Orginal article transcribed from Mania.
If you think things are hot in China these days, you should have seen what they were like in 69 A.D.
"The current emperor, who's a pawn of the Lotus, is on his death bed," says Jose Garcia. "Every faction is now in the works jockeying for position and trying to find a successor who's in their corner. There's also a wild card, an empress named Jui Tzu who has a large amount of support among loyalists of the Chinese Empire. She knows what the Lotus are up to. When the Lotus tried to have her executed, the Emperor had her exiled instead. So a lot of factions are trying to get to her to cut a deal."
Yes, this is the latest expansion of Shadowfist, Throne Wars,which Garcia's Daedalus Entertainment will unveil at this year's Gen Con. What game creator Robin Laws will tell you is it's also historically accurate. The above events DID happen in 69 A.D. China. Of course, Garcia and Laws then have to add their own spin to the scenario.
"While this is going on, the Dragons are still recovering from Flashpoint," says Garcia. "It's pretty much down to Ting Ting, Kar Fi and the Prof. So they make an alliance with a new group called the Seven Masters. They are Taoists who have managed to master both Magic and Kung Fu. They're dedicated to restoring balance in ancient China."
That's right, Shadowfist will introduce a new, eighth, faction with Throne Wars. Garcia based them on one of the keystone Hong Kong action flicks that is the core of the game, Chinese Ghost Story.
"They will always be the smallest faction in Shadowfist," he says. "There's only about a dozen guys and their followers involved, but they are Taoists who have mastered the supernatural and can kick butt at the same time. Imagine the Asian equivalent of Merlin. They're also extremely reclusive hermits. They only come out of hiding when something is seriously wrong with the world. This is one of those times."
If that isn't enough to get you interested in this expansion, here's some other pointers. Garcia promises Throne Wars will be one of the easiest sets to collect. It will only be composed of about 90 cards and he's working hard to make sure you can get a full set out of one box and a good chunk towards a second.
Also, certain extremely popular but out of print cards from the Netherworlds expansion, such as the Pocket Demon and Violet Meditation, will also be in the set. They will have different foil marking on them to distinguish them from their Netherworlds counterparts.
Certain key characters such as the Jammers leader Battlechimp Potemkin, have been upgraded. The new Battlechimp is more powerful than his predecessor. I know this personally from beta testing the card.
"There's also a couple of cards in this set that are kind of foreshadowing what will go down in the next set, Combat In Kowloon," says Garcia. "We're aiming to have that out this year. We will publish the story line in our web page."
So be on the lookout for Throne Wars. Don't be surprised if it's nominated for one of the best expansion sets in next year's Origins awards.
Last modified: July 30, 1997.