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Ixarien · **08-22-2015, 02:24 AM**

Just curious to know if anyone roleplays as a shinobi, and what some of your backstories are in relation to that. I'm also wondering what challenges/lore limitations you've found in doing so. Right now I'm struggling to come up with how my character could learn ninjitsu beyond the ninja quest npc Oboro. I wonder how many master ninjas are out there, lore-wise....

Any ideas/anecdotes/lore bits are much appreciated Wink

Aaron · **08-22-2015, 02:50 AM**

Im going to say what probably should be known already but whatever.

First thing is you shouldn't really go telling everyone you're a Shinobi. This also applies to casting those Mudras. People telling everyone they're a ninja are just attention seekers.

Second is that you have to either be foreign (aka non eorzean like a Doman or something) ir get foreign training as iirc only "ninjas" in Eorzean standards are Rogues?

I dunno im probably way off on the last part.

A'kos Saiyal · **08-22-2015, 08:55 AM**

If you aren't Doman, or Othardian, then you could be trained by one. Or you could be trained by someone who was. Lady Yugiri also states that they'll start training allies of the Scions in the arts (I'm not sure if this was the Grand Companies as well or what), and Oboro says they'll work with the Lominsan Rogues. The style of combat is very similar, it's really the magical aspect that sets Rogues and Ninjas apart.

I haven't seen anymore limitations to the class rp wise than most of the others, and how you use the mudras is up to you, they're generally less flashy than what a mage class will do Wink

. Lore wise, the Shinobi don't advertise who and what they are anymore than the Rogues do as that could be a tip off in the targets favor.

As for how many master ninja are out there? Well if they're masters they aren't going to tell you that Cool

but as far as learning goes, post 50 there aren't anymore mudras to learn, and all the skills are self taught through the questline.

Mae · **08-22-2015, 09:38 AM**

Spoiler-ish? Maybe... I haven't finished the new NIN quests.

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A'kos Saiyal · **08-22-2015, 11:05 AM**

(08-22-2015, 09:38 AM)Mae Wrote: Spoiler-ish? Maybe... I haven't finished the new NIN quests.

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SpoilerOne thing I've noticed between the original NIN quests, some MSQ stuff, and what I've done so far of the new NIN quests... there seems to be some distrust within the Domans for ninjas. Doma fell after (at least one) ninja master gave up their secrets to the Garleans, and there's an NPC that clearly states "when Doma fell, it was with your [meaning ninjas] blades in our backs". They seem to be okay with ninjas they're personally able to vouch for or have reputations like Yugiri and her retainers, but an 'unfamiliar' ninja could be viewed with distrust and masters 'forced into hiding' to avoid being hunted by those outside their community/village/social circle.

At least, that was my take of things so far. I could be wrong.

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Thorgar · **08-22-2015, 11:10 AM**

Act like a normal person, carry a different weapon other than blades used by Ninja.Â "what is a ninja? sounds like something tasty do you sell it?"

Good assassins and Ninja never run around in black clothing with hoods and masks without either a) being on the job at night or b) a damn good excuse (like acting awkward and asking if this costume for the party later is stupid or not)

Unless your playing an assassin from Discworld lol

Sylentmana · **08-24-2015, 09:36 AM**

I played a shinobi/ninja for a while. She was from Doma, born and raised in a remote mountain village and trained from childhood. She was a farmer by day and I used botanist for this. If she had to do some covert action she tried not to draw attention to herself and only ran around in actual ninja gear at night when no one else was around.

Manari · **08-24-2015, 10:02 AM**

I've been RPing Manari as a forest assassin since 1.0, before Ninja was ever announced. I used to use the daggers that Gladiator/Paladin could equip and not have a shield in the other hand. Manari doesn't ever call herself words like "ninja" or "shinobi" because she isn't really one of those. She fights from the shadows using stealth and accuracy, but she doesn't ever cast ninja magic or anything like that. She does use two daggers but she has nothing to do with the rogues in Limsa either. She also usually wears green and not black because she tends to stay in the Shroud at all times.

I don't really ever plan to have to travel to Othard or learn actual ninjutsu but who knows where the RP will take her.

Little Yuna · **08-24-2015, 10:42 AM**

If you want to be a real shinobi you need to remember some basic principals.

1.) Ninjutsu is not a martial art, it is the art of espionage and guerrilla warfare along with sabotage. It involves trickery, so if you wish to be a real shinobi you cannot be the type of person to be confrontational.

2.) Real shinobi would never resort to flashy mudra if you are going for accuracy. Shinobi were revered for their subtlety, and more often than not if a real shinobi was on an assignment, they would use weapons fitted for silent kills, such as wires or knives slitting throats. They would never use anything that would cause needless attention to themselves. I recommend looking up real weapons that a ninja would use (being tantos, kunai -which are just repurposed farming tools- caltrops, and poisons.)

3.) Choose your attire appropriately. A real ninja fits into their surroundings, and camouflage is their best means of defense. This does not mean wear a white uniform when in a snowy environment, instead bring a white coat, and then shed it once you are in a place like a castle or a cavern to help you keep hidden. Also, hiding is a ninja's main objective if suspicion is raised, if the need arises they will abandon assignments in order to preserve their identity and thus the identity of the person they hired.Â

I highly recommend not using the ninja af as it has metallic pieces that could give you away. The most subtle ninja outfit (And most accurate might I add) is the ilvl 115 attire you can get from the market boards. It completely covers the face, has a very small amount of reflective sections, and can be dyed.Â

Also unlike popular media, a real shinobi never wears black because it still sticks out in the dead of night. The moon casts a blue wavelength, and shinobi of the Iga province used dark navy blue as their color of choice as it helped make them hard to spot at night time.

4.) Their lifestyle is also important to mimic, a real ninja was trained to the tiniest of details, such as using shuriken stars to fool an opponent and take advantage of superstitions, or to just sleep on their left sides at all times. (This was to make it easier to protect their heart while they slept, their left arm would cover the front of their chest where their heart would be.)

5.) Be tactical as well, if something goes wrong like being caught in the act, you need to have thought something out far beforehand. Having caltrops to impede pursuers was a nice move used by ninja to escape, so make sure you have contingency plans.

I really hope all of this helps.

Little Yuna · **08-24-2015, 01:03 PM**

Sorry for the double post, but I'll be making a thread somewhere that has a list of what I learned during my stay in Nabari, hopefully it'll be of some help to people around here.

Arrelaine · **08-24-2015, 01:15 PM**

Akayuri is so secretive about being a shinobi that she runs from combat, and because she also just doesn't like conflict. Big Grin

If pressed into a corner, she'd probably fight but she'd try to make 'accidents' happen rather than flat out hand to hand combat, though, she knows a fair bit about that as well. Her family lived in a different village, and blended in with the locals as tebori (it's traditional Japanese tattooing, but I figured quite a bit would be parallel to the culture it's pulled from), and general merchants. When they were needed for their skills, it was easy to pass off as them going to another town or village to trade goods and services, returning either with money or goods in exchange.

She looks and acts like a precious cinnamon bun, and for the most part is, but she will cause you to have an accident and then just leave you there. Undecided

Manari · **08-24-2015, 02:19 PM**

(08-24-2015, 10:42 AM)Little Yuna Wrote: If you want to be a real shinobi you need to remember some basic principals.

I think it's important to remember that this is fantasy/anime inspired setting. Ninjas in fantasy are drastically inaccurate from actual shinobi of history. There is certainly a place for characters like this, however that is not how FFXIV presents their ninja. The ninja in FFXIV are very much the fantastical hand-sign weaving ninja of superstition that can replace themselves with a log when struck and can split into multiple forms and such. As I said before, I don't RP Manari being an actual "ninja" so she can't do hand signs create mirror images of herself or any of that stuff. She fights in a way that makes RP combat more exciting and engaging for both sides of the battle. Because it's not terribly fun if all you do is hide in a bush and spit poison tipped darts from a blowgun at people.

V'aleera · **08-24-2015, 02:21 PM**

While real shinobi did not use flashy and explosive magic, do keep in mind that FFXIV ninja do and with great frequency.

While the lore certainly supports the more mundane and subtle variety of ninja, it equally supports the flashy magical assassin.

Ashe · **08-24-2015, 03:57 PM**

I do but it's a very small part of my character's backstory.Â
Ninjas in Othard are kinda not the best people in town because of the whole Karasu/Gekkai thing...and are kinda the reason that Othard/Doma is in the sorry state it is....
But yeah...
They are super mediation freaks and pay really close attention to detail. Your character can't be a air head and be a ninja. They are masters of disguise...
My character was trained by some...but doesn't fall back on Ninjutsu as his main way of fighting. He will hint at it every so often and I will joke about it OOCly...but yeah.Â
The best Ninjas are RP'd as not being obviously ninjas haha.

I think the Rogue's guild is a better choice for RP...but that's just me. Â I have a ninja, I have a character who fights with knives and is neither a ninja nor rogue's guild, and I have an ex-pirate rogue's guild dude....
So yeah. haha /cries

Kalooeh · **08-25-2015, 10:16 PM**

So I havn't gotten that far in the ninja/rogue stuff but I figured if I ever actually get to it, Kal will be that kind of shit to use Refuge in Audacity and Sarcastic Confession.
Which is basically, character deliberately tells the truth in a way which won't be believed by acting so frickin weird and outrageous, and admit to shit you're doing in a way that people write you off as just an attention seeker or just crazy.
Seriously it works really well and I've used to often enough with the WoW version of her and people just roll their eyesÂ like "Yeah ok lady, go drink your juice". She's actually very good at convincing people not to take her seriously and then suddenly they've got a dagger through their spine or something. She's a "pirate" so not that weird for her to be carrying daggers either.

Armimi and Sam are a lot more secretive over it and just use other means of fighting.... Funny enough both are thaumaturges, though that wasn't on purpose.
Armi just is because she's also got a strong interest in Alchemy so she's in Uldah a lot and hey why not study that too. Nobody is really going to question her much anyways if she's carrying around daggers either because uldah. Plus the pugs are there and learning from them can help as well.
Sam does thaumaturgy because magic is easy enough to deal with for basic stuff and says they're mainly just a botanist that collects and sells plants for others an they protect themselves with basic thaumaturgy and so on. Sam is one to try to blend in more and look "average" as well so people tend not to pay much attention to them most the time.

If I ever come up with a realistic reason for Dheina getting in to it, since she's not really one for any other combat class due to tiny and pretty weak (Since you don't really have to necessarily be big and strong to take someone out with a little blade, but she is supposed to be really fast... mainly to run away hurrhurrhurr), she's a conjurerer from Bentbranch that doesn't like hurting people. Like anyone will believe her being some kind of skilled ninja. If she got in to it she'd be very good at it and all, even if she'd only really do it if she needed to because she'd rather help people with healing and magic, but if needed she'd be happy enough too to be able to fight with something other than teeth and claws if she ran out of magic

Now the whole be loud and obvious about it so people don't take you seriously in one thing, but it's also kinda hard to pull off and most people actually don't do that so much as bragging about it to be serious and be intimidating.
Difference between "Don't mess with me I'm a ninja and can fuck you up >:I" and "Pfffft ahaha yeah Imma ninja a'right. I'm absolutely fuckin' amazing at it too wit' my yellin', towerin' size an' beautiful massive muscles, an' gian' mess of red hair, an' slamming shit around. Fuck yeah I'm tha best ninja ever! What are ya fuckin' stupid? I'm a pir... er, privateer, nah one o' them sneaky shits. The shit outta 'ere afore I kick ya in the face"
And really part of the whole rogue/nin thing is misdirection, and being a giant body-builder looking highlander/roe with a cloud of red hair that's always flirting with people and making a ton of noise in a bar or just about anywhere she goes (when not working) is definitely one way to throw people off that because surely ninjas just try to blend in as much as possible and try to avoid attention instead of drawing it, right? Sure she may punch you in the face but not like you'll suddenly get a dagger through your neck without warning, right?

Roleplaying a Shinobi (Ninja)

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes