Sapphire Ambassadors

Each of the seven contest days will ask competing characters to roll a Chosen Art* / appropriate Trait; the TN is 15 for most, and 20 if you’ve trained with the Kakita Artisans (because we have higher standards), representing work to present a piece on the day’s tenet of Bushido. Success grants you one Sapphire Point, plus one Sapphire Point per Raise. You need 15 points to make Sapphire Ambassador (with an accompanying reward ot the equivalent of one rank in each of Social Position and Fame, as well as an additional stipend of 5 Koku), which would mean if you don’t fail at any event, you would need one raise on six of them, and two raises on the seventh. Hopefully, that means if you fail a roll, you might be able to catch up, but you’ll be sweating. (Well, unless you’re an overbuilt artisan.)

Each event will have two pieces picked as best in event which is just us picking which written description we find the best. One piece from across the contest will be named the best in show; that piece will earn the equivalent of three “best in event” picks. The Sapphire Champion (who receives a promotion to 1 Status Rank above the highest-Status Ambassador and three ranks of Fame--subject to normal maximums; the Sapphire Champion will not outrank the Emerald Champion, for example--as well as an additional stipend of 20 Koku) will be the character with the highest number of “best in” picks, ties broken by the highest number of Sapphire Points. Trying to encourage people to put some effort into the writing, and not just build Kakita Artisan Awareness monsters.

*Skills that apply include Acting, Artisan, Calligraphy, Craft, Engineering, Perform, Sleight of Hand (Prestidigitation), and Tea Ceremony. As ever, if you have a question about whether you can use a Skill or Trait for the purpose, PM a GM; we’ll listen, though we cannot promise the answer will always or ever be “yes” to your question.

It should be noted that the single roll per day represents the culmination and finishing touches of the work. If your art is something very complex and concrete, such as a painting, sculpture, or other hard good, you're not producing one per day per hour, the roll just represents the finishing touches, maximizing the placement, and such of the works you brought with you to the competition. On the other hand, if you're doing something performative or extremely short lived such as poetry, acting, cooking, etc, a transcribed description of your performance is stored in the gallery of dusk for others to look at.

Another clarification on this. The themes for the days' exhibitions are in known in advance so those working artforms that take a long time to create have had time to do so

To follow up on the clarification, the daily themes:

Day 2- Jin (Compassion)
Day 3- Yu (Courage)
Day 4- Rei (Courtesy)
Day 5- Chugo (Duty)
Day 6- Gi (Honesty)
Day 7- Meyo (Honor)
Day 8- Makoto (Sincerity)

Honor guide you!