Lone Wolf Fists: Hath ye no knowledge of the HUMORS, peasant?!

Chi Imbalances were weird in Weapons of the Gods, weird but awesome in Legends of the Wulin, and continue their proud tradition of weirdness in Tian Shang.

As far as I can discern (and it may be that I'm totally wrong, feel free to correct me) we can basically thank Dr. Jenna Moran for their existence and inclusion in both games. They have a very Nobilis-y bend to them in Weapons (a game she's largely credited with; she was clearly a huge contributor), and I seem to recall either Arik or Jerry talking about how Jenna basically just showed up one day and vouched for their inclusion in Legends.

Jenna's an odd duck. A brilliant one, but certainly odd. Go read her stuff sometime if you don't believe me. She's got a doctorate in one of the most technically and mathematically challenging fields of human thought and that's not even her most impressive achievement; she's contributed vitally to Exalted, carried on the storied legacy of diceless mechanics from Amber, and even invented out her own niche of RPGs

I'm barely qualified to discuss her, but that last part is something I want to talk about. Jenna's work is often lumped in with what's been termed "storygames"; that is, RPGs that have a narrative at their core, rather than a shared imagined reality. But, after reading and running them, I don't think they're even that: they're something very different, and very unique to her. They're story conversation games

To wrap your head around what the hell Chi Imbalances were, you need to understand that point of Jenna's thinking. To her, this isn't a game like scrabble or even a story told collaboratively; her design is a conversation. An ongoing talk between a group of storytelling equals.

The rules of conflict don't dictate who can kill who within the game's universe or a shared fiction beyond a completely desultory level ("Your number is bigger? Sure, you kill them. Whatever") because, and I kid you not, it doesn't matter that you kill them

It doesn't matter because, the storyteller in charge of that character can keep telling their story. You haven't hit the "bedrock" of their ability to keep talking about their character however they want. Sure, they might describe them dead or bleeding or whatever, but this is essentially cosmetic.

No, the real injuries can only be taken when they countermand something told in the story

When they counter "I kill your guy!" with "I don't want that to happen", that's when they take a wound. Wounds are finite; you can run out of them and lose your conversational power to counter elements introduced to the story

This makes for some really out-there gameplay, in my experience. Your guy can die, and they can live on in spirit, inspiring someone, then you play the inspiration of that new character. Maybe they become a ghost. Maybe you decide they stand up, totally dead, and just go about their life, hemorrhaging organs and getting everything unconscionably filthy with gore while their friends cluck their tongues at their rudeness for not being properly dead (shameful!)

(By the by, if that sounds like exactly your cup of tea, give Jenna your money for the game that lets you do that)

Chi Imbalances have their foundation in this design logic. The basic idea is that players choose whether they want to act them out, or if they just want to suck up a small penalty. This was praised (rightfully) back in the day as an incredibly innovative way to balance mechanical power (dice and bonuses) against declarative power ("I want my guy to do some specific action")

My problem with them (I am not alone in this) wasn't with that foundational design, so much as it was with how impactful it was on the games. The bonuses had two categories, both extremely minor, in Weapons of the Gods, and simply didn't scale beyond that.

This meant that, you could read the incredibly dense secret arts section, build your character entirely around Chi imbalances, all to present your foes with a non-option of taking a tiny penalty to their rolls. Why change your behavior when the penalty was so pathetic? Just suck up the -5 and get on with your life.

Legends had a glorious amount of wordcount devoted to making them a more vital part of the game: rather than squirreling them away in an appendix, they were front-and-center, being caused by everything from wounds to awakening elemental chi.

The problem in Legends was that the penalties were too steep, and it wasn't entirely clear what "counted" as roleplaying the imbalance properly. This caused arguments, because denying someone a critical +5 in that game could mean the difference between victory and defeat, and GMs would often get accused of favoritism, or outright malice if they enforced any degree of strictness in their interpretation.

My challenge with them has been keeping the genius of their design from both games, while walking that razor's edge of balance they require. I'll leave you to determine how well I've done:

....

Imbalances

Damage to the Aura and Health are small potatoes; scratches and near-misses that recover quickly and have no lingering effects. But when you get really hurt, hurt so bad that you’re left with a lingering wound, that’s something else. That’s an Imbalance.

What does an Imbalance represent?

Imbalances are wounds that hurt you so bad that your internal alchemy is altered. The mystical meridians of Prana are very real to the characters of the World of Ashes and Ghosts, and significant injury to the body and soul warps them. This twisting of their natural flow of life-energy is an Imbalance.

You might be asking: “Is this a physical or spiritual injury?”

It’s both. Injuring the body disrupts the interaction of body and soul. Likewise, injuring the soul manifests physically as illnesses of the flesh.

For most people, the physical element of their wounds is all they notice in the short-term; when your arm is a bloody stump, you’re not really wondering about the lingering effect to your spiritual wellbeing.

However, these are also injuries of the soul. In our real universe, we’d characterize them as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or something purely scientific. In the World of Ashes and Ghosts, where magic is real, and destiny is a physical property of the universe, they consider lingering trauma to be a manifestation of spiritual injury (and they’re right).

What can be an Imbalance?

Now that we know what they represent, you might be wondering “What qualifies as an Imbalance?”

Excellent question. In short, any physical or spiritual injury that has lingering consequences is represented through an Imbalance

Broken leg? Imbalance. Obsessed with something? Imbalance. Cursed by a Kappa to carry water on your head or dehydrate into a mummy? Imbalance (also yikes, tough luck man)

Those are some pretty wide parameters. This is intentional, because we want to encourage players and GMs to come up with all variety of horrific Imbalances

How do you get an Imbalance?

There are broadly two ways to get an injury so bad it becomes an Imbalance

1) You spend the last Health from one of your Health boxes, blunting a fatal wound by taking a lesser injury (a Physical Imbalance)

2) A skilled speaker or sage unbalances the vital flow of your Prana by sparking a powerful passion or mystical illness within you (a Spiritual or Emotional Imbalance)

What kind of Imbalances are there?

There are three kinds of Imbalance, representing different kinds of injury:

·       Physical Imbalances, which are wounds to the body

·       Emotional Imbalances, which are passions, manias and other overwhelming and toxic emotions strong enough to injure the soul

·        Spiritual Imbalances, which are curses, bad luck, perversions of destiny, or just direct damage of your Chakra

What does an Imbalance do?

Imbalances limit the capabilities of characters. However, they offer the player a choice of two ways that this can manifest:

The Mechanical Penalty: The more straightforward of the two penalties, this temporarily removes a player’s access to one of their character’s advantages. They might be a(n):

·       Effort Penalty: Remove Effort dice so that they aren’t rolled

·       Focus Penalty: Seal a Focus Slot, so that Effort and actions cannot be stored their (any Effort or actions being stored there are lost)

·       Closed Chakra: Closes a Chakra so that it’s Pool and Recovery become 0

The Dramatic Penalty: The more esoteric of the penalties, this prevents players from describing their actions according to the manifestation of the injury. These can take as many different forms as a sadistic GM can imagine, so a comprehensive list is counterproductive. Some examples include:

·       Arm injuries that prevent the arm from being used, such as a dislocated shoulder or buckle fracture

·       Leg injuries that hamper or prevent mobility, such as a broken femur or severed artery

·       Sense organ injuries that blind, deafen, or benumb an unfortunate victim

·       A powerfully-felt fury that forces the sufferer into a berserk, uncontrollable rage

Additionally, when players choose the Dramatic Penalty, the GM is given special veto power over their actions within the scope of the injury. Guidelines for this are suggested in the Imbalance examples (p.XX), but ultimately the GM has the final say over whether any proposed action is possible.

In most scenes, the player chooses which of the penalties will influence their character before they roll. In Action scenes, there’s a specific step (before initiative) where players must make the choice.

Whichever penalty is chosen remains until the player’s next turn.

Characters of Degree 0 cannot choose Mechanical Penalties; they are always saddled with the Dramatic penalty.

***Callout box: What does this choice actually represent?

You might be wondering why characters get to choose how their injuries work from turn to turn. It’s a fair cop; real people can’t do that!

Most people in the World of Ashes and Ghosts can’t either: degree 0 folks, the “regular people”, have to deal with their wounds like you’d expect. If their eyes are injured they’re blinded, if their leg is severed then they have trouble getting around, simple as that.

But the kung-fu heroes of Degree 1 and higher are essentially magical beings. They can direct the flow of Prana in their bodies and have near-perfect control over their bodily functions

What the choice between Mechanical and Dramatic penalties represents is a character choosing to either deal with their injury or compensate for it with their fantastic well of capabilities.

They channel one of the Chakra to magically empower it or redirect their Focus or significant Effort to ignoring the effects of their wound. This is what allows them to see with injured eyes or walk on broken legs: they’re freaking magical! ***

What determines how an Imbalance manifests?

The type of penalty is chosen by the creator of the Imbalance. This is the person landing the injurious blow or twisting their victim’s heart or soul.

In the case of damage from the environment or NPCs this is the GM, but players can let their sadistic side show when their characters put the hurt on a foe.

There are boundaries to what Imbalances can do:

Physical Imbalances created by otherwise mundane wounding must:

·       Target a single limb (arm, leg), hampering movement and motor skill

·       Harm the sense organs (sight, hearing), blinding or deafening the target

·       Injure the head, disorienting and befuddling the mind

·       Injure the torso, hurting the breath and bodily integrity

With special training and Techniques, they might have more specific or dangerous effects. For example:

·       Certain Techniques may create Deadly Imbalances, such as a punctured lung. These not only injure the foe, they gradually kill them

·       Given expert training, you might learn to mutilate more specific portions of the body; perhaps you cut the mouth, preventing speech, or harm the generative organs, making your foe unable to bear children (if you’re a real bastard)

·       Burning, freezing or otherwise injuring large amounts of the foe’s body could benumb them, injuring the sense of touch

Emotional Imbalances created by otherwise mundane Heart manipulation must target one of the Seven Classic Emotions:

·       Obsession

·       Confusion

·       Anger

·       Sorrow

·       Shame

·       Guilt

·       Fear

Spiritual Imbalances are all created by specific curses and mystical arts. There are no “standard” curses; each one learned can unleash only the single curse it teaches.

How bad is the penalty?

The Imbalance’s Rank determines how steep of a Mechanical Penalty is taken.

·       Effort Penalties remove 1 die per Rank

·       Chakra and Focus penalties only seal a Focus/Chakra every two Ranks

This means that odd-numbered Ranks (1,3,5) don’t increase Focus or Chakra penalties; only even-numbered ones do (2,4,6).

Dramatic penalties are all-or-nothing; they never get any worse, nor better (until the Imbalance is healed). They start severe, so that characters are tempted to take the Mechanical penalties when they’re still minor wounds.

As those penalties worsen, players are incentivized to take the Dramatic penalties, so they have some chance of mitigating their injuries through clever strategy and action descriptions

How do Physical Imbalances become worse?

Every time a character spends the last Health from a Health box, they either evolve a new Physical Imbalance or worsen an existing one by 1 Rank.

This happens because you’re being bludgeoned to death with a spiked mace: so basically, the worse you get hurt, the worse your Imbalances get.

How do Emotional and Spiritual Imbalances get worse?

Emotional and Spiritual Imbalances, however, are evolved and worsened differently. You can’t take physical damage from a well-placed quip.

Well, not normally. Using Heart and Spirit, the powerful characters of this game actually can unsettle your body’s natural balance of energy. It works like this:

·       A manipulator (the character creating the Imbalance) “attacks” with the Heart or Spirit skill, targeting their victim.

·       Their victim defends with the same skill (you must counter their power with your own) and only Techniques which boost that skill can be used to bolster their defense.

·       As with a normal attack, any positive number remaining creates “damage”

However, unlike physical attacks, these manipulations injure the soul, not the body: they can’t Vanquish you, and you can’t mitigate them with Health.

Instead, the damage manifests as Aggravation

Aggravation is a measure of the disharmony caused in the victim’s body by the emotional manipulation or curse. Aggravation builds with successful attacks and worsens an Imbalance.

When a manipulator creates Aggravation, it’s “attached” to an Imbalance. This can be:

·       An Imbalance of their own creation

·       An already-extant Imbalance

If you create a new Imbalance, it begins with Aggravation equal to “damage” you’ve dealt (Your Heart/Spirit “attack” minus their defense)

When Aggravation is between 1-9, the Imbalance is too weak to carry any Penalty: it is Rank 0. Such Imbalances are weak but can be further manipulated.

Once there are 10 Aggravation on an Imbalance, its Rank increases by 1. Furthermore, every 10 full Aggravation added increases the Imbalance’s severity by another Rank (So at 20 Aggravation it becomes Rank 2, at 30 Rank 3, etc.)

Aggravation remains attached to the Imbalance until the end of the scene.

When you make a new Imbalance, you choose how it manifests, keeping in mind the limits of Imbalances above (p.XX). For some guidelines on curses and Emotional Imbalances, see the examples below (p.XX).

How does one heal Imbalances?

Characters can heal themselves in one of two broad ways:

·       They can listen to sound medical advice and take it easy while the wound heals

·       They can ignore that and power through the pain like a reckless idiot

Imbalances have a Path to Recovery, which functions similarly to a Dharma (p.XX). During a scene, a character can follow the Harmonious Path to healing (letting their wound heal naturally and gently) or the Discordant path (where they grit their teeth and ignore the wound)

Doing either will grant them a single point of Kharma (p.XX). Although Discordant saddles them with a Zui as well (p.XX)

During any Real-time or slower scene, a wounded character may spend 2 Kharma to reduce any Imbalance by 1 Rank. Those reduced to Rank 0 heal completely at the end of the scene.

***Callout: You spend experience to heal?!

Yup. Seems a bit harsh, huh? Well look at it this way; injuries also give you experience by making your life harder. Pain is a great teacher. You’ll have to decide on what you consider the optimum balance of dealing with an Imbalance, healing it, or profiting from it. ***

Paths to Recovery

Here are the general guidelines for healing Imbalances. GMs may change the specifics of a path to recovery to better represent the unique nature of an Imbalance.

Physical

·       Harmonious: Favor the injury. Take care to follow a regiment for recover. Portray being bothered by the aid and care taken to mend the injury.

·       Discordant: Ignore the injury. Take actions which could aggravate or increase the injury. Push your body’s limits despite recommendation to the contrary.

Emotional

·       Harmonious: Seek perspective and humility about the issue. Listen to advice from friends and well-wishers. Portray resisting the urgings of the Imbalance.

·       Discordant: Ignore good advice and the opportunity for personal growth. Obsess over the Imbalance. Indulge in its passion.

Spiritual

·       Harmonious: Meditate. Follow a spiritually cleansing regiment. Take ministrations from a holy person or guru. Use charms or other mystical artifacts.

·       Discordant: Antagonize or challenge the Imbalance. Ignore its reality. Indulge in inauspicious behavior. Refuse the advice of the spiritually wise.

Are there other options for healing Imbalances?

Yes: Imbalances can be targeted and healed with the Spirit skill, as well as with magical healing. The specifics of magical healing are detailed in the Technique which grants it.

Manipulating an Imbalance with the Spirit skill works like this:

The manipulator must first achieve a Spirit Action of Rank 6 or above. It takes an incredible degree of spiritual discipline to do this!

They then transfer the harm to a new home within the body, essentially relocating the damage elsewhere. This doesn’t actually heal the Imbalance so much as transfer it.

Regardless, it’s a treasured skill. Masters can perform miraculous feats of healing, like reattaching a severed arm by redirecting Prana from a healthy leg. Sure, you’re left with a club leg while you convalesce, but your arm is back on!

The healer chooses the new manifestation of the Imbalance, keeping in mind the limitations above, with GM having final approval.

The Imbalance must be of the same type (Physical Imbalances must remain Physical, etc.) and retains its full Rank.

The Mechanical Penalty is of the healer’s choosing as well. They could, for instance, change it from a crippling Chakra Penalty to a more manageable Effort Penalty.

Any Kharma spent towards healing the Imbalance also remains; the process of shifting the damage does not hamper the healing process in any way.

Dramatic Penalty Examples

Here are some Dramatic Penalty examples for Imbalances which can be created by anyone. Use these as a rough guide for creating your own, or adjudicating severity if players have an interesting idea for their own Imbalances.

Physical

Injured arm: An arm is damaged; maybe the bone is broken, maybe a tendon severed. It might even be completely severed. In any event, it’s useless. This has the following effects

·       The character cannot use their Power Mastery, if any

·       They lose free access to their weapons’ benefits. They must pay its cost to access them

·       The arm can’t be used for anything; no reaching, grabbing, catching, climbing, etc. If you want to open a door, you’ve got to use your good arm

If both arms are injured: Tough luck buddy, both of your arms are too damaged to use! This has the following, even more severe effects

·       The character cannot take Power actions at all

·       They also can’t use weapons

·       They can’t use either arm for anything, making even really simple object manipulation nearly impossible (you try eating spaghetti with your feet some time)

Injured leg: A leg is hurt; broken, sprained, or otherwise injured into uselessness. This has the following effects:

·       The character cannot use their Agility Mastery

·       The entire Agility chart “shifts up” by 1: Rank 0 actions now require a Rank 1 set, Rank 2 is now 3, etc.

·       This means they must roll any time they wish to move at all

·       The leg can’t be used for anything. It’s dead weight, getting drug around behind them

If both legs are injured: Both of your legs have been disabled by injuries; looks like you’re in a jam! This has the following effects:

·       The character cannot take Agility actions at all. Power may be used to drag yourself alone, but it doesn’t work as well (reduce your result by 2 Ranks and compare it to the Agility chart for movement)

·       Defense is penalized by 10; any time you try to defend yourself, reduce your result by 1 Rank

·       You can’t move your legs at all; you’re stuck wherever you’ve landed (unless you pull yourself around or find an alternative method of movement)

Injured Eyes: Your eyes have been injured, blinding you. This has the following effects:

·       You can’t see anything! You must rely on your other senses (hearing, touch, orientational awareness, etc.) to interact with and detect things

Injured Ears: Your ears have been injured, deafening you! This has the following effects:

·       You can’t hear! Although humans are primarily sight-based creatures, we still rely on our hearing for most communication and to give us information about things we can’t see. You have to get by lacking the awareness usually provided by your ears

Burned/Frostbitten/Injured Flesh: Large portions of your skin have been injured. Maybe you were burned by heat or caustic chemicals, or you’re suffering from frostbite from extreme cold. Whatever the case, you’re largely numb or in tremendous pain. This has the following effects:

·       Shift the Senses chart “up” by 1 Rank; your reduced sensitivity to your surroundings or fog of tremendous agony makes focusing on your surroundings incredibly difficult

·       This means that even casual inspection of your environment requires a Rank 1 Senses action

·       You can see friends and foes without rolling and the general shape of large scenery features, but any finer details are essentially invisible without a Senses action

Injured Torso: Your torso has been injured. Maybe your lung was punctured, maybe your ribs broken; but somebody but the hurt on you bad. This has the following effects:

·       You’re in such pain that you must use one available arm to clutch your chest or stomach in agony

·       Otherwise, double over in pain so that you can’t move faster than a clumsy stagger (unless you use Agility to move faster)

·       Shift the Endurance chart up by 1 Rank; your injuries make any kind of endurance more difficult

Injured Head: You’ve taken a blow to the head. This is disorienting and painful and has the following effects:

·       Shift the Intellect Effect charts up by 1. You’re not dumber, just disoriented and confused

·       This means even remembering recent events or solving simple logic puzzles requires a Rank 1 Intellect action

·       Your disconnection from reality makes using tools (aside form weapons) impossible

***Callout box: Rocket wheelchairs of the post-apocalypse

The injury and Imbalance rules clearly make losing access to your limbs and senses a disadvantage. This isn’t meant to disparage real-life, actual people with physical handicaps. It’s a set of rules for creating interesting strategic choices out of wounds, not a screed.

The heroes (and villains) of this game overcome the challenges of physical disability and retain their power to carve out their own legend with their wits, adaptability, power, and kung-fu magic.

There are blind swordmasters roaming the wastes. There are heroes who can’t walk and don’t need to use their legs to kick your ass. There are one-armed strangers with six pistol chambers full of kung-fu justice.

Ultimately these rules are about being injured and losing access to arms, legs, sight, etc. and kicking ass anyway ***

Emotional

Obsession: You become maniacally obsessed over something.

You treat it as you treat their own life if it were in extreme peril; essentially, you do anything to preserve and protect it.

You consider everything a threat to the object of their obsession unless

·       You have total assurance that it’s completely harmless or

·       You feel its within their power to nullify the danger (typically through violence)

Confusion: You mistakes the cause of something entirely, totally misunderstanding the actual cause/effect relationship.

For example, you may have a peculiar superstition you irrationally believe to be true (“If I don’t kiss my sword and salute the sky before battle, I’m fated to die in the fight!”)

You must behave as though your assumed (and ludicrous) belief is reality

Anger: You are overwhelmed with rage at some real (or imagined) injustice, slight, or insult. You act in a cataleptic frenzy, breaking things, lashing out violently, and shouting at any unfortunes in your path.

Anything rational, calculated, calm, patient, etc. is totally impossible for you. Unless you can imagine doing at blind with rage, you simply can’t do it.

Sorrow: You’re drowned with grief, misery, sorrow, or just straight-out depression. Your actions are languid and desultory, because life has no purpose and everything sucks.

You are totally incapable of seeing the good of anything; you can’t look on the bright side, cheer up, or feel anything aside from paralyzing sadness.

You avoid challenges, shirk from proactivity, and don’t act in your own self-interest in the slightest. You’re not braver, but you don’t care about danger because death would be a release from the agony of living.

Shame: You’re deeply ashamed of some action you’ve taken or aspect of your being.

If your shame is secret, you try to cover up, ignore, and otherwise distance yourself from your shame, doing anything to avoid accepting its reality.

If it’s known, you flush and shrink away from others, too embarrassed to face them. You cringe from any directness, preferring to flee people and fame and retreat into solitude and obscurity

Guilt: You are crushed under the weight of guilt over something you have done. To you, this act was the very definition of unjust; it offends your moral center, makes you repulsed at your own wrongdoing.

You will do anything to make amends for this or suffer any punishment for your wickedness. You can be talked into doing nearly anything if you’re convinced it can somehow pay penance for your awful misdeed

Fear: You’re sick with terror of something or someone. To you, the object of your fear is death incarnate; you can’t even imagine opposing or facing it.

You cringe away from it, doing anything to avoid or flee it. If a person, you will obey them so long as you think that will spare you their wrath.

Spiritual

There isn’t a simple, comprehensive list of curses and mystical maladies that anyone can access. Rather, curses are learned, taught and created as spells: unique, hideous creations crafted to bedevil their unfortunate victims.

Curses are learned and created during Montage scenes. They require no Kharma, just a teacher, a manual of instruction, or a magical Long-Term Project (the specifics of which are detailed by the GM).