Upgrade Guide

Yo. This guide is going to introduce you to progression and upgrades on the site since it can be quite overwhelming and the story-driven approach to role-play with no clear experience, levelling, or stats, can be quite difficult to navigate if you're not used to it. Hopefully by the end of this guide you'll have a better understanding which can help approach to land successful progress of your characters.


❖ FOCUS
❖ MATERIAL
❖ TIME
❖ SCALE

FOCUS
The more focused the upgrade is the easier time will be had due to not trying to cram so many different upgrades into a single one. A person doing one upgrade for a single skill, or two similar skills, will find an easier time to provide a strong case for an upgrade application than a person trying to do four or five different skills at once.

MATERIAL
Refer to the next section but having a good idea of the material that you want to present for the upgrade will go a long way in understanding how much each piece of information can provide to the upgrade, and whether it is appropriate or not. Does it all relate to what you're upgrading? Is there a consistency to the material being presented?

TIME
Time is precious and also limited. In-character, time will be a factor for consideration in the frequency of upgrades which is dependent on the progress of the site plot itself with its liquid nature. One should ask themselves how much time has passed and could their character accomplish all this in the amount of time they are allocating before an upgrade. Time can also be taken out of character, shooting out upgrades in rapid succession is a fine line between progress and power-levelling. Sometimes things may happen in-character which might make a character rapidly develop, but remember that power-levelling is against the rules.

SCALE
An important thing to do know when doing upgrades is just what it is that you are upgrading. To understand the scale of what these skill levels are, and ask yourself if the upgrade is appropriate for the character. It is strongly recommended that members familiarise themselves with the skill levels found in the individual racial threads as well as the other skill sheets, refreshing oneself on these are also recommended when going for an upgrade.


❖ PRIMARY THREADS
❖ SECONDARY THREADS
❖ TERTIARY INFORMATION

PRIMARY MATERIAL
Primary material for an upgrade is essentially the crux of the upgrade. A primary thread ought to present feats that are on the upper end of the scale for your character's skill, spirit class, or be an in-character demonstration of your upgrade. For example, a shinigami trying to upgrade their zanjutsu to advanced and obtain their bankai would use the actual threads of their bankai training here.

SECONDARY MATERIAL
Secondary material for an upgrade is displays related to the upgrade but are not at the upper end of the character's skill, spirit class, or whatever is being upgraded. For example, a hollow advances in power and evolution by eating souls to become stronger but this material is not ideal as primary material which should be more focused on what is being upgraded instead. This is where these threads which mention or demonstrate the hollow eating souls may be useful for supplementary material.

TERTIARY MATERIAL
Tertiary material is unrelated to the upgrade but demonstrate progress of the character themselves. For example, should your character have developed from the sprout they were on approval and are now a mighty captain of the Gotei, or a high-ranking member of the Vandenreich then that information would carry an expectation of their growth. While tertiary material can be helpful for the upgrade process, it is the weakest form of evidence due to generally being unrelated to what the character is trying to upgrade.


So you want to go even further beyond? Well this section will cover the aspiring individuals that are looking to transcend the limits of their character's abilities to break into this pinnacle of power. Before going into how to get it though it's important to understand what exactly it entails to be Spirit class 0 or possess a skill above Elite.

Please be aware I will be using Master exclusively to refer to ascendant qualities in this guide for the sake of simplicity.

❖ NARRATIVE WEIGHT
A character who breaches past their limitations to ascend further than their peers is an atypical anomaly. It is the culmination of hard work and circumstances where these characters define their area of specialisation as the masters of masters. It is important that before even going for this to keep in mind that any character among the highest group of the site has a lot of narrative weight in both what should be recognised by others, and in what they should be providing for the site. A character with Master Willpower for example is at such the level where one would enter a room and all people in the room would be clued onto the peculiar weight of their mental fortitude.

❖ MASTER =/= MASTER
It is important to know that no skill ever operates 1:1. This is especially the case with ascendent attributes. No two Masters are the same. A character might only exist in this state conditionally such as Mugetsu Ichigo, or if they are receiving back-up from an external source which then comes at a cost, or they may always exist at this level. Two characters with Master Willpower may use it completely different and show completely different expressions of the skill, which is the ideal outcome as every ascendant quality should be personal to the character.

❖ A GOAL OR AN ACCIDENT?
One thing to mention is having it for the sake of having it. Like all our systems, the ascendent bracket is a narrative device rather than a skill tree. There are generally two types of masters, the ones that actively acquire it as a goal and the ones that get it by accident. To the people that pursue it as a goal to drive oneself into this position there is the expectation that this is being pushed towards to accomplish something with rather than just to have it for the sake of having it. The second one is more organic and generally where the character falls into this bracket by accident, such as someone playing their character only for that character to end up in the circumstances of demonstrating aptitude for it. For the former, it is taken in poor taste that one who actively pursues this bracket does not demonstrate that same proactivity in using it.

Now that those are addressed, let's break down the means to get to these things.

❖ HOW TO TRANSCEND?
As mentioned before these characters are anomalies. They do not abide by the same rules when it comes to their mastery as people below them do but it is because of that they do not acquire this haphazardly. One does not wake up after a lot of training and end up among these ranks because they trained hard, they are tested by others and themselves, they turn the world upsidedown to enter into this bracket.

To keep it simple, one of the most accessible ways to transcend is to be tested by people already in this bracket. The gulf between a Master and an Elite is massive to the point that an individual that is being exposed to these people and having to try to match them will see more results due to the greater challenge.

This is not always feasible though because the limited amount of Masters means that you may not have a character that you can accomplish this with; whether the other Master is inaccessible or there might not be a character who has developed the skill to your desired level yet.

In this case you may need to be a pioneer and be the first person to create a pathway to this end result. This is where a person will need to show their strengths as a writer by conducting a narrative that facilitates this. Whether a mini character arc or using the site's setting to your advantage, it is up to this character to break ground.

The final method is the one that takes the longest time to break into this bracket, and that's time, those that do not actively accrue the merits for these qualities will find it takes the longest time. It is possible to passively acquire these traits over time by just being incredibly proficent at it but this is generally through haphazardly doing unrelated threads which only conclude with the character using this attribute a lot.

For a quick summary:
- Collaborate with other characters & members.
- Utilise the elements within the setting to your advantage.
- Create a focused narrative towards achieving this level.
- Having one's limits pushed by other "transcendent" individuals.