Monday, February 17, 2014

Ninjas

Earlier today, I wrote a post about Pirates, and now I’m writing one about ninjas. It makes me want to ask the question: Pirate or Ninja? And, I can honestly say my answer has always been neither. I don’t want to be a pirate, and I don’t want to be a ninja. I would rather be a ranger. A ranger’s senses and skill with a bow would stop a ninja before they ever got close and the pure dual wielding styling would drop a pirate to the ground… in several pieces of course.

But, this post isn’t going to be about my love for the ranger class. This post is going to be about NINJAS!!!


(cricket chirps)


What? I can’t think very well at the moment!

Ninja’s are stealth assassins. The modern media and entertainment industry would have the people of the world believe that ninjas are people who ran around depressed up in black pajamas. This isn’t historically accurate.

If you were walking home at night you’re a little more alert than usual. (I am anyway, kind of paranoid in fact.) And, if I saw somebody running around in an all black outfit with a mask on I would freak the f*** out.  That’s because dressing like that gives the exact opposite effect of what a real ninja is trying to accomplish.



It’s a ninja’s job to blend into their surroundings. And, most of the time that means dressing like a normal person, or dressing in a fashion that’s going to help them infiltrate the organization they’re targeting. Say, for example, they want to get into an office building late at night to deal with a workaholic who’s about to crack the case of the missing crown jewels wide open, then they’re probably going to dress as a janitor to get past security. Or they’re going to dress as a security guard. And, if they want to make things real complicated then they’ll go the black pajama route and enter the building from the roof. Oh, and they’ll pretend guns don’t exist too.

Every time I think of a movie/tv show/comic where it shows ninjas in a modern setting using only swords, daggers, and shuriken, it makes me think of a scene in Indiana Jones. You know, the scene with the sword guy, the one Indy shoots. Yeah, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.

As for other things… my brain is trying to shut down for the day, so I’ll hurry this along.

In my game, ninjas exist, but not technically. You’d have to look at the rogue class or the assassin prestige class if you really wanted to find one.

Why?

It’s because the ninja class offered in the Dungeons and Dragons source material isn’t considered open content for the OGL. And, I’m too lazy, at this point in time, to develop my own interpretation of the class.

I might do it later, if the Jade Isles (thank you Russell) then it will be kind of necessary, as the Jade Isles are a Far East style setting.

Anywho, I’m checking out now.

Later kids.

Ryan

2-17-14

2 comments:

  1. So as I sit here eating my rocky road ice cream cone and reading this post I feel the need to interject some knowledge on Ninja’s. You see Ryan it only in recent years that I have become jaded to the whole Ninja idea (minus the teenage mutant turtle ones). So the 1st thing I must correct it the black pajamas. Your are right the best way to blend in is right in public out front and with every one and while prepping for a mission a historical Ninja may have done so, however as Ninjas as they have been romanticized as fast moving assassins did in fact need the black garments. Ok now for a quick history lesson during a civil war period in japan from the middle 15th century to the begging of the 17th commonly known as the Sengoku period or Warring States Period is when ninjas as we know them appeared. Now Ninja served 3 roles during this time frame Espionage, sabotage, and assassination. Now there are many ways a ninja may have assassinated someone but the two most common where while they sleep and with poison. The sleeping tactic is commonly done at night where the use of black clothing would be the most useful. Reason being is one there were very little light sources outside of lanterns, candles, and celestial bodies. Now the black clothing could also be used during the act of poisoning a target as well. While poisoning a target is done in many ways something in a drink or food, with a dart, or my personal favorite sex with a Kunoichi (this would take too long to explain see anime move called Ninja Scroll). One such way a ninja may poison and need black clothing is with the dart method. Now you may ask yourself “why he would need black here when he could just hide in a crowd?” The Answer to that is sometime there is no crowd and let go ahead and eliminate shadows on walls as well. There are time when Ninja would hide in ponds and use there blow gun as a snorkel. Black clothing would be useful here as water would distort how you look and you may be viewed as just a shadow at the bottom of the pond. There are dangers with this method as well. Now ninja did not just only use black now they had garments of many colors as well most common outside of black would be white brow or green. Each of these is conditional white being used with snow, and green and brown for forest and tall grass

    Now in modern Day you are right edged weapons are nowhere near as quick are a gun. Though ninja would most likely still be trained to use such weapons like a sword because and I paraphrase Ben Kenobi Swords are “more eloquent and not as clumsy and as random” as a gun.

    As for DnD I agree the ninja Class kind of sucks the best homebrewed one I’ve ever seen was a level 10 with 5 levels in rogue for the stealth and 5 levels in ranger for the combat

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    1. You are awesome Russell XD

      And, yeah, I didn't do any prep work at all for the post, so I was just running off of whatever was stuck in my head at the time. That and it was also.. I don't remember what I was going to say... I was probably going to complain about how late it was when I started writing the post, and blame my lack of knowledge on that. But, really it's just where I've never found the Ninja to be a very interesting subject to study, lol. I would like to refer to the top portion of the blog where I said I'm more enamored with Rangers than with either the pirate or the ninja. Lol. Not that I could write a very informed and well researched post about them either. It'd be about as willy nilly as my Ninja post.

      Anywho, thank you, and good night :D You're wonderful people :D

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