Hello, everyone! I’m writing this in the midst of a major internet outage here in my home town. I don’t know about you guys, but I find such things absolutely horrifying. I’m so used to transmitting and receiving information instantly that when I can’t I kind of go a little nuts. Thank goodness my cellphone still works! Anyway, if this column is going up later than anticipated, I apologize, but I couldn’t email the darned thing!

Last time we talked a little bit about Great Clans, and you may recall that we won’t be spending any more time previewing content from that book. This is because it was released last week at GenCon, and I’m delighted to tell you that it sold out at the show! That was a pretty awesome feeling, because I don’t remember the last time we had something like that happen. I hope this means that there’s lots of you out there as excited about what we’re doing with the game as I am, and rest assured that copies will be arriving at your local store very soon. In the meantime, there are plenty of juicy tidbits on this very board that detail what you can find in the book, so go dig around if you want more previews. In the meantime, let’s look at our other projects and see what you can help me out with this time.

The Imperial Histories

As you know, late this year or early next year you’ll be seeing copies of The Imperial Histories arrive in your stores. I’m debating a little bit about how much stuff I can afford to show you before the book arrives, because I’m dancing the razor’s edge between “whetting your appetite” and “giving away all the mechanics” if we keep this portion of the column going until the book’s release! So a little later this fall I will probably stop showing you new things from the book, but for now, we’re still all up in it.

For our sample of the book today, I thought we’d delve a little into the Mantis Clan’s toolbox and see some of the things they have available in this book. My favorite thing here is that this is from the Thousand Years of Darkness chapter, and gives you an idea of what kind of thing we were able to do with this book! There is absolutely no question at all that the Thousand Years of Darkness setting from the direct-to-player CCG expansion of the same name is far and away the single most frequently requested RPG material in the years since that set was released. Not a single convention goes by that it’s not mentioned to me at least once, and usually multiple times. Well, for those die-hards out there, I couldn’t be happier to be bringing this to you at long last. Those of you familiar with the idea may recall that it was a Rokugan in which Fu Leng had won and had been ruling the Obsidian Empire for decades. The only pure lands left were, you guessed it, the Mantis Islands. So what were the Mantis up to over there? Let’s take a look!

Alternate Path: Acolyte of Thunder
In the Thousand Years of Darkness, the guidance of Sezaru as Oracle of Thunder allows the shugenja of the Mantis Clan to discover new ways to call on the power of Thunder. These discoveries come too late to help the defense of the Islands of Silk and Spice, but during the later Mantis exile to the Ivory Kingdoms they offer the hope that someday the Mantis may be able to reclaim their home from the legions of Fu Leng.

Technique Rank: 4
Replaces: Yoritomo Shugenja 4
Technique: Thunder’s Call – The Acolytes of Thunder can call on the power of the great Thunder Dragon to smite their enemies. You may cast the spell Fury of Osano-Wo as a Simple Action by sacrificing a spell slot in any Element. Your Raises for damage on the spell award +1k1 per Raise instead of +1k0.

Woo! That’s good stuff. We added some requirements later but I don’t have that most recent version of the file with me and, as I think I mentioned at the beginning, I can’t exactly email Rob for it while I’m typing this. It’s a pretty specialized mechanic, that’s for sure, revolving as it does around the use of a single spell (although admittedly it’s an awesome spell). Just to give you some idea of how great our playtesters are, let me share with you a concern one of the teams brought up during the initial stage playtesting of this mechanic.

lessee
Yoritomo 3/Acolyte of Thunder/Isawa Fire 1
Void 4

causes severe storm with 2VP (storm severity list? where is this?)
6k3 damage base for fury of osano-wo
Fire 4
4 raises for damage +2FR =12k9=10k10 as a simple action plus a spell slot.
spell casting TN 30 on 10k4
for less investment this puts them ahead of Beam of the Inferno by an equivalent fiery boom, making these guys, as I see it, the pre-eminent fiery boom tech?
Equivalent Tensai at r5 is hampered to complex attacks, so not two kills per round at 300ft.
Tensai can do the same damage earlier (IR3) but again, as a complex action, void dumping on the spellcast.

It's not busted, nor does it do silly interactions (and my build does rely on multiple schools) but it qualifies as stronger than anything I see in the phoenix.

please prove me wrong. otherwise I rather like the tech.

And that’s why we love our playtesters! Other than the atrocious lack of capitalization, that is some quality feedback right there. Ultimately it was decided that the Technique was balanced in and among the Mantis mechanics and that a combination of this particular type would come up only very rarely, and of course there’s the consideration that Rank 4 characters SHOULD be pretty beefcake, so it was agreed upon that all was right with the world for this particular mechanic. Nothing but love for the boys over on Team 8, though.

Oh, and one last thing before we jump away from Imperial Histories. What if you aren’t playing in the Thousand Years of Darkness setting? Well, naturally we took that into consideration. Witness the power of the sidebar:

All hail the sidebar.

The Book of Air

So, with GenCon having taken place in the interim since our last installment, I hope you’ll forgive me if the section on our new, in-development book is a bit less robust than usual, because GenCon is not the time for highly productive output! However, Rob has been hard at work on some spells (he’s a machine, that one), while I have been developing some Kiho and Brian and I have touched on a few Kata as well. Today, let’s start with the vastly more playtested spells, and next week we’ll share with you the prototype Kiho and Kata systems we’re installing even as we speak.

Here’s a spell that I find particularly interesting:

Air Kami's Blessing
Ring/Mastery: Air 3
Range: Touch
Area of Effect: Caster
Duration: 12 hours
Raises: Special (double the bonus for four Raises)

A unique prayer that is as much a meditation as anything else, this spell is only taught in shugenja Schools which have Air as an Affinity. It causes the Air kami within the soul of the caster to become more properly aligned, giving the caster a far greater grasp on the hearts and souls of other men, along with a certain quickness of reaction. While the blessing lasts, the shugenja may add his Air Ring to the total of all Awareness-based rolls, as well as to his Armor TN. Typically, those who know this spell perform the Blessing each morning during their daily meditations.

The effects of this spell cannot be stacked.

Now currently the spell is undergoing some very vigorous playtesting to determine how badly it can dominate a situation when combined with certain other spells, specifically Benten’s Touch. We’re looking at a number of different options to mitigate that, with our obvious ultimate goal being making sure that the spell is useful, thematic, and mechanically distinct without being overpowered. We’ll have to see how that pans out, but don’t be shy about throwing your two cents in!

Here’s a favorite from the old days, updated and revamped!

Wind-Born Slumbers
Ring/Mastery: Air 2
Range: 50'
Area of Effect: One target person
Duration: 5 minutes
Raises: Range (+10' per Raise), Area of Effect (+1 person per 2 Raises), Duration (+1 minute per Raise)

This spell causes the Air kami to subtly insinuate themselves into the target’s body, urging him toward weariness and sleep. A target who is physically and mentally inactive (such as a guard standing post at night, or a samurai meditating in his dojo) will automatically fall asleep when targeted with this spell. (The target will awaken normally if he is touched or hears a loud noise, but otherwise sleeps until the spell’s duration expires.) If the target is physically or mentally active, the spell will not put him to sleep, but he will suffer the effects of being Fatigued for the duration of the spell.

The effects of this spell cannot be “stacked” with multiple castings, but they will combine with Fatigue from other sources (such as the Bayushi Bushi Rank 3 Technique).

This one has likewise sparked a robust discussion concerning the implications of conditions stacking and whether or not it should be revamped to address this. The last thing we want to do is create a new mechanic that renders previous mechanics non-intuitive or more complicated than they appear at first blush, so we’re looking at this one very carefully to see how we can make it effective without making it overly complex or wordy. If we can’t find a way to pretty it up, we’ll cut it rather than let it into the wild, but I’m optimistic we can find a way for it to work out. I like it a lot and I don’t want to see it sliced!

Well, that’s all for today. See you again in two weeks!