Armour of honour - Rules, character creation, info

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

Hi all,

Please follow these rules carefully:

- Please put your PbP Character name in your signature. There is no need to make an additional account
- Leave your normal EE game PCs and NPCs at the door, as well as your Hantei/Toturi feelings and anything else. We're here for this game. True, it runs alongside EE, but you have separate characters here!
- All the normal forum rules apply. Doubly so - you are expected to be adults.
- No ghosting NPCs - only control your own character please
- Please only post in a thread as many times as you are allowed to for a week - usually 7 times. This is best done every day so RP can be done thoughtfully but the important thing is to not post beyond the limit. Make your posts count for the short scenes. They will usually be for periods of about an hour - please remember that!
- You are welcome to make a new character at any time. You are also welcome to come back with a new character if yours dies or something similar. Please do not argue with any story developments though

Please note that these may be modified or added to at any time. You will usually be alerted if this is a significant change

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

Important EAll normal forum rules apply for our RP. This includes no god modding Eso no controlling other characters, no unilaterally declaring anything happens which isn't being done/affected by your character. If it is an action requiring a skill or other roll to decide Ethen we will have to do that before you can say "...and then I won the iaijutsu duel!"

Character Creation
Any character will be considered but there are certain limitations.
Character choices will be unlimited, limited, rare or restricted.
Unlimited means we could have as many as the whole group.
Limited means the class/advantage/whatever isn’t that common so only 1 in 4 players may have this.
Rare means the class/advantage/whatever is exactly that Erare. Only 1 in 8 players may have this. These will be taken on a first come, first served basis.
Restricted means you can’t have it unless you get special permission.

Families and schools.
Unlimited - Playing a family member from any of the Great Clans (Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Mantis, Phoenix, Scorpion, Unicorn). This excludes the Togashi tattooed monks who are limited. Please see below. Courtier ad bushi school characters are unlimited, as are those from any art school.
Limited - Firstly, shugenja, ninja and monk characters are limited. The limitation on shugenja does not apply to the Phoenix Clan. Additionally, playing a ronin or a Minor Clan samurai is also limited Eto reflect their lesser numbers.
Rare ENothing is rare in regards to families and schools.
Restrictions - Maho users. Spider characters. Imperial Family characters. Training at an imperial school is also restricted.

Advantages, disadvantages and others.
Allies: Major - Limited, for their ability to affect the setting.
Different School - Restricted, for the justification and alliances necessary for this to occur. This becomes unlimited if you are willing to take an obligation to that Clan as a favour to them for training you.
Chosen by the Oracles ERare.
Enlightened ERare for each Clan. This becomes limited for Dragon and Phoenix characters.
Gentry - Restricted, because this necessitates a great deal of backstory and maintenance.
Great potential ELimited per Clan.
Imperial Spouse ERestricted to limit the involvement of the Imperial Families.
Ishiken-do - Rare, to represent the rarity of Void Shugenja. This becomes limited for the Phoenix Clan.
Paragon ERare. 1 per Clan. This does not apply to the Lion.
Sacred Weapon - Restricted per Faction, to represent the rarity of such items, and to ensure that players treat them with their due reverence. Please justify your character possessing them in your backstory to be allowed their use. As characters will be recommended to be new samurai, attending their gempukku, it is unlikely they will have such a weapon.
Prodigy ERare per Clan, to represent the rarity of such skill.
All Ancestors - Rare because of the complexity and power of these advantages. In effect Eno two characters may have the same ancestor.

Cursed by the Realm - Rare, per realm, because they require an explanation for why the character was cursed, either from the player or an ST.
Momoku - Rare, because such individuals are rare.
That’s it. Please remember Eup to 15 points in advantages and up to 10 points can be regained through disadvantages. Further disadvantages can be purchased but these will not add to your character points.
Finally, if you wish, we may roll on the Great Clans ancestor chart for your successful character. 3 rolls will be made and you may choose which applies *generous*

To submit a character, please send information for all of that detailed below.
This campaign will start with a gempukku ceremony that all will be in attendance of. One Clan has invited others to have their gempukku in their lands (for hosting a gempukku is honourable and expensive, and Clans enjoy the prestige of having their members graduate elsewhere). It is therefore easiest to create a young character just about to pass their gempukku. You are welcome to create an older character and you may come up with or ask for a reason to be in attendance (e.g. Guarding one of the pre-gempukku members from your Clan). All characters must be rank 1. For those Clans that have special gempukku ceremonies and tests, your character will be considered to have passed these but has been invited to have the formal gempukku itself in the lands of another Clan. Your Clan has obliged as they see this as an interesting opportunity.
Character sheets must contain the following:
Character Name:
Clan: Family: School:

Air Ring: Reflexes: Awareness:
Earth Ring: Stamina: Willpower:
Fire Ring: Agility: Intelligence:
Water Ring: Strength: Perception:
Void Ring:

School Techniques, Spells, Kiho, and Kata:
School Skills:
Other Skills:
Advantages:
Disadvantages:

Honor:
Glory:
Status:
Insight Rank:
Insight Total:
Starting Outfit: (You do not need to decide on the contents of your Traveling pack, but you may. You may always leave items out of your outfit if you wish.)

Total Experience Points spent on Traits:
Total Experience Points spent on Skills:
Total Experience Points spent on Advantages:
Total Experience Points Gained from Disadvantages:

Is this Character Unlimited, Limited, rare or restricted? (please list those things that are limited, rare or restricted)

20 Questions: Please Answer the "Game of Twenty Questions" on page 100 of the Legend of the Five Rings 4th Edition Roleplaying Game for your character and put the answers here. You are encouraged, but not required, to answer the 20 "Other Questions" on page 101-102 as well. Character Submissions without the first 20 Questions answered will not be accepted, but changes and additions may be made after the character has been submitted and accepted.

Are there any Non-Player Characters which will require portrayal because of this Character entering the Campaign?
(Provide a brief description of each of them, along with name, personality, school, position and relation to the character. Enemies, Dependents, Spouses, Blackmailees, Allies, family, famous ancestors and rivals all fit into this category, and should be given a short paragraph each.)

Backstory: Please write any additional history the character has here. This section may be supplemented after the character's submission. Additionally no claiming of titles unless you can justify it. Certain titles, like Topaz Champion, will be beyond player limits for starting characters. They must be earnt if available at all. If you want to be important, purchase status!
With that all said, if you are interested, please submit 2 (TWO) character ideas to me by email ([e-mail]). My skype is Guardikai. You are welcome to email me/chat to me to discuss character ideas and find out if these would likely be acceptable or not or if they may be recommended to be modified. Bear in mind though that until your 2 characters are emailed to me, you will not have withheld a place for yourself.
Two character ideas are required so that the most fitting character can be selected for entry into the game. Finally, please do not enter characters based on those you either play in Emerald Empire or who are already NPCs you use on the forums. Also, please do not create a character already used by another or with a famous name that has existed e.g. Mirumoto Hitomi Eunless you can justify this.
One tip Echaracters that are likely to cause avoidable awkward disruption are frowned upon. There is nothing wrong with playing a Lion with a grudge against the Crane. Playing a Lion who has an obsession to attack on sight every Crane they see no matter where, a ninja who wants to murder everyone against the wishes of their lord or a ronin who does whatever he wants without any respectEwill probably not go down so well. If both your characters are like this, you will be advised to make your character a little more agreeable. If you really love your character or insist upon their possibly damning and disruptive flaws then be prepared for a possibly difficult ride. Things that could foreseeably and reasonably happen to such characters can and will happen. That ronin who does whatever he wants Eit would be reasonable for him to have a bounty put on his head if he starts smashing places up and killing samurai. The ninja? If his lord finds out he is going against orders with no justification, then he will either be ordered to seppuku or assigned a nearly suicidal/at least dangerous mission to make amends. The Lion? Well, attacking Crane dignatories in a Phoenix court when you are assigned to it to promote peace to the Phoenix is probably going to get you killed.

You will all have Lords to listen to (unless you are a ronin!). Please follow their missions as that is your duty as their retainers. Of course, you are welcome to do something different but your lords will want an excuse for your failure/ignorance or some other boon to satisfy them. You may sometimes be allowed free reign. It will depend on your Lord and their agenda. Your lords and some basic details on them, such as their position and personality, will be messaged to you upon character acceptance. You are welcome to petition your lord for certain duties/tasks but do not always expect to receive a favourable reply. Others may also grow to expect things from you. This will be a normal L5R game in this respect. Please remember this isn’t D&D and you aren’t playing in an adventuring party that has absolutely no restrictions. You control your character but your character will have pressure placed upon them to do/not do certain things.
Finally, please try to stick to your character concept, personality and background as outlined by you. If you are playing Mr. I hate the Crane thenEit’d be odd for you to become best friends with 2 in the first week. Roleplay any changes, make them gradual. Make them realistic/believeable.

Mechanics EHow the hell does this work Yuusha?!
Okay, the game will have 2 aspects. PBP and PBM.
Each week, following Emerald Empire story updates as well as the results of last week’s actions, a new turn begins.
During a turn, 3-5 threads are started on the forum. Each thread is a scene. A scene represents a short but important moment/event during that week. If your character could reasonably be there and you want to be in that scene, then you may participate in it. One post alone is enough to have participated, though you are encouraged to post more and to respond to any PCs/NPCs that interact with your character. You will only be allowed to post once, each day, in each scene. This may be increased to twice a day per scene if this works well. This means each scene will only allow up to 7 posts for your character. This is the PBP aspect. For each scene you participate in you will receive an additional point of experience. If two scenes take place at the same time, you can’t be at both! If you take a major action (see below) to travel between two cities and that action will take a week or more and you are therefore nowhere near where the scene takes place Ethen again, you cannot join it.
Skill rolls and so on may be necessary during these scenes to decide outcomes, interaction with NPCs and competition with other PCs. These will be done by at least 2 judges/GMs to insure unbiased results.
After the first week, you are welcome to suggest scenes to me with your weekly mail that includes any actions you wish to take.
For the PBM aspect Eeach week you may submit 1 major action for your character. You may also submit 1-3 minor actions for your character. These may be related to your major action. What follows is a list of major/minor action suggestions. Please use common sense to decide if an action is major/minor.
Major actions Ein general these should occupy the greater part of your character’s time for the week
Travelling a long distance. This may take more than one major action and thus more than one week. This will of course also likely limit any scenes you may participate in.
A marriage negotiation and approval from your Lord.
Training a difficult or new set of skills at once. If you wish to increase a skill then your character must have trained or at least used that skill recently.
Participation in a large tournament or competition.
Attending a court.
Being involved in a battle.
Exploring a large wilderness.
Thoroughly reading through a section of or organising a small library.
Researching a new spell.
Seeking enlightenment Eprobably multiple major actions.
Spying continuously on someone.
Note: Of course you are meant to suggest what you are doing with these major actions. So for attending a court Eunless you were just watching the whole week Eplease suggest what you were trying to achieve Ee.g. Get as much blackmail material on those present as possible, look for eligible bachelors, try and arrange trade agreements, make allies with X Clan. I will give a small bonus for well described actions. Saying you want to arrange a trade agreement and with whom and for what is a basic major action. Saying how you will go about that, what you will use, if you will be declaring any raises for the main roll, if any minor actions will contribute, etc Ewhat your strategy is Ewill net you a bonus of +1 to +10 for your roll depending on your cleverness and likelihood of success of your plan. If it is a terrible plan though, you will just get +0. Hope for a good roll!
Minor actions Ein general these should occupy up to a day of your character’s time and at least one hour.
Attending a wedding
Short movement Ee.g. to a village outside of a town. Up to a day’s travel. You will need another to get back!
Participation in one specific round or day of competition.

Mhm, well major events I've used are something like:
Marriage negotiation
Exploring a small forest or a forgotten temple.
Conversing with someone important or a spirit.
Fighting in a minor skirmish.
Handling a smaller investigation.
Looking for a specific book in a library and reading that.

You may use minor actions to increase the likelihood of success of a major action (even that of another PC). E.g. You may look for a specific book in the library on family history. This may help your major action of finding blackmail material and other information and juicy bits on one or more persons. If the minor action is successful (it could fail even with a good roll Ethere may not be any books!) then it may give you a raise on the major action. I encourage you to write a little generally about how the minor action will help and exactly what it is –e.g. Talking to those who dislike those you wish to blackmail and generally snooping around and investigating the individuals for a day could all be one minor action and it is more likely to be useful as there are more chances of finding something. Of course, if there was a book with devastating information in it, then specifically looking for that could have been more usefulE
Final points to makeEExperience. Each week you will get 4 experience for mailing me at least one action in a week. You will also receive 1 experience for a successful major action. Experience will be given in the reply to your character for your actions. This reply will also include any new communication for your character or other important things to consider/be aware of. Remember you will also get 1 experience for each thread scene you post in. It is therefore possible to get up to 10 experience points a week. This is the maximum. Experience may also be given out for other reasons Esuch as a particularly impressive roleplay post (something really spectacular).
Character death Ethis can and will happen. L5R is very lethal with fighting. Retainers could be asked to commit seppuku or take on board a mission that will likely see them dead. Sometimes weird stuff happens and people just die. Please accept any character death maturely. You will be allowed to make a new character. You can go out with a bang. New characters can be related to the original and will receive any unspent exp they had and around 1/6th, in exp, of the insight rank of the original character. So long time character deaths will mean that your new character isn’t necessarily rank 1!
Interacting with other players Eapart from in scenes, where you may have direct and readable interaction with another PC, any further interaction should be done over skype, in chat or via PMs/emails. You are welcome to roleplay every action and sentence but I encourage you to try and keep it a little general E“Shosuro Bob stops you to ask about A, B and C and is charmingE Why? Because I need you to please include in your weekly email to me any interaction you have had with another PC that week in general terms. “Ikoma Jane agreed to work with Shosuro Bob to undermine Kitsuki Baka. She also told him about CE This way I can track character relationships and the spread of knowledge and make sure things make sense!
Why is this? I only have limited time. This will primarily be a PBM game. The PBP scenes are for character development, detailed roleplay and general interest. This will though be a somewhat abstract game as we will be focussing on major and minor actions and the weekly happenings Enot the minute detail of who says exactly what, in what tone and while doing what with each finger. If you wish to have such detailed RP you are welcome to do so Ejust do it over skype or via PMs or email. Again, do tell me what the results and important bits are. If someone is required to make a roll Eor if you start fighting/competing! You will then need to email me to resolve this. In this circumstance you may email me before the weekly email you send detailing your actions so that this situation can be resolved quickly allowing your roleplay to continue. This may mean we have to organise a time to all be on skype to roleplay the scene if it isn’t a simple iaijutsu duel or the like. Please keep these situations to a minimum Ethey are time consuming for me!
Random events and weekly events EEvery week I will do a secret (with another GM/judge) roll for each character. You will have a 1/5 chance of this making “somethingErandom happen. 1/3 chance for something good, bad or in between. A good result might be finding a useful item on the side or the road or an influential npc taking a liking to you and offering a favour. A bad thing may be finding an item that turns out to be cursed or being attacked by bandits! The results will depend on your character, clan and location. Additionally, every week there will be new scenes Eyou may propose these if you can think of something very important/entertaining, news and new rumors and sometimes tasks for your characters. The rumors may or may not lead to anything interesting to do. The news will be related to in game happenings and events in the EE greater game. This may give you ideas of what major actions to do that week. The tasks should all be accomplishable Ethough you may need to find help from other PCs or get some NPC help! Other announcements will also be made publicly every week e.g. The new round will be over a 2 week period. The world ends due to Fu Leng. Someone blew up a storehouse on the outskirts of the cityE
That's it. Any questions Eplease pm or email me! Thank you. When I have at least 4 players we can think about starting. I will inform everyone of who is playing what at that point!


Note - there is currently one space left. 1!

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

Reserved - game information

We will be following a few unique characters as they struggle in the Empire! The game will be shaped depending on the first few weeks.

This game focusses on larger allotments of time - like a week or a day, rather than minute detail. Announcements will be made weekly so look forward to them ^^

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

Reserved - Week it is and other updates

It is week one right NOW until Sunday the 2nd of October!

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

Notice...

Posts below updated

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

Also - scenes have all been added. Go read them. Decide if you'd like to take part. You can just post as if you are watching!

[Kitsuki Yuushahime]

A note on minor actions - these should not be spent on scenes/rp moments here. These happen no matter what and if you want to attend and can attend then just post in them and roleplay it. There is no need to spend a minor action to be there or do anything there.

Minor actions should be spent on other things occurring during the week. So, in this week - perhaps other competitions (you can suggest some that are likely e.g. "My character will try to involve themselves in a courtier competition as a minor action and any kemari tournament as another minor action!"), talking to someone important (e.g. "I'll try to meet with that Ren guy..." - more details = more likelihood of success so "I'll meet with Ren and see what they are doing here and if they want anything from my Clan and what we can get in return" would be better!), a character's downtime (e.g. "Are there girls here? I want to do them!" >_> to quote a famous D&D skit) or smaller part's of a greater mission (e.g. "As part of my research into maho I will ty and talk to one of the captured peasants who was freed from the maho cult"). I hope that makes more sense! Remember you have to use 1 minor action minimum each week but have up to 3 to use. You are welcome to use all 3 and can even wait until the end of the week as long as you get them in before the deadline. I'll process them on Sundays. This way you could wait to see who wins a scene/RP competition for instance and then spend a minor action buttering them up or finding out about them.

Cheers!