Reputation, duels and intel

A deed only becomes fame (or infamy) when someone who isn't one of yours lives to tell it.

• In a fight, deeds wait until the fight is over. If anyone outside your colony who saw it got away, or is still free (a visitor, a trader, an ally, an enemy still standing), the story spreads.
• If the only ones left are your prisoners, the story waits on them: it spreads the moment one is freed or escapes, and is lost if they all die or join you.
• If nobody is left, nobody ever hears of it. Your own ninja's pages in the Bingo Book list these as "deeds nobody lived to tell".
• Deeds away from a fight (an execution, seizing a guest) are judged by who is on the map at the time.
• Missions, promotions and duels are public: they never wait.

A colonist wearing a masked-guard mask earns fame under the mask's name ("the Falcon Mask"), with its own nickname and its own page in the Bingo Book that only you can link to them. Bounty hunters can't come for a face nobody has seen. If they take the mask off (or lose it) in front of outsiders, the mask's fame becomes theirs.

A second, darker reputation for your own people:

Infamy has its own tiers (Notorious, Dreaded, Accursed) and dark nicknames by what they did ("Headsman", "Oathbreaker", "the Butcher"...). A dark name replaces the nickname only when infamy is at least as high as fame. Infamous ninja draw more and stronger bounty hunters, cost goodwill with the villages (the Black Ink Syndicate likes it), intimidate harder, and inspire less: not at all for allies who despise such deeds (kind people, ideologies that find it abhorrent), fully for allies who approve.

Your village's name grows with its ninja's fame (the five most famous count most; masked names count half), and its notoriety with their infamy. Shown in the Ninja world panel.

Notoriety makes raids up to 15% bigger on top.

Famous colonists now and then get a formal challenge from the strongest fighter of a hostile ninja faction; rivals challenge too.

• Accept: the challenger comes alone and fights only the challenged ninja. Anyone else who hurts the challenger breaks the rules: infamy for them, and the win counts half.
• Win: fame told everywhere (25 + 30% of the challenger's fame), and a tale. A beaten challenger can be taken prisoner.
• Lose or refuse: a little fame lost. A refused rival comes back another way.

• Sparring with someone more famous teaches more (extra taijutsu experience) and rubs off a little fame; the student is noted on their page.
• When a Feared or Legendary colonist dies, the colony grieves, then carries on in their name ("their will lives on"), and a quarter of their fame stays with the village as renown for good.
• Bury your legends: a body left in the open may draw body thieves from a hostile faction.

Famous enemies defeated, duels won, rivals beaten, legends fallen and names earned become tales your artists can carve and paint, with everyone's nickname in it.

• Some bounties are dead only: the Dreaded, rivals with your people's blood on their hands, famous clan ninja wanted for their bloodline. Capturing them pays half.
• A dead enemy from the Bingo Book whose body lies at your home can be handed in from their page for the bounty they carried (more for clan ninja).
• Tissue from the corpse of a Feared or Legendary clan ninja grafts like living tissue.
• Your famous clan ninja draw bounty hunters more often: they're after the bloodline.

What the Bingo Book shows about an enemy grows with what you know:

• Spy: on an enemy's page, posts a mission to a camp of their faction. Reaching it is enough.
• Interrogate: select a prisoner and press Interrogation. The panel shows their resistance, today's odds with your best warden, their mood and everything they have told you so far, with Raid it next to any camp they gave away. Choose Question or Question harshly there (or switch on Interrogate / Interrogate harshly in the prisoner tab). Once a day a warden questions the prisoner. Social and Intellectual help; genjutsu and sensory techniques help a lot; famous, high-ranked and stubborn prisoners are harder. Each success reveals one thing: the prisoner's own page, another ninja of their faction, a camp of their faction you can raid (sometimes with a famous ninja in it), or a raid they're planning. A failure makes them more stubborn. Harsh works more often but is cruel: infamy for the warden, a bad mood and injuries for the prisoner. Captured rivals know the most.

Each enemy village (and the Syndicate) has a leader, marked in the Bingo Book. Killing or capturing them leaves the faction leaderless for a season (60 days): its raids are 40% weaker and it sends no bounty hunters or challengers. A successor is named the next day.

Under Village life → Fame, Bingo Book and Rivals, each on by default: Witnesses, Masked names, Infamy, Village renown, Duel challenges (and how often), Teachers and legacy, Tales and art, Body and bloodline bounties, Intel, Interrogation, Beheading a village.