Black Tokyo Mega-Update

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in RPG land. San Francisco 2107 has hit, and I’ve just completed Action Galaxy, which should be on sale soon. I’ve also been doing some work on the long promised Black Tokyo Unlimited.

The image to the right is something I found on Kotaku, not new BT art, unfortunately. But this image actually inspired the Hentai Hero class idea......

Black Tokyo Unlimited: Races of Black Japan goes on sale soon, and features six new player races. The Goryohime were previewed recently, and are a radical rethinking of the Hanging Maiden Advanced Class presented in Black Tokyo II: Chastity & Depravity. In Chastity & Depravity, the concept of an undead school girl was presented as an advanced class- here it’s a player race. I’m eventually going to revise the Hanging Maiden class itself, playing up its oracular and clerical nature, but the Goryohime is an indication of my current philosophy towards Black Tokyo Unlimited.

My largest revision work has been in terms of magic items. In the original Black Tokyo campaign setting, you had about 30 magic items. I’m planning a standalone item-book and right now, I’ve got well over 100 new magic items, and I want to have between 120-150, if not more, before I publish. More on this at the end of the post.

The Hentai Hero

I’m also working on revising most of the Advanced Classes found in Black Tokyo’s first edition. However don’t expect a straight conversion. Most of the original BT concepts, being designed for D20 Modern, don’t translate cleanly to Pathfinder. More to the point, some of the class abilities in the original book were just fucked up- overly wordy, mechanically unclear, poorly designed. By contrast, the core concept behind the classes were really cool, and I want to retain the flavor of evocative character concepts like the Flow Witch, Ghostkissed Investigator and Devil Heart Hunter, among others. Basically, I’m trying to take an early book by a then-rookie game designer, and apply the last five years or so of hard-learned lessons.

So how am I going to fix things?

Check this out. I’m building a new 20 level base class, with modular class abilities, similar to the Powered Hero, Sentai Hero and Modern Spellcaster called simply the Hentai Hero basic class. The first edition BT classes are being revised as Talent Trees, which opens up some really interesting customization options.

One key conceit I want to include is that Hentai Heroes are defined by their flaws, just like my Powered Heroes are defined by their origin. Each Hentai Hero selects a particular flaw from a list suggested by their first talent tree. The flaws are similar to my Fursona disadvantages or the social templates in Races of the Tatakama- they offer mostly invisible mechanical support to character flaws that would be purely roleplay-based in other games. It fits thematically, because hentai protagonists are deeply flawed, usually anti-heroic figures, defined by their rages, lusts and melancholies.

Magic Item Preview

I thought you’d like to see a sampling of new magic items for Black Tokyo Unlimited. I’m previewing five items here.

The first, the Blessed Rice Coat, originally appeared in Black Tokyo 1^st Edition; it’s been clarified and cleaned up. The next four are all new: a new armor, a new magic weapon, and two wondrous items. I chose the Masochistic Swimsuit, Guro Blade, Dosojin’s Phallus and Kami Pleasing Candy as my spotlighted items because they effectively sum up Black Tokyo’s fucked-up hybrid of traditional Japanese folklore and hentai fetish, and each feature some neat rules and interesting applications. Clever players should find a ton of uses of these weird and iconic items.

Enjoy,

CHRIS

Blessed Rice Coat

Aura strong abjuration CL 13^th

Slot body Price 46,800 gp (DC 31) Weight 3-5 lbs

            In the old stories, weak willed demons can be held at bay by a grain of rice blessed by a Buddha. Other stories tell of oni who are confused and tricked thanks to a clever human scattering grains of rice for them to count obsessively. The Blessed Rice Coat transforms an old legend into a new defense against Black Tokyo’s pan-dimensional predators.

            The Blessed Rice Coat is a designer leather trench coat, cut in an ultra slick, modern style. The trench coat’s silk inner lining is a silk-screened reproduction of a Hirosaki print of famers reaping the harvest and sewn between the leather and the lining are hundreds of blessed grains of rice. To humans, the Blessed Rice Coat seems as nothing more than an attractive, expensive designer fashion piece.

            The Blessed Rice Coat is +1 leather armor.

Once per day, the wearer can dramatically throw open the coat as a standard action. If any non-good creature of the Outsider type is present within 100 ft, the farmers in the print come to life. The silk-screened farmers thresh their rice, collecting the harvest, and the golden light of sunset emanates from the coat’s lining.

           

            All non-good Outsiders within 100 ft of the cloak when it is are subject to a Banishment spell cast by a 13^th level Cleric. The Blessed Rice Coat is considered to be an item the Outsider ‘fears or hates’ for the purposes of Banishment. Even if an Outsider succeeds at its WILL Save to avoid Banishment, they are either dazed for 1d6 minutes, blinded for 1d4 rounds by the intense golden light blaring from the coat’s lining, or rendered cowering for 1 round. The Blessed Rice Coat’s wearer chooses which effect to inflict on non-good Outsiders. All Outsiders affected suffer the same penalty.

Construction

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, banishment, bestow curse

Cost 23,400 gp (DC 29)

Masochistic Swimsuit
Aura moderate necromancy CL 5^th

Slot body Price 30,000 gp (DC 30) Weight neg.

            This navy one piece swimsuit resembles the standard athletic wear for schoolgirls throughout Black Japan. The only difference: crusts of pinkish brown dried blood staining the white mesh inner lining.

            When worn by a female in the Young Adult age category or younger, the Masochistic Swimsuit works to keep its wearer alive while simultaneously increasing her suffering. The Masochistic Swimsuit’s wearer suffers a -2 penalty on FORT Saves, but the duration of harmful effects requiring a FORT Save are halved. In addition, on any round where the wearer suffers at least 5 HP worth of damage, there is a 25% chance that on Initiative count zero, the wearer recovers 1d6 HP. 

            Special: Only Young Adult or younger females can benefit form this magic item.

Construction

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, bestow curse, cure moderate wounds

Cost 15,000 gp (DC 27)

Guro Blade
Aura moderate conjuration CL 8^th 

Slot weapon Price 49,000 gp (DC 31) Weight 2 lbs

            This well balanced tanto’s hilt is strangely sculpted, resembling coiled loops of pinkish-red intestine curled tightly rather than an ordinary sword’s hilt.

           

            The Guro Blade is a +1 wounding tanto.

            As a full round action, the Guro Blade’s wielder can draw the weapon across their belly in a gesture similar to the ritual of seppuku. Doing so spills the wielder’s steaming guts out, where these loops of bloody intestine lengthen to incredible distances. This creates an area of black tentacles in a 60 ft cone directly in front of the wielder. In addition to constriction damage, creatures grappled by the tentacles suffer 1d6 points of acid damage per round.

            The wielder cannot dismiss the black tentacles before the maximum duration expires, and during this time, cannot move from their square. If involuntarily moved, or if the black tentacles are dismissed, the effect ends. The wielder is nauseated for 1 minute after the black tentacles effect ends. There is a 10% chance per activation that when the effect ends, rather than withdrawing back into the body, the wielder’s intestines remain severed. In this case, the wielder dies when the black tentacles effect ends.

Construction

Requirements Craft Magic Arms and Armor, bleed, black tentacles

Cost 24,500 gp (DC 29)        

Dosojin’s Phallus
Aura strong conjuration CL 13^th

Slot none Price 109,000 gp (DC 34) Weight 2 lbs

            This phallus is named for a kami of crossroads and cocks, travel and trade and penetration and sexual exchange. This rough stone phallus has been carved with a cross-like symbol of the crossroads; when the phallus’ magic is called upon, this etching glows a brilliant yellow.

           

            When a character masturbates with this phallus, either anally or vaginally, Dosojin’s Phallus teleports them elsewhere. Only the user, up to 50 lbs of personal possession and a familiar (if any) are transported. Dosojin’s Phallus can be used to teleport a user up to 3 times per day.

            Under normal circumstances, Dosojin’s Phallus teleports the user exactly 100 miles in a randomly chosen direction (1N 2E 3W 4S on d4). The user appears in the nearest safe, open space at their destination. If the teleportation would place the character in the ocean, the Phallus instead teleports them either 50 miles or 25 miles in the random direction instead, whichever distance would leave them on land. The Phallus cannot randomly teleport a character less than 25 miles, even if doing so would leave them in the ocean.

            If the character masturbates with Dosojin’s Phallus at a crossroads or street intersection, she may choose her destination, teleporting without error to a place within 100 miles.

            If a virgin character masturbates with Dosojin’s Phallus at a crossroads or street intersection, the character may choose to teleport to a randomly chosen but safe point in the Tatakama rather than traveling across the Earth Realm.

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, greater teleport

Cost 54,500 gp (DC 32)

Kami Pleasing Candy

Aura very faint divination CL 1^st

Slot none Price 25 gp (DC 5) Weight neg.

            This simple and cloyingly sweet magical candy is rooted in Shinto tradition. The candy’s golden foil is unwrapped and offered to the sky, and devoured by the petty gods (kami) of everyday life, it disappears in a flash of amber light.

           

            Sacrificing the Kami Pleasing Candy is a standard action. For one round after the sacrifice, the character receives a +1 luck bonus on all skill checks. If the character rolls a 1 on any skill check, he or she may reroll the check once, but must accept the results of the second roll, even if it is equally bad.

            Special: If a member of the Kami player race uses this item, she actually eats the candy herself. In addition to the standard effects, the Kami recovers a single Hit Point if wounded.

Construction

Requirements Brew Potion, guidance

Cost 13 gp (DC 3)