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I’ve been thinking about ninja. Kind of. And as with most of my creative thinking these days, I did a little art along the way. My render above depicts a fairly typical Japanese shinobi, or ninja. It’s adapted from Lubthbel’s lovely Way of the Shinobi model available from DAZ. It was conceived and rendered in DAZ Studio with postwork in Photoshop.

(The ninja bit stops here. The rest of this post is obscure rpg stuff. Strictly for completists and Ontolosnans).

What was I really thinking about? Ontolosnan ninja-equivalents. Empty Sky Dharmists. There are four or five key ‘adventuring’ groups which will be of key interest and concern to player parties. There are of course the Dakinis, solitary tantrikas who serve the Aji. There are the Mirror and Lens cults, who primarily serve the purpose of the rajina courts. There is the Ministry of Sunlight and the Graceful Iron Forge, who police the creation and worship of kut. And there are the Empty Sky Dharmists, servants of the kut temples.

The central passages of the Bhagavad Gita describe Krishna’s teachings to Arjuna on perfect action and perfect duty – dharma yoga. My (evolving) conception of the Empty Sky Dharmists are an elite ‘whatever it takes’ force who usually work in secret, agents of the Theagyns and the kut temples, They espouse an ethos of perfect duty and perfect obedience, no questions asked. They’re starting out a little bit like ninja. I wonder if you’ll recognise them at the end? Stay tuned.