# Jadeclaw tags: #game/rpg/jadeclaw ![[Jadeclaw (cover).jpg|600]] **Jadeclaw** is Sanguine Productions' Eastern sibling to **[[Ironclaw]]** — the same Cardinal dice engine, the same anthropomorphic-animal DNA, pointed at a fantasy China instead of a fantasy Italy. It wants to be taken every bit as seriously as its Western brother: dragons and qilings rubbing shoulders with cats, rats, and dogs, a Celestial Bureaucracy that administers the weather itself, and a throne changing hands by the Mandate of Heaven as the stars turn. The second-edition revival, **Book of Jade**, was Kickstarter-funded — proof that the nostalgia economy will happily pay real money to visit the Middle Kingdom one more time. It's a supplement, not a standalone, so you'll need the Ironclaw Omnibus to play it, which keeps the family in order while the East gets the exotic glow-up. ## Setting The game is set in **Zhongguo** — literally "Middle Kingdom," inspired by Chinese mythology and ancient history — a vast land with thousands of years of recorded dynasties. The **Jade Emperor** rules over his subjects, empowered by the **Mandate of Heaven**, but as the stars turn the Mandate is passing **from the Blue Dragons to the White Tigers** — a dynastic shift that plenty of people read as an opportunity for personal advancement, and a darker few as cover for schemes of malice and destruction. The realm began when the **Twelve Tribes** — the animals of the zodiac — united into a single Kingdom under the watch of celestial spirits: the Blue/Green **Dragon**, the Red **Zhuque** (Phoenix), the White **Tiger**, and the Black Tortoise/**Qiling**. Since then a **Celestial Bureaucracy** has governed not just the Noble Houses of Earth but the Heaven Court and the weather itself, and the succession of human-felt history runs through the **Zhou dynasty**, the remnant **Shang** state of Sung, the rival states of Jin and Chi, and the capital **Majing**, the Forbidden City where ambition and corruption ferment together. Players take the role of **adventurers native to the Middle Kingdom** — all of the Ironclaw species can be found there, joined by plenty that aren't: dragons, qilings, camels of the Nine Tribes of the Western Desert, ophidian snakes, elephants, the winged **zhuque**, and stranger insectoid peoples (centipedes, scorpions, spiders) who are mostly NPCs. The tone is deliberate and courtly rather than scrappy: honor, virtue, and the weight of Heaven press down on every deal, and the Wilding Way's atavism is considered uncivilized by everyone except the barbarians at the borders. Importing a Calabrian character is possible — the two lands trade heavily — but they'd better learn the language and the Gift of Cosmopolitan quickly. ## Mechanics The engine is the same **Cardinal System** as Ironclaw: your abilities are dice, not numbers. Four **Traits — Body, Speed, Mind, Will — plus a Species and a Career** each carry a polyhedral die (d4–d12), backed by **26 Skills** rated in Marks and a stack of **Gifts**. Resolution rolls the relevant dice, takes the **highest showing die as your Score**, and counts successes under the **Rule of Four**; botches, contested Dice-Rolling Contests, and status-effect damage all carry over unchanged. There are still no hit points. What Book of Jade adds on top is the Middle Kingdom's flavor, delivered as mechanics: - **New Species and Natural Gifts** — wings that change your flying Stride, prehensile trunks and tails that serve as off-hands, extra limbs for centipedes and spiders, all written as Gifts with hard mechanical teeth. - **Exotic Martial Arts and Weapons** — the Middle Kingdom teaches fighting styles no Calabrian academy knows, alongside strange weapons built around them. - **Immortal Magic — the Wiles of the Immortals** — the signature sorcery of Zhongguo, taught apart from any school: spells that change fortune, mold the ways of the universe, preserve purity, and go beyond. Deliberate and careful, not quick: *"if the magic of Calabria is said to be fast and furious, then the magic of Zhongguo is careful and deliberate."* It runs on the same fundamental engine as Calabrian magic, so a Counters-Magic effect stops either kind. ## Editions - **Jadeclaw (1st Edition, 2002)** — the standalone Eastern companion RPG on the Cardinal system, set in Zhongguo; Eos Press distributed a print run in 2007. Added non-mammalian races (birds, snakes, tortoises, dragons) and martial-arts traits. *(Not the edition in the library.)* - **Book of Jade (2012)** — the 2nd Edition update: a **supplement for Ironclaw** (you need the Core Omnibus or Player's Book), funded on Kickstarter, adding Middle-Kingdom species and Careers, exotic Martial Arts and equipment, the Wiles of the Immortals, and a full gazetteer of Zhongguo. *(In the library.)* ## References - [Jadeclaw - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadeclaw) - [Ironclaw: The Book of Jade - Wargameportal](https://shopwargameportal.shop/products/ironclaw-the-book-of-jade)