Desperately imitating a life of danger and intrigue.

I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. It could get both of us in a lot of trouble. It just gets to me, you know? I need to tell someone.

This may seem ridiculous, but I’m kind of a modern day ninja. Elite special ops. I work for the government, but it’s not an organization you would have heard of. Double top secret. Code deep black ultra – I guess you wouldn’t know what that means, either. My job at the Scotsman is just a cover.

I know I’m pretty young, but I was recruited about two years ago, right out of high school, because of my specialized training. You probably don’t know this, but most modern special ops work involves katanas, like this one right here. It’s as deadly as a gun, and a lot more silent. Easier to get across borders, too. I started taking karate when I was ten – actually, no, when I was eight – and from there I got recruited into an ancient school of ninjutsu.

No, I mean real ninjutsu. It was a secret school, six hundred years old. In China. At a monastery. Army Boot Camp is a picnic by comparison. We were the best of the best. That’s where I learned to use this katana.

You can read more about it in my online diary.

Have I actually ever killed anyone? Well, I’d rather not say. Plausible deniability, you know.

Yeah, I guess my life is pretty intense, and mysterious. It’s the kind of life that most people my age could only dream of. Deadly, but glamorous. Most people settle down, get a girlfriend, and work a normal job, but not me. I can’t get too attached, you know? That’s the price I pay for the silent battles I wage.

Nickname: None, despite the individual efforts of adepts of this school. The school name is an out-of-game abstraction – it’s not a common enough school to have a standard name. Some adepts refer to themseves as Ninjamancers, Commandomancers, or Samuraimancers.

Generate a Minor Charge: Collect an item used in warfare, crime or espionage that’s not common, worth at least a hundred dollars.

Alternately, convince someone that you’re the real thing. They must sincerely believe that you are involved in a dangerous profession of some kind. Convincing children or people on the internet does count.

Significant charge: Directly and personally speak with someone living a life of adventure, and convince them that you’re also in an impressive and dangerous career.

Major charge: This school has no major charge.

Taboo: Traumatic danger. A tyromancer cannot have any violence failed or hardened notches. Gaining a single notch of either violates taboo. No charges are lost, but the adept can’t gain any new charges until all notches are removed – often, this requires a lot of therapy.

Blast: The tyromancy blast isn’t real. The target, and any witnesses, will believe you’ve just pulled a weapon from nowhere, launched a deadly attack, and concealed the weapon again in a fast, expert display. It’s an illusion. The wounds will seem real to all senses and impair the victim as if they were real. When the victim next sleeps, however, they’ll wake up completely healed, and all physical evidence of harm will be gone. Anyone who is “killed” by such an attack enters a deathlike coma, but recovers within 8 hours, as if the damage never happened, though they may have incurred other wounds – for instance, from embalming or autopsy.

Starting charges: 6 minor.

Charging tips: Because of the nature of the taboo, it’s likely that characters will have difficulty charging once the game has taken full swing, so it’s likely to be useful to charge up as much as you can from the start. Typically, a tyromancer can gain 2 or 3 minor charges a week, and with effort, maybe a significant charge every few months.

Symbolic Tension: Tyromancers dream of, and imitate, a lifestyle which would actually sicken and terrify them.

Random Magick Domain: Ephemerality and the illusion of danger.

Minor formulas

Daydream
1 minor charge or more
You experience a vivid, minute-long vignette of adventure. At the end of it, you gain a hunch – the end of the vignette indicates the results. For an extra minor charge per person, you can describe the situation to willing participants and they’ll have the daydream too, and gain a hunch. For other people, it will seem only like a very immersive flight of imagination.

Jane’s Guide to Everything
1 minor charge
Accurately identify any tool or item used in military, espionage or crime. This includes its full name, how it’s used, and who typically uses it.

Lone Wolf
1 minor charge
Ends a conversation. Nobody will attempt to continue the conversation, or begin the same conversation again for the next hour. They may still act if they were intending to do so, but the conversation will seem to have reached a natural stopping point. This can be a conversation you’re involved with, or one you’re observing.

Superkatana!
2 minor charges
This is the tyromancy minor blast. It takes the form of an impressive hand-to-hand, archery, or thrown attack of your choice.

Air of Menace
2 minor charges
Everyone around you becomes alert and believes that there’s some kind of serious danger afoot, and will likely accept any plausible source of danger. This lasts a minute or so, after which emotions take their normal course.

Significant formulas

As Easy As It Looks
1 significant charge
You can use your tyromancy skill to replace any skill which might be possessed by a trained special ops field agent for a single roll. This includes stealth, espionage, medical, language and even combat skills, but not social skills like lie or charm.

Wicked Assault Submachinegun!
1 significant charge
This is the tyromancy significant blast. It takes the form of a firearms attack with a weapon of your choice.

The Badge
1 significant charge
You can create or fabricate official records to identify you as a member of any government, military, espionage, law enforcement or crime group. This includes database records, card keys, I.D. badges, and licenses, but it won’t fool personal memory or non-electronic locks. Lasts an hour.

Special Logistics
2 significant charges
You manifest specialized equipment from nowhere for an hour. You can acquire any specialized piece of equipment, of new quality, of up to $20,000 value. It will disappear just as suddenly as it appeared.

If We Shadows Have Offended
2 significant charges
Nobody remembers any dangerous, exciting or illegal events of the past hour in which you were involved. Instead, they seem like they were daydreams, fantasies or hypothetical situations.