Identity Crisis: a Kung Fu/Cyberpunk AW Hack

The year is 23xx.  Megacorporations eclisped the state as the powers of the world and expanded their territory until the world was divided by 4 powers.  Universal Standard, decadent masters of Space and the Americas.  Hevezda Unlimited, leaders of the warrens and gulags of Europe.  Patala Investment, brokers of wealth and life in South Asia and Africa, and your home, the glorious Empire of Daybreak Industrial. 

In Houston they built the great Pattern, a space-beyond-space which facilitated storage and shipping through matter-gates.  In Dubai, they programmed the Rings, a revolutionary information network that coded access and account ID into the human genome.  The powers of Eurasia entered a biological arms race, uplifting animals to sentience, breeding great beasts for war and labor, and reifying the superiority of the Executives in blood.  Though rapid transformation left many behind, it looked like the dawn of a golden age, until the treacherous Turtle Clan unleashed the Shadow.

Now the locked vaults of past seep into the present, and the annals of the internet have come alive, drowning this human island in a tide of chaos and blood.  The metaphorical sea is metaphorically fucking rising, but that's not your problem.  Your problem is the bastards in charge of this island.  You aren't going to play by their rules. 

The Stats:

Earth: Earth is your attentiveness, your grounding, your receptivity. 
Fire: Fire is your energy, your impulse, your creative spark.
Metal: Metal is your hard edge, your discipline, your competitive streak.   
Water: Water is your flow, your cool, your tranquility, and your mystic mojo.
Wood:  Wood is your flexibility, your elegance, your social fucking grace. 

The Basic Moves:

When you pull something from the pattern, roll+Water

10+: As below, but add it to your Account. 
7-9: Choose 2: You get what you wanted, you get something quality, you don't take 1-harm(ap), it's not loud

When you look into the rings, roll+earth

10+: you see it
7-9: Choose two: you see what you wanted, they can't see you, you don't add a new spirit threat to the current front

When issue a challenge, roll+metal

10+: You don't take harm, or you harm something [big]
7-9: trade harm, but you get one possession, or one favour,

Note: "harm" in this game is frequently not actual harm.  You'll have weapons like "Stalking Tiger Style; harm: You collect a blood sample.  Or Sittar of Somnolence; area loud harm: target falls asleep." 

When you invoke your authority, roll+wood
10+: NPCs do what you want, PCs act under fire
7-9: one of the targets is a ninja

When you whip up a gadget, roll+fire

10+: Choose 1: it works right away, it isn't [dangerous]
7-9: it's [dangerous] and it takes a while

Note: The basic moves list is definitely incomplete.  These moves replaced Seize by Force and Open Your Brain, but there will definitely be an equivalent to Acting Under Fire and Reading a Person/Sitch.  Probably Going Aggro and manipulate, too. 

Reply: The Principles

--the status quo is barbed wire: you can fuck with it, but it'll hurt
--scare them with monsters, then let them become the monsters
--starting characters can't succeed: make them fail or change

Unlike Apocalypse World, this setting has Powers that most definitely Be.  The PCs can become pretty powerful themselves if they're willing to implant metal in their flesh, take mind-altering drugs, project their consciousness to other bodies, or play host to a demon. 

The Fronts: Irrelevance, Destiny, Tradition, Jealousy,... more to come. 

The Currently planned basic playbooks: Samurai, Sorcerer, Medium, Ninja, Scholar, Technician

advanced playbooks: Programmer, Monastic, Accountant, Rockstar, Akashic, Doctor

Note: an "advanced" playbook is mechanically just one that players aren't normally allowed to actually play.  They can take moves from them when fictionally appropriate, or even change to them with the Ungiven Future.  Note that advanced playbook moves are the fictional purview of specific power groups, and that advanced moves tend to seriously compromise your humanity. 

Some Moves for flavor:

A Flippin' Ninja: At the beginning of the session, roll+Wood; on a 10+ hold 3, on 7-9 hold 1; on a miss, someone knows you're a ninja

Spend 1 hold to
--be a member of any group including unnamed persons
--have a weapon no matter how ridiculous the situation
--help or interfere with any move by cunning retroactive preparation

When you bind an elemental, roll+earth

10+ the elemental is a nihilistic, hold 3
7-9 the elemental is a platonist, hold 1
Miss: the elemental is a hedonist, hold 0

Spend 1 hold to
--have the Elemental do a rote task for a day
--have the elemental make one move on your behalf; it's stats are yours, but remember to do it, you have to do it.
--keep it from succumbing to its impulse

When you run out of hold, the elemental becomes a Threat, unless it was a nihilist (in which case it returns to Shadow). 

Man's Best Friend

The following apply when your beats could reasonably help you:

When you issue a challenge, add your beasts' power
When you assert your authority, add its majesty
When you travel the shadowlands, add its utility

Beast Profiles

People's Hawk
Power 1, Majesty 0, Utility 2

Revolutionary Tiger
Power 2, Majesty 1, Utility 0

Introducing: The Shugenja

Names:

Getter, Walls, Fisher, Superior,

Shinjiro, Hikari, Mikado,

Look:
male, female, cyborg, ambiguous
ornate kimono, monastic robes, traveling leathers,
face TBD
black eyes, darting eyes,
gangly body, potbellied body, wizened body,

Earth 0 Fire +1  Metal -1 Water +2 Wood +1
Earth +2 Fire 0 Metal -1 Water +2 Wood -1
Earth -1 Fire +1 Metal +1  Water +2 Wood 0
Earth +1 Fire 0 Metal 0 Water +2 Wood +0

Shugenja Moves

Undertow: +1 to Water (max +3)

Shadow Deconstruction: When you want to destroy a shaodw-creation, roll+earth.  On a 10+ sure, it's gone.  On a 7-9 it's history but first it gets to make a move.  If you deconstruct an Elder shadow, you're acting under fire. 

Ray of Nonexistence: When you go aggro, you roll +water instead of +metal.

Lightning Feng Shui: when you want to get in or out of somewhere, roll +water.  On a hit, you get in or out clean; on a 7-9 you have to take something with you.  This move often involves flying around or blowing holes in things. 

Open the Dam: when you want to conjure a large quantity of something, roll +water; on a 10+ you get it in a safe and controlled way; on a 7-9 it's loud and messy (this might inflict harm to bystanders depending on what you summoned.)

Divert the Flow: Whenever you succeed at going aggro, issuing a challenge, asserting authority, or acting under fire, you can use forcefields to prevent NPCs from leaving the scene.  PCs who do so act under fire.     

Shugenja Gear (choose 2)

Sutra of Firestorms (3-harm far area loud reload)
Sutra of Vortices (3-harm close/far messy)
Sutra of Stillness (1-harm (ap) close
Sutra of Binding (s-harm close area reload)

New Basic Move: Act under fire

When you do something under fire, roll+whatever stat is associated with the fire.  Wood for interpersonal threat, metal for physical threat, fire for technical threat, earth for threats from the Rings, and water for threats from the pattern.  Then proceed as in the core book.