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A major part of my writing PATROL was a frustration with the way the war was portrayed in Recon. In Palladium's Deluxe Recon, the fact the US lost the war is only mentioned once, indirectly, at the very back of the book. Basically, it comes down to the fact that the United States didn't actually have a single, meaningful objective that it was actually willing to pursue due to a variety of factors. They could have basically guaranteed the existence of South Vietnam... by invading and occupying the North to shut down the supply train. They could have built South Vietnam into a country that could survive on its own... but it would require taking an active hand in shaping the government and rooting out corruption. They could have eliminated the Viet Cong as an organization... but that would require fundamentally undermining their legitimacy through securing the livelihood and political rights of the rural Vietnamese. Instead, the US wanted all those things, and were unwilling to actually do any of the things that would make that happen. So instead they spent about a decade in a holding pattern in the country, squatting on it and blowing poo poo up and wondering why it didn't get any better.
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Legend of the Five Rings: Now I Have The Advantage Our next set of questions! 9. What is your character's greatest accomplishment so far? You get to decide what your big achievement to date is - winning a tournament, creating a great work of art, killing some powerful animal on a hunt, leading a negotiation for a successful diplomatic marriage, whatever. You probably have some kind of notable strength, ability or quality that helped you do this thing, though your character may not attribute their success to this trait. You also choose one Distinction advantage at this stage, ideally one that helped you achieve your great feat or which you developed as a result of it. More on those in a bit. If none on the list appeal to you, you absolutely can work with your GM to make one up. 10. What holds your character back most in life? There's no such thing as a perfect samurai - everyone has challenges that hold them back somehow. Bad temper, naivete, an enemy, a family curse...all kinds of problems. You select one Adversity disadvantage for your character. Again, more on those in a bit. 11. What activity makes your character feel at peace? This could be sake, a hobby, a favorite possession or even a person. Just figure out what makes your character happy and calm, and why. Then you choose a Passion advantage related to your interest or hobby. 12. What concern, fear, or foible troubles your character the most? Samurai are expected to be in control, sure, but everyone is afraid of or angry at something. What is your character's fear or trigger, and why? Pick an Anxiety disadvantage related to this. 13. Who has your character learned the most from during their life? This might be a sensei, a fellow student, a parent, a lord, a spouse, a younger sibling, a dead loved one, a rival. In the relationships part of your sheet, write down their name, then pick one:
14. What detail do others find most striking about your character? Some unusual look, fashion or mannerism, say. This has no mechanical weight, but you can write it down in your Notes section. 15. How does your character react to stressful situations? What emotions do they tend to show, and why? Describe some noteworthy physical response and write in your Personal Outburst section. When you have an Outburst, you also do this. Also select what Outburst is most common for your character. You may even work with the GM to custom-design an Outburst, mixing matching the narrative and mechanical effects, reflavoring or even creating one entirely new, as long as it's on par with the others. 16. What are your character's preexisting relationships with other clans, families, organizations, and traditions? Figure out what groups are important in your life, good or bad, if you have any problems with other clans, or any strong fondnesses. Record anything you feel is noteworthy in your Relationships section. This has no mechanical weight. 17. How would your character's parents describe them? Parental devotion is expected in Rokugan, but not experienced as much in practice - for every dutiful child that meets the ideal, there are samurai who do not get along with their parents or who only pay lip service. Figure out your relationship with your character's parents or immediate family (and if they're still alive), what your childhood was like. Record it in your Relationships section. This has no mechanical weight. 18. Who was your character named to honor? It's common for Rokugani names to honor a recent or noteworthy ancestor, whether by taking their name or just a syllable or two from it. Figure out whose name you share and how you feel about the person you were named for, as well as if they died or are still alive. Then, roll 1d10 twice, and compare the results to the Heritage chart. You get to pick which of the two results you like better.
19. What is your character's personal name? Feel free to pick a name! There's a list of Japanese names to give ideas, along with their meanings. The game notes that most people will address you by family name rather than personal name, however, except for close associates. This has no mechanical weight. 20. How should your character die? What is your ideal for your character's death? Will they achieve virtue and move on to Yomi, joining the ancestors, or will their soul be too impure and forced to reincarnate again? This has no mechanical weight. Now, XP! The game gives a general guideline - 2 XP per hour of play. XP can be spent to increase Rings or Skills, or to gain new techniques. The GM can allow you to buy Advantages or get rid of Disadvantages, but that's entirely discretionary and has no listed cost. Rings are (3*new value) XP, Skills are (2*new value) XP, and Techniques are 2 XP (if they only give you new Opportunity options) or 3 XP (if they give you a new action). Techniques often have prerequisites you must meet as well, such as being of a certain school rank or above. The only time you can ignore prerequisites is if it's on your School's advancement chart. What's the advancement chart? To rank up, you have to spend a certain amount of XP at each rank on a preset list of things, different for each school and at each rank. The Hida Defender, for example, must spend 16 XP to reach rank 2, and that XP must be spent on some combination of: Martial Skills, Command, Medicine, Survival, Rank 1 Katas, Rushing Avalanche Style, Honest Assessment or Rings. Rushing Avalanche Style is normally a School Rank 2 kata, but Hida Defenders can learn it at Rank 1 because it's on their school advancement chart. XP spent on stuff not on your current advancement chart does not help you rank up. I'm okay with that, but feel it should give you some minor benefit on top of 'now you have what you spent XP on', to reward you for expanding your horizons beyond the school-mandated stuff. Reaching Rank 2 is always 16 XP, rank 3 is 20, rank 4 is 24, rank 5 is 32, and the pinnacle, rank 6, is 48. Once you hit Rank 6, you also get your school's capstone ability. Capstones Hida Defender: The Mountain Does Not Fall. At the start of your turn, you may spend 1 Void Point. If you do, add your Void Ring to your Resilience and Composure, and ignore all disadvantages, conditions, terrain, and negative effects of techniques or abilities you are currently suffering. If you would die while this is active, you do not die until the effect ends. This lasts until the end of your next turn. Kuni Purifier: Purge the Darkness. Once per session, you may spend 1 Void Point to use an invocation against all the wicked in your sight. Instead of the usual number of targets, your next invocation instead targets every being in range that you know has the Shadowlands Taint disadvantage or Shadowlands Creature ability. Doji Diplomat: The Lady's Grace. Once per scene, you may spend 1 Void Point to reduce your Strife to 0. Every friendly character in the scene may remove (Your Honor Rank/2) Strife, as well. Kakita Duelist: Strike with No Thought. Once per scene, as an Attack action, you may make a Martial Arts [Melee]/Void check targeting one character in range 2-4 using a sheathed katana or wakizashi. The TN is their Vigilance. You immediately move to range 1 of them. If you hit, you automatically cause a crit with severity equal to your weapon's Deadliness plus your bonus successes. You may spend Opportunity symbols on this check to cause characters in range 0-2 of your target to become Dazed and Disoriented, at the cost of 1 symbol per character so affected. Kitsuki Investigator: Eyes Betray the Heart. Once per scene, when performing a skill check to investigate, you may spend Opportunity symbols to reserve one unkept die per symbol spent. The next time you perform a check to interact with the person or thing you were investigating, you may add any number of those reserved dice as kept dice. Any reserved dice you do not use this way are discarded after the check. Togashi Tattooed Order: Blood of the Dragon. As a Support action, you may choose one of your tattoos and empower it until the end of the scene. Each tattoo can only be empowered once per session. When performing checks to which an empowered tattoo applies, you add two rolled Ring dice showing any faces you choose, instead of one rolled Ring die showing 1 Opportunity symbol. Akodo Commander: Akodo's Final Lesson. Once per round, when you fail a check during a skirmish or mass battle, you may spend 1 Void Point. If you do, you may attempt the check again, but the TN is now 2. Ikoma Bard: Lion's Pride. Once per session as a Support action, you may attempt to convince everyone in the area of the glorious reputation of one character in the scene, embellishing the truth as needed, by making a TN 5 Performance/Fire check targeting one character. The TN is 6 to target yourself, and 4 if you target another Lion. If you succeed, the TN of all the character's Social skill checks is reduced by 3 until the end of the scene, and the TN of all other checks by 1. Isawa Elementalist: Master of Elements. When another character performs an Air, Earth, Water or Fire invocation, you may spend 1 Void Point to instantly recognize the kami they are invoking and its abilities. You increase your Supernatural Protection against the technique by (Theology) and you may use the technique even if you don't know it. These both last until the end of the scene. Shiba Guardian: Stand of Honor. You may spend 1 Void Point to perform this action, targeting each enemy in the scene. Until the start of your next turn, when an enemy moves in range of your readied weapon, you may immediately make a TN 3 Martial Arts [Melee] check using the Ring associated with your stance. If you succeed, the target takes physical damage equal to your weapon's base Damage plus your bonus successes and becomes Immobilized. Bayushi Manipulator: Little Truths. When you perform a check targeting another character to which one of your advantages or disadvantages applies, you may select another advantage or disadvantage that shares a type with it. Unless the target has clear evidence to the contrary, they believe you have the selected advantage or disadvantage rather than the one you actually do. If they attempt to seize or exploit this false advantage or disadvantage, their check automatically fails with a shortfall of 3, they suffer 3 Strife and become Disoriented. Shosuro Infiltrator: The Final Silence. As an Attack action, you may make a TN 4 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Air check targeting any number of minion NPCs at range 0-4. If you succeed during a narrative scene, you silently kill all of them over a few minutes. If you succeed during a conflict scene, at the end of each of your turns you may silently kill one of these targets at range 0-2, in addition to any other actions you take. Iuchi Meishodo Master: The Spirits Unbound. At the end of your turn, you may spend 1 or more Void Points to unleash the powers within that many of your talismans, sacrificing them to free the spirits within. You may immediately perform each of the invocations for which those talismans were made, reducing the TN by 3. Shinjo Outrider: I Will Always Return. Once per session, you may call out to your steed. At the beginning of the next round, your horse arrives, regardless of any barriers that might normally have prevented it from reaching you. If your steed has recently died, its spirit possesses the nearest horse to you and shows up anyway. Now, advantages and disadvantages! Every advantage has several Types - basically, keywords to describe what kind it is. Physical, mental, interpersonal, spiritual, injury, curse... that kind of thing. Types have no mechanical implication by default but can be referenced by other effects. There are four categories of Advantage/Disadvantage. Distinctions are your natural aptitudes, and cancel out Adversities. All Distinctions have both a unique narrative effect and a standardized mechanical effect. Passions are your interests, hobbies and so on. They cancel out Anxieties. Likewise, they have both a narrative and mechanical effect. Adversities are the factors in your life that make your duties harder, whatever they are. They cancel out Distinctions, and they too have narrative and mechanical effect. Anxieties, same deal, but they're your fears, hatreds and that kind of thing. Distinctions can only be earned via narrative or by gaining appropriate levels of Honor, Glory or Status. They can never be purchased with XP. You have no limit on how many you can have, however. Passions are usually set in stone, but the GM may allow you to gain a new one for 3 XP. However, you can never have more than 3 Passions by any means. However, the GM may allow you to swap one out for another or lose one due to narrative events. Adversities can be gained in play via suffering Crits, the Afflicted condition or various other sources, and there's no limit on how many you can have. Anxieties are almost never gained after chargen, but if you really want a new one, the GM may allow you to take it; there is no cost, as Anxieties have limited benefit to you besides potentially providing Void Points. You may never have more than three Anxieties, much like Passions. So how do you use them? Well, any of them will have a narrative effect you can call on whenever it's relevant, and when we look at the examples they've already made, we'll discuss those. Also, they can make it so you don't have to make checks for certain things - a character whose Passion is Sake should never have to make a roll to identify trivia about a bottle of sake, because...well, that's their hobby. A blind character never has to make a check to avert their eyes from a bright flash. Of course, sometimes you'll need to make checks others won't - perhaps to resist looking into something you have a Passion for, or to face something you're afraid of. At times, an Advantage may even function as a Disadvantage. If an Advantage would be a logical vulnerability in a situation, the GM may invert it to force you to use it as a Disadvantage of the corresponding type for a check, instead. If this happens, you get a Void Point. Likewise, if you know a target's Advantage that would logically be a weakness you could take advantage of, you may seize the advantage, spending 1 Void Point to apply it as an advantage to your check. You can also leverage a Disadvantage you have the same way, spending 1 Void Point to apply it as a corresponding Advantage to your check if you can find a way that Disadvantage would be useful to you. And you can exploit someone else's Disadvantage by spending 1 Void Point to use it as a corresponding Advantage on your check. The list of examples that will come below is not complete - there's a sidebar noting that some setting-specific ones have been held back for the core book, but also that you can just make up new ones if you want to. Every Advantage and Disadvantage also has an associated Ring, which will mostly be the Ring of checks they might apply to mechanically. Example Distinctions - not all of the list, just ones I think are neat or illustrative. Ally [Character's Name] (Water) - Type: Interpersonal. You have a powerful alliance with an NPC. As a narrative effect, they will help you in any way that won't damage their reputation - they'll share knowledge via letter or meeting, they'll arrange introductions for you, etc. Mechanically, on any check that would benefit from your close relationship with them, you may reroll up to two dice. For example, reading their emotions or requisitioning items from them. Ambidexterity (Air) - Type: Physical. You can use both hands equally well. Narratively, you will be able to easily compensate if you lose a hand. Mechanically, when making a check that might benefit from your equal skill in both hands, you can reroll up to two dice. For example, a Martial Arts [Melee]/Air check to strike with a left-hand weapon unexpectedly, or a Skulduggery/Air check to pick a pocket. Blissful Betrothal (Water) - Type: Interpersonal. You and your fiance or spouse are happy together and would get married even without political concerns. Narratively, your spouse will perform duties in your name, such as caring for family or attending events, when you are busy, will advise you and will help you as best they can within their areas of expertise. Mechanically, when making a check that might benefit from your good relationship, you may reroll up to two dice. For example, persuading their family members. Famously Wealthy (Water) - Type: Fame, Interpersonal. Your family is known for vast wealth. Narratively, people have heard of how rich you are and will always believe it unless shown evidence to the contrary. Mechanically, when making a check that you can leverage your reputation for wealth on, like buying goods on credit or winning people over, you may reroll up to two dice. Seasoned (Void) - Type: Mental, Interpersonal. You've been a samurai for a while and seen some poo poo. Narratively, you are older and more worldly than the other PCs, and while you are not more skilled, you may refluff your XP spending as 'revealing' skills you had held back to avoid overshadowing them. You have experience with many cultures and organizations, and know how to behave almost anywhere, plus you know lots of other old people all over the place. Mechanically, when performing a check for which your hard-earned wisdom is an advantage, such as a Courtesy check to dispense wisdom or a Theology check to know what a spirit might like, you may reroll up to two dice. Example Passions Animal Bond (Earth) - Type: Interpersonal, Mental. You have an animal buddy! Narratively, pick one mundane animal with silhouette of 0 or 1. It follows you around everywhere and helps you out if fed and cajoled. If your starting kit gives you an animal, it can be your companion even if it's too big normally to qualify. Mechanically, after performing a check to interact with your buddy, remove 3 Strife. Enlightenment (Void) - Type: Spiritual. You are devoted to the Tao of Shinsei. Narratively, you feel no attachment to worldly things and cannot be tempted by material wealth or the promise of power. Mechanically, after performing a check to detach yourself from material concerns, remove 3 Strife. Provocation (Fire) - Type: Interpersonal. You enjoy quips and verbal barbs. Narratively, you can always find a button to push in another person, though you won't know if they'll take it playfully or be gravely insulted. Mechanically, after performing a check to get a rise out of someone, you remove 3 Strife. Wordplay (air) - Type: Interpersonal, Mental. You love puns, double meanings and clever turns of phrase, especially in poetry. Narratively, you can always identify rhetorical and literary patterns in the works you read or listen to. Mechanically, after performing a check to interpret or create a play on words, remove 3 Strife. Example Adversities Blindness (Water) - Type: Physical, Scar. You can't see. Narratively, you cannot observe anything only perceptible by sight. Mechanically, when making a check for which sight cannot easily be replaced by another sense or senses, you must choose and reroll 2 dice showing Success or Explosive Success symbols. If you fail the check, gain 1 Void Point. Note: while ranged combat against a moving target is called out as counting, melee combat is not. Go on, be Zatoichi. Haunting (Void) - Type: Interpersonal, Spiritual. A ghost or spirit is haunting you. Narratively, it has an agenda and will interfere with you at bad times. Mechanically, when you make a check to defy the will of the spirit, you must choose and reroll 2 dice showing Success or Explosive Success symbols. If you fail the check, gain 1 Void Point. Momoku (Void) - Type: Spiritual. You are disconnected from the Void. Narratively, you can't perceive supernatural presences, even when they are readily evident to everyone else, though you can still detect obvious effects on the physical world. Mechanically, when you make a check to understand or appeal to otherworldly powers, you must choose and reroll 2 dice showing Success or Explosive Success symbols. If you fail the check, gain 1 Void Point. Shadowlands Taint (Earth) - Type: Curse, Physical, Spiritual. Your will and body are tainted. Narratively, you cannot feel physical sensation easily and will rise as a zombie when you die, pursuing your last goal with bestial and inhuman purpose, then turning on anyone nearby. Mechanically, when you make a check relying on physical sensitivity, you must choose and reroll 2 dice showing Success or Explosive Success symbols. If you fail the check, gain 1 Void Point. Shadowlands Taint (Fire) - Type: Curse, Mental, Spiritual. Your mind and intellect are tainted. Narratively, you can instinctively identify Shadowlands creatures and their abilities, as well as how to turn them towards destructive ends, and are you are drawn inexorably to forbidden power. Mechanically, when you make a check to foresee possible negative outcomes of your own actions, you must choose and reroll 2 dice showing Success or Explosive Success symbols. If you fail the check, gain 1 Void Point. (Yes, there's one of these for each Ring.) Example Anxieties Battle Trauma (Fire) - Type: Mental, Physical. You have PTSD. Narratively, you become tense or shaky at the start of duels, skirmishes or mass battles. You may act normally, but everyone can tell you're deeply unsettled. Mechanically, after performing a check related to battle, suffer 3 Strife. If this makes you have an Outburst, gain 1 Void Point. Delusions of Grandeur (Void) - Type: Mental, Interpersonal. You are certain you're destined for greatness, no matter what. Narratively, when presented the chance to advance your own glory, you must take it. Mechanically, after performing a check that forces you to face your humble place in the universe, suffer 3 Strife. If this makes you have an Outburst, gain 1 Void Point. Meekness (Fire) - Type: Interpersonal. You are very shy. Narratively, you can't interrupt people of higher status and find it hard to assert yourself over anyone, even those of lower status. Mechanically, after performing a check to stand out or get what you need, suffer 3 Strife. If this makes you have an Outburst, gain 1 Void Point. Perfectionism (Water) - Type: Physical, Mental. You cannot accept anything less than perfection from yourself. Narratively, you can't help but try to improve any work you spot a flaw in, even if that means informing someone of higher status that they've made an error. Mechanically, after performing a check in which you must interact with an imperfect or unfinished work, suffer 3 Strife. If this makes you have an Outburst, gain 1 Void Point. Next time: Skills. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 9, 2017 |
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Oct 9, 2017 18:00
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MonsieurChoc posted:The Ken Burns documentary series is really good. I haven't finished it yet, because goddamn is the Vietnam War depressing. There's some decent articles up about the Vietnamese experience. Of course, they're personal accounts decades after the fact, and they aren't as rigorous as proper academic studies. But I think it gives a good idea of what S.Vietnamese veterans and N. Vietnamese remember of the war. Yes, even the Cracked interview is interesting. The new L5R game does look interesting, but it still looks fiddly. Of course, I don't think it would be L5R if it wasn't fiddly.
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Oct 9, 2017 18:22
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Night10194 posted:So they invent stuff like 'Our military was invincible and winning but the politicians were weak and didn't let them win' Ah, yes. Literally the Dolchstoßlegende.
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Oct 9, 2017 18:23
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Barudak posted:Please do not forget that into the late 60s more than half of Americans thought it would be ok for police to shoot at anti-war protesters.
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Oct 9, 2017 18:24
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Ah, the twenty questions and heritage tables return. Gotta say, while I know it's quick and easy, having random tables that impact character concepts always irks me. Also, mixing regular dice and funky dice is a minor quibble. Half tempted to run a one shot of the new rules to see how it goes, the other half meanwhile wants to turn to FATE or even Blood & Honor for highborn doomed weeb manchildren games. Still, any chance of a Pendragon fan hack for samurai? Terratina fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Oct 9, 2017 |
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Oct 9, 2017 18:26
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Terratina posted:Ah, the twenty questions and heritage tables return. Gotta say, while I know it's quick and easy, having random tables that impact character concepts always irks me. Also, mixing regular dice and funky dice is a minor quibble. Half tempted to run a one shot of the new rules to see how it goes, the other half meanwhile wants to turn to FATE or even Blood & Honor for highborn doomed weeb manchildren games.
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Oct 9, 2017 18:32
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Comrade Gorbash posted:I've always appreciated the tables as long as the caveat has been that you don't have to pick/generate them randomly and can select/make up your own. In that situation it serves more as an extended list of examples, and a fall back if you're having trouble coming up with something interesting yourself. Or a fun alternative approach for a one-shot or whatever. Yeah, same. I only used the tables as a bit of fun for replacement characters to ease the sting of L5R lethality. Would be funny if they kept that.
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Oct 9, 2017 18:35
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Mors Rattus posted:11. What activity makes your character feel at peace? This could be sake, a hobby, a favorite possession or even a person. Just figure out what makes your character happy and calm, and why. Then you choose a Passion advantage related to your interest or hobby.  Mors Rattus posted:15. How does your character react to stressful situations? What emotions do they tend to show, and why? Describe some noteworthy physical response and write in your Personal Outburst section. When you have an Outburst, you also do this. Also select what Outburst is most common for your character. You may even work with the GM to custom-design an Outburst, mixing matching the narrative and mechanical effects, reflavoring or even creating one entirely new, as long as it's on par with the others. 
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Oct 9, 2017 18:38
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Ah, momoku.  The capstones seem... a little unbalanced. The Shinjo Outrider, in particular, has one that'd be a cool ability at lower levels but seems really underwhelming as the pinnacle of the class.
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Oct 9, 2017 18:40
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gradenko_2000 posted:I recently discovered the Primitive Technology youtube channel, so I gotta ask: besides Wurm, are there any other games with a pre-Bronze Age setting? Hillfolk is set in Bronze Age Palestine. Laws has written extensively about why he chose that setting to show off the DramaSystem. (Basically, the lack of magic, advanced tech, and large social institutions puts the focus on personal relationships among a small group.) CORPS Dreamtime, if you want magic and very crunchy rules. (BTRC is probably most well known for doing Macho Women with Guns on a lark, but all their other games are very crunchy.) Testament is a D20 game. It's a showcase of how standard D20 design is really bad at doing anything but D&D. AGON is a Greek myth RPG. There are several Greek/Roman myth RPGs; some, like Mazes & Minotaurs, are a spin on D&D, others are more about evoking the era than being a different style of D&D. The Shadow of Yesterday is maybe more Iron Age than Bronze Age. It's a Hyperborean style setting where there were great empires, but no longer. It's an interesting mix of traditional and narrative design (advancement is tied to your "Keys": personal goals, beliefs, and relationships)
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Oct 9, 2017 19:12
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Halloween Jack posted:Hillfolk is set in Bronze Age Palestine. Laws has written extensively about why he chose that setting to show off the DramaSystem. (Basically, the lack of magic, advanced tech, and large social institutions puts the focus on personal relationships among a small group.) I’ve heard mention of Hillfolk and all this time I though it was about hillbilly moonshiners just from the title. Should’ve done my research! (I guess what I’m really saying is that Hillfolk is a terrible name for a game about Bronze-Age Palestine)
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Oct 9, 2017 19:21
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DalaranJ posted:Are there even any Bronze Age games? The only one that springs to mind is Hillfolk. You have Glorantha, but I think a lot of people in that count as "early iron age" level of development myself. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Oct 9, 2017 |
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Oct 9, 2017 21:19
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Josef bugman posted:You have Glorantha, but I would count a lot of people in that at a "early iron age" level of development myself. Well, Gloranthan bronze is the bones of dead gods and the level of development varies wildly from place to place, with magic often doing the things we use technology for.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:34
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So, apocryphally this is called a 'Nuclear Tesuji' and is a psuedo-real move in go (the way en passant is a specific, albeit rare thing in chess.) It happened at least often enough that there are lots of old wood cuts of people attacking each other with Go boards (could have been an 18th century meme of course.) The way it was explained to me is that you throw the board, uppercut your opponent and storm off; you actually win the game if your opponent retalliates, because you made a "legal" move, and then they chose to fight you. Also, want to concur about Ken Burns The Vietnam War it's worth a watch (it's not short or easy though.) Man, it messed the boomers up. Good thing our generation didn't press gang its poor into an endless, objectiveless war.
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Oct 9, 2017 21:51
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wiegieman posted:Well, Gloranthan bronze is the bones of dead gods and the level of development varies wildly from place to place, with magic often doing the things we use technology for.
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Oct 10, 2017 01:16
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Zereth posted:I believe none of the metals in Glorantha are a 1:1 with the metal named the same thing in the real world. Their bronze is not our bronze, etc. Iron, for example, I believe has some rather unusual properties (which I don't remember at the moment) and you can really only get it from dwarves. It's heavily anti-magic.
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Oct 10, 2017 01:37
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senrath posted:It's heavily anti-magic. ... In a setting where basically anybody who's notably good at a skill is using magic in some way.
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Oct 10, 2017 01:49
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It's also wildly poisonous to elves and trolls. The dwarves would have made it poison humans too, if they had realized how much trouble we would be.
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Oct 10, 2017 01:56
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Basically Dwarf inventions are a cycle of "Dwarves make it, then humans get a hold of it and start to refine it/mass produce it and dwarves improve the security of the next release in hopes of avoiding this happening again. It happened for Iron (Though human 'refining' of iron is pretty much down to 'ask a god to do it for you'), it happened with crossbows, and the dwarves are drat well trying not to let it happen with firearms and gunpowder except there's the Dwarf of Dwarf Run and his Cannon Cult of human slaves trained as gunner crews so who knows how long that'll last.
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Oct 10, 2017 02:12
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All the metals in Glorantha can be refined and purified, for all kinds of effects. Aluminum (also called quicksilver in its liquid state) floats because it's the Water metal, and refined Lead (the Darkness metal) makes no sound and is non-reflective. There are cults that know how to handle all of them, but Iron is the most difficult. Properly refined and enchanted Iron is one of the rarest, most valuable, and most potent materials in the world. The Mostali(dwarves) actually created special creatures that range all over the world to destroy gunpowder and complicated machines that happen to have fallen into other hands (or just happen to have been made by non-dwarves.) They learn slowly, but they do learn.
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Oct 10, 2017 04:02
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System Mastery has begun our annual holiday that no one thinks is funny but us, White Ween. Which means we needed White Wolf books. But I'm pretty light on those. We only had three of them around that we haven't covered already, so I reached for what I was sure was a corebook (mistakenly) and we've covered Mind's Eye Theatre: Requiem for our first game of the season.
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Oct 10, 2017 06:20
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ZorajitZorajit posted:So, apocryphally this is called a 'Nuclear Tesuji' and is a psuedo-real move in go (the way en passant is a specific, albeit rare thing in chess.) It happened at least often enough that there are lots of old wood cuts of people attacking each other with Go boards (could have been an 18th century meme of course.) The way it was explained to me is that you throw the board, uppercut your opponent and storm off; you actually win the game if your opponent retalliates, because you made a "legal" move, and then they chose to fight you. This sounds like a very old joke that its original tellers would only find funnier with time.
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Oct 10, 2017 14:32
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Legend of the Five Rings: Skilling It Skills are broken into five categories. Artisan Skills are for making things; generally, for samurai, making them artistically, as common goods are produced by the peasantry. When a samurai makes something, it is usually a one-off and a work of art, sometimes a magical one. These skills are also used to understand art. Martial Skills are for fighting, both personally and in war, and otherwise using your physical prowess. Scholar Skills are used to gain information about people, the world and society, as well as identifying things, observing the area and so on. Social Skills are used for negotiations and influence on all levels of society, affecting the emotions and thoughts of others. Trade Skills are largely the realm of the lower classes, and most samurai look down on their use, but they are extremely practical. Some learn to use them away from the eyes of others, or just bear with the scorn they may earn, in order to gather resources and do useful work. Also, a note - with the GM's permission, you may use a Ring in a way more suited to a different skill group, if that's appropriate for the check you're making, such as using a normally Scholarly approach with an Artisan Skill in order to recall knowledge on, say, metallurgy. Investigation is one of the more common activities that will do this, typically using Scholar methods with a wide variety of potential skills. The GM is allowed to expand the number of skills, as well, by adding subskills - so you'd have points in Aesthetics [Ikebana], say, or Martial Arts [Melee] [Swords]. I don't think that's a good idea; stay simple. The game only suggests it if your campaign is going to focus pretty much entirely on one area and so will need to differentiate skills in that area. Artisan Skills are the noblest of Rokugani pursuits. They may sometimes have little actual utility in daily life, but the arts are extremely useful in earning social acclaim and influence, and poetry can be as useful in the court as an army. The Earth Ring, if you'll call, is the Restore approach, using cautious, well-considered work to repair and maintain art. You might use it to repair a damaged work, perform maintenance on a work, or store and transport a work safely. The Water Ring is the Adapt approach, reframing, dividing, combining or transforming creations in all kinds of ways. You might use it to break a piece down to its raw materials, to modify a work to do something different or to figure out other ways a work could function. The Fire Ring is the Invent approach, calling on passion and energy to make something new. You might use it to make a new piece from raw materials, draft plans for a new work, create a new technique or tool to help you, or brainstorm new ideas for pieces. The Air Ring is the Refine approach, using careful addition, manipulation or removal of detail to improve a work and enhance it without altering its fundamental nature. You might use it to improve the function of a piece, or to add a subtle message or nuance. The Void Ring is the Attune approach, understanding yourself and the world through the lens of art. You might use it to try and understand your own emotions by studying an art piece, to spiritually center yourself around a work, to imbue an item with supernatural powers or to awaken the supernatural properties of an object. Artisan Skills have a number of Opportunity spends available to them that aren't available on general rolls. They are: You may handle more items. For each Opportunity symbol spent on an Artisan Skill roll this way, you may create or affect one additional piece. You may learn something of value about the piece, reducing the TN of your next Artisan skill check to interact with it by 1 per symbol spent this way. On an Earth check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to give the item you are repairing or maintaining the Durable Quality. On a Fire check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to give the item you are inventing either the Resplendent or the Subtle Quality. On a Water check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to add or remove the Cumbersome or Razor-Edged Quality from the item you are adapted. On an Air check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to increase a numerical value of the item you are working on by 1, such as Damage, Physical Resistance, Supernatural Resistance, Rarity or so on. You may only do this once per item. On a Void check, you may spend Opportunity symbols, 1 for 1, to reduce the TN of your next check to use the item this scene. The skills are: Aesthetics, used to create non-utilitarian visual art. This covers bonsai, ikebana, origami, painting and rock gardening. These are all very useful arts to understand in court, as they are highly fashionable. Composition, used to create literature. Just about all samurai can read and write, but it takes skill to be good at writing or to analyze literature. This skill also covers calligraphy. Design, used to create and assess the quality of clothing. It also covers knowledge of fashion and the messages you can send with clothes. Smithing, used to create and maintain arms and armor - both ceremonial and practical. This does cover bows even though they aren't metal, and also covers crossbows. BTW those are a thing now. Social Skills are all about interpersonal interactions and your comfort and ability with others. While obviously useful in court, they are also useful in other fields - commanding troops, say, or provoking foes. And, of course, dealing with people outside of court. The Earth Ring is the Reason approach, using rational, thoughtful debate and obligation. You might use it to convince someone to listen to reason over emotion, to soothe emotions, to comfort someone, to instill discipline, to get someone to wait and not act rashly or to get someone to uphold an oath despite personal desires. The Water Ring is the Charm approach, relying on fostering positive emotions, sympathy and understanding. You might use it to get someone to like you, to build a rapport, to offer sympathies, to get someone to desire something or to win sympathy. The Fire Ring is the Incite approach, persuading by passionate pleas or new ideas. It can get people to fall in line with your ideas, but it isn't subtle and can put you outside propriety if used carelessly, or can go too far in the passions it creates. You might use it to rouse someone's emotions (positively or negatively), to get attention, to persuade someone to follow emotion over reason, to get someone to ignore potential consequences, or to get someone to prioritize their desires over their responsibilities. The Air Ring is the Trick approach, using subtle control to lie, persuade and draw out faults. It isn't always untruthful, but is always manipulative - devil's advocating, subtle suggestion, misdirection. You might use it to get someone to believe something untrue, partially true or technically true, to obscure a truth, to deflect attention, to convey an idea in a deniable way, or to imply something without openly saying it. The Void Ring is the Enlighten approach, getting others to evaluate wider situations and existence. It can even get them question fundamental truths or force them to recall their ideals. You might use it to challenge deeply held beliefs, to force someone to question their moral or philosophical convictions, to cause someone to remember something they forgot or want to forget or to shock someone from a stupor (mundane or magical). Social Skills also have their own unique Opportunity spends: You may handle more people. For each Opportunity symbol spent, your action can affect an additional person. On an Earth check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to choose another character in the scene and increase the TN of their next Social check targeting you by 1. On an Earth check, you may spend two Opportunity symbols to learn the Composure value of another character. On a Fire check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to choose another character in the scene and give them 1 Strife, but reduce the TN of their next check this scene by 1. On a Fire check, you may spend two Opportunity symbols to learn if another character's Glory is higher or lower than yours. On a Water check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to choose another character in the scene and reduce your next non-Water Social check targeting them this scene by 1. On a Water check, you may spend two Opportunity symbols to learn if another character's Status is higher or lower than yours. On an Air check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to choose another character in the scene and name one skill per symbol spent to learn their ranks in the chosen skills. On an Air check, you may spend two Opportunity symbols to learn if another character's Honor is higher or lower than yours. On a Void check, you may spend an Opporunity symbol to choose another character in the scene and learn if they are conflicted about their objective this scene. The skills are: Command, used to instill order both in court and in the field. It is primarily used with subordinates rather than peers, as it's mostly about telling people what to do, getting them to obey or reprimanding. Courtesy, an essential skill for influencing the opinions of others, persuading them or winning arguments without giving offense. It also involves speaking High Rokugani, which is a formal dialect of the common language. Games, used to provide an outlet for rivalries in court, and to maintain and develop relationships outside the strict confines of station via shared hobbies. It can be both winning games and knowing when a loss would be more useful socially, as well as using games to achieve social goals or learning more about your opponent. Performance, used to entertain others with performative arts, such as song or dance or storytelling. It can also use those performances to influence others' opinions or beliefs. Scholar Skills are about acquiring, recalling or using information you have learned. The Earth Ring is the Recall approach, used to thoroughly establish fundamentals and build from them, expanding on a topic with facts, but it can't be used for anything totally novel or unfamiliar as a result. You might use it to remember information, memorize things, create detailed timelines on a topic, or bring to mind details of something you witnessed. The Water Ring is the Survey approach, used to gather information from the environment directly, identifying the things around you and extrapolating, but rarely able to provide more than surface-level information. You might use it to identify what you're observing, to orient yourself in an environment, to narrow a search down to a smaller area, to look for physical cues around you related to a topic, or to perceive lurking threats. The Fire Ring is the Theorize approach, used to imagine the possible and deal with the unprecedented or unforeseen as well as deal with limited evidence. However, its reckless conjecture can sometimes lead to incorrect conclusions. You might use it to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated information, to come up with an explanation for a physical phenomenon or unexplained event, to brainstorm possible solutions, to come up with a list of potential outcomes of an event, or to spot if something is conspicuously missing from the area. The Air Ring is the Analyze approach, used to focus on uncovering or understanding details. It lets you find what is hidden, focus on the minute or learn traits of people or objects, as well as infer subtle meanings based on what people say, have or do. You might use it to study the details of an idea or object, to learn a particular trait of a subject, to infer things about someone from their appearance or statements, to find an object you know is hidden somewhere, to search a small area in detail, or to untangle an apparent contradiction. The Void Ring is the Sense approach, used to look beyond the worldly to better understand supernatural phenomena or the future yet to be. It handles intuitive hunches and the judging of probability of events, as well. You might use it to rely on your instincts and hunches for info, to understand the spiritual ramifications of an idea, to predict the likelihood of a particular outcome, or to sense a supernatural presence or influence nearby. Scholar Skill Opportunity spends: You may spend Opportunity symbols to provide an insight that reduces the TN of the next friendly character's check this scene by 1 per symbol spent. On an Earth check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to thoroughly review a topic mentally and see if there's any information left to be gained from it or not. On a Fire check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to have a flash of insight and realize something nobody else has considered about a related (or unrelated) topic. On a Water check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to notice a seemingly unrelated lead in the environment that offers an avenue to pursue. On an Air check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to discern a fact of interest about someone to whom the check pertains. On a Void check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to know if the current angle of inquiry is worthwhile or not. Skills: Culture, used to understand the Empire's customs, traditions and trends, as well as the etiquette for any situation that might come up or the current fashions in various courts. Government, used to understand political machinations, logistics and Rokugani legal systems. Medicine, used to understand and care for the human body and its functions. It will also frequently be used with Artisan approaches to care for people. Sentiment, used to understand psychology and the emotions of others, to spot how people feel and to tell if they're lying - and why. (There's a sidebar on how to do that, actually, and it's mostly used if you are actively suspicious. Your passive defense is Vigilance.) Theology, used to understand religious philosophy, doctrine and practice, the lore of the kami, Fortunes and the Tao, and religious history. It also covers related fields like astronomy, metaphysics and mystical sciences, and is used for shugenja invocations. Martial Skills are for battle. Of course, not all samurai are warriors in practice - some practice these martial skills to achieve self-mastery, and that's totally valid. The Earth Ring is the Withstand approach, focusing on firm defense, solid fundamentals and reliable tactics, often requiring considerable time to avoid risk, and it is generally quite predictable, often relying on setting up in a safe position and waiting to strike. You might use it to tank a hardship head-on, to move slowly and carefully, to wear a foe down, to lift and carry heavy objects, or to use a technique requiring great endurance. The Water Ring is the Shift approach, focusing on avoiding a foe's strengths and striking their weakness, allowing them to control things until they overextend and then capitalizing on that. It avoids wasting energy, but it means you need to be able to wait until the foe does, in fact, overextend, while still having the force to capitalize on that. You might use it to redirect force rather than stopping it, to move by the most expedient path, to use your foe's energy against them, to slide through tight spaces or crowds, or to use a technique requiring great flexibility. The Fire Ring is the Overwhelm approach, abandoning caution to strick with direct force. It is swift and terrible, but has no regard for consequences. It often is used to inspire confusion or panic, or to apply unrelenting pressure...but any gap in its attack leaves it highly vulnerable. You might use it to meet force with force, to move rapidly and recklessly, to break things with brute might, to force a foe to meet you head-on, to use a technique requiring great power, or to terrify a foe with aggression. The Air Ring is the Feint approach, using agility and cunning to create openings and exploit them. It moves gracefully, taking advantage of positioning and unexpected angles, flanking and feinting to open defenses. However, it is risky because of its flourishes and elegance, which can distract from actual victory or fall to force. You might use it to evade force, to move precisely and subtly, to slip past defenses, to land safely and acrobatically, or to use a technique requiring great grace. The Void Ring is the Sacrifice approach, acting unpredictably but without preparation. It can startle a foe certain of their ability, making them reconsider their actions, but is often an all-or-nothing gamble that trusts safety to the universe. You might use it to accept incoming force to create an opportunity, to act unpredictably, to move without care for your own life, to intentionally take a risk to sow doubt in the enemy, to perform a technique requiring you center yourself in the universe, or to leave the outcome of an attack to fate. Martial Skill Opportunity spends: You may spend Opportunity symbols, one for one, to sheathe readied weapons. On an Earth check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to complete a task as safely as possible, taking only minimum harm. In a conflict, you instead ignore the effects of Difficult terrain until the end of your next turn. On a Fire check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to complete a task faster and more vigorously. In a conflict, you instead increase you Initiative by 1 per symbol spent. On a Water check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to move fluidly and quickly. In a skirmish, you instead move 1 additional range band per symbol spent this way, before or after completing your action. On an Air check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to perform a task with extreme precision or to hit a specific part of the target. In a conflict, if your attack causes a crit that applies a condition or disadvantage, you choose which condition or disadvantage. On a Void check, you spend an Opportunity symbol to put mind over matter and try to perform a feat despite all odds. In a conflict, ignore the effects of one condition you are suffering until the end of your next turn. Skills: Fitness, the ability to perform physical feats and move gracefully. It handles running, leaping, lifting heavy things, long marches, swimming, sneaking and so on. It also helps you resist harm in battle, resist Shadowlands taint and recover from disease or poison. Martial Arts [Melee], the ability to fight with melee weapons. It fights with melee weapons or shows off with them. Martial Arts [Ranged], the ability to fight with ranged weapons. That covers thrown weapons and projectile weapons. Martial Arts [Unarmed], the ability to fight using your body as your weapon, plus also some improvised weapons. Meditation, the ability to fight battles with your own mind, process your emotions, recover control when shocked and resist confusion and supernatural influence. Tactics, the ability to lead in battle, both from the front and back, and to understand the flow of battle and how to seize opportunity in battle. Command motivates soldiers, Tactics manages obedient troops and commands them in battle, and Government handles logistics outside combat. Trade Skills are used to...well, survive, primarily among the lower classes. Samurai are expected not to focus on them too much, but they are too useful to fully ignore. Whenever you want to use a Trade Skill in front of a character with higher Status in an improper context, you must stake Glory equal to your Glory Rank. If the higher Status character does not criticize you before you complete the task, you're fine. If they do, you lose the Glory. The Earth Ring is the Produce approach, doing what you need to do to get a foundation for living, like making infrastructure, maintaining equipment, planting or harvesting crops, mass-producing common goods or keeping records. You might use it to harvest resources, mass-produce items related to your trade, repair or maintain trade equipment, build and repair foundations or basic structures, or create records of your work. The Water Ring is the Exchange approach, finding things and acquiring them, whether they are objects or customers. It's all about trading one resource for another. You might use it to buy items at their best price, barter goods and services for other goods and services, or track down specific items at a market. The Fire Ring is the Innovate approach, using creativity and drive to make work easier, make new things or find new solutions. You might use it to invent a novel product or service, develop a new tool for your trade, find new uses or applications for a product or service, or expand to new markets. The Air Ring is the Con approach, understanding value better than others and exploiting that advantage to get stuff for nothing. It manipulates perception of value, steals, bribes and smuggles. You might use it to sell products for more than their common price, to pick pockets, to falsify documentation, to offer bribes deniably, or to disguise shipments of contraband. The Void Ring is the Subsist approach, focusing on finding existing resources and using only as much as needed. It is commonly used by ascetics or those surviving in the wilderness. You might use it to live in harmony with nature without changing it, to instinctively know what changes will occur in your environment, or to know if an action will help you survive. Trade Skill Opportunity spends: You may spend Opportunity symbols, one for one, to reduce any Glory you have to stake to perform a Trade skill in an inappropriate context, to a minimum of 0. On an Earth check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to double the amount of work you can complete in a given time when producing. On a Fire check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to choose a skill and have a flash of insight which reduces the TN of your next check with that skill this session by 1. On a Water check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to, when buying an item or service, identify something you could trade for it rather than use money. On an Air check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to, when selling an item, increase the price the buyer will pay by 10% per symbol spent, to a maximum of an additional 50%. On a Void check, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to reduce the supplies or time used to complete the task by half. Skills: Commerce, the skill of buying and selling goods for a profit, operating a business and so on. Labor, the skill of performing manual tasks, such as farming, construction or ditch-digging. Seafaring, the skill of knowing about and sailing on the ocean, sea trade, making boats and predicting the weather. Skulduggery, the skill of securing locations against the law, doing crimes, spycraft, organizing criminal ventures, blending with crowds, erasing evidence and finding fences. Survival, the skill of wilderness survival, hunting, fishing, gathering plants and prospecting. Next time: Special techniques.
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Oct 10, 2017 15:54
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Is Survival useful socially for hunting? Is there a seperate form of more courtly hunt instead?
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Oct 10, 2017 17:42
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Rokugani nobles rarely hunt for pleasure, except the Unicorn, but it'd be handy for Unicorns that way. (Noble hunts weren't a big thing in Japan, for some reason.)
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Oct 10, 2017 18:06
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Legend of the Five Rings: My Kung Fu Techniques are your cool powers. They come in several categories. Kata are special combat techniques, primarily used by bushi and other dedicated fighters, though some courtiers learn them in case of battle. Kiho are spiritual techniques in which one aligns one's ki to the inner cosmos, acting in harmony with the world and so tapping into limitless potential, often to kick someone's rear end. They are primarily used by monks and other spiritual seekers, and also have elemental alignments. Invocations are prayers and entreaties to spirits and kami for support, and are carefully and closely guarded by shugenja families. They are primarily used by shugenja and those with strong ties to them, and they also have elemental alignments. Maho are evil spells made from dark pacts with wicked spirits, practiced only by maho-tsukai. Rituals are religious ceremonies performed by spiritualists, often ceremonial and lengthy and with the aim of producing a more esoteric effect than the more immediate invocations of the shugenja. They are often practiced by monks, priests and other religious figures. Shoji are verbal and social techniques designed for clear communication, social settings, motivation of allies and manipulation of rivals. They are mostly learned by courtiers, but many bushi, monk or shugenja schools also teach a few to help navigate the politics of battle. They also have elemental alignments. All techniques have at least one name; they may have more than one, based on who's using them. They cost either 2 or 3 XP each, and may have other prerequsites - typically, a requires School Rank. However, a character can learn a technique without meeting those if it's, say, on their advancement chart, and as long as you know a technique, you can use it even if you don't meet the prereqs. Techniques will specify how and when they can be used, and what kind of check, if any, they will require, as well as who they can target and at what range. Many also give you new options to spend Opportunity symbols on. Kata are divided up only by school rank. All have a prereq that your School Rank must be equal to or greater than the kata's rank. Rank 1 kata are: Iaijutsu, a draw and cut in a single motion. You make an Attack action using a sheathed Razor-Edged weapon with a TN 2 Martial Arts [Melee] check, targeting one character at range 1-2. You instantly draw and ready the weapon in a one-handed grip. If you succeed, you do physical damage equal to the weapon's Deadliness plus bonus successes. For one Opportunity symbol, you may draw and ready an additional sheathed Razor-Edged weapon. For two Opportunity symbols, you may sheath one readied weapon after performing the attack. XP Cost: 3. Soaring Slice, a special weapon-throwing maneuver. As an attack action using a readied weapon in a one-handed grip, you make a TN 2 Martial Arts check with the appropriate skill for the weapon, targeting one character at range 2-3. You throw your weapon at the target and, if you hit, you do physical damage equal to the weapon's base Damage plus bonus successes. So basically, anything is a thrown weapon for you now. You may spend Opportunity symbols to increase the maximum range of this technique by 1 per symbol spent. You may spend 1 Opportunity symbol to reduce the TN of the next Attack action against the target before the end of your next turn by 1. XP Cost: 3. Striking as Air, a technique that matches your movements to the foe to make you harder to hit. When making a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Air check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to, one for one, increase the TN of the first Attack check targeting you before the beginning of your next turn. XP Cost: 2. Striking as Earth, a technique to hunker down and deflect harm better with armor. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Earth check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to, one for one, increase the Physical Resistance of your armor until the beginning of your next turn. XP Cost: 2. Striking as Fire, a technique to force errors and so make your hits more deadly. When making a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Fire check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to, one for one, increase the severity of the next crit your target suffers until the end of your next turn. XP Cost: 2. Striking as Water, a technique to bypass enemy armor and find or make vulnerability. When making a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Water check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to reduce your target's Physical Resistance by 2 per symbol spent until the end of your next turn. Warrior's Resolve, a technique to gather pain within your body and conquer it, so that you may do your duty when others would die. Once per scene, you may spend 1 Void Point to recover from Incapacitation, healing until you only have wounds equal to (Resilience-Honor Rank). XP Cost: 3. Rank 2 kata: Crescent Moon Style, a technique to easily switch between defense and attack. When you perform the Center or Guard actions, you may spend one Opportunity symbol on this. If you do, until the start of your next turn, after a character in range 1-2 performs an Attack action targeting you or another character you are guarding, you may perform a Strike action targeting the attacker. XP Cost: 2. Iron Forest Style, a spear technique to control spacing. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee] check using a spear, naginata or other polearm, you may spend one Opportunity symbol to cause one of your targets to become Pinned until the beginning of your next turn. If, while Pinned, they try to get closer to you, they must make a Fitness check (TN 4, 2 with Air or 5 with Water), on which they suffer physical damage equal to the Strife symbols on their check. If they fail the check, they can't move closer. XP Cost: 2. Lord Hida's Grasp, a technique for fighting giant monsters. Prereq: Crab Clan. As an Attack action, you may make a Fitness/Void check targeting a character with silhouette 3 or larger at range 0-1, with TN equal to the character's silhouette. If you succeed, the target is Immobilized, and you count as granting assistance to anyone who performs an Attack action against it. For one Opportunity symbol, your target must resist with a Fitness check or be Prone, with TN equal to your School Rank. (Silhouette is basically a size stat; human adults are silhouette 2.) XP Cost: 3. Lord Shiba's Selflessness, a technique to protect others at the cost of yourself. Prereq: Phoenix Clan. Once per session, as a Support action using one readied weapon, you can make a Tactics/Void check at TN 2, targeting any number of friendly characters in range of your weapon. If you succeed, other characters cannot select your targets as the target of Attack or Scheme actions if they can select you instead. If an action has multiple targets, you must be the first chosen. This lasts for (School Rank) rounds. For one Opportunity symbol on a success, you may increase the TN of Attack and Scheme actions targeting you by 1 for (School Rank) rounds. XP Cost: 3. Open Hand Style, an unarmed technique to control your foe's actions. When you make a Martial Arts [Unarmed] check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to make a number of targets of your action equal to the symbols spent immediately shift into the stance fo your choice and become Immobilized. Targets of silhouette 3 or larger resist with a TN 3 Fitness check and ignore this if they succeed. XP Cost: 2. Pelting Hail Style, a massed fire technique for ranged weapons. When you make a Martial Arts [Ranged] check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to choose a number of other characters in range 0-2 of your target equal to the symbols spent. Each of these characters takes Strife equal to your weapon's base Damage. XP Cost: 2. Rushing Avalanche Style is a reckless heavy weapons technique. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee] check using a tetsubo, maul or staff, you may spend one Opportunity in either of two ways. If you fail but have a shortfall of two or fewer successes, you can spend one Opportunity symbol to cause your target to take (School Rank) physical damage. If you succeed and your target is Prone, you may spend one Opportunity to increase your damage dealt by (School Rank*2). XP Cost: 2. Spinning Blades Style is a dual wielding technique. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee or Unarmed] check, if you have you have a second readied weapon you didn't use for the attack, you may spend two Opportunity symbols to use that second weapon against a target of your action, dealing physical damage equal to its base Damage. If that target is Dazed, they take an additional (School Rank) damage. XP Cost: 2. Veiled Menace Style is an assassination technique. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee or Unarmed] check using a weapon in a one-handed grip, you may spend Opportunity symbols in the following way. If you succeed, choose one unaware or Disoriented target of your action. That target takes a crit with severity equal to your weapon's Deadliness plus 1 per symbol spent after the first. XP Cost: 2. Rank 3 kata: Battle in the Mind is a predictive evaluation technique. When you make an Assessment check for a duel using your Void Ring, you can spend Opportunity symbols in two new ways. First, you can spend one symbol to make your opponent name a Ring, forcing them to select that Ring as their stance for the first turn of the duel. Second, you can spend two or more symbols to choose a technique category. The opponent must reveal one known technique of that category per symbol spent. XP Cost: 2. Crimson Leaves Strike is a disarming technique. As an Attack action, you make a TN 4 Martial Arts/Earth check using the appropriate skill for one of your readied weapons, targeting one character in range of that weapon. If you succeed, the target takes (1+bonus successeS) physical damage, and you get to choose one of their readied weapons. They must resist with a Fitness check (TN 4, 5 with Air, 2 with Water) or lose control of the weapon, which goes 3 range bands in a direction of your choice. For one Opportunity symbol, you may take control the weapon instead. XP Cost: 3. Flowing Water Strike is an anti-armor attack technique. As an Attack and Movement action, you may make a TN 3 Martial Arts/Water check using the appropriate skill for one of your readied weapons, targeting one character at range 0-2. If you succeed, the target is Bleeding. They must also make a Fitness check (TN 4, Earth 2, Fire 5) or take physical damage equal to your weapon's base Damage, which ignores Physical Resistance. For one Opportunity symbol, you may remove Dazed, Disoriented, Immobilized or Prone from yourself. XP Cost: 3. Heartpiercing Strike is a killing blow technique. As an Attack and Movement action, you may make a TN 4 Martial Arts/Fire check using the appropriate skill for one of your readied weapons, targeting one character in that weapon's range. If you succeed, your target automatically suffers a crit with severity equal to your weapon's Deadliness plus bonus successes. The Fitness TN to resist this crit is 3 (Water 1, Air 4) instead of the normal TN. You may spend Opportunity symbols to increase that TN, one for one. XP Cost: 3. Rank 4 kata: Crashing Wave Style is a wounding technique. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Water check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to cause one target of your action to resist with a Fitness check (TN 3, Earth 2, Fire 4) or become Bleeding. The TN goes up by 1 per symbol spent this way. (Presumably after the first that forces the check, but it doesn't say that.) XP Cost: 2. Disappearing World Style is a stunning technique. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Fire check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to cause one target of your action to resist with a Fitness check (TN 3, Air 4, Water 2) or become Dazed. The TN goes up by 1 per symbol spent this way. (Same as above.) XP Cost: 2. Iron in the Mountains Style is a knockdown technique. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Earth check, you may spend Opportunity symbols to cause one target of your action to resist with a Fitness check (TN 3, Air 2, Water 4) or become Prone. The TN goes up by 1 per symbol spent this way. (Same as above.) XP Cost: 2. Rank 5 kata: Striking as Void is a formless technique. When you make a Martial Arts [Melee, Ranged or Unarmed]/Void check, you may spend Opportunity symbols in two new ways. First, you can spend one symbol to immediately switch to a different stance of your choice. Second, if you fail, you may spend an Opportunity symbol to immediately perform another action. The new action must be one you haven't performed this turn, and you can only activate this Opportunity once per round. Kiho are divided by element. All of them have an associated check to get an immediate benefit, and an ongoing benefit. If the check succeeds, they get the immediate effect, but regardless of success or failure, they get the ongoing kiho effect. A kiho remains active until you activate a different kiho; you can only have one kiho active at a time, and you can't reactivate one that's already active. All Kiho have XP Cost: 3. Earth Kiho: Earth Needs No Eyes lets you feel the movements of the Earth. Prereq: School Rank 1. As a Support action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Meditation/Earth check. If you succeed, you instantly become aware of all living beings and objects touching the ground within (Earth Ring+Bonus Successes) range bands. (Note: Range 6 is 'as far as the eye can see.') While the kiho is active, you may use the vibrations of the Earth to 'see' (Earth Ring) range bands in all directions simultaneously, and you add your Earth Ring to your Vigilance. Earthen Fist forms a stone gauntlet around your fists. Prereq: School Rank 1. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Earth check targeting a character at range 0-1. If you hit, you do (Earth Ring) physical damage and your target must make a Fitness check (TN 3, Air 2, Water 4) or become Prone. While this is active, the base Damage of your unarmed kick and punch profiles is increased by (Earth Ring), and when you successfully Attack with a punch or kick against Prone targets, you may spend 1 Void Point to double your bonus successes on the Attack check. Grasp the Earth Dragon armors you in orbiting stone or stone skin. Prereq: School Rank 3. As a Support action, you may activate this and make a TN 5 Meditation/Earth check. If you succeed, until the start of your next turn you reduce all physical damage you suffer to 1. While this is active, you count as wearing armor with Physical Resistance of (Earth Ring). You cannot benefit from other armor while this is active. Way of the Earthquake lets you stomp an earthquake into existence. Prereq: School Rank 2. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 4 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Earth check targeting all characters in range 0-1. If you succeed, they take (Earth Ring) physical damage and become Prone. While this is active, after you perform an Attack or Support action, you may spend 1 Void Point. If you do, all other characters in range 0-2 must resist with Fitness (TN 3, Air 2, Water 4) or become Prone. Air kiho: Air Fist surrounds your fists with roaring winds. Prereq: School Rank 1. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Air check targeting one character at range 0-(Air Ring). If you succeed, you deal (Air Ring) physical damage and push them 1 range band away from you. While this is active, the maximum range of your unarmed punches and kicks is your Air Ring, and after you Attack with a punch or kick, you may spend 1 Void Point. If you do, your target must make a Fitness check (TN 3, Earth 4, Fire 1) or be pushed away from you 2 range bands. Riding the Clouds lets you move on a small tornado, air current or cloud. Prereq: School Rank 2. As a Movement action, you may activate this and make a TN 4 Meditation/Air check. If you succeed, you may immediately move (1+bonus successes) range bands, and may do so vertically, and ignore the negative effects of terrain while you do. While this is active, when you move 1 or more range bands, you may move an additional range band, and may do so vertically, and you ignore the negative effects of terrain. The Great Silence silences the air around you. Prereq: School Rank 1. As a Scheme and Support action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Command/Air check. If you succeed, characters at range 0-4 produce no noise and can't hear. Invocations and maho cannot be used in this area, either. This lasts until the start of your next turn. While this is active, the TN of any Scheme actions targeting you is increased by (Air Ring). Way of the Willow lets you sense incoming attacks and evade them, gathering their energy. Prereq: School Rank 3. As a Support action, you may activate this and make a TN 5 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Air check. If you succeed, the TN of Attack actions targeting you is increased by (Martial Arts [Unarmed]) until the start of your next turn. While this is active, when you are targeted by an Attack action, you may spend 1 Void Point to increase the TN of the check by (Martial Arts [Unarmed]). Fire kiho: Breaking Blow lets you explode objects with a strike. Prereq: School Rank 1. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Fire check targeting a character in range 0-1. If you succeed, they take (Fire Ring) physical damage and you choose one worn piece of armor or readied weapon they have. It becomes Damaged. The GM may allow you to use this to instead shatter doors, rocks, trees or other objects. While this is active, when you hit with Martial Arts [Unarmed], you may spend 1 Void Point to choose one of their worn pieces of armor or readied weapons and give it Damaged. Channel the Fire Dragon lets you breathe fire. Prereq: School Rank 2. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 4 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Fire check targeting a character in range 0-2. If you succeed, they must resist with Fitness (TN 3, Air 4, Water 2) or become Burning. Flammable objects in the area ignite. While this is active, you automatically pass all checks to resist extreme weather, with (Fire Ring) bonus successes, and have Resistance 3 against supernatural and physical fire, including Fire invocations and kiho. Flame Fist makes your fists trail fire. Prereq: School Rank 1. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Fire check targeting a character at range 0-1. If you succeed, they take (Fire Ring) physical damage and must make a Fitness check (TN 3, Air 4, Water 1) or become Dazed. While this is active, the Deadliness of your unarmed punch and kick profiles is increased by (Fire Ring), and when you Attack a Dazed target with a punch or kick, you may spend 1 Void Point to deal (Fire Ring) extra damage. Way of the Falling Star lets you punch fireworks. Prereq: School Rank 3. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 5 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Fire check targeting a character in range 0-2. If you succeed, the target takes (Fire Ring) supernatural damage and is Burning. Flammable objects in the area ignite. While this is active, when you perform an Attack action, you may spend 1 Void Point. If you do, each Burning or Dazed target suffers a crit with severity (Fire Ring+weapon Deadliness). Water kiho: Freezing the Lifeblood lets you cause muscle spasms via ki. Prereq: School Rank 2. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 4 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Water check targeting a character at range 0-1. If you succeed, your target takes (Water Ring) supernatural damage and is Immobilized. While this is active, after you hit with a Martial Arts [Unarmed] check, you may spend 1 void Point to make your target Immobilized and force them to make a Fitness check (TN 3, Earth 2, Fire 4) or become Bleeding. Ki Protection lets you heal with a touch. Prereq: School Rank 1. As a Support action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Medicine/Water check targeting a character at range 0-1. If you succeed, they heal (Water Ring) wounds and you may remove Bleeding, Injured Body Part or Dying from them. You cannot affect any target more than once this way per scene. While this is active, after you perform any action, you may spend 1 Void Point to heal yourself or a character within range 0-1 of (Water Ring) wounds. Ride the Water Dragon deflects magic. Prereq: School Rank 3. As a Support action, you may activate this and make a TN 5 Meditation/Water check. If you succeed, remove any conditions and persistent effects on you from supernatural sources, such as invocations, maho or kiho (besides this one, assumably). While this is active, increase the TN of invocations, maho and kiho targeting you by (Water Ring), and the GM may allow you to pass through some supernatural barriers or wards without triggering them. Water Fist makes your ki ripple as water from your blows. Prereq: School Rank 1. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 3 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Water check targeting a character within (Water Ring) range bands that shares a contact surface with you. If you succeed, deal (Water Ring) physical damage. While this is active, your unarmed attacks ignore up to (Water Ring*2) Physical Resistance, and you may spend 1 Void Point to perform an unarmed strike with a punch or kick indirectly via any solid surface the target is touching, treating them as Range 0 for any Attack action using your punches or kicks, as long as you both share a contact surface such as a wall, floor or body of water. Void kiho: Death Touch lets you deal massive damage with a touch. Prereq: School Rank 4. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 5 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Void check targeting a character at range 0-1. If you succeed, you deal (Void Ring+bonus successes) supernatural damage. While this is active, when performing a successful Attack action, you may spend 1 Void Point to make one target suffer a crit with severity equal to their current Strife. Still the Elements lets you repel magic. Prereq: School Rank 3. As a Support action, you may activate this and make a TN 4 Meditation/Void check targeting all characters at range 0-1. If you succeed, characters at range 0-1 cannot perform checks to activate invocations, maho and kiho for (Void Ring) rounds. While this is active, when you are targeted by a check for an invocation, maho or kiho, you may spend 1 Void Point to choose up to (Meditation) kept dice on the check and turn them to blank faces. Touch the Void Dragon lets you see all possible futures of your actions. Prereq: School Rank 5. As a Support check, you may activate this and make a TN 6 Meditation/Void check. If you succeed, you gain 1 Void Point. You cannot gain more than 1 Void Point this way per scene. While this is active, you may spend Opportunities from Void checks as if they were from a check of any element. Way of the Edgeless Blade lets you channel killing ki through anything. Prereq: School Rank 5. As an Attack action, you may activate this and make a TN 6 Martial Arts [Unarmed]/Void check (which can be with an improvised weapon) targeting up to three characters at range 0-2. If you succeed, each target takes (Void Ring+Meditation+bonus successes) supernatural damage. While this is active, the base Damage and Deadliness of any unarmed profile, improvised weapon or staff you wield are increased by (Meditation+Void Ring). Next time: Spellsofmagic.rokugan
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Oct 10, 2017 18:31
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I know little about Japanese history, but I think hunting must have played some role as the karaginu was originally a "hunting costume" that later became court wear. At least, that's how it's translated in my edition of The Pillow Book. Edit: Now that I think about it, Shonagon was writing in the Heian period. While L5R has centuries of metaplot that don't correspond neatly to any one era of Japanese history, the Heian period was when Chinese influence was at its height--and even at that point, "hunting costume" only had the meaning that "sport coat" has today. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Oct 10, 2017 |
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Oct 10, 2017 18:31
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Either way, if your GM says that noble hunting is a thing, sure, Survival can be used socially, like Games.
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Oct 10, 2017 18:35
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Landmass wise, isn't Rokugan more like mainland China than Japan?
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Oct 10, 2017 18:48
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wiegieman posted:Landmass wise, isn't Rokugan more like mainland China than Japan?
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Oct 10, 2017 18:54
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theironjef posted:System Mastery has begun our annual holiday that no one thinks is funny but us, White Ween. Which means we needed White Wolf books. But I'm pretty light on those. We only had three of them around that we haven't covered already, so I reached for what I was sure was a corebook (mistakenly) and we've covered Mind's Eye Theatre: Requiem for our first game of the season. Covenants are basically a cross between political parties and cults.
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Oct 10, 2017 19:01
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Yes. Culturally there are a lot of straight up Chinese and Korean elements too, beyond the real world influence Korea and China had on Japanese culture. In some ways Rokugan is more analogous to "what if feudal Japan had conquered and culturally dominated China and Korea."
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Oct 10, 2017 19:07
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Halloween Jack posted:As opposed to having to squeeze all their colonial atrocity into just a few decades.
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Oct 10, 2017 19:15
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Halloween Jack posted:As opposed to having to squeeze all their colonial atrocity into just a few decades. Yeah, this seems to be a thing a lot of games do. "Okay guys, we need an Asia faction but only one, so we'll just make Japan and China and Vietnam into one country but since all we know is anime everything will use Japanese terms and whoops, poo poo, we just made things really loving awkward.
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Oct 10, 2017 19:15
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unseenlibrarian posted:Yeah, this seems to be a thing a lot of games do. "Okay guys, we need an Asia faction but only one, so we'll just make Japan and China and Vietnam into one country but since all we know is anime everything will use Japanese terms and whoops, poo poo, we just made things really loving awkward.
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Oct 10, 2017 19:24
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Comrade Gorbash posted:I'm trying to remember which book it was, but I remember a novel where 19th century Japan did conquer China and SE Asia, and there were some pretty well done bits with it. Namely that the Europeans all treated people from that Empire like they were one culture, and there was this push-pull of the various member cultures all hating each other, but also having solidarity in being pissed at the Europeans. “The Peshawar Lancers”?
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Oct 10, 2017 19:58
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Battle Mad Ronin posted:“The Peshawar Lancers”?
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Oct 10, 2017 20:09
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unseenlibrarian posted:Yeah, this seems to be a thing a lot of games do. "Okay guys, we need an Asia faction but only one, so we'll just make Japan and China and Vietnam into one country but since all we know is anime everything will use Japanese terms and whoops, poo poo, we just made things really loving awkward. 1. In any stock cyberpunk game, Japan's economy didn't poo poo itself and die in 1990, and now they own half the world and businessmen in NYC wear mandarin-collar suits. 2. Japanese people, as you know, all act like samurai in old Kurosawa films, i.e. laconic and dignified to the point of neurosis. 3. When writers remember that China--a huge, ancient culture with over a billion people--exists, they are all Confucians for some reason. Nobody even knows who Confucian was, but her teachings dictated that the Chinese be a) chillingly collectivist and b) inscrutable. China is presumably a vast bureaucracy of people with an unspoken agreement that nobody knows what's going on. The Infinity setting is one of the better takes I've seen, where China continues to grow and absorbs Japan and Korea into its sphere of influence and, eventually, its state proper. And Shadowrun isn't a game to look to for geopolitical plausibility, but in keeping with the themes of its genre, China has splintered into many states just like the U.S. I also enjoy the brief summary of North Korea in Eldritch Skies: they brazenly flout international agreements against trafficking with aliens, and Kim Jong-il is still ruling the country well into the 21st century thanks to alien biotech.
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Oct 10, 2017 20:15
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Legend of the Five Rings: Call Down The Thunders Invocations are shugenja techniques that call upon the kami to do a service. The kami are not given to helping out when not truly needed; as a result, outside of Conflict scenes or other life-and-death struggles, a shugenja can attempt a given invocation only once per scene. Further, the kami may choose not to answer if you use an invocation outside its proper context, such as trying to use Jade Strike to make money. They're not stupid. The act of performing an invocation can be altered slightly by Channeling, attempting to tap into some of the energy of one invocation to fuel another. When making an invocation check, after you choose your Kept dice, you may choose to Channel any number of them, reserving them and not counting them towards the check. On your next turn, if you perform another invocation of the same element, you may choose to tap the channeled dice. For each Ring die tapped, you do not roll one of the Ring dice you normally would, and the same for Skill dice. Instead, you simply place the channeled dice in the end result, as if you had rolled them, with whatever face they had when you channeled them. During a Conflict, you can channel as many times in a row as you want; outside of Conflict, you may channel only once, and it doubles the time required to perform the invocation. If you do anything besides cast an invocation that would use your channeled dice, you lose them, and if you become Dazed or Unconscious, you lose them. If you generate 3 or more Strife symbols on an invocation check, you also suffer spiritual backlash. For Fire invocations, the invocation now targets all characters in range rather than the normal target. For Earth invocations, you cannot use that invocation again until the end of the scene. For Water invocations, you can't do any more Water invocations until you do an invocation with another element. For Air invocations, each original target may choose one other character in range to also be targeted. Invocations can be prepared ahead of time; you can only have one prepared invocation at a time, however. This is a downtime action requiring appropriate ingredients, and works like activating an invocation, but with a different Skill (Composition, to prepare a ward, or Medicine, for a potion). To make a ward you also need 1 bu worth of blessed paper and a calligraphy set, and to activate it, you affix the ward to a surface and write a condition on it, specifying when the power is released. When the condition is fulfilled, the invocation activates at its current location. For potions, you need a blessed glass bottle and 1 bu of alchemical supplies. The invocation affects anyone that drinks it, or you can throw it at a person or area with a Martial Arts [Ranged] check, which makes it activate on that target or point. Performing a material offering as part of your invocation is very helpful, as the kami appreciate this show of devotion. If you make an appropriate offering, you count as having a Distinction (above and beyond any you already have) for the check, and the offering is consumed. Air spirits like incense, feathers or flowers, earth spirits like soil, salt, rocks from sacred places or seeds, water spirits like coins, seashells, precious materials, seaweed or sake, fire spirits like kindling, paper, ash or small flammable objects, Fortunes like texts, food, origami or art, and ancestral spirits like food, incense, sake or other drinks. Lastly, a shugenja or other character that knows at least one invocation can, once per scene, try to make an offering to the kami to get them to perform an invocation they don't know. This offering must both be suitable for the spirit involved and must have some value to the character - generally, it should at least be significantly inconvenient to replace, and the best results come from unique things. If the GM decides the kami is satisfied, the character may perform the unknown technique once, but the TN is increased by 1, plus 1 per School Rank they are below the normal prerequisite. They may channel, but they can't cast the invocation a second time this way, so it's probably a bad idea. Lastly, all invocations cost 3 XP to learn. Air invocations (i'm skipping the rules text because holy poo poo these are long and there's a ton of them): Blessed Wind lets you knock aside projectiles. By the Light of the Moon lets you reveal what is hidden. Call upon the Wind lets you fly. Cloak of Night turns things invisible. Grasp of the Air Dragon throws people around, either helpfully or as an attack. Essence of Air turns you into mist. Know the Mind lets you read and alter memories. You must forfeit 3 Honor to do this without permission, on top of any other potential losses the GM assigns. Mask of Wind makes you appear as someone else. You must, as a note, forfeit 1 Honor to knowingly impersonate someone of higher Status, on top of any other losses the GM assigns. Rise, Air summons an air kami. Summon Fog calls forth a fog shield. Tempest of Air fires off an air blast at everyone nearby. Token of Memory conjures an illusion, which can optionally be made solid. Wrath of Kaze-no-Kami calls down a tornado, or possibly a hurricane. Earth invocations: Armor of Earth lets you turn rocks into a suit of armor for yourself. Bind the Shadow lets you stun and lock down a Shadowlands critter or Tainted person. Courage of Seven Thunders lets you boost Composure ratings. Earthquake causes a magic earthquake. Earth Becomes Sky makes the ground explode under someone. Embrace of Kenro-Ji-Jin lets you stick to earth surfaces like a spider or optionally swim through earth. Essence of Jade blesses an area you sprinkle with jade dust, removing any Shadowlands taint and possibly blessing it further. Grasp of Earth makes the ground attack someone. Jade Strike does crits at Shadowlands beasts or Tainted people. Jurojin's Balm helps resist poison, disease and drunkenness. Power of the Earth Dragon increases Resilience ratings. Rise, Earth summons an earth kami. Stagnation slows time down, which mostly makes it harder to move distances. Symbol of Earth makes a sacred symbol that damages Shadowlands critters. Tetsubo of Earth makes a big stone tetsubo that causes knockdown. Tomb of Jade turns a Shadowlands beast or Tainted person into jade, weakening and imprisoning them, though if you break the statue they can sometimes escape. Fire invocations: Armor of Radiance makes a suit of armor glow and get super hot (but not harm the wearer). Biting Steel empowers a weapon to do more damage. Breath of the Fire Dragon lets you breathe fire. Extinguish puts out fires. Fires of Purity gives someone a fire aura. Fury of Osano-Wo calls down a bolt of lightning. Haze of Battle gives Strife and makes the target Enraged. Katana of Fire gives you a katana made of fire. Ravenous Swarms summons little flying sparks that set things on fire and boost your attacks. Rise, Flame summons a fire kami. The Fires from Within shoots fireballs. The Fires that Cleanse makes a wave of fire that dazes and hurts people. The Soul's Blade summons a katana or naginata made of lightning that ignores armor of all kinds. Wall of Fire makes a wall of fire. Wings of the Phoenix lets you fly on wings of fire, setting the ground on fire below you. Water invocations: Bo of Water lets you summon a staff made of water that turns into other weapons. Dance of Seasons lets you freeze, thaw and evaporate water very quickly. (But explicitly not water inside people's bodies because the kami think that's gross and ugly.) Dominion of Suitengu lets you scry via bodies of water. Ever-Changing Waves lets you turn into animals. Hands of the Tides lets you swap people's locations. Heart of the Water Dragon heals people slowly and lets them resist supernatural damage. Inari's Blessing summons food. Path to Inner Peace heals people. Reflections of P'an Ku tells you information about objects or people. Rise, Water summons a water kami. Stride the Waves lets you travel safely on water currents. Strike the Tsunami lets you fire a torrent of water at people. Suitengu's Embrace hurts and/or drowns people. Sympathetic Energies lets you extend invocation effects to others after the casting. The Rushing Wave lets you ride around on a torrent of water. Rituals are religious ceremonies, and they aren't secrets. Priests and caretakers all over Rokugan perform them all the time. They do, however, call on the kami to do magical things, just subtler miracles. They are performed during downtime, and other scenes only at GM discretion. They, likewise, will pretty much always be 3 XP because they give you a new action to do. Rituals: Cleansing Rite lets you sanctify people to drive out unholy power, removing Afflicted conditions or Defiled terrain (but not Shadowlands Taint once it's set in). Commune with the Spirits ask the kami or other local spirits for power. This can let you either detect magic and spiritual presences, learn something the local spirits know about the area, or receive a small gift in the form of an element - you might get rain or find a stream, you might get a gust of wind, you might find arable ground or a big rock. (Obviously, you get to pick which benefit, so it's always theoretically useful.) Divination lets you foretell the future, which mostly means that either you or the GM or both pick a skill category for your target and declare that the next time that skill category is used this session, they add a Kept die with Strife+Opportunity showing. Threshold Barrier wards a doorway to make it invisible or repulsive to a specific kind of being - spirits/ghosts, living Shadowlands critters/the Tainted, corporeal undead, wild animals, or humans. Next time: Shuji.
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Oct 10, 2017 20:32
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