By Paul Norman

Legend of the Burning Sands is set in the hot, arid desert which lies just beyond the northern mountains that border the land of Rokugan - the setting for LBS's sister game, Legend of the Five Rings. While in the lush green fields of Rokugan a man's honor is supposedly a force more powerful than steel, in the land of the Burning Sands, Water is simply life. Lying deep in the midst of this vast desert lies a single great city. She goes by many names, including Medinat al-Salaam, Kala Jahir, The Jewel of the Desert, and The City of One Thousand Stories.

Long ago, the city was ruled by a great and noble family, but dark sorcery, and the powers of one who would become the city's undying Caliph usurped the throne, and brought the family's reign to an end. But the family lived on in secret, silently plotting their revenge and waiting for the day when one of their number would again be returned to power. They became known as the Assassins, and helped finance their continued existence by carrying out stealthy political killings for the highest bidder. Led by the Old Man of the Mountain - the young prince who was deposed by the Caliph on that fateful day, so many long years ago - the Assassins operate behind a web of secrecy.

The Burning Sands has also seen travelers from another land, for the nomadic Ki-Rin clan passed through the desert when it left the Emerald Empire of Rokugan on its travels many hundreds of years ago. Despite rumored encounters with heartless sorcerers (who sound suspiciously like the Caliph's Khadi), a part of the Ki-Rin clan were to return to the lands of Rokugan, where they became known as the Unicorn clan. Some of their number remained, however, principally from a single family within the clan - the Moto. While a few of the Moto still inhabit the land of Rokugan under various allegiances, the majority remain in the Burning Sands under the leadership of their great Khan, Gaheris. The Moto are no longer Samurai, but Desert Raiders. Through use of their mighty steeds and lightening strikes they have slowly adapted to life in the sands, slowly mastered the art of living in a different world.

Not long before the current storyline of LBS, the Scorpion Clan had also been banished to the Burning Sands as punishment for the alleged abduction of Emperor Toturi. Without water and near to death, they were set upon by the Senpet and captured. The Senpet themselves have a strong presence in the Burning Sands, and have been closely allied with the Caliph and her Khadi. But one of their ranks has secretly turned against them. The High Priest and sorcerer Hekau has formed a secret Cabal of Sahir (sorcerers) intent on defeating the Caliph and her Khadi Sahir. For the Caliph has outlawed the practice of magic in the city, and her Khadi execute any who are found practicing it.

The Senpet are not the only ones who defend the city streets, however. The noble order of Ebonites both defends the city from without, and upholds the law from within. They are the defenders of the innocent, and their symbol is the strong black hand of the righteous. But just as light always stands in contrast to shadow, so too do the Ebonites stand in contrast to their dark mirror image - the Jackals. A sinister underground movement, with many ties to the undead, the Jackals have an ancient connection to the Ebonites who at first seem so different from them. Many of them are thought to be outcasts from the Ebonite order, who failed their sacred test, and they now worship a series of dark gods trapped within a sacred stone. The stone lies in the hands of the Ebonites, for the time being...

Several other factions have their roots in more distant times. The Ashalan are an ancient and long lived race who can even remember a time when the Burning Sands was not the barren desert it now is. Their secret City of the Seventh Star is actually built below Medinat al-Salaam itself, and they cover their faces and bodies with intricate and powerful tattoos. The Ashalan have also mastered the use of sand as a material, with their sandsmiths specializing in the manufacture of the potent Glassteel swords. Medinat al-Salaam itself has long contained a guild of merchants known as the Houses of Dahab. Their connections seem dubious to say the least, but there is no doubting the quite considerable financial and political powers at their disposal. For so long the power of the sun has dominated the Burning Sands, and a small band of sorcerers and Jinn seek to restore the balancing power of the moon to the land. This band is known as The Celestial Alliance, and only time will tell if their quest to restore the moon's power in this land will actually benefit its inhabitants.

The events of more recent times have brought three new factions to the city. The gypsy-like Ra'Shari people once lived freely within the city, but moved their nomadic tribe to the outskirts of the desert long ago, before their more recent return. They seek to help the powerful Moto Horde in freeing the city from the influence of the Caliph and her Senpet allies, and have been joined in this by a faction of great power from far away - the Yodatai. Possessing an Empire bigger than any other in the game, and bigger than the lands of Rokugan or even the wasteland that surrounds Medinat al-Salaam, the Yodatai are a faction to be feared for their military power and savage warriors. The army they have sent to the sands is small by their own standards, but their more recent conflicts have brought them to the doorstep of the Senpet, who they are slowly bringing to their knees. Finally, the last LBS faction is the Ivory Kingdoms. Riding on great Elephants and worshipping a strange and dreadful goddess, the motivations of the Ivory Kingdoms faction are most likely not fully revealed as yet, although their merchants have already begun selling their Ivory goods upon the city streets.

Beginning the Game

Stronghold Cards

The first thing players must choose is their Stronghold card. This represents the power base of one of the 12 playable factions mentioned above: The Assassins, Moto, Senpet, Ashalan, Qabal, Ebonites, Jackals, Celestial Alliance, Houses of Dahab, Ivory Kingdoms, Ra'Shari, and Yodatai. The Stronghold has several abilities, such as number of City Points, Copper production, and Influence production. It may also have a special ability that you can use. You spend the City Points at the very beginning of the game, by using them to choose City Section cards. Each City Section has its own City Point number on it (a green octagon), and you can choose any number of City Sections that have a total number of City Points which is less than or equal to the number printed on your Stronghold (for example, the Senpet have 18 City Points, and the City Section cards "Jewel of the Desert" and "The Merchant Quarter" cost 5 and 4 City Points respectively, and so a Senpet player could start the game with two of each in play - since 5+5+4+4 = 18). The Copper (represented by a coin) and Influence (the white lamp) values printed on Strongholds are used to pay Copper and Influence costs when bringing a card into play (more on that later). Strongholds (like all other cards besides City Sections) also have a Fate value printed in a triangle at the bottom, which can interact with certain card effects.

City Sections

After choosing your Stronghold, the next thing to do is to use your City Points to buy City Section cards. Besides the number of City Points they cost, City Sections have two other numbers at the top right and left of the card - these are the City Section's Base Strength (the sphere) and the number of Water tokens it holds (the jug icon). You can represent these tokens by placing beads or coins (or the tokens provided in Awakening Starter decks) on the City Section. Water plays a vital role in Legend of the Burning Sands because you need it to bring certain cards into play, and are also eliminated at the end of any turn in which you have no Water tokens. Your opponent can deplete your reserves of Water by Attacking or Raiding you, and there is even the possibility (if the Attack is strong enough) that the entire City Section will be destroyed. If all of your City Sections get destroyed in this way then you are eliminated from the game immediately. For various reasons it is usually an advantage to choose as many City Section cards as you can, because this gives your opponent more City Sections that they have to take out, usually gives you more overall Water, and also gives you more cards in your starting hand.

Once your Stronghold and City Sections have been chosen, play then proceeds through the main deck. Decks have a minimum size of 55 cards, and you begin the game by cutting your deck, and your opponent doing the same. You then compare the Fate number at the bottom of each card, and the player with the highest number gains the "Caliph's Blessing" (which basically just determines the order of play). Both players then deal themselves a number of cards equal to 4 plus the number of City Section cards they have in play (so if you start with 5 City Sections then you draw 9 cards in your intial hand). This number is also the maximum number of cards you can keep in your hand at the end of any turn, and note that if you lose a City Section then this maximum hand size goes down by one as well.

Holdings

At this stage you're all ready to start the cut and thrust of the game. So what are the basics? Well, in this article I will consider the three most fundamental types of card (but look out for more in next month's issue!), and I'll also describe how they interact with one another. Typically the game tends to revolve around Heroes, who are characters you bring into play and use to defeat your opponent by destroying or gaining control of their Water. To bring Heroes into play you need Copper, however, and while all Strongholds provide 3 or 4 Copper by themselves, you almost certainly want more to bring your Heroes into play - and this is where Holdings come in. Holdings are cards surrounded by a brick border that can be used to pay Copper costs, or occasionally bow to produce Influence like the Stronghold. To bring a holding into play you will have to pay any Copper or Water costs shown on the coin and jug symbols of the card (although some have a zero for one or both of these). Water comes straight off of your City Sections (ie. by removing tokens), and Copper can be paid for initially with your Stronghold by bowing it (rotating it 90 degrees from the upright position). Note that Holdings themselves enter played bowed, and only unbow at the start of your next turn - which effectively means you cannot use them until the turn AFTER you bring them into play. Besides Copper production, Holdings may also have their own special abilities. For example, besides producing Copper, Safiyya's Sweetwater lets you bow and destroy it to place one Water token on any of your City Sections. There are also two special types of Holding (called Fortifications and Advisors) that I will come onto next month.

Heroes

Without Heroes there is a considerable limit on what you can do in a game, since you need Heroes to Attack and Raid with, and also to perform a number of Actions. Once you have a couple of Holdings in play, you should be able to play most of the Heroes in your deck. Heroes are brought into play in exactly the same way as Holdings, by bowings cards to produce the number printed in the Copper coin symbol on the card, and then removing an amount of Water from your City Sections equal to the number in the blue jug symbol next to that. Heroes have several statistics. The first two of these (in the top right and left hand corners) are Strength (the number in the sun symbol) and Ka (the number in the moon symbol). Strength determines the Hero's physical might, and the damage they can do in battle. Ka determines a Hero's inner strength, force of will, and dueling ability. Just like Strongholds, Heroes also have an Influence score in the lamp icon, and a Fate Value at the bottom of the card. Heroes interact in the game in a number of different ways, the most principle among these being Battles, Duels, Raids, and certain other effects such as bowing a Hero as part of the cost for playing a card (eg. to play a spell card you must bow a Hero with the Sahir trait in his or her text box).

To learn more about Battles, Duels, and Raids, let us first discuss the order in which play proceeds. The game starts with the Day Phase. After both players have dealt out their starting hands, the player who won the Caliph's Blessing when the decks were cut gets the first action. With this action the player may play a single card from his or her hand if this is possible, or the player may pass. Once (and once only) in the Day Phase a player may also declare an attack on their opponent's City Sections. Once the first player has taken his or her action (for example, brought a Holding card into play), it is then the other player's turn to take an action. That player might perhaps bring a Hero card into play, and then it becomes the original player's turn to take an action again, and so on. As soon as both players pass consecutively (perhaps because they don't have enough available Copper to bring more cards into play) the Day Phase ends. As soon as a player declares an attack on their opponent, a battle begins. Heroes are assigned to City Sections in the following order: Attackers without the flying trait in their text box, Defenders without the flying trait, Attackers with the flying trait, Defenders with the flying trait. This strict ordering can give a player the opportunity to see where their opponent is committing his or her forces, before committing Heroes of their own. An Attacking Hero on an undefended City Section can be bowed to deal damage equal to their Strength to the City Section. Water tokens can be removed to take one point of damage each. If all Water tokens have been removed and there is still remaining damage, then the City Section will itself be destroyed if its own Strength is less than or equal to the engaging (ie. bowing) Hero's strength. If one or more Attackers and Defenders come up against one another, the situation is a little more complicated. In this case the Defender gets the first battle action, and can bow one of their own Heroes to engage for damage equal to that Hero's Strength. The Attacker must then absorb damage equal to this engagement, UNLESS all of his or her cards have a higher strength than the engaging Hero - such Heroes are said to be immune to the damage, and do not have to be destroyed (although they can be sacrificed to save weaker Heroes if the player wants to do so). For each Hero destroyed, the Attacker may also discard a card from their hand to absorb extra damage equal to the Fate Value at the bottom of the discarded card (eg. the Defender bows a 5 Strength Hero to engage for 5 damage, the Attacker then destroys a 2 Strength Hero and discards a card with a Fate Value of 3 to take up the damage). After the Defender has taken their battle action, it is then the Attacker's turn. When an Attacker engages the situation is slightly different, since the Defender also has their City Section and Water at the battle. Water is considered to have a Strength of one for the purposes of absorbing damage, and so will not be immune to any engagement above zero. Therefore the Defender almost always has to sacrifice something to take up the damage, although this could be Heroes, Water, or cards in hand (one per Hero) as he or she sees fit. Once both Attacker and Defender have finished taking actions (ie. they both pass consecutively) then the battle ends and all unbowed Attackers become bowed (Defending Heroes remain in their current orientation). Several traits can give Heroes special abilities during battles, such as the Berserk trait (which prevents your opponent using cards in hand to absorb damage), or the Tactician trait (which lets you, as a battle action, discard a single card from your hand to add its Fate Value to the Hero's Strength for the remainder of the battle).

Once the Day Phase ends, the Night Phase begins. During this phase players (beginning again with the one who has the Caliph's Blessing) also take turns to take actions that specifically say they can be played in the Night Phase (in general Heroes and Holdings can only be played in the Day Phase, but other card types such as Actions - see later - maybe be playable during the Night Phase). During the Night Phase each player may declare one Raid against their opponent. Raiding is a way of stealing Water from your opponent to add to your own City Sections at the end of the turn. This can be very useful, since Water supplies tend to slowly dwindle throughout the game, so grabbing some of your opponent's remaining Water is a good means of getting some back. Raids start off fairly similar to Battles, in that the Raiding player assigns his or her Raiders first, and the Defending player assigns their own Raiders last. If a Raiding Hero comes up against an undefended City Section then they must only play a card from their hand with a fate value above the City Section's Strength in order to Raid successfully. If this happens, one Water token is taken from the Section and put onto the Hero, to be placed on one of the Raiding player's City Sections at the end of turn. Certain cards can be used to give a "Carry" bonus, which allows more than one token to be taken in this way. If a Raiding Hero comes up against a defending Hero, then both players play a face down card from their hands and compare the Fate Values. If the Attacker has the higher value then Water is stolen in the same way as for an undefended City Section. If the scores are equal, or the Defender has the higher value, then the Raiding Hero takes no Water from the Raid. Some cards have or can generate a Raid bonus which can be added to the Fate Value of the discarded card. Once the Raid has finished, all Raiding Heroes become bowed, and all Defending Heroes remain unbowed (note that all Heroes MUST be unbowed initially to be assigned to a Battle or Raid in the first place). The Night Phase ends once both players have taken all of their actions and passed consecutively. Both players then check their cards for Water (the player with the Caliph's Blessing first) and eliminate players in this order if they have no Water. A player wins if at any time they are the only player remaining in the game. Remaining players get to redistribute Water tokens from Raiding Heroes onto their own City Sections, and also redistribute Water between their City Sections as well (so if one Section got depleted after your opponent attacked it, you can stock it back up a little). Both players then get to draw 4 cards from their deck (discarding down to their maximum hand size if this takes them above that), and finally the Caliph's Blessing then passes to the next player. The turn then ends and play begins with a new Day Phase again, at the beginning of which players unbow all of their bowed cards (this brief part of the Day Phase is known as the Dawn Phase).

In general Battles tend to be lethal, while Raids tend to be non-lethal. Another form of lethal confrontation exists, however, in the form of Duels. Duels can be initiated at various times (including during Battles and Raids, and also as actions during the Day OR Night Phases) by cards of several different types, including Heroes and Holdings, and also Action cards (see later). In a Duel, Heroes compare not Strength, but Ka values. At the end of the Duel the Hero with the highest Ka will win (or in the case of a tie, both will die), but both players have the opportunity to lower the Ka of their opponent's Hero by playing thrusts and parries in the Duel. As in a Battle, the player who gets challenged to the Duel gets the first opportunity to thrust, or can pass. To thrust, a player plays a card from his or her hand face down. The opponent must then attempt to parry this by playing a card of their own - either from their hand, or, if they prefer, from the top of their deck (this has the advantage of not depleting your hand, but also gives you an unknown value as your parry). The Fate Values of the two cards are compared, and the difference between the two is subtracted from the parrying Hero's Ka until the end of the Duel (eg. Player 1 thrusts with a 1 Fate Value card, and Player 2 parries with a 3 Fate Value card. The difference is 2, so the parrying Player must reduce their Hero's Ka by 2 until the Duel ends). If at any time a Hero's Ka reaches zero or below they are destroyed and the Duel ends immediately. The Duel proceeds with each player getting to alternately thrust and parry until one of the Heroes reaches zero Ka, or until both players pass consecutively on their opportunity to thrust. If the latter happens, then the Hero with the highest Ka wins, as mentioned earlier. The trait most useful on Heroes entering Duels is the Duelist trait, which lets a Hero raise the value of any of their parries by one, and can thus reduce the damage by one point if their parry is too low.

Actions

We come onto the final type of card that I'll be discussing in this month's issue - Action cards. Action cards are played quite simply whenever it is your turn to take an action in the game. You simply pay any Copper and Water cost, and the Action generates an effect before being discarded from play (for example, the card "Knife Fight" forces a duel between two Heroes unless your opponent pays 3 Water). Actions come in several basic types; Day, Battle, and Night (which can be played only in those specific phases of the game), and Open actions (which can be played whenever you can take an action). There is also a special form of action called a Reaction, which is triggered by certain events in the game. Finally there is another type of Action, called Omens, which remain in play, and will be discussed in more detail in next month's issue.

Although you now know many of the things necessary to play a good game of Legend of the Burning Sands, I'll also include in next month's issue a discussion of the other card types in the game: Items and Followers which you can attach to your Heroes, Spell cards which you can cast with your Sahir, Story cards which provide an alternative means of victory by weaving a powerful Legend, and Patheon or Deity cards which represent the favour of the Gods of the Burning Sands.