Glassblower

Legend of the Five Rings card from Hidden City

Card Type

Holding

Gold Cost

6

Card Text

After your turn begins, give this Holding Glass tokens until it has four.
Repeatable Reaction: When paying a Gold Cost, remove zero to four Glass tokens from this card to produce an equal amount of Gold.

Legality

Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: 1. Is Glassblower considered to be a gold producing Holding?
  A: Yes. It produces Gold and it is a Holding. (Diamond Edition Rulebook, page 100, "Glossary: Gold-producing") Martin Lund, "Rules for 24 January 2005", 31 Jan 2005
• Q: I have a bowed stronghold, a Pillar of Flesh and a Glassblower in play. Do I have to use all 4 of my Glassblower tokens to pay for the canceled Kolat? Do I have to use any of the Glassblower tokens?
  A: You don't have to use Glassblower's Reaction, thusly you do not have to remove any tokens from Glassblower. Martin Lund, "Rules for 15 September 2004", 21 Sep 2004
• Q: 1) Is Glassblower still a gold producing Holding if it has no tokens?
  A: Is Simple Huts a gold producing Holding if you control no farms? The answer to both is "yes." It can produce gold using only its own abilities, so it is a Gold Producing Holding. Just because it is unable to use that ability currently doesn't change its status as a Gold Producing Holding. Otherwise, any holding that bowed to produce gold would no longer be a G.P.H. while bowed, and that way leads us to madness, I tell you, madness! Martin Lund, "Rules for 20 April 2004", 22 Apr 2004
• Q: 2) Can you remove tokens from Glassblower if it is bowed?
  A: Not by its Reaction, anyway. Glassblower doesn't have any text exempting it from the standard rule that you can't play an Action on a bowed card. Martin Lund, "Rules for 20 April 2004", 22 Apr 2004
• Q: 3) Is Glassblower a gold producing Holding if it has tokens, but you don't remove any?
  A: It is a Gold Producing Holding for its entire existence, unless you find some elaborate means of removing the Reaction Ability from the card itself. Martin Lund, "Rules for 20 April 2004", 22 Apr 2004
• Q: [OBH] Glassblower: Can I activate it's ability multiple times to pay for a single card?
  A: Like Efirm, I can see little reason you'd want to. Maybe if you're afraid someone will Fall on Your Knees a 4G payment during Battle and want to spread it out?
  Anyway, that said, I am fairly sure you cannot, but I'd encourage you to dig out the Emperor CR or OBH Rules themselves to make sure I'm correct. But from my own head here, my belief is that there should be a clause present that Repeatable (or in Emperor terms, "more than OPT") Reactions, like triggered traits, cannot trigger/React to the same trigger more than once, in this case, "paying X card's cost".
  We actually had a bit of trouble with that in Onyx, as the same Rule was not carried into the 20F CR for Interrupts (for a number of reasons), and we wanted to make some Repeatable Interrupts without them infinitely being used in the same instance, so we added that Rule in Onyx as well as an explicit exception in the Courage ability's own text.
  (Replying to a player: "Digging further into Emperor and Ivory rulebooks, as per your suggestion, I came across the following: "If more than one Reaction can be triggered at the same time, you decide the order in which they happen using a separate action round. The active player has the first opportunity to take a …") I was suggesting the online Comprehensive Emperor Rules, which I think @kempy_nezumi has somewhere in the Dropbox? Such a nuance would be too subtle for the Rulebook, I think, and there's no point in looking at Ivory/20F Rules as Reactions don't exist in those formats.
  Also, your LS/Barley Farm example isn't quite to the point. I'm saying the restriction should apply to the same action, not just the same card.
  (Replying to a player: "Btw: What's the reasoning behind Glassblower's 0 to 4 rather than 1 to 4 token removal?") Literal interpretation of the original text, "Removed any number of". 0 is a number of tokens that it could have on it.
  Yep. Gonna pat myself on the back a bit here and say, "Knew it " 😉
  Yep, that tracks. Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 5 Aug 2025