Basic Rules
• The commands of the emissary and his agents are to be obeyed at all times, and the emissary’s word is final. None shall take violent action against the emissary or his agents.
• The emissary employs a number of enforcers to maintain order on the island. The enforcers are agents of the emissary and so have the authority to declare unique challenges and matches.
• To qualify for the Ruby Phoenix Tournament, a team must collect a total of 10 silver feathers. A team can attempt to earn feathers by challenging another team to a match and wagering feathers.
• All teams must be able to readily present their phoenix necklace and at least 1 silver feather to the emissary or his enforcers. Failure to do so will result in immediate disqualification.
• No contestant may leave Bonmu, for any reason, until the conclusion of the qualifying round, unless they are disqualified or lose all of their silver feathers.
• The qualifying round lasts a total of 3 days. On the third day, any team with a complete set of silver feathers can visit Mount Haminabu to confirm their entry into the tournament by presenting their necklace and 10 feathers. Once eight teams have qualified for the tournament, the qualifying round is over, and all remaining teams are immediately disqualified.
Contests
To earn silver feathers, teams must engage other teams in official fighting matches. Teams can challenge one another to a match at any time once the qualifying round begins except for designated safe hours (every night from midnight to sunrise). A team must challenge another team in the presence of an enforcer. A challenged team must accept the challenge or be disqualified.
Once a match has been declared, the challengers must wager between one and three feathers. The defenders must then match the wager; if a defending team can’t match the wager, they must wager their remaining feathers. Once the wagers are placed, the feathers are handed to the enforcer, who takes both teams to the nearest designated fighting site. Teams can also agree to fight one another without making a wager, in which case they are free to fight anywhere on the island, and the defending team isn’t required to accept the challenge.
Once at the fighting area, the challenge begins. Only the two teams are allowed to participate in the challenge. Neither team can accept aid from anyone not participating in the challenge. The challenge is a free-for-all between both teams. The last team standing is the winner. A team can choose to yield and forfeit at any time during the challenge. Failing to honor the forfeit results in a disqualification. The slaying of an entrant during a challenge is entirely possible and permitted, but if an agent of the emissary catches any team attempting to lethally harm an entrant outside of a challenge, that team is disqualified.
Once one side has fallen or forfeited, the enforcer declares a winner and provides the winning team all of the wagered feathers. If the transfer of feathers would grant a team more than 10 total feathers, any excess feathers go to the enforcers and are taken out of play from the qualifying round. There are no ties in challenges and in the rare case where a winner is not immediately obvious, the enforcer has final say on declaring the winner. In addition to earning the feathers, the winning team also earns a bonus of 500 gp for winning a challenge. The enforcers are free to add to the winnings as they see fit in cases of particularly spectacular or memorable matches. Looting of defeated teams is permissible only if all members of the losing team have been killed.
After a match, the winning team can’t challenge the losing team again for the duration of the event. The losing team doesn’t have this restriction, however, and can challenge a team that has beaten them to rematches until the losing team either runs out of feathers or wins. Finally, any team with 10 or more feathers is prohibited from issuing challenges to other teams, though other teams are still allowed to challenge them.
Enforcers
Rather than send in their own priests, the church of Abadar has recruited capable fighters to help maintain order on Bonmu and act as judges. These enforcers have the power to oversee challenges and directly interfere when any team breaks the rules.
In addition to acting as referees, the enforcers are a type of rival team themselves. An enforcer or group of enforcers can challenge any contending team on the island to a match. The enforcers are not required to wager any feather tokens, though they may require the defending team to wager up to 3 feathers. This process is intended to thin the pool of available feathers and make it more difficult for some of the teams to acquire the 10 feathers they need to qualify. If a challenged team defeats the enforcers, the winners earn 500 gp instead of silver feathers. Of course, no lethal action may be taken against the enforcers.
The enforcers also have the power to declare unique challenges that don’t involve a fighting match. These challenges are designed to encourage the teams to travel the island and overcome the environment. To entice teams to participate in these challenges, the enforcers possess a number of additional silver feathers that they can give out as rewards to the challenge winners.
Though the emissary is ultimately in charge of all the tournament agents on the island, including the enforcers, he has delegated command of the enforcers to an onidoshi named Koto Zekora. Koto Zekora is considered the final arbiter of any enforcer decisions, and her authority is second only to that of the emissary.
