The Grand Heist

In Joseon Korea, ice was a very valuable commodity, and its trade was a state monopoly. In the 2012 Korean film The Grand Heist, a gang of con artists and thieves decide to steal a large amount of ice. Here is the Korean trailer:


And here's the European trailer, which really looks like they're presenting a party of adventurers!

D30 Bandit Table

The Chinese Empire is huge, and, alas!, the Son of Heaven cannot guarantee the safety of his subjects in each corner of this vast expanse.

This is particularly true for travellers: the various troops and militias are stationed in the yámen of the major cities of the Empire, in the garrisons at the barbarian frontiers, and wherever enemy raids are expected. This leaves out huge swaths of land, amongst which the mountains — which the Chinese strongly dislike anyway.

Mountains are where banditry is rife. Any right-minded traveller will stay on the roads of the Empire and give the mountains a wide berth. However, for various reasons, most notably when they are in a hurry and want to try out a shortcut, some travellers do cross the mountains. And, unavoidably, they also cross the path of the bandits living therein.

This is when this small table comes in handy.

D30 | Local bandits are...
01 | ...bloodthirsty maniacs. No discussion, no quarter. They will even pursue fleeing travellers.
02 | ...rapists. They will concentrate their efforts on kidnapping any young and/or good-looking female traveller to bring back to their mountain den to be used as a sex slave.
03 | ...from an ethnic minority that has been displaced by Hàn colonists. They hate the Hàn and will concentrate their attack on Hàn travellers.
04 | ...bored local ne'er-do-wells. If their opponents resist their attack, they will leave them alone.
05 | ...Rivers-and-Lakes (Jiānghú 江湖, see p9 of The Celestial Empire) types looking for a challenge. They will boast about their nickname/their preferred weapon/their fighting style, and expect their victims to fight, not necessarily to the death.
06 | ...army deserters. They are looking for clothes and food.
07 | ...a group of bandits posing as an extended family travelling together. Roll 1D6 for the leader (1: the so-called wife of the family head, 2-3: the faux family head, 4: one of the unassuming travellers, 5: the one who looks like the elder son, 6: the one who is looking after the cart).
08 | ...fellow travellers down on their luck. They have resorted to robbing because they are famished.
09 | ...travelling entertainers supplementing their meagre earnings with armed robbery. They have excellent Dexterity and acrobatics-related skills.
10 | ...assassin-retainers setting up a trap for another group of travellers. They don't want any witnesses and will hence kill the party to the last man.
11 | ...defrocked monks. They will act as #06 or #08 above, but will fall to their knees and start crying if there is a monk or a priest of the same Allegiance as theirs in the party.
12 | ...a party of knights-errant who mistakenly assume that the party are bandits!
13 | ...professional robbers. They will clearly state their name and profession, hoping to scare their victims into fleeing after having left their valuables behind, but will fiercely fight if necessary. They are of average strength (skills in the 35% range); the leader is in the 50% range.
14 | ...professional robbers. They will clearly state their name and profession, hoping to scare their victims into fleeing after having left their valuables behind, but will fiercely fight if necessary. They are of above-average strength (skills in the 50% range); the leader is in the 65% range.
15 | ...professional robbers. They will clearly state their name and profession, hoping to scare their victims into fleeing after having left their valuables behind, but will fiercely fight if necessary. They are quite strong (skills in the 65% range); the leader is in the 80% range.
16 | ...clever planners. They have been observing the party for hours through their spies in the mountain, and know most of their strengths and weaknesses. Allow bonuses as appropriate, depending on how the PCs react.
17 | ...very astute planners. They have been observing the party for days via their agents in the inns in the region, and know all of their strengths and weaknesses. Allow bonuses as appropriate, depending on how the PCs react.
18 | ...of a quasi-military kind of organisation (à la Water Margin). Unless composed of high-level PCs (skills in the 90% range), the party don't stand a chance. They will be captured by the bandits and will be held for ransom.
19 | ...the agents of an evil Daoist sorcerer, looking for special components for a heterodox ritual (e.g., "the liver of a virgin", or "the blood of a monster-hunter").
20 | ...a party of merchants down on their luck. They have been robbed themselves of their wares, and have resorted to robbing to recoup their losses. They are clumsy fighters.
21 | ...hardened outlaws, who will readily assess the situation, and understand where valuables are hidden (if any).
22 | ...scholars at odds with authority. They don't wear any armour, and don't look like fighting men, but they are actually well versed in the art of war, taking full advantage of the features of the terrain, and possessing above-average fighting skills.
23 | ...the bored offspring of the local dignitaries. They are weak fighters, and will drop their weapons and flee as soon as they realise that their opponents are way above their level. However, they will run to the local magistrate and pretend they have been attacked by the PCs; the latter will hence be in serious trouble with the local authorities.
24 | ...the bored offspring of the local dignitaries. They are capable fighters. Should any of them be killed by the PCs, the latter will be in serious trouble with the local authorities.
25 | ...vixen spirits (see p112 of TCE) with glamour-like magic. The bandit party is composed of the charmed former victims of the yāohú, ordered to act like vicious bandits. The vixen spirits, who look like damsels in distress, expect the PCs to 'save' them from the 'bandits'. Once they've been 'saved', they will take advantage of the journey to try and charm the party, and the story will repeat itself...
26 | ...bànyāo serving a mìngmó  (p112 and p117 of TCE). The mìngmó lives above a yīn ley line (see p85 of TCE), and needs the PCs for some nefarious purpose. This particular encounter is more like a mini-adventure and needs extra preparation work from the GM.
27 | ...chīmèi (p113 of TCE). They look for magic items, spell books, etc. Riches do not interest them.
28 | ...wǎngliǎng (p115 of TCE). They are fanatically anti-Buddhist, and will first and foremost target Buddhist PCs.
29 | ...yaksha  (p126 of TCE) posing as human travellers. They are looking for yet more riches to add to their treasure, hidden in a deep cave in the mountain. If the PCs look poor, they will ignore them. If the PCs look rich, the yaksha will wait for the best opportunity to steal their riches. Yaksha are not particularly hostile, and will prefer ruse to brute force. However, they are extremely greedy, and will stubbornly hang on to their plan if they PCs are indeed wealthy.
30 | ...a party of monster-hunters who mistakenly assume that the party are really monsters posing as human travellers.

Random Campaign Generator

There have been a few posts in the gaming blogosphere about describing your setting in 25 words, e.g. here.

This post will provide a means to randomly fill in those 25 words. It will also double as a random Celestial Empire campaign game generator.

The setting is a [1st keyword][2nd keyword] set in [3rd keyword] dynasty [4th keyword]. The player characters are pitted against [5th keyword] set to [6th keyword]. Most of their foes are [7th keyword].

Table No.1, keyword: genre
Roll 1D6
1: Historical
2: Low-magic
3: Wǔlín
4: Wǔxiá
5: High-fantasy
6: Gonzo

Table No.2, keyword: game type
Roll 1D6
1-2: Sandbox
3-4: Series of connected adventures
5-6: Big campaign

Table No.3, keyword: dynasty
Roll 1D8
1-2: Táng
3: Sòng
4: Yuán
5-6: Míng
7-8: Qīng

Table No.4, keyword: region
Roll 1D12
1: Inner Asia
2: Gānsù
3-5: North China
6-7: Lower Yángzi
8-9: Sìchuān
10-11: South China
12: islands and seas

Table No.5, keyword: foes
Roll 1D12
1: Kinsmen
2-3: Members of the (Roll 1D6) 1-4: eunuch faction, 5-6: anti-eunuch faction
4-5: Members of the (Roll 1D6) 1-2: military, 3-4: secret police, 5-6: bureaucracy
6: Loyalists
7: Outlaws
8: Rebels
9: Members of a shètuán (TCE p100)
10: Members of an ethnic minority
11: Members of a sect
12: Merchants

Table No.6, keyword: aim
Roll 1D10
1-2: Amass power
3: Amass wealth
4-5: Further their agenda
6-7: Travel (Roll 1D6) 1-2: through China proper, 3-4: through the frontier provinces, 5-6: abroad
8-9: Fight against their opposite faction— or a GM-devised one if no opposite faction exists
10: Proselytise

Table No.7, keyword: allegiance
Use the Religion availability table appropriate to the dynasty rolled in Table No.3 above, see p48 of TCE.

More campaign game ideas are available in The Celestial Empire on p18-20 and on p40-41.

NPC: the monk Jiànzhēn

Dhamma Musings is a non-gaming blog I have been following for quite a long time. Its latest post is about the famous Táng Chinese monk Jiànzhēn (鑒真, 688–763), who travelled far and wide in East Asia, and who eventually settled in Japan where he founded a still-existing temple (Tōshōdai-ji 唐招提寺) and a still-active sect (Risshū 律宗).

The following are excerpts from the post:

Living during the Táng Dynasty, Jiànzhēn could properly be called a Renaissance man. He was born in what is now Jiāngsū province. In 688, he became a monk while young. Jiànzhēn studied Buddhism in the Chinese capital for six years, his main field of study being vinaya [monastic rules]. In the succeeding years, he mastered many arts including medicine, horticulture and even architecture. His two great achievements during this time were to found a hospital and to organise the copying out of 33,000 scrolls of the scriptures to be distributed to various monasteries.

click to enlarge

In 742, a delegation from Japan arrived in China and invited Jiànzhēn to visit their country to re-establish the correct ordination procedure for monks and nuns. Despite the protests of his disciples and supporters, Jiànzhēn accepted the invitation and the next year set out for Japan by ship. Bad navigation and unruly weather forced his ship back to China. Three more times he tried to get to Japan and failed. During the fifth attempt, his ship was blown off-course as far as Hǎinán Island and, in the three years it took him to return home, the rigours of the journey were such that he developed an eye infection and lost his sight. Undeterred by his earlier failures, and despite being blind, he tried to reach Japan yet again and finally succeeded in 753.

He arrived in Nara (奈良), the Japanese capital, and was greeted by the emperor who put him in charge of the great Tōdai-ji Temple (東大寺). Over the next two years, Jiànzhēn trained some 400 monks and then ordained them in the proper manner. After this, Jiànzhēn built a temple for himself where he was to reside and teach until his death in 763. In designing and constructing this temple he introduced to the Japanese architectural techniques unknown to them until that time. He also introduced the art of bonsai (盆栽) and the technique for making soybean curd.
But Jiànzhēn’s greatest gift to the Japanese was pharmacology and medicine. Despite his blindness, he could identify numerous herbs by smell alone, and he was highly skilled in classifying and storing medicines so as to retain their potency. He also corrected the many mistakes in the earlier translations of Chinese medical texts.

I can see immense gaming potential in the above. The player characters could be bodyguards, ambassadors, or fellow monks travelling to Japan with Jiànzhēn. Given the length of the voyages, this scenario seed could evolve into a quasi-sandbox game with minimal railroading, the only constraint being that the PCs must stay with Jiànzhēn at all times.

JIÀNZHĒN
Jiànzhēn is a serene and soft-spoken monk, able to attract large followings even though he looks unassuming. Having spent his formative years in study, Jiànzhēn is rather slight of build. He's always wearing the simple accoutrements of a Buddhist monk, even when travelling, and irrespective of the weather.

STR 11 CON 12 SIZ 8 INT 16 POW 18 DEX 14 APP 13 EDU 18
Hit Points 10 Major Wound 5 Qì 18 Age 55 (first voyage) to 65 (last voyage)

Allegiances
Buddhism 90, Confucianism 10, Daoism 2

Home Region: Lower Yángzi
Profession: Buddhist Monk
Status: 50% in China, 80% in Japan

Damage Bonus: none
Weapons: Unarmed 25%, damage 1D3
Armour: none
Skills: Appraise 15%, Etiquette 30%, Knowledge (Geography: China proper) 50%, Knowledge (Geography: East China Sea) 25%, Knowledge (History: China) 65%, Knowledge (Religion: Buddhism) 95%, Insight 35%, Language (Chinese) 90%, Language (Japanese) 15%, Language (Sanskrit) 70%, Literacy (Classical Chinese) 115%, Literacy (South Asian alphabets) 80%, Meditation 75%, Mêlée Weapon (Staff) 10%, Perform (Recite sūtra) 75%, Perform (Sing) 50%, Persuade 65%, Science (Alchemy) 30%, Science (Architecture) 60%, Science (Natural History) 85%, Sense 80%.

Míng China Discovered America!

This is the claim made by pseudo-historian Gavin Menzies. While I do believe some of the theories he put forward in his first book, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, I think that he's simply kept presenting more and more over-the-top theories in each of his following books.

Irrespective of their historical accuracy, though, his books are great fun to read, if only for the great ideas they provide for an ocean-going role-playing campaign using The Celestial Empire.

This article is about Gavin Menzies, his books, and his theories. As I said, I think it can be a fun source of inspiration, especially if you want to incorporate Fúsāng (扶桑) as a Chinese version of the continent of America in your TCE campaign.

Fantasy Asia

OK, this is from a European perspective, so rather inconsistent with the Chinese bias I've chosen for The Celestial Empire, but it still may be fun, especially if you're leaning on a more 'high fantasy' view of frp.

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville is a 14th century European book describing the fantastical travels of one Jehan de Mandeville through a fictionalised version of South Asia and East Asia. Jehan de Mandeville's version of East Asia features the Christian kingdom of Prester John, and Tartary.

Via Phersu, I have retrieved a nice map of Asia that encompasses all the mythical places visited by Jehan de Mandeville. With little work, it could become a great high fantasy setting for East Asian adventuring.

Suggested gazetteer (using the key from the map):

 - Empire of Prester John. This is a large Christian empire practising Nestorian Christianity (see p39 of TCE). It might have a European-like social structure, in which case the GM should use a 'classic fantasy' or a European sourcebook (e.g., Crusaders of the Amber Coast), or it could have a standard Central Asian society but with a Christian touch.

 - Empire of the Grand Cham of Cathay. This is simply Yuán China as imagined by the Europeans of the time; 'Cham' is a mispronunciation of 'Khan', the title of the ruler of the Mongols. Tartary is Mongolia, Serica is North China, and Mangzhi [sic, this should actually be spelt 蠻子 Mánzi] is South China.

 - the Realm of Gog-Magog (“Here Be Monsters”). This land is separated from the civilised lands to the west by the Iron Wall, a Great Wall of China-like series of fortifications built by Alexander the Great to keep the monsters of Gog-Magog from invading the western lands. These monsters could be goblin-like, should the GM want to add elements of classic fantasy to an East Asian milieu, or they could be drawn from p123-6 of The Celestial Empire. Note that Gog-Magog is probably the inspiration behind the Shadowlands and the Carpenter Wall of the Legend of the Five Rings role-playing game, so you may also use material from that game to set adventures in the Realm of Gog-Magog.

 - Land of Perpetual Darkness (#3, Asia). This is the Forest of Darkness from various Central Asian legends. It holds many wondrous treasures but once one has entered it, it is extremely difficult to leave it. I would place it in Western Siberia (p28 of TCE) rather than in the Caucasus as on the map.

 - Griffon Mountain (#6, Asia). Er, Griffin Mountain.

 - Isle of the Unicorns (#7, Asia). It's actually inhabited by qílín, see p122 of TCE.

 - Vale Perilous (#8, Asia). This is a hidden valley in the Empire of Prester John inhabited by èmó (p116 of TCE), and ruled by mìngmó (p117 of TCE).

 - City of Birds (#9, Asia). This is actually a city of yǔrén (p123 of TCE), mistaken for birds because of their plumage.

 - The Bewitched Hills (#10, Asia). This is a rolling land so agreeable that any traveller arriving here loses any desire to leave it. In gaming terms, on the first day in the Bewitched Hills the traveller must roll his POW vs 13 on the resistance table. In case of failure, he cannot leave the country. In case of success, he may stay or leave, but the roll will be vs 14 on the second day, and so on.

 - The Terrestrial Paradise (#11, Asia). This is actually a huge caldera with a large vent in its centre that gives access to Agartha and to its capital city of Paradesa — the resemblance between the names 'Paradise' and 'Paradesa' could explain the equivocation!

 - Land of the Trees of the Sun and Moon (#12, Asia). According to Chinese mythology, the sun rises from a gigantic mulberry tree, called the Fúsāng 扶桑, in the far east. The sun then follows the leaning branch of the mulberry tree above the earth, up to the far western end of the Kūnlún Mountains, i.e., the Land of the Trees of the Sun and Moon.

 - Dog-Headed Men, Amphibious Men, Horned Men, Giant-Eared Men, etc. (various locations): These sound remarkably similar to the creatures described in the Shānhǎi Jīng (山海經).

[A-Z April Blogging] [Y] Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia

The Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia (Yǒnglè Dàdiǎn 永樂大典) from the early Míng is the largest non-electronic encyclopaedic work of all times.
The writers of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia incorporated 7,000 to 8,000 earlier works, cutting them down into single-themed excerpts, and re-arranging them under single word entries, like a modern encyclopaedia. This was in complete contradiction with earlier standard Chinese practice, which was based on classifying encyclopaedia entries by broad subjects such as language, government, music, etc.
The Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia is named so because it was compiled under the express orders of the Míng Emperor Yǒnglè (永樂). His requirements were that the work should encompass all pre-existing knowledge, that its compilers should not "be afraid" of length, and that no expenses should be spared to purchase the rare Sòng and Yuán manuscripts deemed necessary for the compilation work.
Work itself started in 1403 at Nánjīng University (Nánjīng Guózǐjiàn 南京國子監), and was mostly carried out by unknown scholars with a reputation for vast knowledge, rather than by court scholars. Research work was carried out by over 2,000 literati until 1407, and the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia was finished in 1408. It consisted of 11,095 books, occupying roughly 40 cubic metres. Many of the scholars involved were eventually rewarded with high-profile offices, although some others fell into disgrace.

Because of the sheer size of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia, it wasn't block-printed but hand-copied, with very few copies available. These hand-written copies were lost or displaced by the end of the 16th century. However, many fragments remained available throughout China, as well as many of the earlier works that had been used to compile the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia, and which had been archived in various imperial libraries. It is assumed that the equivalent of 90% of the Encyclopaedia was still extant under the Qīng, who started collecting the fragments in the Hànlín Academy in Běijīng for their own purpose of writing a Qīng-era encyclopaedia. Alas, the Hànlín Academy was destroyed by fire during the looting of Běijīng by Western troops at the end of the Boxer Uprising, and the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia was definitely lost.

Scenario seeds:
- (Míng) The PCs are paid by a scholar involved in the compilation of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia to recover the only version left of a rare Sòng book. They must travel to a remote mansion where the eccentric owner of the manuscript lives, convince him to sell it, and then bring it to Nánjīng. On their way to Nánjīng, a band of outlaws paid by a rival scholar try to steal, or even destroy, the book.
- (Míng) Two ancient texts used to write the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia entry on a rare medicinal plant are contradictory. The PCs must travel to a forlorn place and bring back to Nánjīng, under pain of death, an old Daoist hermit believed to know the definitive answer on the subject. The problem is that the hermit is long dead...
- (Qīng) Emperor Qiánlóng wants his own encyclopaedia! The PCs must travel throughout China to find the missing fragments of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia. This could be the MacGuffin of a larger capaign game with several unrelated episodes set in different cities.
- (Qīng) The Foreign Devils are burning the city! The PCs are a group of devout Confucians who try to save the remaining books of the Yǒnglè Encyclopaedia from the inferno of the Hànlín Academy.

[A-Z April Blogging] [Q] Qelong Valley

The imaginary Qelong Valley in Cambodia is the setting of the upcoming sandbox-like supplement The Valley of the Lost Shell, by Kenneth Hite, for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing game. If you are unfamiliar with LotFP, its supplements specialise in dark, even sinister, fantasy tales approximately set in 16th- or 17th-century Europe. The Valley of the Lost Shell is going to be LotFP's first foray into an Asian-flavoured setting.

click to enlarge

Here is a brief presentation of The Valley of the Lost Shell by Ken Hite himself:
"The Valley of the Lost Shell is a classic 'exploration' adventure, set in a wet, poisoned sandbox. [...]  I see the Qelong Valley as a land of steam, smoke, mist, fog – high grasses and low mangroves, like the Dead Marshes or Beowulf’s fen country. All of this grows not in a placid pastoral Olden Tyme, or even a gently corroded Dark Age, but in the path — or technically on the sidelines — of a great and incomprehensible war. Houses and farms are burned, villagers gaunt and feral. Dogs whine over the carcasses of their masters, then tear out the intestines to feed themselves. Men kill each other for a handful of rice, or for a woman who can be beaten into cooking it. All around, sorcerous echoes and explosions ripple the skies, but as a constant drumbeat of vile thunder, not as anything aimed at anyone in the same country. The Qelong Valley has been poisoned by accident and forgotten by its killers. Only the scavengers remain, and the worms that grow in the corpse.
Magical fallout, the elephant lich, the hundred-mile-long naga, the Lotus Monks, the insect-possessed myrmidons, and so much more... different than anything LotFP has done so far, that's for sure."

Elephant lich? Hundred-mile-long naga? Lotus Monks? Colour me interested :-)

PCs as Marks

I have noticed that gamers were often very gullible. They expect so much from the GM in terms of adventure hooks that they are ready to 'bite' at the first opportunity. Myself included :)

I have hence thought of listing here a few ideas for confidence tricks in which the PCs are the 'marks' (victims of the con scheme). Unfortunately, I haven't devised any of these — if I had, I would be now living in some remote villa on the Mediterranean coast, and not in snow-covered Paris — they are from the Wikipedia.

I won't re-write the contents of the Wikipedia article, just jot down a few ideas to make them fit into a TCE game.

Salting
In Imperial China, mines were usually government-owned property, and only the government (or its subcontractors) could engage in the trade of metals, salts, etc. As a consequence, no sane person would ever buy a mine from a con artist.
However, rich collectors or traders could be interested in a piece of land with rare herbs or medicinal plants. 'Salting' the piece of land would simply involve planting the rare vegetable and then pretend it is native to the area.

Spanish Prisoner
There are many possible ideas for this particular con scheme. Here is one, that would particularly fit in a Qīng-era game. The con artist approaches the PCs and explains them that a British opium smuggler has been jailed in Canton; the Lǎowài is to have his head cut off in two weeks' time. His relatives are immensely wealthy and are ready to pay a huge sum to get him out of prison and save his life. However, it will take more than two weeks to get the money from India, where they reside. In the meanwhile, the PCs should pay the necessary bribe to the warders; they will be returned ten times its amount as soon as the ship with the money arrives.

Romance Scam
Romances usually do not play a major role in role-playing games (alas). It will be hence difficult for the GM to involve any one of his players in such a con scheme, unless the latter like their PCs to go to brothels, tea houses, etc., There, they could meet a prostitute who promises one of the PCs that he could marry her if only he could buy back her freedom. This could go on and on as new hurdles would always appear.

Fortune Telling Fraud
Fortune-tellers were numerous in Imperial China, of all classes and persuasions (see TCE, p49-55). As with the Romance Scam, there is little probability the PCs would spontaneously consult a fortune-teller. Here's an interesting variant, however: the PCs find a precious ancient sword in a treasure. Somehow, a con artist disguised as a fortune-teller (or even a genuine fortune-teller) cons the PCs into believing that the sword is cursed and must be destroyed. The rest is as per the Wikipedia article.

Badger Game
This can be hilariously played upon unsuspecting gamers. The nicer the PCs, the better. One of the PCs could be a travelling healer, intent on curing people afflicted by some natural or magical malady. Or a monster hunter, looking for a Hànbá or similar disaster-bringing creature. In one of the villages where the party stops, a woman feigns to be afflicted by the illness the PCs are trying to remove. She invites the healer/monster hunter in her home, and undresses to show her wounds. At that exact moment, the angry brothers and male cousins of the female con artist suddenly come in. The 'mark' is then forced into marrying the woman.

Random Adventure Generator

Over at my other gaming blog, I have posted about using one's bookshelves (and a few dice) as elements of a Random Adventure Generator.

Go over to my other blog and read the full entry if you are interested, but basically the idea is to randomy choose keywords within your various gaming (or non-gaming) books to fill in the blank spaces of a common pattern describing a possible frp adventure.

Depending on the diversity of the books used, the resulting sentence can be a sensible adventure hook, or a super-gonzo, multi-genre crazy scenario seed.

I have decided to use the Random Adventure Generator to generate such a scenario seed for The Celestial Empire. However, I have also decided to restrict the book base to my East Asian-themed books, so as to respect the setting of TCE.

The resulting adventure is as follows:
Charles-Édouard Hocquard asks the Player Characters to go to Hǎilóng (in Liáoníng) to retrieve a dictionary. The PCs will end up fighting against Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Shāndōng. During the course of the adventure, gold and jade will feature prominently.

The only "gonzo" element here is that French military doctor Charles-Édouard Hocquard was stationed in Indochina at the end of the 19th century, whereas Toyotomi Hideyoshi was active at the end of the 16th century...

Free Adventure

Well, not from me, sorry.

I have already mentioned RuneQuest 6. It is the latest incarnation of the original RuneQuest rules, which gave birth to the Basic Role-Playing (BRP) system back in the 80s. And of course you know that The Celestial Empire uses BRP as its 'engine'.

Now the earlier version of RQ6 was called Mongoose RuneQuest II, which was re-released as Legend after Mongoose lost the licence to using the 'RuneQuest' name. There are many non-Gloranthan settings available for the Legend game, and one of these settings is called Samurai of Legend and lets you play in Heian Japan.

Mongoose has just made available on DriveThruRPG a free scenario for Samurai of Legend, which is really good. From the blurb:

Beneath and Opal Moon is an introductory scenario for Samurai of Legend characters. It takes place in an isolated village in a southern Honshu province and is designed for between three and five characters, which can be samurai, sōhei, a mixture of the two and include a priest.
The scenario should provide a couple of strong sessions of play and produce ideas for future adventures.

You can download the scenario and play it as is (Legend and TCE are highly compatible, as are all D100-based role-playing games), or you can adapt it to your Imperial Chinese campaign game with the following suggestions. Note: do not read the following if you are a player, as it contains spoilers.

 - Set the adventure in Táng China— because of the nobility.
 - Set the adventure in South China— because of the rice fields.
 - Rename the families; Sakoda becomes Xīguō, Taira becomes Píng. Both are aristocratic families.
 - sōhei (僧兵) are Japanese Buddhist warrior-monks with no Chinese equivalent; still, you can use the Buddhist Monk profession from p49 of TCE.
 - kami (神) are Japanese nature spirits, again without any Chinese equivalent. For the scope of this adventure, however, the local kami can be replaced with the Village God (土地公 Tǔdì Gōng) and his wife, Earth Grandmother (土地婆 Tǔdì Pó). The Chinese Village God also has a shrine, like the Japanese kami, which is central to the religious life of the small community.
 - rokuro-kubi (轆轤首) are human-looking yāomó that feed on live human flesh during the night. The GM can stat the rokuro-kubi using the stats of the èmó (p116 of TCE) with the following modification: INT 3D6, and with the following demonic features: Extensible neck (the neck can extend and the head can attack up to several metres around the creature, delivering a bite attack), and Regeneration at level 3 efficiency (p159 of BRP), or he can simply use the stats provided with the adventure. A description of the standard rokuro-kubi (without the detachable head and guts form) can be found here.
 - A mujina (貉) is a sort of huòmó (p118 of TCE), except that her victim loses INT instead of CON characteristic points. The mujina in the adventure is quite intelligent (INT 14), much more so than the average huòmó.
 - The fact that placing blood in a kami shrine would pollute it is a typical Japanese belief; however similar beliefs did exist in ancient China. The GM may either keep the same incident, or devise another one (the statue of the Village God has been broken, or refuse has placed on his altar, or a piece of his golden ingot has been chipped away...).
 - Wandering Shinto Priest — to be replaced with a travelling Daoist monk. He's on a pilgrimage to Mount Qíyūn, one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Daoism.
 - gaki (餓鬼) is the Japanese form of the Chinese word èguǐ (p125 of TCE).
 - Replace the Lore (Shinto) skill tests with Knowledge (Religion [Daoism]) skill tests.
 - Replace Purity with Daoist Allegiance.
 - The Wild Man can be healed by the spirit of Tǔdì Pó or, as written in the adventure, by his wife's poetry or through a long period of spiritual healing in a Buddhist monastery.

Pirate Campaign Write-Up

I have already mentioned a Celestial Empire play-by-post game that has been going on on rpg.net. It is run by Asen_G.
The very same Asen is kindly sharing the introduction and the summary of another Celestial Empire game he’s currently running.
I find it very interesting because it mixes derring-do adventuring with both historical and supernatural elements, thereby showing how diverse and varied China-themed role-playing can be.

1674, near China
A single pirate ship atacks two traders. The attackers feel well-justified, as it turns out there are many martial arts masters among them! The Qing dynasty has chased many Han (and Hakka, and Hui...) from their homes, what with crushing the rebellions. Among them, many martial artists have joined not only Jianghu, but also the criminal underworld.
Just as the sailors start surrendering, the trap springs! People with caracteristic signs and skill of caravan guards start jumping from below the decks. It's time for the pirates to go back.
However, seeing his men going down when confronting some of the pirates, their leader bellows an order and issues a challenge. The pirate captain declines, having his scalp split during the fight, and the blood obscuring his vision. So he designates his first mate.
The battle doesn't last three steps, really... at least, not three steps after they pass from the traditional attempts to shame the opponent into submission.
First, the old master swings upward. His opponent parries, buying the illusion and readying himself to exploit the opportunity for a counterattack.
The old master releases his sabre's handle, and just continues his move forward. When his palm comes into contact with the chest of Li Hoi San, the Korean renegade-general, the current pirate is thrown backwards.
And then the old master's face changes, as he looks at the arrow sticking from his throat. He falls over Li's frame, spraying blood everywhere. An woman who was just shouting encouragements moments before, has pulled out a hand crossbow.
The situation is resolved quickly and with no more bloodshed after that. Having lost their commander, the caravan guards agree to stop the fight, and leave one of the ships to the victors. There is nothing of value on them — they were set up as traps and nothing else — but at least it is a ship. Should the pirates have fought on, the battle could have claimed a great toll on the pirates. So in the end both sides have shown reason – and both sides have thought that it would be different next time.
The captain is happy for a few days. In the closest port, he manages to sell off the ships (bribing the officials as needed), and picks up a few colourful characters. One of them was a student of an unorthodox master, and only seems to show visible interest in killing. The other one is a joyful girl with a spear and an attitude that won't endear her to any strict Confucians.
Luckily, overly strict Confucians do not abound on pirate ships...
They also take in a Daoist monk and his companion — obviously a courtesan — as passengers to Taiwan. That is their next destination, since the captain has received a prophecy last night in the pleasure house. The prophecy spoke about opportunity to get rich and famous there — and that's where the monk is headed as well.

⁂

The morning before their departure, Fan Meili, pirate and member of the White Lotus, notices a man with the clothes of a magistrate. Problem is, he was at an inn! Why isn't he in the yámen?
Her curiosity picked, she sits down and orders tea. Nobody recognises the sharpshooter from the naval battle days ago.
As it turns out, magistrate Yuan has "special orders", whatever that means. He also asks about some girl — and after one of his informers disappoints him, his guards (hired guards, she can notice — something else that does not fit) brutalise the man.
She leaves immediately and goes to the ship. As far as she can tell, nobody has followed her.

⁂

The ship has only recently departed when a tornado moved towards her. There is already a boat it has swiped from the water. Worse, it moves right after their ship irrespective of her manoeuvres, as if directed...
Almost everybody has relinquished hope and resigned themselves to a future bath, when the courtesan Liu Xiulang suggests using a piece of fireworks against the tornado. Fan Meili shots it and manages to hit the tornado close to its centre.
Obviously that is too much for the storm-spirit, because the tornado dissipates.
Two of the three people in the 'flying' ship even survive. One of them is a woman, and the other one is a fisherman that she has hired. The woman turns out to be Hua, a famous master of the bow (and some say, half-Korean— but never said it to her face).
It turns out that she has heard of the battle. And she wants to see Fan Meili. A quick competition later, it turns out Fan is not up to task in her book — hitting a piece of wood wasn't a problem. Shooting your bow while standing at the top of the mast and hitting a piece of wood was. Well, not for Hua.
As they arrive to Taiwan, two things become obvious. First, the captain has taken an interest in the courtesan. Second, her current employer is unfazed by this.
So after arranging formalities, the captain goes to his cabin — and not alone. The monk has already left, and the crew disembarks to get their own fun.
A couple of hours later, the courtesan is no longer there, but the captain is dead, with one of Hua's arrows through his chest. Luckily, Fan Meili manages to prove to the angry sailors that Hua has nothing to do with it — the captain has been poisoned earlier, and the arrow has been sticked in later.
The tea the captain and the courtesan have been drinking isn't poisoned, however, except what little remained in his cup. The perpetrator remains unknown.
The next day, they have to pick a new captain!
Most crew members support the first mate but the new spearwoman also presents her candidature.
A duel follows, with the two of them duelling. This time, Li Hoi San lasts much longer, and manages to win, albeit not unwounded! Clearly, the old master simply was too good for him.
After the second cut, Li Baozhai surrenders. The Korean congratulates her skills, and offeres her a place in the crew, and promises her advancement opprtunities.
She accepts.

⁂

That very evening, Li Hoi San decides to settle some old debts in Korea. To this end, he hires a couple new warriors, including a Han woman with a Sun-Moon spear and Sun-Moon blades on her sides. She is accompanied by her friends, both of them Barbarians — a long-nosed one, and a southern one from some islands in the ocean. In a fit of drunken honesty, Li promises them to help them as they help him — whatever their heart wish is, since his is to punish his disciple who has betrayed him.
The long-nosed Barbarian does not accept, but the other two do, which prompts a long scene of separation. But sometimes, friendship and even love have to step aside. Li isn't the only one with unsettled debts, the woman makes clear.
After that, they contact the local criminals, who want a smuggler ship captured, and are ready to go.

⁂

And then the adventure REALLY begins!
Ships are captured, sold, and re-fitted for piracy. Enemies are made, both human and supernatural. Couples (and love triangles, and a pentagram...) are formed and broken — or cut.
Li Hoi San gets his revenge. Korea receives a new king, who promises to abandon the practice of using hopping dead under sorcerous control as cheap labour and soldiers.
No doubt, this makes the Celestial bureaucracy happy. And Wen Xiaofan, as the last heir of Ming (who used a Sun-Moon weapons for a reason!) was even happier at having secured the help of Korea.
Mystics are contacted, their words studied, and their errands followed. Masters are found, and asked for teachings — or challenged. Numerous battles fought, and only Li Hoi San has lost his hand — but arranging the deal between the student of a martial arts master and a fox spirit, serves as payment for giving him a new hand. And they only have to run once, maybe twice.
Even a dragon has been defeated — although it is a human-made one. Some demons don't attract as much attention.
And then, near the fall of the tumultous year, a Korean army consisting mostly of freed slaves, is ready to join the anti-Qing rebellion in China.
Where will the story go?
Who knows?

Most of the players in this game don't post in RPG-related blogs. But if you want to know more about this campaign game, the GM (Асен Сварталфар) can be contacted relatively easily; he can be found on RPG.net posting under the nickname Asen_G, or through his e-mail address: asen.georgiev1980 [at] abv.bg.

Brocade Guards (Jǐnyī Wèi 錦衣衛)

I haven't posted for a long time because I'm pretty busy these days. I tend to try and favour personal research for my Celestial Empire posts, so I'd rather keep quiet for a while than post uninteresting stuff.

However I really feel I have to post something now. Posting about the Brocade Guards (Jǐnyī Wèi 錦衣衛) of the Míng emperors has been on my to-do list for quite some time now. Unfortunately I really haven't been able to do any personal research, so the following is mostly a summary from the Wikipedia.

The Jǐnyī Wèi (錦衣衛; literally "Brocade-Clad Guard") was the imperial military secret police of the Chinese emperors of the Míng Dynasty and were bound to serving the emperor only, and to taking orders from him only. The Jǐnyī Wèi was founded by the Hóngwǔ Emperor in 1368 to serve as his personal bodyguards and it developed into a military organisation the following year. They were authorised to overrule judicial proceedings in prosecutions, with full autonomy granted in arresting, interrogating and punishing anyone, including nobles and the emperor's relatives.

The Jǐnyī Wèi were also tasked with collecting military intelligence on the enemy and participated in battle planning stages. A Brocade Guard donned a distinctive golden-yellow uniform, with a tablet (pictured) worn on his torso, and carried a special blade weapon.

In 1393, the Hóngwǔ Emperor curtailed the Brocade Guards' powers after they allegedly abused their authority during the investigation of a rebellion plot, in which about 40,000 people were implicated and executed. When the Yǒnglè Emperor ascended to the throne, he was afraid that his subjects might be discontented with him, because he came to power by usurping his nephew's throne. He reinstated the Brocade Guards' authority to increase his control over the imperial court.

In the later years of the Míng Dynasty, the Brocade Guards were placed under the control of the eunuch faction. As the government sank into corruption, the Jǐnyī Wèi was constantly used as a means of eliminating political opponents through assassinations and legal prosecution.

The Jǐnyī Wèi was eventually disbanded by the Qīng in 1644.

The Jǐnyī Wèi feature prominently in fiction set in the Míng. The 2010 film 14 Blades focuses on the adventures of a group of ninja-like Brocade Guards.

Scenario seed: Both a judge and his retainers, and a grup of brocade guards are after a corrupt official. The former want to arrest and publicly try him, the latter simply want to eliminate him. The PCs are in either group and must fight both the corrupt official's bodyguards and the other party.
Alternatively, two groups of PCs could compete with each other (this would need two GMs).

Agartha (cont'd)

My post about the mythical subterranean Asian kingdom of Agartha ended up as one of the most viewed of my blog — which confirms the general fascination with "Hollow Earth"-themed fiction.

I have found further information about Agartha on the excellent Penny Dreadful wiki:

Agartha is an ancient kingdom in either Sri Lanka or Tibet (travellers are not sure which, for reasons which are explained below). The kingdom, which may be mythical, would seem to have a strange effect on outsiders: they either do not notice it as they travel through it, or they forget about it once they have seen it. There are many rumours about Agartha, however. It is said that its capital, Paradesa, holds the University of Knowledge, where the occult and spiritual treasures of mankind are guarded. The capital also is home to an enormous gilded throne which is said to be decorated with the figures of two million gods, and it is further rumoured that their combined good spirits are what hold the world together; if they are angered by a mortal, their wrath will descend upon the world, drying the seas and smashing the mountains into deserts. Finally, it is said that Agartha holds the world's largest library of stone books, and that strange fauna inhabit the kingdom, including sharp-toothed birds and six-footed turtles as well as the natives, who are born with forked tongues. The guardians of Agartha are the Templars of Agartha, a small but powerful army.

Agartha

The Celestial Empire is targeted at historic or semi-historic games, or at least at campaigns consistent with Chinese literature, myth and legend.

Yet the recent piece of news published on the technology weblog Gizmodo about a 300 million year-old forest that has been discovered under a coal mine in Inner Mongolia has spurred me to write this short post about a "Hollow Earth"-themed campaign game. The "Hollow Earth" hypothesis, which posits that the Earth is hollow and that it contains a prehistoric or otherwise ancient world in its interior, does not appear in Chinese literature, myth or legend at all; on the contrary, it is a staple of Western occult. However, given the interest of many Western occultists for all things Tibetan, it could well fit in a TCE campaign, albeit an over-the-top one.

The idea is for the GM to have the players stumble upon the entrance within a cave for the subterranean kingdom of Agartha, which is ruled by an ancient lineage of über mysterious lamas and/or inhabited by Asura (see p123 of TCE).
Agartha would have lush prehistoric forests, strangely-coloured lakes, and obviously prehistoric animals (dinosaurs and Pleistocene mammals), which would provide some tough opposition to the player characters!

The subterranean kingdom of Agartha might or might not be connected with the underground City of Ghosts (Fēngdū), which could spell further trouble for the player characters...

春節快樂!

Happy new year! The year of the Metal Rabbit is ending today, and the year of the Water Dragon starts tomorrow!

The Chinese New Year is the occasion for all Chinese to tidy up their homes, throw out old objects, buy new shoes and new clothes, and, most importantly, to remove the worn-out pictures of the Door Gods and to replace them with brand new shiny ones. See also p13 of The Celestial Empire.

The two pictures of the Door Gods (ménshén 門神) are placed on each side of the main entrance to the Chinese home and stand guard there for a full year to keep away evil spirits. The pictures face each other — it is considered bad luck to place them back-to-back.

Scenario Seed: Save the New Year!
The characters are resting in the city of [city name] before the Spring Festival. They are in the city magistrate's employ, or owe him a favour. They are summoned to the city yámén in the night before New Year's Day by a close retainer of the city magistrate. This is very unusual, since even civil servants are supposed to be off duty and celebrating with their family on New Year.
The magistrate receives them in casual dress... this is even more intriguing. He explains them that the situation is so urgent that he forgot about behaving properly. May Confucius forgive his misbehaviour. The whole stock of Door Gods prints that the city printer had prepared for distribution the next day has been stolen! The characters must absolutely find a solution or the whole city will go in panic mode once the disappearance of the good luck-bringing posters becomes public!

The characters may suggest...

• that the printer re-print a batch of Door Gods pictures. This is impossible because there's not enough paper left.
• that the magistrate buy a batch of pictures from another printer. This is impossible because the closest is in the next city, which is one day travel from their city.

Possible courses of action: the PCs could try and find paper somewhere (didn't that Buddhist abbot want to print out the Dàzàngjīng?), or they could try and a find a means to travel faster (isn't there a Daoist hermit in the mountains who can travel 500 lǐ in a day?). The best idea, however, would be retracing the thief. He's currently on the river bank, waiting for a boat that will take him to a city downstream where he's planning to sell the images.

Possible consequences should the PCs fail: Panic spreads through the city. Ne'er-do-wells and thieves take advantage of it to commit burglaries. The following days, having had word of the situation, brigands raid the city. In a campaign game with supernatural elements, the city could even fall prey to demons or yāoguài.

Using LotFP supplements with TCE - Tower of the Stargazer

This module (blurb here) is a stand-alone adventure that can be easily ported to The Celestial Empire. It must be set under the Míng or under the Qīng. If set under the Míng, then it must be set at the beginning of the Míng so that the Stargazer was active under the Yuán. If set under the Qīng, then it must be set at the end of the 18th century so that the Stargazer was active at the end of the 17th century.

The rationale behind these time frames is the major astronomic advances that happened under the Yuán because of the presence of Arab and Persian astronomers. Likewise, there were major astronomic advances at the end of the 17th century thanks to the Jesuit missionaries present at the court of the Kāngxī Emperor.

The rest of this post is hidden because of major spoilers that it contains.

As suggested on p5 of the module, the tower should be placed away from any settlements, possibly in the mountains — which is by the way the most logical place to build an observatory.

Page 9: The dead thief is actually a dead bandit, famous in the Rivers and Lakes.
Page 10, Sitting Room: It's obviously rice wine, not grape wine.
Page 11, Sitting Room: It is the statue of a vixen lady embracing a mandarin.
Page 13, Head Servant's Quarters: His name was Tái Ānruì
Page 14, Wizard's Quarters: His name is Shěn Yùruì
Page 15: The reward is 10 gold taels. More generally, use the 10gp=1 gold tael equivalence throughout the module.
Page 17: Shěn Yùruì is a very powerful (POW 18) Daoist magician. Just make sure he has plenty of offensive spells.
Page 21, Library: The books in the library are written in Arabic if the adventure is set at the beginning of the Míng; they are written in Latin if it is set at the end of the 18th century.
Page 22, The Ghost: obviously it will be a game of go (wéiqí)
Page 23, Eldritch Library: The books in the library are written in Classical Chinese, with many unusual Daoist versions of the characters (-25% to read, unless the reader is himself a member of a Daoist sect). The scrolls will contain Daoist spells, possibly gǔ sorcery spells.
Pages 24-25, Workshop and Telescope: the book on the podium is written in Arabic/Latin (depending on the era).
Page 28, Trap Room: the POT of the spider poison is 13.

Pseudohistory

China and the Chinese pop up in pseudohistory. They may not pop up as often as the Egyptians or the Atlanteans, but what they lack in presence they make up in solidity. I certainly do not pay much heed to works of pseudohistory or cryptohistory, but some of them do contain disturbing evidence.

Land masses east of China are present in pre-1492 European maps rumoured to have been copied from Chinese originals. The 1475 Martellus map, for instance, shows a large land mass very similar to South America east of mainland China.

Gavin Menzies uses many more of these troubling facts to claim that Zhèng Hé's fleet reached the Americas. Although his book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World does not resist scientific scrutiny, it is great fun reading, and it surely makes for a great campaign setting for The Celestial Empire: imagine that the player characters participate in one of Zhèng Hé's voyages and embark on a long trip round the world!

Other disturbing references in ancient Chinese manuscripts would point to the mythical eastern island continent of Fúsāng being the same as America. But more on that in a separate post!

Using LotFP supplements with TCE - The Tower

The Tower is a short Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP) adventure from issue No.4 of Green Devil Face, LotFP's in-house magazine. As with most LotFP adventures, it presents a lonely location to be used by the GM as he sees fit. In my particular case, that would be in Imperial China, and using The Celestial Empire!

The rest of this post is hidden because of major spoilers that it contains.

The Tower is a mansion, not necessarily a day's journey from civilisation, but maybe 2-3 hours from the centre of the closest town/village, or in its most ancient part. The architecture is clearly from the previous dynasty, or even older. The mansion is, however, absolutely shunned by the locals.

The thing guarding the door of the mansion needn't be a monster if the setting doesn't contemplate them. It could be a tall, foreign guard, who doesn't speak Chinese.

The door can be kept the same. After all, metamorphs abound in Chinese legends.

First Level: The statues are those of female immortals (xiān); their rhymes refer to a magical lofty kingdom in the abodes of the Immortals, or to a fiefdom within a Dragon kingdom in a nearby river/lake.

Fourth Level: The people who put the woman to sleep are not wizards but some kind of foreign-looking priests. The glyphs within the thaumaturgic circle are undecipherable ancient and/or foreign-looking characters, even for scholarly PCs.

How It Happens: Instead of meeting a knight, the characters meet the wealthy but low-status son of a merchant who dreams of marrying the Beloved Daughter of the Dragon Kind (or some other bombastic title), even if it means leaving this stupid material world behind. His retainers are obviously men from the Rivers and Lakes...

The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu

I have just finished reading this novel, and it has given me a nice idea for a scenario, or even for a fully-fledged campaign set under the Qīng. The book is set circa 1910, but by moving the action a few years back into the past, it can remain within the time frame of The Celestial Empire.

The idea is to play the plot of The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu the other way round: the player characters are agents of Dr. Fu-Manchu who want to give the Foreign Devils a taste of their own medicine. They are smuggled to London, where they must murder evil Foreign Devils or abduct brilliant Western chemists or engineers and coerce them into working for Dr. Fu-Manchu, typically by kidnapping and threatening the relatives of the unwilling scientist.

Typical player characters would be: assassin-retainers, as the Doctor's personal retainers; former magistrates, who have witnessed the crimes of the Foreign Devils and who have not been allowed to try them because of extraterritoriality; martial artists opposing foreign imperialism and Christianity; defrauded comprador merchants seeking compensation through revenge; outlaws, such as members of xenophobic secret societies; scholars spurred by patriotism to helping Dr. Fu-Manchu; humiliated soldiers with an old score to settle.

Special challenges for Chinese characters in a Western land include: inferior armament, the language barrier, the impossibility of blending into the local populace, lack of access to supernatural aid...

Just like in the novel, the characters in the employ of Dr. Fu-Manchu would be well-advised to base their operations in the East End of London, which at the turn of the century was a poorly policed area with labyrinthine alleys and a large immigrant population.