Iconic Artifacts

Artifacts are one of the most iconic parts of the Touhou universe. In some cases the artifacts are an intrinsic part of a character, and in some cases they are central to the plot of a Touhou game. Sometimes these powerful items don’t even have an in-universe name and just serve as a McGuffin to push the plot along. But not in this case! We have two strong, iconic items that you can play with in your very own game of Danmaku!!.

First up we have the family heirloom blades of the Konpaku family, the long katana Hakurouken and its sister wakazashi Roukanken. These are inseparable from Youmu herself, a part of her character design as iconic as her half-spirit wisp. But what if?

When designing and balancing artifact cards, they are often compared to characters’ abilities. For an average blue deck artifact, they end up at roughly the same power level as a character’s ability or slightly stronger. But for the Lunatic deck and other limited sources, we can actually crank that up to even more absurd levels. What about two character abilities at the same time?

We also like to make sure that if we do have an artifact that is associated with a particular character that the artifact works particularly well when used by that character. Of course, we also want to make sure that the game design matches the fiction, without just completely duplicating that character’s existing ability.

For this iconic pair of swords we have an upgraded version of Seiga’s ability (and Nitori’s Spell Card), which allows the player to attack even through an iron-clad defense. However, these swords not only ignore defense cards, they ignore all items! We think this is appropriate because of Youmu’s famous line, “The things that cannot be cut by Roukanken, forged by youkai, are close to none!”

The other effects on the swords are more closely related to Youmu herself and, of course, the fact that you’re dual-wielding swords. You can attack more often, and those attacks cleave to multiple targets. A powerful package altogether, and even more powerful when used by Youmu herself.

Mask of Hope is our second offering this month. This is key to the story of Hopeless Masquerade, in which Hata no Kokoro loses her (original) Mask of Hope, causing her to become emotionally unstable. But this isn’t that one. This is the dumb, goofy-looking replacement made by Toyosatomimi no Miko. It’s a bit of an unwanted present, one that is powerful but at a price.

This allows the player to fire off an unlimited number of danmaku cards each round, but at the expense of having no passive ability or Spell Card. There are certainly cases where this is advantageous, but the real value comes in the ability to “regift” this to another player (who can’t refuse!), thus shutting off that character’s abilities and Spell Cards. This creates very interesting situations in a multiplayer game where you might use it to (temporarily) shut down a player with powerful characters (or extra characters), or to set up a one-two punch with another player.

And because you were so generous to give away your one and only artifact (unless you’re Seija), the reward (and incentive) for your generosity is drawing two cards! Of course, whoever you give this to has the same perk, so be sure to gift responsibly.