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[kensanata]

It turned out not to be a problem at all, since the party did the right thing and avoided combat with the two Kitsune brothers I had written up. All that mattered was that they were powerful.

As for the setting, I think they liked it. One of them married a Japanese woman, the other studied sinology, so half the people at the table already had a big out-of-game interest in all things Asian. So questions involving prestige, face, and ceremony were all easily resolved. All of them were intrigued by a world filled with turtle demons (kappas), fox demons (kitsune), birdman swordmasters (tengu), and man-eating hill giants (kujo). More details to follow.

As far as Kitsunemori feedback goes: All I can say is that I found the NPC creation cumbersome (as you probably could tell). Not only was it complicated, but spread over different sections of the PDF file (myubo character class, kitsune prestige, fox magic). I like the fox magic system (it is simpler than the mage/cleric stuff), but I'm not sure whether linking fox magic to prestige was necessary. Prestige seems to be interesting in and of itself.

Everything else was very good, however: Monsters (tengu, kijo, and kappa) provided inspiration for the adventure on the village level; the province descriptions and the big temple background allowed me to settle on a bigger campaign on the han level, and there's still the overall campaign goal that I haven't even mentioned. That worked out really well. A few more buildings with some adventure hooks beyond the initial two would have been superb. The extra weapons added a nice touch to both PC and NPC creation, and I wouldn't want to miss it. In our game, however, players just picked an appropriate outfit and that was it, so they didn't get to see much of it.

I've used one of the adventure ideas already (tengu kidnapping a child) and have been inspired to plant a few more hints on the things to come. Having more of those to choose from would have been superb, too.