Roleplaying in the Lakes and Rivers
This is an attempt to incorporate the GLOG role-playing toolkit to allow players to inhabit the Wandering Heroes of chinese fantasy.
Characters have a base Background template taken from 20 Backgrounds.
May add 4 Templates from any of the following when they Cultivate.
Cultivate when you...Defeat a powerful enemy, consume a Cultivation Pill and meditate for a week somewhere secluded…
Five Animals Kung Fu
Take a template from Dragon, Ox, Crane, Mantis or Tiger
Five Elements
Learn to Move,
Throw, Shape and Merge with the 5 elements of Fire, Earth, Wood, Water and
Metal
Element Template
A. You can Move the mastered Element, push or pull any element you can see. This is a gentle, gradual movement that normally does not cause harm.
B. You can Throw the mastered Element. Metal coins become lethal shrapnel, water forms into spouts and waves, fire can be thrown from a brazier into your enemies faces.
C. You can Shape the mastered Element. Boulders explode into statues of yourself. Water can be channeled into a massive tsunami, held by your own will for [Sum] minutes. Trees interweave their branches into wooden walls, or flick their hard seeds in a barrage of whipping branches.
D. You can Merge with the mastered Element. Soar through the air, burrow through hard stone, walk through hot fire or jet through water for [Sum] miles.
Use Chi Dice to
move the Five Elements. By default you have Qi Dice = to your Templates +1.
When you roll them, each die that shows a 4,5 or 6 is removed from your pool.
Regain all your Qi dice when you rest and drink tea or wine in a calm environment.
According to Feng Shui, some elements are Strong, Good or Bad in certain places.
Add or subtract Qi Dice depending on the element you use.
E.g. a Desert is Strong (+1) in Fire, Good (+0) in Metal and Earth
and Poor (-1) in Water and Wood.
However a Desert
Oasis might be Strong (+1) in Fire and Earth but Good (+0) in Metal,
Water and Wood.
When Wanderers build a house, ask them,
what are the Floors, Walls and Furniture made of?
For example, a room with wooden walls, a stone floor and bronze braziers is
Earth +1 Fire +1 Wood +1 Metal +1 and Water -1
A room with light silkscreen walls, wooden floor and a coy pond is
Water+1 Wood +1 Earth +0 Metal -1 Fire -1
Don’t worry too
much about exact details, this is an art, not a science.
Is Lava Fire or Earth element? Yes, it is both.
Water also encompasses the air and storms. That is what you want for throwing Lightning.
When you tap into one
or more Elements to craft a weapon or item, roll (Dice) = the Feng
Shui strength of those elements + any Qi Dice you commit.
You cannot commit more Chi Dice than you have Templates in the chosen Element(s).
You need a Background template that would allow you to create such an item.
A Smith should not write Scrolls, nor should a Scholar forge Swords.
If you roll 3 or more 6’s, the object is Masterwork. Infuse it with the power of one of your Kung Fu templates, or an Element that you can Shape. When someone uses this object they may use that Kung Fu template, or gain +1 Dice to that element.
If you roll 3 or more 1’s, the object becomes Awakened, it can think and even speak to it’s user.
Especially if mistreated, the object may refuse to help you, or even fly around and play pranks.
Such objects may follow the path of Cultivation, and gain Templates of their own.
For example, Blind Arrows uses clay (Earth) to shape a wine drinking-jug. He is sitting in his forge, with stone walls and a stone floor, by a clay-firing kiln.
This gives him Earth +1 and Fire +1. He commits all 3 of his Qi Dice and rolls 5D6.
He rolls 6,6,4,2,6. This means the wine-jug is a Masterwork. He infuses the jug Earth+1.
Now as long as he is drinking from it, he will have +1 Dice when using the Earth Element.
Now suppose Blind Arrow decides to make a Harp (After resting and regaining Qi.)
But instead of working somewhere more advantageous, he builds the Harp in his stone room.
Here Wood is Poor (-1), he will be rolling only 2 Dice even if he spends all his Qi.
Fortunately he is able to borrow his friend Golden Robin’s Masterwork Knife to shave and shape the Wood. This gives him +1 Dice. He rolls...1,1,1.
This is highly unlikely, and seems quite disastrous. Not only does this Harp have no masterwork qualities, it has an attitude! Perhaps it will refuse to play music, or only make rude sounds. Perhaps it will insist on playing only for a large audience or a famous personage.
And yet, the harp
may choose to Cultivate itself and in time may develop some useful
abilities.
