Okko: The Cycle of Fire by Hub

I've been reading Okko for a while now. I've been waiting for this volume to come out for what seems like years. Part of the problem is that it's a translated comic so even when it looks like it's ready, it may not be. Okko follows the path of a samurai turned ronin who is actually a monster hunter that travels with a drunken monk, Noshin,  and a fellow warrior, Noburo, who is apparently half-oni or something of that nature. They have a bit of a follower, Tikku, with them who joined them in volume one. As each Cycle comes and goes, the cast ages. At this point, Okko has suffered the loss of a hand and is mighty gray haired.

The art by Hub continues to be highly visually engaging. He uses a lot of smooth lines and great use of colors to capture the mood and elements of the setting he's created. The story? For me it wasn't the best. A little too much is revealed after the fact. It all fits into the setting and the world as presented mind you but continues to push Pajan into chaos.

Just when I thought it was getting good, the Cycle ends with the promise of one final Cycle to come, ominously named the Cycle of Emptiness.

Would I suggest people buy and read this?

Yes.

While Samurai tales are easy to find and have a rich history in comics and film, having 'mythic' elements to them like the recent movie, 47 Ronin did, are more rare. Mind you I'm not saying you can't find a thousand movies based on Ancient China mind you where the magic and monsters are fast and furious, but for me, actual Samurai action that has supernatural elements to them that are assumed part of the landscape? Not so much.

In addition, the visual designs are simply nice to look at. Because in this book Okko is a guardsman at a wedding, and is part of a huge cast of guards, we see a lot of different characters and a lot of different stations. It's all well told visually and would make a fantastic movie.

For me, because I'm a fan of Legend of the Five Rings and am always looking for some 'Appendix N' style inspiration, this is a great volume. For me it doesn't hit the story high notes that previous volumes have, but that may just be the nature of it's place in the series and it could all be clearer when the Cycle of Emptiness comes out.

In terms of world building, I find it more enjoyable. For example, readers have come to know Okko through multiple volumes here. He's got a certain reputation among various clans and specific people, but to the common folk who may just be studying at a university or 'official' history? He essentially doesnt' exist. No matter how awesome his adventurers, he's just a 'lowly' ronin.

Another nice bit is the various ways magic interact. Okko needs some time to restore an old scroll that has been burned and needs the aid of a fire elemental, such a being is prohibited by others in the area and there is much talk and compromise reached. But that leads to other issues where other factions think that the fire caused by the elemental are committed by a third party. Conflict and misunderstandings are rife in this volume which provide more fuel for the action.

In terms of role playing? Yeah, Okko and his group of allies, as ronin, fit perfectly as player characters. There is a scene where Tikku is caught kissing the bride to be of a noble. That noble goes mad with rage and tries to kill him. Okko cuts him down with little thought or regard as to what will happen to the country at that point.

That's so player character I say.

Another think I like, and it fits in well with the timing, is that Okko and his allies are competent. Even with the whole of a nation after them, they're able to lay low for years. All too often it seems that 'murder mystery' style games are able to resolve issues without having access to the tools and science that we have today, but using the same methodology. Maddening. None of that nonsense here. Part of the problem with some of the higher magic settings is that it's just too easy to bring out the CSI Waterdeep without having to do any actual leg work.

There's also a nice symmetry in the haunting by the shade Okko killed. Being such a powerful swordsman, Okko cut his foe in half from head to crotch. The left side haunts the flirty bride while the right side haunts the father, urging him to slay Okko. It's a great visual that you might not catch the first time you read it.

Okko Cycle of Fire was a long wait and it'll be a long one till the next cycle. It's currently available from Amazon for under $15 bones.

Okko The Cycle of Air by Hub

As my unpaid time off is getting ready to come to a close, I thought I should hit on the last book of Okko that is currently available, Okko, the cycle of Air, by Hub, publishing by Archaia.

To me, in terms of direct gaming inspiration, this one is probably the weakest. It's not that there aren't some great battles. It's not that there aren't some great turn arounds. It's not that we don't get to see a little more of the setting and how those in higher positions are probably more tighhtly bound by society than those who are wanderers and ronin like Okko.

Rather, it's that the action takes place because of an individual demon hunter that has come for Okko's giant friend. This brings the action straight to the characters and for once, the characters are completely outmatched. They only win through a bit of luck thanks to their youngest member.

While as a GM you may be tempted to 'ass kick' the players every now and again to put them in their place, there better be a hell of a good reason or story behind it. At almost every level, as the GM, you can always flatten the characters. Going out of the way to do so is pointless. And because this is book three of a five book series, we only get vague hints as to why Okko and his friend were hunted in the first place so it feels very incomplete.

Art, overall story, theme, and background details that pop out all make it worth having in terms of reading the series for itself, but in terms of developing some action around the activities, the previous two volumes probably fill that role better.

Okko the Cycle of Earth by Hub

The second book in the Okko graphic novel series, Okko, the Cycle Of Earth, continues the travels of the demon hunter Okko and his motley band of allies.  The illustrations are strong, crisp whil still having tons of detail. The setting comes alive under the artist here and the feel of the setting is made clear through careful placement of little details.

The story line here works fantastic for a RPG and could be lifted whole cloth. In short, I highly recommend anyone running Oriental Adventurers, Legends of the Five Rings, or other manner of games where a little Samurai Sunday attitude is called for, look it over. This isn't to say that a standard fantasy game of Dungeons and Dragons couldn't swipe the plot by changing a few things.

The book starts off with an introduction to a city. The youngest of their group, Tikku, acts as our outsider. Because he is not well versed or travelled, his mentor must inform him, and through him, the audience of the importance of places and events going on around them.

For example, in the city they are at, it's a celebration for the first day of winter. Floats are carried on the streets, dragons manned by multiple people dance around, masks are worn and "every kind of outlandishness is allowed."  We discover that Bakuyaku's nicnmake is "Black Poweder City" because the seven monastery range has a lot of despotis of the stuff around them.

Okko himself becomes involved in greater events by having a man seek him out and die in front of him from an assassin's attack. His ally, Noburo, seeks to hunt down the assassin, but during the celebration, the tightly wound city with all of its masked inhabitants makes this a difficult task.

In looking at such a set up for your own campaigns, this is one of the reasons its good to have a calendar of the holidays and what those holidays mean. If people are all out celebrating in the streets and the streets are crowded with floats and other obsticales, it can make for a more challenging race against individuals that are seeking to escape. It also makes things more colorful and takes away some of the 'generic' that some settings can suffer from as they all seem so similiar.

Now on the hunt for the assassins and for the person that was identified by the slain courier, Okko begins wandering the Seven Monstary Range looking for the Raven Mon. This allows the characters to learn about the setting and details of background even as they suffer some random encounters.  It also provides some background on the senior monk as he used to be a student at one of the monastaries.

This is another useful trick when a player has information in his background about where he came from and what he did. Some players put it there for active use, some to just have a grounding part of their characters. the players will generally give you a good idea of what they'd like done with that information and pulling a little of it into the game when appropriate is never a back idea.

One of the things the monks encounter is an oracle who provides information, but that information relates to what they are seeking only on the very edges of that mission. This is a fairly standard method of providing some information, to not hand out the exact answers that are sought, but to provide perhaps more details to the overall scheme of what the players may be involved in.

Inthis instance, no search could be complete without visiting all seven monastary's, and only at the end, learning that "An eight exists, perched atop the roof of the world. There dwells an order of illuminators in their hands ap riceless collection of books! nly the powerful and the prvileged few have access to this immense source of knowledge... or even know of its existence..."

That bit right there does a few things. It takes the knowledge that is commonly known, that there are seven schools, and expands it. It then names the location, the location of which, is known to their guide as "oneo f the highest mountaints known to man! I know none fool enough to dare is heights. And I do not know the path." This bit of player knowledge is like having a player talk about a demon inhabited realm or a blasted wasteland. It may add a little more inherent danger in the trip, but overall, it's not going to stop the players from going there.

Here though, the author provides some hope in the form of the Sanctuary of the 47 Geysers. By placing these unlikely found but named locations throughout the book, the author is cementing the setting. By allowing the players to visit these locations that are few and out of the way, he is providing color and character to the landscape. This is a useful trick for any game master and not every encounter has to end in a fight. The wonder of the setting should also strike the characters as much as the monsters.

When Okko does meet the samurai that the courier died trying to name, the meeting is like oil and water. Okko, being considered a ronin and an outsider of the standard civilization of his time, is not necessarily respected in the manner that other Samurai are. This happens in role playing games all the time as adventurers are generally not land owners and only have themselves to be responsible to. This allows them to do and say things that might get say, a farmer a trip to the gallows but to which an adventurer might reply, "Do you really want me to kill the garrison and leave you vulnerable to the giants in the area?"

When the whole group comes under attack, the monk is taken out in the first volley of the assault. This is something to remember for the Game Master when playing monsters that have intelligence or tactics. In pre-4th edition games, the wisdom is go for the spellcasters.  Nothing like a group of fire balls or turning efforts on the undead to quickly undermine a horde of minions and monsters. To counter this, don't act like the monsters are stupid. If a lich, an undead spellcaster, is among the villains, he's going to know exactly how powerful an opposing spell caster is and want that creature dead.

Eventually, when they do find the forbidden libraries, they discover that they are there too late. The library has been ransacked and its men killed. What they learn though, is that their enemies started off as healers but seeing the land plunged into such deep war, decided that they should be the ones to rule as they could, using their forbidden studies, control the dead of all the clans. With the land in such a constant state of warefare, they are not left wanting for raw supplies.

This is part of the appeal of running a campaign during a time of trouble. If everything is normal and the characters are merely looters, then their overall impact on the setting, as great as it may be, is one of the outsider. If on the other hand, the setting is alive and thriving with its own series of conflicts, things that no one adventurer will be able to solve, then it allows them to gather into different places and impact the setting in different ways. They are not necessarily merely dungeon crawling, but choosing sides in a multi-angled war. If they choose to do so. After all, with so many dying on the battlefield, that just means more empty castles for looting right?

The whole thing comes to a conclussion as Okko and his allies hold down an old fort against the legions of undead and their spellcasting masters.  It has very much the feel of a Seven Samurai, a group of skilled individuals against a horde of nameless enemies. Okko and his allies are only able to claim victory though the use of a surgecial strike against the leaders of the undead.

Which is something that the Game Master has to look out for. Unless you're dealing with a group of brand new players, the characters will often go after the puppeter, not the puppets. You have to be ready with appropriate challenging counters if the villains are clver enough to have them. If your bad guys aren't expecting a scrying, teleportation, assassination attack, then you're not playing at mid-high levels of D&D with thinking villains. Prepare and defend appropriately, but don't provide everyone the exact same type of defense. Vary things up. Provide differences.

Okko the Cycle of Earth provides investigation, strained alliances, exploration, and combat against dark masters insistant that their rule would be better for the land then those currently ruling.

Okko: the Cycle of Water by Hub

While at Gen Con this year, one of the things I picked up was Okko, the Cycle of Earth and the Cycle of Air, both by Hub, sold through the Archaia both. They had a deal where it was buy one get one free and as these are sturdy hardcovers, the cover price of $19.95 seemed more than fair for two of them. I was so enthralled with them, that I immediately ordered the the Cycle of Water, which was waiting for me by the time I made it back to Chicago.

I'd heard of Okko before. Thinking back on it, it was during my numerous trips to Games Plus where I first saw it, but it was in a miniature game format there. The figures always looked interesting but since I wasn't playing anything that would require them, and I have a ton, perhaps more, or miniatures, I always passed on them.

But reading? Hell, I could read that with no problem, especially in a graphic novel format.

So what is Okko about? A group of, well, they're not all quite friends, but allies in some aspects with Okko, the demon queller, serving as the master of the group, go about Pajan, that is not a misspelling, and take care of demons and other supernatural entities.

After reading the thee graphic novels, I am more fist shaking at the skies then before that I didn't have material such as this to inspire my Oriental Adventurers and Legend of the Five Rings games.

In the first volume, The Cycle of Water, which by the way, I'm going to start spolier alerts now so read no further if you wish to remain unaware of what's coming....

Anyway, in the first collection, Okko and his friend Noburo, an oversized warrior who always has a red demonic mask on, is visiting Little Carp, a young Geisha, who Noburo informs her, is preganent. During the night, the house is attacked and Little Carp taken away. Here we see something resembling a hencheman coming into play as Tikku offers his service to Okko if he will rescue his sister, Little Carp.

This is a standard of some stories where the characters have the action brought to them. If the players are sitting around too much, doing too much role playing with the weapon smith and the tavern keeper, have something happen. Force them to engage the setting.

During the investigation to find Little Carp, we are given some glimpses into the setting. This includes visiting Tagakka Uchi, the port of the hundred Morays, and upon that, a trip to the Red Lotus, "the most infamous and dangerous casino in the city.". We also get to see what sets this setting apart from merely being 'Japan' with some misspellings in the form of a demonic water creature that Okko has killed, a summoning of a water spirit, and a combat 'Bunraku', a so called 'puppet' which is actually similiar to a giant robot piloted from within.

Okko and his allies manage to do a lot of investigating in a little time at the Red Lotus. This involves looking around the massive casino, finding secret passages, and finding an abaitor pit in the heart of the casino. One of the things that happens though, is that their 'stealth' is blown early because Noburo, being a masked giant of a man, is quite easy to spot and quite distinctive.

This is something that the GM should keep in mind with the players in his own game. While some players, especially those of rogues or rangers, prefer to stay out of the limelight with dirty grimy cloaks, the fighters, paladin, clerics, and mages, often have very distinctive clothing, weapons, and reputations. If the players are looking for information by those on the run, and they carry such distinguishing marks with them, make things a little more difficult for them.

The next thrust of the adventure takes place on an island. In fantasy role playing games, islands work fantastic to provide some weird things because they are isolated from the main land and can have vastly different rules and structures. In this case, Here, the island is ruled by the Satorror Clan, the rulers of the northern archipelagoes. An ancient, and supposedly dead clan...

The author makes good use of the characters here in providing more challenges and more story.

The drunken monk for example, seeks spiritual guideance, but in exchange, must rebuild the temple left to rot.

The warrior Okko himself, tests out the head samurai here and manages to get a look around the compound.

The giant manages to fit in with the other commoners, finding out details of what else is happening.

Tikku, being new to the whole thing of being an adventurer, does some unofficial scouting of his own and gets a brand upon his forehead of the thief. This brand is a permanent mark and is noted on in later issues. When looking at the cost of failure, I've mentioned before that death does not have to be the only alternative. Having something happen that marks the players, is one way to move the story forward with a complication, but still move the story forward. Perhaps the mark is common and everyone knows it. Perhaps the mark is more obscure and only a select group of people know of it.

In a game like Hero, this would be a distinctive feature and be worth points. In GURPS, or at least the last version I played, while it's still a distinctive feature, earning one during game play provides no points. In class and level based games, such earned scars and marks often do not have any game play mechanics to them but the role playing opportunities can be huge. If nothing else, they are a point of conversation starters for those various nights adventurerers spend at the taverns.

Another twist is that in the battle between the giant and the puppet, our giant masked warrior finds even his strength isn't enough to overcome a giant robot and has to use different tactics. In 4e, some skill checks to provide ideas on how to beat a puppet, even a combat one, might lead to what happens in the comic. In this case, it's a chase to wear the driver down, and then a sneak attack to knock the puppter off a ledge and crush the drivers inside the machine. While 4e skill checks can be some what odious at times, the ability to do things that only combat mechanics would result in failure, is a nice change of pace and does allow the players to use a larger variety of skills.

In the end, it turns out that the enemies Okko faces are a pair of pennagolans (in D&D they're the vampire undead creatures that are just heads with organs) who seek to create a child. To do so, they needed a woman that was already preganent because of their undead nature.

After Okko and his comrades defeat the undead, Okko reads up on the notes of the Lady of the house and discovers their ties to the Red Lotus, and where they originally came from. By putting the details in the back, the author allows the characters to pursue the information at their own leisure. In D&D or other action oriented games, this is a fine possibility, while in a game like Call of Cthulhu, whose nature is mostly centered around investigation, it might be better to have those documents found earlier.

Okko brings together a varied cast of characters in a manner that would work well for any role playing game. By making them demon hunters, the Game Master can avoid a lot of the whole clan and hnor issue that can drag down  certain aspects of OA style games and focus on the demon hunting and exploring a setting different than the standards.

If you're running a fantasy game, especially something like Legend of the Five Rings, Okko is a visual inspiration with a solid story running through it.