The story
Fiction and adapted settings written by Akitsora Gaming for this title, including invented dialogue and events. This is not a historical or folklore reference. The rules and specification tables define the gameplay and math.
When a tea bowl cracks, nobody throws the vessel away,
for mended with lacquer and dusted with gold, the fracture becomes its finest view.
I. Listening to the Bowl in the Tea Room
In a quiet afternoon tea room, bamboo shadows sway beyond a round lattice window while ceramic vessels rest on a timber workbench — a black Raku tea bowl, a celadon censer, a stoneware flask, and a glazed pitcher. The apprentice leans his ear close to the clay, listening for the faintest stress line ready to give. Every vessel on the bench carries the quiet warmth of the kiln and the patient touch of the potter's hands.
In the Japanese craft of kintsugi, a break in a cherished vessel is never treated as ruin; instead, it is honoured as part of the piece's living history. Every crack symbol that lands on the three middle reels is that soft click in the pottery, calling the artisan's brush to work. What might have been cast aside in another workshop is instead welcomed onto the table for a second life in gold.
II. Molten Gold Flowing Along the Cracks
As soon as the five reels come to a stop, each crack splits outward reel by reel to both the far-left and far-right edges of the board. Warm urushi lacquer and molten gold immediately flow into the fracture, transforming every cell along its path into a gleaming golden seam wild before paylines are evaluated. The fine brush follows every natural turn of the fracture, never forcing the line but letting the clay speak for itself.
Because a single crack spans all five reels from edge to edge, one golden seam often completes several paylines at once — and any payline that begins from the left with consecutive golden seams can pay from the seam's own high paytable. A single glowing seam running from left to right turns a sudden fracture into a bridge of pure gold across the reels.
III. Crossing Seams and Rising Multipliers
When more than one crack lands on the same spin, their golden paths frequently cross one another across the grid. Every cell where two or more cracks intersect gathers a richer bead of gold and gains a cell multiplier, and when a winning payline passes through several multiplied intersections, their multipliers add together. Where the golden veins meet and cross, the lacquer gleams thicker and brighter against the dark glaze of the bowl.
Lacquer jars of fine gold dust act as the scatter symbol across the board. Gathering enough gold-dust jars anywhere on a spin lights the warm evening lamps of the workshop and begins the Kintsugi free-spin bonus. As the warm paper lanterns illuminate the quiet wooden bench at dusk, the apprentice carefully prepares the finest gold powder for the night's work.
IV. A Golden Net Under the Workshop Lamp
By lamplight in the Kintsugi feature, every mended golden seam stays locked on the board for the entire round instead of clearing between spins. Whenever a fresh crack splits across an existing seam, their intersection multiplier grows higher still, weaving a denser web of gold across the pottery. Line by line, the dark ceramic surface is transformed into a luminous tapestry of intersecting golden seams.
Tea masters call the pattern of mended lines on a bowl its keshiki — its landscape or view. Once enough cells are mended with gold, every subsequent spin enters the Scene multiplier tier, and mending almost the entire board weaves the Golden Net for the workshop's highest multiplier. Under the soft glow of the workshop lamp, the mended vessel stands more radiant and more precious than before it broke.