Kindred of the East

One more post for the night;

Now that we’ve gotten past all the new rules, time to talk about keywords. P’o is best thought of as an ‘active’ keyword, in that it has a rule attached to it. Blood Cursed is an active keyword, as it has a specific rulebook-defined function, as is {Cold Iron} Vulnerability or Sterile. ‘Passive’ keywords are phrases that other cards look for, but don’t have any inherit rule; Gun, Electronic and Circle are all passive, as is Trophy (the Red List rule looks for the Trophy keyword). Kuei-Jin, P’o and Tenet are the only active keywords in this set.

There are a number of ‘passive’ keywords though...

Chi Travel refers to a Kuei-Jin’s ability to travel through the spirit worlds. Some Chi Travel cards allow you to cancel other Chi Travel cards, as one Kuei-Jin effectively follows the other through into the spirit world.

Faction is used to denote a political grouping within Kuei-Jin society. These groups can be powerful and wide reaching, but do not have the internal cohesion and influence of a sect. This word is found on ‘Dreams of the Sphinx’-style cards. Many have benefits to particular Dharmas, and some political actions can reward or punish a Methuselah for having too many of these in play.

Omen is typically found on Dharma-specific cards. Omens represent occurrences that focus a minion on the nature of his or her immortal existence.

Yin and Yang are keywords that are found on several cards requiring Disciplines. There are common, trifle, masters named Yin and Yang that can be used to reduce the cost of cards with those keywords (as well as other effects). The Shadow Songs and Thrashing Dragons (proponents of Yin and Yang, respectively) also have cards that allow you to reduce the cost of cards with such keywords, or cycle them back into your hand or library from the ash heap.

cheers all, and keep the feedback coming!

Disco Stu
Prince of Melbourne, Australia

Some comments on the cards:

Mandarin: should be a +1 Stealth action
Mandate of Hell: instead of Unique, should be playable only once per game. Unique does not prevent the player from burning his own Mandate and playing it again for unlimited Giant's Blood.
Powerbase: all powerbases have a built-in action to mess with it. You need to add one to these 2. Powerbase: Hong Kong is rather weak. The transfer should not take a MPA.
Dragon Ward: the superior effect is HUGE. It needs to cost at least 2 blood.
Enclave: should be a Haven.

Non-existant user wrote:

Some comments on the cards:

Mandarin: should be a +1 Stealth action
Mandate of Hell: instead of Unique, should be playable only once per game. Unique does not prevent the player from burning his own Mandate and playing it again for unlimited Giant's Blood.
Powerbase: all powerbases have a built-in action to mess with it. You need to add one to these 2. Powerbase: Hong Kong is rather weak. The transfer should not take a MPA.
Dragon Ward: the superior effect is HUGE. It needs to cost at least 2 blood.
Enclave: should be a Haven.

Because Mandarin gives the option of stacking onto previously-titled vamps, I figured it'd be useful to tone it down by dropping the stealth. A chi/blood cost of 1 would probably counteract that though.

Mandate of Hell: fair cop, it should at least be someone else's minion who has to burn it! Nice pick up. A blood cost was also mooted, as if it was self-targeted it wouldn't matter if it passed, and if it failed then you'd be placing yourself in danger.

PB: HK is, I think, nicely balanced for a Kuei-Jin heavy environment; it adds counters when other players start influencing out Kuei-Jin, after all, so it provides a nice bit of influence acceleration under the right conditions. Because of the slow aspect to both Powerbases, I thought I'd drop off their normal 'steal/burn this card' texts that you find on Powerbases. Osaka might have room to add it back on, but I'd potentially keep it off HK due to space restrictions.

Dragon Ward: this didn't come up that much in actual playtest, surprisingly, because so few Kuei-Jin had superior Dragon Tears (and the Dragon Tears skill card was relatively rare). This was still flagged for review in both playtest groups, however, and was likely to get a blood or even pool cost added to it.

Enclave: space considerations made me worry about adding too much more to this, but I wouldn't be averse to adding the Haven keyword.

cheers
Disco Stu
Prince of Melbourne, Australia

Shockwave wrote:

*Really* nervous concern:
Be especially careful about giving traditionally Clan-unique Disciplines to anyone else, especially more than one at a time. I'd be worried about a Dharma with THA/VIC for example, not just because of power levels per-se but also because it devalues the uniqueness of those Disciplines. I'd try & use the more general ones a bit more, although VIC is probably your only option for Flesh/Blood Shintai. This becomes increasingly more important when playing with Bloodline Disciplines such as MEL, VAL or THA.

That aside, it seems a lot more sensible, and a non-Gargoyle option with VIS would be really quite exciting.

EDIT: As an alternative, if you wanted to exaggerate the 'exotic' nature of the Kuei-Jin, you could ignore the above and pair up things like PRO/VAL, but make the more common, traditional, 'useful' Disciplines, such as OBF, AUS, DOM or FOR extremely rare or non-existent. This would make them very different, but force players to use very odd and new strategies, which would work.

DOUBLE EDIT: If you're ever going to hand out DAI, you need to consider Infernal, to represent Akuma. Just a comment.

I really like the idea of making traditional, "useful" disciplines rare for KJ and the weirdo bloodlines disciplines more common. PRO/VAL? Hell yes!

I've made many cards exploring an Inconnu set myself and I know all too well the space considerations and card templating that you've had concerns about. Here are some editing thoughts for the cards you've presented to us.

Mandate of Hell – Doesn’t need “Worth 1 vote” in the text.
Momose Kaori – Doesn’t need “retainer” after “Unique mortal” in the text.
Powerbases – Neither need “Powerbase” in their text.
"Quincunx" and "Kuei-Jin" should be bolded in the text of the Kuei-Jin.

I so excited about this set finally being developed.

I've worked on an ally mini-set featuring werewolves, mages, changelings, and wraiths and the previously mentioned Inconnu. Guess I should post them too.

Hi, I'm Mike Miller.

I've been working with Disco Stu on these KotE cards since 2007. Stu does all the serious thinking and rules and card text. I stick to the visuals. I designed icons for the kuei-jin symbols and card backgrounds for the dharmas. I inserted relevant flavor text quotes on cards that had space for it. And I did indeed wade through thousands of images just so our card prototypes would evoke the right atmosphere and inspire the artists that White Wolf might use to make the real cards someday. I credited artists and photographers wherever possible, in hopes that White Wolf might contact them to use those images or obtain new ones from them.

This has been a really challenging project for me. I'm an accountant, not an artist, but I've learned enough tricks with Gimp and Excel to cobble these cards together, along with the use of the excellent V:tes card generator hosted at dnn.vtes.net.

So how did I team up with some guy on the opposite side of the planet to do these cards? I started playing Jyahd long ago, in August of '94. I think I first saw Stu's KotE card set at the Lasombra site in 2005. We had a local Create-A-Clan here in the Twin Cities in 2006, and I got so into the idea that I made four decks for it:

Amber Clan, based on Zelazny's Amber series: Potence, Fortitude, Thaumaturgy and lots of voting power.

Cathayan Clan, based on Kindred of the East: Auspex, Celerity, Vicissitude.

Whateley Clan, based on a certain degenerate family from Dunwich: Necromancy, Dementation, and Obtenebration. Lots of diablerie.

Gotham Clan, featuring Batman's rogues gallery: Chimeristry, Potence and Presence.

I had so much fun making those decks that I wanted to do more. So I went back to the Lasombra site, looking for variants that needed cards. A lot of the cards seemed silly or overpowered, but I was very impressed with the restraint and balance in Stu's KotE set, so I sent him an email. Several hundred cards later, and here we are.