Barebones Fantay™, Covert Ops™, Frontierspace™, Art of Wuxia™, Karanak Kingdoms™, and Longzhi™ Are Copyright 2019, and Are Trademarks of Dwd Studios
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To my wife and love of my life, Tina, who steadfastly supported me and this crazy idea through everything; even when the Pillars of Heaven shook and the poison arrows fell from the sky. Jim grew up watching Shaw Brothers movies. He received many small injuries trying make-believe lightness skills, fictional training methods, and improvised weapons practice. This only fueled his love for the talent of the actors/actresses, directors, fight choreographers, script writers, set designers, special effects artists, and camera operators of wuxia film. Today, he and his wonderful wife Tina enjoy watching wuxia movies and television shows, both old and modern. This game is his love letter to wuxia across the spectrum from classic kung fu to high fantasy xianxia. He hopes you find what you need here to make your own wuxia stories and heroes. BareBones Fantay™, Covert Ops™, FrontierSpace™, Art of Wuxia™, Karanak Kingdoms™, and Longzhi™ are copyright 2019, and are trademarks of DwD Studios. These trademarks are used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0); Some Rights Reserved. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 Or send a letter to: Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, CA 94041, USA. For specific details, appropriate credits, and updates to this license, please see: http://dwdstudios.com/barebones/license PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO PRINT THIS DOCUMENT FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USE. FOREWORD ................................... 1 GUIDELINES ................................. 63 WUXIA ...................................... 125 INTRODUCTION ............................. 3 Rulings Not Rules ....................... 63 Essentials ................................ 125 The Golden Rule .......................... 3 Success Modifiers .................. 63 Romance............................. 126 Players ......................................... 4 Breaking Things ..................... 63 Revenge .............................. 127 What is Wuxia? ............................ 4 Resistance Checks ................. 64 Creating Kung Fu Styles ...... 127 Setting the Tone .......................... 4 Getting Hurt .......................... 64 Crippling Injuries ................. 128 Tropes of the Wuxia Genre ......... 5 Conditions ............................. 65 Diviner—Identify Kung Fu ........................................ 6 Effects ................................... 66 Convergence Point ......... 129 Dice ............................................. 6 Descriptors ............................ 66 Secret Techniques ................... 130 Abilities ........................................ 7 Languages ............................. 66 Weapons of Ingenious Design 132 Skills ............................................. 7 Travel .................................... 67 Campaign Starters .................. 133 Action Checks .............................. 7 Magic Item Creation .................. 68 Genre Options ......................... 136 Magical Objects .................... 68 Cinematic Sliders ................ 136 CHARACTERS ................................. 9 Sample Magical Items ........... 70 Training Montage ............... 136 Character Creation ...................... 9 Spell Scrolls ............................ 75 Diviner Alternate ................ 137 Skills ........................................... 13 Market Price .......................... 75 Fantasy in Wuxia ..................... 138 Alchemist .............................. 13 Poison ........................................ 76 Detective ............................... 13 LONGZHI ................................... 143 Disease ...................................... 77 Diviner ................................... 14 History .................................... 143 Adventure Idea Generation ....... 79 Leader ................................... 15 Gazetteer ................................ 145 Random Dungeon Generation ... 86 Mystic ................................... 15 The Dragon Empire ............. 145 Traps ..................................... 88 Scholar .................................. 16 Jin ....................................... 149 Hazards ................................. 91 Scout ..................................... 16 Demon Lands ...................... 150 Treasure ................................ 91 Sorcerer ................................. 17 Organizations .......................... 153 Creatures ............................... 91 Thief ...................................... 17 Mindsets of Longzhi ................ 155 Rewards ..................................... 93 Warrior ................................. 18 Belief Systems ..................... 156 NPCs .......................................... 94 Qi ............................................... 19 Customs .............................. 158 Human Villains ...................... 94 Alchemy ..................................... 21 Languages .......................... 159 Minor NPCs/Mooks ............... 94 Spells ......................................... 24 Money ................................ 159 Formations ............................ 94 Kung Fu ...................................... 31 Tokens of Authority ............ 159 Major NPCs ........................... 95 Equipment ................................. 42 Thresholds .......................... 159 Villain Descriptors ................. 95 Moral Code ................................ 45 Symbol of the Dragon ......... 159 Example NPCs ....................... 96 Character Development ............ 46 Master Villains ........................... 99 GLOSSARY ................................ 160 Sample Characters ..................... 48 Creatures ................................. 102 INSPIRATION............................ 161 BASICS ......................................... 55 Actions ....................................... 55 Contested Actions ..................... 55 Author & Cartographer: Jim Alcala Sales dwdstudios.com/artofwuxia Resistance Checks ..................... 56 Editors: Brian Gute Multiple Actions ........................ 56 Pat Collins Tina Alcala Sales Getting Hurt ............................... 56 Cover: Eric Quigley artstation.com/quigleyer Getting Healed ........................... 56 Illustrations: Daniel J. Garcia danilustrator.wixsite.com/danilustrations Time........................................... 56 PNGtree pngtree.com Layout & Production: Bill Logan dwdstudios.com Initiative ..................................... 56 Indexing: Tom Stephens expandingfrontier.com Movement and Range ............... 57 Consultant: Junyi Liu Combat ...................................... 58 Brendan Davis thebedrockblog.blogspot.com Technical Advisor: Albert Dalia wanderingblade.com Spells ......................................... 58 Example of Play ......................... 59 Play Testers: Anthony “Digua” Altiere, Brian “Red Crane” Gute, Pat “Bridgebreaker” Collins, Reid “Constable Who?” Collins, Romesh Lakhan, Tambrey "Blue Thorn" Collins, Logan Sales, Tina “Dancing Dagger” Alcala Sales. And a special thanks to all of the awesome players who have brought Mighty Bahu, Brother Shan, Meilie, Lee Jielee, Lee Fang, and Yi Minzhe to life while playtesting versions of the game over the years at Con of the North, Gamehole Con, Menomicon, and Clearwater Con. Wuxia xiaoshuo and pian, “heroic fiction” and “heroic cinema,” have been the main stays of Chinese popular entertainment. As both a traditional China scholar and a wuxia novelist, I have long had an interest in this popular genre. And thus, found it both humbling and exciting that Jim Sales, the author of Art of Wuxia, invited me to write the foreword to his game. I must first confess that I am no gamer. So when Jim sent me this rulebook, I was fascinated by the amount of work, thought, and imagination he has brought to this game and this genre. So let me begin with the “scholarly” part of this essay. The primary meaning of the character xia in ancient China was “to use strength to help people.” It became synonymous with the word “chivalry.” I tend to eschew the use of traditional European terminology in dealing with East Asian culture, and especially the term “knight-errant” to refer to the xia. In China, the character xia, first used disparagingly by the eminent Legalist philosopher, Han Fei-zi (ca. 280-233 B.C.E.), described a class of fighters, as their chief characteristic was the use of their strength to help others. Han Fei-zi disparaged them because he was a “law and order” advocate who disliked the xia tendency to imposed their own sense of justice. The character you, to roam, to wander, was appended to xia, becoming the combination, youxia, as these fighters tended to wander over the land helping others. In my fiction, I have translated youxia as “wandering blades” since I write about heroes who were famous for their use of bladed weapons. From this, wuxia comes to be literarily translated as the “martial use of strength to help others” or, perhaps, “martial chivalry.” But this “strength” was not always “martial.” A sense of balance – strength and intellect – was always a prime characteristic of the most renown xia. Jumping ahead in Chinese history, roughly a millennium to the 9th century C.E., the xia start to take a form in fiction and poetic literature which we can recognize in contemporary cinema and literature: they are armed with a deadly array of weapons and fighting techniques