does anyone want to kungfu an uproar in heaven

Ok so I am going to write up some examples of this using Heihe just because we have his page here. I have no idea where I put Abhaya's. So Heihe is a Tianshen. You can see that in his Incarnation aspect, as well as his average mode. Lore wise the Tianshen are very powerful beings driven by a singular emotion in excess. They are very manipulative and talented at illusions. You can see this in the skill mode for the Tianshen. Along with things like how their money is represented through Resources you can also see the manipulative nature of the Tianshen in skills like Deceive and Provoke being trained for that mode. Heihe's kind of shit at deception, which I feel is fitting for his character, but it's still a skill he is trained in.

Sorcery wise let's take a look at how one could use Deceive with Heihe. So Heihe is out searching for clues about corruption on part of a colleague. He's in this person's office and is digging through their files when lo and behold someone sees him. A Beast who is doing the rounds. Naturally this Beast is curious about what is even going on here. Why are you going through this shit here. You're not the man who works in this office. Seeing that he's in hot shit Heihe quickly works together a sorcery. Using his skill as a Daoshi, Heihe proceeds to manipulate the natural and social forces in the area to give him the air of someone far more authoritative and legit than he actually is. While he's not actually brainwashing this person into believing him, he is putting up a strange air of being a master that he isn't. So Heihe rolls an overcome for Deception. He rolls a +2 we'll say and his Deception mod is +1 so he gets +3. We'll say that the target number he had to beat on the ladder to convince this asshole as +2. So while Heihe doesn't have a lie at the ready he manages to give off the air that he is so authoritative that when he says "I have the Right to be here," the Beast is convinced at this. Solely because, at least for that moment, Heihe seems to be a Transcendent Master, radiant and perfect.

Heihe himself narratively has a talent for dream talking and dream divination. It's a thing he's very awkward about and doesn't like, leading to his spending literal years refusing to sleep. However while he might find it hard to deal with the worries and paranoias that build up in him when he listens to the dreaming prayers of humans and others he is very, very good at it. As such he has a special effect called Dream Diary that makes use of this.

Now what Dream Diary does mechanically is, if he has writing utensils and time to focus, he is able to roll with Art for what would normally be Learn overcomes. Narratively speaking what he's doing is falling asleep for a brief moment and reading through the information he sees. Then he is using his Daoshi powers to warp this into fact in the form of Fuwen writing.

So Heihe and his sister are trying to figure out just what in the fuck their uncle is lying about. They know he's hidden something somewhere and they know that his lies to the contrary about there being no magical coat no siree are bullshit. But they don't know where the coat is. Now Heihe's Learn is a pitiful +1 and Mengzhi isn't much better off. So instead Heihe makes use of Dream Diary which lets him roll with Art instead to learn. Because he is in a quiet room and he has his calligraphy set on hand he can do it. He has to beat a +4 which is a high task. He only rolls as +2. However because his Art is +4 he has +6. Thus Heihe succeeds in learning where the magical coat is hidden.

Now let's look at how to pull it off with aspects. Heihe is fighting against a pack of ninjas. It kinds of fucking really sucks and shit is going bad for him. Heihe isn't quick like his sister is. What he is though is horrifyingly durable. All the more so because he was burned alive in Hell. So we'll say that the ninja used some sort of sorcery to set him on fire. This really fucking sucks and can take him out. I have a fate point though and the aspect I Was Roasted Over Hot Coals. Heihe also has a +2 in survive. So Daojiao wise he works up his qi reserves to brush the flames off. Fire don't mean shit if I got the right qi all up and going. But Heihe only rolled a +4 and he needed a +5 for some arbitrary reason. Which means he failed and the barrier isn't adequate. Unless I spend the fate point to invoke I Was Roasted Over Hot Coals. The explanation here being that due to personally experiencing the horrors of being burned alive for centuries Heihe is very, very aware of what fire is and like. So through the sheer source of having his past terrors triggered he is able to make greater use of his qi reserves. And now his barrier is adequate and the flames cannot burn him even though he is still visibly on fucking fire. And he is very calmly and coolly pissed. He let his enemy make the first move and that will be his foe's downfall, for the true walkers of the Way bow down and submit.

Again all assuming the gm ok's this. You can do all sorts of shit to weasel in sorcery. I do feel that Kracken is going to set up like an actual mechanic for it at some point in addition to the creative use of the other mechanics. But for now we just have this.

 

And I was right in that it will involve a more solidified fancy mechanic thing. Namely in the forms of rituals that take at least one hour to complete.

YAY CONFIRMATION.

 

WHICH ALSO MEANS I FUCKED UP. SO. UM.

what do now

wallow in a pit of confused terminology and WALLOW HARDER

Though for clarification on what this all means. It means that the Sorceries require time. However mechanically they still manifest through skills, special effects, aspects, and the other game mechanics.

Though weird bullshit magic god powers are also just a thing. Quicker shit tends to be weird bullshit god powers and again those can be manifest through a variety of mechanics.

 

Haha, I've tried designing RPGs too, I know the feeling of oh shit wrong rule. As well as its cousin, wait that doesn't work at all.

 

THE IMPORTANT THING IS WE ALL HAVE FUN.

 

First we need a "we all" though... *looks around for more players*

 

Yep! And thus we wait. Though I do have friends outside of kintsugi who have expressed interest. So if we don't get anyone else here for a while I'll see about getting you and them in a discord chat or something to talk about stuff.

 

I've got time on my hands again, I'd be willing to give it a go!

 

yssss

 

Ok so the plan is is that when a friend of mine pops back on I'm going to ask him and then a few others outside of kintsugi about it. I'll be aiming for at least three players, but if I honestly cannot find anyone else we'll try what we can with just you two alright?

 

sounds like a plan 2 me!

 

And we've got a third. Also @TheSeer do you have a discord and if so what is the name? You can send it to me via pm. Otherwise I'm Aondeug#5499. Play will be done through it.

 

What's a discord?

 

It's essentially skype if skype wasn't a laggy crashy shitfuck of a program. You can download it here or use the browser version. There's also phone app versions of it and the like too. Get a name all set up and the like and either send me the name you choose complete with the little four digit number after it or search me down with the name I provided above and send a friend request.

 

TheSeer#8570

 

@VJ Wocky we're going to be doing character generation and org generation this Friday in the evening. Don't have an exact time but I'm in pst for some reference. If you can't make that date we can still get you in though the org will already be set up.

 

okay so some questions:

are these alternative terms for the "gods" and "devils" talked about during the explanation of hun and po? like one set is the reawakened hun, the other is the reawakened po?

is sumeru another name for heaven? or a part of heaven? or is it something else entirely?

it almost sounds like there are several "heavens" with Heaven = chinese, Sumeru = indian, and other ones belonging to different regions of Asia. is that correct?

okay see that would have been nice to know beforehand. like geography before history, please. its really hard to know the importance of Bob The Great if its unclear if he's Bob The Great of some town in the middle of nowhere or Bob The Great of half the known universe.

i think the main issue im having here is that there are a LOT of new words for things, and some of the usage implies the possibility of some of them being synonyms, but there doesn't appear to be any singular place that explains any of it. which normally wouldn't be too much of a problem but at least some of these terms are important to understanding who/what/where kind of data for the setting. which itself informs the circumstances of the game and the potential role the players take. like some kind of map or chart or graph or simple illustration would be nice for those who are better and learning from visual data than written data. just as a suggestion for the game devs.

like the only reason i've been able to sort of keep up so far is from the simplified explanations here and a chart i found while trying to use google to find the rulebook on my own before being giving a direct link. who knows. maybe im just being a massive asshole about all this and everyone else is able to keep up just fine or something.

anyway, an attempt at a clearer summary/explanation of what i need to know going in would be appreciated. even more so with pictures i could follow along with. (fuck maybe im just being dense and in a See Spot Run Spot Runs Fast mode right now)

 

okay. im attempting to understand the rulebook atm, i'll see if i can get far enough to keep up by friday.

also gonna look into setting up a discord account because i've never used it before. i'll post here if/when i get one set up.

 

Even if you don't have it all down by then you can show up. Can try and help you get set up. Hell when I first played I hadn't read the rulebook for this thing at all. I was going off my basic understanding of the Fate Core. Anyway...to your questions.

Tianshen, deva, and devata all refer to the same kind of being. These are what are termed "gods" in English and they're one of the kinds of Deities of Intellect. So they are gods because their conduct was good enough to be reborn as a being of Ascended Hun.

Dishen, asura, and antigod all refer to the same kind of being. Like the tianshen they're Deities of Intellect.

Devils are called mo in Chinese and are not Deities of Intellect but Deities of Instinct. Which means that the po that got left behind when the hun left for karma tallying gained sentience.

Deity is the umbrella term for all these kinds of beings. So basically we have...

Deities: Deities of Intellect, Deities of Instinct, and BY OUR OWN CONDUCT category
Deities of Intellect: Tianshen/deva/gods, Asura/dishen/antigods, Beasts
Deities of Instinct: Mo/devils
Deities by their own conduct: Xian/Immortals, Pusa/Bodhisatvas/Bodhis (there isn't a good translation for bodhisatta)

For clarification on that last category...Basically the Immortals are humans who, via Daoist practice and elixirs, have become immortal and deities in their own right. As a result they transcend up to Heaven. The Bodhisattas meanwhile have, through sheer Buddhist practice and determination, circumvented the karma system and become deities of their own right.

As far as the setting goes... Sumeru is a giant mountain on which the current Heaven's Seat rests. It used to just be Tavatimsa which was ruled over by Sakka, the Buddhist incarnation of Indra. However the Celestial Bureaucracy, which is Chinese Heaven proper, moved its base of operations from China to Tavatimsa. The bond was secured via the marriage of Guanyin and the Jade Emperor. Now the Hindu equivalent of Tavatimsa exists too far, far off to the east if I recall. However we're playing in the Celestial Bureaucracy. Both it and Hindu Tavatimsa are heavens, but when we talk of Heaven, Heaven's Seat, Tavatimsa/Trayatimsa we're talking about the newly mingled Chinese and Buddhist Heaven. Also I don't have pictures of the game's world. But generally it matches up nicely with diagrams of Tavatimsa that you can find online. Sumeru is found north of Jambudvipa, which is where we humans live. Then on top of Sumeru there is another mountain upside down. So like an hour glass. And on the top of that second mountain is Tavatimsa where the Jade Imperial Palace currently rests.

But you don't really need to know much about the geography of the whole world because we're never going to the rest of it. You only really need to know that you, the player, live in Tavatimsa on top of Sumeru. Tavatimsa which is also called Heaven, the Celestial Bureaucracy, the Heaven's Seat and so on. And that Heaven is a GIANT city. Like. The biggest city. So big that we could take EVERY city on Earth and we would not get something 1/1000000th of the size of Heaven. Knowledge about the rest of the world can be helpful, but it's not mandatory.

Here's a picture of general Buddhist cosmology. Ignore the splitting up of things into shit like heavens without form and the lunar mansions and this is pretty much how it works in the setting.

And just so you know it's game dev singular. Just one dude. I'll be sure to pass on your issues to him.

Also you might not be a massive asshole about it? For me personally I find it very easy to puzzle out but I have like six going on seven years of experience with Buddhist cosmology. Dev is a Chinese Buddhist too so he's pretty in the thick of it too.

 

And again I just want to stress that you don't need to understand or know everything in the book. Though it can certainly be handy with like concepts about what you want to do or be.

Like I played a dnd game set in the Underdark when I had no idea where it was or what was in the rest of the world. Like that basically. You can seriously just pop in there with nothing and it'll be fine.