>
> > The major difference I see between these and the Gloranthan HW
> > theist keywords is that your affinity names are extremely poetic,
> > while the HW affinity names are extremely prosaic. I think this
>
> Yeah. Initially I wanted to use thoise names as feats in their own
> right, but in that respect they were TOO obscure.
>
> > Durbadath's?" overlap. However, I do worry that it may be a bit
> > too hard to figure out how to invent entirely new feats from an
> > affinity named "The Way of the Crane", since cranes really have no
> > mythical associations for me. Of course, this may be just
because
>
> Sure. Different set of cultural references; they are not really
> mythic resonances so much as a kind of zoo-symbolism; the crane
steps
> delicately and carefully, it spears its prey with a sharp, sudden,
> accurate movement. That sort of stuff. There will be enough
> supporting text to explain this, although I may have to write it
> myself.
>
> > know nothing at all about L5R. In any case, I urge you to keep
the
> > runic equivalents as explanatory text, even if you do find a
symbol
> > set to express them.
>
> Yes, I found that without a clear sense of what kind of function
the
> feat was attempting to fulfill, an idea of the outline of the box
in
> which it appeared, it was tricky to grasp the intent behind the
feat
> name sometimes. So although I had not initially intended to keep
the
> runic structure, I found it necessary, more or less. I could
> probably find chinese icons to stand in the place of runes, but I
> fear that would be almost more obscure than the runes themselves;
at
> least, our western eyes are not trained to see the distinctions in
> individual characters which can be very subtle. On the other hand,
> the "evolved" form of chinese, modifying one icon with extra
strokes,
> matches quite well with the existing pattern of gloranthan runes
and
> their ancillaries/derivatives.
Perhaps one way of identifying each of the affinities and Feats would
be identifying each major school with the mon of the family that it
represents? For example, for Ni Ten Techniques, make use the
Mirumoto mon.
A listing of Clan and/or family mons next to each of the
correseponding HW affinity types may be helpful. For example, next
to Kakita techniques the Kakita mon would make sense, and would also
give the appropriate mythic 'resonance' in regards to the world
background of Rokugan. Stuff with strategy and tactics would get the
Akodo mon, Bravery the Matsu mon, and so on. So, a player seeing an
affinity with the Matsu mon would immediately know they are Feats
from the Bravery affinity.
Further, Rokugan has a set of different mythic correspondences than
Glorantha, so the list of Affinities may not entirely match.
Chris Bell