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Clockwork Ronin
The clockwork ronin is a living, breathing, and thinking assemblage of gears, springs, and metal. But without being inhabited by the spirit of a bushi, or a warrior, summoned by the clockwork ronin creators, the body of the Ronin would be only a machine, incapable of acting independently. The bushi spirit remembers its old skills, enabling the clockwork ronin to perform styles thought capable only in history and legend. However, the bushi spirit is unable to remember his ancestors, his hometown, or his family. Deprived of his own identity, the Clockwork Ronin strives either to develop a new life for himself or seeks out the past of the bushi spirit, hoping to regain memories of his former life.

The technology required to build a clockwork ronin is anything but simple. When new technologies began to arrive on Rosuto-Shima just after the War of the States, both good and evil people found ways to make use of their discoveries. Four wizards, hoping to bring the divided Rosuto-Shima to its knees and replace the emperor themselves, enslaved a number of keshou craftsmen and began the sinister act of harvesting the souls of samurai who had fallen in the War of the States. As dozens of keshou worked on each body, the wizards bound their captive souls into the mechanical forms, careful that each would obey the wizards’ commands with perfect resolve. They succeeded in creating more than 10,000 troops in less than fifteen years. But due to the bravery of a keshou who escaped the wizards, rumors of the wizards’ activity reached the leaders of Rosuto-Shima. An army of warriors, many of them samurai who had fought in the War of the States against each other, rose up to destyle the unnatural threat. On a crisp, cold morning, the troops of the human army attacked the wizards, catching them completely off guard. The wizards sent the clockwork ronin into battle, but several warriors slipped around behind the mechanical samurai and slew the dark wizards. As the wizards died, the power left the clockwork ronin, and the battlefield was soon filled with the fallen gear-powered bodies of the valiant warriors. On the seventh day following the battle, however, the souls of the bushi reawakened inside their mechanical forms, free from the control of the wizards, but unable to remember their histories. Other memories remained with them: the use of speech and writing, skills like fishing and hunting, and the training they had received in running their metal bodies. But certain aspects of their former lives had vanished, and they could not remember faces of children, parents, or even their former masters. The clockwork ronin separated, unable to look one another in the face, the blank metallic expressions reminding them of their own loss, and the emptiness of their souls.

Though they have little to do with each other, the clockwork ronin all share a tendency to appreciate small moments in life, such as watching the sunset, listening to a child’s laughter, or sharing a tale around a campfire. However, outsiders have little understanding for the clockwork ronin, and view the mechanical warriors as cold and calculating. While it is true that the clockwork ronin are great tacticians in war and never underestimate their opponents, they are still men of great honor who live by a strict code of ethics and show themselves to be both graceful and precise in combat. Though designed for war, the clockwork ronin often seek out the arts in an effort to restore a bit of their own humanity, and many write poetry and perform music when their warrior arts are unneeded. Though they seem difficult to wound, anyone looking in their eyes will see pain, for though their eyes are mechanical, they still serve as a window to the soul.

Just spotlight some of the races.

Kijo

In the early days of Rosuto-Shima, when the Prince of Heaven was within a hand’s-spread generations from the first Emperor, the kijo wandered peacefully among their human neighbors, causing no more fear than any other neighbor. Despite their fearsome appearance (ape-like bodies with very little hair, and large tusks and ram horns protruding from their heads) all knew them to be peaceful nomads, who traveled in solitude to better appreciate the nature of Rosuto-Shima. Considered wandering scholars, and sometimes thought of as priests of nature, countryside villages welcomed the kijo with generous hospitality, hoping to earn the blessings of these large and peaceful creatures.

Then, as happened every several generations in the early years, the Oni returned to Rostuo-Shima, trying once again to hold the territory for their own, to slaughter the men that held it. Fearful of the fighting, the peaceful kijo retreated to the safest parts of the Doragon-Iki Yama, the dragon breath mountains, to wait until it was safe to return to the countryside. This move proved to be their undoing; men, still hostile from their generation long war with the Oni, had forgotten the peaceful nomads. When the kijo tried to descend from the mountains to return to their previous lives, they found that they were not only no longer welcomed, they were considered no better than the Oni.

Hunted and feared, the kijo began to travel in bands, unable to defend themselves alone from the hunters who plagued them. No longer focusing on the mysteries of nature, they learned the ways of combat, if only to defend themselves. They began to hunt the animals they had once studied to guarantee that they would always have food, as they could no longer depend on the generosity of the villagers who had once fed them. Their clothing, once similar to those worn by villagers, soon changed to a more primitive style, using the skins of the animals they hunted for food.

But these changes were still not enough to keep their people from harm. They returned to their ways of studying, only now, they studied the humans. They watched in silence, teaching themselves warfare and the mystical arts. They built no cities, continuing to live in the
natural world, dependent on her gifts for their survival. Nature responded. The spirits of the Totem came to the kijo and taught them the ways of the shaman path. The creatures they had once studied now became objects of worship, because through their power, the kijo could
survive.

As peaceful, solitary travelers, the kijo had been unable to survive the more dangerous areas of the Doragon-Iki Yama, but with the guidance of the Totem spirits and their newly gained skills in warfare, the kijo found the dangers of the natural world far easier to face than the dangers of men. They turned also to the Akki-Kou Zetsu Mori, the devil tongue forest, where few humans had settled, as they believed it to be the home of the remaining Oni. They still formed no
villages, fearful that if they were discovered, men would once again destroy them, and so they continued their nomadic lifestyles inside of these harsh terrains. Though not very intelligent, kijo have a complex and deep culture and strive not to harm other living creatures unless their own lives depend on it.

Kappa

For hundreds of years, long before the first gaijin traveled to Rosuto-Shima, some say before men were given the earth by the gods, the kappa inhabited the waters of the island. With the hard shell of a tortoise and the beaked face of a sea turtle, the kappa has elongated limbs that allow it to walk either on all fours or stand upright.

Scholars have postulated that the kappa is directly related to a turtle, while others say they are quite clearly descended from oni. What the kappa themselves think about their origins has never come up for discussion among the humans of Rosuto-Shima, if only because, for many years, they did not believe that the kappa could communicate. Understanding them to be mere animals, kappa hunters learned tricks necessarily to capture and kill a kappa, and the meat was once thought of as a delicacy on the island. The kappa, outraged at being treated as a mere food source, retaliated in the best ways they could: stealing crops, kidnapping children, raping women, and treating humans as a food source to them as well.

This lack of understanding between men and the kappa led to a long period of guerilla warfare between the races. Men would be discovered lifeless and empty, their entrails, blood, and liver removed from their bodies. In turn, the kappa would be hunted and slaughtered, their rivers and lakes polluted and poisoned, much to the detriment of not only the kappa but the people settled in the surrounding areas as well. An old priest in the Huinin district, tired of the villagers getting ill from the plans of the hunters and being kidnapped or murdered by the kappa, tried something unheard of: he approached the kappa and demanded to speak with them.

What happened next was largely a blur as the priest found himself playing the negotiator between men and beasts. The kappa agreed that they would end their battles if the hunters would leave their lands safe. No sooner had the priest agreed to make the attempt than members of the Celestial Ministry, the governing body of the Emperor, arrived in the village to take the priest for audience with the Prince of Heaven, who was at his summer home in Huinin. The priest explained the situation to the Emperor, as well as the trouble the villagers had had with the hunters, and the Emperor ordered a quick solution: those who hunted the kappa would be killed, immediately, and their heads would be displayed on posts outside the summer palace.

The news spread quickly, and for hundreds of years, there was peace between the kappa and the people of Rosuto-Shima (though the kappa continued cause such mischief as loudly passing gas as soldiers crossed their streams and peering up the kimonos of the women who came to wash in their ponds). When the War of the States flooded the entire island in its chaos, the kappa sided with the people of Huinin, with whom they had always been closest, and fought to place a Huinin Emperor on the throne.

But such was not the Will of Heaven, and the kappa, like other native Rosuto-Shimans, have struggled to embrace the change sweeping their island. Along with bizarre technology and changes being made to the landscape as factories rise alongside rivers, the gaijin have no understanding of the kappa as a people. Progressives dismiss the old tradition of treating kappa as civilized creatures as mere myth, and have claimed that early legends are nothing more than wives’ tales meant to scare children from wandering into the water without being watched. Because of this attitude and the rise in hunting the kappa for their meat and skins, particularly near Talu, the kappa have largely retreated to Huinin. There, the people often honor the kappa
with shrines, providing them with food and drink, as well as harbor from those who would cause them harm.

Hey Folks,

Just wanted to give a sneak peak at one of the panels from the SM anthology. This image was created by Lee Smith for the story Otsuchi of my People.

Character Archetypes

The first problem we had with the Steampunk Musha RPG is that potentially, with all the flavor of the setting, we had dozens of classes. With some systems that’s easy, toss them in as prestige classes or advanced classes and you’re done. But I didn’t like that, it means we are limited by the classes people can start with, and hell, if I want to play a Ryoushi-Oni from day one, I should.

So, I had to start thinking about how to approach this. Playing around, I thought of using archetypes to divide up the classes. The archetypes were just an easy way to classify characters of the same type. I had thought about broadly having base mechanics for the archetype that flowed over to the classes, but it was a loose idea. Then, talking with Colin Chapman (Radioactive Ape Designs) he mentioned “Kits” and it hit me. In the original Steampunk Musha, from Precis Intermedia, we used Kits to add on the vocations.

So, Steampunk Musha will have four archetypes. The archetypes can be played as presented. They are:

• Musha – A warrior type.
• Mahou – A magic type.
• Shuujuku – A rogue type.
• Kigan – A healing type.

Now these archetypes are pretty common in RPG’s. And I think that’s a good thing, as it gives a player, new or old, an idea of what they can do and how it relates to more common ideas they might have.

The newest version of Steampunk Musha uses a system created to match the world of Rosuto-Shima. This system is called the The Cho-Han System and is based off the Japanese gambling game, Cho-Han Bakuchi. The system uses two standard six-sided dice. Cho-Han is a gambling game where players bet on whether the total sum of the two dice rolled will be Cho (even) or Han (odd). So, how does this apply to the Steampunk Musha Game.

In Steampunk Musha a formula is used to determine the outcome of character actions. This formula is typically roll two six-sided dice (2d6) total + attribute score  + skill level vs. a difficulty target number. This is a pretty standard formula found in many roleplaying games and might be familiar to those with experience in these games. What makes the Cho-Han System different is the gamble you can make to change the course of your actions.

To enact Cho-Han you must state this is your intention before you make your 2d6 roll. At this time you wager how many points you want to gamble. You can gamble between 1-6 points for every roll of the 2d6. You then must choose Cho (even) or Han (odd) and roll the 2d6. If the total of the dice equals what you called (Cho or Han) you receive a bonus to your roll equal to the total wager you made on the gamble. If the opposite of your call is rolled, you lose the gamble and receive a negative to your roll equal to he total wager you made on the gamble.

Example: Tim’s character needs to roll and see if he can jump from one building to another. Before he rolls, he declares that he is using Cho-Han. Tim’s character really needs to make this jump, so bets five points that total of his roll will be Han. Tim now rolls the 2d6 and gets a total of seven. Han means odd, and seven is an odd number, meaning Tim’s bet won. The reward for winning is adding his bet, in this case five points, to his total roll (seven). This win now gives Tim a total roll of 12. He will add this new total to the rest of the formula to see if his character makes the jump.

Now, if Tim would of bet on Cho and lost the gamble, the five points he bet would of been subtracted from his total 2d6 roll. In this case, the five would of been subtracted from his total of seven, giving him a new total of two. He would then apply the two to the formula as normal.

A player can enact Cho-Han with any 2d6 roll to determine an action at his discretion. It is never required to take this action, unless the GM chooses, and a player never has to take it for every action.

The Blessing of the Seven Celestial Dragons
In Rosuto-Shima, the Seven Celestial Dragons govern over all and are an important part of every day life on the island. They are worshiped, feared, and most importantly, guide humans to their destiny. Players can also choose to trust their fate to the Celestial Dragons and decide to take a seven for any roll in place of the 2d6. There are many reasons why a player or GM might choose this over rolling the dice, including increasing the speed mechanics are resolved, easier management of multiple foes in combat, or just feeling lucky. Either way, the blessing of the Seven Celestial Dragons is a powerful tool in gameplay.

Next up, I talk about the Classes!

Steampunk Musha is back!

“Imagine an island, cut off from the rest of the world by a series of treacherous coral reefs. Imagine that the island was plagued by a war that lasted hundreds of years, only to be divided into provinces ruled by warlord. Imagine that as technology has improved and increased in the outside world, the island has remained much the same as it has always been. Now imagine that outsiders have brought the outside world to that island, and that things have changed forever . . .

. . . Unlike traditional fantasy settings, Steampunk Musha draws on East Asian mythology and history and combines aspects of several cultural traditions with Victorian-era technology. The traditional Oriental setting is thrown into a roaring industrial age, where incredible new inventions contrast with ancient mysteries and restless spirits. High fantasy and science-fiction clash and combine in the middle of the conflict between old and new, father and son, mechanical and spiritual.”

Follow along as we spotlight and present new concepts for the Steampunk Musha and reveal exclusive content just for our fans!

And remember to visit our project on Kickstarter to help support our new content and spread the word, while receiving exclusive gifts!