Online Greenlight:Legends of the New Year

By Mark Stamp

16/11/2015

Introduction

Legends of the New Year is a board game set in the depths ofChina’s past, in an age where myth and history blurred. Once a year,for one night, the dreaded spirit lord Nian emerges from theShadow Realm to devour entire villages and their livestock.

One night, four mysterious travellers arrived in one of the villagesliving in fear of Nian. The travellers promised to rid the villagers ofthe beast and promised that with their wisdom, Nian would neverterrorise their village again.

The game itself is the night these travellers made good on theirpromise. And it will be up to the players to use the knowledge ofthese mysterious travellers to protect the village from Nian’s terror.

How to Play

The goal of the game is to trap and capture Nian beast whileensuring as few villagers die as possible. This is done by herdingNian using a mix of good and bad fortune items that will either drawhim somewhere or drive him away, leading him though the villageinto a trap zone.

Players will have five rounds to search the village for fortune cardsbefore Nian shows up. When Nian does appear he will run aroundthe village eating villagers.

The game is considered lost when Nian eats all of the villagers onthe board. And considered won when no set of moves made by Niancan threaten any of the surviving villagers.

Game rules

• Players pick up to four hero characters

• Players gain fortune cards by visiting houses and combating the Sha within them using dice rolls.

• Discovered Sha are given a strength score (between 1 and 5, determined by a dice). A player must roll a higher score to defeat the Sha

• If a player fails to defeat a Sha they cannot re-enter that house for three turns

• When a Sha is defeated, the player must draw from a ‘gift’ deck. Pulling out a card at random.

Gift Cards

• Gift cards are gained from defeating Sha

• Each gift will have a fortune score between -4 and +4, but not 0.

• Fortune cards can be placed on the board using a token.

• A card’s fortune score represents the effect radius of a card on the board, the positive or negative status represents the effect the card will have on Nian.

• ‘bad fortune’ cards will attract Nian while ‘good fortune’ cards will repel him.

• Nian will be under the effects of a card when he is in a square adjacent to one occupied by the radius of the fortune card.

• Cards can be placed adjacent to each other to combine their fortune score.

• Combined cards can never have a fortune score greater than +/-4

Fortune Cards

The travellers protect the villageusing various items imbued with goodor bad fortune. These trinkets arerepresented by various cards that aredivided into two broad categoriesbased on what they are.

Good fortune cards would includered items, precious stones and edibletreats. Things that indicateprosperity and life.

Bad fortune cards would includeblack items, blades and clocks.Things that represent cutting of ties,death or things drawing to a close.

The clear distinction between thetwo card types will allow for easyidentification during gameplay. Eachitem has a fortune score between -4and +4, which represents howpowerful it is. These cards can beutilised by identifying their area ofeffect on the board with a set oftokens that can be stacked.

The Mysterious Traveller

Coming from parts unknown, the traveller isan outsider to the village. He is known towander the valleys and mountains of China,protecting villagers hunting Nian wherever itappears. Why he does this is unknown, as herarely speaks about anything beyondprotecting people from becoming Nian’squarry.

Despite his human appearance, the travellerhas an in-depth knowledge of Nian and hisweaknesses. Which he uses to drive the beastaway wherever it emerges. He is a man offew words, and disappears as abruptly as hearrives once he has driven off his quarry.

The traveller can be recognised by the redcloth draped over his body, a colour that inChinese culture symbolises luck and health,and is a colour that Nian fears due to itsvibrance and association with life. Thetraveller’s signature weapon, a simplewooden quarterstaff, is used primarily as awalking aid and a means of defence againstless supernatural opponents such as animalsand bandits.

The Mysterious Traveller

The hero represents the player in the story. In the original mythology there is onlyone, but Legends of the New Year is a game that is designed for up to four people toplay as heroes. I kept to looking at one hero design that I would focus on for thepuirposes of the project, and the one that stuck out most was one wearing a straw hatas it had the most distinctive features without looking too militaristic.

Nian, Shadow Lord of the Winter’s End

Nian is an ancient spirit of the wilderness.Every spring marks his brief emergence fromthe shadow realm, where for one night hedescends upon the people of China. Starvingand eager for the taste of living flesh. He isnot particular towards either animals orhumans, he hungers for both.

Nian is an embodiment of all things ending.Of life and of time. Things that representtiem running out or death empower him.Implements of death and tragedy such asknives, blades and spears merely shatterupon his body and for this reason he hasbeen considered unstoppable. Whileconsidered this, even he has hisvulnerabilities. Tings that embody life andcontinuation frighten him and drive himaway.

As a spirit beast, Nian relies on his ownbody to defend himself. Mortal weaponscannot hurt him and when he has to fight, hehas large, sharp claws on each foot and abountiful set of large teeth. His smoky manecan serve to aid him in hunting, eitherobscuring him or providing an environmentthat renders his prey completely helpless ashe closes in.

Nian, Shadow Lord of the Winter’s End

Nian is a significant feature in Chinese folklore and one of the things I wanted to do with his design was nail a sense offear and mystery in the creature. The Chinese feared him, he was a manifestation of the end of the old and his rampageswere winter’s last attempt at harshly taking life. So I imagine that he is going to be large, powerful, but fast.

The Sha

The Sha are inhabitants of the shadow realm, atwisted negative representation of the physicalworld. To most people, the Sha are invisible, theirprimary interaction with the physical world beingther involvement in the manifestation ofmisfortune or negativity.

As spirits of negativity, Sha are drawn andemboldened by negative or foreboding feelingssuch as anger, sadness, misery, fear and envy.They are repulsed by positivity and life. LesserSha will be desperate to counteract this positivity,but all Sha are repulsed by powerful presences ofpositive nergy and their own appearances. Thisdissatisfaction of their own appearance stemsfrom their grotesque nature as creatures of sorrowand despair, but they cannot stand to seethemselves as the twisted figures they are.

The sha that terrorise the village act in fear ofNian, a greater spirit whose ancient powercommands an authority for them to follow. Theyact as his heralds on the night he emerges, soaringacross the world looking for villages ripe for hisappetite.

The Sha

The Sha are spiritcreatures, and in Chinesemythology are a negativecounterpart to Ch’I, whichdescribes breath, wind orair, so it appearedappropriate to design theSha, bad spirits thatcounter Ch’I, to appear tobe some kind of corruptedspirit of air or wind. Therewas some experimentationinto varying kinds ofinhuman face includingeyes-only, wraith-mouthed,and no face at all.

The Village

Before China was united underthe Xia dynasty many thousandsof years ago, China was a land ofisolation, mountain villages andbandits lurking in the woods. Itwas a time when the next valleyaway may as well have been thenext world away, and that yourworld was the village you grewup in. The occasional travellingmerchant would be the only goodoutsider to visit such places. Butwhenever these villages cameunder attack, it was either thepeoples’ own responsibility toprotect themselves or theresponsibility of a local warlord.To protect his lands and hischarges.

The Village

The village had to have a timeless feel.Fortunately, eve that have beenn modernChina is littered with villages built usingtraditional materials such as wood, strawplaster, more straw and clay tiles. Suchplaces also lack signal aerials, mobile phonemasts or telecom wires, giving the feelingthat the visitor is transported back to a timelong before China’s modernisation.