still aren’t much sharper than a normal person’s. However, the user becomes proficient in Human Echolocation as a way of getting by in everyday life without their vision or the chakra draining Midnight Hymn.
Directed Strikes: While still very basic, the directed strikes are improving. In combat, the user will go for kidneys, throats, stomachs and other areas where being struck is painful.
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Stage Three:
Requirements: Speed 12, Stamina 8, Tactics 8
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
More of the same really. The user is taking the basics he learnt and has begun applying them into a refined fighting style. Grappling manoeuvres are more efficient and the user is slowly learning effective ways to keep his opponent pinned or at the very least unable to move for a vital second (more vital still if you have a knife in one hand). Dodging is becoming more intuitive – thanks in part to the fast improving Midnight Hymn and the sharpening of their other senses.
Echoes: The user can clearly make out the differences between different materials at this point in time such as wood and metal by the slightly different echoes they give off. Texture is still impossible to detect however, but the user can now detect small objects like shuriken accurately and their range has increased to 150ft in a 140 degree FOV.
Senses: Thanks to training, the senses are becoming more refined. Consequently, their reaction speed to attacks that they can hear or feel. Taste also gets a slight boost, and it isn’t uncommon for Echo Students to become notoriously picky eaters.
Directed Strikes: The idea is still the same - go for obvious weak points, but the technique is more refined, and the student learns exactly where to strike in order to cause more pain. Many users favour striking the throat or solar plexus, as this will often stun the opponent long enough to land another strike.
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Stage Four:
Requirements: Speed 15, Stamina 15, Strength 13, Tactics 14
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
Counterattacking is becoming much more instinctive now, and while the Hymn can compensate for sight at this level a user still prefers to “feel” where his enemy is in a good old fashioned wrestle to the death. However, finally, the user feels comfortable fighting without the grapple element and thus has a much easier time of engaging multiple people.
Echoes: Here, the Midnight Hymn has reached full potency as a technique and here it truly acts as a replacement for sight. The user can accurately perceive everything in a 180 degree FOV out to a combat range of 250ft. The smallest object he can detect is a pin and detail discrimination is very fine indeed – to the point of being able to read the ink on a page (though it will never be as good as sight for that).
Senses: The user's senses are notably better than his vision-sporting peers. He has gotten used to his lack of vision and his other senses are really starting to compensate for it. Because of the need to concentrate in order to even move around, he is usually more perceptive to traps and obstacles than other people.
Directed Strikes: A basic knowledge of pressure points is gained at this stage. If he is lucky, the user can strike points in the neck and chest to get much the same effect as a regular strike with minimal use of force. This is mostly effective when fighting Ninja who take little damage from regular blows.
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Stage Five:
Requirements: Speed 20, Stamina 20, Strength 16, Tactics 16
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
At this level, the counterattacks delivered are quick and fairly dangerous, as the user learns where to strike in order to bring his opponent down. Grapples are used less, though the user recognizes the superiority of such a tactic if the enemy is alone or slightly faster than the user.
Echoes: Because the Hymn itself has finally compensated for sight, the user can turn his training to other endeavours. At this stage, the Midnight Hymn branches off into something called the “Midnight Concerto”. While only rudimentary at this stage, the Concerto allows the user to feel vibrations through his feet and – to a small degree – through the air thanks to his much heightened senses.
The range of the concerto is only around 5ft at this stage, but it offers the user a much improved ability to react to attacks because the not only are the enemy’s moves telegraphed by the way they move their bodies, but also because the air pressure being forced upon the user’s skin from an attack at the precise location of impact allows them to brace or effect a last second dodge.
Senses: Training is starting to really pay off. The Echoes disciples have faster reactions and better perception than any of their equals. When it comes to noticing sounds, textures, tastes and smells, that is. Some are even able to properly execute ranged attacks based solely on listening to an opponent thanks to a much refined Human Echolocation skill.
Directed Strikes: A more advanced knowledge of pressure points is gained. The user is able to strike an opponent in the chest or neck to trouble their breathing for one post, or strike a limb to make it go numb for one post.
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Stage Six:
Requirements: Speed 25, Stamina 25, Strength 25, Tactics 20, Intelligence 16
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
At this level, the Ninja is starting to become very dangerous. Counterattacks are carried out with frightening precision and speed – many times leading to death for an unwary opponent. In many ways, this skill becomes demoralizing to the enemy as the “blind man” counters their every move.
Echoes: The Concerto improves in range and slightly improves in accuracy as well. It can be used out to a range of 10ft and gives the user a distinct advantage on the battlefield.
Senses: This level of sensing is indeed quite extraordinary. The user is able to handle fights without using the Hymn if the opponent is sufficiently inferior. Because of their abilities, users of this stage are often used as spies, since their operative range in the field of listening is far greater than that of most other Shinobi, and at this stage even smell has taken on a role of its own – some users gaining the ability to track individuals by scent.
Directed Strikes: The user is perfecting their knowledge of pressure points. They can strike an opponent's chest or throat to trouble their breathing for two posts, strike one of their limbs to paralyse it for one post, then have it go numb for an additional post, or strike the back of their neck to cause their opponent movement problems for one post. If the opponent’s stamina is 15 less than the user’s strength, they are paralysed for one post if they are struck in the neck.
Echoes masters demand utmost devotion and loyalty from their students.
The ultimate proof of this is that, in order to actually be taught more than the very basics of the style, its students must give something precious up - their eyesight. The obvious disadvantage this gives them is compensated through a technique invented specifically for this purpose, known as the Midnight Hymn. This technique allows the style's students to perceive their surroundings, even if it takes extensive training to take this beyond noticing basic shapes and movement.
The actual fighting taught by Echoes of Silence is only useful at arm's reach, even though other aspects of the style are more profitable at ranges. This means that, not only do Echoes users not employ long-range fighting devices, but are also suspectible to long-range fighters themselves. Also, because you may not get many good shots, may users like to use weapons to add the extra force they believe is (and often is) needed to bring an opponent down. Because of the way they fight, they tend to favour short-range hand weapons, such as concealed weapons and daggers, over middle-to-long-range weapons like swords and spears.
The style teaches you to wait for your opponent to come to you, rather than go to them. The user will draw his opponent to him, then make him take the first swing. The user then dodges that first swing, and delivers a blow in the window of opportunity. In theory, this seems easy enough. In practice, it's very difficult.
Grappling is taught and relied upon by many practitioners of the Echos in varying degrees. From simply grabbing hold of your enemy’s arm of sleeve, to trying to toss them to the ground and pinning them to the floor. The reason for this is simple – if you’re holding onto your opponent, then you know where he is. Again, this is another reason why many students favour knives as they’re much easier to use in a grapple than a larger weapon.
Again, because you may only get one or two good strikes, the style teaches or to place them well. At lower stages, "placement of strikes" is usually synonymous with "cheap shots," meaning that rookie users will most often go for kidneys, throats, eyes, crotches and other basic pain-causing areas. More highly trained users have knowledge of certain pressure points, which they use with deadly precision.
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Style History:
In every village, there is always at least one, usually several, elder or retired Ninja who have grown weary of today's shinobi youth. One of them decided to do something about it.
Juun Atemi, a long-serving, retired, Jounin of the Sound Village had watched the youngsters for years as they pretended to be Ninja, or had boasting contests over who's Nindo was the most profound. Ten years after his retirement, he was finally fed up. He gathered his most skilled former colleagues, rounded up whatever scientists where interested and basically anyone else with the will and ability to help. He then sat down in a meeting with the collective group of around fifty people and essentially brainstormed for two weeks.
It hadn't taken too long before they realised that it would be necessary to devise a method to prove and ascertain a young Ninja's devotion to the Shinobi way. Further into the discussion they also decided that students would have to be introduced to the harsh reality at an early point. These two ideas boiled together in the mind of one scientist. He rose from his chair, and announced to the discussing, arguing mob that he had found the perfect solution.
Any young Shinobi wanting to learn the true Way of the Ninja would have to give up their eyes.
At first, there was an outroar. What could that possibly lead to? It was stupid and dangerous, and that's all it was. But as the scientist explained his idea, the outroar died down and was swiftly replaced with curiosity. The idea was to device a system that would let students fight without the use of their eyes, but not replace it. They'd device a fighting style which one, in order to master would have to give one's eyes up. He forgot one crucial detail, though. How to pull it off. It took several years, but the final product came out just the way it was intended. At that point, Echoes of Silence was born.
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Human Echolocation
A phenomenon observed in a select portion of the blind and certain remarkable individuals, Human Echolocation is a well known and documented ability. Vision and hearing function in almost exactly the same the way and while human’s have evolved to rely more upon the light reflected from objects (sight), we are more than capable of learning to perceive the vibrations that come from or reflect off objects (sound) in much the same way.
How can people learn such a skill though, you ask? Simply put, the area of the brain most concerned with sight actually has nothing to do with sight at all and, actually, it deals almost totally with spatial relations. Someone without the benefit of sight – or someone who has trained to go without it (like a marital arts master) – turns this area of the brain loose on their other senses and thus derives a fairly accurate picture of their surroundings; accurate enough in fact, to provide one the ability to perceive an object and to recognize the location (where it is), dimension (how big and the general shape), and density (how solid something is) of the world around them. Location itself is usually broken down into distance from the observer, direction (left/right, front/back and high/low) and dimension refers to height (tall or short) and breadth (wide or narrow).
In all aspects, it truly is a phenomenal skill, but – while it can replace sight for everyday life…even to the point of allowing a person to ride a bike through a busy town – it’s still a poor substitute for the detailed orientated sight human society is based off. It provides a sense of normality, but not a substitute.
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The Midnight Hymn
The Midnight Hymn is a special skill that was developed by Sound Scientists for the purpose of fighting without the ability to see. Taking careful notes from, and conducting extensive study on the giant bats that have pledged their loyalty to the Sound, they were able to create a skill that mimicked the biosonar abilities of the bats they worked along side. Using chakra to enhance the user’s ability to produce ultrasonic vibrations (explained as a series of ultrahigh frequency “clicks”), and coupling that with both their practice with the Midnight Hymn and chakra to augment their hearing to receive the signals they are able to get a far better replacement for sight than normal Human Echolocation alone.
It was quickly discovered, in the various technological institutions of the old Sound, that while an easy skill to pick up with a bit of chakra training and a blindfold, the Midnight Hymn’s effectiveness would never be truly unlocked unless their was no other substitute for the Hymn. Consequently, a person’s sight would have to be sacrificed entirely to remove the conditioned reliance on sight and allow a warrior to focus only on the Hymn.
The way the actual sensing works is just like any other sonar. The user’s ultrasonic clicks are sent out at regular intervals and, by registering the time it tekes between the sending of a click and its return from certain points in the vicinity, the user can tell how far away an object is, what shape it is and generally what it’s made out of. In fact, the Midnight Hymn works on the same principles of Human Echolocation but it enhances them to a much higher degree. Interpreting these sounds is quite easy once you get the hang of it, but mastering it is considerably harder and achieving a skill to completely replace sight is no small feat.
Use
In everyday life, a user of this style relies very little upon his Midnight Hymn as a general rule of thumb. Because, while it requires only the smallest amount of chakra to maintain, keeping it up constantly for hours at a time is beyond tiring and nigh impossible for all but the most legendary of shinobi. Usually, a student will utter a series of Hymn clicks once every few minutes or upon entering a new area (such as going through a door) in order to accurately map his surroundings onto his mind’s eye, and before then moving to rely upon his other senses and his natural echolocation to navigate and interact with his environment.
However, in a more tense situation such as a patrol through a forest with known enemy activity, a student may increase the amount of clicks he utters to provide a constantly updating map of his surroundings. Usually, this pace is modelled after the bat’s from whom the skill was developed: a number of clicks equalling 10 – 20 a second carefully kept in time with the user’s breathing pattern, heart rate and movements is the most efficient way of using the Hymn.
In battle though, the user must go far beyond even that. Increasing the number of clicks to well over 200/sec, the user enters a state called terminal buzz where he becomes totally focused on uttering the clicks and interpreting the returns. Using this level of the Hymn, a user is able to keep up with – nay, surpass – a sight using ninja and for a few brief and hectic minutes, the level of detail that was once lost with the user’s eyes returns in the heat of combat.
Improvement:
As the user progresses along the tree, he will spend more time unconsciously training his ability to decode information gathered by the Midnight Hymn, while slowly working out whatever flaws he has in his actual use of it. This is represented at each stage as what it can and cannot be used for. Apart from how good the user is at determining detail, it also handles "visibility" range. This represents the area the user can focus on while using the Midnight Hymn in battle. If he takes no other action during a post (such as patrolling or mind mapping an area), the user can extend his range up to twice his battle range. He can extend it further, up to three times it battle length, but that requires him to reduce his field of "vision" to one third of what it usually is.
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Advantages and Disadvantages
Although created to replace sight, the Midnight Hymn is only similar to it in overall function. As it actually uses sound waves to perceive physical objects rather than reflected light from surfaces to view the world, it has certain distinct traits that can either help or hinder an Echo’s of Silence student.
Advantages:
All-visual genjutsu are mostly negated as the user can’t exactly see them to be affected (though likewise, he won’t see what his teammates see so that may cause problems) and on a similar note any jutsu that requires eye contact will fail on a Echo’s student because they don’t have eyes… Similarly, the Hymn is not limited to the same field of vision a normal person is restricted to. Their peripheral “sight” is far superior to a normal person and it can boarder on 180 degrees for advanced users and user’s of this style tend to be much better at located things behind them or perceiving subtle shifts in the environment and things such as mist or fog don’t hamper them all that much. Overall, they loose one sight but become far more perceptive with the others.[/u]
Disadvantages:
Most users are still completely blind. Colours and light are lost on them – thus making hiding in the shadows a difficult endeavour unless duly instructed by an ally (though such shadows don’t hide enemies either) – and certain types of ninjutsu have no physical form (such as a katon or ration) so detecting them with the Hymn is all but impossible (though other senses may allow for this). Opaque yet solid surfaces act like walls. Windows are recognizable for the sound they give off when the Hymn strikes them but unless the user is touching the window they won’t be able to see what’s on the other side. Additionally, realistic statues might be mistake for people at first glance, and certain types of bunshin might be impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Also, while using the Hymn itself, it is impossible to speak.
And naturally, if the user is rendered deaf, unable to speak or unable to mould chakra the Hymn becomes unavailable.
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Miscellaneous Notes
Enhancement Jutsu: There are a few techniques designed to increase the user's senses, which might seem like an easy way to improve the Hymn's effectivity. While Jutsu which improve senses other than sight and hearing can be used, it is impossible to use the Midnight Hymns and a hearing-enhancing jutsu at the same time. This is because of the fact that increasing one's hearing requires molding Chakra to the ears, and so does the Hymn. Molding Chakra in two different ways in the same place is impossible, and thus the user has to choose between the hearing-enhancing jutsu and the Midnight Hymn.
Puppets: Most puppeteers have the ability to sense what their puppets are sensing. Since the lack of sight in Echoes students is because of their lack of eyes, and puppets normally do no have this problem, they are usually able to see through their puppets. However, they cannot use the Hymn through them, nor do the puppets benefit from the user's increased other senses.
Other senses: The Midnight Hymn exists to replace sight, but not the other senses. In fact, since Echoes users are blind in day-to-day life, they develop their other senses beyond those of most Shinobi, mainly those of sound, touch and smell. They are therefore slightly quicker to identify and react to sounds and feelings. This has the potential to save a user (and his team mates) from traps and ambushes, by having him react a few fractions of a second early to the sound rustling leaves or the feeling of a trip wire.
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Ritual of Initiation:
Most users of the Echoes style start at an early age. It is rare for Hiyoutori or Senshi to learn it as second Taijutsu styles, but not completely unthinkable.
In the case of a beginner, training starts during the Academy years. This mostly consists of teaching the student how to perform the Midnight Hymn, while slowly introducing other aspects into the training. Upon graduation into a Kitaeru, the student is faced with a decision: give up their eyes, or cease training permanently. Teachers pick their students very carefully, and thus it is seen as quite a dishonour for a teacher to have picked a student who will not go through with the procedure. The student is not kept in the dark about this decision, though. They know about it from the start, so most of them have already made their decision.
Hiyoutori and Senshi go through similar experiences, with some basic training followed by making the decision when they are considered to be ready.
The procedure itself is rather simple. The subject is put under anaesthetic, and their eyes are removed. Usually, they are replaced with marble like they sometimes are in people who loose them. Normally, they are completely blank, but sometimes they have designs, if requested by the student. They never depict an actual eye, though, in order to set Echoes users aside from those who have accidentally lost their eyes. Often, students will cover their eyes, but it is not encouraged, discouraged or even noted among the disciples of the Echoes of Silence. It is simply a matter of personal taste.
Once this is through with, the student is considered an initiate of the style, and starts to advance along the tree. It occasionally happens that a particularly zealous student will attempt to blind himself to prove his worth. This is generally considered to be a dangerous and stupid thing, although the student is usually awarded some admiration for his devotion.
Note: Please state in the character's profile if there is a design on their eyes, and if there is, what the design is.
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Stage One:
Requirements: 5 Speed, 3 stamina
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength +2 stamina (special techniques sacrificed)
This stage in training is all about preparation, getting the basics down, and training in using the Midnight Hymn, basic speed and stamina-building exercises and the like.
Echoes: The Midnight Hymn is quite limited at this stage, and is more a supplement to the user’s other senses rather than an abject replacement. It’s range is only 50ft in a very narrow 90 degree field of vision and the user has a bit of trouble tracking moving object – or anything below the size of a beach ball for that matter.
Senses: While none of the user’s senses are noticeably beyond the human norm, they have learnt to interpret the information they get from them to a higher degree than their sighted peers.
Directed Strikes: "Striking your opponent's vulnerable points" is little more than a sentence to users at this stage and while they might be able to conceive of kicking their opponent in the shin they’re not likely to do much more than that.
Regular Techniques:
Name: Midnight Hymn
Type: Ninjutsu
Description: The most basic Ninjutsu technique of the Echoes of Silence. This allows the user to perceive his surroundings without actually seeing them, as described above.
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Stage Two:
Requirements: Speed 8, Stamina 6, Tactics 6
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength +2 stamina (special techniques sacrificed)
At this stage, the user begins the real training. Firstly, they’re taught how to accurately counter attack an incoming enemy, in addition to dealing with the blow should they fail. Because the Midnight Hymn is still developing, grappling takes precedence here as the preferred form of combat as a method of keeping an enemy close and his location known at all times and a small number of grasping techniques or simple trips are taught to facilitate this.
Echoes: The user has progressed a bit further. The user can make out slightly more detail, and doesn't have much trouble picking out moving objects. The smallest noticeable item is about the size of a kunai, and their range has increased to 75ft. For the first time, the user’s Field of Vision (FOV) has increased ever so slightly to a 100 degree FOV.
Senses: While the user has gotten over the basic stage of adjustment, their senses still aren’t much sharper than a normal person’s. However, the user becomes proficient in Human Echolocation as a way of getting by in everyday life without their vision or the chakra draining Midnight Hymn.
Directed Strikes: While still very basic, the directed strikes are improving. In combat, the user will go for kidneys, throats, stomachs and other areas where being struck is painful.
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Stage Three:
Requirements: Speed 12, Stamina 8, Tactics 8
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
More of the same really. The user is taking the basics he learnt and has begun applying them into a refined fighting style. Grappling manoeuvres are more efficient and the user is slowly learning effective ways to keep his opponent pinned or at the very least unable to move for a vital second (more vital still if you have a knife in one hand). Dodging is becoming more intuitive – thanks in part to the fast improving Midnight Hymn and the sharpening of their other senses.
Echoes: The user can clearly make out the differences between different materials at this point in time such as wood and metal by the slightly different echoes they give off. Texture is still impossible to detect however, but the user can now detect small objects like shuriken accurately and their range has increased to 150ft in a 140 degree FOV.
Senses: Thanks to training, the senses are becoming more refined. Consequently, their reaction speed to attacks that they can hear or feel. Taste also gets a slight boost, and it isn’t uncommon for Echo Students to become notoriously picky eaters.
Directed Strikes: The idea is still the same - go for obvious weak points, but the technique is more refined, and the student learns exactly where to strike in order to cause more pain. Many users favour striking the throat or solar plexus, as this will often stun the opponent long enough to land another strike.
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Stage Four:
Requirements: Speed 15, Stamina 15, Strength 13, Tactics 14
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
Counterattacking is becoming much more instinctive now, and while the Hymn can compensate for sight at this level a user still prefers to “feel” where his enemy is in a good old fashioned wrestle to the death. However, finally, the user feels comfortable fighting without the grapple element and thus has a much easier time of engaging multiple people.
Echoes: Here, the Midnight Hymn has reached full potency as a technique and here it truly acts as a replacement for sight. The user can accurately perceive everything in a 180 degree FOV out to a combat range of 250ft. The smallest object he can detect is a pin and detail discrimination is very fine indeed – to the point of being able to read the ink on a page (though it will never be as good as sight for that).
Senses: The user's senses are notably better than his vision-sporting peers. He has gotten used to his lack of vision and his other senses are really starting to compensate for it. Because of the need to concentrate in order to even move around, he is usually more perceptive to traps and obstacles than other people.
Directed Strikes: A basic knowledge of pressure points is gained at this stage. If he is lucky, the user can strike points in the neck and chest to get much the same effect as a regular strike with minimal use of force. This is mostly effective when fighting Ninja who take little damage from regular blows.
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Stage Five:
Requirements: Speed 20, Stamina 20, Strength 16, Tactics 16
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
At this level, the counterattacks delivered are quick and fairly dangerous, as the user learns where to strike in order to bring his opponent down. Grapples are used less, though the user recognizes the superiority of such a tactic if the enemy is alone or slightly faster than the user.
Echoes: Because the Hymn itself has finally compensated for sight, the user can turn his training to other endeavours. At this stage, the Midnight Hymn branches off into something called the “Midnight Concerto”. While only rudimentary at this stage, the Concerto allows the user to feel vibrations through his feet and – to a small degree – through the air thanks to his much heightened senses.
The range of the concerto is only around 5ft at this stage, but it offers the user a much improved ability to react to attacks because the not only are the enemy’s moves telegraphed by the way they move their bodies, but also because the air pressure being forced upon the user’s skin from an attack at the precise location of impact allows them to brace or effect a last second dodge.
Senses: Training is starting to really pay off. The Echoes disciples have faster reactions and better perception than any of their equals. When it comes to noticing sounds, textures, tastes and smells, that is. Some are even able to properly execute ranged attacks based solely on listening to an opponent thanks to a much refined Human Echolocation skill.
Directed Strikes: A more advanced knowledge of pressure points is gained. The user is able to strike an opponent in the chest or neck to trouble their breathing for one post, or strike a limb to make it go numb for one post.
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Stage Six:
Requirements: Speed 25, Stamina 25, Strength 25, Tactics 20, Intelligence 16
Bonuses: +4 speed, +3 strength, +2 stamina (specials sacrificed)
At this level, the Ninja is starting to become very dangerous. Counterattacks are carried out with frightening precision and speed – many times leading to death for an unwary opponent. In many ways, this skill becomes demoralizing to the enemy as the “blind man” counters their every move.
Echoes: The Concerto improves in range and slightly improves in accuracy as well. It can be used out to a range of 10ft and gives the user a distinct advantage on the battlefield.
Senses: This level of sensing is indeed quite extraordinary. The user is able to handle fights without using the Hymn if the opponent is sufficiently inferior. Because of their abilities, users of this stage are often used as spies, since their operative range in the field of listening is far greater than that of most other Shinobi, and at this stage even smell has taken on a role of its own – some users gaining the ability to track individuals by scent.
Directed Strikes: The user is perfecting their knowledge of pressure points. They can strike an opponent's chest or throat to trouble their breathing for two posts, strike one of their limbs to paralyse it for one post, then have it go numb for an additional post, or strike the back of their neck to cause their opponent movement problems for one post. If the opponent’s stamina is 15 less than the user’s strength, they are paralysed for one post if they are struck in the neck.