If the witches only used caliburns then how did they use their cursed techniques back then?
anon you may have to elaborate, idk what you mean by "then."
if you mean throughout history, western society has always associated many supernatural abilities with objects, wands, swords, et cetera, which were all caliburns during those historical periods. to use witchcraft without a caliburn was probably considered uncouth and uncivilized, caliburns likely becoming a symbol of status and power as many actual witches made it higher in society in association with nobility, aristocracy, etc.
I read your north American system and I must ask if witches suppress their manus for fear of death then how can they use witchcraft?
HI SORRY IT'S BEEN A MONTH, I FORGOT THE PASSWORD TO THIS ACCOUNT 😭😭 original post anon is talking about, which has my take on the North American system in jjk
It's generally understood that, as a result of this taboo, witchcraft/jujutsu is not used very frequently in North America. However, this meant the rise of an ideal alternative, especially in the States: cursed tools.
In England, the United States, and Canada, cursed tools are called Caliburns, named after the sword King Arthur pulled from the stone (its first non-Welsh name). Witches whose sole purpose is to create caliburns are called Smiths, and are seen as the "fall guys" of witches.
Most witches are heavily armed as a result of this, almost every single witch owning at least two caliburns, and are used more frequently than witchcraft.
This practice both fed off the North American, namely USA American, fixation on firearms and weaponry, as well as actually contributed to much of their historical growth and obsession with arms.
However, the taboo against manus has been fading over the past century, especially since the first formal contact between American witches and the Gojo clan just after World War 2.
While still looked down upon, especially by older witches, most younger witches do not see using manus as nearly as unreasonable. There is much debate on the origin of this superstition, and how/why it has been maintained for so long. Some suspect it to be a symptom of classism.
Despite this slowly shifting cultural standard, training to suppress manus remains. If nothing else, it is a massive help with concealing one's presence and reserving one's own energy. American witches worth their salt are known for being extremely stealthy and difficult to detect.
And terrifyingly physically capable.
also i'm not gonna lie i kinda forgot about that when writing the original post so there's gonna be a holes and contradictory things. feel free to ask more or point them out!! helps me refine it further and possibly retcon dskjfsdf
The Pentagram seem super cool! If you don’t mind me asking, if they had domains, what would they be like? Great worldbuilding and art btw
HEY! Late because of class shit. Glad you like em, always happy to answer and talk about the fellas! Probably much to everyone's surprise, at the moment none of the Pentagram have domain expansions. So! This is just a hypothetical post :)
Christopher Hennessy — Nothingness
Because Christopher's witchcraft is essentially the same as yet entire opposite to that of Gojo Satoru (his is essentially nothingness while the Limitless is, well, the Limitless), I'd imagine his DE would be pretty similar in concept. Just rather than endless information, it would probably grant them the impossible ability of comprehending nothingness. It would probably place someone in a semi-catatonic state since true comprehension of nothingness simply cannot exist. More or less a guaranteed KO for those capable of any independent thought.
John Lee-Tran — Gods' Last Stand
Would probably be a guaranteed stable summon of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ. John can only emulate them otherwise, but in this domain she can actually summon them separate from herself. She likely wouldn’t be able to control them, acting separate from her, meaning she is also in danger, but they’re basically a guaranteed kill for anyone who isn’t in there. They always target whomever is furthest first.
Rachel McKenzie — Contraction
Everything would probably lose all gravity, except her. This, or suddenly everything is pulled toward the target, crushing them. Hahahahhahahahhaha
David Chen — [Unknown]
[Unknown]
Josh Woods — Life Starts Here
The target is probably gonna be permanently turned into an animal if he is able to touch them. Depending on how much cursed energy the person has, the more likely they are to just become a curse, though, so it’s pretty dangerous. He better have some kind of sealing technique.
KDSJFKSDJF THE ENTHUSIASM IS OVERWHELMING!!!! what lore would you like?? :D i can give some fun notes on the Pentagram and who/what they are!!
old unfinished drawing from may 2021 but i erased the "g" in trang lol
Rather than being a loose nickname for the top 5 witches, The Pentagram is an actual unit whose members are assigned by Salem Collective. The system is pretty straightforward: Whoever has the most stars and has a good enough name in the jujutsu/witchcraft world is put in. They hold authority but they are more like the top soldiers than the top authority, not too unlike the system in Japan. The Pyre, Salem's "higher-ups", are ultimately those who call the shots.
While I did imply that popularity/reputation don't factor nearly as much into being S-rank as a witch, it matters a LOT when it comes to being part of the Pentagram. As a member of the Pentagram, you become the face of the Salem Collective. You become more or less a celebrity, and that means appearances. It's a pretty sketchy world, really.
The 5 members of the current Pentagram are pretty honest to who they really are (they're too powerful for the Salem Collective to be able to afford taking them off the main quintuplet) but in the past it's been pretty rough and rife with lies, corruption and a lot of doubt. The Pentagram was seen as a joke, also because rarely do the members of Salem get to vote or have much say beyond popularity in who becomes a member. This mostly ended in 2002, when Christopher Hennessy, the longest-time PGM (Pentagram member) of the current lineup, only 10 years old at the time, destroyed an SR curse meant to embody the fear of witches themselves, being the first sign of a “return to grace.”
The current members:
Christopher Hennessy, 26 years old, he/him, became a PGM in 2001, when he was 9 years old. He is the most powerful witch in North America by a significant margin. Christopher has an extraordinary innate technique, or unique witchcraft, which operates by the principle of erasure. It’s complicated but not, just think of it like the /kill command in minecraft lol
John Lee-Tran, 20 years old, he/she/they, became a PGM in 2016, just after returning from Tokyo Jujutsu Tech at 18 years old. Their bloodline witchcraft is explained in relative depth here!
Rachel McKenzie, 31 years old, she/her, became a PGM in 2011, when she was 24. Her bloodline witchcraft is actually extremely similar to that of Shotaro Seita, the special-grade jujutsu sorcerer from Japan, in how it operates by the principle of pulling. She likens it to how muscles only contract, though she dislikes any analogy using muscles in general.
David Chen, 40 years old, he/him, became a PGM in 2003, when he was 25. His unique witchcraft is so far undocumented and no one knows anything about it aside from the Pyre.
Josh Woods, 23 years old, he/him, became a PGM in 2014, when he was 19 years old. He has a simple bloodline witchcraft, which is more or less just Giorno Giovanna’s Stand copy-pasted in the animal department. Reflected damage isn’t something that he can do unless he keeps his hands clasped together. Then, any damage to him or his animals is reflected back.
Fun facts:
David Chen is the undisputed father. They’re all pretty friendly with one another but David is a whole new kind.
Christopher is married to a retired jujutsu sorcerer and has 1 kid on the way :D
Rachel’s gf Tina is not a witch but is aware of everything that’s going on. Tina is BFFs with Josh. They love to irritate the fuck out of Rachel.
John’s the only first-generation American.
John and Christopher first formally met in Japan, weirdly enough. They bonded over having no idea why canned bread exists. They are now best friends.
you’re just stuck on constant mom/dad duty because everyone is so chaotic and loves to do their own thing. you’d probably get along best with karin, the sweetheart who you can sympathize with when it comes to being dragged into things.
you were actually the coach of the rugby team of another school until that school shut down and you got a job at teikoku as the english teacher, and the rest is history.
takeru the type to make “you are my dad, you’re my dad!! boogie woogie” memes and show them to you shamelessly bc you’re always cleaning up after him and his confident self. gotta mentor him. probably seen him have some breakdowns over tests at some points or something. you’re his mom/dad now. live with it.
taka giving you lil gifts bc bless u for dealing w takeru for him.
hera just doing his best to lighten your load. you coach the first AND second strings. exhausting job, he understands.
you’re probably the only person karin told about her blog until it was found, much to her eternal dismay.
Yooooo that wolf skull monster with the antlers coming out of John’s back looks awesome. Is that meant to be a shikigami? Do you mind if I ask what their technique is?
A JOHN ASK!! I'm so glad you think it looks cool sdkfjdsk I'll get into details about it in a sec! I’d love to talk about their witchcraft! :D prepare for an EXTREMELY LONG and in-depth post. The ghouls’ concepts are mostly fleshed out but what they actually do is still kinda unclear lmao
Though this is a long and relatively in-depth post, this is still subject to change, as I haven’t focused on it as much as I have other things since I created John!
John Lee-Tran (retconned name) possesses a bloodline witchcraft, or inherited technique, known as Five Ring Bestiary, from the Tran family. The chances of inheriting this witchcraft is actually extremely rare—the last user of it lived 193 years ago. Part of becoming a master of the technique is to be able to emulate the user's familiars without losing your own soul in the process. As the name implies, there can only be five “beasts” bound to the user at a time. They are ranked based on amount of cursed energy each is capable of using.
Once fully mastered, the user's appearance, manus and powers change depending on which familiar they have become the temporary vessel for. There are no written records on the full abilities of inheritors so, without any kind of norm or standards to adhere to, each user of this witchcraft uses it slightly differently.
John's unique usage of Five Ring Bestiary also summons the tamed ghouls to his side, making their fighting style very similar to that of Shikigami Users on a surface level at times. However, John specializes in only using parts of his body at a time as a vessel, allowing him to risk only fractions of himself while using the technique. “Bestial” is attached to the names of the ghouls bound to users of Five Ring Bestiary.
Her familiars are:
LURKER—Ring One
Summary
The Bestial Lurker seems to be some kind of swamp or marsh ghoul, originally birthed during the American Revolutionary War from the British during an attempt to travel from up a trade route in the New England Region (I’ll admit I forgot the name of this march, it’s real and historical, I just forgot lol). Sickness, death and grief that surrounded the marshes of New England, especially the mosquitoes, manifested into what became known as the Lurker. Covered in hair, possessing six legs and wings, the Lurker strangely specializes in stealth and long-term takedowns. If around for too long, people tend to get inexplicably sick, and can die.
Those with large amounts of cursed energy, though, should be fine, which was why it was rather perplexed by John. They were and are one of the only people on Earth who can actually resist the cursed plague that they give off, a symptom of the insects associated with the New England marshes.
Powers
The Bestial Lurker, when being emulated, is usually used in John’s arms or legs. This is because the Bestial Lurker adds a protective layer of sludge that can be thought of as an offensive defense. The longer someone is exposed to it, the more likely they are to be infected by the cursed plague. However, this includes John, so they don’t emulate the Bestial Lurker for very long. It does not provide much if any actual defense or physical boosts.
Physical changes include a sludge or opaque, viscous liquid to begin secreting from John’s skin. It attracts insects like mosquitoes or flies. Lurker is classified as the last-resort defense.
WENDIGO—Ring Two
Summary
Though called a wendigo, this familiar seems like a kind of bastard mix between both the wendigo and the Ojibwe pakàk, or baykok. They also frequently use weapons, sometimes made from the bones or cursed energy of those they have consumed. They eat humans to gain whatever cursed energy that person has, because that is all they can eat once they have “turned.” Skeletal and caked in old blood, the Bestial Wendigo was John's first familiar, having gained it when they were roughly 9. They have a deal: John will one day be killed and eaten by the Bestial Wendigo. Until then, the BW will remain subordinate to him. The BW makes regular attempts at John's life, but it seems an unlikely friendship has formed between the intelligent S-rank ghoul and S-rank witch.
Like its namesake, the BW feasts on humans—the more cursed energy, the more appetizing the human. Wendigos in the world of Salem are a class of ghouls that sustain themselves off human flesh. They are few in number globally but rather prominent in the northern region of the US and southern region of Canada. They are frequently cursed people or cursed ideas of people who were cannibals in life or legend. However, wendigo-class ghouls rarely have memory of who or what they may have been before cursed.
Powers
The BW, when being emulated by John, drastically weakens John’s bones but drastically increases his stamina, reaction speed, sense of smell, hearing, and taste. His ability to sense mana and manus also increases exponentially.
Physical changes include sharper teeth, slimmer arms, claw-like nails, black sclera, and ashen skin. This is mostly due to the fact that John only uses his upper body when emulating the BW.
The most notable techniques emulating the BW grants her is projectile slashes and ranged attacks that travel along the ground. BW is classified as the glass cannon. Despite this, it is still John’s most frequently used ghoul.
MOTHMAN—Ring Three
Summary
I don’t think I have to explain much about the background of Mothman. He’s pretty infamous in North America, but basically, in 1966, in West Virginia, there was a supposed sighting of a man-like figure with a 10-foot wingspan flying above a couple in the middle of the night. This creature became known as Mothman. Whether or not this creature existed before or after this supposed sighting, it became very powerful because of notoriety it began to hold. In only 50 years it became extremely well-known across the world, especially with the USA. It was one of John’s first missions as an AR to go check it out and he quickly tamed it. He refuses to explain the methods with which he did it, supposedly to preserve the ghoul’s ego—it is widely known Mothman has a massive ego.
Powers
The Bestial Mothman’s granted abilities have yet to be witnessed. This translates to what it does is so-far undecided lol.
TWIN BIRDS—Ring Four
Summary
An inseparable duo of birds based off the Rain Bird and Thunderbird, also a derivative of/bastardized reference to Fujin and Raijin of Japanese mythology, the Twin Birds came from a failed attempt to summon the Ring Five spirits. The two birds, which John named Hou and Yongun respectively. They were the most difficult to find, seeing as they required a summoning ritual, but the easiest to tame.
Overall, the concept of these two is the roughest and least finished.
Powers
The Twin Birds are ones John uses very infrequently because they must always be used together, and using both becomes somewhat pointless after a certain point when he has the 3 preceding Bestial ghouls. It’s not entirely certain what they do, but following the legends of the Rain and Thunderbirds, Hou heals and Yongun destroys.
ORIGIN OF ALL—Ring Five
Summary
The manifestation of the two creator gods of Vietnamese civilization, Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ—the dragon and the fairy. The summoning ritual comes with inheriting the technique, but is extremely difficult to pull off, and it is even more difficult to tame the two deities. This one requires a criteria of how pure one’s heart is, a fight, and then a judgement by the two deities. Ring Five will always already be reserved for these two. John did not have to fight alone for this battle, but did have to be the one to land the “final blow.” He cooperated with four others, the maximum amount, and was able to defeat the two gods, barely surviving the encounter. This battle happens only after Satoru Gojo’s encounter in Shibuya, when John realized they needed to step up their game.
It should be noted these incarnations of the gods are, in all reality, warped and false manifestations of the gods, as they are the perceptions of fearful humans.
Powers
Largely undecided, but decidedly overpowered. John needs to allot his body to them entirely in order to emulate them, however.
IDK if anyone’s interested, but I’m currently working on stickers and stuff for fandoms and some of my OCs. John is getting a Salem Collective “park ranger badge” sticker, and Della’s gettin’ a silly lil FNF/Newgrounds style sticker, so, uh. LMK if you’re interested I guess?
In the future I’ll make something for Seita and others as well, probably.
I’ll also post the other designs (Law, Penguin, Marco, some others) as well soon.
Omg I am IN LOVE with your american version of the jjk world! I am also in love with your oc John lol. I hope to see more of this world! It is so cool!
I was planning on answering this with a drawing but too much stuff got in the way so it’ll have to wait :,)
THANK YOU!! I’ll definitely be posting more content for it, especially John and the Pentagram. I’m so happy people have been receiving the US ver. so well, it was a random train of thought I thought would be a lot of fun to explore so it just makes me so :DD other people like it too!
Oh hey, I just want to say I think your oc Shotaro Seita is really cool, you blended Akira and JJK’s styles in a really solid way that gets the strengths of both across. I think the idea of characters in media being strongly influenced by art they themselves have experienced is a really under-utilised concept, and the idea of gaining so much power related to an anime is fitting in JJK when techniques can be based of games and animation. Great work
Oh and if you don’t mind me asking, what would Shotaro’s technique be? Presumably he’d have similar abilities to Tetsuo since he’s the strongest psychic that isn’t practically omnipotent, blowing peoples heads up, teleporting, shields and telepathy. Maybe his domain expansion could let him mutate his limbs for the sure hit attack?
AHHH!!! I'm glad you think so, honestly his entire concept started as "Hey it would be pog funny if I made an oc whose entire personality is just 'Boy I sure do love Akira.'" And then it kept evolving until we got Seita as he is now.
this ended up being more of a ramble on his powers i hope that's okay sdkfjsdkfd also!! if stuff is too broken, doesn’t make sense, stupid, or should be considered for editing, let me know. seita’s cursed technique is still in its very early stages of development and is probably extremely unbalanced. he’s meant to be unbalanced, he’s a special-grade, but not like. to an unreasonable extent.
Just note that Seita’s powers are severely underdeveloped and are mostly just conceptual at the moment!
Cursed Technique Overview—Air
His powers indeed seem very similar to Tetsuo's to onlookers, but they are indeed rather different in principle. An image I put on Seita's first profile on Instagram gives a vague and rough explanation of his cursed technique:
Contrary to popular belief in the jujutsu community, Seita doesn't understand or know the power of his own cursed technique (which I very creatively named Psychic). Seita would be too dangerous for any jujutsu sorcerer to take on if he reached his full potential. Thankfully, his arrogance, complexes and mental barriers will prevent him from ever reaching that point as he is. (I can get into his backstory and history another time.)
At its core, his cursed technique basically grants him the ability to manipulate the direction and velocity of motion in a given field. It could also be seen as the ability to pull or push, I guess. It can be seen as similar to and yet vastly different from how The Limitless is more or less the ability to stop. Psychic cannot not stop motion entirely— instead, it slows motion to the point of being nearly still.
Seita’s cursed technique can only be used on things at most 4 meters away from his person, meaning his goal during combat is always to get close to his opponent. Strangely enough, his range was larger when he first met Gojo, at 6 meters. Depending on the volume, distance away and mass of the thing being manipulated, how much energy it takes varies greatly.
His favorite move is Tatsumaki (竜巻), which manipulates the space around a target and twists it. It’s his most frequently used combat technique and is almost always fatal, and is the closest move he has that uses the true nature of his cursed technique.
He cannot mutate his own body voluntarily. This is because, one, I didn't want his powers to too closely resemble an already-existing character aside from Satoru Gojo (Mahito in this case), and two, it felt too far departed from his technique.
At the moment Seita only knows he can pull or push the flow of air, something incredibly versatile and powerful, and yet nothing compared to what his cursed technique actually allows him to do. This misconception limits him considerably and he rarely tries new things because controlling the flow of air is already incredibly exhausting (there are so many molecules and pieces to individually control and is much harder than just a brick or something).
The reason this is a major detriment is because he ends up only manipulating the flow of an “external element,” so to speak. Rather than directly manipulating the movement of the target, Seita has to use the air to push against it, which makes his life more difficult than he realizes it could be.
Seita sees himself as someone akin to Tetsuo, but Seita does not want to be Tetsuo (he wears a jacket closely resembling Kaneda’s and nothing resembling Tetsuo’s design almost to prove a point), he wants to be Akira. He has personal reasons for this only his best friend, Yuta, knows.
Domain Expansion Overview—Upper Gods’ Realm
Upper Gods’ Realm (上神会館 Kamishin Kaikan) is Seita’s Domain Expansion. It creates an enclosed cube, the area within the cube containing a floating platform high above a cloudy sky (the sky is more of an image projected onto this cube). In this Domain Seita reaches the closest he will ever be to his full power, because within this space is when he truly believes he has full control over the movement of everything. His range is increased from 4 meters to indefinite, as long as what he is trying to manipulate is within his Domain.
The cube is roughly 10 meters in height, width, and depth.
The Domain costs a colossal amount of cursed energy to maintain for periods of time, naturally, and takes a toll on his body. The longer he uses it, the less control he has over his power and own sanity. Upper Gods’ Realm can be used for at most 5.4 seconds before he starts losing control of it and himself.
If used beyond this point, his body will mutate as it tries and fails to contain his rapidly expanding cursed energy and he begins to enter a berserk state. These mutations are irreversible. He cannot stop them from happening unless he deactivates his Domain Expansion and seriously represses his cursed energy. Usually at this point, Seita passes out, and won’t fully recover for anywhere from a week to two months. His ability to use his cursed energy and cursed techniques is heavily impaired for another extended period of time after this.
The worst example of his drawbacks on record are when he used his Domain for 6.2 seconds, the resulting mutation now “doctored” and hidden beneath his clothing. He tried to destroy Osaka in his frenzied state, only stopped because Satoru Gojo was on the scene, and was unconscious for 98 days. Seita was in a largely unresponsive state for another 19 days.
In an absolute best case scenario, Seita can use his Domain Expansion once every 1-2 weeks.
dude humans progressed so fast how has ishigami village made so little progress in 3700 years especially with byakuya there for the first generation or two
Yutei Kisaki, usually called Yu, is the older brother of Tetta by 5 years. With two abusive parents, both rather absent, Yutei was left to try and raise Tetta on his own while simultaneously trying to find work because their parents refused to support them. In 1998, when Yutei was 12 and Tetta was 7, Yutei stopped their mother from beating his younger brother and killed her with a serrated knife.
Treated badly at home by everyone but Yutei, who was still absent because he had high school and work, Tetta grew more attracted to Hina as his only other solace. When he mentioned to Yutei he wanted to join the underground to become a delinquent and win Hina’s favor, Yutei tried to convince him to change his mind. Out of frustration and on impulse, Tetta stabbed Yutei to death.
