One of the great side benefits of GENCON each year is a chance to get a Reviewer together with some Game Designers. It creates the real possibility of discovering a new RPG to present here on EN World that might otherwise have been missed. This year that happened not just once, but at least three times.
Vigilance Press ran a very successful Kickstarter Campaign last Fall in 2013 to design a new setting for use with Evil Hat Productions’ FATE CORE RPG system – they got over a thousand backers and over three times their original goal! This new setting was the work of Jack Norris, who for almost twenty years had been working on creating a Wuxia setting which would capture the essence of Asian cinema and novels of martial art masters fighting to protect the weak from the depredations of evil-doers. Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade attempts to create a whole new unique experience for FATE CORE gamers - but can it live up to the awesome tradition and legends of Wuxia?
Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade
Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is a wuxia-style martial arts setting designed by Jack Norris for use with Evil Hat Productions’ FATE CORE system. This setting book contains all the elements necessary to create a wuxia character, including guidelines for character design, martial art styles, and a variant rule on using chi in the campaign. Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade also has information about the setting itself, specifically the Province of Jiāngzhōu and its largest city, Băo Jiāng, and a wide range of unique locales, shops, inns, and NPCs to be found there. There are also campaign ideas, adventure hooks, a list of inspirational films and books, and more…
Production Quality
The production quality of Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is very good, both in the exceptional writing by the author and the striking layout in the book. It quickly becomes clear that the author truly loves the Wuxia martial arts genre, and has put considerable effort into becoming well-versed in the genre. As such, the author’s writing style is enthusiastic, informative, and easy to read. The layout of Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade utilizes a light background graphic which resembles parchment, and then an artful border in gold to a nice effect. Bold and “special text” appear in oxblood red, which looks excellent on the background and really stands out as one reads the page. The overall effect is a PDF that is pleasing to read and artfully laid out.
The PDF of Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is well-organized with bookmarks, a hot-linked table of contents, and an index, so navigation through the pages and finding information is a relatively easy task for the Reader. The aforementioned “special text” found throughout the book is most often FATE CORE‘s Aspects for locations and NPCs, and these are pop right off the page due to the red font. NPCs and creatures have a different layout than the rest of the standard text and are fairly easy to spot going through the setting information.
The artwork in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is quite stunning, and quite impressive given that it was all handled by a single artist: Denise Jones. There is an anime quality to her style, and yet there can also be seen the styles of Chinese panoramic painting with the heavy shadowing and strong black lines. The illustrations, from the cover and all through the interior, truly fit this wuxia setting. The only real problem is that there are bit too few pieces here for a book of this length, and there can be a bit of “wall of text” feeling in some parts of Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade.
I know King Fu…
Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is first and foremost a setting book, with rules to govern a campaign, adventure ideas, NPC information, and descriptions of locations and unique places. While the book might contain information useful for creating a character, the organization of the contents suggests that this is meant for the GMs eyes for the most part, and players should be warned that there are spoilers lurking about in almost every chapter of the book.
As previously mentioned, Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is designed to run with FATE CORE by Evil Hat Productions. Therefore, GMs and players will need to have a copy of the rules or a very good working knowledge of FATE CORE to utilize this book fully. The author is careful to spell that out right in the introduction to the setting. But in doing so, the author opens the book up to being very focused on the setting content and new variant rules that can be put into play, and not a regurgitation of a lot of rules that can be found in the FC rulebook.
Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is divided into ten chapters, each one keying in on a specific facet of the campaign setting. At the start of each chapter, the author has included a single page short story which features one or more of the sample characters found in Chapter 6. For players, these are ready-made wuxia characters which can be used right away to start gaming, or can be used as allies, rivals, contacts, and so forth. The stories are nicely written, and highly immersive in the setting lore, making them excellent samples for players to read as they contemplate their character designs for the campaign.
In Chapter 1, the author explains the nature of the setting, what wuxia is, and a glossary of terms useful to running a campaign based upon ancient Imperial China. Tianxia means “under heaven” and represents the concept of uniting China under one sovereign rule – the unification ideal which the Jet Li movie Hero invoked so well. While the glossary and discussion on the nature of wuxia is hardly exhaustive, it does give a starting point for players and GMs to begin their own exploration into the genre, including the philosophy of wu xing mentioned here. Of course, there are many RP gamers will likely have a fairly deep knowledge of the genre and Chapter 1 will serve as a simple introduction.
Shénzhōu & Jiāngzhōu are discussed in Chapter 2 – these being the Empire and its most important Province where the campaign takes place. Shénzhōu is an empire similar to Imperial China, but one idealized for use in a wuxia campaign. The author covers topics of religion, social class and gender roles here, which have been altered a bit from historical China to be more inclusive and fun for everyone to play. The Province of Jiāngzhōu is discussed here in some detail, with many important locations noted along with colorful NPCs in the region. FC Aspects are used liberally throughout the descriptive text, and serve to highlight the nature of the land and its peoples. There are plenty of mysterious and strange places throughout the province that can serve as inspirations for adventure, and most can be summed up in two or three Aspects for when the player-characters go off exploring. Chapter 3 is much like Chapter 2, but focuses on the large trade city of Băo Jiāng, and offers plenty of interesting locales and NPCs to interact with in the campaign. Both of these chapters are very nicely detailed, and even GMs who play with other systems than FATE CORE could find the setting information useful for their own games.
Chapter 4 goes into The Rules of Tianxia, and this section is also where the author covers character creation. There are a number of new rules and variant rules discussed in this chapter, including using 2d6 or 2d8 as Fudge Dice to create broader ranges (-5 to +5 and -7 to +7 respectively) to represent how wuxia characters can have amazing victories and massive defeats. There are new rules governing Athletics and Physique which have greater – even superhuman – effects in this setting, and a new skill Chi is introduced to complete that part of the martial arts genre. The chapter also provides process of creating a character in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade, including a character’s Jianghu rank – the level of their martial arts mastery, where 0 is “knows no kung fu” and 4 is a “grandmasters only”. This chapter also deals with weapons, sidekicks and pets, and other tropes of wuxia stories and movies.
The Deadly Arts of Kung Fu are discussed in the fifth chapter, and the author has devised some amazingly detailed martial arts styles and forms, and providing the basic building blocks to design ones’ own forms. Forms allow characters to create an advantage by the FATE CORE rules, and there are even methods of having the character describe flashbacks and montages to grant this.
As previously mentioned, there are six ready-to-play characters in Chapter 6 – Smiling Ox, Wolf-Eyed Yue, Detective Dishi, Han “Dragon Dog” Ping, Ma Wei Sheng, and Sister Chuntao. The characters are fully developed with Aspects, Skills, Stunts, Stress, Martial Arts Form, and a complete description and history.
Chapters 7 to 9 focus on many ways to Gamemaster the setting in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade, and the author creates some very informative and interesting discussions on important GM topics. For instance, the setting uses FATE CORE’s Bonze Rule such that almost anything in the game world can be treated like a character – locations, mysteries, and challenges can all be given character like attributes to resolve them – and there are eight examples of these which can be used during campaign. There are optional rules for allowing characters to affect zones dynamically (i.e. knocking down a tree to cut a zone in two), and other advice about dealing with topics like sexism, death, and even troupe play (multiple characters per player).
Chapter 8 discusses Antagonists, and offers a complete set of NPCs to use during the campaign from Bandit Leaders to a Slave Ring Boss. There are also examples of enemy mobs here – packs of evil cultists, gangsters, pirates, and other groups that fight as a team. The author also provides fierce animal foes in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade, and includes such critters as bears, venomous snakes, and packs of wild dogs. And in Seeds of Shénzhōu (Chapter 9), there are four adventure ideas, completely prepared and ready to use by the GM. And the author created an adventure “menu” consisting of five columns with items to select in order to generate an adventure idea. The GM need only pick the Who, What, Of, That/To, and But (“The Twist”), and they have a complete adventure seed to work with.
Finally, in Chapter 10, the author has created a list of inspirational Films, Books, and Video Games which capture the essence of wuxia. There is also an Appendix with play aides – a Tianxia Campaign Setup Sheet and a Character Sheet designed for using FATE CORE with this setting.
Overall Score: 7.8 out of 10.0
Conclusions
For fans of Wuxia and the wonderful worlds created by Asian Cinema, Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade offers a fantastic setting for use with the FATE CORE RPG. In fact, even if you don’t use FATE CORE, there is a substantial amount of campaign ideas here for any Asian-themed medieval setting. The author’s writing carries the Reader along from topic to topic in a very enjoyable fashion, and the ideas offered to deal with concepts like martial arts styles and chi are quite innovative. And the presentation of the book overall is quite professional and polished, even if there are a few “wall of text” sections here and there.
For a very modest price, Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is a very complete package, with a ton of content and lots of fantastic campaign ideas. So master your Kung Fu style and set off on a quest to tame the Empire of Shénzhōu in this unique wuxia martial arts setting!
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary playtest copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade
- Author: Jack Norris
- Illustrations: Denise Jones; Marco Morte (maps)
- Publisher: Vigilance Press
- Year: 2013
- Media: PDF (192 pages)
- Price: $14.99 (Now Available from DriveThruRPG)
Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is a wuxia-style martial arts setting designed by Jack Norris for use with Evil Hat Productions’ FATE CORE system. This setting book contains all the elements necessary to create a wuxia character, including guidelines for character design, martial art styles, and a variant rule on using chi in the campaign. Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade also has information about the setting itself, specifically the Province of Jiāngzhōu and its largest city, Băo Jiāng, and a wide range of unique locales, shops, inns, and NPCs to be found there. There are also campaign ideas, adventure hooks, a list of inspirational films and books, and more…
Production Quality
The production quality of Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is very good, both in the exceptional writing by the author and the striking layout in the book. It quickly becomes clear that the author truly loves the Wuxia martial arts genre, and has put considerable effort into becoming well-versed in the genre. As such, the author’s writing style is enthusiastic, informative, and easy to read. The layout of Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade utilizes a light background graphic which resembles parchment, and then an artful border in gold to a nice effect. Bold and “special text” appear in oxblood red, which looks excellent on the background and really stands out as one reads the page. The overall effect is a PDF that is pleasing to read and artfully laid out.
The artwork in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is quite stunning, and quite impressive given that it was all handled by a single artist: Denise Jones. There is an anime quality to her style, and yet there can also be seen the styles of Chinese panoramic painting with the heavy shadowing and strong black lines. The illustrations, from the cover and all through the interior, truly fit this wuxia setting. The only real problem is that there are bit too few pieces here for a book of this length, and there can be a bit of “wall of text” feeling in some parts of Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade.
I know King Fu…
Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is first and foremost a setting book, with rules to govern a campaign, adventure ideas, NPC information, and descriptions of locations and unique places. While the book might contain information useful for creating a character, the organization of the contents suggests that this is meant for the GMs eyes for the most part, and players should be warned that there are spoilers lurking about in almost every chapter of the book.
As previously mentioned, Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is designed to run with FATE CORE by Evil Hat Productions. Therefore, GMs and players will need to have a copy of the rules or a very good working knowledge of FATE CORE to utilize this book fully. The author is careful to spell that out right in the introduction to the setting. But in doing so, the author opens the book up to being very focused on the setting content and new variant rules that can be put into play, and not a regurgitation of a lot of rules that can be found in the FC rulebook.
In Chapter 1, the author explains the nature of the setting, what wuxia is, and a glossary of terms useful to running a campaign based upon ancient Imperial China. Tianxia means “under heaven” and represents the concept of uniting China under one sovereign rule – the unification ideal which the Jet Li movie Hero invoked so well. While the glossary and discussion on the nature of wuxia is hardly exhaustive, it does give a starting point for players and GMs to begin their own exploration into the genre, including the philosophy of wu xing mentioned here. Of course, there are many RP gamers will likely have a fairly deep knowledge of the genre and Chapter 1 will serve as a simple introduction.
Chapter 4 goes into The Rules of Tianxia, and this section is also where the author covers character creation. There are a number of new rules and variant rules discussed in this chapter, including using 2d6 or 2d8 as Fudge Dice to create broader ranges (-5 to +5 and -7 to +7 respectively) to represent how wuxia characters can have amazing victories and massive defeats. There are new rules governing Athletics and Physique which have greater – even superhuman – effects in this setting, and a new skill Chi is introduced to complete that part of the martial arts genre. The chapter also provides process of creating a character in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade, including a character’s Jianghu rank – the level of their martial arts mastery, where 0 is “knows no kung fu” and 4 is a “grandmasters only”. This chapter also deals with weapons, sidekicks and pets, and other tropes of wuxia stories and movies.
The Deadly Arts of Kung Fu are discussed in the fifth chapter, and the author has devised some amazingly detailed martial arts styles and forms, and providing the basic building blocks to design ones’ own forms. Forms allow characters to create an advantage by the FATE CORE rules, and there are even methods of having the character describe flashbacks and montages to grant this.
Chapters 7 to 9 focus on many ways to Gamemaster the setting in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade, and the author creates some very informative and interesting discussions on important GM topics. For instance, the setting uses FATE CORE’s Bonze Rule such that almost anything in the game world can be treated like a character – locations, mysteries, and challenges can all be given character like attributes to resolve them – and there are eight examples of these which can be used during campaign. There are optional rules for allowing characters to affect zones dynamically (i.e. knocking down a tree to cut a zone in two), and other advice about dealing with topics like sexism, death, and even troupe play (multiple characters per player).
Chapter 8 discusses Antagonists, and offers a complete set of NPCs to use during the campaign from Bandit Leaders to a Slave Ring Boss. There are also examples of enemy mobs here – packs of evil cultists, gangsters, pirates, and other groups that fight as a team. The author also provides fierce animal foes in Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade, and includes such critters as bears, venomous snakes, and packs of wild dogs. And in Seeds of Shénzhōu (Chapter 9), there are four adventure ideas, completely prepared and ready to use by the GM. And the author created an adventure “menu” consisting of five columns with items to select in order to generate an adventure idea. The GM need only pick the Who, What, Of, That/To, and But (“The Twist”), and they have a complete adventure seed to work with.
Finally, in Chapter 10, the author has created a list of inspirational Films, Books, and Video Games which capture the essence of wuxia. There is also an Appendix with play aides – a Tianxia Campaign Setup Sheet and a Character Sheet designed for using FATE CORE with this setting.
Overall Score: 7.8 out of 10.0
Conclusions
For fans of Wuxia and the wonderful worlds created by Asian Cinema, Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade offers a fantastic setting for use with the FATE CORE RPG. In fact, even if you don’t use FATE CORE, there is a substantial amount of campaign ideas here for any Asian-themed medieval setting. The author’s writing carries the Reader along from topic to topic in a very enjoyable fashion, and the ideas offered to deal with concepts like martial arts styles and chi are quite innovative. And the presentation of the book overall is quite professional and polished, even if there are a few “wall of text” sections here and there.
For a very modest price, Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade is a very complete package, with a ton of content and lots of fantastic campaign ideas. So master your Kung Fu style and set off on a quest to tame the Empire of Shénzhōu in this unique wuxia martial arts setting!
Editorial Note: This Reviewer received a complimentary playtest copy of the product in PDF format from which the review was written.
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
- Presentation: 7.5
- - Design: 8.5 (Excellent writing style; lovely layout)
- - Illustrations: 6.5 (Great artwork for the genre; could have used more to avoid “wall of text”)
- Content: 7.5
- - Crunch: 8.0 (Awesome use of FATE CORE mechanics for the genre; excellent variant rules)
- - Fluff: 7.0 (A lot of great content for an Asian wuxia style setting; would love to see more content!)
- Value: 8.5 (Great price – very complete setting and rules system!)
