Character Creation & Advancement

Creation

Players have 25 Destiny and 15 Entanglement to spend on building their characters. Once character creation is completed, I will distribute additional, small Entanglement awards (5-10 points total) in the form of connections to other PCs and to the main plot.
‘Natural State’ Chi Conditions: The book recommends allowing characters “one near-permanent beneficial Chi Condition per Rank level without the Sage messing with it” (p. 229). Those Conditions can be freely chosen at character creation, can be of any type, and are always Minor conditions with the following stats: Recovery 40, Interval 1 Chapter, Duration 2.
- At the end of a chapter, players may choose to designate an existing Chi Condition as one of their natural state conditions, replacing one previously designated. The new condition uses its existing Recovery, Interval & Duration stats; if it is a Major Condition, it will however revert to Minor unless maintained.
- Loresheet Chi Conditions: Chi Conditions purchased via Loresheets are treated as natural state conditions, and do not count against the limit of 1 free Condition/rank achieved. If a Loresheet Condition is ever permanently removed, the character has the Entanglement returned to them.

Characters will gain Destiny at Movie pace (3x base rate)
Characters will gain Entanglement at Novel pace (2x base rate)
I may award entertaining actions that don’t quite rise to the level of Deeds with Joss or small amounts of Entanglement (1-2).

Special Chi Cultivation: Internal kung fu only cultivates normal Chi. Corrupt and Enlightened Chi are cultivated by Loresheet secrets; Elemental Chi is no longer cultivated, but instead produced by Elemental Conversion Chi Conditions.
Elemental Conversion Chi Conditions: In addition to the ability to convert normal to Elemental Chi, Minor Conditions allow a character to store up to 2 Elemental Chi and Major Conditions allow a character to store up to 3. (Characters are assumed to begin combat with no Elemental Chi stored.)
- Chi Deviations: Elemental Conversion Conditions do not naturally dissipate; instead, a successful Recovery roll prevents the Condition from creating or inflaming a Mutation. Mutations are now treated as an Entanglement Weakness. Trivial Mutations are barely noticeable; Minor ones are discernable, but tend to be overlooked within the Jianghu; Major Mutations render the character a freak.
Entanglement Weakness Conditions: These conditions no longer provide additional Entanglement; instead, the complicating Entanglement is taken from your next Entanglement award.
End-of-Combat Chi Conditions: Conditions that result from End-of-Combat Rippling Rolls are Duration: 1, Interval: 1 Chapter, with Recovery equal to the roll - Chi Aura result.

Initiative: The Initiative roll is treated as Opposed for the purposes of Joss and River use (i.e. you may use Joss and your River to affect that roll). Malicious Joss spent during the Initiative phase is treated as Xia Joss, i.e. it adds 1 die to your Lake rather than removing 1 from your opponent’s.
Marvels: The Sage may rule that a certain Disrupt or (especially) Disorient Marvel can only be defended by a particular skill or set of skills.
Physical Attacks: In order to determine the number of Ripples a successful physical attack inflicts, add the difference between the attacker's Damage and the defender's Toughness to the margin of success on the Strike result. A successful strike will always inflict at least 1 Ripple, even if the defender’s Toughness would bring the margin of success below 0.
- e.g. if a Murderous Shadows stylist (Damage +10) has a Strike Result of 41, and a Storm God's Fury stylist (Toughness +5) has a Block result of 33, the latter would take 1 Ripple & an immediate roll rather than just 1 Ripple (8 [margin of success] +10 - 5 = 13).
- If the Storm God’s Fury stylist uses the Eternal Temple God’s Armor technique for a +15 Toughness bonus, the Murderous Shadows stylist would still inflict 1 Ripple despite a negative result (8 + 10 - 20 = -2)

Any technique that denies opponents bonuses based on higher initiative now only deny those bonuses if the opponent fails to exceed your initiative by 15 (if the technique costs 3 Destiny) or 10 (if it costs 2 Destiny).
- 3 Destiny versions: Divine Pattern Long-Strokes’ Sweeping to All Side and Murderous Shadows’ Void Nature.
- 2 Destiny version: Graceful Crane’s Patient Crane.

Dragon Chi (lvl 4 Heaven’s Lightning technique): Replace ‘When you Focus on Breath, it also improves the regeneration of Earth Chi’ with ‘When you Focus on Breath, you may regain Earth Chi instead of normal Chi’.
Formless Techniques: Combat stat-boosting Techniques give +5/level, up to level 3. (Poach or make up technique names as needed.)
- Level 3 stat-boosting Formless techniques must be purchased as part of a Loresheet.

When a character fails to resist a Secret Arts Discovery, this is treated as a failed Recovery roll; i.e. after failing to resist, the character cannot attempt to Recover until the period specified by the Interval elapses.