#Principles of the Drift (漂流原理)

Contents

Authority. The Scent of this document (the story and the declaration) is Fiction-Only, and §Law — the handling of arrival — is a Scene Tool (not a check rule but the GM's premise tool). This document makes no new check and no new number — it only fixes how a person crosses over, what the one who crossed over is called, and how the history they know is to be handled. As with all the contents of this volume, it is premised on GM permission, and fc cannot override the co canon (Canon).

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#Scent — The Gate Opens Through Time as Well

#Opening Fragment — The Light Beneath the Torii

The sword came five years ago.

On a morning when the rainy season had lifted, it lay on the third step of the shrine's stone stair, with not even a white cloth beneath it. A scholar came all the way from below the castle to read the swordsmith's name carved on the hilt, yet there was no one who knew that name. The aged kannushi enshrined the sword behind the altar. To count what is of unknown origin as belonging to the gods was the law of the mountain village.

And tonight, mist gathered beneath the torii.

At first they took it for a lantern. A bluish light flickered within the mist — and the hand that held that light, and the person joined to the hand, came staggering out through the torii. Sleek clothes the like of which they had never seen. Footwear the like of which they had never seen. In the man's hand was held a board the size of a palm, and that board lit the man's face blue from below.

"Where... is this? My signal — there's no signal."

The words carried. Only, what the latter words meant, no one knew. A miko swallowed a scream, and the kannushi raised the lantern to light the man's face.

"From where do you come."

"I took the last bus... a bus. I passed through a tunnel, and —" The man looked back. Beyond the torii there was no tunnel. There was no road either. There was only mist.

"Your name."

The man gave his name. The order of family name and given name was strange, and it was a name from which one could not even guess what region he was from.

The miko tugged at the kannushi's sleeve. "Should we not... report this to the watch-post."

"Report it, and he will be bound as a spy." The kannushi lowered the lantern and gazed for a long while toward the altar — toward where the cloth-wrapped sword slept.

"Five years ago, the goods came first," the old man said. "The person has followed."

"What do you mean by —"

"It is Kamikakushi. What the spirits had hidden away, they have now begun to set forth on this side." The kannushi beckoned to the man. "Come in and warm yourself by the fire. Where you came from — it is not too late to hear that slowly."

The man looked back at the torii once more. The gate he had come through was already nowhere to be found.

#Three Lines of the Canon, One Line of This Volume

The canonical timeline has already written down the first part of this matter.

• 10 years ago — A samurai of the Hakurei Mountains finds a famed sword of unknown origin. On the blade is carved the name of an "Edo-period master smith" — but that age has not yet come. The scholars were baffled, and the onmyoji trembled. The first proof that a Gate to the Spirit Realm had opened backward through time.
• 5 years ago — More weapons, armor, and books beyond time begin flowing out of the gate. The Sakai Guild, raising the banner of "origin unknown, power guaranteed," sells them dear to the daimyo. The Bureau of Onmyo develops a rite of appraisal. And one feng shui master gives a warning — "If too many Spirit-Realm Wandering Treasures gather, a time fissure will occur." This warning is ignored by the Kagura Domain.
• The present — Spirit-Realm Wandering Treasures drift across the Sengoku. The Spirit Realm fissures have grown to three places across the Sengoku.

What this volume adds is one fourth line alone.

And the fissures have ceased to drop only goods.

The principle the canon has already spoken. The Spirit Realm is a place where the flow of time differs — a dimension where the human world's past, present, and future all exist at once (Masterwork Arsenal — Spirit-Realm Wandering Treasures). If the sword of a swordsmith not yet born can flow out without regard to time, then that road is not a road that sorts and takes in swords alone. In the place where the treasures gather, a small time fissure arises — exactly as the feng shui master warned. And the far end of that fissure reaches some tunnel, some last bus, some shrine torii of several hundred years later.

The goods came first, and the person followed. This is the reason for this volume's existence, and the whole of the principle of the drift.

But let it be made plain — this causation is knowledge beyond the desk. The one who crossed over does not know it. Exactly as the canon's one line, "they do not know how they arrived." Neither the fissure, nor the treasures, nor the feng shui master's warning is in the Kamikakushi's own memory. What there is, is only mist, and a tunnel, and a closed gate.

#The Same Gate — The Person Falls Through the Road the Yoma Came Out By

The yoma supplement volume wrote the gate thus — "The gate was not made of stone." And the voice in the mist said this. "The places where you called us were already, all of them, gates." (The Gate of the Spirit Realm, Yoma Desires, Faction Responses)

The same volume also made a list of the modern gates — station, tunnel, elevator, video, post (Modern Yoma). It is a list of the passages the yoma come out by.

Now set side by side the sentence in which the canon wrote the modern person's arrival — "they do not know how they arrived: passing through a shrine torii, losing the path in mountain fog, or opening their eyes after sleep." (Modern Person)

Torii. Fog. Tunnel. Elevator. Last bus. — The list of the places where a person vanishes overlaps with the list of the gates the yoma come out by. This volume does not leave this overlap to chance. It is the same gate. The yoma came out by that gate, and the person fell through that gate. The passage is one; only the direction differs. Of course this fact too is the underside of the world — at the table, there is only a person in strange clothes standing where the mist has lifted.

#The Direction of Time — The Gate Closes Behind One's Back

The direction is fixed. From the future to the past. And in this volume that future is fixed to the modern age — the age of the smartphone. Neither a more distant future nor a nearer age does this volume's table treat. For the drama of this volume arises from the drop of modern goods and from Depletion.

And the gate closes behind one's back. This is the default. A gate that is kept open — a gate where supply comes and goes and return becomes the everyday — is not treated by this volume. The reason is exactly this volume's spine sentence. This book is not a book that makes the modern person strong. It is a book that gives the drama of a future being consumed. A gate that does not close drowns that drama in supply.

The road home — only "the rumor that it exists" remains. The talk that the gate opens widest when the Sengoku comes to its end, the talk that a feng shui master can open the gate by rite. The truth or falsehood of the rumor and the operation of a return campaign are delegated to the GM Guide. What this document fixes is one thing — that the road home is not a rule but the reward of the story.

#The Declaration of the Appellation — The One Taken by Kamikakushi

To the people of this age there is no word for "person from the future." But for a person vanishing all at once there was already a name — Kamikakushi, the hiding-away by a god (Glossary of Terms). The hiding of a person by a god, or by a yoma. There were even cases, rarely, of a vanished person returning some years later in a daze.

The drifter is the mirror image of that lore. A person who never vanished from anywhere has appeared from somewhere. The reckoning of the mountain village is simple — a person whom the spirits had hidden away somewhere, they have now set forth on this side. In the eyes of the villagers the drifter is not "a person who opened a gate" but "a person who was hidden away and sprang forth."

Declaration. Throughout this volume, the standard appellation of one who has crossed over through time and fallen into this age is "the one taken by Kamikakushi" — abbreviated, "the Kamikakushi."

Just as this series, by its custom, calls an oni an oni and a tengu a tengu, this appellation too is called by its transliteration. And in this appellation a single layer of truth that the villagers do not know is folded — if the place where the spirits hide a person and the place where the yoma come out are the same gate, then the name Kamikakushi is not a folkloric misunderstanding but very nearly the correct answer.

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#Law — The Handling of Arrival (Scene Tool)

This section is a Scene Tool — not a check rule, but the GM's premise tool for setting up the first scene. The table below may be rolled, may be chosen, may be overruled. The dice do not stand in for the GM's decision — they only press for the decision.

#The Three of Arrival — When, Where, With Whom

The point of time, the place, and the companion of arrival are the GM's matters to decide.

• When — the season and the hour. The midwinter mountains and the early-summer highway are scenarios different from each other. The one who falls at night meets the cold before the first encounter.
• Where — Table 1 below assists.
• With whom — alone is the default. A solo drift gives the drama of isolation; a companioned drift gives the drama of the division of baggage and of leadership. To bind all the PCs into a single event is also a fine move — this volume's sample characters crossed over together on a single night bus (Sample Characters).

#Table 1 — Where Did You Fall (d10)

#Table 2 — The First Person You See (d10)

#Possessions — Only What Was on the Body

The principle is one line. You bring only what was on your body when you crossed over. The clothes you were wearing, the watch you were fastening, one backpack on your back — that far. Neither a unit that crosses over by the truckful, nor supplies that drop by the warehouse, is this volume's default. Vehicles and heavy weapons are a GM-only device.

What is in that backpack is fixed by the starting drifted goods of the Identity Set, and how it dwindles is fixed by the Depletion System. What this document fixes is the principle of the entrance alone.

#Language — The Speech Carries, the Words Go Astray

The speech carries. The canonical modern person is operated thus — the Modern Person class negotiates, deceives, and commands with no language-barrier rule. This volume follows that precedent as is. To make the four hundred years of linguistic change into a check runs against gameplay convenience, and is not the drama this volume means to give either. The reason is not written down — for the moment it is written down, someone must devise a scenario that breaks that reason.

But the words go astray. "Bus," "signal," "hospital" — in an age without the thing, the name of the thing is a meaningless sound. This going-astray is not a penalty but staging material. And the going-astray of etiquette and rank lives on exactly as in the canon — in the negotiation of one who does not know to bow his head before a power-holder, it is not language but the age that gives the penalty.

#Three Things to Show in the First Scene

1. The relief that the speech carries — give the first conversation at length. The very fact that it carries is the first miracle.
2. The unease that the goods do not carry — a screen with its signal dead, a banknote no one accepts. It is the trailer of Depletion.
3. The moment the appellation attaches — the moment someone first calls you "Kamikakushi," the PC becomes an existence of this world. Until a name attaches, one is a ghost.

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#Scent — The Problem of Historical Alteration: Not Prophecy but Memory

#This World Has No True History (正史) to Keep

The canon declared it first — "Konsei Reiyotan is a world that branched from actual history." (Timeline) Look at the timeline's hundred years. The Spirit Realm tremor, the mountain of oni, the warning of the tengu — events found nowhere in the history we know are the backbone of this world. There is a Nobunaga, but he is not our Nobunaga, and even the year of "the present" the canon does not nail down but leaves to the GM's choice.

Therefore historical alteration is not the problem of this volume. There is no original to change to begin with. There is no need for the GM to lie awake at night for fear the history might "break" because a Kamikakushi whispered of Okehazama — the history of this world is this world's own, and what happens at the table is itself this world's true history. This is not this volume's proposal but a basic premise set up by canon citation.

#The Parenthesis of Foresight — Raised to a Principle of the Whole Volume

In the canonical modern person's tier 1 endowment Foresight there is a parenthesis of one line — "Historical knowledge: may ask the GM 'the historical outcome of this event' (as alternate history, for reference only)." This volume raises this parenthesis to a principle of the whole volume.

The history you know is not the prophecy of this world but the memory of another world.

So the Kamikakushi's knowledge is not an all-purpose cheat but the intuition of a stranger. When it hits, it hits chillingly — for in the branched world too the same river flows, and the same greed flows. When it misses, it misses at the most important moment — and that going-astray is the very best card the GM holds. The drifter is not one who knows the ending, but one who saw something resembling the ending in a dream. Balance and drama stand at once in this one line.

#Auxiliary Dials — If You Still Wish to Slow the Pace

For the GM to whom even the declaration of a branched world is not enough, who dislikes the future's knowledge staining the table too fast, there are two auxiliary dials.

• The wall of material and precision — to know and to be able to make are different. The blueprint in the head is free, but the iron and the gunpowder and the hands of this age are not free. The real thing of this wall is shown by the maintenance and substitution rules of the Depletion System.
• The resistance of the world — a world where the Spirit Realm has opened fills in the going-astray by itself. When the future's knowledge resounds too greatly, rumors die strangely fast and records are strangely lost. The causation of a world with yoma in it sometimes takes the side of superstition.

Both are not the default but knobs. The detailed operation is handled by the GM Guide.

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The goods came first, and the person followed. The gate closed behind one's back — and before the closed gate, the story begins.