Princess Posted January 20, 2021 Posted January 20, 2021 (edited) Cursed Seal You possess a Cursed Seal. Maybe you asked for this, maybe it was thrust upon you, but it is part of you now like it or not. Make of that what you will. Effect: You have a Cursed Seal. This cannot be removed by techniques which do not explicitly state they can remove a Cursed Seal, and while you have this skill you may never refund the SP value for any skill which has 'Cursed Seal' in the name. If this skill is lost, all skills with 'Cursed Seal' in the name are automatically refunded. Cost: 0 [Cannot be taken except by the effects of Juinjutsu] Corruption The Cursed Seal is a path to power, but not one without cost. It can be considered many things, but rare are those who see it as a gift. No gift extracts such a heavy toll from its benefactor. For within the monstrous combination of Sennika DNA and malformed Senjutsu chakra, madness lurks. In the heart of every Cursed Seal, a monster lies. It is from this beast the bearer draws their power, but the more they do, to stronger it grows. Until one day, the bearer is gone, and only the monster remains. Effect: This skill has no effect. Ranks: 10 Cost: 0 (First rank must be taken when Cursed Seal is taken, subsequent ranks can only be taken when an effect instructs you to) Edited February 2, 2023 by Princess Quote
Princess Posted January 20, 2021 Author Posted January 20, 2021 (edited) This skill is the simplest part of the whole advanced system, it simply is what allows you to begin taking the advanced system, as granted by the technique linked in the skill itself. You can't willingly take this, though you could politely ask someone to give it to you if they had the means if that's your jam. The key element of this which makes it more than just thematic nonsense is that it prevents you from refunding any Cursed Seal skills you take. A big part of the CS in the lore was that it was always a trade off, you grew in power but paid a price for it. There's no casually changing your mind, once you have the CS you are stuck with it. I would likely think we might make an Evil Sealing Technique which could suppress it at lower levels, but this is an RPG, if you've gotten the CS you probably wanted it. Likely unneeded then. I also added Monster Within after reading KC's comments. People shouldn't be paying SP to decide what their cursed seal does or what form it takes. So what does it do? Nothing. But I plan to have bits of the Cursed Seal both grant ranks of Monster Within, as well as scale off it. It will be a representation of how far gone the character is, and how much of their humanity has been sacrificed to their cursed seal. So...the Cursed Seal has two skills that do nothing by themselves and cost nothing. Seems silly yes, but they serve different purposes. Edited January 21, 2021 by Princess Quote
