Want to start your own Dojicorp? Here's how...

Corporations (Advanced Gentry)

The Gentry Advantage from Legend of the Five Rings (see Winter Court: Kyuden Seppun) is no longer applicable in Diamond Empire. Instead, a character may chose the Corporation Advantage. This Advantage indicates that the character is the head of a small Rokugani corporation. In many ways, this advantage works similar to Gentry. Multiple character may chip in for the CEO advantage during character creation. They all become stockholders in the corporation, with seats on the Board of Directors. Whoever pays the most points becomes the Chairman of the Board, with final say in all business dealings. Characters who take the Corporation advantage do not get a normal salary from their clan. The Corporation is their salary. In reality, the Corporation belongs to the clan, the character just gets to run it and use the profits as he sees fit.

At least 5 character points must be spent on CEO, but more can be spent if the character's creator wishes. The following features may be purchased for character points:

Home Office: 5 points The company has one central office and production plant. The office features the following items: One large facility with offices and production capability, 1 Specialist Vice President (a skilled heimin or ji-samurai who sees to the company's affairs in the boss' absence and has all necessary skills to run the company), 2 Specialists (lawyers, doctors, technicians, shugenja, etc.), 50 heimin Employees (laborers, clerks, or data entry personnel; the usual ratio of unskilled to moderately skilled to skilled workers is about 1 to 3 to 2.), 10 Security personnel (ji-samurai and doshin). Multiple home offices may be purchased as long as they are in multiple cities, but, with the exception of the first office, at least one Franchise is needed in a city before a Home Office can be purchased.. A single home office cannot accomodate more than 2 Staff increases, plus one staff increase per franchise. The home office requires at least 30 Employees and 5 Security staff. The character is expected to drop in and check on his home offices from time to time.

Franchise: 2-10 points The company has a franchise outlet where its merchandise is exclusively sold. These Franchises are either Basic (2 points), Fine (4 points), Excellent (6 points), Superior (8 points), or Legendary (10 points). Employees of the Franchise are drawn from the Home office or must be purchased separately as Staff. At least 10 Employees and 3 security are required for a Franchise.

Staff: 2 points Depending upon the size and needs of the corporation, 50 employees and 10 security personnel may not be adequate. For every 2 extra points spent, the corporation has hired 20 more moderately skilled to unskilled workers or 10 security personnel. (Again, the usual ratio of unskilled to moderately skilled workers is about 1 to 3.)

Specialists: 3 points Some corporations require highly skilled operatives, such as doctors, lawyers, computer technicians, and shugenja. For every 2 points, the company has one of these professionals. Note that these individuals are merely employees. They do their job and go home. They usually won't accompany the character on adventures, or even work overtime unless some sort of reward is in it for them. Shugenja specialists are hired only for the purposes of communing with spirits or working with tetsukami. Any other use of the shugenja's abilties is considered an "expense" and must be paid for separately as the shugenja deems fit or as per his contract. If the shugenja is healing people, he deserves to be paid as a doctor.

Moderately skilled and unskilled Employees are all Rank 0 characters, with 1's in each ring and a 2 in one Ring. Security personnel are Rank 1 characters with a 2 in each ring and a few useful skills at Ranks 1-3. Specialists are one Rank lower than the lowest Rank character who paid points to build the corporation (minimum Rank 1) and are created in the normal manner. The Vice President is always equal in Rank to the lowest Rank character who paid points to build the corporation.

The Annual Report Every year the corporation reports on its progress. At this point, expenses must be met. The following salaries are minimum for the respective positions:

Unskilled Pesonnel (Clerks, Waiters, Janitors) - 7200 Hk
Moderately Skilled Personnel (Bouncers, Laborers, Line Cooks) - 12,600 Hk
Skilled Personnel (Secretaries, Foremen, Electricians) - 21,600 Hk
Security Personnel - 25,200 Hk
Specialist (Programmer, Architect, Trainer) - 36,000 Hk
Specialist (Doctor, Lawyer, Advertising Exec., Engineer) - 57,600 Hk
Specialist (Shugenja*) - 36,000 Hk plus expenses
Vice President - 72,000 Hk

To figure out how much your company makes, add together the basic income of all the employees (except specialists and security), and increase this amount by 50%. This is the Base Income (it doesn't mean anything by itself; it's a number you'll need later).

Now roll on the following table to determine your yearly production. With the following modifiers:

First year of business: -3 to roll
Second year of business: -1 to roll
Windfall last year: +1 to roll
Breakthrough (better taco recipe, sturdier steel, whatever): +1 to roll
CEO makes four consecutive Intelligence + Business rolls at TN of 40: +1 to roll
Successful Corporate Espionage This Year: +1 to roll
Major Successful Corporate Espionage: +2 to roll
Competitor Goes Out of Business This Year: +1 to roll
All Employees Get 10% Raise: +1 to roll
Maintenance Not Paid Last Year: -1 to roll per year
Employees Underpaid: -2 to roll, plus they may go on strike.
No money invested in improving business last year: -1 to roll
Per 500,000 sunk into helping business: +1 (may only be used to negate penalties)

The Annual Report Table

1 - Catastrophe! Base Income cut by 1d10 X 10%, with a minimum of 30%! (Do not re-roll ten's)
1-3 - Stock Market Crash (decrease losses by 10% X the rank of each Accountant you employ, with a minimum of 5% loss. Give your lawyers a raise.)
4-6 - Major Lawsuit (decrease losses by 10% X the rank of each Lawyer you employ, with a minimum of 5% loss. Give your lawyers a raise.)
7-9 - Natural Disaster (decrease losses by 10% X the rank of each Shugenja you employ for this specific purpose, with a minimum of 5% loss. Give your lawyers a raise.)
0 - Unavoidable catastrophe. War, plague, destruction of a factory, or other such terrible occurence. Pay the employees out of your own pocket, get a loan quick, or go bankrupt.

2 - 3 - Corporate Espionage! Your profits are cut dramatically this year. You do not gain your 10% increase in income, and overall profits are cut by 30%

4-7 - Average year - The company makes its Base Income.

8-9 - Great year! The company made great strides forward. The CEO must make an Awareness + Business roll at a declared Target Number. This Target Number divided by half is the per cent amount the company makes over its Base Income.

0 - Windfall! The company takes off this year, leaping to the forefront of its competitors. Make double the Base Income this year!

Whatever the final result is, increase that amount by 2% for every Basic Franchise, 4% for every Fine Franchise, 6% for every Excellent Franchise, 8% for every Superior Franchise, or 10% for every Legendary Franchise. The advantage to only having one Franchise instead of many is that no extra employees are needed to run them. (Remember, at least ten employees and three security are needed for each facility). On the other hand, less facilities makes the company more prone to disaster (if one building goes, that's the whole company).

An amount equal to ten percent of the Base Income of the company is needed for Maintenance, in order to upgrade and keep equipment in good shape, keep the franchises and home offices in good order, and other random expenses. An amount equal to fifteen percent of the Base Income goes to taxes, supporting the clan (or clans) that have an interest in the company. More support for the clan is always welcome, and can win a few friends in the court.

Money in excess of expenses may be used in the following ways.

1.) Granting raises to good Employees. These raises are not added to the Base Income value, but Employees who are treated well are unlikely to go looking elsewhere for work, and will redouble their efforts in the future. Employees are the biggest expense of any corporation, but also the greatest asset.

2.) Increasing the value of the corporation - By spending an amount equal to 25% of the Base Income on upgrading the corporation, the corporation gains 2 more Character Points to be spent in any way the Board of Directors sees fit. Old Franchises may be upgraded, or new ones bought. Employees hired in this manner will contribute to the Base Income value. Other employees hired at random will not contribute to this value (you're over-staffing).

3.) Keeping it. This may give the president a bad reputation, but it's fun.

Just as an example, let's take create the T'Chipco Cybergear Inc. It will be a company specializing in Tetsukami prosthetics, mainly artificial tails for crippled nezumi.

T'Chip, the owner of the company, is a Crab Engineer who would normally make 90,000 Hk/yr. T'Chip decides that he wants to spend 10 character points on T'Chipco. He buys a Home office, one Basic Franchise, and one Specialist (an spare shugenja to look over the tetsukami before it hits the assembly line). Now he's ready to go.

First, he figures out his staff. It seems that he has 9 unskilled workers (janitors, drivers, and loaders), 27 moderately skilled workers (assemblymen and clerks), 14 skilled workers (engineers, electricians, foremen and whatnot), 10 security personnel, one Vice-President, one lawyer (just in case), and two very overworked shugenja Specialists (one included with the Home Office, plus the spare). The GM judges that since the Shugenja are hired to help make the tetsukami, that T'Chip has to pay them 54,000 Hk.

T'Chip adds up his Base Income. Cranking up his calculator, he comes on the final total of 9,736,200. This is his Base Income. He then adds up the salaries of his workers, and discovers a total of 6,980,400 Hk is needed to pay his employees. Together with the yearly maintenance cost (Base Income X 10% = 973,620), and the Crab's slice (Base Income X 15% = 1,460,430), he stands to have about . T'Chip looks to be in pretty good shape. He's looking at a base profit of 321,750 Hk if he has an average year, and that's without taking into account his Franchise. More than triple his normal income. Not too shabby for a ratling.