Dear Portuguese and Allies:

There’s one word describing our people that doesn’t have direct translation to any other languages – “desenrascados”! We could try to translate this into an “uncanny way to get things done with suboptimal conditions”. The number of examples certainly is countless, so let’s go back half a millennium for me to give you a funny one.

In 1543, while captains António Mota and Francisco Zeimoto were shipping a commerce vessel to Ningbo – China -, it ended up being blown off course by a storm, ending up in the island of Tanegashima, Japan.

While they were received with distrust because of the eyes’ appearance – after all, they were the first Western to reach the country -, weird clothing and language, the recipe was set for a hostile reception turning into a disaster…

But, instead of fearing what was the likely outcome and showing them our military resources as some European brothers would do, we were quick, as usual, dressing the confidence of the best “door-to-door” salesman, showing what a major asset in commercial relationships we could be!

After the first impression was overcome, we did our best to share some cultural influences in gastronomy, clothing, language, religion; and did our best to sell pottery, firearms and, most important…Blood Bowl!

In a master display of cross-selling, we’ve prepared a tournament to show the damyos how entertaining it could be: sailors and some beasts were divided into teams, surrounded by live music and comments, not even wizardry would fail to enlighten the show! While the games were taking place, the captains highlighted to the damyos not only the rules and events, but also the franchise conditions to spread the game as a mass event and the economic potential it may have!

Aldough some gasps and laugher, it really didn’t caught their interest: they found it “a game without honour” and were more interested in our muskets! Yes, they were really into our firearms – we have to understand, it is indeed a game without honour and, in a civil war, maybe football matches aren’t a priority, right?

And this is the story of how we failed to sell Blood Bowl to Japan – and 500 years later, we still do; but also in how we managed to survive the initial hostile reception while we kept strong commercial and cultural relationships with them for centuries after – this is “desenrascanço”!

This year, at the 7th edition of Lusobowl, I want to celebrate these events when we were indeed Big in Japan, recreating that same tournament in my palace: I summon all Portuguese and allies to join us on this two-days Blood Bowl event where cunningness, desperate plays, laughter and cries won’t be missing…I mean, unless you don’t have the “desenrascanço” level needed!

Marquês de Fronteira,
Lisbon, 24 November 2025