Onmyōji

Dialectics is the study of how things change through history. Esoteric dialecticians, called onmyōji, learn to use the power of kor, which is the vast reserve of power from that which comes before, to draw upon the past for powers, by rearranging a location's flow of energy, then using special lenses to "review" the past, using memorization techniques to picture specific moments, and then drawing those moments. Once they are drawn, those moments can be ritually invoked to give skills, powers, and insights from the past.

Shikigami

Reviewing

The power to review the past is only possible through special lenses. With a lens, an onmyōji can look into the past at their location. The past is a chain, a line that has been made and cannot be unmade without great risk to the present. In order to review it, one can only look to where the past has been, not where it could have been. This includes locations. The past is linked to place as much as anything else. The location of a planet changes greatly over a 100 years, but the past is a rigid line. Thus, if you look into the past 100 years while in your bedroom, you will see where your bedroom was 100 years ago.

What an onmyōji does see is the flow of forces within the space they look into. This will be in the form of sepia-toned light that moves and shades based on the forces at play. They will also be able to see moments play out on loop. The amount of time they can go back, how long the loop is, and how far they can explore within that moment are determined by their own will and by the power of the lens they have.

A moment can be reviewed eight times before it is inaccessible to the reviewer. If the reviewer does not return to the moment within a year and a day of the first reviewing, that moment is then lost to them even if they did not review it eight times. One may only review a moment once per month (28 days). If the moment is invoked via tsui taiken, it must be re-reviewed in order to be invoked again.

Furthermore, because moments are all tied to one another, moments cannot be reviewed if they are connected. One may only choose one moment on a major chains. Identifying where a chain begins and ends is part of the study of history and dialectics done by the onmyōji.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Location

flow of energy

yin and yang

Lenses

In order to create a dialecitcal lens, one must have the proper materials. The glass must be imbued with kor while it is made, and it helps if the glass is made from hari, a special kind of glass already imbued with kor. However, one can imbue glass with kor during the glass-making process by special timing procedures, a process called nintai. Nintai requires a lot of waiting, a lot of heating of the materials, and observation of the world around. This usually requires a special place (a high mountain-top, for instance) where one can watch the world and its goings on. And then one must wait until something significant happens while they observe, then time the blowing of the glass to that. This creates distorted, strange glass pieces which are then broken up and ground into lenses.

Then the hard part begins. The lenses as they are have minor amounts of kor, and are thus not useful to reviewing. If they are used fresh, they will be used up immediately. Instead, they lenses are placed into special cases (usually carrying eight lenses at a time), and these cases are carried on a long journey. The lenses must be in movement for at least a year and a day before they are usable. However, even then, they are considered weak lenses. Truly useful lenses are used sparingly, once a year at most, usually once every ten years, until they have observed and absorbed many, many, many special moments and events in history. The best lenses are passed down through generations in a family.

New lenses are made every year, but the ones commonly in use have been in use for thousands of years.

Age of Lens	Number of Uses	Reviewing Distance	Moment Area	Sensitivity to Forces
1 day	1	10 years	10'	-6
1 year and 1 day	10	100 years	100'	-3
10 years	100	500 years	500'	0
100 years	1,000	1,000 years	750'	+3
1,000 years	2,000	5,000 years	1,000'	+6
2,000 years	4,000	10,000 years	1,250'	+9
5,000 years	10,000	50,000 years	2,000'	+12
10,000 years	20,000	500,000 years	5,000'	+15

Memorization

Once reviewing a moment in the past, an onmyōji must memorize the moment and the forces at play. This means memorizing as much as possible about it. Color, size, shape, people, sounds, tastes, smells, everything. To do this, they practice memorization and meditation for hours every day, as well as studying the history they are about to look into. The more they know, the more they can understand the forces at play. The meditative practice that they use is called toho ken'nai.

Sketches

A good onmyōji will be able to render what they memorized in significant detail. Sketching is best done on paper with simple drawing tools, charcoal or graphite. The better the sketch, the easier the invocation. The sketch must capture moments, and thus, usually, it is multiple sketches. This art is called konseki.

Invocation

To invoke the kor that is captured in the sketch, one must take the best of the sketches into a special room. This room must be perfectly square, 8' by 8'. If no such room is available, a space must be delineated somehow in those dimensions (drawing on the ground, placing posts, or some other method). The sketch must be suspended from the ground, either by hanging on the wall or some other convenient elevated position. The onmyōji must then draw upon their memory via toho ken'nai, and then replay the moment with their own body, taking the part of whatever it is they wish to invoke. If it is a person, they must act out that person's behavior in the moment. If it is a force, they must follow its flow (this usually translates as a kind of dance). Etc. If they match the moment perfectly, they will come out of their trance with the power, skill, or insight they sought. This invocation is called tsui taiken.

Sometimes a onmyōji will seek a greater resonance with the past, and will thus either re-create costumes or other trappings of the moment, or they will find actual objects that were present at the time. This can give significant bonuses if done well.

Skills

The original onmyōji belong to a culture that honors warriors, and thus, they put a lot of energy into reviewing battles and learning how they were won and lost. And in the process, they drew on past warriors to become greater warriors in the present. As such, the most common use of reviewing was, for a long time, to recreat ancient warriors. However, there are many different skills and many different important moments from the past.

Essentially, a single reivew can result in a tsui taiken session that replicates the process of up to 3 years of practicing a skill. Multiple review sessions are often used to make learn a skill over the course of a year and a day.

Powers

Powers are more difficult to invoke and draw out, especially if that power is not already held by the onmyōji. For instance, an onmyōji who does not have the magical empathy of an empath will have to use multiple tsui taiken invocations in order to draw even a little bit of that power, and even then, it will only be permanent if they use all eight reviews of a moment in order to capture it.

Insights

Insights are information not possible to attain without reviewing. This is more than simply understanding the flow of forces within a moment or seeing something unrecorded in a moment. It is the process of finding a new link on the chain of moments, finding an undiscovered piece of information on that chain. This is the most difficult thing to invoke and draw forth from a moment. It requires all eight tsui taiken invocations be perfect, and it requires that the sketches be perfect, and so on.

Variations

Some variations include

• Bogsagi: Uruoese onmyōjis who use their skills solely for the art of remaking scenes from the past with painted wooden miniatures. They have forgotten how to draw other skills via their arts and focus on this.
• Dialectician: one who studies dialectics in order to be a better user of kor, or the other way around.
• Dorobo: a thief who steals from the past.
• Fune: sailors who draw upon the past to sail dangerous waters only they know how to sail.
• Kaizoku: a lookout on a pirate ship who uses reviewing to see the past and present.
• Noh actor: actors of the ancient theatre of noh who draw upon those who have played the same roles before.
• Opitan: one who looks into the past to solve mysteries that took place back then. These are usually hobbyists with a singular focus.
• Togei-ka: one who uses their dialectical lenses to draw upon the skills of potters and ceramics artists, a greaterly honored artform and craft among the cultures of the original onmyōji.

Similar Occupations

Other users of kor include

• Daimyo: a middle-ranking noble of Tenzanai who uses kor.
• Hikyaku: couriers who use kor to determine the correct path.
• Historian: one who simply uses kor to study the past.
• Kannusih: a priest of Rekishiya.
• Kunoichi: a female ninja who wields kor.
• Oshiguruma: a ranger of the past and present of the forests.
• Samurai: a warrior who draws from past warriors.
• Shinobi: a spy / ninja who uses kor.

Persecution

Onmyōjis are considered significant advisers to leaders in Tenzanai, but outside of there they are misunderstood and often persecuted or at least restricted.

Other Skills

Some common skills include

• History
• Dialectics
• Drawing
• Costuming
• Sewing

Stats

The average onmyōji has these variations on the base stats of their nation/species:

PRO +2
ATH +1
STR +1
AWA +4
WIL +2
STH +1
PRS -1

Though many onmyōji have drawn skills and powers from the past to increase those.