Ninja (Dungeons & Dragons)

The ninja is a playable character class in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

Publication history

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977-1988)

The ninja class appeared in the original 1st edition Oriental Adventures book. In a review of the book, reviewer Ashley Shepherd commented: "The ninja is a class that everybody has had a go at designing. The 'official' version is the most satisfactory yet. It is not a whole character class, but a split class available only with one of the other new classes, and weaker than you might suppose, with fewer hit points, skill restrictions, and the possibility that the whole ninja clan might hunt you down if you fail in your appointed mission."Jim Bambra also commented on the ninja: "To be a ninja, a character must qualify for one of the 'normal' classes as well as that of the ninja class. In keeping with their secret nature, ninja use their normal class as a cover identity. They may adventure with other characters, but they must be careful to keep their ninja identities secret, as loss of honor (and sudden death) may occur if the PC is unmasked."

Ninja (playground game)

Ninja is a common playground game, where the objective is to take turns swiping at the opponent's hands to eliminate them. The name originates from the feudal Japanese assassin. It is commonly played at meet-ups and conventions.

Rules and gameplay

The rules of ninja are simple, and have only a few pivotal rules for play. In a game, players will stand in a circle, and place their hands together, the player leading the game will say "Bow to your sensei". There, the countdown begins, and each player must strike a pose. Players take turns attacking their opponents by swiping at their hands , and must freeze in place once their attack is finished. Defending players may dodge if they think they will be hit, and must also freeze once the attack is finished. If a player is hit, the hand that is hit is out but the other hand is still in. If a player misses, they must stop moving immediately. When both hands have been hit, the player is out and must stand back until there is one player left. The only player left is the winner. However, there have been variations to how children play the game, some exercise optional rules such as, the area that is hit, timed attacks or however the players want to change the game.

Ninja (disambiguation)

A ninja was a secret agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war.

Ninja may also refer to:

Roller coasters

People

Shakaya (album)

Shakaya is the first studio album by Australian girl duo Shakaya, released in Australia on 18 October 2002 (see 2002 in music) by Columbia. The album has a mix genre of pop and R&B songs — written by the duo themselves and their manager/producer Reno Nicastro.

The album debuted at number five on the Australian ARIA Charts and stayed in the top fifty for two weeks and in the chart for six weeks. It also made an appearance in the Australasian Album Chart, peaking at number two (just missing the number one spot by Barricades & Brickwalls by Kasey Chambers).

Shakaya produced one top ten and two top twenty hits on the Australian ARIA Singles chart: "Stop Calling Me", "Sublime" and "Cinderella".

Track listing

Sublime (philosophy)

In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublīmis) is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual, or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation.

Ancient philosophy

The first known study of the sublime is ascribed to Longinus: Peri Hupsous/Hypsous or On the Sublime. This is thought to have been written in the 1st century AD though its origin and authorship are uncertain. For Longinus, the sublime is an adjective that describes great, elevated, or lofty thought or language, particularly in the context of rhetoric. As such, the sublime inspires awe and veneration, with greater persuasive powers. Longinus' treatise is also notable for referring not only to Greek authors such as Homer, but also to biblical sources such as Genesis.

This treatise was rediscovered in the 16th century, and its subsequent impact on aesthetics is usually attributed to its translation into French by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux in 1674. Later the treatise was translated into English by John Pultney in 1680, Leonard Welsted in 1712, and William Smith in 1739 whose translation had its fifth edition in 1800.

Sublime (literary)

The literary concept of the sublime became important in the eighteenth century. It is associated with the 1757 treatise by Edmund Burke, though it has earlier roots. The idea of the sublime was taken up by Immanuel Kant and the Romantic poets including especially William Wordsworth.

Longinus

The earliest text on the sublime was written sometime in the first or third century AD by the Greek writer (pseudo-) Longinus in his work On the Sublime (Περὶ ὕψους, Perì hýpsous). Longinus defines the literary sublime as "excellence in language", the "expression of a great spirit" and the power to provoke "ecstasy" in one's readers. Longinus holds that the goal of a writer should be to produce a form of ecstasy.

Boileau

Boileau introduced the sublime into modern critical discourse in the Preface to his translation of Longinus: Traite du Sublime de Longin (1674).

John Baillie

The little-known writer John Baillie wrote An Essay on the Sublime in 1747.

Burke

Most scholars point to Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) as the landmark treatise on the sublime. Burke defines the sublime as "whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger... Whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror." Burke believed that the sublime was something that could provoke terror in the audience, for terror and pain were the strongest of emotions. However, he also believed there was an inherent "pleasure" in this emotion. Anything that is great, infinite or obscure could be an object of terror and the sublime, for there was an element of the unknown about them. Burke finds more than a few instances of terror and the sublime in John Milton's Paradise Lost, in which the figures of Death and Satan are considered sublime.