Oracle of the Void

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ created by DJ Trindle
Maintained by Jeff Alexander


You will see this rule change for the first time in the Anvil of Despair rulebook, but it is official now. This is verbatim from the AoD rulebook (pg. 29):

"Some card effects create Follower tokens. Any effect which can affect a Follower card can and will also affect a Follower token: they can be bowed, e.g. for Ranged Attacks or by a Fear effect. They can be transferred from one Personality to another like Follower cards, ie by bowing the Personalities involved. Follower tokens destroyed in a battle's Resolution Segment give the destroyer honor as if they were Follower cards: 2 honor per Follower token destroyed, or 1 per token in the case of a tie."

General Questions

Q: Does a Personality need to be in a battle to use a Battle action?

    A: This is a very frequent question, and it's almost always answered incorrectly. The only difference between Battle and Open actions is that you can't do Battle actions before battle actually starts. Once that happens, all the same general rules apply to both

    What this means is that an action only requires its performer be in the battle if it calls for a target in the "opposing" army (which includes Ranged Attacks), or "this battle" or has some other phrase which directly implies the user has to be there. Simply being a Battle action does not, by itself, require that the user be present.

Q:A friend swears that it's legal to use the Imperial Favor to restore the honor of a Dishonorable Dead Personality, but I can't find anything in the rulebook. Is he right?

    A: Yup. Four out of five game designers agree it's a neat idea, so it is officially permitted. No other actions are allowed to target dead Personalities as well as living ones, though.

Q: If I want to bring out the Unique, Experienced version of a card separately, but one or more of the original versions are already in play, do I have to get rid of them first?

    A: If the originals aren't also Unique (which they can't be if there are more than one out), you don;t have to get rid of anything to play the Experienced one.

Q: My opponent has a samurai with a Medium Infantry attached, which has a minimum honor of 1. What happens if I dishonor that samurai, so that her Personal Honor drops to 0? Does the Infantry get destroyed?

    A: No. Once any sort of card or token has been legally attached to a Personality, nothing will make it "fall off". If you want to get rid of it, you'll have to destroy it directly.

Q: What if I have just enough Family Honor to bring a Personality out, but I lose some honor while gathering gold for him? Can I still hire him with the money?

    A: No way. He will turn his nose up at your filthy lucre (though the Emperor's tax collectors won't).

Q: If I bow several shugenja to cast a RituaL are they all producing spell effects, or just the primary shugenja?

    A: Just the primary one. However, they all gain any benefits they'd normally get wben casting spells, such as gaining extra Chi from an Apprentice and not needing to bow during a Celestial Alignment.

Questions on the Forbidden Knowledge Cards

Q: Isawa Natsune says he can't bow to produce spell effects. What if something like Celestial Alignment is in effect, which lets shugenja use spells without bowing?

    A: Then he can use them. Natsune isn't completely incapable of casting spells, he's just out of practice and can only do it if something makes it easier. Also, if you re-read that last answer, he's allowed to bow to assist Rituals.

Q: What if I kill an attacking unit by playing Final Breath? Will that save a Province if the attacking armies Force drops enough?

    A: No. This is a case of not recomputing Force totals after resolving a battle. Final Breath has no effect on whether the Province is destroyed.

Q: What happens if I put a Personal Standard on the leader of a Unit that can't be targeted by Ranged Attacks?

    A: He remains untargetable. A Personal Standard only overrides the prohibiting shooting at a Personality if he has Followers. It won't override an effect which makes the entire Unit untargetable.

Q: Since Enlightenment is worded like Animate the Dead, does this mean I can't use it to "return" a Ring "to my hand" that went straight from my Fate Deck to my discard pile?

    A: Actually, that's allowed. It's one of the things Enlightenment was designed to do.

Q: Can I use Return of the Fallen Lord on a Personality who won't normally join my clan?

    A: No, since that would make him pin you.

Q: Let's say I have several copies of Kalu Kenru, the Crab Clan Armorer. Can one Follower gain +1F from each Armorer, or only a total +1F from Armorers, period?

    A: The latter. No more than one Armorer bonus per Follower, total.

Q: If I've only played one First Shout, does that let me play as many Second Shouts as I want?

    A: Yes. Ditto with the Second and Third.

Q: Can I ignore the special requirements on the Second and Third Shout by playing them face-down as regular focuses?

    A: No. They still limit you.

Q: What if I play a First Shout against someone who is only able to focus against me with some of the cards in his hand?

    A: You pick his focus randomly from the cards he can legally use.

Q: A couple cards, like The Second Shout, say their focus add to your duelist's Chi as normal. What if the duel isn't isn't a duel of Chi.

    A: Then it adds to whatever the duel is based on. This is truer of anything that "counts as a Focus" or "adds to Chi as normal." There are some Chi-changing, duel-related effects such as Togashi Yoshi that don't have one of these two magic phrases. These always affect Chi.

Q: How does The Coward's Way work with Poisoned Weapon or poison tokens? Do these affect both Personalities?

    A: These effects aren't duel results. They purely affect your original participants, like normal.

Q: Speaking of poison tokens, could you explain how Shosuro Hametsu, the Poison Master, works? Why would I want to poison my own people?

    A: The poison tokens aren't -2C. They cause no ill effects to the person holding them. If a Personality with a poison token enters a duel, you can destroy the token as a reaction, which will cause your opponent in the duel to suffer -2C until the eyd of the turn when the strike is declared. Like Poisoned Weapon, this should kill your opponent immediately, the duel is canceled without a winner or loser. Unlike Poisoned Weapon, Another Time would prevent the penalty from being applied.

Questions on Other Cards

Q: An opponent keeps using Kolat infiltrator to cancel my purchases. Is this right?

    A: Yes. Kolat Infiltrators counters the "effect" of a Holding. This includes gold-gathering as well at normal abilities. How it works is like this: when you play a card, announce what it is and indicate everything you're doing to generate the money for it. If any reactions stop you from getting enough gold, you can generate more to make up the loss if you're willing and able. Otherwise, the insufficient amount is completely taxed, and the card you tried to play goes back to where it came from. You can't spend the money you've' already made on something slese, though you can change how you're trying to play the original card if that changes how much it'll cost (for instance, paying for a less-skilled Geisha Assassin or deciding not to gain 2 honor from an aligned Personality).

Q: Say I'm holding the Ring of the Void and some other cards, and I'm forced to discard my entire hand. Can I discard them one at a time, holding the Ring for last so I can play it?

    A: No. You discard your entire hand at once. It is also illegal to use a discard-and-redraw effect, such as the Mempo of the Void, to discard your entire hand except the Ring and then play the Ring before drawing your replacement cards.

Q: Can I play Ambush against a Personality who can't defend, or that can't defend by himself?

    A: Yes.

Q: Since Feign Death doesn't make you bow the Personality you save anymore, if I use it to save someone who is killed by an action during battle, that Personality will still add to my army's Force at the end of the battle, right?

    A: No. Feign Death returns Personalities to their controller's Fiefs, since that is where all newly-played Personalities start.

Q: Can I pay 7 gold for a really expensive shugenja wlih the Phoenix Stronghold, then take advantage of its new Shadowlands trait with something like the Kuni Wastelands which makes Shadowlands cards cheaper?

    A: No. The shugenja doesn't gain the Shadowlands trait until it is in play.

Errata

Q: Shouldn't Return of the Fallen Lord be a Ritual?

    A: Yes.

Q: Shouldn't the Ancestral Sword of Hantei be a Weapon?

    A: No, actually. The Sword of Hantei is suth a powerful artifact that merely wearing it on or about one's person is enough to confer abilities described on the card. No one but the Emperor has the courage or the fortitude to actually wield it, so the lucky bearer still has his hands free to hold a more mundane weapon.


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