#Building a House — Ask and Fill
Contents
This document belongs to front. There is no sheet and no check here. Building a house is not a matter of rolling dice but of answering a few questions. The sample houses are Fiction-Only.
#Commentary — A House Is Shaped from Answers
A PC's attributes and background are set by the canonical co-04. The house is the narrative flesh laid on top of that. So the way you build it is not numbers but questions. Answer just one line to each of the eight questions below, and a single house stands. You need not answer them all — with just one secret and one Knot, a house becomes a story.
#Table — Eight Questions
| # | Question | Things to Choose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Standing (格)? | daimyo house · small kokujin (國人, local landed lord) · fallen buke · impoverished kuge · upstart merchant house |
| 2 | Family name and tsuji (通字)? | a family name taken from a place name + one inherited character (03) |
| 3 | Family crest (家紋)? | a single primary crest — one motif among plant, nature, or geometric figure |
| 4 | Current head and headship? | the head's age and temperament + whether succession is stable or contested, whether the retired head has let go |
| 5 | Size of branch kin and retainer corps? | a kokujin with one or two retainers ↔ a daimyo with branch kin and fudai (hereditary retainers) (01) |
| 6 | Family vocation and ujigami? | a martial school or art (zn01) + the ujigami (氏神, guardian deity) served (zn02) |
| 7 | Secret or debt? | a broken bloodline · the legitimacy of an adopted heir · a long bond with a yoma · a Curse laid on the house |
| 8 | Knot? | from whom was a henki granted / which house did it marry into / who is the rival house (relationship chart: you may tie it to a living NPC connection there) |
Plug into a faction. Tie the answers to questions 7 and 8 to the 13 Great Factions (e.g., "under the Kagura Domain," "fell out with the Hiei League"), and the house stands at once on the world map.
#Example — Two Sample Houses
The two houses below are fictional houses shaped from the eight questions above. Use them as NPC houses as-is, or bring one in as a PC's house of origin.
#Buke — the Kageyama House (影山家)
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Standing | A small kokujin. A native buke holding the border valley of Kageyama, where two roads and a mountain path meet |
| Family name · tsuji | Kageyama (a place name) · tsuji "Mune" (宗) |
| Crest | The primary crest, a half-moon over a shadowed mountain (影山半月) |
| Head · headship | Head Munekata (in his 40s, cautious). The legitimate son is twelve; the adopted heir Munehisa (in his 20s) has seen three battlefields — the seed of a headship dispute |
| Branch kin · retainer corps | One branch house, one fudai karo, a handful of ashigaru. Two tozama kokujin are shallow in loyalty |
| Vocation · ujigami | Kageyama-ryu mountain Footwork (步法). The Shadow Kami (影神) of the shrine on the back mountain is served as the ujigami |
| Secret · debt | Beneath the shrine lies a sealed shadow gate. To press it down generation after generation is the house's true vocation |
| Knot | Received the tsuji character "Mune" from the domain lord as a henki (a token of loyalty). A feud of several generations (數代) with the buke of the neighboring valley |
Scent. The Kageyama house did not stand by the sword. It stood by the seal. On the day the head can no longer re-bind the shrine each year, the valley's shadow grows long. (The castle and valley stage tie well to
fc12, and the sealing rite tozn02 shinshu and miko.)
#Kuge — the Tsukinoi House (月井家)
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Standing | A hanke (半家). Once it rose to the Senior Fourth Rank, but now it is an impoverished kuge of Kyoto |
| Family name · tsuji | Tsukinoi · tsuji "Masa" (雅) |
| Crest | The primary crest, a moon reflected in a well (月井) |
| Head · headship | Head Masafuyu (in his 30s), living by calligraphy and waka. Headship is stable but the storehouse is empty |
| Branch kin · retainer corps | Almost nothing to call a retainer. One aged attendant, one younger brother who took the tonsure |
| Vocation · ujigami | Onmyodo and chart-drawing (作圖) — ghostwriting astronomy, calendars (曆), and genealogies is the real livelihood (the impoverished shadow of the onmyoji vocation) |
| Secret · debt | An ill omen not yet read is recorded in the house's old almanac (曆書). It is kept hidden, unsold |
| Knot | Married a daughter to a provincial daimyo house to secure a connection. The marriage Knot that brings a buke bloodline into a kuge |
Scent. The Tsukinoi house has neither sword nor land, but it holds eyes that read the moon and stars and a thousand years of standing. The one who can read what that ill omen points to — may be right beside the PC.
#Commentary — How to Use Them Together
- If a PC: this house puts a face on your background. If a Fallen Noble, as a descendant of the true line of the Kageyama house; if a Farmer, as a commoner of that valley — the background sets the numbers, these questions set the face.
- If a GM: for a single NPC house, fix only question 7 (the secret) and question 8 (the Knot). Fill in the rest when the PCs touch it. The house's secret is itself the seed of the next scenario.
#Scent — One Sentence
"To build a single house is to write down, in advance, one tragedy that has not yet happened."