#Self-Defense Officer (自衛官)

Contents

Authority. This document is a variant rule (Variant) — the very document the Set Overview wrote down as "a Variant within a Variant." As with every variant rule of this volume, it is premised on GM permission, and fc cannot override co Canon. The set-specific card values of the starting drifted goods are a narrow Canon — canonical only within this volume. And the canon-protection principle of the Set Overview is set down again at the head — the only set that grants direct combat power is the Self-Defense Officer, the one, and that combat power is time-limited, bound to firearms and Depletion. On the day the gun falls silent, the Self-Defense Officer too returns to the canonical modern person.

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#Scent — A Body Waiting for Orders

#Opening Vignette — The Body That Lay Down

The sound came first. A war cry — bursting all at once from the throats of several hundred, a sound no loudspeaker on any training ground had ever mimicked.

The body moved before thought. Knees, elbows, a low crawl. When he came to his senses he was lying in the mire, and the downpour that had been beating his back a breath before was — gone. The sky was clear. The mire under his knees was not rainwater but a paddy field.

"3rd Squad, respond." He spoke with the transmit button of the radio held down. "Current position unknown. Respond."

Static. Only static.

He raised his head half an inch. Over the paddy ridge he saw a banner. It was a crest (紋章) he had never seen. Rows of men with spears were running at one another, and through the gaps between them arrows — arrows? — drove down at a slant.

"...This is not a drill." He said it under his breath. What unit runs an exercise like this. A film shoot? Then where is the camera.

One arrow lodged in the mire to his left, within reach of his hand. The fletching trembled like a soaked bird. It was not a prop.

The body moved before thought again. He brought the rifle down off his shoulder, set it to his cheek, laid his thumb on the selector — and stopped. The chamber was empty. The magazine was empty. There are no live rounds on a disaster deployment. Until thirty minutes ago he had been searching a collapsed levee for the missing. Until thirty minutes ago — and four hundred years later.

From below the paddy ridge came a groan. An ashigaru, an arrow in his shoulder, slid down having dropped his spear. Seventeen, perhaps. He crawled over, seized the boy by the collar, dragged him down below the bank, undid the rifle sling, and cinched it tight above the shoulder.

"A-are you of a warrior house?" the boy asked. "That armor — of which house...?"

"The one with questions is over here," he said, drawing the tourniquet knot to its last pull. "When is this."

"...When, you say." The boy never did understand the question. "We are in the midst of a battle."

The war cry shook the mountain once more. He shouldered the empty rifle again and hoisted the boy onto his back. Where he ought to go, he did not know. Only which way was the line of fire (射線) — that alone, the body knew.

#Scent — Only While the Ammunition Lasts

A trained soldier. He fights better than anyone of this age — only while the ammunition lasts.

The Self-Defense Officer is, among the six sets, the only one who crossed over with fighting as a profession. So he is the set whose balance is most precarious in this volume, and so the set bound most deeply to Depletion. All of this set's strength is held in the backpack and the magazine — it dwindles each time a round is fired, and at the end it falls silent. The crest on the spine works most cruelly, and most precisely, in this set. 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. The Self-Defense Officer set is not a "strong modern person" but a modern person not yet worn all the way down.

Drifting does not pick only the night bus (The Principles of Drifting). In the mire of a disaster deployment, in the fog of a night exercise — there are those who cross over still in uniform. And for the Self-Defense Officer the moment of drifting is at once the fork of fate. What did he carry across. Was it with combat gear fully provisioned, or in the midst of a rescue mission with no live rounds — that difference divides the two packages below.

Lastly, set down the deepest wound of this set. The Self-Defense Officer was a profession moved by orders. Waking, eating, firing — orders decided them all. In this age there are no such orders — the chain of command, the rules of engagement, the state that would take responsibility, all vanished together. What a soldier taken by the Kamikakushi learns latest is neither the blade nor the etiquette. It is how to move without orders.

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#Set Data

It is the five components of Set Overview Law 1 as is. The operating rules too follow the Overview — a set is 1 per character, only at creation, GM permission required. Plus one line for this set alone: permission can be split by package as well. A table that blocks the combat-deployment type and opens only the disaster-deployment type is legitimate too — indeed, it is the table nearest the spine of this volume.

#Component 1 — Starting-Ability Adjustment

Among the four starting automatic abilities of the canonical modern person — Stratagem acquisition, Medicine entry, Negotiation entry, Perception entry — one is changed.

Medicine entry → Archery (firearms only) entry (common to both packages — training does not pick the deployment)

• It is Archery, not a new ability. Canonical Archery is a ranged martial art encompassing the bow and the teppo, and modern firearms stand on the same axis (Firearms Law 1). This volume does not create a "Marksmanship" ability.
• Firearms only. What the Self-Defense Officer gains is Archery (firearms only) — skill carries to guns (銃) such as modern firearms and the teppo, but not to the bow. It is the same method as the canon's parenthetical notation Archery (teppo) used where the weapon distinction is meaningful. To draw a bow, one must bring in Archery separately.
• Licensed cap. The Archery (firearms only) gained by set replacement rises only as far as Licensed (3) — no master. It is the Overview's wording as is: a former occupation's skill peaks on the day one crossed over, and only the canon opens the door of mastery.
• Why Medicine is lost. Unless he is a medic, the Self-Defense Officer's first aid is not Medicine but "knowing how to use a first-aid pouch." The gear did the treating — and the gear is [Depletion]. A skill the pouch, not the hand, learned ends when the pouch goes empty.
• Perception and Stratagem stay as is. The sentry's eye and tactical doctrine do not wear down even without ammunition. These two prop up the Self-Defense Officer after Depletion.
• Survival need not be replaced. Survival is already on the canonical modern person's master-eligible list. Anyone who knows bivouac and the long road on foot should pour ability points there — it is not what the set gives but a door the canon has already opened.

#Component 2 — Set Technique

1 each at tier 1 and tier 3. As in the Overview, it is a choice instead of, not an addition — and both techniques breathe only with firearms and ammunition. They are the two techniques most strongly dependent on Depletion in this volume, and that is the design intent.

[aptitude] Firearm Proficiency (火器熟練) — set tier 1 (a choice instead of the canon "Foresight")
Effect: On checks for handling modern firearms (all of [Firearms]' cards) — the breakdown check
   (2d10+Finesse+Archery), bayonet techniques, handling checks the GM demands — ignore the
   Courage/Finesse -1 penalty of the ability-score special. Loading, disassembly-assembly,
   and field repair of firearms succeed without a check in non-combat situations, and
   ejecting a jam (a declaration at the Worn stage) spends no Energy.
Limited: Modern firearms only. Sword, spear, bow — and the teppo — gain no effect whatsoever.
   A rifle with a bayonet fixed is a modern firearm. A bayonet-knife taken off the gun is just a knife.

Choosing Firearm Proficiency forfeits the knowledge of Foresight — historical knowledge, Medicine +3, yoma-Negotiation +2. But as in the Overview's canon-protection principle, Energy Transfer and the ability-score special are kept as the skeleton of the occupation. And it is a different domain from the canon tier 5 "Combat Adaptation" — Firearm Proficiency is a technique of the gun, Combat Adaptation a technique of the body. There is no overlapping effect, and neither hastens the other.

There is one more thing to know before choosing. When the gun falls silent, Firearm Proficiency falls silent too. On that day this slot becomes not an empty seat but a monument — that bargain, too, is the price of this technique.

[Kata] Suppressing Fire (制壓射擊) — set tier 3 (a choice instead of the canon tier 3 choice)
Cost: Energy 3 + rifle rounds 5 ([Depletion] 5 decrease). Limit: 1 per round.
Condition: a modern firearm capable of burst or full-auto fire — in this volume, the Type 89 rifle.
   (A machine gun follows its own card's sweeping-fire special.)
Effect: Designate 1 zone within range. There is no to-hit check and no damage.
   The enemy squad (Minion, Mob) in that zone takes Cohesion -1.
   Until one's own next breath, all enemy movement leaving that zone
   for another zone takes Energy +1.
Gunshot: The gunshot rule ([Firearms]) fires as is — stealth ends, and encounters are drawn in.

It is a technique separate from the canon bow-squad technique "Suppressing Fire" — the name is the same because the purpose of the training is the same, and the numbers each follow their own.

Zone-scale suppression is the part of training, not of the weapon — this is the technique Firearms foretold. Sixty rounds is twelve times. Suppressing Fire is a bargain that trades the initiative of one zone for five rounds, and its purpose is to put that reckoning in the PL's hand.

And the fork at tier 3 is this set in miniature. Choosing Suppressing Fire forfeits the canon "Squad Command" — firepower that burns down five rounds at a time, or a voice that remains to the end. Neither choice is wrong. But one falls silent at mid-campaign, and the other remains to the last battle.

#Component 3 — Starting Drifted Goods: Two Deployments

The drifted-goods bundle is chosen as one of the 2-package set (at character creation, GM permission). The one-backpack principle as is — no package has vehicles or heavy weapons. The record of remaining rounds is the PL's part — write it on the remaining-count sheet by cartridge type, and erase it each time you fire.

Sixty rounds is a number chosen to be tight. A design that must bottom out within a single campaign — its grounds and reckoning are handled by "the design of sixty rounds" in Firearms. The GM can raise this number with the dial of the GM Guide, but first read the "Heroic Tale" warning of the Depletion System.

The disaster-deployment type is a bargain. In place of firepower he receives two first-aid pouches and a radio, and a nearly empty gun. He has the gun but almost no future — a Self-Defense Officer whose start is already beside silence, the Self-Defense Officer nearest the spine of this volume. Since the soldier's body and the soldier's eye are unchanged, the ability adjustment and the techniques are the same for both packages. But the disaster-deployment type's Suppressing Fire most often does not exceed two uses in a lifetime — when those two are is the story of that character.

Set down the cards of the three set-specific items. The format is the seven fields of Depletion System Law 4 as is.

#Body Armor (防彈胴衣)

#Personal First-Aid Pouch (個人救急囊)

#Field Ration (戰鬪食糧)

#Component 4 — Conflict Hook

Narrow the canonical modern person's Three Ways and Six Hearts conflict list to the Self-Defense Officer's viewpoint. Not a new axis of conflict but a lens.

• The Trigger Without Orders — the lens of "loyalty (忠) or freedom." There is no superior to authorize firing, no state to take responsibility. For the first time the responsibility of the trigger becomes wholly his own. Then a certain daimyo holds out his hand — "I will become your orders." Those words are dreadfully sweet. Will he tilt toward loyalty, or learn to stand without orders.
• The Person on the Sightline — the lens of "the meaning of war." He came from an army that had never fired at a person. The hand that fires at yoma does not tremble — but battle is the affair of person against person. The reckoning that one pull of the trigger is one round of the remaining count, and the reckoning that that one round is a person's life, hang together on the same finger. Benevolence (仁) wavers on that finger.

#Component 5 — Adaptation Variation

The canon rules of Adaptation are all as is. The color is two lines.

• Fast path — samurai. Formation, squad, military discipline — a soldier knows a soldier. From the very first technique borrowed from the samurai, the same-occupation exemption is applied. A body that dug trenches reads formation, too, in a single day.
• Blocked path — the domain of the shinobi. Assassination, disruption, the fight of shadows. Borrowing in this domain has the exemption rule not applied to the end — the Energy penalty remains. A body raised on uniform and banner and rules of engagement is, in the end, clumsy at a war with neither orders nor a front.

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#Friction with the Era

Friction is not a penalty but the material of a scene — the Overview's wording as is, the Self-Defense Officer is the set richest in that material.

#What the Gunshot Summons

All of the Self-Defense Officer's strength comes with sound. The gunshot of a modern firearm is of thunder's rank, and the fields and nights of this era are far quieter than those of our time — in the open field a sentry ten cho (町) off lifts his head, and if the wind helps, a village one ri (里) off wakes from sleep (Glossary of Terms and Measures). Each time the trigger is pulled, the gunshot rule of Firearms fires — stealth ends, and when the scene ends the GM rolls the "those who heard the gunshot" table. A village, nobushi, a scout, yoma, and — one who knows.

This is the first doctrine of Self-Defense Officer operation. The one who shoots pays twice. Once in rounds, once in rumor.

#A Teppo More Fearsome Than a Teppo

A daimyo who has once seen that firing sleeps lightly. A teppo that cries three times in a single breath, without a matchcord, even on a rainy day — the recruitment competition is fast, persistent, and courteous. The Kunitomo Guild wants the gun, the Kagura Domain wants the unit, the Sakai Guild comes to set a price (it is a road the world of the gaijin paved first).

But look at the true nature of that hospitality. What the host wants is not a warrior but a weapon. Good lodging, a good stipend, and a demand for a demonstration — "show us just one round." To the Self-Defense Officer who knows his remaining rounds, the price of that one round is heavier than a stipend, and to the daimyo who does not know the remaining rounds, the Self-Defense Officer's refusal is an insult. The hospitality becomes, one day, a cage. Whether the cage door opens on the day the sixty rounds run out, or closes more firmly — hangs on what he has shown by then besides firepower.

#A Soldier Without a Calling

This era asks the calling before the name — yet the Self-Defense Officer's calling fits no slot of this era. A warrior house? He has no family line. An ashigaru? He fights too well. A ronin? He has never lost a master — only the master vanished, whole. The rank insignia is a scrap of cloth, the salute an unfamiliar bow, and at the barrier that asks his "affiliation" he answers, every time, half a breath late. The canonical modern person's era-maladjustment — the penalties of etiquette and rank — is not waived for being a soldier. If anything, the more deeply the military etiquette is steeped in the body, the louder the sound of it colliding with the etiquette of this era.

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#Growth Curve — From Firepower to Command

The Self-Defense Officer's campaign is divided in three by the remaining rounds. It is rounds, not tiers (段), that cross the act breaks.

The Season of Firepower — when rounds are plentiful. The party's ranged problem-solver. The pack of stray dogs, the nobushi ambush, the nameless yoma — all end within his line of fire. But every solution is paid in rounds, and every gunshot is billed in rumor. To the GM of this season: do not block the heroics — make them counted. The dwindling record sheet is the drama of this season.

The Season of Reckoning — when rounds dwindle. Drop below thirty rounds and the character begins to change. Suppressing Fire grows too dear to spend, single shots are chosen over bursts, and the road to winning without firing is sought first. Bayonet work and body techniques return to the hand, and this era's gear hangs ever more at the waist — the hand that whittles a bamboo spear, the eye that gauges a teppo. The teppo too is a gun (銃), so the skill up to Archery (firearms only) Licensed (3) carries to this era's guns as well — though the breath of the matchcord must be learned from a teacher of this era (one interlude — the reverse direction of the reckoning by which a person of this era picks up modern firearms). And that skill, in the end, stops at Licensed. The road of cultivated thunder belongs to the gaijin.

The Season of Command — after the gun has fallen silent. What remains is the eye that moves the squad. The eye that picks cover, the eye that reads the line of fire, the training that moves seventeen frightened souls with one voice — that, [Depletion] cannot take away. Since there is no set technique from tier 5 on, the Self-Defense Officer merges into the technique list of the canonical modern person — information warfare, battlefield control, and the extremity of strategy. When Depletion is spent, he returns to the canon — the growth curve of this set was so designed, and its end is not defeat but the seat the canonical modern person was good at from the start, the seat of staff officer and commander.

Nail it down in the Overview's format as is. This curve opens neither former-occupation nor dual builds (the canon choice-instead principle). If a Self-Defense Officer who calls out a formation with a silenced gun on his back looks like "in effect a military scientist (軍學者)" — that is narrative, not data.

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#Table Hooks

• The Escort of Thirty Rounds. A merchant guild's escort commission. The road is three days, the passes are two, the nobushi about three. Before departure the GM counts the remaining rounds aloud together with the PL — and counts again on arrival. The number lost is the main feature of this scenario, and the number remaining becomes a card in the bargaining over payment.
• The Same Unit's Mark. A drifting rumor — that a Kamikakushi bearing the mark of the same regiment is drilling the teppo corps of some army. Go and find what is there. A reunion, or an enemy instructor? Is what he holds ammunition, a unit roster, or the fantasy of "one day returning to the unit" that he could never, in the end, cast off?
• A Single Demonstration. A daimyo's invitation arrives — courteous, and hard to refuse. Fire one round before the lord and patronage and stipend and rumor come together; do not fire and it becomes an insult. The haggle of one round against one lodging. And whichever he chooses, someone who was there remembers that gun.

The sample characters per set and the common opening are in the appendix.

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A soldier moves by orders. On a field where orders have been cut off, his army is sixty rounds — and on the morning they run out, what disbands is the firepower, not the soldier.