Card by Card by Card card rulings excerpted from the Shadowfist Players' Guide, Vol.1, circa 1996. Abysmal Absorber In the unlikely event that two Abysmal Absorbers toast a character simultaneously, both Absorbers gain +1 Fighting. For what it's worth, if you used Rigorous Discipline to give another character Abysmal Absorber's ability, any Fighting bonuses the character gained via its borrowed ability would remain with it permanently, i.e., until it left play. See the writeup of Rigorous Discipline below for details. Abysmal Prince An Edge which has become vulnerable to damage thanks to the Abysmal Prince's ability can be healed by Events that do not specify a target character. Events that specify that they affect a character cannot be used on Edges affected by the Abysmal Prince. Adrienne Hart If you play Larcenous Mist on Adrienne Hart, or find some other way of temporarily canceling her special ability (say, with the new White Ninja. . .) you could play a State on Adrienne. When Larcenous Mist's effect ends at the end of the turn, the State will already have been played on Adrienne, and will remain in play. Ancestral Tomb Damaged Ancestral Tombs don't count for fulfilling victory conditions. Provided one or more of your feng shui sites was a damaged Ancestral Tomb, you could play more feng shui sites than you are normally allowed to play. The cost of playing a feng shui site in this situation is still equal to the number of feng shui sites you control. If you manage to remove the damage from the Ancestral Tomb later, you still have to seize or burn one of your opponent's feng shui sites in order to win the game. Arcanowave Reinforcer Rules text rewritten for clarity: "All your characters in play inflict +1 damage and are considered Abominations." We could say "All characters you control. . ." and mean the same thing, but this way people who missed the fact that cards only affect cards in play (unless otherwise specified) won't wonder if the characters in their smoked piles count as Abominations. Avenging Thunder The last sentence of Avenging Thunder should read: "You may only play any Avenging Thunder card once per game." Like Necromantic Conspiracy and Year of the Rat, Avenging Thunder is an extremely useful card that can't help you once you've played a single copy of it. Back for Seconds Lest there be any mistake, new Shadowfist players should understand that merely unturning an attacking character does nothing to remove the character from the attack. In fact, if you unturn an attacking character, you're generally doing it a favor, allowing it to turn to heal in between interceptors or before engaging the target of the attack, or to turn to attack again as a follow-up attack later in the turn, or to have Explosives played on it by surprise after fighting its way past the interceptors. Johnny Tso had disappeared under a swarm of Abominations. The Dragon Fighter got smoked by a lucky shot from a PubOrd Sniper and a couple squads of PubOrd cops. But John Norton, Everyday Hero, couldn't help but smile through bloodied lips as he threw the suitcase full of plastique into the condo's newly retiled kitchen. Battlechimp Potemkin Battlechimp Potemkin + Rigorous Discipline combos are less effective now that we have ruled that no card may unturn another card more than once in a turn. Battlechimp still does just fine unturning his fellow Jammers for follow-up attacks or to receive the Battlechimp's Blessing, aka Explosives. Bite of the Jellyfish Normally when a player burns a feng shui site for Power, his or turn is over and no further effects may be generated. Triggered effects are one exception, since some effects are triggered when a site is burned. Bite of the Jellyfish is another, since it is played in response to a site being burned. Players may respond to Bite of the Jellyfish with any effect (such as Confucian Stability) that specifically states it may be generated in response to an Event. You may even use the power gained from burning for Power to generate these effects. Booby Trap Rules text revised for clarity: "Play on a site you control during an attack on that site. Target site and all characters at its location suffer 3 points of damage." Since you can play Booby Trap anytime during the attack, you will probably want to wait until any intercepting characters have damaged the attackers in combat. Brain Fire Brain Fire can only affect Event cards that use the word 'target.' Events such as Golden Comeback, Confucian Stability, Inauspicious Reburial, Neutron Bomb and Final Brawl do not use the term 'target' and cannot be affected by Brain Fire. It's important to note that the new target(s) you select with Brain Fire must be a legal target(s). If you are playing in a two player game and your opponent plays an event targeting you that uses the term "target opponent" you may not change the target of that event to the player who played the card because from the event's perspective the person who played it is not an opponent. If the Event used the phrase "target player" (as is the case with Mole Network) you may change the target to the player who played the Event. A few Events have more than one target. In such cases, Brain Fire must change all the targets to new targets. If you want to Brain Fire a Mark of Fire you need to find four new targets to inflict a point of damage apiece upon. If you want to Brain Fire a Discerning Fire that is going to smoke X cards, you need to find X other cards that share a designator of your choice to smoke. If there aren't exactly X other cards that share a designator, Brain Fire can't retarget Discerning Fire. The target of Brain Fire is the new target of the original effect, not the effect itself. Thus, if Brain Fire is played in response to a Brain Fire, it alters the first Brain Fire to retarget the original effect; i.e., the last Brain Fire played wins. We think of Brain Fire as a code that changes a missile's targeting instructions: the Event's place in the sequence of effects doesn't change, but if Brain Fire is not canceled (or re-Brain Fired!) the Event will affect a different target than it was originally aimed at. Butterfly Knights Butterfly Knights can attack once on your turn without needing to turn, but must still be unturned to be named as an attacker (Shadowfist rules, p. 28). Butterfly Knight's special ability only supersedes the need to turn them in order to attack, not the need for the attacker to be unturned to start with. On the bright side, the Butterfly Knight may be declared as an attacker, then turned to heal before he meets his interceptors. Cellular Reinvigoration We goofed. This card's Mark Tedin art was accidentally duplicated on Reinvigoration Process, which was supposed to have art by Anson Maddocks. CHAR Any effect that reduces a characters damage or causes a character to inflict no damage will not affect CHAR's damage. This ability works against all cards that reduce the damage he might inflict, not just cards that use the word 'reduce.' This includes Operation Killdeer, Blanket of Darkness, Shadowfist and other effects which are phrased as "takes no damage from blah blah blah.". CHAR will even damage an Ancient Temple if he has been intercepted. If he fights a character with Toughness the would-be tough guy is out of luck, because Toughness does not reduce the amount of damage CHAR inflicts. Sadly for Rah Rah Rasputine, even her ability to take no damage from Cyborgs is useless against CHAR. CHAR's ability "takes no damage from Fire cards" will not protect him from Discerning Fire because Discerning Fire does not inflict damage, it smokes cards outright. Charmed Life Like Fortune of the Turtle, Charmed Life can be most useful played in response to an effect that would remove one of your characters from play. Since opponents generally use such Events during attacks you have declared, keep Charmed Life in hand and play it in response to a Nerve Gas or Neutron Bomb. Charmed Life will resolve first, protecting your character when the Neutron Bomb explodes. Heck, you can even play the Neutron Bomb yourself if you want to, and enjoy an ice cream cone in the ruins without worrying about pesky interceptors. Chi Sucker NEW RULING! This Netherworld character's rules text should read: "When Chi Sucker attacks, it gains +X Fighting until the end of the attack. X = the number of Power-generating sites controlled by the controller of its target." The card's printed version implied that the Fighting bonus was permanent, which just isn't true. Chimp Shack If a Chimp Shack is copying a site's abilities, and the site in question leaves play, the Chimp Shack continues to possess the site's abilities until Chimp Shack is unturned. City Square Per the rulings on damage redirection (see page XX), City Square cannot redirect damage inflicted on it to itself. Claws of Darkness In order to take effect, Claws of Darkness needs to be on the subject character both when the character smokes another character in combat and at the end of the turn. Code Red Play Code Red when an opponent's attack is about to end. You get to launch an attack immediately after the opponent's attack ends. Even if the opponent wants to declare a follow-up attack, they will have to wait until your Code Red attack is over. "I don't know what Oscar was doing in the squad car with the glowing skulls on top, but I sure was glad to see him tear by to get the scum who shot Beth and Satoshi!" Curtain of Fullness The opponent who you target with Curtain of Fullness can play cards in response before Curtain of Fullness' effect resolves. Therefore the best time to play Curtain of Fullness could be during your turn before you declare an attack. The only cards your opponent will be to able to play out of her hand are Events, and if you're at all lucky you'll be able to whittle away the Events the opponent could use to slow down your subsequent attack. Yes, the opponent will get to refill her hand in her next establishing shot, but if you have won the game in the mean time that's not going to do her much good. If you're going to play with Curtain of Fullness, don't be shy about using cards like Paper Trail that give you an advantage when an opponent discards. "Your orders, Dr. Malelu, were to program the Probability Manipulator to aid BuroMil's Hong Kong team. Now the Probability Manipulator is spitting out reams and reams of worthless astrological charts! I had no idea you were so eager to contribute to the Vivisectors' research efforts." Dance of the Centipede NEW RULING! The text should read: "Cancel effect generated by turning target card OR turn target card -- target card cannot be turned in response." Dance of the Centipede cannot be used to cancel Events, nor can it be used to cancel a character's attack, since a character's attack is not a single effect, but rather a sequence of steps initiated by a declaration of attack and including many intermediate steps during which sequences of effects can be generated. Simply put, at present the Dance of the Centipede can't do anything to stop characters who turn to attack you. By the by, if Dance of the Centipede can turn a face-down feng shui site, but the feng shui site would not be revealed. "Dance! Dance! Even the land recognizes its true master! Even the land moves to our imperious command, though the dance kills it! The dance of death! Such is the glory of the Lotus! Now dance!" Dangerous Experiment Your opponent chooses the card to be toasted during the resolution of Dangerous Experiment's effect. Since the resolution of the sequence of effects has begun, no other effects can be generated in response to this choice. Note that if your Dangerous Experiment is canceled, it never resolves, and you will not have to toast a card. Although the opponent chooses which card to toast, your Dangerous Experiment is considered to be the card doing the toasting. That's important for cards like Darkness Priestess and Hacker. Darkness Priestess Cards which an opponent "discards" are not the same as cards which are toasted. The Darkness Priestess only provides Power when an opponent uses effects that explicitly toast cards. Although discarded cards end up in the toasted pile, toasting a card and discarding a card are not the same, they are different game mechanics terms. For example, if you play Curtain of Fullness, forcing an opponent to discard three cards, those cards are discarded not toasted, and Darkness Priestess does not provide you with any Power. But if you control a Darkness Priestess and your opponent controls the Queen of the Darkness Pagoda, you could send human waves against the Queen and get a point of Power for each character she toasted. Ditto for keeping a Darkness Priestess around in a game against a Lotus opponent who wants to play Inauspicious Reburial: if the opponent plays Inauspicious Reburial, he is the player who has generated the effect which toasts cards, meaning your Darkness Priestess would give you a point of Power for each card toasted. The new Toast It restriction needs some clarification around Darkness Priestess. If an opponent plays a Toast It Event, he or she has toasted a card, since Toast It Events are played straight into the toasted pile. If you have a Darkness Priestess in play when an opponent plays a Toast t Event, you gain a point of Power. Similarly, if a character with the Toast It restriction controlled by an opponent leaves play, your Darkness Priestess gives you a point of Power. Even if you are responsible for forcing a character such as Pod Trooper to leave play by reducing its Body to 0 in combat with characters you control, or by playing Imprisoned to return it to its owner's hand, Pod Trooper's restriction is responsible for the card being toasted. Therefore a card controlled or played by Pod Trooper's controller toasted a card, and your Darkness Priestess reaps the dividend. Difficulty at the Beginning Difficulty at the Beginning does not cancel effects or prevent cards from entering play, it merely toasts cards as they are played if their controller can't come up with the additional point of power. In other words, playing Difficulty at the Beginning when an opponent has played a Final Brawl merely forces the opponent to pay 1 Power unless they want Final Brawl to go the smoked pile; all characters in play will still take 2 points of damage apiece when Final Brawl resolves. Characters that "cannot be affected by Events" are immune to Difficulty at the Beginning. Discerning Fire We've never seen anybody try this, but just in case they do, this is the place to say that someone playing Discerning Fire cannot choose the designators "Nether" or "World" any more than she can choose the designator "Netherworld." The Displaced When the Displaced are smoked, that triggers the effect that will toast a card you choose out of the opponent's smoked pile. Since this effect is the first effect in the next sequence of effects, it's perfectly OK for The Displaced to smoke a character that went to the smoked pile at the same time as The Displaced did. Shouldn't'a messed with the Netherworld Rabble, boyo. Entropy is Your Friend The damage bonus this card provides, like all +X damage bonuses, increases the damage that your characters inflict in combat. In Entropy is your Friend's case, the damage bonus only applies to damage inflicted on sites. It does not affect the damage that characters such as White Disciple inflict with their special abilities. Explosives NEW RULING! We're simplifying this card: "Play on an unturned character. You may sacrifice Explosives during an attack to give the subject character +5 damage against the first site it is combat with during the attack." Yup, a 1 Fighting character with Explosives can punch damage through to Dragon Mountain. Evil Twin NEW RULING! As written, the card led many players to believe that you couldn't Evil Twin a Unique character without causing a Uniqueness Auction. This was not the card's intention. The errata is as follows: "When Evil Twin enters play, choose any character in play. Evil Twin takes on the Fighting score, designators, and abilities of that character, but not its resources and resource conditions." Evil Twin does not cause Uniqueness Auctions because Unique is a restriction, not an ability that gets copied. Those of you who have been following the errata will note that Evil Twin's ability now activates when the card enters play, so the card could be brought back using a Golden Comeback and use its abilities. On the other hand, you still can't choose to make an effective Evil Twin of a card like Reverend RedGlare or Serena Ku, other card that require choices when they enter play. Nor can you use Rigorous Discipline to copy an Evil Twin's abilities. The Faceless NEW RULING! To ensure that The Faceless' abilities work the way they're supposed to, we're rewriting them slightly, as follows: "If The Faceless damage a character or site in combat, you may immediately take control of any States on the character or site and place the States on any legal subject." The wrinkle this wording keeps intact is that we want The Faceless to be able to heist any States on cards they combat, even if the damage inflicted by The Faceless is enough to smoke the character or site. In other words, The Faceless are an exception to the usual sequence of effect rules. Unlike most other effects, The Faceless' State-control effect does not need to generate and resolve. For example, if your Faceless is fighting a Golden Candle Society fighting which is the subject of Armored in Life, Armored in Life would reduce the damage inflicted to the Golden Candle Society by 1. But when damage was inflicted and the damage counter was placed, smoking the Golden Candle Society, you would simultaneously take control of the Armored In Life and place it on another legal subject. Feast of Souls Before Flashpoint, this Edge was slightly too expensive to come into play as quickly as needed. Now, with Glimpse of the Abyss, the Lotus may be in a better position to field mook decks built around multiple Feast of Souls Edges. It remains to be seen whether a deck that can reliably provide Glimpse of the Abyss' three Lotus resource conditions can also field the State of Emergency Event, and all-purpose devastation cards like Final Brawl and Neutron Bomb. Feast of Souls decks want to take casualties, because casualties provide Power for more minions. Lo, I am become Death, destroyer of worlds, father of demons. Festival Circle Festival Circle can only cancel Events that take a character or characters you control as "targets." Fire Assassin NEW RULING! Like Evil Twin, Fire Assassin is being changed to allow it to reenter play from the smoked pile and use its ability. That's how most people play it anyway. . . Fire Assassin's new text is "Pick an opponent and a resource when Fire Assassin enters play. X = the resources of that type in the opponent's pool. Fire Assassin cannot turn to attack sites." If the player originally chosen as the opponent whose resource pool determines Fire Assassin's Fighting score later takes control of Fire Assassin, Fire Assassin's Fighting does not change. Flying Crescent The damage inflicted by Flying Crescent is simultaneous with the damage inflicted by the subject character in combat with intercepting characters. Fortune of the Turtle Fortune of the Turtle may be removed with Realpolitik and Return to the Center. Affecting the State does not count as affecting the character. Fortune of the Turtle can even be smoked by Discerning Fire, if there is another card with the designator "Fortune" or "Turtle" in play for Discerning Fire to zero in on. The Fox Outfoxed One of the oddest combos supported by Netherworld cards involves The Fox Outfoxed and IKTV. Play IKTV on your own site. Play The Fox Outfoxed on IKTV. Now when you turn IKTV to try to unturn the subject site, you may be hoping that you flip tails, since The Fox Outfoxed will funnel all the Power that would have gone to your opponents straight into your pool. Applying similar logic to the Flashpoint set, you can play The Fox Outfoxed on any player's Battleground site. If the subject Battleground site is seized, you will gain the Power for seizing the site instead of the player who seized it. Fox Pass Rules text rewritten for clarity: "Turn to change one attacking character's target to a character or front-row site you control." Fox Pass is an unusual card because it can create a situation in which an attack has two targets. (If more than one player is playing with Fox Pass, a single attack could end up with two or three different targets! Note that it's perfectly legal for an opponent to change one of your attacking character's target to a character they control, then use that character to intercept one of your other attacking characters. The result is usually that the opposing character turned into a target by Fox Pass ends up getting smoked during interception combat. When your characters who are still attacking overcome all interceptors and proceed to their target(s), the Fox Passed character is no longer in play, meaning that your attack against it has failed, since your attacking character failed to damage its target in combat. It's still entirely illegal for characters you control to attack targets you control, of course. Gao Zhang Gao Zhang must choose another legal target for the Event. We left the words 'legal' off of many such cards, because our assumption is that you're not cheesy enough to try to play cards illegally. In an exception-based game like Shadowfist, you've gotta follow the rules that don't specify they are broken. Gao Zhang can also choose new targets for cards that have more than one target. He can choose new targets for Mark of Fire, or even for Discerning Fire, so long as you can find the same number of new targets sharing a designator as the Discerning Fire was originally going to smoke. Gnarled Horror Gnarled Horror inflicts its damage simultaneously with any character or characters it is in combat with, and is therefore usually easy to smoke in combat. If you can give the Gnarled Horror the Ambush ability, it inflicts its damage first when attacking, and would therefore smoke defenders before they were able to inflict their damage. A more complicated route to the same end would be to make Gnarled Horror the subject of Shadowfist. "The creature which killed Veronique, Fumiyo, Chen, Kel and Griz? Well you're not gonna want to believe this, but IKTV has got footage of that thing coming out of the Hand's Meditation Chamber! It's just like Battlechimp says, they're all magicians! And they're all in it together!" Gnarled Marauder NEW RULING! For clarity's sake, here's a rewording of Gnarled Marauder which doesn't change the character from how it has always been played, but does make that consistent with our recent rulings: "Any combat damage Gnarled Marauder inflicts on a site in an attack is also inflicted on the back-row site behind that site, and counts as combat damage inflicted in an attack." In other words, Gnarled Marauder can get lucky and reduce the Body of two sites to 0 in the same attack, allowing you to seize or burn both of them! If you'd rather not depend on luck, keep Grenade Launchers and other weapon States handy and play them on Gnarled Marauder by surprise during the attack. "Like, I try to believe in evolution and everything. But sometimes I wonder what type of Darwinian process decided to equip a demon with a dorsal cavity that turns out to be just the right size for an M80 grenade launcher." Gnarled Attuner Damage inflicted by a Gnarled Attuner cannot be removed even if the Attuner goes out of play or is under the influence of a Larcenous Mist. Damage inflicted by a Gnarled Attunder while it is under the influence of a Larcenous Mist can be removed or healed. Golden Comeback As we've mentioned in the section on rulings, Golden Comeback "returns a character to play" so you do not have to meet the character's resource conditions as you would if you were playing the character. In general, you need to make al necessary choice when you play a card/generate an effect, so when you play Golden Comeback, choose which character in your smoked pile will return to play when the Event resolves. An Inauspicious Reburial played in response to Golden Comeback can toast character you've chosen and prevent it from returning to play, since the character will be in the toasted pile when Golden Comeback resolves. Grenade Posse If Grenade Posse turns to inflict 1 point of damage on each character at a target location, characters currently at that location can respond by turning to change location or using Mobility. The location changing effects will resolve first in the sequence of effects, moving characters out of harm's way. Remember that Mobility cannot be used during an attack. For more information related to Grenade Posse's use, see the writeup of Napalm Sunrise on page XX. If you play Larcenous Mist on Grenade Posse in order to place a weapon State on it, the weapon State will be smoked as soon as Grenade Posse's ability is effective again. Hands Without Shadow Lest I neglect to mention it, this painting belongs to Edward Beard, Jr., not L. A. Williams as the card was printed. Helix Chewer This State was placed in an Event card border in the Limited and Standard Edition. Heroic Conversion In order to take effect, Heroic Conversion needs to be on the subject character both when the character attacks and at the end of the turn. Note to the nasty: this cuts down the number of tricks you can pull with Shaolin Surprise by at least one. Hill of the Turtle First, let's acknowledge that this card showed up in both the common and uncommon slots in Limited and Standard Edition Shadowfist. Second, let's clarify that if you don't control any characters with Tech symbols in their resource conditions or resources, you don't have to pay 1 Power at the start of your turn, since the penalty will be meaningless to you. Third, let's point out that this reasoning applies exactly to two other Shadowfist cards, Tomb of the Beast and Seed of the New Flesh. Fourth, we admit that these particular hosers were rendered fairly ineffective because each player gets to decide which card they will choose to lose, if any. Fifth, if you're an ambitious Guiding Hand player who enjoys the challenge of playing with Tranquil Persuader, you could take control of a Tech opponent and then choose not to pay a point of Power, smoking one of them. "They come to us, momentarily sane. We lead them to the Perfect Master's hills. It is a peaceful end, there upon the hillside." Iala Mane During his or her turn, an opponent has the right to declare the first attack. Unless your opponent balks, you probably won't be able to attack first with Iala Mane. In fact, the rules as printed suggest that you could have a hard time declaring Iala Mane's attack at all so long as your opponent keeps declaring follow-up attacks. Our ruling for solving this problem is as follows: during an opponent's attack, you can say "As soon as your attack is finished, Iala Mane is going to attack." Kinda like putting your quarter down on a pool table or video game, saying that you've got the next game. You don't have to specify the target of the attack until you actually declare the attack and turn Iala Mane after your opponent's attack. Therefore, if you're playing against Iala and don't him want him attacking during your turn, the only way to keep him from attacking, short of an effect that takes him out of play or turns him, is to immediately declare the end of your turn as soon as you main shot begins. Given the Dragon's access to Golden Comeback, the Event which excels in bringing back heavy hitters during any player's main shot, it's hard to rest easy once Iala Mane has made it into play. "That's nonsense. Don't feed me this idiotic excuse for a report, Consumer. I killed Iala Mane myself two days ago. He's dead. So you are mistaken. Hello? You dare hang up on me!? Hello? Hello? Hello?!. . . ." Illusory Bridge The card will have text explaining that it is controlled by the player whose site structure it has been played into, not by the player who owns the card. Inauspicious Reburial Because Inauspicious Reburial does not specify that it has a target, it's one of the game's nastiest and least counterable Events, especially in two-player games. Tricks added by Flashpoint that will cut Inauspicious Reburial down a notch include Events which provide resources while they are in the smoked pile and the Dragon card Hacker, which can cancel Inauspicious Reburial outright. In general, Inauspicious Reburial decks love cheap effects that can smoke characters in a hurry. Towards the end of a game, try hitting opponents with a Neutron Bomb followed by Inauspicious Reburial. There's not much left to bury the first time. Inexorable Corruption Good idea: playing Inexorable Corruption on an opponent's site you plan to burn for Power or burn for victory. Bad idea: playing Inexorable Corruption on a site you need to seize; since damage counters can never be removed from a site that is the subject of Inexorable Corruption, seizing such a site isn't possible. The damage on the site would smoke it as soon as you tried to place it into your site structure, it wouldn't even count as a site seized for victory. Another bad idea: playing Inexorable Corruption on Average Joe or another character with Toughness: 1 doesn't do you any good. Even playing three Inexorable Corruptions on a character with Toughness is a waste of effort, since each of the cards is a separate source of damage and the Toughness would soak up a point from each source. Into the Light You can't play the card retrieved with Into the Light as part of the sequence in which Into the Light is played, as that card will not be in your hand until Into the Light resolves. At that point, it's too late to generate any additional effects in that sequence. Iron and Silk Iron and Silk only applies to combat damage. Jamal Hopkins Jamal Hopkins may be used to place a Feng Shui site behind another player's Inner Sanctum, since the Inner Sanctum's effect only applies to its controller. Kinoshita House NEW RULING! Kinoshita House not only unturns its target character, it removes the target character from the attack. The rules text has been reworded as follows: "Unique. Turn to unturn target attacking character. Target character is removed from the attack." That's how most everyone thought it worked in the first place, so we don't feel too bad about the change. Saves us making convoluted explanations. By the by, you could turn Kinoshita House to remove an attacking character with Ambush after it had inflicted its damage on a defender. Works real well with the new White Ninja. The sublime meditation cottage of the great ninja leader Kinoshita retains the essence of his spirit. Some wonder if his blood lives on as well. Larcenous Mist Targeting a character that has a Fighting score of X with Larcenous Mist takes away the rules text which defines the Fighting score. An undefined Fighting of X defaults to 0. Usually that's enough to smoke the character, though other cards could give the 'X-fighter' in question a Fighting bonus to keep them alive. Locksley Station If Locksley Station takes control of a non-feng shui site during an attack targeting that site, the attack continues at the new location of the site, with the same target, even if the site's new controller has placed the site in the back row. The exception to this ruling is that the attack will if the new controller of the non-feng shui site is the player who declared the attack. Lord Shi Characters who attack alongside with Lord Shi do not lose the +1 Fighting bonus until the end of the attack, even if Lord Shi is smoked, toasted, or otherwise removed from the attack. The Losers The Losers can only become the new target of Events that have a "target." If the Losers have already been chosen as one of the targets of Mark of Fire, they cannot turn and take another of the points of damage as well. Marisol NEW RULING! The first sentence of this Netherworld card's rules text should read: "Damage may not be redirected to Marisol." Masked Avenger The Masked Avenger's ability applies to any damage a character inflicts, including the special ability of a White Disciple or other character that inflicts damage directly. Humorously, Masked Avenger'a ability works particularly well against previously undamaged White Disciples, because a White Disciple turns and inflicts one point of damage to itself to inflict two points of damage to a target. The point of damage the White Disciple inflicts on itself occurs during generation. By the time the White Disciple inflicts its damage on its target, in resolution, the Disciple will have a Fighting of 1, and will therefore not be able to scratch the Masked Avenger. On the other hand, an injured White Disciple can turn and smoke itself and get its last Blast off at the Masked Avenger. Might of the Elephant In a deck with a full cast of Ascended characters, Might of the Elephant can achieve a Fighting score in double digits, sometimes even overshadowing Draco. The Elephant's lack of resource conditions makes him proof against Inauspicious Reburial decks. In the endgame, in tandem with The Unspoken Name, Might of the Elephant only puts a mid-sized dent in The Unspoken Name's Stealth allowance of 7. "I was meditating beside the stream. It was a calm spring day, as if there were no trouble in the world. I looked up and saw him charging across the meadow, head up, nostrils flaring, his footsteps smashing the grass into powder, and I wondered for a moment that there had been no alarm, until he took another step -- he made no sound, no footfall. I loosed all twelve of my arrows, knowing they would not be enough." Monkey House The precondition "when an opponent controls more power generating sites than you" is only checked when Monkey House's effect is generated. If an opponent reveals a Proving Ground in response (a feng shui site that is not a power generating site when face up) it does not change the fact that Monkey House's effect was legally generated and doesn't prevent it from resolving normally. Mother of Corruption One trick beloved of Lotus players is to play Larcenous Mist on the Mother of Corruption, taking away her abilities, and therefore allowing her to attack and be healed until the end of the turn. Mysterious Return NEW RULING! You cannot sacrifice a character who has been returned with Mysterious Return. For that matter, you can't do anything with the character except intercept the attack. If the character returned to play by Mysterious Return is returned to its owner's hand before the end of the turn, it does not get smoked. You can't smoke a card in a player's hand. Necromantic Conspiracy To be perfectly clear, Necromantic Conspiracy should read: "Search target opponent's deck. Toast up to four cards that have the same title and that also have a resource condition. You may only play a single Necromantic Conspiracy card in any game." Yup, cards "removed" from a deck by Necromantic Conspiracy are toasted. Cards toasted by your Necromantic Conspiracy would allow an opponent's Darkness Priestess to generate a point of Power apiece. Like Avenging Thunder and Year of the Rat, Necromantic Conspiracy is a card you can only play one copy of in a game. You could use the Event, Memory Reprocessing, to play Necromantic Conspiracy out of an opponent's smoked pile, but only once per game, and not if you had already played a Necromantic Conspiracy. Nerve Gas Nerve Gas does not affect characters with [Magic] or [Tech] symbols in their resource conditions. Netherworld Return If we'd had the term "Toast It" when we created Netherworld Return, that's what the card woulda had instead of its last sentence of rules text. As soon as the card is played, it goes into the toasted pile. Note that you don't select the random characters and return them to play until the resolution of Netherworld Return-no fair trying to force your opponent to select a character during generation in order to toast it away from them using Inauspicious Reburial. Operation Killdeer Operation Killdeer reduces all damage its target inflicts to zero, whether that damage is in combat or not. It took us a while to figure out the following consequence of Operation Killdeer's effects, so bear with us if you've been following the game since the start. . . Damage is inflicted in resolution, not in generation. Therefore Operation Killdeer can reduce some damage-inflicting effects generated previously in a sequence of effects to 0. For example, if a White Disciple turns to inflict 1 point of damage on itself to inflict two points of damage on another target, you could respond with Operation Killdeer and reduce the damage the White Disciple inflicts in resolution to 0. Operation Killdeer would resolve first in the sequence of effects, preempting the White Disciple's damage infliction effect. On the other paw, if you started a sequence of effects by playing Operation Killdeer on a White Disciple, the White Disciple could turn to inflict its damage and its effect would resolve first. Pocket Demon Let's take a break from the usual format and do a bit of old-fashioned Q&A from the FAQ. Q: If I play Pocket Demon or Violet Meditation can I discard as many cards as I want to in my establishing shot because I haven't generated Power from my sites? A: No. Instead of your sites generating Power, this turn Pocket Demon/Violet Meditation generates Power at the same time your sites would have generated Power. So if you play Pocket Demon or Violet Meditation at the start of your turn, you can't discard more than 1 card without forfeiting the power it would generate for you. Q: If an edge is in play which requires me to pay Power at the start of my turn, can I play Pocket Demon or Violet Meditation first to get some Power to pay the cost? A: No, the Power generated by Pocket Demon or Violet Meditation is generated at the same time as your sites would have generated the Power.. Q: Can Pocket Demon or Violet Meditation be canceled by Confucian Stability or by other events? A: Yes, but only by Events that can be played in response to other Events. Confucian Stability and Brain Fire are the two best examples of Events that can be played in response to other Events, and can be played in response to a Pocket Demon or Violet Meditation. Normally you wouldn't be able to play Confucian Stability or Brain Fire at the start of the turn, but Pocket Demon or Violet Meditation pave the way. Q. Can I play more than one Pocket Demon in a turn, or play a Pocket Demon and a Violet Meditation? A. No, both Pocket Demon and Violet Meditation specify that no other card generates Power that turn. Wait a minute. . . That means you could play more than one of these cards at the start of your turn, but only the first to resolve would do you any good. That could be helpful if an opponent cancels the first one with Confucian Stability. Police Station Police Station can turn to inflict 2 points of damage to a Hood character or Hood site, not any site as some players interpret the card. So far the only Hood site in sight is Drug Lab. Political Lock When Political Lock is in play, characters can no longer turn to change location within your own site structure or turn change location in order to intercept at another player's location. Characters can still turn to attack when Political Lock is in play. To get around Political Lock's drawback, try playing with lots of vehicles States or a couple of carefully placed (and well-defended) Netherworld Passageways. "I had a bad moment when an Architect ninja came after me and I tried to escape through the wrong egg chamber in the termite's nest. But the problems I'm having keeping our Netherworld boltholes straight is nothing compared to the problems that started for that assassin when she got stuck at the Kenyan border without a passport." Positive Chi NEW RULING! Here's an important change to Positive Chi: "Each player may take any one card, except a feng shui site or Event, from his or her smoked pile and play it at no cost." That's right, you can no longer play Events with Positive Chi. If you don't know why that was necessary, then you clearly weren't one of the evil souls who tormented their friends by finding weird and incomprehensible things they could do by playing Events with Positive Chi. But speaking of weird effects, we Daedalus folks have been playing Positive Chi a couple of different ways, and this is the moment we unveil the way we're ruling that Positive Chi resolves: all players choose a card from their smoked pile simultaneously and keep their decision secret. Then each player plays the card he or she picked in the order determined by the rules for simultaneous play on page 42 of the rulebook, i.e., the player whose turn it is plays his or her card first, followed by the other players in clockwise order (never mind that we goofed describing clockwise in the rulebook, that we can fix in the upcoming revision!). There are a few strange circumstances in which the card chosen by one player will be made illegal by a card chosen and played earlier by an opponent. For instance, if you choose a Shadowy Mentor in a two-player game, you could wind up with a useless card if your opponent chose to return Johann Bonengel to play before you can get the Shadowy Mentor onto the table. In such rare cases, return the useless card to your smoked pile. Probability Manipulator NEW RULING! Probability Manipulator should read: "Turn to increase or decrease the value of any number on target card that is in play by 1 until the end of the turn. Probability Manipulator may not change a number to zero. Does not affect costs or numbers expressed as words." Our ruling on Probability Manipulator is that it can affect numbers that are expressed as numerals, but not numbers that are written out in letters. The number '1' can be changed go 2, but the number 'one' is inviolate. The number 10 can be changed to 9 or 11, but the number 'ten' can't be touched. Probability Manipulator can't touch Events, which are played into the smoked pile and therefore never "in play." Many of the funky combos that people try to pull off with Probability Manipulator falter because of the card's inability to be turned during an establishing shot. Remember that no effects can be generated in the establishing shot unless they specify they can, are meant to be generated only in the establishing shot, or can respond to effects that are legally generated in the establishing shot. Lacking any hooks, Probability Manipulator has to wait until your main shot, at which point it's late to supe-up a Supercomputer or change the amount of Power a site generates. For the record, Probability Manipulator can affect costs that are mentioned in the rules text of cards, it just can't affect costs that appear in the lower left corner of cards. The Prof See page XX for a discussion of characters such as The Prof who are not affected by Events. For what it's worth, Dragon fanatics, if you play Surprise, Surprise and get lucky by drawing the Prof, she will not be toasted at the end of the turn, since Surprise, Surprise can't affect her once she is in play. If you're looking for something a bit more efficient and predictable, consider that The Prof is the only Dragon character who can keep her distance from the Final Brawl. She stays in the Netherworld instead of joining the firefight. Progress of the Mouse NEW RULING! Progress of the Mouse can only be played on an opponent, not on yourself. The card should read: "For the duration of this turn, any Power that target opponent spends goes into your pool. No characters or sites may be played in response to this card." Note that if Progress of the Mouse is played in response to an opponent playing a card, it will be too late for you to get the Power the opponent has spent. Likewise, your opponent could play Events, States, or Edges in response to Progress of the Mouse and pay for those cards before Progress of the Mouses's effect resolves in the current sequence of effects. However, if you want to play Progress of the Mouse as early as possible in an opponent's turn, you'd have to wait until the start of the establishing shot and ask her if she was going to generate an effect. By the rules of simultaneous play, the player whose turn it is gets to generate the first effect if two players want to generate an effect simultaneously. If she doesn't know what she's going to do first, you would have the right to play Progress of the Mouse first. But if she wanted to play a number of characters and sites, she would only be able to play the first character or site before you would be able to respond with Progress of the Mouse and keep her from playing the rest of the characters and sites before Progress of the Mouse resolves and starts sending Power to your pool. Proving Ground Rules text rewritten for clarity: "When Proving Grounds is first revealed, turn Proving Grounds for no effect. Turn Proving Grounds to play a character at -2 cost. Multiple Proving Grounds cannot reduce the cost of the same character." Note that our recent ruling against using more than one card to reduce the cost of another card may obviate the last sentence of this revision. We'll be able to tell by the time we reprint the card. Even if you can unturn a Proving Ground with IKTV Broadcast Link or the Old Hermit, you cannot use it twice on the same character, since it does not unturn until after the sequence of effects has resolved. If a Proving Ground's effect is canceled, the playing of the character itself is canceled. In other words, playing the character is itself part of the effect. The character may be played thereafter at normal cost. Several Netherworld cards use the number of Power-generating sites each player controls to gauge players' progress in the game. These underdog cards provide a sneaky bonus to Proving Ground, because non-Power generating sites are defined as sites that have a 0 in the diamond in their left corner. Proving Ground functionally provides you with the oomph to play characters, but it doesn't count as a Power-generating site so you can easily combine it with cards such as Monkey House and Heat of Battle. Note also that a character played with Proving Ground gets played during the resolution of the sequence of effects. This allows a Whirlpool of Blood to turn and cancel Proving Ground's effect. But it also has a side effect that can be exploited by savvy players. If you're playing with fragile utility characters such as Arcanotechnician or Vivisector, characters that are vulnerable to being smoked in the same sequence of effects in which they enter play (by a Final Brawl or Mark of Fire or the like) before they can turn for their effect, play those utility characters with Proving Ground! The Vivisector enters play during resolution! Since no new effects can be generated during a resolving sequence of effects, your opponents won't get a chance to smoke the Vivisector before it has an opportunity to smoke itself. It's the year 2056. The best are convicted of Level 6+ crimes and the worst are full of a passion for arcanowave science. The world's been down so long that Proving Ground looks like up from here. Quai Li Quai Li's effect goes off even if a targeted site is revealed in response to its generation; the preconditions for generating the effect just need to be met at the time the effect was generated. If opponents choose to reveal all their feng shui sites when Quai Li enters the game she won't be able to damage any of them, but she certainly will have quite a bit to report to the Perfect Master. And if an opponent plays a feng shui site while Quai Li is in play she will be able to turn and damage it, since all but one or two feng shui sites enter play face-down. Queen of the Darkness Pagoda It's not enough to merely generate the effect that will inflict damage on the Queen of the Darkness Pagoda, the damage counters have to be placed on her in order to activate her toasting effect. Therefore, if a White Disciple's damage is redirected away from the Queen, she does not toast the White Disciple. Queen of the Ice Pagoda The Queen makes life very tough on opponents who want to play States on cards you control. Even a Shadowy Mentor played on the Queen herself will be almost completely ineffective. I say "almost completely" ineffective because the resulting sequence of effects is sorta strange. It plays like this: your opponent plays Shadowy Mentor on the Queen (or another character you control). You respond by inflicting one point of damage on the Queen, since the Shadowy Mentor has not resolved. The first effect to resolve in the sequence of effects will be the Queen's effect of smoking the Shadowy Mentor State. Strangely, for one microsecond of the resolution, the Shadowy Mentor's effect will still resolve, and the character in question will blip to the opponent's side. . . but only for a split cinematic second during resolution, a moment which is too brief to generate any other effects. Your opponent will be able to say "I nearly worked with the Queen of the Ice Pagoda once" but that's about it. Unfortunately, they'll also have done you a potentially huge favor, because the card which is changing controllers so briefly unturns like any other card that changes controllers. Whoops. Rah Rah Rasputine She can kick $10,000 Men around like they're made of bait boxes, but when she fights the big baddie, CHAR, her ability fails to help her against his ability to inflict damage that is never reduced except by damage he has suffered. Redeemed Assassin NEW RULING! This card should read: "You can play Redeemed Assassin anytime during an opponent's turn, including during an attack. Redeemed Assassin has Toughness: 1 for the duration of the turn in which he enters play." See Tactical Team for another card in the same position. Reinvigoration Process NEW RULING! The rules text of this card should read: "Turn during your turn to play an Abomination from your smoked pile at normal cost." Note that in this and all other cases in which cards allow you to play other cards, you must pay Power costs and meet resource conditions unless otherwise specified. Also remember that characters in your smoked pile are not affected by cards such as Arcanowave Reinforcer, which gives all your characters in play the designator "Abomination." The Architect war machine is powerful, but it ain't that powerful. When this card is reprinted we'll use the true Anson Maddocks artwork instead of duplicating Mark Tedin's Cellular Reinvigoration piece. Repulsor Beams Oddly enough, you could play Repulsor Beams on a site controlled by an opponent. You control the State because you played it. In most circumstances, this isn't going to do you any good. For instance, say you play Repulsor Beams on an opponent's Fox Pass. If you declare an attack against the Fox Pass, your opponent has the right to respond to your declaration with an effect before you can generate an effect, so your opponent could turn the Fox Pass to generate its normal effect before you get to turn Repulsor Beams to Repulse your wimpiest attacking character. On the other hand, you could play Repulsor Beams on a front row site controlled by an opponent that ordinarily doesn't turn, like an Inner Sanctum, to make sure the site is turned when your Redeemed Gunman attacks it. That ain't nasty, but it's possible. And if you seize the Inner Sanctum, the Prof's covert agents will have wired up its defenses for you in advance. Reverend Redglare Reverend Redglare's ability is one of the abilities that isn't available for copying via Rigorous Discipline, Soul Diver, or Evil Twin. Since you choose a designator when Reverend Redglare enters play, the ability turns into an exercise in futility if given to a character that is already in play. Other cards in this category include Serena Ku, Evil Twin, and Fire Assassin. Righteous One Rules text rewritten for clarity: "Any character intercepted by Righteous One while Righteous One is unturned is smoked after combat with Righteous One." "Fong Sai Yuk went over Donovan and Silver Fist like they were standing still, but out of nowhere one of our sumo guys leaned out of a window and snagged Fong as he went by. They fell back into the room with Fong Sai Yuk cutting him up something terrible. I heard a huge snap and that's the last we saw of either of them." Rigorous Discipline NEW RULING! Rigorous Discipline has been rewritten as follows: "For the duration of this turn, target character gains the special abilities in the rules text of any character in play." Rigorous Discipline does not copy special abilities granted by States, Events, or other cards. To interpret the copied ability, insert the name of the character who has been gifted with the ability in place of the name of the character who normally possesses the ability. For example, the Thing with 1000 Tongues allows you to sacrifice a character to give Thing with 1000 Tongues Toughness: 3 until the end of the turn. If you want to use Rigorous Discipline to give Kar Fai the ability of Thing With 1000 Tongues, you could sacrifice a character you control to give Kar Fai Toughness: 3 until the end of the turn. Because Rigorous Discipline copies the rules text of the copied character precisely, certain characters' abilities are not possible to copy effectively, including Serena Ku, Reverend Redglare, Fire Assassin and Evil Twin. All these characters have abilities that require you to make a choice as they enter play. These abilities are useless when given to a character that is already in play, and by definition, Rigorous Discipline's target character has to be in play. You can Rigorous Discipline a character's ability onto itself. For example, if you Rigorous Discipline Homo Omega's Toughness: 2 onto Homo Omega, he'll have Toughness: 4 for a turn. Other abilities, such as Stealth, Guts, and Superleap are not cumulative. If an ability has a precondition, such as "turn to" do whatever, you're generally not aided by gaining the same ability twice, since the precondition must be met to use the ability, and you can't turn twice at the same time. On the other hand, some effects that are triggered, such as the Plasma Trooper's Fighting bonus when he turns to attack, can be doubled-up using Rigorous Discipline. Rigorous Discipline can also special abilities that are drawbacks such as the DNA Mage's ability "cannot turn to attack." Of course it would be too late to give a character that ability if the character had already turned to attack, so such defensive use of Rigorous Discipline is best employed as a character is put into play. See the rulings chapter, page XX for information on copying abilities defining Fighting scores of X. "If we could convince Quan Lo's monks to turn their stolen powers into habits, they would split into factions and war amongst themselves. But the monks treat 'diversity' as a temporary and avoidable condition." Rust Garden When an opponent seizes or burns Rust Garden, Rust Garden inflicts two points of damage on the opponent's other sites. This triggered effect can even prevent the opponent from winning the game if one of the feng shui sites they needed for victory is smoked. Scroll of Incantation A card retrieved by a Scroll of Incantation replaces the Scroll of Incantation in the sequence of effects. In practice, this means that Scroll of Incantation cannot be canceled. That's not really an issue since the Event you play with Scroll of Incantation is open to cancellation. Shifting Tao Shifting Tao's effect is generated when the attacking player declares the attack. Characters controlled by other players that join in the attack do not count. Soul Diver If a Soul Diver is turned to grant a character the abilities of a character in an opponent's smoked pile, and that character leaves the opponent's smoked pile, the first character continues to possess that character's abilities until it is unturned. Soul Maze NEW RULING! If we were writing Soul Maze today we'd say something like: "Turn to cause two characters that are about to enter combat with each other to swap the special abilities in their rules text and the special abilities of any States on them for the duration of the combat." To figure out what happens when characters who are the subjects of States get tangled up in Soul Maze, follow the following procedure: Pretend that a virtual reality of each State leaves the true subject character and moves to the character it is about to enter combat with. This virtual reality State is considered to be controlled by the character's controller. If one of the characters affected by Soul Maze is the subject of a Shadowy Mentor State, here's what happens. . . First, the effect of the Shadowy Mentor State will stop affecting its subject character. Because of the ruling stating that a character which changes controllers is removed from any attacks or interception it is participating, the character is likely to be removed from the attack or interception immediately as it temporarily reverts to its true owner's control. Of course it's coming back to its Shadowy Mentor again in a microsecond, but in the meantime, if it was an intercepting character it will have gotten out of the attacker's way without the two characters ever entering combat. Stone Garden You don't have to turn feng shui sites like Stone Garden during your turn, you can wait until the opponent to your right declares the end of his turn, then turn Stone Garden in response. Players who want to wait and use feng shui sites to deny victory to opponents usually wait and turn their sites as late as possible instead of using the site's abilities immediately. Sucker Rounds The Fighting of a character that is the subject of Sucker Rounds decreases immediately if the opponent to the left spends or otherwise loses Power. Surprise, Surprise Like Scroll of Incantation, Surprise, Surprise can't be canceled itself. The card you draw from your deck takes Surprise, Surprise's place in the sequence of effects if you choose to play the card. Note that if you play Surprise, Surprise and draw a card such as Discerning Fire or Wind on the Mountain, cards that have a cost of X, you're out of luck instead of in the money. If you use Surprise, Surprise to play these cards at no cost, X would equal 0, giving you no effect. Better to put' em in your hand if you want to use them later. Tactical Team NEW RULING! This card should read: "Can be played anytime during an opponent's turn, including during an attack." As usual, that doesn't include the establishing shot, only the main shot. Tanbi Guiawu If Tanbi Guiawu is declared as an attacker, he participated in the attack. Thing with 1,000 Tongues In case you've wondered, Thing with 1,000 Tongues does allow you to sacrifice as many characters as you want during a turn to increase the Thing's Toughness. Sacrificing a character is an effect that occurs during generation. When the effect resolves, the Thing gains +3 Toughness. A wonderfully Lotus method of disposing of enemies "No! No! I'm not worthy to be fed to your stinking monster!" Thunder on the Mountain NEW RULING! The 'm' that appears in the rules text is meant to be an Architects of the Flesh symbol. All the Thunder on the Mountain cards currently in existence feature the mistaken 'm' symbol. Throwing Star Rules text rewritten for clarity: "After surviving a combat with another character, subject character may inflict 1 point of damage on any character at its location." Trade Center Trade Center prevents feng shui sites on its immediate right and left from generating Power. In other words, if Trade Center is in your front row, the front row feng shui sites, if any, adjacent on either side would not generate Power during your establishing shot, though they would still count as Power-generating sites. You can get around Trade Center's drawback by playing with many non-feng shui sites which generate Power, or use Proving Ground, the only feng shui site which never generates Power. High and Low -- in Tokyo, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, New York, you find the mighty business centers beside the most desperate slums. Do the suits just want someone to look down on? Or is there something more? Ultimate Mastery NEW RULING! Like Rigorous Discipline, Ultimate Mastery is being simplified with new wording as follows: "Subject character gains the special abilities in the rules text of each character it is in combat with until that combat is over." A few observant people have noticed that there are two slightly different versions of Ultimate Mastery in print. No joke, although one of the two is sorta gobbledy-gooky.. If you haven't noticed, don't worry about it. Use the errata above which excludes the effects of States, Events, and other card effects, and you'll have no problem. Vampiric Touch Characters subject to Vampiric Touch get +1 Fighting when a character is smoked regardless of who controls the character. A character who is subject to Vampiric Touch is smoked at the end of any turn in which no character is smoked no matter whose turn it is. Therefore you can play Vampiric Touch on someone else's character and declare the end of your turn; if no characters have been smoked that turn, the subject character will be smoked unless your opponent can respond with an effect that smokes another character. Vampiric Touch's drawbacks make it a tough card to play to augment your own characters, so look for ways around the problem. The standard trick is to combine Vampiric Touch and Charmed Life, which prevents its subject character from being smoked at the end of turns in which the action slows to a non-smoking simmer. "Last week a team of Liquidators shot Big Brother Tsien up pretty good, but he killed most of them and didn't take the warning. So today I sent another couple teams with Phillipe Benoit along to finish the job. Phillipe limped home, alone, and now he's in intensive care. Maybe the Frenchman is slipping. Maybe Tsien is gaining allies. Or maybe I don't understand what's happening." Violet Meditation See the entry on Pocket Demon on page XX. Violet Monk NEW RULING! Violet Monk should read: "You may seize any non-feng shui site damaged by Violet Monk in combat in an attack you declared." As is true for Mirror Dancer and Thunder Champion, you can not add Violet Monk to an attack declared by an opponent and seize the target site away from the opponent. The Violet Principle, the Principle of Reversal: "The Fox turns overturns the bowl of water, transforms hunter into hunted, uses the strength of the bully against him. A victory for the tyrant contains the seeds of the tyrant's destruction. Feed the Fox his wine, but do not trust him." Vivisector Vivisector sacrifices a character you control when it generates its effect. You don't gain Power until the effect resolves. If an opponent responds to Vivisector by playing Dance of the Centipede or Natural Order, your character will still be sacrificed, but the effect won't resolve and you won't get any Power. Yes, Vivisector can sacrifice itself. In combination with cards such as Golden Comeback, Vivisector becomes an extraordinarily efficient method of recycling your heavy hitters. Bring 'em back with Golden Comeback, attack with 'em, then Vivisect them after they're through attacking to get your Power back. Repeat the process if you have other heavy hitters or Golden Comebacks in your hand. Ordinarily, opponents try to smoke your Vivisectors in the same sequence of effects in which they enter play, before the Vivisector is allowed to turn, so that you can't simply turn the Vivisector to sacrifice itself for Power when an opponent aims something nasty at it. Walking Corpses Walking Corpses can never turn to change location, but they can turn to attack. Walking Corpses are able to intercept, but only at a location they already occupy-or by using Mobility or Motorcycles to scoot around the table. Water Sword NEW RULING! True to our new ruling about cards always returning to their owner's hand instead of to the controller's hand, Water Sword no longer returns to "your" hand if the subject character is smoked; now it returns to its owner's hand. Since Water Sword manages to get around one of the normal problems of decks built around States, the fragility of States, the challenge is to get around the State-deck's other problem, cost. Playing with Johnny Tso and Water Sword is one fun little way of milking the cards for what they're both good at. "I'm four shots away from finishing off the archers when the Ruger jams. I'm out of guns and the archers see it in my eyes, they walk-tall and stroll in for the old pincushion shot. Then I remember the 'watery sword' thing the woman in the mask threw me as she bailed out of the burning hovercraft. Yeah, here it is in my bag. Hey! It's like a flippy steel broadsword to impale archers upon! I haven't had this much fun since I cut loose with a Hot Wheels track!" Whirlwind Strike Whirlwind Strike allows one character to intercept more than on character during the same combat, so long as combat and card effects don't remove the Whirlwind Striker from play or interception. The timing of Whirlwind Strike is as follows: resolve all combats caused by the Whirlwind Striker one at a time before proceeding to the next round of interception combat. In other words, if you are intercepting some attackers in chains, the Whirlwind Striker could end up intercepting and combating several characters before the second interceptors in your chains have to enter combat with attackers. Whirlpool of Blood Whirlpool of Blood can cancel an effect that is being turned and maintained -- the key is that the effect must have been generated by the turning of a Feng Shui site. White Disciple Since most of the other examples in this book have used White Disciple as a point of reference, let's skip that refrain and try another tune, paying homage to one of the favorite combos of beginning Shadowfist players: White Disciple + Sports Car or White Disciple + Armored in Life. A White Disciple with Toughness: 1 is a White Disciple who takes no damage from his own special ability. A White Disciple who takes no damage from his own special ability is a White Disciple who can inflict two points of damage to opponents' characters or sites indefinitely. A White Disciple who can inflict two points of damage to opponents' characters or sites indefinitely is the front-runner for a visit from Johnny Tso or a couple of Final Brawls. But he'll have fun fun fun 'til the good guys blow him away! "I swear, it's got to the point that every time there's a white car behind me, I turn and start to draw before I notice the car's not being driven by a White Disciple. All the old jokes about sports cars being extensions of a guy's manhood don't seem so funny now that these eunuch spell-chuckers have learned to drive." Wind on the Mountain Wind on the Mountain functions as if it had the restriction Toast It. Wind on the Mountain is played into the toasted pile even if it is canceled as it is played. Shadowfist Card Rulings 1996 24 from the Shadowfist Players' Guide