Anvil of Despair

Legend of the Five Rings card from Heroes of Rokugan

Card Type

Holding

Gold Cost

8

Keywords

Unique, Shadowlands

Card Text

After this Holding enters play, lose 3 Honor.
Maho Repeatable Reaction, w: When bringing a Weapon into play, destroy your target unbowed performing Human Personality to permanently give the Weapon Shadowlands, the trait, "This Personality has Shadowlands", and a Force and Chi bonus equal to the printed Force and Chi of the destroyed Personality.

Legality

Four Winds (Gold), Hidden Emperor (Jade)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: I also managed to get all of my fortress of the dragonfly out as well a couple honor-producing holds and the Anvil of Despair, I've also gotten the Ring of Earth out, but only after losing my first province.
  A: Check. One Hitaka 4/7, the other 6/9. Jeff Alexander, "post for 14 February 2003", 18 Feb 2003
• Q: What (if anything) does it target?
  A: The cost targets the Personality. The effect targets the weapon. Jeff Alexander, "post for 6 May 2002", 7 May 2002
• Q: The cards still have force, but the term "Force Total" or "Total Force" of a unit now has a glossary definition that takes bowing into account.
  Wow. TDWWM just got a whole lot stronger. Scorpion players should like this change.
  What change? TDWWM has always cared about total unit Force, and every rulebook since Anvil of Despair -- the set where TDWWM appeared -- has defined the Force Total of a unit to exclude bowed Followers and to be 0 if the Personality is bowed. This is neither a new ruling nor new behavior for the card. It's always worked like this.
  That may be true, but in the ~5 years since Anvil of Despair came out, I've never seen it played that way locally or at tournaments, including GenCon. Just like Ash, I had always believed unit force (w/bowed units excluded) ONLY mattered at battle resolution,
  A: That's a long-standing misconception. Just about every version of the FAQ, once I took it over, had to clarify this issue. In truth, there are even cards back in Imperial Edition that look at army Force totals outside resolution...a strong argument that the rules about bowed cards not adding have applied all turn long since the game was released. Jeff Alexander, "post for 15 February 2002", 16 Feb 2002
• Q: Now, I can't do a Ven Diagram to save my life, but here.
  Personalites - Card (Such as Master Saleh's Ghul or Maseru no Oni) Items - Card (Such as the weapon created by the Ratling or Anvil of Despair) Followers - Card (Such as the kitties created by Benika)
  Everything else - Not Card (Such as the Pearls on the Quelsarth)
  A: Well, I suppose someone could technically create a Holding, Region, Event, or Spell Card. I think there used to be some wacky Unicorn back in Diamond that made blank Region cards. Anyway, if it doesn't have a Card Type then it isn't a card is the general rule to stick to.
  So if someone gets a "-5F/-2C Rock Token" it isn't a card since, but if someone gets a "1F Nonhuman Cat Follower," it is a card, since a Follower is a type of Card. Martin Lund, "Things that can be created", 14 Aug 2007
• Q: [Imperial-Jade] hi @Brook Cunningham I have a small discovery. I just read in an Anvil of Despair rulebook regarding Bayushi Togai under the Errata page. It reads:
  Bayushi Togai: In addition to being able to attach poison cards with out gold cost, he can attach any poison card regardless of that card’s restrictions. You must still pay any non-gold cost.
  Can this apply also to Poison Dartgun since it was printed after Togai?
  A: Unfortunately, this errata was superseded by Togai's Obsidian Edition MRP, which they clearly did not properly "future-proof" when applying that errata via actual text, and did so more narrowly than the AoD errata. Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 14 Apr 2025