# Wares Blade tags: #game/rpg/wares-blade ![[Wares Blade (cover).jpg|600]] Every scene needs someone to haul the fantasy into a genre it has no business entering. **Wares Blade** is Japan's original answer to the question nobody asked — what if your dungeon-delving fantasy party could also pilot magical mecha — and it's been answering it since 1989. Released by **Hobby Japan** as the first major mecha-based RPG to see commercial release in Japan, it blends Western-style fantasy adventuring with the continent of Ahan's great iron giants, the **Ryude**. It's the game that lets you negotiate with a town's gatekeeper and, moments later, have a dragon-sized armored fist descend from on high. That's the pitch, and it knows exactly what it is. Originally a spin-off of the *Wares 1092* novel series developed by Shindosha, the line proved durable enough to spawn fourteen supplements and adventures between 1989 and 1994, a d20-based edition in 2008, the *Wares Legion* miniatures game in 2019, and decades of novels, manga, audio dramas, model kits, and console RPGs. It finally reached English in 2025 via a **LionWing Publishing** Kickstarter — the debut of their "Legends of Japan" retro-revival line — built on the revised *Wares Blade: The Revival* starter book (Hobby Japan, 1994). ## Setting Ahan is the world — a vast continent split into Western and Eastern halves, each with its own cultures and wars, in a land much like our own ancient and medieval past except that the divine power known as **Wares** runs through it. Western Ahan, detailed in the rulebook, is a patchwork of regions: the fertile marsh plains of **Teela-tein** fed by the Orgo river and dominated by the hundred-plus nations of the area (including **Dhakyte-Rasma**, the Great Northern Empire whose Ryude forces currently hold the advantage); the icy, mystery-laden peaks of the **Rumbqt Mountains** sheltering the remnants of ancient civilizations; the cold, largely unexplored **Northern Frontier**; and the young coastal nations settled south of the Rumbqts along the Sea of Gone. The people are as varied as the geography — pale Ahar majorities, stocky ruddy-skinned Femu, the slender pale Rasma, diminutive yellow-skinned Grim, hairless Kaybress of the deep Rumbqt, and the odd wandering Fuvock — alongside non-human Magu-Draph lizardfolk and the tunneling Dyugiss Mhan. Religion is split between the polytheistic **Pegana** faith (rendered into spirit-invoking **Holy Pegana** and physical **Sacred Pegana** branches) and a scattering of smaller cults, including the Church of Wares and the Empire's state faith of **Degmat Draggonas**, which worships the Black Lord. It's a setting built to send wandering opportunists — the **Mavericks** — out to make a living by any means necessary. The supernatural isn't subtle. **Word-Casting**, Ahan's closest thing to magic, runs on refined sacred stones called **Wares-Stones** sealed with the Sacred Writ, and its practitioners follow one of eight elemental schools, or **Gates**. Then there are the **Ryude** — giant robotic armor handed down through the generations, operated only by trained **Ryude-Masters** and paired irrevocably with a controlling **Persona**. The religious orders contribute their own techniques: **Numenism** (drawing out the dormant energy of the human body, in attack-focused Numetic Force or the deeper Numetic Arts) and **Invocation** (calling on the world's spirits). It is, in short, magic *and* machinery, and the game is unapologetic about letting you have both. ## Core Mechanics Resolution rests on the **Action Roll**, a d10 system with a lot of moving parts bolted on. Each of six Ability Scores — **SEN** (Sense), **AGI** (Agility), **WIL** (Will), **CON** (Constitution), **CHA** (Charm), and **LUC** (Luck) — yields a **Base Value** by dividing the score by three and rounding down. To act, a player rolls **1D10** and adds their Base Value plus any applicable **Skill Level** (skills run from Level 1 to 12 and beyond, roughly grouped into Combat, Adventure, and Specialized), comparing the total against a **Difficulty** set by the **Wares Maker** (WM). Difficulty is calibrated from "even a child could do it" (1–3) up to "maybe if you're lucky" (14–15) and "typically impossible" (16). The six Action Roll types map cleanly to each ability: a **SEN Roll** for senses, an **AGI Roll** for agility, a **WIL Roll** for mental fortitude, a **CON Roll** for pure endurance, a **CHA Roll** for impression and persuasion, and a **LUC Roll** for pure fortune. Failing outright is straightforward; the fun lives in the extremes. If all rolled dice come up **1**, it's a **Total Failure** — automatically a failure even if the total meets the Difficulty (unless your Skill Level is high enough to re-roll the once). If all dice come up **10** *and* the total meets the Difficulty, it's a **Perfect Success**. Luck is a spendable resource too: characters burn **Available LUC** to roll extra dice and add the results, the game's built-in answer to the odds being insurmountable. Derived values keep the machinery honest: characters track an **Initiative Number** (IN), a **Battle Number** (BN) for whether attacks land, and a **Defense Number** (DN) for whether they get hit, each assembled from Base Values, armor modifiers, and the right skills. **Physical and Mental Durability** are pegged directly to CON and WIL, and weapons carry Damage Values and **Critical Values** (sharp implements crit more often but break on a Total Failure). Combat is detailed but recognizably old-school — position, reload times for bows and arbalests, absorption from armor, and the occasional mechanical fist. ### Classes & the Ryude Four classes define a Maverick's role: **Warriors** (the damage-and-tank trade, most likely to be Ryude-Masters), **Word-Casters** (Wares-Stone magic across the eight Gates), **Spiritualists** (split into **Monks** and **Invokers**, devoted to Numenism and Invocation — and barred from Ryude-Mastery), and **Tradesfolk** (profession-based roles such as **Thieves** and **Doctors**, each with trade-specific perks). Each class carries a signature Perk — Warriors deal and absorb an extra point of damage, Word-Casters read the Holy Writ and start with a Wares-Stone, Spiritualists preach a Sermon, Thieves price their loot. The Ryude are the crown jewel. Piloting one is a specialized craft — driven by a **Drive** skill and controlled via a person-linked **Persona** that, once paired, can never be shared. The machines are the great equalizers of Ahan's conflicts, the property and secret of the Artificers' Society in the West and the Sacred Seal Church in the East. In a game where your party can be a swordsman, a young thief, an invocation-practicing priest, and a Word-Caster, the Ryude is the point where the fantasy table stops being a fantasy table and becomes a mecha hangar. ## Editions - **Wares Blade** (Hobby Japan, 1989) — the original; the first major mecha RPG commercially released in Japan, spawning fourteen supplements and adventures through 1994. - **Wares Blade: The Revival** (Hobby Japan, 1994) — the revised and expanded starter book, and the textual base for the English edition. - **Wares Blade d20** (Hobby Japan, 2008) — a d20 System adaptation of the setting. - **Wares Blade** (LionWing Publishing, 2025) — the English edition, crowdfunded via Kickstarter as the debut of the "Legends of Japan" retro-revival line. The **Playkit** (the free quickstart) and the **Beta** full rulebook are *in the library* — both are early-access preview PDFs from this campaign, not the original Japanese texts. ## References - [Wares Blade — Kickstarter (LionWing Publishing)](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/basementgameboutique/wares-blade) - [Wares Blade comes to Kickstarter — LionWing Publishing](https://lionwingpublishing.com/blogs/news/wares-blade-comes-to-kickstarter-august-26)