Honor or Death (Bushido) Inviting 1-2 new players

[jemmus]

Honor or Death - Fantasy Games Unlimited's Bushido
Still going after four years, from April 2021! Inviting 1-2 new players. This will be a fairly slow-paced game, with posting 1-2 time per week. But an in-depth one.

Now starting a new campaign: "Crows." In which the adventurers leave off from the world of the city and village and into the deep mountains... in search of a band of mystical creatures from antiques ages of old Nippon....

Bushido is a crunchy game with sophisticated character design and tactical combat systems. Which makes it quite challenging and intriguing. If you don't know the system, GM and the players are happy to coach throughout. We have a nifty Excel sheets that calculates PCs stats, encumbrance and about anything else that a player might need to know and refer to along the way.

Character Classes
Bushi (warrior)
Budoka (martial artist)
Gakusho (priest)
Shugenja (mage)
Yakuza
Ninja

Random Birth Ranks
Samurai
Ronin
Farmer
Merchant
Untouchable

Setting: The game world is quasi-authentic to Japan's real history. It is the year 1180. Two great samurai clans vie for influence over the divine Emperor. Smaller clans watch for opportunities, or peril, arising from the struggle. But this is Nippon, not historical Japan. The world is also filled with spirits, oni, ghosts, tengu, kappa and other dread creatures. Quite a dangerous place in many ways, especially for a novice adventurer setting out to earn honor and glory.

All with an interest in more advanced RPGing, or just an interest in martial arts or samurai Japan are welcome!

[ffilz]

I'm one of the three already in on this.

[Enoch]

I'm not familiar with the system, but it sounds awesome, and there's a dearth of good samurai games out there. Sign me up!

[Marullus]

Count me in. Love to try it. where do we get the book?

[ffilz]

https://www.fantasygamesunlimited.net/p ... y/bushido/

or

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub ... 98/Bushido

[jemmus]

When our game forum is set up, I'll link an Excel sheet that does the character generation calculations for you. Very handy.

[spanningtree]

If you still have room I would be interested in playing as well.

[jemmus]

Great, we do have room.

[spanningtree]

Great, we do have room.

Cool! Any background info?

[jemmus]

The setting will be Heian Japan, shortly before the Genpei War. There's no shogun yet, the Emperor still rules, if in name only. But the samurai are gaining power relative to the aristocracy in Kyoto. Two powerful samurai clans (the Taira and Minamoto) control most of the provinces. The hatred between them increases by the month, week, and day. Their allied daimyo in the provinces watch the situation closely, assessing it for potential for personal peril or gain.

The great Buddhist temples around Kyoto have become very wealthy, and increasingly worldly and corrupt. "More beautiful than one of the monk's concubines" is a common saying. The temples maintain large troops of fierce sohei warrior-monks.

But those are just the games the foolish humans play among themselves. The spirits, ghosts, demons and monstrosities still fester and pollute the purity of Nippon. They delight in preying on and tormenting its human inhabitants. As they alway have, and always will.

I'm thinking about adding two variations to the Bushido rules:
-Adding sohei warrior-monks as playable PCs
-Correcting the yamabushi NPC and making it a playable PC. The rules incorrectly treat them as temple warrior-monks. (It's a common mistake, because a mistranslation of yamabushi as "mountain warrior." The actual translation is "one who prostrates oneself on the mountain." They're ascetic Shinto hermits, kind of analogous to Celtic druids. With a little modification, Bushido's Gakusho (priest) profession could be used for a yamabushi PC.

[Enoch]

Either of those seems fine to me, though my knowledge of feudal Japan is limited (though not as limited as my experience with Bushido). How would the sohei differ from budoka?

[jemmus]

A sohei is a type of armed and armored bushi. They favored using naginata. They're always portrayed as looking like the guy below, with monk's robes, a head-wrap thing and a naginata.

No need at all to be an expert on samurai Japan, of course. I'm a samurai history otaku, but I'll try not to get too carried away with that. I'm not an expert at Bushido either, but I learned some from playing in another game here on the US forums. We'll all be learning as we go along. Luckily we have one player who knows the system well, and another who's good at crunchy RPGs.

[Marullus]

Interesting, so the story you're telling includes intentional tension between the first and second estates (Samurai and Clergy) with each having their own armed forces, Bushi and Sohei respectively?

[jemmus]

Yes, right. That's historical, and around 300 years later it ended up with the samurai obliterating a famous ancient temple complex that overlooked Kyoto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Mount_Hiei But in a way the samurai and clergy are allied in exploiting the commoners (the third estate). But in feudal Japan there's another estate, which is the Emperor and the hereditary aristocracy.

[Enoch]

Netflix actually has a series on samurai. I've only gotten a few episodes in, but I remember that.

[Marullus]

Cool. I will draft a sohei (i.e. Bushi with a naginata) and see how it turns out.

[jemmus]

Nice. If you want to be OOC about it, your sohei should have a Buddhist name. Sohei were ordained monks, so their birth names were replaced with Buddhist names. Here's one list of names. http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVLPages/ZenPages/ZenNames.html Completely optional, of course.

[jemmus]

By the way, most of the sohei were just hired thugs without much interest in religion. But no doubt their had to have been some who were sincere Buddhists. Might be so RP material there, either way.

[Enoch]

Sounds like you could build a Sohei fairly easily simply by taking Bushi, Naginatajutsu, and then spending a Fine Arts pick on Buddhist Theology if you wanted to be a sincere believer!

[jemmus]

Sounds like you could build a Sohei fairly easily simply by taking Bushi, Naginatajutsu, and then spending a Fine Arts pick on Buddhist Theology if you wanted to be a sincere believer!

Nice! The old images also show them with a wakizashi. So maybe Kenjutsu as well.