The Beast Fears Fire - Forest Killers

Forest Killers [Violence - Varies]
Impulse - To Be the End of your Story

There's some disagreement about the origins of the Forest Killers' techniques; they may have come from an interpretation of the poisoned narratives that float through the Teigou, but the also might have come from the collected lore of the Blackthorns, or they could be something that the last Princess of Pine Province invented from whole cloth. Whatever the case, there remain 19 Forest Killers still known to be active somewhere in the dark of the forest, having written age and infirmity out of the story of their lives.

The origins of the Forest Killers are in the waning days of the Autumn War between Oak and Pine Province. The King of Pine had died in the winter following the first battles of that conflict and just after the emergence of the Queen of Ugly Birds. The King of Pine had been, by all accounts, a hypercompetent ruler, if a paranoid and a tyrant. He died at a ripe old age, with three adult children, fraternal triplets, having left no notion of which one was to be designated heir, and having depopulated his bureaucracy in his paranoia. His three children were born cursed with a different pair of foolish, brutal, and mad. The princess was the one who wasn't a fool.

When the Province inevitably descended into civil war between the Princess and her foolish and brutal brother (mostly his handlers), the Princess learned and trained a group of her followers in the arts of martial storytelling, a method of defeating enemies by controlling the narrative of the battle before it begins. Armed with this secret, her smaller force defeated her brother's followers and took the capital and the crown of the province.

Just in time for her father to rise from the grave as a lich. The Princess' storytellers swore allegiance to him and chased their old mistress. Some say she escaped, some say she didn't, but in the process, she did kill a number of the tale-spinning warriors. Now 19 remain, the Forest Killers, still apparently loyal to the King of Pine, reporting to the lost capital of the old Province, somewhere in the forest.

The Forest Killers prefer to fight with swords, straight or curved, paired or not. These swords are well decorated and personalized, having been taken into hundreds of years worth of fights. They wear masks, each one also very personal. They do not have names; this is not merely a case of not using their names, or having forgotten them, they have told their names out of their stories and they do not exist. They do not age, get hungry or thirsty or sick. They can be killed, but this is not easy to do, each one of the remaining 19 has been honing their craft for longer than Crickton has been a nation, and while physically, they are no more resilient than the next nameless, dedicated killer, that rarely if ever comes into play.

Harm - Weapon, usually. Forest Killers, we assume, still pursue the aims of the King of Pine, which we can assume to be the reuniting of the Pine Province as a Pine Kingdom under his rule, and claiming all the land in the shadow of the forest. How he thinks and they act toward this end is a little hard to fathom (a lich of his age is probably showing sever cognitive breakdown - undead senility), but mostly the Forest Killers appear from the forest, to Kill. Who they meant kill and why is an exercise left to the witnesses to undertake. How is with swords and story.

That Will Be the Story of You
When a Forest Killer seeks to kill you, face Violence.
On a Hit, I dictate one action that you must choose to either take or suffer Harm as stated.
On a Hard Hit, you deny the story and may choose an option for a Hit (not a Hard Hit).
On a Hard Hit, I dictate one action that you must choose to either take or suffer Great Harm.

I know you have some cosmic rationale
There's a possibility that the Princess escaped from the Teigou and made it to Shulcha Kaaren Kal, trading her secrets to the Blackthorns for a key to the city. Since then a handful of people have appeared with similar techniques.

Tell the Story in Blood
When you prepare for a battle with someone you have seen, someone you know or someone you have a chance to observe, face Violence
On a Hit, you get +1 Hit Forward to spend during the fight to dictate an action that your opponent takes during the fight.
On a Hard Hit, you get +3 Hits Forward.
On a Miss, fuck it. I will figure this shit out later. I just watched 3 episodes of 30 Rock trying to get this move written and it's not happening. Stay classy, St. Louis.