#Identity Sets — Overview (正體性 總論)

Contents

Authority. This document is a variant rule (Variant). As with every variant rule in this volume, it is premised on GM permission, and fc cannot override co Canon. The Identity Set is not a rule that changes the occupation of the canonical modern person, but a rule of origin layered atop it. The common frame and document format this document fixes are followed by all 6 sets of the 02 series.

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#Scent — What Were You, Once

#Opening Vignette — The Work the Hands Remember

Rain began to fall on the barrier at the pass.

"Next." The barrier-keeper, gripping his spear, beckoned. A woman stepped forward. Her dress was strange — clothes sewn from a cloth no one had seen, a single faded backpack on her back. Someone whispered from the back of the line. A Kamikakushi. One the spirits hid away and gave back.

"Of what house are you."

"House... I have none."

"Your home village."

"Even if I told you, you would not know it."

The spear-tip rose half an inch. The barrier-keeper narrowed his eyes. "Then I will change the question. — What were you, once."

Before the woman could open her mouth, a scream broke out from the back of the line. A pack-horse, startled, bolted; the driver, his ankle pinned under a cartwheel, was dragged through the mire. The people only stood around and murmured.

The woman moved before she thought. She flung her backpack into the mire, examined the pinned leg, and untied her own sash to cinch it above the knee. "You there! Hold his shoulder down. Keep him from moving. You — a straight board, a carrying-frame strut, anything!" The commands flew between the streaks of rain, and strangely, the people obeyed them.

When the driver's scream sank to a groan, and the groan to ragged breathing, the barrier-keeper came near and looked down at the scene.

"...A physician?"

"A nurse," the woman said. She knew the word would not carry.

The barrier-keeper chewed on the unfamiliar word for a moment, then drew back his spear. "What it is, I do not know — but what you were, that I know. Pass."

#Scent — Origin Makes the Scene

This age asks one's calling before one's name. Are you of a warrior house, of a temple, of the paddy fields? One taken by the Kamikakushi has neither house nor home village to offer before that question — what can be offered is one thing alone: what kind of hands they were.

The canonical modern person gives one answer: "a person who came from the future." The Identity Set splits that answer apart. A soldier from the future, a nurse from the future, a teacher from the future. The set is not a line on a sheet but an origin that makes a scene — it makes the spear draw back at the barrier, and on the battlefield it decides "why did you take that up instead of a blade."

And here too the spine of this volume does not bend. This book is not a book that makes the modern person strong. It is a book that gives the drama of a future being consumed. The set is not a path to growing strong, but a list of what can be lost. The moment what one was, once, is fixed — what will hurt most when it wears away to nothing is fixed too.

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#Law 1 — The 5 Components of a Set

The Identity Set is a former-occupation (前職) package layered atop the canonical modern-person occupation. It does not change the occupation, does not add tiers, does not increase slots. Every set is made of the following five components alone — fixed here. All 6 sets of the 02 series follow this frame.

#Component 1 — Starting-Ability Adjustment

The canonical modern person's starting automatic abilities are four — Stratagem acquisition, Medicine entry, Negotiation entry, Perception entry. The set replaces 1 to 2 of these with abilities the set designates.

• Grade preserved. An entry slot becomes entry, an acquisition slot becomes acquisition. The replacement does not raise the ability points by a single point.
• Licensed cap. An ability gained by set replacement (e.g. the Archery (firearms only) of the Self-Defense Officer set — Archery that works on firearms and matchlocks but not on bows) rises only as far as Licensed (3). However, if the result of the replacement is an ability on the canon's master-eligible list (Stratagem, Medicine, Negotiation, Perception, Deceit, Survival) (e.g. the Medicine of the medical worker), the ceiling follows the canon — because the canon has already opened the door of mastery. The canon's master-eligible list is invariant — the set cannot add a single ability to this list. Only the canon opens the door of mastery.

The technique of a former occupation peaks on the very day one crossed over. In this age there is no master of that technique, no manual, no comrades — the road beyond Licensed lies only in the arts of this age.

#Component 2 — Set Technique

Each set provides, all told, 1 to 2 techniques dedicated to the tier 1 and tier 3 slots (at most 1 per slot). There is no set technique at tier 5 or above — from tier 5 on, every set merges into the technique list of the canonical modern person. The color of the former occupation ends at tier 3, and above it lies the domain of the time spent in this age.

• It is a choice instead of, not an addition. Choosing the set tier 1 technique forfeits the canon tier 1 technique Foresight; choosing the set tier 3 technique forfeits the canon tier 3 choice (Squad Command, Energy Infusion, Field Search). The number of slots does not grow — this one line stops power inflation.
• The reason a tier 1 replacement cannot touch the skeleton of the occupation (Energy Transfer, ability-score special) is fixed in the canon-protection principle of Law 2.

#Component 3 — Starting Drifted Goods

A bundle of set-specific possessions. Two principles bind every set together.

• One-backpack principle. Only what can be worn on the body and carried across. Vehicles and heavy weapons cannot be a PC's starting drifted goods — those are GM-only scenario props (see Vehicles).
• Linkage with [Depletion]. The goods bundle must include items that bear the [Depletion] tag of the Depletion System. Each item follows the data-card standard format of 01-02 Law 4 — without the A Handful of Story and Value After Silence fields, it is not a card. Cards already printed in the 03 series are cited, and only set-specific items are newly recorded in the set document.

The starting remaining count follows the card default, but the §Operation Dial of 01-02 adjusts that value.

#Component 4 — Conflict Hook

The canonical modern person's list of Three Ways and Six Hearts conflicts — loyalty (忠) or freedom, the class system and equality, the meaning of war, coexistence with yoma, whether to return or to stay — made concrete as 1 to 2 through the set's viewpoint.

The set cannot create a new axis of conflict. It only changes the lens. For the medical worker, "the class system and equality" becomes the question of whom to save first, the patient who came first or the patient of high rank; for the Self-Defense Officer, "the meaning of war" becomes the reckoning that one pull of the trigger is one round of the remaining count.

#Component 5 — Adaptation Variation

The canon rules of the Adaptation mechanic — slot conversion, borrowing scope, the frequency-conversion principle — are all unchanged. The set paints only two lines of color atop it.

• Fast path. 1 official occupation the set designates. From the very first technique borrowed from that occupation, the same-occupation exemption applies (the canon, from the 2nd). The nurse reads the hand-movements of a healer-monk in a single day.
• Blocked path. 1 domain the set designates. Borrowing in that domain has no exemption rule applied to it — the Energy penalty remains to the end. Hands that kept people alive stay forever clumsy at the way of cutting people down.

What one adapts to quickly and what one can never adapt to — that is the deepest identity of the set.

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#Law 2 — Operating Rules

#Basic Operation

• A set is 1 per character. It is chosen only at character creation; mid-course change or addition is impossible.
• GM permission required. Each set is a separate unit of permission — a table that blocks only the Self-Defense Officer and opens the rest is also legitimate.
• The set is, at most, an option. The canonical modern person without a set is complete in itself, and there is no problem at all if set users and non-users are mixed at the same table.

#Canon-Protection Principle

Even with a set in use, the essence of the modern person is invariant. Put it into words.

1. Non-combat support, Energy Transfer, the 2 Three Ways and Six Hearts switching triggers — these three, no set can remove, weaken, or circumvent.
2. Even when a set tier 1 technique is chosen instead of Foresight, Energy Transfer (consume 2 Energy → deliver 2 Energy to the target) and the ability-score special (Courage/Finesse/Physique -1, Wisdom/Presence/Fate +1) are kept, regarded not as a technique's effect but as the skeleton of the occupation. What the set technique takes is the color of knowledge — historical knowledge, emergency medicine, the language of the future — not the skeleton.
3. The only set that grants direct combat power is the Self-Defense Officer, the one. And that combat power is time-limited, bound to firearms and [Depletion] — on the day the gun falls silent, the Self-Defense Officer too returns to the canonical modern person. The remaining five sets add no bonus to attack checks in any form.

#Use Alongside a Background

The set is not a background — the canon's right to choose 1 background remains as is. In particular, use alongside the modern-person-only background Memory of the Modern Age (現代の記憶) is permitted. If the set is "what one was, once," the background is "what that work left in them."

But the same origin is not counted twice. The rule is one line.

If an ability the set gave by replacement and a background's ability perk point to the same ability, that background perk is forcibly moved to a remaining ability in the perk list.

#Compatibility with ex2 Alternative Techniques

First, declare self-sufficiency (自足). This volume is complete without ex2. The table below is traffic control only for tables that also use ex2-01-03 Modern-Person Alternative Techniques, and for a table without ex2, treating this section as wholly absent leaves no gap in the rules.

The principle is one — one slot, one source (一源). Techniques of two sources cannot be stacked over each other in the same slot. The choice is per-slot, not per-character — if the GM has permitted both, a combination choosing tier 1 from the set and tier 3 from ex2 holds as well.

When interpretations of effect collide, the narrower side wins — the canon's wording is the baseline, the set is the variant atop it, and the ex2 alternative technique is layered on last.

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#Law 3 — Common Format of the Set Documents

Every set document of the 02 series is furnished with the following five sections. Fixed here — all 6 sets follow this format. (Just as Law 4 of the Depletion System fixed the format of the card, this section fixes the format of the set document.)

The six documents that follow this format are as follows. In the order of writing and verification, the Self-Defense Officer is the first set and the touchstone of balance.

The 6 sample characters per set and the common opening vignette are placed in the appendix.

#The Seventh Set — GM Self-Make Guide

When a former occupation outside the six sets — cook, athlete, farmer, actor — comes to the table, the GM can build a set themselves. Fill all five components, but add not one. Ability replacement is 1 to 2 with a Licensed cap; the technique is at tier 1 and tier 3, only as a choice instead of the canon; the drifted goods are one backpack including a [Depletion] item; the conflict hook is only a concretization of the canon list; Adaptation is one fast path with one blocked path. Then hold it against the two touchstones — if this set is stronger than the Self-Defense Officer, throw it away. If this set gives a bonus to attack checks, build it again. Last, write it on one page to fit the five-section format of Law 3, and that is the seventh set of your table.

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The barrier-keeper did not ask the name. He asked what kind of hands they were — the set is the Kamikakushi's answer to that question.