Bayushi Courtier School: Bayushi Courtiers

The Bayushi Courtier School teaches its students to turn the weaknesses of others to their advantage. Whenever he makes a contested roll against another character in a social situation, he gains a Free Raise for every 2 points of disadvantages the character has (round up).

The name of this Technique comes from the proverb: "Every man is an ocean, and no matter how deep, every ocean has shallow waters." After ten minutes of conversation with another character, the courtier may make a contested Awareness roll to determine the character's lowest Trait. If the roll is successful, the courtier may expend a Void Point to discover the character's next lowest Trait. A Scorpion may only perform this Technique against a single character a number of time equal to the Scorpion's Awareness. For example, a Scorpion with a 4 Awareness and 3 Void makes a successful contested Awareness roll against a Crane and discovers that his lowest Trait is his Willpower. Then, over the course of the evening (through continued conversation), the Scorpion spends all three of her Void Points, discovering the Crane's next three lowest Traits. Because she has a 4 Awareness, she can only discover the Crane's 4 lowest Traits. Once she increases her Awareness to 5, she can go back, chat with the Crane for a while, and discover his next lowest Trait.

The name of this Technique comes from the Scorpion adage: "Secrets are like birthmarks; the more you try to hide them, the easier they are to see." The courtier has gained an acute sense that allows him to sniff out the weaknesses of his opponent. By making a successful contested Awareness roll, during conversation, he may know one disadvantage of any character he speaks with. This Technique can only be used to gain the general nature of a disadvantage. For instance, a Scorpion could use this Technique to determine that a character has a Dark Secret, but does not necessarily know the details of the Secret.

At this Rank, the Scorpion can not only learn others' weaknesses, but how to exploit them. For every one hour of game time spent interacting with the character, the Scorpion gains one point of the Blackmail advantage on that character (maximum 5). He must make a successful contested Awareness+School Rank roll vs. the character's Awareness in order to use this Technique. In other words, the Scorpion has learned some bit of information the character doesn't want anyone to know. If the character doesn't have any such secrets to hide (they'd better be a saint to pull this one off), the Scorpion learns something about their wife or husband or some other family member. Alternately, the Scorpion is just good enough to twist mundane information into something scandalous.

Finally, the Scorpion has become the master of manipulation. Through conversation, she is able to show the weaknesses she sees, gaining herself benefit and inflicting difficulties on others. Through slanderous public communication (and the expenditure of Void Points), the Scorpion is able to give target characters the disadvantages Bad Reputation (2 Void Points), Obligation (4 Void Points), or Sworn Enemy (4 Void Points). A character gains no Character Points for these disadvantages, nor can he get rid of them with Experience Points. He is stuck with the disadvantages until the GM is satisfied that the player has role-played his way out of them. A courtier may only bestow a number of disadvantages on one character equal to his School Rank.