Hello, everyone. How’s it going? I’m good, thanks for asking.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what to talk to you about this morning, and it’s a bit of a conundrum for me. You see, the boxed set I’ve been talking about for the past few installments is finally about to go to press, so fingers remain firmly crossed for our big GenCon release extravaganza. And I do mean extravaganza, by the way. We have a big event planned with our good friends over at Heroes of Rokugan. There’s going to be shenanigans aplenty with regard to this stuff, let me just tell you what. But I digress. The boxed set is almost ready to go gold, and I don’t want to spoil much if anything about its delicious, candy-like contents. On the other hand, the Book of Earth is just coming to the end of its writing cycle, so the Design Team hasn’t started work on mechanics for it just yet. Well, except for Rob “Cyborg” Hobart, who has already cranked out some preliminary work on spells. That man is a machine, I just know it. For those, however, I’d like to hold off just a bit so I can present you with the initial pass, the discussion that ensued, and then the post-playtest bits next time. I feel like that gives better insight into our design processes, and I always enjoy sharing things like that with you. However, that does sort of limit my available topics this month, doesn’t it? Well, let’s see what we can come up with.

Second City Boxed Set

Just because I don’t think that in-depth previews of the mechanics are a good thing doesn’t mean I’m not dying to talk about this! This is the most ambitious thing we’ve done since I started working on the game back in 1999, with the possible exception of our foray into the d20 realm back during Second Edition, or I suppose the decision to abandon the dual system paradigm when we moved back to Third. Regardless, in terms of audacity, I think this trumps them all. I’m not going to post any mechanics this month, although I might do so when we get a little closer to release, but that doesn’t mean I won’t share with you what kind of thing you can expect to see in the final product itself. I’m rolling a d10 here to see what clans to give you a taste of, and the results are…

Mantis Clan: Kitsune Summoner
The addition of the Kitune family to the ranks of the Mantis Clan was a triumph for the Yoritomo family, but regarded as little more than a necessary evil by a great many Kitsune. It was the only way the family could ensure its survival, and many Kitsune had deep private reservations about the possible effects on their ancient traditions. Thus far, however, the arrangement seems to have been beneficial. As per their oath, the Yoritomo have made only meager demands of the former Fox Clan, allowing them to pursue their own endeavors and govern themselves as they have for centuries. In return, the Kitsune have shared their unique brand of magic with the rest of the Mantis Clan.

The playtesters got pretty excited about that one, and I really enjoyed designing it. It’s a case of when the flavor of the world and the mechanics of the card game really synched up nicely, because the Kitsune have always been tuned into the natural world around them, and using that as a means to enhance their magic was just a perfect fit, in my opinion. Not only that, but despite its rather timeline-specific nature, the truth of the matter is that the Kitsune could wield this manner of magic in any time period and still be delightfully Fox, which is very important to us in terms of maintaining the utility of all mechanics for all GMs.

Hey, let’s do another!

The Unicorn Doomseekers
The Doomseekers are a Rokugani adaptation of an ancient Burning Sands order dedicated to bringing “death to the deathless” by rooting out and destroying immortal supernatural evils. The original targets of their technique were the heartless sorcerers known as khadi, but over the centuries they expanded their mission to include other immortal threats such as demons and rakshasa. (Ironically, it was actually a rakshasa, Adisbah the Cruel, who introduced the Doomseeker technique to Rokugan in order to avenge himself on the Bloodspeaker Iuchiban.) Within Rokugan the technique is extraordinarily rare and is only taught person-to-person; thus far, there has never been more than one Rokugani Doomseeker in the same generation.

It doesn’t get much more Colonial than this, right? It has so much potential for interaction in the new environment, but it also has close ties to the game’s history; the very first Doomseeker was a guy who was around during the Clan War, and whose story has been constantly expanded upon throughout subsequent arcs. It’s a veritable legacy, I’m telling you. And the mechanics that Mr. Hobart came up with for these guys are just plain awesome.

The Book of Earth

As I said, there’s not a lot ready for me to preview just yet, but I’ve been enjoying watching the work in progress on the book as a whole. In particular, I’ve enjoyed the chapter that is, as I so eloquently refer to it, the setting-in-a-can. I don’t know if I’ve shared this with you before, but in the Book of Air, the freelancer responsible for the independent chapter had to back out at the last minute, leaving us with a bit of a deficit in the way of about thirty five thousand words. As fate would have it, we had some incredible people who were available and who jumped in to help fill the gaps, leaving us with what I think is an amazing end produce, filled with samurai drama and the themes of air. Thankfully, following that example, I think we may have caught lightning in a bottle, because the setting chapter for the Book of Earth is looking every bit as terrific.

The Future

(See, this is where that whole “divining pool” thing comes in.) Last week I submitted and got preliminary approval for the RPG schedule for 2013 and 2014. There’s a lot of stuff in there I’m very excited about, and I can’t wait to get to work on. I think that’s probably a good thing, right? That I want to start work on all these books right away because I think it’s going to be awesome? I hope that the freelancers, the playtesters, and most importantly, all of you will share the same feelings. I mean, let’s face it, I’m easily excitable; this column is pretty well proof of that. First up for next year, I can confirm at this point that we are in fact going to have another installment of Imperial Histories, and we are going to have a bit more room for submitted content this time around as well (although it’s hard, because there’s so much room for cool stuff we haven’t covered yet. So let’s talk about how that’s going to work.

Many of you are familiar with the chapter format from Imperial Histories, our most recent release. That’s the same sort of organization and content you can expect from the next installment. If memory serves, the chapters run about sixteen thousand words. Naturally, we don’t want that much information from you up front. If you are interested in being considered for having your vision of Rokugan presented in the next installment of Imperial Histories, you have until June 1st to submit a summary of your idea and major themes to me personally at scarman@alderac.com (oh please God, don’t let the spammers notice me). I strenuously urge you to limit your submissions to no more than 2,500 words at the most. I don’t really have time to read much farther than that, so your hard work will go unread and I’ll just base my judgment on the first part anyway. Let me just go ahead and answer some of the questions that came up a lot last time.

1. Are alternate history versions of Rokugan acceptable?
   Absolutely, yes.
2. Are versions of Rokugan’s future acceptable?
   Absolutely, yes.
3. Are as-yet-uncovered periods of Rokugan’s history acceptable?
   Absolutely, yes.

Whew! Exhausting, all those in-depth answers. I think I need to go lie down.

I can’t wait to see what you guys have to show me.