#Observation and Record

Contents

zn11 · Selection rules (Variant) + the material catalog at a glance (Summary).

#Rule — The Observation Record

The seed of the Self-Taught Style you cultivate is born only at the instant of a roll in real play. You do not sit at a desk and pick "I want this technique." Only writing down that single instant — watching, taking, being defeated — lets it become a technique later.

#Trigger

When, on a roll you were involved in, a Critical Hit · Heavenly Mandate · Karmic Retribution occurs, and in that same round you "watched / took / were defeated by another school's [Licensed] technique or [secret art]," you write it down as one observation record.

The combat effects of a Critical Hit · Heavenly Mandate · Karmic Retribution still occur as usual. The 2 Wounds of a Critical Hit, and the decisive-moment table / fatal-blunder table of a Heavenly Mandate / Karmic Retribution, are processed by the canon; the observation record is a separate layer written on top of that. Even in a round of a Karmic Retribution where you lost, the record can be taken.

#The Content, Slots, and Spending of a Record

• What you record. The source school · technique name · Kata tag · the gist of the effect · the situation (which of Critical Hit / Heavenly Mandate / Karmic Retribution). You may copy a single row of the catalog (below) as is.
• Holding cap = 3 slots (fixed). You may keep at most 3 observation records on hand at once. To take a 4th, you must turn 1 of them into a technique in an interlude (spend it) or discard one.
• GM option: you may instead tie it to stage (holding cap = the number of skills held at Licensed or above). The standard is a fixed 3.
• Spending. When you interpret 1 record in an interlude's design (03), that record is spent. However, if a Heavenly Mandate's record crystallizes as a signature technique, you may keep it without spending (that single defeat, that single glimpse, becomes the core of the school).
• The target is another school's Licensed/secret art. What you can observe is the Licensed techniques and secret arts of other schools listed in the catalog below (the roughly 116 techniques of co/ex2/fc03). You do not obtain the watched technique itself — with it as a seed, you design your own technique in an interlude (03).

#Table — Material Catalog at a Glance (CO/EX2/fc03)

How to use it. Once you take an observation record, look up that other school's technique in this table and, using the "method well suited as a seed" as a clue, design your own single stroke with the five methods of 03. This table is a glance of representative examples, not a transcription of all 116 techniques — beyond the source links below lies the full data of each school. GMs and PCs may use any Licensed/secret art at those links as a seed, even a technique not listed here.

#Swordsmanship (CO 4 schools + EX2 12 schools)

#Spearmanship (EX2 8 schools) · Unarmed Combat (EX2 15 schools)

#Ninjutsu (EX2 7 schools) · Command (EX2 5 schools)

#fc03 Chronicle of Japanese Swordmasters (Swordmasters 12 + new schools 3)

#Source links to the full catalog (referenced, not re-recorded here)

• CO 4 schools (sword/spear/body/ninja/bow/sorcery/exorcism/gun/medicine): co-04-04 School Data
• EX2 swordsmanship 12: ex2-10-01 / spearmanship 8: ex2-11-01 / unarmed combat 15: ex2-13-01 / ninjutsu 7: ex2-14-01 / command 5: ex2-18
• fc03 swordmasters 12: fc03 index / new schools 3 (Kashima Shinto-ryu · Ganryu · Ito Itto-ryu): fc03-03-00

Handling overlap. The catalog merely summarizes the source numbers as is; this issue does not re-record the techniques (following the "overlap verification" precedent of fc03-03-00). A designed Self-Taught technique is always a new single stroke, not a copy of the technique you watched (03 five methods).

#Example — A Scene of Observation

Example 1 (a seed from Karmic Retribution). The swordsman Sasuke staked his life against a Ganryu assassin. In the second round, Sasuke's horizontal cut came up [1,1] = total 2 → Karmic Retribution. In that opening, his guard down, the assassin's secret art [Tsubamegaeshi (燕返し)] (a 2-hit strike; on a first-hit the 2nd becomes Critical Expansion) ran him through, and Sasuke was defeated at 0 Wounds (barely surviving). He carved this memory of defeat into one slot of his observation record — "Tsubamegaeshi, the up-and-down wave. The second blade that cuts again with the force of the draw." Later he interprets this with [Overcome] and builds a counter secret art (→ to 03 design example 1).

Example 2 (a seed from a Critical Hit). The wild man Kuma was tormented by a Ganryu swordsman at long range. With a short weapon, the blade does not reach. But in the very round his own grapple came up [5,5] = total 10 → Critical Hit, he read the logic of the opponent's [Long-Sword Reach] ([aptitude] · reach advantage) in his own flesh — "If it does not reach, then go in, grab, and kill that reach." He carves it into one slot of his record. Later, with [Imitate], he reworks the long-range advantage into a close-quarters restraint (→ to 03 design example 2).

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#Scent — A Single Line

"The technique you watched is tomorrow's shadow of yourself. The wound you took is the sharpest teacher of all."

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