This is the final chapter. I'll be producing a playtest document soon.

APPENDIX: Notes, Inspiration, and Credits

In my dream, things went differently.

It was what the humans termed as the early twenty-first century. Our
advanced mecha slipped past their primitive radar without a problem, a
battalion of giant robots in every city before anyone noticed.
Antimatter bombs took care of their military installations readily
enough.

Quelling the population didn't take long. I mean, what human is
capable of dealing with a secret police that can read his thoughts?

So began the Karan Empire, with a boot against the face of humanity.

When I wake upfrom these dreams, I quake in fear at how much I enjoy
these dreams. It could easily have been us. It could easily have been
us.

Notes

I shouldn't have to say it, but experience has shown that I do. This
book is yours to do with as you please. In fact, if you want to
cannibalize this book for parts, you are more than encouraged to do
so. You'll be engaging in a fine and ancient role-playing game
tradition.

Stripping away the Skyfall Blade background, the Eyes work perfectly
well in any sort of cinematic Unsung game where there is an "enemy"
for the characters to fight. Trim away some of the more
combat-oriented Eyes, and one can run a straight shojo story set in a
high school in Japan, or any other setting filled with melodramatic
social conflict.

Similarly, the mecha rules, such as they are, work well as a cinematic
vehicle combat system, and could be used for a game based on The Road
Warrior as much as a game based on anime.

You could, in theory, use a version of the Skyfall Blade background
without the Eyes mechanics in a straight Unsung game. One could even
eliminate the mecha, making it more a conventional but futuristic
guerilla war. But try out the Eyes before you discard them; they add a
new layer of drama to the game.

Inspiration

This list is hardly complete, but it lists some of the media that I
found inspirational when writing Skyfall Blade. First I list the
English title (if any) and then, in parentheses, the Japanese title
(if different).

Anime
I mix all forms of animation freely here: TV series, movies, and
straight-to-video fare (Original Animation Videos -- OAVs), which have
a better reputation in Japan than elsewhere.

Big O. This show, which was more popular in the US than in Japan, is
best described as "Batman with mecha", in a retro-futuristic city
where everyone has amnesia. Though it takes a while to really get
going beyond a "mecha fight of the week" format, once it does, it
provides a level of melodrama and moral issues worthy of any
anime-based Unsung game.

Giant Robo: The Animation - The Day the Earth Stood Still. With a
retro-future pulpfeel and a huge mecha, this OAV series would make an
excellent archetype for a less-gritty, but still-melodramatic Unsung
saga.

Mobile Police Patlabor (Kidou Keisatsu Patlabor). This series is best
described as "Hill Street Blues with mecha", which might explain why
it makes excellent fodder for Unsung. If you consider "criminals" to
be the Enemy, you can use the Eyes and the mecha rules in this book
pretty much intact to run a game set in the Patlabor world.

Mobile Suit Gundam. This series is considered to be one of the
pioneers of the mecha genre, and features a very nuanced and
interesting political background for the time, involving a war between
Earth and its space colonies. The protagonist, the teenaged pilot of
an experimental mecha suit, is, in Skyfall Blade terms, the original
Prodigy/Reluctant Warrior.

Project A-ko. This movie, featuring a superpowered girl (A-ko) and a
mecha-creating genius (B-ko) fighting for the affection of one whiny
girl, C-ko, is actually a parody of several different anime series.
Even if you don't get the references, it's still funny, and B-ko is an
interesting example, in Skyfall Blade terms, of a Prodigy who is also
Jilted.

Revolutionary Girl Utena (Shoujo Kakumei Utena). This series features
a very strange school, and a very strange heroine, a girl who wants to
be a prince. The protagonist gets embroiled in a series of unusual
duels with another woman, the "Rose Bride", as the prize. While not
for people who cannot handle the surreal or people who dislike a
homosexual subtext, this series is shojo melodrama at its very finest.
See if you can pick out Eyes for every character. There's no mecha,
but mecha would just distract from its pure, disturbing tone. I cannot
correctly describe this series; it must literally be seen to be
believed.

Robotech (Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry
Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada). Okay, so it hacked
apart its source material, stitching three unrelated Japanese series
into one. Get over it. This was many people's first exposure to anime,
and contains classic Skyfall Blade tropes, including Rick Hunter, the
major inspiration for two of the Eyes: Prodigy and Triangle.

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets/G-Force (Kagaku
Ninja tai Gatchaman). This classic anime series, while it shows its
age (especially in the watered-down American versions), contains some
classic Skyfall Blade tropes, including a Lunk and Kid. It also
features an Ultimate Weapon in the form of the Fiery Phoenix.

Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato (Uchu Senkan Yamato). This series is
another classic, which features a crew of humans trying to save an
Earth despoiled by aliens by finding a planet controlled by an alien
savior. The series is notable for what many would consider to be THE
example of an Ultimate Weapon, the Wave Motion Gun.

Super Dimension Century Orguss (Cho Jiku Seiki Orguss). This
oft-overlooked classic from the same people who brought you Super
Dimension Fortress Macross features a human in a strange world filled
with mecha, danger, and love. The humanoid-but-alien Emaan would make
a good prototype for a karan culture.

No Need for Tenchi! (Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki). This series, featuring an
Earth boy embroiled in a potpourri of interplanetary strangeness, is
very popular. I actually dislike it a lot, but the main character,
Tenchi, is perhaps the most well-known example of what Skyfall Blade
would call a Strange Attractor.

Voltron: Defender of the Universe (Hyakujuu-ou GoLion and Armored
Fleet Dairugger XV). Another classic made from multiple
hacked-together Japanese series, tho one I admit I'm not a big fan of,
this series featured several mecha which join together to form one
giant mecha, Voltron. Most notable for another example of an Ultimate
Weapon: FORM BLAZING SWORD!

Manga
Manga are Japanese comics. None of these manga series feature mecha.
Instead, they either display the sort of shojo melodrama that Skyfall
Blade aspires to, or themes that fit Unsung in general.

B.O.D.Y. This is well-drawn, pure shojo soapopera at this nuanced
finest. The faces of the characters are much more expressive than in
other manga I've read. The story features a young girl who falls in
love with a classmate who turns out to moonlight as a "host", a sort
of male escort, with all the attendant complications that such a life
implies. Not for everyone, but the plot twists should be inspirational
for anyone going for the full-out shojo mode of melodrama in Skyfall
Blade.

Death Note. This is, by far, the best manga I have ever read. It
features Light, a young Japanese high school student, who finds a
supernaturally-empowered notebook which allows him to kill anyone, so
long as he knows the person's name and face and writes the name in the
book. The moral questions this raises are obvious; the book reads, in
Unsung terms, like one Gift after the other.

Hot Gimmick. This is shojo manga in its purest form: High school
soapopera. It's not for everyone, but the main character is the
primary inspiration for three Eyes: Nice, Strange Attractor, and
Blackmailed. There's love, betrayal, and revenge enough in a single
apartment complex to fill an entire Imperial court, and, in Skyfall
Blade terms, you can often watch the Eyes Transform as the manga goes
on.

Lone Wolf and Cub. A samurai takes to the assassin's road in an
attempt to redeem his clan, taking his young son with him. This comic
features duty, honor, sacrifice, and royal ass-kicking, all
beautifully drawn. It's a little slowly-paced at times, but it's
excellent Unsung fodder, filled with moral and religious questions in
a very Japanese historical frame.

Mahou Sensei Negima. I hate myself for loving this manga. A young,
underage wizard from the UK (a Prodigy/Strange Attractor in Skyfall
Blade terms), for his final test upon graduating from wizard school,
is sent to teach English at a Japanese school for junior high girls.
It's filled with all sorts of anime and manga clichés, and it
gleefully mocks itself for those clichés. Inspirational, but don't
take it too seriously unless you really want to run a comedy game.
It's total trash, but it's fun trash.

Marmalade Boy. A strange family melodrama, featuring a young girl
whose parents meet another couple and decide to swappartners, forcing
her to deal with a highly unusual household and her new "step-brother"
of sorts. This manga is tough to describe, but it's filled with
classic shojo soap-operatic tropes.

Credits

[to be added after playtest and art procurement]

--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death