Battle of Kyuden Tonbo Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• The Cards
  • Stronghold
  • Dynasty Card Types
    • Holding
    • Personality
    • Event
    • Region
    • Celestial
  • Fate Card Types
    • Strategy
    • Ring
  • Attachments
    • Follower
    • Item
    • Spell
• Reading the Cards
  • Stats
  • Text Box
    • Keywords
    • Traits
    • Abilities
    • Flavor Text
• Setting Up The Game
  • Strongholds
  • Going First
  • Starting Holdings
  • Bowing and Straightening
  • Paying Gold Costs
  • Decks And Discard Piles
  • Provinces
  • The Hand
  • Other Equipment
• The Turn Sequence
  • 1. Straighten Phase
  • 2. Events Phase
  • 3. Action Phase
    • When Can I Take An Action?
    • Traits and Effects
    • How Long Do Things Last?
    • Actions Available To Players In The Action Phase
    • Imperial Favor
  • 4. Attack Phase (Optional)
    • Battles
      • Combat Segment
      • Resolution Segment
• Winning The Game
• Deck Construction
• Rules Glossary
• Online Rules

The Cards

The game uses two separate decks, the Dynasty deck of black-backed cards and the Fate deck of green-backed cards. These plus your Stronghold and starting Holdings make up your play deck.

Stronghold

This card represents your starting base of operations. It does not go into your decks. You start with it in play.

No other card can target or affect your Stronghold unless it specifically mentions the word "Stronghold."

• Card Title: At the top of the Stronghold in a white bar is its title. All L5R cards have a title.
• Clan: To the left of the title is a symbol that shows you what Clan you are a player of, or no icon if you are unaligned.
• Base Province Strength: The topmost of three symbols at the right of your Stronghold gives your base Province Strength.
• Gold Production: The middle of your Stronghold's three symbols, the coin, is its Gold Production.
• Starting Family Honor: The bottom number on a Stronghold is Starting Family Honor. It gives a starting value for your Family Honor score (Honor for short) that may rise and fall during the game.
• Text Box: Like all other L5R cards, the Stronghold has a text box (see Reading the Cards).

Dynasty Card Types

Holding

These cards represent resources in your lands. Holdings, like many cards, have a Gold Cost, the number in the round coin, that you must pay to bring them into play.

Personality

A Personality card represents one of the notable characters of Rokugan. The title bar of a Personality will have the icon of his Clan alignment, or no icon if unaligned.

• Force: A Personality's Force, abbreviated as "F," is found in the lighter colored icon at the top left.
• Chi: Chi, or inner strength, is found in the dark colored icon at top right, and is abbreviated as "C." Special Rule: If a Personality's Chi is ever zero, destroy him immediately.
• Honor Requirement: Personalities may have an Honor Requirement, shown in the leftmost of the three icons in the middle (the square banner). A dash (–) in this icon means that the Personality has no Honor Requirement.
• Gold Cost: Personalities have a Gold Cost, the middle of the three icons, which you must pay before you bring them into play.
• Personal Honor: Personal Honor is found in the fan, the rightmost of the three icons. It stands for inner virtue and honor in the eyes of society. Its abbreviation is "PH." Personal Honor has a maximum value of 5 in the game.

Event

Events represent important happenings in Rokugan. They appear unpredictably in your provinces.

Region

Regions identify a province with a particular area in Rokugan. They have special traits and abilities.

Celestial

Celestials represent the favor of powerful supernatural forces. They enter play when revealed in your provinces and can usually be discarded for an effect.

Fate Card Types

Strategy

Strategy cards are cards you play from your hand and then discard. A Strategy usually has one or more abilities.

• Gold Cost: Strategy cards have a Gold Cost, the coin in the middle. This is often zero, but sometimes a higher number. The Gold Cost is part of the cost of any action on the card.
• Focus Value: Like all Fate cards, Strategy cards also have a Focus Value, in the black circle at the bottom of the card.

Ring

The Rings show understanding of the five mystic elements from which Legend of the Five Rings takes its name. You may put Rings into play when you have fulfilled their condition for entering play. You can also discard them from your hand for a one-shot effect.

Attachments

Followers, Items and Spells are all attachment cards.

Attachment cards enter play by being attached to a Personality, placing the card under the Personality with the title showing.

An Attachment's Gold Cost must be paid before it enters play.

A Personality and all his attached cards make up a unit. The total Force of a unit is the sum of the Force of the Personality and each Follower in the unit, whether these cards are bowed or unbowed. Items contribute directly to the Personality's Force and are not added separately. If a Personality leaves play (for example, by being destroyed), all cards in the unit leave play in the same way. When a unit is targeted, this targets its Personality.

Follower

Followers represent troops, creatures, or advisors. They have Force, in the icon at the top left, which helps their unit in battle. They also have an Honor Requirement, the leftmost icon in the middle, which is the minimum Personal Honor a Personality must have to attach that Follower.

Item

Items represent special objects and artifacts. Unlike the separate Force of Followers, Items have a Force modifier in the upper left hand icon that directly raises or lowers their Personality's Force. Items likewise have a Chi modifier.

If something in the game needs to check an Item's Force or Chi specifically, use the value of its modifier.

Spell

Spells represent magic scrolls used by a Shugenja (a person trained in the magic of Rokugan).

Spells have no Force or Chi bonus. They will only attach to a Shugenja. Actions on Spells that have somehow become attached to a non-Shugenja Personality may not be taken.

Please note there are no spells included in these pre-constructed decks.

Reading the Cards

Stats

Force, Chi, Province Strength and Gold Cost are examples of stats, or number values. Stats may gain bonuses or penalties from effects in the game, and effects may also give stats a minimum or maximum value. Minimums and maximums are applied on top of any existing bonuses or penalties.

Most stats have a minimum value of zero; only Honor Requirement, Family Honor, and modifiers with a + or – sign can have negative values.

Text Box

The text box tells you a card's game effects and limitations. All cards should be read under the first Cardinal Rule of L5R:

If the text of any card contradicts the rulebook, follow the card text, not the rulebook.

The text box may contain any, all or none of the following four parts.

Keywords

A keyword is a phrase of one or more words that usually appears at the top of a text box, above a dividing line. For example, a Personality can be aligned to the Phoenix Clan and be a Samurai.

Some keywords have meaning in the rules, while others are only descriptive terms.

Keywords are separated from each other by solid dots (•). If keywords appear on more than one line in a text box, the ones on different lines are separate as well. A keyword may be made up of multiple words, like "Dragon Clan," but it is treated as a single phrase; a "Dragon Clan" card is not the same as a "Dragon."

Traits

After a card's keywords come its traits: phrases in normal print that describe the card's effects or restrictions.

Some traits start with a trigger, a phrase that ends in a colon (:) and refers to something in the game, for example, "Before your turn ends:" or "After this Personality enters play:" A trigger can also involve costs which must be paid for the effects to occur. After the colon, there will be effects that happen whenever that trigger occurs, such as "Gain 2 Honor."

Abilities

Below any traits, there may be one or more abilities: blocks of text that describe actions you can take at certain points in the game. An ability starts with one or more of the boldface designator terms Limited:, Open:, Battle:, or Reaction:. The designator limits at what time in the game the action can be taken.

An ability with two designators such as Battle/Open: can be used at either time, and is treated as both types.

Some abilities have one or more keywords before the designator, such as Political Limited: or Kiho Battle: These keywords, and any keywords of the card itself, describe the card, the ability, the action it creates, and its effects.

Sometimes, after the designator, there is text followed by a second colon (:). For example:

Open: Bow this card: Gain 1 Honor.

Anything between the designator and the second colon is part of the constraints block, and is either targeting, a trigger, a condition, or a cost of the action. For more information on these terms, see When Can I Take An Action? (p. 16).

After the constraints block, if any, comes the effects block. This describes the effects the action has when it resolves.

Because of the story-based nature of Legend of the Five Rings, abilities on certain cards may include unusual phrasing such as "He has shamed his clan." Such phrasing is for color only. Phrasing that is relevant to the rules will either refer to a keyword or title that can be found on cards, or to a term defined in these rules.

Flavor Text

At the bottom of the text box, in italic type, comes a card's flavor text: a short quote about the world of Rokugan. Flavor text has no game effect.

Setting Up The Game

Remove any Strongholds, and any Holdings titled Bamboo Harvesters or Border Keep, from your other cards. These cards do not go in decks. Then, separate the rest of your cards into Fate and Dynasty decks.

Strongholds

You start with your Stronghold in play.

Going First

The player with the highest starting Family Honor takes the first turn (see The Turn Sequence, p. 15). If you are tied, choose at random which of you goes first.

Starting Holdings

Along with the Stronghold, each player begins the game with one special Holding titled Border Keep in play.

If you're not going first, you also start the game with one Holding titled Bamboo Harvesters in play and bowed. If you are going first, keep Bamboo Harvesters out of the game; it does not go into your deck.

Bowing and Straightening

A bowed card is turned 90 degrees to the right to show that it has spent its efforts. Costs and effects throughout the game may bow an unbowed card, or straighten a bowed card, returning it to the unbowed state.

Paying Gold Costs

Your Stronghold and most Holdings can be bowed to produce an amount of Gold that is given by a Stronghold's Gold Production stat, or a Holding's traits and abilities. Gold produced by a single source must all be spent to pay for one cost. Extra Gold does not carry over to other purchases. Multiple sources of Gold can be added together to pay a cost.

Example: Your unbowed Dragon Clan Stronghold has a Gold Production of 4. You also have a Gold Mine Holding and a Border Keep Holding in play and unbowed. The Gold Mine bows to produce 3 for you and the Border Keep bows to produce 2. If you now wish to buy a card that costs you 8 Gold, you need to bow all three of these cards to produce 9, because the most you can produce from any two of them is 7. The extra 1 Gold is lost, and may not be used to pay for anything else.

Decks And Discard Piles

Shuffle your two decks separately, give your opponent a chance to cut or shuffle them, and put them in front of you. The Fate deck goes about where your right hand is; the Dynasty deck about where your left hand is.

Dynasty cards you discard during play will go to a face-up discard pile to the left of the Dynasty deck. Fate cards you discard will go to their own face-up discard pile to the right of the Fate deck.

If a Personality in play is destroyed, he is dead and not just discarded; either turn him 90 degrees sideways while in the discard pile, or make a separate part of the discard pile for dead Personalities.

Provinces

Next, take the top four cards from the Dynasty deck and lay them face down side by side, from left to right, between the two decks. These cards mark your provinces, or game areas representing your lands, one card to a province.

If a province is ever without a card, refill it immediately with a face-down card from the top of your Dynasty deck. You may not normally look at any face-down cards, even ones in your own provinces.

Each province has a separate Province Strength stat, whose base value is the Stronghold's Province Strength.

The Hand

Draw six cards from the top of your Fate deck and hold them so you can see their faces and your opponent cannot. This is your hand. These cards are considered face-down, even though you may normally look at them.

Other Equipment

• Both players need to keep track of their current Family Honor. Paper and pencil or a set of dice will do.
• The Imperial Favor represents the good graces of the Empress. An object is required to show who has the Imperial Favor.

The Turn Sequence

The starting player takes the first turn following each of the steps described below in order. Once he or she has completed a turn, the player to his or her left takes a turn, and so on, until the game ends.

1. Straighten Phase

As the player whose turn it is, you straighten all your bowed cards, including your Stronghold.

2. Events Phase

Starting with your leftmost province, turn its card face-up. Then:

• If it is a Holding or Personality, nothing happens now.
• If it is an Event, take it out of its province. Its effects resolve now, before the province is refilled. Once an Event has resolved, if it hasn't been put in play by its own effects, discard it.
• If it is a Celestial, discard any of your other Celestials in play, then bring it into play. Unlike Events and Regions, Celestials enter play this way whenever revealed, not just in the Events Phase.
• If it is a Region, it must enter play attached to the province it was revealed in. Move the Region up partway in the province and resolve any of its entering-play effects. When you refill the province, leave the Region's title visible.

Provinces will not attach more than one Region. Regions that will not attach to their province are discarded immediately after being revealed.

Once a Region is in play, its traits apply to you and you can use its abilities.

After dealing with your leftmost province, do the same for each of your other provinces, moving from left to right.

3. Action Phase

As the player whose turn it is, you have the first opportunity in the Action Phase to take a Limited or Open action, or pass. The other player then has a chance to take an Open action or pass. If a player passes, he or she can still take an action later on in the phase. The Action Phase ends when both players pass, one right after the other.

Taking actions in turn until both players pass one after the other is called an action round.

When Can I Take An Action?

You can normally take actions from abilities on Strategies and Rings in your hand, from abilities on your cards in play, or from abilities granted to you by the rules or card effects.

Limited actions are taken in the Action Phase only by the active player. Open actions are taken in the Action Phase by any player.

Battle actions can only be taken during a battle's Combat Segment.

Reactions state a trigger, or point in time when they can be taken. If more than one Reaction can be triggered at the same time, their order is resolved by a separate action round. The active player has the first opportunity to take a Reaction to the trigger or pass, and the action round continues until both players pass consecutively.

To take an action, go through these steps:

A. Check Conditions. Some required conditions may appear in an ability's constraints block, such as "If you control a Shugenja..." There are three other limitations:

• Abilities on bowed cards may not be used.
• A card must normally be in play, or be a Strategy or Ring played from your hand, to use its abilities.
• Each separate card ability and player ability may only be used once per turn.

B. Announce. To take an action, announce it to your opponent. If it comes from a card in your hand (such as a Strategy or Ring), show it. If it comes from a card with multiple abilities, specify which you are using.

C. Required Performing and Targeting. An action may have a number of performers or targets mentioned in its constraints or effects, using the words "performing" or "target"; for example, "Bow a target Samurai with less than 3 Force." In this step, you must choose all performers and targets mentioned in the action, in the order mentioned.

Exception: Targeting mentioned in the effects block is not required at this time if it: is done by another player; is delayed in time; or is optional, for example, "you may target a Samurai". These kinds of targeting are done as effects resolve.

Normally, cards must be in play to be legal performers or targets.

D. Pay Costs. In this step, you must pay any costs of the action, in the order mentioned. Anything in the constraints block that tells you to change the game state is a cost of the action; for example, "Bow one of your Samurai:" The Gold Cost on a Strategy card is a cost of all of its actions and is paid before any others.

To pay a cost, the change must actually, fully happen. For example, if a Personality has a Chi of 4 and a minimum Chi of 1, you can't use him to pay the cost of giving him –4C, because the Chi penalty won't happen fully.

Cards out of play can't normally pay your costs. Cost payments are not effects.

E. Action Resolution. If all targets are met and costs are paid, apply the action's effects in the order they are mentioned. Once effects start to resolve, they will be applied no matter what happens to the card they came from.

If an action brings a card into play, you must pay the card's costs at that point, or it will not enter play.

Some effects may be prevented from happening before they are applied, or while they are ongoing. For example, a Personality might have the trait "Effects do not bow this Personality". If an effect is prevented, the whole action is still legal to take, and the action's other effects still happen.

F. Tidy Up. Finally, if you took the action from a Strategy card in your hand, discard it.

Figure labels from the play area diagram (printed across pages 18–19):

1. Cards in Play
2. Dynasty Discard Pile
3. Dynasty Deck
4. Provinces
5. Fate Deck
6. Fate Discard Pile

Traits and Effects

Traits can also have effects. A triggered trait is like a Reaction; it has a constraints block before its colon that contains conditions, triggers, and costs that must be paid for the effects after the colon to happen. There are four main differences between a triggered trait and a Reaction.

• A triggered trait is not optional; you must apply the effects when the trigger is met.
• A triggered trait, unlike an action, can be used when its card is bowed.
• A triggered trait, unlike an action, is not restricted to once per turn.
• Triggered traits happen before any Reactions to the same trigger can be taken.

A trait without a trigger, such as "Your Samurai each have +1F," has a continuous effect that is "always on" while the card is in play and any conditions of the trait are met.

How Long Do Things Last?

Some costs or effects are instantaneous, and marked by physical changes to the game components, such as bowing cards, adding tokens, and changes to Family Honor. Such changes do not wear off by themselves.

Other costs or effects involve changes that have a duration, lasting until a certain point in the game, and that are not physically marked by the game components. These include changes to stats such as "Give a target attacking Personality +2F," as well as changes to abilities, traits, keywords and conditions of things in the game, such as giving a card the trait, "This Personality does not bow from battle resolution." All ongoing costs or effects last until the end of the current turn, unless they give a different duration.

Non-triggered traits, such as "All Oni have +1F", have continuous effects. These effects apply while conditions on the trait (if any) are met. They affect the card with the trait itself constantly, but they only affect other cards after the card with the trait enters play, and they end when that card leaves play.

Actions Available To Players In The Action Phase

There are several actions that all players may take (player abilities) in the Action Phase, each with its own descriptive term.

Equip

Limited: Any number of times per turn, target one of your Personalities: Attach a target attachment card from your hand to him.

Lobby

Political Limited: If you have higher Family Honor than each other player, bow your target Personality with 1 Personal Honor or higher: Take the Imperial Favor.

Imperial Favor

The Imperial Favor is controlled by one player at a time. It normally starts the game uncontrolled. However, if there is exactly one Dragon Clan player in the game, he or she starts the game controlling the Favor, because the current Empress comes from the Dragon Clan.

Discarding (giving up control of) the Favor is a cost of certain actions, including the following two player abilities:

Political Limited: Discard the Imperial Favor and a card: Draw a card.

("Discard a card" is short for "Discard a Fate card from your hand.")

Political Battle: Discard the Imperial Favor: Move a target attacking enemy unit home.

4. Attack Phase (Optional)

The active player may now optionally create ("declare") an Attack Phase. An Attack Phase has several segments in order.

A. Declaration Segment. The player declaring the attack is the Attacker, and the other player is the Defender.

Create battlefields associated with each of the Defender's provinces. Battlefields are locations in a battle, with two sides, attacking and defending. One or more units on a side make up an army.

B. Infantry Maneuvers Segment. In Infantry Maneuvers, the Attacker first simultaneously assigns any number of his or her units from home to the attacking side at battlefields. The Attacker may assign units to one battlefield or different battlefields, and may keep some or all of them home.

Then the Defender assigns units from home to the defending side at battlefields, in the same way.

Assigning a unit places it at that battlefield, and is different from "moving" between locations. A unit led by a bowed Personality may not be assigned.

C. Cavalry Maneuvers Segment. A unit is Cavalry if its Personality, and all its Followers (if any), have the Cavalry keyword.

In Cavalry Maneuvers, the Attacker and then the Defender assign any of their Cavalry units as in the Infantry Maneuvers segment.

D. Fight Battles. The Attacker chooses a battlefield, and a battle is fought there. When that battle is over, the Attacker chooses a new battlefield and another battle is fought there. This repeats until all battlefields have been fought at.

Exactly one battle happens at each battlefield, even ones with no units. There is no further opportunity for a battle at a battlefield that has already been fought at, even if some units find their way there.

Battles

Most battles will happen as part of an Attack Phase, but some effects create battles separately. Battles have a Combat Segment, then a Resolution Segment.

Combat Segment

The Combat Segment is an action round of Battle actions, starting with the Defender.

When Can I Take A Battle Action? Battle actions follow these additional rules:

• Rule of Presence: To legally take any Battle action, you must control one or more units at the current battlefield.
• Rules of Location: To legally take a Battle action from a card in a unit, the unit must be at the current battlefield. To be legally targeted by or perform a Battle Action, any cards in a unit must be at the current battlefield.

Exception: Battle actions that say they move a unit to the current battlefield are legal to take, regardless of Presence and Location, if the rules of Presence and Location would be satisfied with the unit there.

A Personality who has already been in an attacking army during a battle resolution in the current Attack Phase will not move to a battlefield.

Once both players have passed consecutively, the Combat Segment ends.

Resolution Segment

The Attacker and Defender total their armies' Force at the battlefield. An army's Force is the total of the Force of all unbowed Personalities and Followers in it; a side with no units has zero Force. The side with the highest Force wins.

If the Attacker wins, he or she destroys all units in the defending army. If the attacking army's Force was greater than the defending army's Force plus the Province Strength of the battlefield's province, the Attacker also destroys the province.

When a province is destroyed, discard any cards in it, and any Regions attached to it. Push together the other provinces and the two decks to show the shrinking of their owner's lands.

If the Defender wins, he or she destroys all units in the attacking army.

The winner of a battle also gains Honor equal to twice the number of cards in the enemy army that were destroyed by resolution.

If two armies, each with one or more units, have equal Force, the battle is a tie. The Attacker and Defender each destroy all units in the enemy army, and each gains Honor equal to the number of cards they destroyed. If the battle is tied on zero Force and either or both sides have no units, the battle has no outcome.

When these effects have been applied, the battle's resolution ends. Next, all attacking units at that battlefield bow, then return home, as effects of resolution; return after battle is not movement. Defending units stay at that battlefield, and return home only at the end of the Attack Phase. They do not bow. The battle itself then ends.

Once the last battle has ended, the Attack Phase ends. Battlefields cease to exist. Any units still at battlefields bow if they were attacking, and return home.

5. Dynasty Phase

Buy Cards From Provinces

During the Dynasty Phase, in any order you like and as many times as possible, you can bring face-up Holdings and Personalities into play from your provinces.

To bring a Holding into play, pay its Gold Cost. Unlike other card types, Holdings always enter play bowed.

To bring a Personality into play, pay his Gold Cost. If your Family Honor is below a Personality's Honor Requirement, he will not enter play under your control at any time unless he is aligned with your Clan and it is the Dynasty Phase (see following paragraphs).

When you bring Personalities with your Clan alignment keyword into play during the Dynasty Phase, and only then, they follow three special rules:

• You may bring them into play paying 2 less Gold.
• If you aren't choosing to pay the 2 less Gold, you may choose to gain Honor equal to your aligned Personality's Personal Honor just before you bring him into play, once per Dynasty Phase.
• If your Family Honor doesn't meet your aligned Personality's Honor Requirement, you may still bring him into play paying 2 more Gold than normal. Together with the rules above, this means you may pay the full Gold Cost and not gain any Honor, or pay 2 more than the full Gold Cost and gain Honor.

Discard Face-Up Cards

Before your Dynasty Phase ends, once you are done bringing cards into play, you may discard face-up cards from your provinces one by one, refilling the province face-down each time before continuing.

6. End Phase

In the End Phase, you draw a Fate card. Then, if your hand is above the maximum hand size of eight, discard cards down until you are at the maximum hand size.

The turn ends when the End Phase does. The other player now takes his or her turn.

Winning The Game

There are four ways to win a game of L5R.

• Military Victory: Your opponent loses when his or her final province is destroyed.
• Dishonor Victory: Your opponent loses if his or her Family Honor is ever at or below –20.
• Honor Victory: You win if you start your turn on 40 Family Honor or higher, gaining victory by securing control of the Imperial Court.
• Enlightenment Victory: You win instantly if you control five Rings with five different element keywords (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Void), each of which last entered play by its own text. You have won by being recognized as a mystically enlightened master.

Deck Construction

You can expand and change this deck by trading for or buying other cards, following these rules for a legal play deck in Celestial 40/40 format:

• The Dynasty and Fate decks must each have at least 40 cards. Your Stronghold and the Starting Holdings titled Border Keep and Bamboo Harvesters do not count toward this minimum, and copies of those cards may not be included in decks.
• All cards in the play deck (including the Stronghold) must be Celestial Edition legal, having the Celestial Edition icon in the lower right hand corner of their most recent printing (MRP). In all L5R formats, cards are considered to have the stats and text of their MRP in English.
• You can have no more than three copies of any card, by title, in your decks.
• You can have no more than one copy of each Event card and Unique card, by title, in your decks.

Note that Experienced cards, see p. 30, are an exception to the last two rules.

Rules Glossary

This section collects rules associated with specific game terms that have not been explained in the main rules.

Active Player: The player whose turn it is.

Ally: A term used in the multiplayer rules (see http://rules.l5r.com online).

Armor: A Personality will not attach more than one Armor at a time. Base: Refers to a stat, keyword, or other game text as printed on the most recent printing of the card, without modification. If the card is a created card, "base" refers to the text it was created with.

Challenge: A challenge is an effect that creates a duel between two Personalities (see Duel). One Personality will be the challenger, and the other will be the challenged; they must be controlled by different players.

Challenges may not be refused unless they say they can. If the challenged Personality's player refuses, the duel doesn't happen. Otherwise, the challenged player accepts, and the two Personalities enter a duel.

Clan Alignment: A keyword ending in "Clan" that refers to one of the nine major Clans: Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Mantis, Phoenix, Scorpion, Spider, and Unicorn.

Contribute: A Personality or Follower contributes Force when its Force is added to its army's Force. This is part of a battle's resolution, but can also happen when an army's total Force is calculated for other reasons.

Control: You gain control of a card when you bring it into play, and normally keep control of it while it remains in play. There are two exceptions:

• an attachment is controlled by its Personality's controller
• a Region is controlled by its province's owner.

Some effects may also change control of a card between players. Immediately after a player successfully takes control of another player's card:

• if the card is a Personality at a battlefield, it goes to the new player's side of the battlefield;
• if the card is an attachment, it is transferred to one of the new player's Personalities at any location who may legally attach it;
• otherwise, it enters the new player's home.

Copy: Some effects may copy a keyword, trait, or stat from one card to another. If a stat is copied, set the copying card's stat to the current value of the copied card's stat. A card will not copy its own text or stats.

Courtier: Courtier Personalities can commit seppuku using a Reaction available to all players; see Seppuku for details.

Created Cards: Some effects may create cards in addition to the cards included in decks. You may use pieces of paper, face-down spare cards, or other objects to keep track of these.

If an effect that creates a card gives no value for a stat the card type normally has, that stat's base value is zero. Exception: Created Personalities have a "–" Honor Requirement.

Created attachments and Regions attach to a Personality or province as part of their creation effect. Other cards you create enter play in your home. When a created card leaves play, remove it from the game.

Dead, Destroy: When an effect destroys a Personality, he enters the discard pile in the dead state. Turn the card 90 degrees to the right, or put the card apart from the others in the discard pile, to show this.

Discard: To put a card in its Dynasty or Fate discard pile. Discard by itself means "discard a Fate card from your hand."

Exception: If a cost or effect requires you to discard the Imperial Favor, this means that you give up control of the Favor and it becomes uncontrolled.

Discarded: The state of a card that is not dead in a discard pile.

Dishonor: Some things can dishonor a Personality, disgracing him in the eyes of Rokugan. Turn the Personality 180 degrees upside down to show this dishonorable state.

A dishonorable Personality's Personal Honor is always zero. After a Personality is destroyed while dishonorable, the player who last controlled him loses Honor equal to the Personality's base Personal Honor. A destroyed dishonorable Personality remains dishonorably dead even in the discard pile.

When dishonorable Personalities are involved in gaining one or more points of Honor, the Honor gain does not happen and they are rehonored (restored to honorable status). Specifically, this happens:

• Before a player gains Honor from an action or trait that targeted, came from, or was performed by one or more of his or her dishonorable Personalities.
• Before a player gains Honor from attaching a card to one of his or her dishonorable Personalities.
• Before a player with one or more dishonorable Personalities in his or her army gains Honor from destroying enemy cards in battle resolution. In a tied battle, all dishonorable Personalities in an army are rehonored before being destroyed, and their army's leader gains no Honor.

Do Not, Does Not, Will Not: These phrases in a card effect mean that another effect fails to happen. The phrase "(an action's) effects do not happen" means that all effects of the action fail to happen, as well as its costs and targeting.

Draw: To put the top card of your Fate deck into your hand.

Duel: A duel is a confrontation that comes from a challenge between two Personalities. Follow these steps:

1. Each player puts his or her hand aside and takes the top three cards of his or her Fate deck to form a focus pool. The focus pool is face-down but visible to its player. Cards are not played as normal from the focus pool; they are focused instead.

2. The challenged player has the first option to focus or strike. To focus, a player chooses a card from his or her focus pool and puts it face-down. If the player focused, the other player then has the option to focus or strike. The players continue to take turns focusing until one of them strikes. A player who can't focus must strike.

   Each player may focus one card per duel from his or her hand instead of focus pool.

3. Once a strike has been called, turn all focused cards face-up. Any traits on focused cards with the special trigger "Focus Effect:" resolve; the player whose turn it is chooses the order. Ignore anything on focused cards that doesn't specifically refer to the card's use as a focus.

4. Duel resolution now happens. Each player totals the Focus Values of his or her focused cards, and adds his or her Personality's duel stat to this total. The duel stat is Chi unless another stat is given. The higher total wins the duel, and the lower total loses. The duel effect may give consequences for the loser or winner.

   If the two totals are equal, the duel is a tie; both players lose and take the loser's consequences.

   The duel ends when duel resolution ends.

5. Discard all focused cards and end all changes to their Focus Value. Then, each player puts any cards still in his or her focus pool on the bottom of his or her Fate deck, in any order.

Duelist: Immediately before the first opportunity to focus or strike in a duel, if a Duelist Personality is the challenger, and the challenged is a non-Duelist with an equal or higher duel stat, the Duelist gains the first chance to focus. The Duelist must use this chance to focus instead of strike, if possible.

Element Keyword: One of the five keywords for the mystic elements of Rokugan: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Void.

Enemy: Referring to the player on the opposing side to you during a battle (the "enemy leader"), and to cards in units he or she controls. Cards not in units are not "enemy cards."

Engage: The point in time when a battle begins.

Entering-Play: An effect that is triggered by its own card entering play.

Exchange: When an effect exchanges two stats, note their current values. Then, simultaneously set each stat to the noted value of the other one.

Expensive: Referring to the value of a card's Gold Cost stat; for example, "more expensive" means "with a higher Gold Cost stat."

Experienced: Some Personality cards have the Experienced keyword, which is sometimes followed by a number representing the Personality's experience level. A Personality with Experienced and no number has experience level of one. A Personality without Experienced has experience level zero.

Any number of single Personalities with the same title but different experience levels may be included in a deck.

During the Dynasty Phase, you may bring an Experienced Personality into play normally, or you may overlay him onto one of your Personalities with the same title but lower experience level.

When you overlay, you do not need to meet Honor Requirements, but you do need to meet other requirements and restrictions, including Loyal.

You do not have to pay Gold costs unless the overlaying Personality is two or more experience levels above the overlaid Personality, and more expensive than the overlaid Personality. In that case you pay the difference between the two Personalities' Gold costs.

An overlaying card is stacked on top of its less experienced version without entering play.

This stack is treated as one card until it leaves play; then, all cards in the stack except the topmost are removed from the game. The stacked card has the text and stats of the overlaying card, and has the base abilities (but not traits, keywords, or stats) of any underlying cards, plus any abilities that underlying cards themselves inherited from cards they overlaid. On overlaying, the stacked card keeps all states, ongoing effects, attachments, and tokens of the underlying card, and is considered to be the same card.

Experienced cards that are not Personalities follow the Experienced deck construction rules, but do not overlay.

Focus, Focus Pool, Focus Effect: Terms used in dueling. See Duel.

Home: The location in front of a player's provinces where cards normally enter play, as opposed to battlefields.

Honorable: A Personality not in the dishonorable state. "Honorably dead" refers to such a Personality who is dead. See Dishonor.

Human: This term refers to a Personality or Follower who does not have the Nonhuman keyword. It is not itself a keyword.

Ignore: When a cost or requirement is ignored, it is no longer a cost or requirement of whatever you were doing.

Infantry: This term refers to a Personality or Follower who does not have the Cavalry keyword. It is not itself a keyword.

Kensai: A Kensai Personality can attach two Weapons.

Leader: The Attacker or Defender in a battle. You are the friendly leader; the other player is the enemy leader. This term has greater relevance in multiplayer rules (see http://rules.l5r.com online).

Location: An area holding cards in play. Battlefields and each player's home are locations.

Look: To inspect a face-down card without showing it to anyone else or changing its position (for example, in a deck).

Loyal: A Personality with the Loyal keyword will not be controlled by a player who does not share a Clan alignment with the Personality.

May Not: This phrase forbids a choice you might make; for example, to target a particular card, or to take an action. Unlike Do Not/Will Not or Negate, when something is forbidden with May Not, it can't be chosen in the first place.

May Remain Bowed: This phrase means that while the card is bowed, its controller may negate any effect that straightens the card, until the card straightens or leaves play.

Move: To change the position of a unit from one location to another. Effects that move a unit to a battlefield always move it into its controller's side there.

Naval: The Naval keyword allows you to take the following action available to all players:

Reaction: After engaging, once per battle, if you are the Attacker and your current army has more Naval cards than the side opposing it, target your Naval Personality: You have the first opportunity to take a Battle action, which must be performed by the targeted Personality.

Negate: A negation effect is one that uses a form of the word "negate," such as "Negate all Force bonuses on him." While a negation effect lasts, it makes another effect or type of effect fail to happen whenever it would occur.

Opposed: A card, side, or army is opposed at a battlefield if there are one or more units in the enemy army.

Opposing: For a card to be opposing another card, they must be at the same battlefield, on different sides.

Overlay: See Experienced.

Own: You own all cards that were originally in your deck and that you brought into play from outside the game, including cards you created. Cards you own can never go into another player's decks or discard piles; they always go to yours instead.

Perform: A Personality or Follower is performing an action if its controller is the player taking the action, and any of these things is true:

• The action comes from an ability on the Personality or Follower.
• The action comes from an ability on an Item or Spell in the Personality's unit.
• The Personality or Follower was targeted in the action's constraint block (the section between the two colons).
• The Personality or Follower is explicitly chosen to perform the action (for example, "Bow your performing Samurai").

Permanent: A permanent effect refers to an effect whose duration lasts until the end of the game. Permanent effects can still be negated, ended, and changed by other effects.

Ranged Attack: A Ranged Attack represents a military effect that destroys at a distance, such as archers' arrows or a magical fiery bolt. "Ranged X Attack", where X stands for a number, is shorthand for the text "Target a Follower or a Personality without Followers in the current enemy army. If its Force is equal to or less than X, destroy it." The targeting in a Ranged Attack is required targeting.

Rehonor: See Dishonor.

Remove from the game: When a card is removed from the game, set it aside. It exists outside all areas of the game, and will not come back into the game.

Reveal: To turn a face-down card face-up.

Samurai: Samurai Personalities can commit seppuku using a Reaction available to all players; see Seppuku for details.

Search: To look through a deck or other area for a card of a specified kind. After you search a deck, you must reshuffle it after you take any card(s) you searched for.

Seppuku: An act of ritual suicide. If an effect directs a Personality to commit seppuku, apply the following effects: "Rehonor the Personality, then destroy him; these effects will not be negated."

Additionally, all players have the following ability:

Reaction: Any number of times per turn, before you lose Honor from an action that targeted or was performed by one of your Courtier or Samurai Personalities: He commits seppuku. If the seppuku destroyed him, reduce the Honor loss to one.

Set: When a stat is set to a particular value, give it a bonus or penalty such that it reaches that value.

Show: To display the face of a face-down card to all other players, then return it to its face-down state.

Shugenja: A person trained in the magic of Rokugan. Only Shugenja Personalities can attach Spell cards.

Singular, Unique: A player will not bring into play or take control of a Singular or Unique card if he or she already controls a Singular or Unique card with the same title (but see Experienced, p. 30). If a player takes control of a unit with a copy of a Singular or Unique attachment he or she already controls, discard the new attachment. The Unique keyword also restricts deck construction. See Deck Construction, p. 25.

Successful: An action or effect is successful if it caused any changes in the game state.

Switch: When an effect switches the locations of two units, each one simultaneously moves to the location of the other. If one movement is negated, the other one is also negated.

Tactical, Tactician: An action with the Tactical keyword can only be performed by a Tactician Personality (see Perform, p. 32). Each Tactician can only perform one Tactical action per turn.

All players can take the following Tactical Battle action. Keep in mind that, due to the above rule, it can only target each individual Tactician once per turn:

Tactical Battle: Any number of times per turn, discard a card and target one of your Tactician Personalities: Give him a Force bonus equal to the Focus Value of the discarded card.

Terrain: A Battle action with the Terrain keyword represents the ground on which a battle is fought. Terrains follow special rules.

Terrains are played as a Battle action; their Strategy card enters play at the current battlefield before the action's resolution.

A Terrain action may not be played if a Terrain is already in play at the current battlefield.

When a Terrain leaves play, its effects with a duration end, and none of its delayed effects will happen.

After battle resolution, discard any Terrains in play at that battlefield.

Token: A marker in the game. You may use beads, pieces of paper, or other common objects as tokens. Tokens may have a keyword (such as Corruption). They may also give a stat bonus or penalty (such as –1C) to whatever they are on. This bonus or penalty is considered to come from the last effect that placed the token on the card or area.

Tokens are not cards. They are removed from the game if the card they are on leaves play.

Transfer: To move an attached card from one Personality or province to another. You do not need to pay the costs of the transferred card, but you do need to meet any restrictions on attaching.

Unaligned: A Personality, player, or Stronghold without a Clan alignment.

Unique: See Singular.

Weapon: A Personality can have only one Weapon at a time attached. Exception: See Kensai.

Online Rules

Visit http://rules.l5r.com for errata and comprehensive rules covering rare situations, plus variant rules for 3 or more players, draft, sealed deck and more. Rules questions can be asked and officially answered at the L5R CCG Rules Questions forum (http://www.alderac.com/forum/).