Ninja Ninjutsu lore questions.. help

[Anonymoose]

1] Ninja use ritual gestures (mudra), especially hand gestures, to manipulate aether. Usually, a mage tips the balance of their own body's aether (or aether in their immediate environment) towards a specific element (lightning, fire, etc.) and manifests that raw power. Ninjas draw aether from a variety of sources and conjure unique, specific "frequencies" of it. So far, we know of three; Heaven (energies in the air), Earth (energies in the land), and Man (energies in the body). By conjuring and combining these aetherial energies, many new effects take shape - depending on which energies are used in which order and balance. Even though it's not though of by ninjas as literally magic, it's clearly similar.

2] There are perhaps more mudra, and almost certainly at least more shapes the energies can take. However, the in-game mudra (Jin, Chi, Ten) encompass a triad of forces that are often seen together in the real world. They're the Three Realms, the Three Powers, etc. If I was going to fudge the system for the sake of roleplay, I'd probably stick with "unknown combinations" rather than "unknown mudra". Seems a rather large liberty to take without precedent.

3] Ninjutsu was developed on an island called Hingashi (meaning east, meant to be similar to Japan). Due to its smaller, isolated nature, the area was constantly in strife as its people battled for control. Because of this, the shinobi that developed ninjutsu were not a single group. Just like real-world martial arts, every clan had their own unique styles and teachings. Based on what teachings your ninja learns, its bladework and magicks might be different.

2 & 3] If you were going to roleplay things that weren't in the game, this would probably be where you place the blame. You know mudra or ways to combine them that the Doman shinobi currently in Eorzea do not. Perhaps you acquired the teachings of another clan somehow. But you'd have to ask other ninja roleplayers - I don't RP, myself, lol.

4] Possibilities are limited only by your imagination! (And the canon, I guess, depending on how much your roleplay troupe respects the canon. It seems to very from group to group by ... quite a lot.)

[Zojha]

If I was going to fudge the system for the sake of roleplay, I'd probably stick with "unknown combinations" rather than "unknown mudra". Seems a rather large liberty to take without precedent.

In fairness, there are two occasions where our ninja NPCs refer to "mudras" that seem to be unavailable to the player:
1.) In the 45 quest where Oboro mentions a mudra of summoning (Used by Karasu).
2.) In the 50s quest where Oboro mentions a 4th mudra he thought to be a myth (Used by Gekkai).
At least, in the english version. Note: Both are combat text during the respective duties. The first one manifests as a ritual circle witch, according to an NPC in the (54? 56?) quest carries a "disagreeable cost" and has no hand gesture associated, the second one causes 3 clones of the user named "Chi, Ten and Jin" to appear, all capable of using ninjutsu themselves. The animation for that is a "Ten" with a more flashy effect. A summoning technique is further casually employed by Oboro in the 30 quest to summon wisps and a toad.
3.) As a third point, the lore book calls "Chimatsuri" a complex mudra (Even though it looks like a combination of dozens of mudras - Unclear terminology!)

That said, the whole ninjutsu lore is pretty wonky and a grey area. Kassatsu and Shadewalker for example have very distinct finger and hand movements associated with them, just like mudras and they, too, evoke magic effects - Mudras or not? Then there are things like shukuchi which from the animation seem to require no mudras at all, yet seem to be magical. In the cutscene with the Sahagin priest, Yugiri uses a mudra-less ninjutsu that shocks enemies in the vicinity just by planting her dagger in the earth.

Trying to make heads or tails of that is, uh...yeah. Difficult. I personally was kind of hoping the lore book would be more helpful in that regard, but...not really. That said, Ninja roleplay is pretty iffy, because ninjutsu is not a very well documented art.