#Gear and Supplies (裝備·補給品)
Contents
Authority. The data-card values of this document are narrow Canon — they are canonical only within this volume, and override no item of the canonical equipment and consumables. Variant rules such as the double-edge-of-light rule and radio operation are Variant — as with every variant of this volume, they are premised on GM permission. The §Value of Small Things table is a Scene Tool — not values but a scene. And the spine flows the same here too. 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.
#Scent — The Civilization in the Backpack
#Opening Fragment — The Lamp of Four Nights (燈)
It was a night when no fire could be lit.
Having heard that a band of nobushi had pitched camp one pass over, the party sat back to back in the depths of the valley. In the wet darkness, the porter Yasuke heard it first — the sound of grass being trodden. It was not one.
"...Stray dogs," Yasuke whispered. "I hope they are stray dogs."
The sound circled around them. It drew near. From the darkness a low growl arose — and behind that growl, a breathing larger and slower than it was heard.
The woman who had been taken by Kamikakushi opened her backpack. The ronin Jinzaemon, his hand on the hilt of his sword, stopped her. "I said no fi—"
A light came on.
It was not fire. A white, straight pillar split the darkness in a single line, and at its end four pairs of eyes shone blue. The stray dogs — and behind the stray dogs, a something whose height reached the eaves — all at once stopped.
The light did not waver. One breath. Two breaths. The tall shadow withdrew first. The stray dogs followed after it. The sound of the brush closing receded, and in the valley only the voice of the grass-insects remained.
"...It has withdrawn." Jinzaemon took his hand off the hilt.
"The light conquers," the woman said. "A beast does not know light."
"A beast does not." The ronin jerked his chin toward the ridgeline. "A person does."
Above the ridgeline, the sky beyond the pass had brightened faintly — it was torches. One became two, and the two slowly turned their direction toward this slope.
The woman switched off the light. The darkness closed deeper than before.
"That lamp (燈)," Jinzaemon asked, gathering up the baggage. "How many more nights will it light, from here on?"
"...Four nights." The woman answered so, and corrected herself within. Not nights — the number of times you switch it on.
#Scent — A Catalog of Small Miracles
Of the cards of this volume, the one that comes up on the table most often is not the gun but this side. The gunshot sounds a few times in a campaign, but the night comes every day, the wound is born every week, and the water is drunk at every meal. And these objects are each, in this era, a small miracle — light that drives back darkness, a voice that crosses ten cho beyond, a wound that does not fester, water that can be drunk without being boiled.
Because they are miracles, the reckoning of this volume applies to them as is. All of them are on the one-way road of the Depletion System, and none of them does this era refill again. On the morning the lighter has fallen silent, one learns the way of striking flint; in the summer the water-purifier has run out, the habit of boiling water remains — every card of this document is, all of it, a finite-term bridge until that changeover.
The cards divide into four bundles. What guards the body, what conquers the night, what connects, what keeps alive. And at the end, the value of the small things that cannot become cards is set down.
#Law 1 — Common Matters
- Every card follows the seven-field standard format of Depletion System Law 4. The remaining-count record is the PL's part — write it on the remaining-count sheet, and erase it each time it drops.
- The category is equipment and supplies. The one exception card is the portable radio — its category is electronics, and the same card is carried in Electronics (the same precedent as the flashlight sample card being carried in Depletion System). The card bodies of light and machines that live on batteries — flashlight, headlamp, smartphone — belong to Electronics.
- There is no new scale. The effects are all canonical grammar — Defense, Wounds, Energy, zone, reach, scene — and the only scale this volume invented is the single [Depletion]. No card of this document sets down a new recovery value.
- There is no price field. The gold-coin column of the canonical equipment table belongs to the market, and drifted goods have no market. The value is set by haggling — §Value of Small Things is the starting point of that haggling.
- The cards a set document set down first — bulletproof vest (防彈胴衣), personal first-aid pouch, combat ration (Self-Defense Officer Set); revolver, turnout coat, air respirator, first-aid bag (Rescue Worker Set); surgical tools, treatment consumables, antibiotics (Medical Worker Set) — belong to that set. This document points, and the cards it carries overlapping are re-recorded identical to the last letter.
- Maintenance, breakdown, and substitution are exactly Laws 2–3 of Depletion System. A card's degradation special sets down only its unique trigger and wearing-down effect.
| Card | Bundle | [Depletion] | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bulletproof vest | Body | None (degradation accumulates) | Strong against the cut, weak against the point |
| Steel helmet | Body | None | Things that come from above 1 point |
| Turnout coat | Body | None | The same card as Rescue Worker Set |
| Lighter | Night | 4·Clock | A fire-seed with no check |
| Glow stick | Night | 3·uses | One night's lamp that does not go out |
| Portable radio | Connect | 6·Clock (per unit) | Category electronics — the same card in Electronics |
| First-aid box | Life | 4·uses | Clean treatment, hemostasis aid |
| Painkiller | Life | 6·uses | Ignores pain and fever penalties |
| Antibiotics | Life | 3·uses | The same card as Medical Worker Set |
| Water-purifier | Life | 10·uses | Water made safe — the taste as is |
| Emergency ration | Life | 6·uses | A fireless meal |
#Law 2 — Data Cards
#What Guards the Body
The grammar of this bundle is that of canonical armor — Defense, and the value that shaves Defense. The common rule is one only. It cannot be worn layered over canon armor and helmet — choose one. Armor is not a thing that adds.
And the sentiment of this bundle is "it wears down as much as it blocks." It is an implement with neither rounds nor uses, but the blade and impact it has received become, as they are, the trigger of degradation. The life of these garments is not the remaining count — it is the number of scars.
#Bulletproof Vest (防彈衣)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | bulletproof vest (防彈衣) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | A vest of soft layered cloth — it can be worn underneath outerwear, so to the eye it is not armament. Defense +1, no Energy or stealth penalty. The value differs by the kind of attack. Cut (a cutting blade such as katana or naginata): counted as Defense +2 — layered cloth slides the blade aside. Thrust and arrow (the thrust of a yari or tanto, the arrowhead): +1 as is — it is weak against the point that gathers in one spot. Bullet: it ignores the [Pierce] of pistol and shotgun rounds. Against rifle rounds, sniper rounds, and the teppo's lead ball it is powerless — pierced through, [Pierce] as is. It cannot be worn layered over canon armor. |
| [Depletion] | None — an implement. It does not dwindle; it only dies as much as it has received. |
| Degradation Special | It wears down each time it blocks — Trigger: a scene of receiving a cut or bullet with this garment (treated as overuse), submersion. The check is the base formula (2d10+Finesse+Disable). Worn: all Defense modifiers -1 (base +0, cut +1). On the Verge: it additionally loses the bullet clause — it takes [Pierce] even from pistol and shotgun rounds. Silence: just a heavy, hot vest. |
| A Handful of Story | Another person's name is written on the inner collar — it was a hand-me-down. The chest this garment guarded was not its owner's first. |
| Value After Silence | Cloth that receives a blade without iron — undo it and there are a thousand layers of thread finer than a hair. The armorer spends a lifetime trying to copy it, and each half-cut blade-mark left on the garment sells separately as a tale of valor. |
The Self-Defense Officer's bulletproof vest (防彈胴衣) — the one that inserts a ballistic plate at the chest — is a separate card.
[Depletion 3·uses], a thing that receives critical hits. It is handled in Self-Defense Officer Set. The one with a plate counts the number of times it will receive; the cloth-only one counts scars.
#Steel Helmet (鐵帽)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | steel helmet (鐵帽) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | Worn on the head — it cannot be worn layered over a canon helmet (kabuto, jingasa). It reduces by 1 point, 1 time per scene, the Wounds damage taken from things that come from above — falling rock, collapse, a collapsing beam, thrown stones, a fall from a height. There is no Defense modifier — it guards the head, but it does not guard the fight. |
| [Depletion] | None — an implement. |
| Degradation Special | Trigger: a scene that used the reduction (it took the impact in place of the head), fall, submersion. The check is the base formula. Worn: the inner liner caves in — the reduction drops from 1 time per scene to 1 time per day. |
| A Handful of Story | Four characters are written above the brow — 安全第一. Even crossing four hundred years, one who knows letters can read it, and the one who reads it laughs once — and presently nods. |
| Value After Silence | A cracked steel helmet is a riddle lighter and harder than a jingasa (陣笠). The helmet-maker taps it, tilts his head, and in the end cannot copy it — and all the while it is serving as the finest well-bucket at the well. |
#Turnout Coat (防火服)
It is the same card as the one carried in Rescue Worker Set — the firefighter's pack. The same card is the same everywhere.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | turnout coat (防火服) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | While worn: ignore the Lull Wounds damage of a flame zone, and take no "additional 1 Wounds for light armor or less" either. Reduce the Wounds damage of a fire-attack or flame-attribute attack by 1. It is not armor — there is no Defense modifier, it stops neither blade nor arrow, and it cannot be layered over canon armor. |
| [Depletion] | None — the cloth does not dwindle. It only dies (a thing of degradation). |
| Degradation Special | Trigger: a scene spent in a flame zone counts as "overuse." The check is the base formula (2d10+Finesse+Disable). Worn: "damage ignored" weakens to "damage reduced by 1." |
| A Handful of Story | On the back is stamped the name of the affiliated station (署). They are letters no one in this age can read, but the master goes about saying — half in earnest — that it is his own family crest (家紋). |
| Value After Silence | Cloth that endured even after eating fire — each blackened, scorched scrap is a riddle to an artisan. If an army that makes fire-attack its trade covets this, that is already a good scenario. |
#What Conquers the Night
The night of this era is darker than the night of our era. The penalty of the canonical night rule is the value of that darkness, and the lamp and the torch are this era's answer. Modern light is brighter than that answer, straighter, and does not go out in the wind — and it takes the value for that.
Light Announces Position (Variant)
It applies to every modern light source of this volume — the cards of this bundle, and the flashlight, headlamp, and smartphone of Electronics. The eye of this era knows the orange of the lamp. White, straight light is a color the one who has seen it once cannot forget.
1. The end of stealth — the moment the light is switched on, the stealth of the one who switched it on and of those at their side is broken. In the zone the light reaches, there is also no stealth bonus given by night or darkness.
2. The target — a ranged attack that aims at one holding light in the dark ignores the check penalty of night and darkness. The light is the very center of the target.
3. The summons — when a scene spent with modern light switched on at night ends, the GM may call an outdoor encounter check one more time. It is the little brother of the gunshot rule — the gunshot sounds once and stops, but the light speaks the whole time it is on. In an open field that light is seen even from ten cho beyond (Glossary and Weights and Measures).
This is the value of erasing darkness. Switch it off and hide, or switch it on and be known — making that choice return every night is the whole of this rule.
The card bodies of lamp-fittings such as the flashlight and headlamp are in Electronics — the sample is the flashlight card of Depletion System ([Depletion 4·Clock]) as is. Here are carried the two cards that handle light and fire without batteries.
#Lighter (點火器)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | lighter (點火器) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | With one press of the thumb, a fire-seed comes. Dry tinder, a candle, a torch, a matchcord, a campfire — the action of raising a fire succeeds without a check. In wind and rain the GM may declare one fumble — even so it is faster than flint. All the touches this era's night spends guarding a fire-seed — the hearth that must not go out, the dawn flint-striking — it omits whole. That is the true identity of this miracle. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 4·Clock] — lose 1 each time a scene that meaningfully used it to raise a fire ends (the same value as the in-the-bag table of civilian-student set). It does not count a single tobacco-light — the Clock is not a stopwatch but an hourglass. |
| Degradation Special | Trigger: submersion. In place of the breakdown check the GM may choose a Clock loss of 1 — the flint dries out, but that night is long. Worn: the first spark is late — to use it in the breath of an urgent battle costs Energy 1. |
| A Handful of Story | A thing that rolled around one in each bag though one did not even smoke. What was given away free in one era — in another era lights the supper of a whole village. |
| Value After Silence | Even when the fuel runs out the flint remains — turn it with the thumb and the spark, at least, flies. In an era when a fire-seed was half a day's wages, that spark alone is better than flint. |
#Glow Stick (夜光棒)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | glow stick (夜光棒) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | Snap it and it glows — for that one night (一夜) it is treated as a canonical lamp (securing sight in adjacent zones at night). It is not fire: it does not go out in wind and rain, it glows even underwater, and it is safe even beside a straw stack. It glows even when it leaves the hand — throw it to light the far side of darkness, leave it as a marker at a forked road, float it on water to read the current. The light rule (above) applies as is — a thrown glow stick announces, together, the direction of the one who threw it. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 3·uses] — once snapped it cannot be taken back. It is a thing with no way of being used sparingly — there is only whether to use it or not. |
| Degradation Special | None — before it is snapped it does not die, and after it is snapped it is only one night. |
| A Handful of Story | A thing that was in the lower shelf of a night bus's emergency box. The flashlight became the driver's portion — and this went into the pocket of the passenger in the very back seat. |
| Value After Silence | A stick whose light has died is a small tube (管) through which the inside shows. The glassmaker peers in and sighs, and the children call it "the house where a star lived and left." |
#What Connects
The word of this era cannot go faster than a person. The carrier pigeon is one-way, the beacon-fire is one letter, and the express courier is as fast as a horse's legs. The radio is different from all of that — it is round-trip, instant, and the voice itself. The value of this bundle is not firepower but time. Knowing of an ambush half a beat early, deciding a retreat a beat early — that beat is not a value, and because it is not a value, it is strong.
#Portable Radio (携帶無電機)
Its category is electronics — the same card is carried in Electronics. The card's seat is over there, but the seat of operation where it meets the squad is here.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | portable radio (携帶無電機) |
| Category | electronics |
| Effect | Switched-on radios on the same channel converse instantly with each other — information crosses on the spot even between mutually different zones, between mutually different scenes. The audible distance is set by terrain: about one ri in an open field and on the water, and up to ten cho in mountain, forest, valley, or village (Glossary and Weights and Measures) — the terrain of this country is the enemy of the antenna, and for the side standing on high ground the GM judges generously. In battle it stretches the audible distance of a squad command past the far side of the radio — the cost, count, and grammar of the command are exactly the canon. Command issued from outside is a road the canon zone gimmick has already opened, and the radio merely lends a voice to that road. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 6·Clock] — counted separately per unit. 1 each time a scene of being switched on (including reception standby) ends — it wears down even while only listening, waiting too eats electricity. Operation that switches it on only at an agreed koku (刻) slows the Clock — but a switched-off radio connects nothing. |
| Degradation Special | Trigger: fall, submersion (submersion is harsh). It dies separately per unit. Worn: a noise like boiling sand — long speech is cut off. The transmission that can cross in one scene drops to a handful (GM's discretion), and it loses the squad-command extension. And the rule of the pair — if not a single radio remains to listen, the one remaining is from that day the same as silence. Even with Clock left, it is not a card but a keepsake. |
| A Handful of Story | On its flank the call sign of a disaster site is taped on. Every call sign that used to answer is four hundred years outside — and yet, from habit, one comes to wait one beat before pressing the transmit button. |
| Value After Silence | "A voice-box that rides the wind" — in a daimyo's treasure-house it is appraised as a tool for commanding a shikigami (式神). It is a wrong appraisal, but not entirely wrong. If it endures a hundred years — a candidate for a tsukumogami that remembers the voice beyond the noise. |
#The Radio and the Squad — The Distance of the Voice
This section is the masterpiece of this document — and the more it is the masterpiece, the sooner the line is drawn.
- Not a letter of the canon's cord changes. The squad moves only by squad command, and the command lives on the Lord's or Elite's Energy — base 2 Energy, 1 Energy if Wisdom (智) +2 or more, the kind of command and the check all as is. The radio stands outside that cost system.
- The canon already knows the command issued from afar. Look at "the enemy's headquarters" of the zone gimmick compendium — a commander who hides outside and issues only squad commands is a picture of the canon. The radio adds no new ability to that picture. What it adds is not command but distance — the range the voice reaches merely stretches as far as the place where the radio on the other side is.
- The synergy that comes first is not command but information. What the scout of the zone beyond the embankment saw reaches headquarters in one breath. A party split apart lives each other's scenes — the single word "the bridge is down, come to the ferry" erases half a day's wasted walk. Nine-tenths of the time this card works at the table is this side.
- An example of the reckoning. A commander of Wisdom +2 is in the Front Zone, and a porter holding the squad and the radio is in the zone beyond the embankment. The commander commands "shield wall" into the radio — Energy 1 (Wisdom discount, exactly canon), the porter repeats it back, and the squad forms ranks. And when that scene ends, the Clock of both radios turns one notch each.
The counterweights are three, and all three are written on the card — there must be a pair, the Clock turns, and the terrain shaves. No heavier weight is needed.
To add to this — the signal horn (號角) has no card. Exactly the sentence of Rescue Worker Set: a sharp single cry that reaches as far as one cho beyond, and "to decide on one signal in advance is not a rule but a wisdom." Only do not forget that the moment of blowing it announces one's own position together. Even after the radio has fallen silent the signal horn cries — in this volume the most trustworthy communicator is, to the last, the breath.
#What Keeps Alive
First, the recovery grammar of this bundle is nailed down.
- There is no card in this bundle that recovers Wounds. The value of recovery belongs to the canonical rest rule, and this volume adds not a single point to it.
- Energy is not recovery. Energy is action economy — there is no card in this volume that says a drug returns Energy.
- What these cards do is aid the recovery check. They block worsening (infection, contamination), aid the patient's resistance check (Physique), and erase penalties (pain). And there is not a single card that loads a constant fixed bonus onto a Medicine check — a consumable or tool modifier (first-aid bag +1, personal first-aid pouch +2, and so on) is a temporary modifier of the canon equipment grammar, and is separate. It is exactly the ceiling declaration of Medical Worker Set.
This volume already has three first-aid bags — first, which bag is which card is sorted out.
| Bag | [Depletion] | Where the Card Is |
|---|---|---|
| Personal first-aid pouch | 3·uses | Self-Defense Officer Set — military goods for a hand without Medicine |
| First-aid bag | 8·uses | Rescue Worker Set — the paramedic's main body |
| Treatment consumables, antibiotics | 6·uses / 3·uses | Medical Worker Set — the inside of the house-call bag (antibiotics re-recorded below) |
| First-aid box | 4·uses | This document (below) — the civilian's first-aid kit |
#First-Aid Box (救急函)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | first-aid box (救急函) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | The first-aid kit of home and vehicle — with 1 use, one of the following. Clean treatment: disinfect and dress one wound. That wound does not worsen by infection (it is not counted as a "contaminated environment" of the canonical disease (疫) rule). Hemostasis aid: +2 on the patient's Physique check (>=13) to clear bleeding (blood) — the part of the pressure bandage and clean gauze. It does not add to a check on the Medicine (>=11) side — that one is the work of the hand. Neither moves Wounds or Energy by a single point. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 4·uses] — modern consumables are packaged 1 portion at a time. |
| Degradation Special | A consumable — it does not degrade. On a submersion trigger the GM may, in place of the breakdown check, declare a loss of 1 remaining count (the same grammar as the treatment consumables of Medical Worker Set). |
| A Handful of Story | A thing on top of the kitchen cupboard whose expiry date was the only thing turning over. The owner learned how well the scissors inside cut only after crossing four hundred years. |
| Value After Silence | Even emptied, the box remains — in a village that has seen the red cross on the lid, that pattern is already a sign of miraculous power. |
#Painkiller (鎭痛劑)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | painkiller (鎭痛劑) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | Take 1 use: for one scene, ignore the situational penalty due to pain and fever (the same grammar as the "analgesia and antipyresis" of Medical Worker Set treatment consumables). Used at night, it connects sleep that had been cut off by pain — the wounded one's night encampment is not broken. The amount of recovery does not rise (exactly the canonical rest table — Wounds 2 is Wounds 2). And the pain vanishing is not being healed — the value of overexerting with the pain erased, the GM can charge at the next scene. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 6·uses] — the same value as the in-the-bag table of civilian-student set. |
| Degradation Special | A consumable — no degradation. For a drug left to sit past a season, the interlude-decrease declaration comes (Depletion System — time itself is the enemy). |
| A Handful of Story | The only person in this era who can read the fine print of the warning on the label is the owner — three times a day, thirty minutes after a meal. In an era where the word "after a meal" became a luxury. |
| Value After Silence | A small stoppered tube is a case (盒) with letters embossed on it — the drug departs but the tube remains, and becomes a drug-seller's prestige piece. |
#Antibiotics (抗生劑)
It is the same card as the one carried in the house-call bag of Medical Worker Set — the same card is the same everywhere. It also turns up rarely in the bag of civilian drifted goods — in the form of a half-bottle prescribed and not finished. In that case it suits the GM better to shave the starting remaining count to 1–2.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | antibiotics (抗生劑) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | 1 use administered: the worsening stops of one disease (疫) in progress or one festering wound. From the day of administration the daily check (Physique >= 13) of the canon disease rule is not rolled, and on the third day, on a success of 2d10+Wisdom+Medicine >= 13, full cure — even on a roadside without sufficient rest (village, castle). It restores not a single point of the Wounds of trauma. Void against a yoma's curse (呪) and poison (毒) — a curse is the domain of exorcism, and poison is the domain of an antidote. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 3·uses] — 1 use to one person's one illness (病). Split it and you save neither — half a use is 0 uses. |
| Degradation Special | The unit is uses, but it loses to time too — the interlude-decrease declaration for medicine left to sit long enough for a season to turn (Depletion System — time itself is the enemy) applies to this card as well. |
| A Handful of Story | In the hospital's medicine cabinet it was a thing so common it was not even counted. Now the palm remembers the weight of a single tablet — three miracles, and after that, none. |
| Value After Silence | An empty drug bottle cures no illness. Yet in the house of one saved by that drug it has gone up onto the spirit altar — under the name of a reliquary phial of Yakushi Nyorai (藥師如來). |
#Water-Purifier (淨水劑)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | water-purifier (淨水劑) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | Dissolve 1 tablet in water and wait a han-toki (半刻), and a canteen holding two or three sho (升) becomes drinkable water (Glossary and Weights and Measures). That water is not counted as the "contaminated environment" of disease (疫) onset. It cannot erase even the cloudy color and the smell — safe water and tasty water are different water. It cannot cure an illness already caught — that is the work of antibiotics and Medicine. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 10·uses] — one tablet is one use. |
| Degradation Special | A consumable — no degradation. On a submersion trigger a loss-of-remaining-count declaration is possible (a damp tablet is no drug). It also takes the interlude decrease of a drug left to sit, as is. |
| A Handful of Story | A thing that slept ten years in the side pocket of a hiking backpack. It was bought hoping there would be no occasion to use it — and that hope was broken, crossing back four hundred years. |
| Value After Silence | Even when the tablets run out, the teaching remains — "boil it before you drink." What remains after the water-purifier's silence is not a drug but a habit, and that one habit changes a village's summer. |
#Emergency Ration (非常食糧)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | emergency ration (非常食糧) |
| Category | equipment and supplies |
| Effect | Consume 1: one person's one meal. It needs no cooking, no fire, no water, and is eaten even while walking. The one who eats it does not starve that day — does not take the penalty of hunger. But it cannot fulfill the part of a "proper meal" — that is the work of warm rice. Not a single point of Wounds returns — being full and being healed are different. |
| [Depletion] | [Depletion 6·uses] |
| Degradation Special | A consumable — no degradation. The preservation term is longer than a campaign of this volume. If the packaging tears (fall, submersion trigger) the GM may declare a loss of 1 remaining count. |
| A Handful of Story | A picture of a mountain and a helicopter is drawn on the bag. Rice made in preparation for disaster — those who made it did not know the depth of that disaster would be four hundred years. |
| Value After Silence | A silver bag that does not leak water is a thing this era does not have — as a tinder pouch, as a seed pouch, its second life is long. |
The Self-Defense Officer's combat ration (戰鬪食糧) — the military version that is warmed and eaten without fire — is a separate card. It is handled in Self-Defense Officer Set.
#Law Supplement — The Value of Small Things (Scene Tool)
The four bundles of cards are done. But at the bottom of the backpack remain things that cannot become cards — a needle, soap, a zipper, a glass bottle. This volume does not make these into data. It must not — the instant a value is set on a handful of everyday goods, it ceases to be material for haggling and becomes a conversion table.
So first it is declared. The table below is a creation. It is not a reconstruction of historical (史實) exchange ratios, but a sense of value for setting up a haggling scene. The vocabulary is that of Glossary and Weights and Measures — mon (文), monme (匁), ryo (両) — used as is, and no values are used. When the "sense of market price" of civilian-student set comes asking the GM, the starting point of that answer is this table.
The value is counted in three tiers only.
| Tier | Sense | Form of the Haggling |
|---|---|---|
| A handful of coin | tens of mon — a few bowls of broth-rice | an on-the-spot exchange right there. Good to trade for one night's bed and board |
| What calls for silver | the monme unit — a craftsman's wages for one season | a value worth setting up one haggling scene. The appraiser of the guild (座) cuts in |
| What calls for a blade | there is no one who can reckon the value | not haggling but an incident — rumor, a thief, the lord's envoy |
| Object | The Eye of This Era | Value Tier |
|---|---|---|
| A bundle of sewing needles | even in thickness and free of rust — a hand that sews knows it at a glance | a handful of coin. In a mountain village, one night's bed and board |
| A bar of soap | grease-grime dissolves into lather — a house whose trade is washing (a courtesan house, a teahouse) knows it first | what calls for silver |
| A bag of refined salt | white, fine, and without bitterness | a handful of coin — in a mountain village far from the salt road, silver |
| A handful of candy | a sweetness finer than honey | a handful of coin — but it buys a child's heart and a tea master's (茶人) topic |
| A metal zipper | with one motion of opening and closing the assembly gathers — a thing that is neither spring nor hinge | what calls for silver — if a craftsman gets involved, it calls for a blade |
| A clear glass bottle | clearer than Nanban glass, without a single bubble | what calls for silver — reaching a daimyo's tea room, it calls for ryo |
| A hand mirror | in the era of the bronze mirror, the face is reflected as it is | what calls for a blade — where it is sold, it becomes a divine object (神物) |
| A ballpoint pen | a thin line comes out endlessly with neither ink nor inkstone | what calls for silver — what happens after it has dried up is on the conscience of the one who sells it |
The way to use it is two lines and done. A thing of a handful of coin is the lubricant of a scene — buy bed and board, ask the road, make a child laugh. A thing that calls for a blade is not a value but a scenario — whether to sell it at all is a scene, and after it is sold is the main story. One mirror becomes a village commotion, one bar of soap becomes a ten-year bond with a teahouse mistress — the purpose of this table is not conversion but that bond.
The backpack grows lighter one compartment at a time. And by as much weight as it has lightened — the Kamikakushi becomes a person of this era.