About
Blade and Brush
$3,802
112
Inspired by Avatar the Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, and the works of Hayao Miyazaki, such as Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind.
Blade and Brush is a simple yet intellectual game of shared storytelling through the medium of haiku.
Players take on the roles of unique, self defined characters such as wandering monks, plucky adventurers, and questing warriors.
Throughout the game, as the characters journey, they encounter a series of dilemmas. Using poems to solve problems, help people, and get into trouble, the players must collaborate and compete to weave the most entertaining story.
It can be played at a family gathering with children and grandparents over cups of warm tea, or at a late night gathering of close friends with a bottle of warm sake.
It's built for 3-8 players, ages 8 and up, and takes 30-45 minutes to play.
Blade and Brush is a card game. Unlike many games that use scripted interactions, Blade and Brush engages players and encourages creativity through its open ended mechanics. There are two types of cards players will encounter during the course of a game.
The first type of cards are Character Cards. There are twenty in all, each featuring an iconic illustration of an adventurer. Each player begins the game by selecting a character and writing a haiku about who they are.
Are they disgraced and struggling to regain their honor? Perhaps they are an exile bent on revenge? A questing warrior or wayward monk on a mission? Maybe they are simply a mischievous wanderer, causing more trouble than they solve.
The second type of cards are Dilemma Cards. Every round, one player assumes the role of the Guide, and reveals a Dilemma for the group. The Dilemma Cards each feature a problem or scenario in the form of haiku. There are over forty possible Dilemma's, but only about ten will be seen over the course of a game.
Each player writes a haiku explaining how their Character reacts to or solves the Dilemma. Players take turns reading their haiku. The Guide then chooses the haiku they like the best for whatever reasons, be it humorous, well crafted, or poignant. They award the player who wrote it a Token (a stone or coin).
The role of Guide then rotates and a new round begins. After a fixed number of rounds, based on the number of players, the game draws to a close. Each player writes a final poem focused on their adventures, lessons learned, and goals left fulfilled or unfulfilled. This final haiku exists to give a sense of narrative competition and closure to the Character. At the end, player with the most Tokens wins the game.
Anyone can write a poem!
For the purposes of this game, we have defined a haiku as a short poem of three lines comprised of 17 or fewer (10-14) syllables with the second line being the longest.
If any player, especially a younger one, has trouble writing haiku in a timely manner, they may ignore any and all of these guidelines.
A more formal definition of haiku is a short poem that uses imagistic language to convey the essence of an experience of nature or the season intuitively linked to the human condition, often through the juxtaposition of two images.
Technically, many of the poems in a game of Blade and Brush are senryu, poems structurally similar to haiku that highlight the foibles of human nature, usually in a humorous or satiric way.
The Blade and Brush campaign offers a number of backer exclusive rewards, ready to be claimed by bold adventurers. Every reward tier includes all the rewards of the previous tier. Here is a brief summary of the most important tiers:
The Game - $12 . This is the complete game as it will be sold after the Kickstarter. The retail price is to be set at $15. It will require you to supply notecards and smooth stones or other tokens.
The Box Set - $25 . The game cards will come in a special illustrated box along with a pouch of smooth tumbled malachite stones to use as tokens. An early bird version of this reward exists in limited quantity.
The Collector's Edition - $50. In addition to the previous rewards, you will receive the rules, collected poems, concept sketches and game art as a beautifully bound, ninety page hardcover commemorative book.
The Collector's Deluxe Edition - $75 . As an exclusive add-on, you will receive the book plus ten bonus blank Dilemma Cards to customize, as well as ten new premade Dilemma Cards and a Kickstarter exclusive secret Character Card.
Risks and challenges
The risks associated with Blade and Brush are minimal.
Though we are currently engaged in fulfilling rewards for another successful Kickstarter, Blade and Brush is a significantly smaller project.
The game itself is complete, and all that remains to be finished are a final two thirds of the artwork. An artist is already under contract.
We intend on using Drivethrurpg to print the cards and help to facilitate the production of expedient, high-quality reward fulfillment.
We estimate that the game will be finished and shipped by late this December.
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Funding period
- (30 days)