[faceless]

Kao No Nai | The Faceless If you want it, take it. Just make sure you have the ability to keep it. ORGANIZATION ORIGIN: Storm Country ORGANIZATION HEADQUARTERS: Storm Country - Otobe ORGANIZATION PURPOSE This syndicate does not serve any greater good, they do not worship a being or a promise, and there is no greater goal behind their actions to further the organization. There is only one creed after which the individuals in this organization live, and that is "If you want it, take it. Just make sure you have the ability to keep it." 'Faceless' is an organization that has become one of the most hated entities on the continent because there is never anything good coming out of having to deal with them, and it is the absolutely ruthless way they go about their work that really has put fear into people. This is a group of shinobi that no one is safe from, and it even goes so far, that those people who are common and with little wealth or power to their name, need to fear those thieves and assassins less than those in power. Village leaders, daimyos and those rich merchants and lords of different countries are the real ones who need to pay attention to their backs being covered. This syndicate has started off as nothing more than a group of thieves, but over their long history and with growth, they have also started to accept work in the field of assassination. Mainly a group of thieves, though, Faceless members rarely kill if they don't need to. The focus is on stealing treasures, weapons and anything else that may be expensive or rare, but they also pride themselves on their skill of stealth more than anything and sometimes the faceless are just attempting ridiculous feats of skill in trying to steal something that there really is no way of stealing it, just to prove themselves. While being assassins isn't the biggest goal or meaning in life for these individuals, this type of work has increasingly become common within the organization over the years, and it's what the faceless have become known and feared for in this day and age. Whether something needs to be stolen, or someone needs to vanish without any signs, the faceless have become the top organization anyone would think of for the task. ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE The faceless are a group exclusively made up of very young orphans (usually no older than three years old) that were either rescued from certain death, or adopted, but possibly also rare kids that were born into the syndicate. All kids adopted this way are trained in the organization's ways and become either highly skilled thieves and assassins, or are sent to one village or another if they lack the qualifications and skill to become Shinobi. As the children grow into adults, they take up the different positions and responsibilities within the group. Outside specific tasks, most members are very free to do whatever they want with their life, so long as they listen to the organization when it comes to fulfilling requests. Members get to live a normal life as part of a shinobi village or as simple civilians, except when they act for the organization, or perform thievery for their own desires. By default, members of this organization are all clanless. Notable members up to the leader are code-named with numbers, with the purpose of ranking them to spurn them on to reach for higher levels of skill. If one number dies, then the next in line will take their place. There are 50 Numbers. Talented members that have grown up in a village may be ordered to get into a special position, as any sensitive information the syndicate can get their hands on, may be recorded and used to protect themselves. Zero Zero is the indisputable leader of the syndicate, and they have the last say about anything going on within the org. Usually Zero is a figure that does not appear very much, or that's even really known how they even look. While Zero can decide and set rules, promote or punish members at will, this position mostly is one to keep members in line simply by existing. Zero, the head of the organization, is always the strongest member as well as one of the most feared and wanted people on the continent by default of being the head of this syndicate. The head rarely gives orders themselves and leaves any administrative work to his direct subordinates. Usually the head is left to train their direct disciple. If 'Zero' dies, the current 'One' will take their place. One To Six The members One to Six are the direct subordinates of Zero, they relay his will to those of lower rankings and take the tasks of organizing members, informing them about work and are responsible for the training of new members. With their power also comes responsibility for failed missions, recruits and any information that might reach the outside. Seven to Fifty These are still the absolute elite of the organization, even if there may be larger discrepancies in power between the lower and the higher ranks. Most of these people have never seen Zero or even talked to him, but they still get power over their own group of individuals that they work together with closely on tasks from the org. These subordinates are all none numbers. The Hungry 'The Hungry' is a title given to those who have not earned themselves a number, they are still skilled thieves and assassins in their own right, but these are the ranks that change the most often between death and new members. While always fluctuating, the number of members across countries is always in the hundreds, not counting the recruits. The hungry, under the lead of a number, build the main force of the organization when it comes to doing requests. The Recruits These are the children being trained to become fully fledged members. With the knowledge of their true background, they are still often raised as regular Shinobi and sent to the different villages, to lead a mostly normal life and the opportunity to gain a clean identity. The recruits are supervised, with Numbers or the Hungry acting as their guardians. Special members The Faceless may have all sorts of skilled members in their ranks. While everyone will have a high skill in stealth and a good physical body, there will always be those who may specialize in poison or medicine and may take alternative paths. As long as they can perform their required work, they may be held in special regard. ORGANIZATION HISTORY Year 753 Officially created by a few low ranking Shinobi before there really was any thought about founding ninja villages, these desperate few grouped together by chance, without any attachment to a clan and no way to catch anyone's eye due to lacking resources to grow stronger. Back then, this little group did not have any ranking or even a name, it was hardly more than a few men trying to get by during dangerous times. All they had was their brains and blades to survive the harsh environment and so, they turned to the only thing they could survive from with their skill set, thieving and plundering. Year 770 The original group had mostly died by this point, but call it luck or skill, the ragtag group of thieves and bandits had managed to survive to this point and even managed to build their own little hideout and gather some small amount of resources. New recruits were mostly stray Shinobi that were abandoned or could not connect to any of the clans around. The operations of the thieves were very confined to the surroundings of northern storm country. Year 790 With the old guard gone completely, changes would begin to sweep through the syndicate. Riches were slowly amounting and the members that had honed their craft as thieves felt that with their growing momentum, it was time to give their group a proper name. These men and women were the forgotten, the people that had no place in the world and despite their efforts may as well not exist. They became the faceless. At this point though, they were still a simple group of thieves and bandits, though they would start to conceal themselves with the same type of masks and not only start amassing wealth, but also reach for rare weapons and techniques. Year 850 While this group had become notorious around storm country quite some time ago, they could still not hold a candle to the large clans and organizations, but their threat to people's wealth was steadily growing. While they had mostly been scavengers, that would attack unlucky Shinobi and travelers, by now they were actively trying to steal anything that would seem worth their time, even if it was protected well. A rich merchant had come to town? Steal from them. Someone carelessly bragged about their fortune? No more. This was the most glorious time of growth for Faceless, as they had amassed power to start taking what they wanted and were on a seemingly unstoppable upswing. Year 888 Faceless had extended their reach ever further, reaching beyond storm country into other regions. When people realized how great this group's influence and power had grown, they issued killing orders on these bandits whenever they were seen, which was not as big of a crisis as what would follow, after all they had lived with danger their entire lives. With the founding of the first Shinobi village in Konohagakure, the bandit's eyes shifted there, and they pulled back to storm country to observe the situation and plan for the future. Year 905 More structure and organization came into the band of thieves. With more and more Clans and Shinobi banding together to create a village of their own, Faceless was left to wonder their future, and so they too started to pull more members into their ranks, starting the practice that has lasted until today, of taking in orphans to train their own members. In addition, it became harder and harder to find opportunities to steal anything of note. Operations spread out further to find those places that had not yet united, but opportunities got harder to come by as time went on. Year 934 With the founding of Amegakure, Faceless faced an ever-increasing danger and in this year faced their biggest crisis since their founding, of nearly being wiped out in Storm country. Luckily, the Head of that time had foreseen that calamity might strike them and moved the most important members and recruits to wind country for a time. This year marks the start of the true change of a group of thieves, to becoming the Faceless of today, as a different approach was taken to their operating. Members were ordered to stop living in hiding and to start to mingle in the world. They would still be thieves, but now they were using the cover of a genuine identity to keep with their goals. Year 942 As the First Shinobi War commences and work as thieves had become increasingly difficult with the formation of more and more Shinobi villages. There were notions to adapt to the changing world. While they would profit by scavenging the battlefield of the other Shinobi, they were still putting themselves in danger every time for uncertain gains and so, they would start selling their services as assassins. They could get a guaranteed amount of money and would still get the thrill out of performing. At this point they were an unknown factor as assassins, only known for thievery and received low amounts of work. People realized, though, that their work was always very high quality and while singular members of faceless may not be able to hold a candle to those from prestigious clans, as pure assassins they were fearsome. Before they could really take over though, the first ware ended and these new assassins were left to pick up the scraps and were mostly forced to go back to becoming thieves, with the occasional assassination job. Year 950 In an attempt to stay ever-changing and able to adapt to the world, the syndicate's ranking system was introduced, to not only encourage members to work, but also improve themselves. With the resources gained from the first Shinobi war, they were one of the few organizations that had profited from tragedy, even if they had also taken a few losses. Over the past year, they had collected and created their own jutsu and were becoming ever more powerful. Year 971 With the second Shinobi war starting, Faceless would also start getting more work. Sabotage a war camp in construction, make an important chess piece in the war vanish, and other requests for ruthlessness were executed. The exact impact of these assassins remains unknown to this day, but those concerning themselves with history still can not figure out how much damage exactly the faceless have done and which sides ordered them for which task, but somewhere with the organization exist records of every client who ever contacted them and asked for their skills. Year 976-977 As with the first war and into the third one, Faceless remained the ones who stood tall and expanded their ranks, resources and influence during the second Shinobi war. They did however take one big loss. In an act of so proclaimed justice, Ishigakure killed the current Zero of the organization and broke down negotiations for a proposed large task. Suffice to say that the village would suffer the wrath of Faceless, showing the world exactly how scary they could be, by targeting not only quite a few of their forces right as the war broke out anew, but also attempting to sabotage any trade routes they might have had. All of this culminated in Faceless stopping only after the death of Ishigakure's Lord. This was the first, and only time in history, that someone would try to betray their work relationship with Faceless. As a consequence of the death of their leader, the next in line became the new Zero and this man would come to rule into the current day and is still the strongest and most feared Shinobi to ever come out of the organization. Year 990 The whole organization Faceless seemed to vanish into obscurity with the end of the third war. Even the effort of some villages to find their headquarters to uproot them turned out to be fruitless efforts. The whole syndicate went back to hiding behind their public identities, not showing themselves for the time being, as everyone recovered from the wars, the countries and them too. The second and third war had really been where Faceless had shown their fangs and made people afraid of those assassins they couldn't reach. Their new image went so far as to even make some people forget what they group really was at heart, and future high profile thefts often weren't even linked to them. Due to that, some members started a tradition of leaving one of their masks behind instead of the stolen good. Year 1000+ There has not been much talk about faceless in recent years as they started to take their regular tasks back up, but as the nations are still recovering and only tentatively eyeing each other, there has been less work from big 'partners' and mostly thievery has been back on the menu. The calm is very much only a matter of time. Who knows what might happen if the thieves and assassins grow unhappy with their situation and start taking things back into their own hands? Maybe Zero, the old man called Blind Ghost, will see his end and plan something for his going out when almost everyone doesn't realize he is still alive. As always, peace is only temporary and those stretching their fingers out to profit off of the misfortune of others will always lurk in the shadows. ORGANIZATION SPECIALS The organization has a large storage of jutsu both universal, but also those who are more rarely found and in single cases count as lost arts. These are treated as organization specials and in many cases are related to the art of concealment, perception, deception and even undetected murder. There is one sealing techniques though that is placed on any new member that joins the organization. That technique is the 'Closed Mind Seal', that is similar to what many of the secretive village organizations do, in branding their members with a seal that prevents them from talking to any outsider about their work and organization. This technique works just like that, it is applied to the forehead and will vanish after application. The branded person can not talk about the Faceless and if they try to, will experience a splitting headache, in addition to not getting out a single word. This seal would look like a keyhole. What this technique also does, is kill the branded person the moment someone tries to bypass the seal instead of removing it the proper way. So for example, if someone were to try to read the mind of someone with this seal, they will be blocked by this seal and if they try to force past it, the seal will kill whoever it is applied to. This seal will not be visible, unless either the user or an outside force trigger it, e.g. the sealed person tries to talk about the org to an outsider. Beyond Jutsu, there is also the mask that every member above the recruit rank is given. This mask serves the purpose of concealing one's identity, but also always comes with the ability to change the wearer's voice. This mask is completely featureless and white, except for two narrow slits for the eyes to see through. Any member in this organization will have some sort of specialized taijutsu abilities, that will show in an SA and/or a specialization. The most commonly trained abilities are perception, speed and body flexibility. On top of that, most members are capable of wielding either a dagger or a sword and may have expertise in Bukijutsu, but even with tai- and bukijutsu as the focus, all sorts of abilities find their way into the syndicate and are appreciated. ORGANIZATION RULES 1. If you want it, take it. Just make sure you have the ability to keep it. 2. Under no circumstances may information about the syndicate reach the outside world. Punishment is death. 3. Disobeying orders from above will result in appropriate punishment. 4. Murder between members is not allowed. 5. Return favors accordingly, repay your grudges two-fold. The only publicly known way to contact the Faceless, is leaving a request letter in the form of a red paper crane behind at a graveyard. ORGANIZATION MEMBERS Zero - 'Blind Ghost' Yūrei Ichirō [NPC] Personal Disciple - Name Here Numbered Member - Name Here Numbered Member - Name Here The Hungry - Name Here The Hungry - Name Here Recruit - Name Here Recruit - Name Here

[Exousia]

Have you talked with TAKEDA SANOSUKE™ about this? I'd like to have his input before I give any formal approval, especially since the Org is centered in Arashi no Kuni.

[Uehara Shin]

After talking to some more people and thinking about it, I'm not gonna do this org, I think it's just not gonna be fun with the setting works out in the end.