Matsuri Creation Example

In this post, I want to give an example of creating a matsuri.

There are two people working together to design the matsuri. Yukihiko is a shinshoku, but still fairly young, while Hanami is a miko at the same shrine. Yukihiko has norito knowledge 4 and norito skill 2, mikë knowledge 2 and mikë skill 3, and kagura knowledge 4 and kagura skill 1. Hanami has norito knowledge 1 and norito skill 0, mikë knowledge 3 and mikë skill 2, and kagura knowledge 4 and kagura skill 5.

The matsuri has to grant at least 3 shin’i to the kami, or it cannot achieve its goal. Yukihiko and Hanami really want a positive response, so they want to roll as many dice as possible when the kami is deciding whether to answer the request.

The first stage is to write the norito. Yukihiko will do this part; Hanami has a score of 0 in the skill, so she cannot help. He rolls 4 dice, and keeps the best 2 for his conception roll. He rolls 6, 5, 5, 2, for a total of 11. This is enough for a 4-step norito, because the conception cost is 10 (1 for the first step, plus 3 for each of the three additional steps). However, a 4-step norito would have a difficulty of 25: the base is 26, and there is only one point left over from the conception cost. Hanami cannot help him to revise the norito, so he has no chance of actually writing a norito to match that concept.

A 3-step norito has a conception cost of 7, and a difficulty of 16. This might be possible, but as he has to do his own revisions, it is likely to be hard. The mikë and kagura could provide a further boost, so Yukihiko decides to go for a 2-step norito. That has a conception cost of 4, and a base difficulty of 14. With the seven points left over from his concept, Yukihiko can reduce the difficulty to 7. That’s well within his reach. For the concept element, his player chooses “a long description of the mikë”.

He starts creating the norito. For the first roll, he rolls 4 dice and keeps 2, getting 5,3,3,1, for a total of 8. The norito is completed right away, granting 2 additional steps to the matsuri. They can be used to increase the number of shin’i granted to 3, and Yukihiko includes the embodiment element “yama no sachi, umi no sachi”, one of the phrases used to describe the mikë.

The next stage is to design the mikë. Yukihiko has the higher skill here, so it makes sense for him to do the initial design. However, this time Hanami can help him with the revisions. Because Yukihiko’s knowledge is lower than his skill, he rolls four dice and keeps the lowest three. He gets 5,3,2,2, for a total of 7. That’s a bit unlucky, and the matsuri is not urgent, so he decides to try again, for a different concept. This time, he rolls 3,2,2,1, for a total of 5. He doesn’t have time to keep thinking of new concepts, so he goes back to the first one.

Since Hanami can help him develop it, he decides to go for a 2-step mikë, with a concept cost of 4 and a difficulty of 14. He can reduce the difficulty to 11, so he might just make it in one attempt, if he rolls well. As the concept element, he chooses “seasonal vegetables”. For his first embodiment roll he gets 4,3,3,1, for a total of 7. He’s really not rolling well. For the embodiment element, he chooses “fresh onions”.

Now it is Hanami’s turn to look at the mikë. She rolls three dice and keeps the best two, then doubles it because she is revising the design. She rolls 5,5,2, for a total of 10, doubled to 20. That is more than twice the current progress, so she can reduce the difficulty for Yukihiko’s next creation roll to zero. She chooses “bright red tomatoes” as the element. Yukihiko rolls the dice, and gets 6,6,5,1, for a total of 12. The mikë are designed: lots of seasonal vegetables, including fresh onions and bright red tomatoes. That gets them another 2 steps, which they can devote to increasing the number of dice the kami rolls.

Finally, it is time to design the kagura. Hanami takes the lead here. Because Yukihiko can play the music, she can go for a two-person kagura, getting a 1-step bonus for including kagura in the first place, and a further 1 step for including kagura with two people. Hanami rolls for the concept. She rolls 6 dice, and keeps the lowest 5. She gets 6,6,5,5,1,1. That’s a total of 18. She could go for a high concept, but Yukihiko will not really be able to help her with the revisions, because he only gets to keep 1 die. She decides to go for a 4-step concept, with a concept cost of 10, and a difficulty of 26, reduced to 18 by the excess points. As her concept, she takes “offering a tamagushi”.

For her first creation roll, she gets 5,3,3,3,2,2, for a total of 13. She adds the element “accompanied on a drum”, but now she needs to revise her own work. This means that the number of dice to roll is reduced by one, which actually means that she rolls one more die, but still keeps the lowest five. She rolls 6,5,4,2,1,1,1, for a total of 9, doubled to 18. Her difficulty on the revision roll will be 8, because she can subtract 5 from the current progress of 13. The element she adds is “bells on the tamagushi”. For the revision, she rolls 6 dice and keeps the lowest 5 again, getting 5,5,4,3,2,2, a total of 16. The kagura is completed. Because the concept adds 4 steps, and the two-person kagura adds 2 steps by itself, this adds 6 steps. Combined with the two from the mikë, they have 8 steps, so the kami will roll 8 dice when deciding whether to help. A positive response is very likely — as long as Yukihiko can successfully perform the kagura. He needs 4 or higher on R3K1, so there’s a very good chance that he will succeed.

The matsuri has a norito that includes a long description of the mikë, using the phrase “yama no sachi, umi no sachi”. The mikë is mainly seasonal vegetables, specifically fresh onions and bright red tomatoes. The kagura has two people, one dancer and one drummer, and the dancer offers a tamagushi that has bells on it.

This is a simple matsuri, and has enough detail for the players to imagine what is happening when it is performed, and the personae petition the kami.


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