Gates of Tengoku Previews: ...and Prizes New

Since we launched the Onyx Lives! Project, we've been very fortunate to have the Sun & Moon Discord server host regular events in the Onyx and Shattered Empire tournament environments. As these have regularly exceeded 16 players, we've assigned occasional story points to the events, such as the Mantis Top of Clan prize which ended up becoming Karan Bhatt. Some prizes are yet to be resolved, but others were able to be slotted into the Gates of Tengoku expansion.

Our first major story point was for the Obsidian Legacy event in January 2024. Here, the winning faction would find the Obsidian Mirror, an artifact long lost, and choose what to do with it, including using it themselves, or returning it to the Nezumi who had once safeguarded it. The winner had the Akasha Clan (Naga) return the Mirror to the Nezumi. We used this opportunity to cement two choices with the Akasha Clan: first, that the Kitsune would ally themselves with the Naga, as seen in the "Foundations" fiction; and second, that the Last Tribe would also ally themselves with the Naga. In this way, the protectors of the Shinomen Forest became the guardians of a larger nonhuman legacy.

Zin'tik'kir Sensei unlocks another deckbuilding strategy for the Akasha Clan, intended to make use of the Scout cards Naga had received in the Onyx base set which had no thematic Sensei home. It also provides the Raid mechanic to a clan other than Mantis, and operates off of a familiar "salvage" mechanic to older nezumi iterations. This is a small Personality base to get started, but provides another new style of gameplay to the Shattered Empire format.

One more day of previews to go!