The Pearls of Asura

07/18/2017

This week is dedicated to more long-awaited subculture packets!

07/08/2017

From Scott

07/03/2017

The Leadership and Captaining skills have new rank tables defining exactly how you and your fellow survivors may benefit from your ranks in those skills. Also, a neat new effect, "motivate", joins the list!

Changes to Leadership and Captaining begin on page 61.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ie9NucPX_OlUY4e1NXu1c18n3oNQaYOmj6J1gvEhGwg/edit?usp=sharing

To the reader: this rulebook is unfinished, to say the least. As you read, please use the “comment” (top right) button and make mention of any ideas, constructive criticisms, or thoughts. Logline: “Greased wits crash a mythical world.”Major Questions and Help Needed: With the use of Kotoda...

07/03/2017

Zenkai, the son of a samurai, journeyed to Edo and there became the retainer of a high official. He fell in love with the official’s wife and was discovered. In self-defense, he slew the official. Then he ran away with the wife.

Both of them later became thieves. But the woman was so greedy that Zenkai grew disgusted. Finally, leaving her, he journeyed far away to the province of Buzen, where he became a wandering mendicant.

To atone for his past, Zenkai resolved to accomplish some good deed in his lifetime. Knowing of a dangerous road over a cliff that had caused the death and injury of many persons, he resolved to cut a tunnel through the mountain there.

Begging food in the daytime, Zenkai worked at night digging his tunnel. When thirty years had gone by, the tunnel was 2,280 feet long, 20 feet high, and 30 feet wide.

Two years before the work was completed, the son of the official he had slain, who was a skillful swordsman, found Zenkai out and came to kill him in revenge.

“I will give you my life willingly,” said Zenkai. “Only let me finish this work. On the day it is completed, then you may kill me.”

So the son awaited the day. Several months passed and Zenkai kept on digging. The son grew tired of doing nothing and began to help with the digging. After he had helped for more than a year, he came to admire Zenkai’s strong will and character.

At last the tunnel was completed and the people could use it and travel in safety.

“Now cut off my head,” said Zenkai. “My work is done.”

“How can I cut off my own teacher’s head?” asked the younger man with tears in his eyes.

Source: 101 Zen Stories

06/29/2017

We're hard at work making diplomacy phase, especially in the evening, much more fun and engaging for non-drinkers. One player-run module is a stealthy heist mission into enemy territory to raid their stores.

Drinkers will play rock-throwing, cart-carrying peasants. The more peasants, the greater the take. Non-drinkers will either station their PCs as caravan guards or become low-down highwaymen waiting in ambush.

06/13/2017

Thanks to all who attended our second event ever this past weekend! Going forward, we will be giving attention to scouting and special scouting modules for exploration phase. This will likely be a stealth based, extended adventure into the deeper woods yielding invaluable intelligence on a territory of choice.

Also in the plans are more subculture packets and greater details in the ones that currently exist. Stay tuned!

06/07/2017

Level and rank tables have been added to the rulebook starting on page 47.

06/07/2017

Experimentation

Through experimentation, trading with other kingdoms, or finding/studying ancient texts, PC’s can acquire new recipes that allow the creation of special recipes.

Experimentation can only be done with special ingredients. That is, the rarest of each gathering type. Procure one of these special ingredients, mix them with another ingredient of the same family, and you may just succeed in developing a special recipe.

Special Recipes

These are recipes that a player has unlocked through experimentation or otherwise. Such recipes can be patented, for a fee, and almost always result in the knowledge of how to create an item with a +1, sometimes even +2, bonus to a specific skill.

How to:

1. Lay down your ingredients and announce you are attempting a special recipe. Your ingredients must include a special ingredient and one other ingredient of the same family. This costs 1 Stamina.

2. Your assistant draws a number of cards equal to your rank in the related skill from a 1-9 deck, and an additional 1 or 2 cards if the other ingredient is uncommon or rare. The rarer your additional ingredient, the better chance of success. For instance, you’re attempting a metalworking special recipe. You lay down your Kachin ore and mix it with adamantite ore (+1), or scarletite ore (+2), or maybe just iron (+0). They also draw one more card from the 1-9 deck that is a failure card.

3. Guessing one of the numbers, other than the failure card, that your assistant has drawn results in success of a new special recipe! Report this to HQ and they will validate your reward. If you guess the number on the failure card, you have caused a maddening v***r!

06/07/2017

You probably got better at a few things at the last event, eh?

06/06/2017

Maddening V***r: smog, fumes, noxious gases; the cost of industrialization, the price of progress! When a crafter has used all of their extra guesses, their assistant will then draw two cards from a 1-9 pack. If either of these numbers is guessed henceforth, a maddening v***r pervades the room! The assistance calls out “mental stress by Maddening V***r to room!”

All residents of the room should evacuate whilst coughing, gagging, and stumbling their way to the fainting chair, where they will roll on the mental stress table inside the “Domestic Medicine” book.

06/06/2017

The Yasha: mythical protectors of the wild. They were believed by most to be fictitious spirits, once feared by the superstitious ancestors of the Japanese. It is clear, now, that they are real.

Inside each card-pack is also a costume and a special Yasha card. This card is pulled by the assistant when the gatherer has used all of their extra guesses. This card, too, has a number on it, replacing any current card in the assistant’s hand that shares that number. If this number is guessed, the Yasha have been angered!

The assistant then follows these instructions:

Call out “panic by voice!” ((your player character flees safely to the village))

You will now play as the Yasha until it is slain. Don the costuming. Special stats may also be described inside the card-pack. Go and hunt the offending mortals. Kill any that cross your path. When you are slain, return the costuming to the card pack and spirit to the village, where you will emerge from hiding as your player character.

06/05/2017

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: First-time Pearls players may hereby attend their first event for FREE. Our next event is THIS weekend, so bring a friend!