Navigator Personas
While covered lightly in our file on Resonance, this section is to a more in-depth look at the role of Navigator in general on a Persona game, and playing as one.
What Type of Navigator Are You?
There are the two archetypal roles of navigators in Persona games. The first is the Navigator, who focuses more on support, and enabling their team through the use of their skills that analyze enemies, enhance teammates, and certainly heal as well. This archetype is well-represented in Persona games through the examples of characters like Fuuka Yamagishi, Rise Kujikawa, and Futaba Sakura.
Maki Sonomura counts too. While in Persona 1, the Maki that fights with the party is her 'Ideal Self' that focuses upon combat, her role in Persona 2 is that of having well-defined, exceptionally powerful Resonance.
Then there is, for lack of a better term, the Anti-Navigator. These are typically antagonists, though we're not requiring that necessarily here. Antagonism simply makes the conditions of their narrative being such more 'clean' in a sense. These navigators focus upon Interference and ailments. That does not mean they don't do the other things too, it's just that it is your specialty.
Characters of this archetype include Chidori Yoshino and Chizuru Ishigami. While Chizuru doesn't use a Persona in canon and mostly the onmyouji powers of her bloodline, her role, that of disorienting her foes within a supernatural labyrinth, is fully congruent with this archetype.
On the Velvet Room MUSH, we're not setting hard rules on how many abilities of one archetype, or the other that someone is taking. However, we believe it's fun to consider the type of Navigator you are in order to make choices.
Now let's talk about what defines you making these choices…
Aesthetic
"Feel the movement of the Earth through your fingertips… Hear the answer of your wind flow through your hair… Taste the knowledge of the water on your lips. Tell me Lucia… what shrouds me from the truth?"
- --Fuuka Yamagishi, Persona 3 Reload
The aesthetic of a navigator is one part personal narrative and one part Persona narrative. Consider Fuuka's Persona, Lucia. She's based upon Lucia of Syracuse, the Patron Saint of the Blind. While Fuuka herself has an interest in technology, it's a side of herself she's unconfident about, as if it will be regarded as unfeminine.
Her Persona manifests thus in a more spiritual way, reflective of her journey to find herself in a world that renders her blind to understanding how incredible she truly is. Lucia's aesthetic is based on spiritually using her other senses to connect people, extending her Persona's resonance to do so.
In contrast, Rise Kujikawa's Persona, Himiko, is a shamanistic queen that manifests with a satellite dish for a face. While her Resonance in canon is noted to be not quite on Fuuka's level, that doesn't mean that she has less potential narratively. Instead, consider her specialty within her narrative aesthetic. Rise is an idol, and thus her Persona focuses on frequently supporting her team by cheering them on, leading to in-battle interrupts with buffs and healing.
Futaba Sakura meanwhile utilizes Necronomicon, which is like a mobile hacking station. Futaba's aesthetic is a combination of in-battle support and sensory powers in regards to considering the Metaverse like a hacking mini-game for her. Cognitive input of the world manifests as 'data' for her which she can then nudge or alter. This too is part of 'hacking' mini-games in Strikers to access areas, which are not truly manifestations of technology, but because of her narrative, she can hack them just like she would a real world computer using her Persona.
Chidori Yoshino is an Anti-Navigator who summons Medea, a Greek witch. Her story is that of an anhedonic Artificial Persona User plagued by death and the knowledge that she'll die young, an ironic contrast to her Persona's power to heal and regenerate. As a part of Strega, a group that believes their special powers should be celebrated, she utilizes Medea to interfere with Fuuka's resonance in canon, masking SEES' ability to find Strega, and disrupting telepathic communications. Hers is like a pervasive shroud, a veil-like 'spell' that Fuuka must pierce through active incredible effort in order to see the world.
Chizuru Ishigami is being classified as an Anti-Navigator here. While she has no Persona in canon, here she will, as determined by the player and/or staff. In canon, she uses onmyouji spells to bind the characters in an extra-dimensional labyrinth, requiring them to solve puzzles and face darker truths of themselves in order to escape. She utilizes familiars, shikigami, and curses in canon to disorient, disrupt, and aggress upon the party. While this isn't a typical Persona power set, she still fulfills the archetypal role of an Anti-Navigator here as an antagonist.
These canon aesthetics are all considerations for creating your own spin on these matters for an OC navigator. One should consider both your character narrative and the narrative of the Persona itself. These combined will guide you in discovering what your character focuses upon, and how your Persona itself plays a role in the type of navigator they are.
Considerations of Range
To reiterate: while in Persona canon, navigators can perform support from great distances, on Velvet Room MUSH, the staff have made the judgement that navigators must be in combat range in order to utilize more in-depth analysis on enemies and support on their allies.
So what does that mean? In Persona, we see navigators doing long distance duels. Does that mean that navigators can't do anything at range?
Not quite. Navigators and Anti-Navigators still typically have incredible range on their sensory abilities within supernatural spaces. A duel by a Navigator and an Anti-Navigator on searching and concealing is usually free-form in the sense of the progression of it being a matter of OOC consent between them. The outcome too is decided, but we ask that everyone who participates in such sell appropriately both sides of the duel.
The antagonist should always be respected, naturally, but in the end - there is a bar for the protagonist to meet. An obstacle to overcome within their progression. That does not mean treat them as such, only to understand that narratively, an antagonist Anti-Navigator is there to present that sort of challenge to them while crafting their own story for them to participate within.
What about other PCs? Or the example given of Chizuru Ishigami. If a Navigator antagonist wishes to use their resonance abilities to challenge a number of PCs out of personal combat range, then a Monad or free-form scene is appropriate for representing that. Subdividing that into Arcana System combat challenges is possible, such as the Chainsaw Stalker, so long as the navigator is not actively using Arcana System abilities to assist them in combat. If the concept requires that, then it should remain a Monad challenge, or a free form scene.
If you require using Arcana System on a PC from range, then the easy ruling is: don't. You must be a valid target in order to utilize navigator abilities in Arcana System, period. Standing behind the party a little ways is fine; being completely untargetable is not.
Note: this means that a Navigator spending a goodly number of their abilities on Persona oriented attack spells or weapon attacks is completely fine, so long as at least a third of them are navigator oriented. A navigator that wades into combat is entirely in-bounds. Rise Kujikawa in Arena Ultimax learns to utilize her Persona aggressively and wields a weapon. Futaba Sakura floats over the battlefield and even utilizes bombs in All Out Attacks. Chidori utilizes a hand-axe style kusarigama and has battlefield abilities. However, choosing not to have any damaging attack abilities like Fuuka Yamagishi, or Rise Kujikawa at first, is a valid statement; just consider if that is what you want.
The 'Shock Noise,' 'X Soul' and 'Life Mend' Limit Actions and their associated Passives can be purchased by navigators using passive ability points in order to better represent their type of specialization. For more on this, see the Arcana System file.
Despite this, it is recommended that even when a Navigator ability is 'Monad' tilt, that one does not specialize approaches so much that they define approaches solely by their supernatural abilities. After all, a Monad can both be real life, and supernatural too. Instead a Fuuka player might take a Proficiency-based Monad Approach that allows an ability with that sort of flexibility, to represent challenges both in real life and in supernatural spaces.
OOC Minutiae
- Note: not all Navigator abilities on a Persona are necessarily open to all Navigators. For example, Chidori's Spring of Life is idiosyncratic to her Persona rather than general use.
- Abilities like Chizuru Ishigami to create her own supernatural spaces are restricted and must be applied for. It is recommended more that Navigator antagonists orient around using existing supernatural settings first.