Random Prefecture Generator

Judge and Retainers

Whenever I have been GM'ing using The Celestial Empire or Oriental Monsters & Magic, I have found that character parties built around a judge accompanied by retainers, bodyguards, etc. have worked really well in a Chinese context.

In a highly civilised society such as China, with little personal freedom, little motivation to transgress the boundaries of what one is restricted to, and especially in a society that frowns upon the use of violence, the only possibility for the kind of anti-social behaviour that RPGers enjoy is law enforcement.

Well, a judge in China was assigned a city where he would work as a magistrate, carrying out sentences and settling disputes, but also collecting tax, repairing broken bridges, repressing banditry, and suppressing unorthodox cults.

So the first thing to draw up for your judge PC and his fellow PCs is the prefectural seat he's going to spend the next three years in! For that purpose, I have developed a hack of Éric Nieudan's own more generic classic fantasy random wilderness generator.

What you need:
 - A standard 52-card deck with French suits (♠♥♦♣); remove the jokers and the 2's.
 - Dice.

1. Draw cards to make a 7×7 grid; leave centre of grid empty. The centre is your city:

2. Terrain the remaining 48 areas according to card suit; face cards mean there is a steading. See tables below:

Terrain
♦ plains or steppe
♣ woods or swamp
♥ hills or desert
♠ mountains or canyons

Steadings
Jack: village, hamlet or camp
Queen: temple, shrine, other holy place
King: manor or mansion
Ace: town or harbour

Choose or draw another card for subtypes, e.g.:

Second Card Drawn	Village Sub-Type	Temple Sub-Type	Manor Sub-Type
♦	Hàn Chinese	Confucian	Retired Mandarin
♣	Hàn Chinese	Buddhist	Guildhouse
♥	Hàn Chinese	Daoist	Head of Local Lineage
♠	Ethnic Minority	Folk Religion	Wealthy Landowner

Third Card Drawn	Buddhist Sub-Type	Daoist Sub-Type
♦	Pure Land	Complete Orthodoxy (Zhèngyi)
♣	Chán	Quánzhēn
♥	Tantric	Xié
♠	other	other

3. Encounters and events. Now, whenever the judge and his companions are travelling throughout the prefecture, random encounters may happen! For each card, roll d20 and compare to card value (Jack = 11, Queen = 12,  King = 13, Ace = 14). If the die roll is ≤ card value, look at the encounter on the table below.

Variant: Use a d10 in the light grey area.

Die	Civilised Encounters Die roll < card value	Events Die roll = card value
1	Farmers ♦travelling ♣foraging ♥poaching ♠fleeing
2	Fishermen ♦working ♣mending nets ♥famished ♠building a dam
3	Merchants ♦caravan ♣lost ♥being robbed ♠loaded with silver	Ambush or trap
4	Monks ♦preaching ♣looking for help ♥begging ♠on a pilgrimage	Impromptu market
5	Soldiers ♦labourers ♣conscripts ♥militia ♠press-gang	Freak weather
6	Ethnic minority ♦mercenaries ♣traders ♥confidence artists ♠clan	Blocked roads
7	Nomads ♦Steppe ♣Forest ♥Desert ♠Mountain	Fire
8	Adventurers ♦bruised & beaten ♣hostile ♥friendly ♠richly equipped	Flood
9	Indigenous people ♦warband ♣migrating ♥raiding ♠hiding	Battle
10	Koreans ♦merchants ♣ambassadors ♥prisoners ♠seamen	Ghosts
11	Bandits ♦river raiders ♣on the run ♥hiding ♠carrying plunder	Country fair
12	Thieves ♦street thugs ♣running from the law ♥spies ♠burglars	Bandit Lair
13	Vietnamese ♦merchants ♣ambassadors ♥prisoners ♠pilgrims	Siege
14		Plague

Feedback and suggestions welcome.