Torchbearer: A Mythic Fantasy RPG (1st post, too)

[Shreyas Sampat]

I've forgotten mine, as well.  Thank you all for the warm welcome.

On Kuei-Tzu Mu: As I understand it, it's an exotic location mentioned briefly in the Buddhist epic Journey to the West.  I have no idea what the Mu means, but Wood, in the sense of Forest, would be a really good interpretation; the region is characterized by a large taiga spotted with skinchanger settlements.

On feel:
Nobilis, what I've seen of it, it fantastic, but I haven't really seen it, only the chapters that are on Hogshead's site for download.  Nobilis has a glorious feel.

I'm glad that that's what you detected as the feel, Jonathan - I was certainly going for a kind of Arabian Nights meets Chinese fairy tale (not wuxia, fairy tale) thing, with a very graphical tone.  I spent a lot of time describing the regional looks.  I'm a little bit of a linguist, and so I even have fictional languages (in some cases, just rules for constructing words, but at least two grammars too) attached to the cultures; I shouldn't be using the name Vakhriyya because it could only come from Kuei-Tzu Mu's demon language (which isn't fake-Chinese; it's designed tot look like Sanskrit.  there is a culture with a fake-chinese language, from which the name is supposed to come, but the closest legal approximation would be spelled Kvie-tsu Mu...)
Anyway, I would feel a lot better about the game were I to have completed more of my character designs.  There's a series of stories about priestesses of Veamaandhi, the goddess of Law, that I really want illustrated.

The fact is that I'm adapting a D&D setting that I stopped writing solely due to my inability to adapt its mechanics to my goals; D&D is at the same time too weak and too powerful.

kevin:
Jonathan's analysis is correct; nothing is ever assigned numbers.  They modify rolls by a fixed amount.  Thanks to everyone for the compliments on the Contrast mechanic; that was a flash of good inspiration, I guess, though I clearly still have much to learn.

An idea for magical objects in Torchbearer:
Any magical object is called a Lantern.
(apologies for the terminology; I'm extremely attached to this thing where game terms have fire associations.  It feels right for Torchbearer.)
A Lantern can have Traits, hold Fuel, or do both.  In addition, particularly potent Lanterns might have a permanent Contrast effect.  Lanterns effectively give their users traits.  The Contrast effect of a Lantern applies only to its own traits, not its user's.
What is a Lantern?  A Lantern is any obbject that has become inhabited by a spirit, for whatever reason.  The spirit might have been bound there by a magician, it may have simply inhabited the weapon's raw materials as a spirit of the land and stayed when its shape was changed, it may have taken up residence there for whatever reason...
Regardless of why a Lantern is such, it is true.  All Lanterns are able to communicate by some means.  They are all intelligent, some very much so.  However, depending on their nature, their intelligence may be very alien.  A looking-glass inhabited by a flower-spirit might be obsessed with trying to see itself...
It is important to know the Spirit inside a Lantern, as well as the shape the Lantern takes.

Example Lantern:
Name: Kaalamdzem Storm-Cloud-Dancing (this is an example of actually using one of those fictional languages)
Spirit: Hawk God
Form: Calligrapher's Sword (A type of weapon; it is so-called for its blade shaped like a paintbrush's bristles.)
Flame:
My Sword is Sharp as Winter
Incredible Reflexes
Smoke:
Temperamental
Addicted to the Sword
Fuel: 2 Maximum

[Christoffer Lernö]

No wonder that I kept thinking about the Diamond Cutter sutra with the names of that character. The smoke thing is good but maybe slightly problematic in some situations as Andrew points out.
Anyway, any chance you'll be using Buddhist (mahayana) metaphysics to help you out here? I made a posting on that somewhere here some time ago.

[Jonathan Walton]

On Kuei-Tzu Mu: As I understand it, it's an exotic location mentioned briefly in the Buddhist epic Journey to the West.  I have no idea what the Mu means, but Wood, in the sense of Forest, would be a really good interpretation; the region is characterized by a large taiga spotted with skinchanger settlements.

I think I have a copy of "Journey to the West" here somewhere.  I'll see if I can find the term for you...

Just so you know, the spelling "Kuei-Tzu" uses the old Wade-Giles system of translating Chinese sounds, and isn't exactly a great representation of the standard Mandarin dialect (it may have originally been based on another dialect, though I'm not sure).  The system currently used in most Chinese textbooks and by the Chinese government is called "Pinyin," and "Kuei-Tzu Mu" would be spelled "Gui-Zi Mu."  In Mandarin, the characters are pronounced something like "gway-tzih moo," as opposed to what the Wade-Giles system makes it look like ("kooei-tzoo moo").

You said you were into linguistics, so I thought you might care ;)  If not, feel free to ignore me.

Nobilis, what I've seen of it, it fantastic, but I haven't really seen it, only the chapters that are on Hogshead's site for download.  Nobilis has a glorious feel.

Indeed.

There is a culture with a fake-chinese language, from which the name is supposed to come, but the closest legal approximation would be spelled Kvie-tsu Mu...

If you want any help with your faux-Chinese, I'd be glad to assist.  Chinese has some grammatical patterns that are pretty interesting, as well as some great terms that don't translate well into English.  Between myself and Pale Fire (who's in Taiwan right now), there's some good resources for you to draw on, if you want.  Still, if you want to go with what you've already got, that's cool too.

Anyway, I would feel a lot better about the game were I to have completed more of my character designs.  There's a series of stories about priestesses of Veamaandhi, the goddess of Law, that I really want illustrated.

If all else fails, I know some *cough* people who might be willing to volunteer their *cough* limited artistic talents.  Especially since next week is my Fall Break ;)

A Lantern can have Traits, hold Fuel, or do both.  In addition, particularly potent Lanterns might have a permanent Contrast effect.  Lanterns effectively give their users traits.  The Contrast effect of a Lantern applies only to its own traits, not its user's.

You should definitely check out Nobilis, because this sounds very similar to the way Rebecca Sean handled magic items in that game (she called them "Foci" or, singular, a "Focus").  She doesn't have them embedded with Contrast, obviously, but Attributes, Gifts, and Miracle Points (the equivilent of your Traits and Fuel).  This doesn't mean you couldn't do this too, of course, since it's a wonderfully simple and understandable way to do things.

Flame:
My Sword is Sharp as Winter

I haven't yet mentioned how much I love these "phrase-style" Traits.  They really capture a mythic feel.  How cool is it to be able to say "I'm going to reach out and cleave the insolent fool in two, because My Sword is Sharp as Winter!" instead of "With my +6 Vorpal Blade, I do 6 dice of damage to the guy"?  Answer: very.

Keep this stuff coming!

Later.
Jonathan

[Shreyas Sampat]

Christoffer:
Could you elaborate on the mahayana metaphysics?  I don't really know what you're getting at here; a link to your previous discussion would be appreciated as well, if it's convenient.

Jonathan:
As for the Chinese, I'd definitely like to learn more about the sounds of Mandarin; I have a very sad Mandarin-clone going on right now.  I actually do care about pronunciation to a certain degree, but I also have aesthetic reasons I'm not using Pinyin; it's use of g, d, b bothers me more than the ambiguous vowels and apostrophes of W-G.

If you want to take a look at some character designs, I'll post a link to them at my Torchbearer d20 site sometime this weekend, along with a list of graphical inspirations.  I have some really exciting ideas in mind for the Shchang, my fake-Chinese speaking horse nomad culture.  Archery clothing, especially, is loads of fun to design.

I'm thinking of having Contrast be a trait of a character as well as of items; the baseline need not be 1 for everyone everywhere.  Then Contrast could be another representation of the 'mythicness' of a character; more Contrasty people could be seen as closer to their gods.  Wholly prosaic people and things could have zero Contrast; their Traits would do nothing more than allow them narrative control.  This strikes me as an elegant way to depict exceptional, but nonmagical, tools.  At that point, characters and items boil down to the same thing mechanically, in almost all cases.

[Jonathan Walton]

I actually do care about pronunciation to a certain degree, but I also have aesthetic reasons I'm not using Pinyin; it's use of g, d, b bothers me more than the ambiguous vowels and apostrophes of W-G.

That's cool.  I'll just have to get more comfortable with Wade-Giles, if I'm going to be of much help.  The only thing about the abiguity of the system, though, is that no two people are going to pronounce things the same way.  Also, most people will say "kun" exactly like "k'un," just because it's easier.  If that doesn't bother you, then it's no big deal.

If you want to take a look at some character designs, I'll post a link to them at my Torchbearer d20 site sometime this weekend, along with a list of graphical inspirations.

Just looked at your site.  Some comments:

1) The first three pages are full of great stuff!  The opening chunk of prose is really evocative, your hurricane/flame shaped continent is a nice touch (makes everything seem dynamic), and the legends and deities seemed very interesting.  I was a little disappointed by the gods being divided into "the benevolent, the ambivalent, and the malign" (based on, I assume, the good-chaotic-evil alignments from D&D), but I could live with that.

2) The page on People doesn't excite me quite so much.  The traditional fantasy races (elves, dwarves, etc.) seem a little out-of-place in the cultural background you've created.  Also, some of the human cultures seem pretty stereotypical and a bit too different from each other to have once come from a common source.  I know this is par for the course for D&D-style games, but I suppose I just hoped you were going to do some more interesting things.  Still, it's hard to make a judgement based on a few short paragraphs.

I'm thinking of having Contrast be a trait of a character as well as of items; the baseline need not be 1 for everyone everywhere.  Then Contrast could be another representation of the 'mythicness' of a character; more Contrasty people could be seen as closer to their gods.

Really like this idea.  It lets heroes be heroically great and heroically flawed at the same time, very much "larger than life" in all aspects.

Later.
Jonathan

[Shreyas Sampat]

Note: Under the new system, the entire game setting will probably see some serious revision, under the guiding hand of the mythology, which is reasonably stable.
Second note: Jonathan, I think I'm replying to your points in reverse.

The people are rather shoehorned into D&D stereotypes; I really am not attached to nunhumans.  The game that this is becoming doesn't need them, and you may have noticed that I had already started trimming down the list from the mess of D&D types.

Anyway, yes, the people are very disparate, and the nonhumans out of place.  The dwarves, particularly, I simply dropped in for the sake of a particular player of mine who happens to like dwarves; they're in a stereotype too small for a world as large as this one.  The elves could easily be humans.
I see a slow spread of people outwards from maybe the region of Vuisoeni on the eastern coast; the central culture is sort of a model from which, ideally, the other cultures of the east all diverge.  Theoretically, the obsidian (who become human like everyone else in new Torchbearer) and the Hweostr are from places across the Sea of Years, and that allows them to have much stranger cultures than the mainlander types.  Then, the Tarag Thaani and the Shchang should be more similar than they are, and the silver people a little less savage (maybe pastoral would be a better image for them).  I'm certainly less of an anthropologist than I am a mythologer and linguist; I appreciate these comments a lot.
On cultural stereotypes:
I should write these from the perspective of a person inside the world.  I had been trying to do that, but I lost my touch with the culture of the narrator.  Maybe the ideal POV would be something like that of a skinchanger who's out in the human world for the first time, trying not to reveal himself but slowly realizing how he sticks out.  That could be an interesting angle of play, as well...
Torchbearer has the advantage over d20 that here, the characters are playing leihesjun, (or skinchangers?) and their patron gods should provide them with the diversity that d20 needed very different cultures to create.

The mythology is definitely pulled together a bit under the D&D model, but I started this work under the premise that the gods weren't subject to alignment; their depection should depend a lot on culture.  The obsidian (these and the silver will need in-language names soon) see the weather-god as ambivalent because he can very easily hurt them as much as help them; the Tarag Thaani might see him as good because, in their minds, he just makes the crops grow.  Some more elaboration on my creation myth and some stories of the past will probably make this fall together better.

I still feel guilty about calling the continent an archipelago, because though it has chains of barrier islands, it certainly is not an island group... but maybe it was once; I think I'd find a story about weird fish-creature fossils interesting, for a little while.

The little chunks of prose tend to be about priests of Veamaandhi, who's been the central god in the games I've run because I like the imagery I attached to her.  I hope I'll have the chance to put up some more.

I'm liking the Contrast idea more and more; I think I'll start putting together a character sheet.  I feel like most of my mechanics are ironed out.

A question on that:

Fuel has four uses:
Increase Contrast; this lasts for a scene and can be done repeatedly.
Add +1 to any roll; this can be done multiple times to a single roll.
Turn a Smoke into a Flame for the purpose of one conflict; it is not meaningful to do this multiple times to the same trait.
Turn another character's Flame into Smoke for the purposes of a single conflict; this is also not meaningful to do multiple times to the same trait.
The last two uses probably require some justification:
"I'm Hard of Hearing, so Tzitzemitl's Seductive Voice doesn't affect me as deeply as the others.  I'm going to ignore her and keep rowing."

Now, does it seem like any of these uses is clearly more valuable than the others?  Do you suspect that some options might lie unused, or that some would be abused?

[Christoffer Lernö]

The posting I refered to as something based on mahayana cosmology is actually not that interesting, but you might find some parallels to your own set-up so you could check it out here. It's basically a metaphysical base system for magic I wrote up in a posting here at the forge after reading a little too much on the subject I guess ;)

I also checked out the stuff you had written so far. A lot echoes Exalted, but without the bloated WW stuff. So it sounds good so far. Of course you should throw out the D&D races, they have no place in your world as you yourself seem to be discovering. All in all it sounds like a very interesting setting you're building.

[Jonathan Walton]

Okay, I'm not going to resond directly to all your comments on how you're planning to "de-D&D" the setting and background material.  Suffice it to say, that completely gets rid of my major concerns and makes me more excited about this project as a whole.

I should write these from the perspective of a person inside the world.

Better yet, make it a person within each individual culture.  Have a member of that society describe it, since the workings of many societies are bound to seem illogical and be misunderstood by outsiders.  However, to those people who live within that culture, everything makes perfect sense, and you might want to illustrate that.

Just a suggestion.

Torchbearer has the advantage over d20 that here, the characters are playing leihesjun, (or skinchangers?) and their patron gods should provide them with the diversity that d20 needed very different cultures to create.

Hmm...  Though diversity by patron gods is better than diversity by different cultures, you should probably try to avoid White Wolf-style "Splats" as well (unless that's what you want).  Otherwise the game could become:

"I serve the goddess _______, and, therefore, can be described by the following adjectives: A, B, and C."

Ideally, if everyone is human, within the various cultures and beliefs, there will ultimately be about the same range of personalities and characteristics, instead of each group filling a specific niche.  Diversity then, could be by individuals (much the way it is in real life) and not groups (which gives rise to stereotypes).  After all, not one else would have the Trait "My Sword is Sharp as Winter," except for you.  I could have "My Sword Burns as Heat Lightning in Late Summer," but that's not really the same thing and makes each one of us unique.

I still feel guilty about calling the continent an archipelago, because though it has chains of barrier islands, it certainly is not an island group...

Well, there's other possible terminology you could use.  In Asia, after all, there is a distinction between The Mainland ("T'a Lu" in Wade-Giles) and all the other islands that make up Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the rest of the continent.

On the issue of balance:

Fuel can be used to:

1.) Increase Contrast.

2.) Add +1 to any roll.

3.) Turn a Smoke into a Flame.

4.) Turn another character's Flame into Smoke.

Personally, I don't really like #2, because it just looks like a more generic version of what you can accomplish with the others.  Increasing Contrast increases the bonuses, right?  Turning a Smoke into a Flame increases your bonus, right?  Turning another character's Flame into a Smoke gives them a penalty, effectively increasing your bonus, right?  So why then have this very uninteresting mechanic that increases your bonus without any neat consequences?

I just think if a character can add a +1 with Fuel, why bother with changing Traits around or increasing Contrast (since the latter will make the Smoke traits more powerful too)?  If you want to force players to be creative and use the cool Contrast and Smoke/Flame mechanics you've created, giving them a way out seems silly.  But that's just my initial reaction.

Also, all the searching I've done for "Kuei-Tzu Mu" indicates that it's not a place, but a person: the goddess known as the "Demon Mother."  She's supposedly pretty important in the Lotus Sutra, where she and her daughters explain certain concepts.  According to the information I can find, it seems she developed in China & Japan from tales of an Indian deity, the best description of which I've included below:

Kishimojin (Hariti)  --  also Gui Zi Mu Shen (The Demon Mother)

Hariti, whose name means "stealer of children," is a female yaksha, or yakshini, who originally came from the town of Rajagriha. The yakshas are one of the eight kinds of supernatural beings who are said to revere and protect the Dharma. The yakshas are a kind of flesh-eating demon or spirit who make up the guardian king Vaishravana's army. Originally the yakshas appeared as the spirits of the trees and forests and even villages; but they had a fierce side as well, and in their more demonic aspect came to be called rakshasas. They are numbered among the hungry ghosts. Hariti's husband is Pancika, one of the 28 yaksha generals of Vaishravana. He is the father of her 500 sons. She is also said to have 10 daughters who are considered rakshasas, which shows how interchangeable the classifications yaksha and rakshasa are.

Hariti was obsessed with eating the children of Rajagriha, and eventually even her brother, the benevolent yaksha guardian of Rajagriha, and her husband Pancika were unable to stop her. Neither King Bimbisara nor even the devas were able to stop her, so in desperation the townspeople turned to Shakyamuni Buddha. The Buddha then visited her home while she was away and used his supernatural powers to hide her youngest son under his alms bowl. When Hariti returned and could not find her son she was distraught and finally she herself sought out the Buddha. The Buddha then pointed out to her that if she felt so badly about missing even one child out of 500, she should consider how badly the parents of Rajagriha must feel when she takes away their children when they have so few to begin with. Hearing this, Hariti felt remorse and compassion for those she had harmed. She repented of her actions; took refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; took the five major precepts; and vowed to protect the people of Rajagriha. Shakyamuni Buddha then restored her youngest son to her. In return the Buddha had his monks, from that time on, make a symbolic offer of their food to the hungry ghosts. Hariti came to be considered a protector of children and women giving birth as well as a protector of the Dharma, and her gentle image as a "giver of children" would sometimes cause her to be confused with Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.

Hariti appears in chapter 26 of the Lotus Sutra along with her ten daughters to offer dharanis for the protection of the teacher of the Lotus Sutra.

Icon: A fierce looking woman with fangs. Her hands form the anjali mudra (gassho).

Interesting stuff, huh?  Especially how she came to be confused with Avalokiteshvara (Guan Yin, in China).  Not very compassionate sounding to me ;)

Hope some of this helps.

Later.
Jonathan

[Shreyas Sampat]

This gets better and better.

On Splats:
I don't plan to discuss the patron gods too deeply; I'll just provide little vignettes and discussions or role and imagery.  Rather than the characters having Traits that recall their gods, they would ideally be influenced by them in play, but not mechanically.  Their marks would be the only thing that's overtly obvious... Did I discuss marks?  Anyway, with enough emphasis on individualism, the Splat phenomenon should be averted.
On this note, L5R did a clever thing with its clan division where it went to a great deal of trouble to describe several characters that ran deliberately counter to their clan's stereotypes.  The name Pretty Eyes Iron Crane still echoes in my head.

On Mechanics:
The more I think about removing that (use 2), the more I like it.  The Trait manipulation in certainly becoming the spotlight mechanic, and anything that reduces that runs counter to the design.

On More Mechanics:
I'm thinking of setting up a system of 'dormant traits' that can be activated with Fuel; whenever you light a dormant Flame, it puts up a corresponding plume of Smoke.  This might evolve into a way to model magic.
Pale Fire, thanks for the mahayana link.  I'll have to look at it more closely this evening... dang posting while running out the door.

And KtM:
That story could be transformed into setting material so easily... maybe the region is named after the Mother.

[Jonathan Walton]

I'm thinking of setting up a system of 'dormant traits' that can be activated with Fuel; whenever you light a dormant Flame, it puts up a corresponding plume of Smoke.  This might evolve into a way to model magic.

Whatever it is you're smoking, I'm definitely going to have to get me some ;)

This rocks on toast.  Combined with the other mechanics you already have, it looks like you're getting closer and closer to having something really great nailed down.  I really like how all the mechanics are integrated into the system of Flame & Smoke Traits, which makes it very unified and stylistic.

I can just imagine...

Varashi Eater-of-Serpents stood her ground against Kabula Neranja, chosen son of the Demon Mother and the butcher of thousands.  Tossing aside a freshly hewn corpse, the beast turned to face her.

"Today," he growled, "you will meet the Death-God at the ford of the Black River.  I hope, for your sake, that you have your toll ready."

Neranja laughed as his body burst into flames that did not consume, but flickered over the surface of his ebon flesh.

[Neranja burns a Fuel Point to fire up the Flame "Licked by Infernal Tongues," and gains the Smoke "The Ocean's Nemesis".]

Varashi only smiled and gestured to the dry river bed behind him.

"I am not afraid of The River, O hideous one.  Shall we ask it to join us?"

Suddenly, a burbling sound is heard.

[Varashi spends a Fuel Point to fire up the Flame "And the Waves Hear Her Cries," and gains the Smoke "The Unpredictable Waters."  She also burns three more Fuel Points to raise the Contrast.]

Neranja stops laughing.

Varashi turns and begins to run, as the ground beneath her feet grows damp...

Something like that? ;)

Later.
Jonathan

[Christoffer Lernö]

[Hey GOOD stuff Jonathan! If I wasn't so involved with Ygg mechanics I'd rave about how I'd like cool stuff like that in my game too. You wanna help co-design Ygg? ;)]

Anyway, just want to post something and mention it turns out I actually read about the Lotus sutra. I read a trimmed down version with a lot of comments. So anyway, if you wanna know the geist of the story you can ask me. Although I'd say that what actually happens in the story isn't all that exciting.

[Jonathan Walton]

[Hey GOOD stuff Jonathan! If I wasn't so involved with Ygg mechanics I'd rave about how I'd like cool stuff like that in my game too. You wanna help co-design Ygg? ;)]

If I did everything I wanted to do, I'd probably end up volunteering to co-design half the games on The Forge ;)

I haven't read up on enough of your Ygg stuff yet to know whether it's really up my alley or not, but I'll check it out next week as I waste my Fall Break away...

Anyway, just want to post something and mention it turns out I actually read about the Lotus sutra. [snip] Although I'd say that what actually happens in the story isn't all that exciting.

What?  Even the part when the Demon Mother and her daughters show up?  I'm shocked and severely disappointed.  Was the version you read in English or Chinese?  Maybe I can find a copy floating around on the internet and translate it over Break...

Ah, the things East Asian Studies majors do for fun ;)

Later.
Jonathan

[Shreyas Sampat]

As Christoffer said, great stuff.  That's so in the feel of the game I could die.

I think the game's getting to the point that I'd like to start playtesting; do y'all have any suggestions for how I might go about that?

[Jonathan Walton]

Hmm... not really.

If you want to playtest it as a PBeM or Chat-based game, I could give you some suggestions of where to track down players.  I'd offer to run it with my Nobilis group, except we're not going to be meeting for the next two weeks.  RPGnet has a forum where you can ask for playtesters and you could probably find some here as well.  As to what format, that's pretty much up to you.

Still, for a good playtest, you'll probably want to rules (by not the setting) written up clearly enough so other people could run them with no problems.

That's all I can think of right now, since I'm about ready to go to bed.  More tomorrow, maybe.

Later.
Jonathan

[Shreyas Sampat]

To determine the result of a significant conflict, this procedure is used:
(this takes something from what I learned from Alyria; credit is due)

I'll use Jonathan's little sample of play as an example, expanded as appropriate.

Determine the goals of each opposing side.
Varashi Eater-of-Serpents stood her ground against Kabula Neranja, chosen son of the Demon Mother and the butcher of thousands. Tossing aside a freshly hewn corpse, the beast turned to face her.
"Today," he growled, "you will meet the Death-God at the ford of the Black River. I hope, for your sake, that you have your toll ready."
Varashi Eater-of-Serpents and Kabula Neranja are clearly at physical odds; they each want to kill or maim the other.

Narrate the influence of traits and the use of Fuel.
Neranja laughed as his body burst into flames that did not consume, but flickered over the surface of his ebon flesh.
Neranja burns a Fuel Point to fire up the Flame "Licked by Infernal Tongues," and gains the Smoke "The Ocean's Nemesis".
Varashi only smiled and gestured to the dry river bed behind him.
"I am not afraid of The River, O hideous one. Shall we ask it to join us?"
Suddenly, a burbling sound is heard.
Varashi spends  Fuel to fire up the Flame "And the Waves Hear Her Cries," and gains the Smoke "The Unpredictable Waters." She also burns three more Fuel to raise Contrast.

Narrate the possible outcomes.
For player-player conflicts, it is possible to allow each player to narrate his character's success.
Neranja stops laughing.
Varashi turns and begins to run, as the ground beneath her feet grows damp...
Varashi's outcome; this will probably result in a following conflict of Neranja vs. the River.
Neranja narrowly escapes the waters, which swirl around Varashi, cutting off his escape route.
Neranja's outcome; this sets up more conflict between the two...

Calculate the total modifier.
From Varashi's point of view, we have a +4 modifier for "Waves Hear Her Cries" and a +1 modifier for "Ocean's Nemesis".  No other Traits apply (that we know of).

Roll the dice.
It seems Varashi won this one.