Shogun no Katana: Wandering Character Geisha Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Wandering Characters
  • Game Setup
  • General Rule for the Wandering Characters
  • The Ghost Player
• Character Effects
  • Geisha

Wandering Characters

Game Setup

Place 4 Wandering Characters on the main gameboard at the beginning of the game. Each one must be placed in a space in one of the four areas at the corners of the board (Academy, Daimyō Houses, Market, Shōgun’s Palace). To do so, shuffle the Wandering Character tiles and reveal one of them for each area. The Character placed in the Daimyō Houses area must be placed on the Sword tile with the lowest number (in the bottom right corner). The Characters placed in the other three areas must be placed in the leftmost space of each area. Keep the Wandering Characters tiles near the board as a quick reference for the Characters’ effects.

General Rule for the Wandering Characters

When you place a Worker or a Monk in a space with a Wandering Character:

1. Move the Character to another empty space on the board or to a Sword tile in the Daimyō Houses area which has no Characters on it;
2. Then immediately apply its effect before taking the action you selected. This means you cannot use Coins earned from the current action to pay the Character, if needed.
3. If a Character requires you to pay a cost but you can’t or don’t want to pay it, you must move it anyway but you don’t obtain its effect. Choose carefully where to place the Character, because you might help the next player going after you, since they can use the Wandering Character just like you did!

PLEASE NOTE: If there is more than 1 Wandering Character in the same area, you can choose which one to activate by placing your Worker or Monk in the chosen Character’s space.

PLEASE NOTE: You are not forced to choose a space with a Character. If there are one of more empty spaces in the same area, you can place your Worker or Monk there and the Wandering Character remains where it is, without being activated.

The Ghost Player

The Ghost player never activates Wandering Characters and treats spaces with Wandering Characters as occupied. This means that:

• If the Ghost player goes to the Daimyō Houses area, it doesn’t consider any Sword with a Wandering Character on it when determining which one to choose.
• If the Ghost player goes to another area, it always places its Worker in an empty space, if available.
• If there are no empty spaces (or available Swords) in an area, it’s considered an Occupied Area. This means that the Ghost will score extra points if it goes there. Think about this when you decide where to move a Wandering Character!

Character Effects

Geisha

The Geisha comes with a set of 15 tokens (3 per type in 5 types). Shuffle the tokens and place 3 of them randomly on her tile, face up, and leave the others in a pile nearby, face down. When you encounter her, take one of the 3 tokens on her tile of your choice, then replace it with a token from her pile. Each token represents one of the arts she has mastered. At the end of the game, score the points shown on her tile for each set of different tokens you have.

This character is not included in the Wandering Characters expansion set. It’s a special Character originally included in the Kickstarter Deluxe Edition. You may purchase it separately.