The Trigram Chronicles #6

'Along the River During the Qingming Festival'

Braving traps and ambush in the old mine, our heroes save the Sword Sister from prison

Confronting General Yen at Qingming, our heroes take their revenge in blood

The next morning our heroes (see PC profiles here) awoke to find Yang and Liu already up, and working to help the Two Elders cook breakfast. After the meal, Feng, the Old Man of Lushan, declared that he would teach Yang and Liu his kung fu - having observed their contest with the other banes the day before, he had concluded that our heroes lack the aptitude to master another one of the Trigram kung fu styles. Our heroes parted ways with Yang and Liu, and made plans to rendezvous with them in three months.

On their way back to Tongling, our heroes came to take a rest at a teahouse. Here they observe two men playing a game of weiqi in a nearby table. One was dressed in the clothes of a scholar, while the other one wore the clothes of a labourer. His curiosity piqued, Wu approached the table to observe the game, and found that they two were highly skilled players, but the labourer was losing the game. Presently the labourer began to accuse the scholar of cheating, and the scholar laughed the accusation off in good nature. The labourer turned to Wu and asked his opinion, to which Wu replied: the wise player knows when to quit. The labourer then conceded the game, and grab the cup of wine offered by the scholar. As he did so some of the wine spilled out of the cup, and where the spilled wine landed on the table it began to burn through the wood. Unfazed, the labourer downed the wine in a single gulp, but suffered no ill effect.

The scholar then introduced himself to our heroes: he was the Jade-faced Scholar, the chief of the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan. The labourer was his deputy The Brute, and they were having the usual bet: if The Brute lost the game, he would have to drink a poison concocted by the Scholar - the Scholar enjoyed creating new poisons, while The Brute enjoyed proving his ability to resist all poisons. The other Banes now entered the teahouse, and the Scholar bade all to sit around a large table. When all had been seated, he made a proposal to our heroes: with the Two Elders now in seclusion and the Two Emissaries dead, the Twelve Banes were now down to eight - would our heroes join them and bring the number up to Twelve again? While they had been working for General Yen, the Scholar had decided now to align himself with the Ming rebels, and hope that the heroes' relationship with Prince Gui would allow them a chance to gain positions of power in the new government when the rebellion wins. Our heroes were reluctant to join the criminals, but found it hard to refuse them, until Wu asked to be allowed to defer the decision to after they had taken their revenge on General Yen. Satisfied with that reply, the Banes left,

When they arrived back to Tongling, our heroes learned that the leader of the Sword Sisters had been arrested by the Qing. General Zhuo, who had been appointed by General Yen to replace General Yu, had closed the city gates and threatened to execute one woman from every household in the city if the Sword Sisters did not surrender themselves. Duan, the leader of the Sword Sisters, surrendered herself. The city gates were opened, and most of the womenfolk in the city fled to the countryside afterwards.

Our heroes resolved to rescue Duan. Through his contacts in the Beggar Sect, Wang learned that Duan was not kept at the city prison, but had been transported to a secret prison located in an abandoned copper mine outside the city. Taking the guises of the merchants who supplied food to the guards and prisoners at the secret prison, our heroes drugged the food, and when the guards had fallen asleep from the effect of the drug, entered the old mine.

Inside, they followed torches set at intervals along the walls of the mine shaft inwards. They found that the deeper chambers of the mine had been turned into prison cells, and that several prisoners were being held there, all fast asleep from the drug in the food. In the innermost cell was Duan, trapped beneath an iron cage.

Our heroes opened the cell doors with the keys they took from the drugged guards, but as Soong dragged one of the prisoners out he realised that the man was heavier than he expected for a prisoner. At the same time, Wang realised that prison lacked the stench of a normal one. Soong kicked the prisoner, who instantly woke up and readied himself to fight: it was a trap! A portcullis dropped over the cell where Duan was held, trapping Zhang inside, while at the same time the lights went out, and the prisoners exited their cells and started to attack Soong, Wang, and Wu.

But the darkness was not the only obstacle our heroes faced, as there were flame and spike traps in the corridors. After a hard fight, our heroes freed Duan, and together they fled the prison. For his heroism, Duan relieved Wu of his vow to disable his kung fu, and instead made him swear to not pass it on.

Months passed as our heroes laid low, until they once again reunited with Yang and Liu. Together, they studied and practised their kung fu, such that by the time spring came, they had learned the weakness of General Yen's kung fu.

And so when the Qingming Festival approached, our heroes were ready to exact their vengeance. The Sword Sisters had learned of the location of General Yen's parents' tomb, and our heroes resolved to ambush him there, when he was expected to be accompanied by few guards.

Sure enough, came the day when the General came to worship at his parents' tomb, he left the two dozen men in his retinue at the foot of the hill with his mount, taking only two bodyguards with him. Our heroes laid in ambush, and when he had completed the rites of worship, sprung their attack by throwing missiles at the general. General Yen dodged the attacks. Immediately one of the bodyguards drew a bamboo tube from his sleeve and tugged at a string at one end, sending a signal flare into the sky - the guards at the foot of the hill would arrive in under twenty minute.

Our heroes charged into combat. Yang and Liu drew the bodyguards away from Yen, while our heroes surrounded Yen. Beset on four sides, the general found it impossible to defend against the flurry of blows from our heroes. During a lull in the fighting, he tried to convince them to join him in service of the Qing court, but our heroes would not relent. The general fought on valiantly, but by the time the guards came into view they were only in time to see him fall. The six heroes disappeared into the woods surrounding the tomb, and were seen no more.

Prepping and Running the Game

So concluded our short wuxia campaign.

By the end of the last session I thought that we had gone through most of the tropes of the genre, with only the final boss fight to play. I had some trouble coming up with material to fill the session until then, but once again this blog came to my rescue.

I decided to place a dungeon into the session, and to plant some traps in it, utilising some of the dungeon trappings models FG and I had. The players of course knew they were walking into a trap when I put the map onto the table, but nevertheless the fight was quite fun.

The final boss fight was tactically less interesting, I made the (possibly wrong) decision of using the two party NPCs to tie up Yen's bodyguards, essentially reducing the fight to a four PCs vs one NPC fight. The fight was static, with Yen surrounded on four sides by the PCs. As luck would have it three of the PCs were ahead of Yen in the initiative order, with Soong, the PC with the highest damage output going after. Each round saw Yen fending off the attacks from the three PCs, retaliating and wounding perhaps two of them, before being struck and wounded by Soong. This was not tactically interesting, but as we were all into the trope, we saw it was the three PCs occupying Yen's attention and drawing his attacks to allow Soong to land his blows. This interpretation was made more real when Wang and Zhang took so much damage that they were worried about being knocked out of the fight, with Wang using his kung fu to block damage inflicted on Zhang, and Wang having to spend Qi points to gain temporary hit points to stay in the fight. Now per the stats in the rules Yen would have been able to outlast the PCs, but I decided to reduce his hit points so the fight would not drag out, and have him fall at a dramatic moment.

All in all I would say this was a fun campaign that allowed us to indulge in the tropes of the genre. The combat rules were sufficiently crunchy to give each PC a different combat style, although it did also mean that the GM had to spend some time designing the NPC opposition to make the combats interesting.

While the genre was a fun to play, it is not one that I see us playing for long term or repeatedly. I am interested however in playing a gun-fu version of the rules, maybe a short campaign set in the John Wick universe, where the villain will also be played by Donnie Yen.

We will take a break from our usual campaigns this month and next as I have some work commitments and some of the players will be traveling. Instead we plan to play a series of one-shots, with Dave (and hopefully Dzaki) each taking a session, while I am aiming to run three sessions open to members on our Meetup group.

Addendum: I found out that DwD Studios actually has a set of Espionage/Paramilitary RPG rules called Covert Ops based on the same engine. Looks like it is on...

The Trigram Chronicles #5

Lushan in winter

Daring rescue in Tongling; our heroes save four from the blade of the executioner

Travel to Lushan to seek the Two Elders; our heroes face four of the twelve Banes
 

For half a month our heroes recuperated from their injuries at a house in Tongling, under the protection of the Sword Sisters. Then one morning, when Zhang, Soong, and Wu (see PC profiles here) were well enough to be out, they learned that the magistrate had announced that the four assassins who have murdered General You had been caught and would be executed at the city square at noon that day.

The three heroes went to the city square, where a small crowd had started gathering around a stage set up for the execution. Here, Soong noticed that they were being stalked by two men, whom he accosted. It turned out to be Yang Shou and Liu Zheng, two of the thugs they had defeated and sent home a few months earlier. Hearing of the news of general You's assassination, the two had decided to find our heroes and pledge their services to fight against the Qing. Our heroes accepted the two's offer, and gave them instructions to meet them outside the city.

The Sword Sisters warned our heroes that this was likely a trap laid by the Qing, but our heroes would not let four innocent men die for their actions, and so they decided to rescue the prisoners.

The city square was packed even before the hour of noon. Soong surveyed the crowd and noted that several men in plain clothes were watching the crowd more than they were watching the stage set up for the execution - this was indeed a trap! At the appointed hour three men and a woman, all of whom did not know kung fu by their movement, were marched onto the stage. The magistrate, a known corrupt official, strutted onto the stage... but before he could give the order to the executioner, Wu, hidden in a nearby building, threw a needle into this eye, killing him instantly!

The crowd began to panic as the soldiers tried to keep order. A troop of soldiers led the prisoners away from the square, but they were ambushed in an alley by our heroes, who defeated them in short order and set the prisoners free.

Returning to the Sword Sisters' house, our heroes learned that the last of the set of scrolls were known to be last held by the Two Elders of Lushan, who were the founders of the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan. Now during the reign of Emperor Tianqi, when the corrupt eunuch Wei Zhongxian held much power, famines and natural disasters resulted in much lawlessness in the lands south of the Yangtze. It was then that the Two Elders of Lushan, then know as the Jiangnan Chivalrous Couple, rallied a band of ten other martial artists and their followers to keep order and dispense justice in the region. However as their numbers increased they found it hard to maintain and keep order in their band of followers, who turned to extortion to sustain themselves, such that in time they were known as the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan. Disillusioned, the two retired to Reed Forest Lake in Lushan, leaving control of the band to the others.

Our heroes met up with Yang and Liu, and together they journeyed westwards to Lushan. Near the foothills of Lushan they learned from the villagers that the Two Elders still lived in a hut in the middle of Reed Forest Lake in the mountains, where they had supplies sent to them every month. Our heroes purchased a boat and some wine and meat, which Yang and Liu carried as the party ascended the mountain. Now even in those days Lushan was known for its scenery, and along the path to the lake were rocks carved with the calligraphy of famous poets from the previous dynasties, but our heroes had little time to tarry and appreciate these.

As they passed through a snow-covered bamboo forest on their way, they were ambushed by black-cladded swordsmen hiding among the bamboo and in pits dug into the ground, whom they defeated. It was thus that they knew their arrival was anticipated, and this was confirmed when they arrived at the shore of Reed Forest Lake, for across the ice floes formed on the surface of the lake came four forms, skipping from floe to floe, to confront them.

Two of these they have met earlier: the Purple Robed Twin Swords whom they fought at Qiyun Mountain. The other two they knew only by reputation: Red kasaya monk and White robed taoist, two more of the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan. The four explained that the Two Elders were not receiving visitors, and bade our heroes to leave. Our heroes were of course unwilling to leave without meeting the Two Elders, but knowing that they could not defeat the four in combat, instead proposed a contest, which if they win, the four would give them passage.

Now Yi, the Purple Robed Swordsman, advised his companion against this, saying that our heroes were full of trickery. The Red Monk, however, was impetuous and easily provoked, and challenged Soong to a contest, saying that he would step aside if the latter could defeat him in five rounds. Soong countered his challenge, saying that as he was a junior, the terms of the contest should instead be: if the Red Monk was unable to knock him out in five rounds, he would have to step aside. The Red Monk agreed, and proceeded to attack Soong, who put up a methodical defence. At the end of five rounds, Soong was much battered but was still standing, and the Red Monk stepped aside.

Now it was Zhang's turn. Knowing that the Purple Robed Twin Swords complemented each other with their fighting style, she challenged Wen, the Purple Robed Swordswoman to a duel. Trying to play to their own strength, she attempted to keep the distance and use her throwing knives to defeat her opponent, but Wen was able to close the distance each time, and Zhang was defeated.

With each side having won a round, it now came down to Wu. But it was the White Taoist who proposed the contest: he and Wu would each carve a line of poetry on a nearby rockface, and whoever did the better would win the round. Wu agreed, and won the contest convincingly.

The four then left as they had promised, with Yi again berating his companions for falling for the trickery of our heroes.

Yang and Liu now set the boat on the lake, and the party rowed their way to the tiny island in the middle. As they neared, they saw an old woman sweeping the floor outside the hut on the island. She admonished our heroes for creating a ruckus, and asked them to leave. The heroes announced that they had brought wine and meat as gifts, whereupon a voice from inside the hut welcomes them.

Entering the small hut, they found Feng, the Old Man of Lushan, and presented their gifts. They explained the purpose of their visit, and beseeched him to give them the scrolls. Feng was unmoved by their pleas, and indeed tried to dissuade them from their quest; the way of the world, he observed, was the strong preying upon the weak, and it was beyond the powers of a few to change the order of things. Nevertheless, the wine and meat had put him in a good mood, and he allowed the heroes to stay in his hut for the night.

Have our heroes journeyed so far to fail in their quest? Alas! dear readers, you must await the next chapter of our tale to find out.

Prepping and Running the Game

The plot for this session came more or less organically and from requests made by my players during session zero.

The plot involving the prisoners was of course supposed to be a dilemma for the players: should their characters risk capture by rescuing four unknown? I am glad they decided to, and was impressed by the way they pulled off the rescue.

Yang and Liu joining the party was the result of Zhang having reached level 3 of the Leader class, which gave her followers. I was able to use an NPC from an earlier session to introduce followers in a more natural fashion. 

They have asked for a fight in a bamboo forest, and one on water. I therefore decided to use a battle mat I had in our of my map books that showed a lake covered with ice floes for the big fight in the session, which in turn meant that I had to place the Two Elders in a suitable locale.

The other fight, an ambush in a bamboo forest, is of course a wuxia staple.

The way the final fight turned out was not planned. I had imagined a straight fight, but my players had different plans, and frankly I think they did an excellent job of playing to their characters' strengths while sticking to the wuxia ethos.

The campaign had been fun so far, but the next session, to be played at the end of the month, will be the final one. I have yet to decide what happens in the next session, but I have made it clear to my players it would be the finale session, and asked them where they imagined they would fight General Yen. Their decision was to confront him at the Qingming Festival, where he would return to his ancestors' tomb, presumably with a small entourage. This seemed like a reasonable choice, although I will have to come up with some ideas to make the battlefield interesting.

The Trigram Chronicles #4

Layout of a typical siheyuan

Rescuing a kidnapped child brings the heroes into contact with the Sword Sisters Sect

Daring mission to the General's Residence to assassinate General Yen's right hand man

As the Qing forces begin to take over more and more of the lands south of the Yangtze, our heroes (see PC profiles here) are no closer to finding the last pair of scrolls that will allow them to defeat General Yen. Rather than to sit in despair, they decided to thwart the Qing's efforts at conquest.

Having learned that General Yen's right-hand man, General Yu Shou Ren, had set up his headquarters in the city of Tongling, our heroes traveled there. Here, they heard tales that several Qing commanders and officials had been assassinated, and now the city was in a state of curfew.

Despite that, our heroes plotted to find and sabotage a Qing base inside the city. On the night they were performing the reconnaissance, however, they chanced upon four men in black, one of whom carried a sack over one of his shoulders. Our heroes decided to follow the suspicious men, and when they were discovered, they attacked our heroes with throwing knives. Their attempts to parley being met with silence and more throwing knives, our heroes retaliated and defeated the men in black, to find that a child was inside the sack. As the last of the men in black attempted to flee, he was cut down by a swordswoman.

Soon more swordswomen arrived, and our heroes learned that they were of the Sword Sisters Sect, and that the child was the daughter of the leader of the chapter in Tongling. The Sect had been conducting assassinations of Qing commanders and officials, and in response General Yu had ordered his men to hunt down the Sword Sisters, who had to go into hiding. To force the Sword Sisters to emerge, General Yu's men resorted to kidnapping the daughter of their leader.

But even as the Sword Sisters thanked our heroes, they demanded to know how Wu had learned their kung fu, which was only taught to women. Wu replied that his late mother had taught him the kung fu. Now by their sect rules the punishment for teaching the kung fu to a man was death of both the teacher and the student, but as Wu had saved the life of one of their own, the Sword Sisters were now in a dilemma. Wu then volunteered to disable his own kung fu, but only after he had avenged his family on General Yen. The Sword Sisters agreed, on the condition that he assassinate General Yu too.

Our heroes agreed to the pact, and were given information about the General's residence in Tongling. Learning that General Yu had sequestered himself in his residence due to threats of assassination, only communicating with the troops in the frontlines via messengers, our heroes made their plans.

They waylaid one of the messengers outside the city one night, and donning his uniform and using his token of authority, Soong entered the residence to meet General Yu. At the same time, Zhang stole her way into the kitchen, where she prepared to start a fire to distract the guards. Wang and Wu laid in waiting on the roof of the reception hall, ready to burst through the roof and attack General Yu once Soong confirmed his presence.

But when Soong arrived inside the reception hall, he found that he had been met by a double for the general - General Yu had anticipated their move. Guards burst into the hall to arrest him. Wang and Wu leapt down from the roof into the rear courtyard. Zhang set the kitchen on fire and joined Wang and Wu, and together they made their way to the rear of the compound to try to kill the general in his quarters, but found the doors and windows barred. Simultaneously, nets were cast across the roofs of the courtyard, trapping our heroes. More guards emerged, and our heroes were now fighting to their front and their rear.

After a hard fight, Soong and Wang pushed the guards out of the reception hall, and returned to the rear courtyard to join Zhang and Wu, who had likewise defeated the guards there. Seeing our heroes wounded and trapped, General Yu emerged from his quarters, hoping to make an easy kill. But his hubris was his unmaking, as our heroes fought as one and quickly took him down. Then, taking his head as evidence of their success, our heroes cut through the net and made they way to safety, but not better leaving a message written in the blood of the dead man on the courtyard floor: we are coming for you next.

How will General Yen respond to our heroes' actions? To find out, dear reader, you must turn to the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

The plot for the first half of the session once again came from a seed from this blog. During session zero one of the players had asked for a rooftop fight, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to incorporate one into the campaign.

I was impressed by Wu's player when he offered to disable his kung fu after his revenge mission is completed. This is a classic wuxia trope, and moments like this are the whole point of playing this campaign for us.

For the second half of the session I gave the players a free hand in plotting their mission, only giving them the picture of the compound as a planning aid. The twist is General Yu was already anticipating an attack, and I had the whole response more or less planned out, from the elite guards who would utilise the formation rules, and the use of nets across the courtyard to prevent them from escaping - once again a classic trope.

The PCs took some damage before the final fight with General Yu, but by now they had learned to fight as a team: three of them engaged in melee, with Wang using his Defender skill to protect the others, while Wu threw needles at the General. Once again this shows that  the 'action economy' of RPGs mean that a solo villain, no matter how powerful he is, is vulnerable to a whole group of PCs. I will have to make sure General Yen does not fall prey to this in our finale.

The Trigram Chronicles #3

The Second Heavenly Gate of Mount Qiyun

Bandits terrorise refugees fleeing the Qing; our heroes put down the thugs

Our heroes obtain the scrolls from Mount Qiyun; Reverend Zhang sacrifices himself for the greater good

As out heroes (see PC profiles here) traveled south towards Mount Qiyun, they found thousands of refugees also on the same road. General Yen had launched an offensive south of the Yangtze, and many had fled the chaos that comes with war.

They stopped at the small town of Qimen, where they took their meal at an inn. Here, they were greeted by a man named Soon, who recognised them as the heroes who defeated the Two Emissaries. Soon offered to pay for their meal, and proceeded to order the most expensive items on the menu, before absconding and leaving our heroes with the bill!

As our heroes were arguing with the inn staff, a farmer approached them and offered to pay for part of the bill; he had overheard Soon's conversation with our heroes, and beseeched them to save his son Yang Shou, who was gang pressed to join the thugs under the Twelve Banes a month ago.

Our heroes agreed to help the farmer, and after tracking down Soon (who was trying to sell a piece of fake jade to an unsuspecting customer) and exacting justice on him, proceeded down the road out of town, to where they had heard the thugs had set up a roadblock and were extorting from refugees who sought to pass.

Luring one of the thugs away, our heroes captured him and learned of the location of their camp. They proceeded to the camp and defeated the thugs who were there, only to learn that Yang Shou was one of their leaders! Yang confessed that he had indeed been taken from his family farm by force, but the life of a thug turned out to be better than that of a farmer, and he was soon made a junior leader. Our heroes convinced Yang and the other thugs to take some of the loot they had gathered, and to return to their homes, and they did so. When the other thugs returned to their camp, they were likewise defeated and were persuaded to disband and return home.

Our heroes then continued south, and after a week arrived at Mount Qiyun. As they ascended the narrow stairs that led 2000 feet to the Taoist Monastery at the summit, they saw a large party of men below them, numbering over twenty, also headed for the monastery. When they arrived at the outer gate, they were stopped by two priests who told them that Reverend Zhang, whom they had to see, was not receiving visitors that day. Wu presented the letter of introduction from Prince Gui, and our heroes were admitted.

Entering the courtyard of the monastery, our heroes found Reverend Zhang seated at the steps leading to the main hall. Around the courtyard his disciples, all looking ill, sat or laid.

Zhang explained that he and his disciples had been poisoned by the Dark Judge's Poison, which weakened them and prevented them from using their Qi, rendering them defenceless. Our heroes surmised that the party of men behind them must have poisoned the priests. They stated their purpose of visit, and Zhang bade them to take the scrolls and flee, while he and his disciples would try to stall the intruders.

Unwilling to abandon the priests to their fate, our heroes instead decided to confront the intruders, and meet them at the narrow gate that guarded the approach.

As the party of men neared, our heroes could see that they were thugs led by the Purple Robed Twin Swords, two of the Twelve Banes. Our heroes tried to stop the intruders, but they were no match for the Twin Swords, and were unable to fight past the many thugs who followed them. When it seemed that they would be defeated, they heard a voice calling from above them - Reverend Zhang had arrived, wielding a scroll case in one hand, and challenging the Twin Swords to come after him. Our heroes took advantage of this distraction to flee, and so once again the scrolls were kept safe from the hands of the Twelve Banes.

Our heroes are one step closer to defeating General Yen, but will they find the last set of scrolls in time? For the answer, gentle reader, you must wait till the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

The first part of the session were based on encounters from encounter tables I found on this blog. There are quite a number of ideas from there that I think I will employ in future sessions.

By now I think my pattern for this campaign is to have two major encounters: one minor one based on an wuxia trope and not necessarily related to the main plotline, and a second one where our heroes encounter the forces of the Twelve Banes or the Qing, which will advance the main plotline.

The first half of the session was a lot of laughs as I role-played the conman, and the players role-played how they convinced the thugs to give up their lives of crime and return to their families. I told them afterwards that their spiel will not work in future sessions or campaigns.

I am still having trouble calibrating the fight where Major NPC Villains are used, partly because the game utilises a d10, which means damage can be swingy. This is not a deal-breaker, however, as in wuxia it is acceptable for the heroes' skins to be saved by fortuitous circumstances, or the arrival of a powerful mentor figure.

At the end of the session I once again asked my players what they wanted to do, and they had the idea to assassinate a Qing General. This is of course a common plot for many wuxia movies, so I hope my version will measure up.

The Trigram Chronicles #2

Map of Old Hefei - Carefree Lake is in the top right corner

Hidden scroll reveals secret to defeating General Yen; our heroes meet the Emissaries again

Service to Prince Gui brings our heroes to Hefei; mission to Carefree Lake reveals betrayal

So our heroes descended from Mount Juihua, wounded but alive. 

Wu studied the bamboo scroll hidden within the metal case, and found it contained two of the secret kung fu manuals that together comprised the Trigram Grand Style.

Now after Master Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang created the Taiji Style, he found that few among his students had the aptitude to master it. And so he broke the style into eight parts, just as the duality of taiji gave birth to the four elements, and the four elements gave rise to the eight trigrams; and so his students could master aspects of this formidable kung fu. In the latter years of the Ming dynasty the court turned against Wudang, and its disciples were scattered, and so it was that the eight styles separated.

Now most men could only master one of the eight styles, weak as men are these days, but General Yen was able to master the Qian and Kun (Heaven and Earth) styles, making him nigh invincible. However, it is believed that those who can master the styles of the other six trigrams may, by their skills combined, defeat a wielder of the Qian and Kun style. So now our heroes are resolved to find the remaining four scrolls, and master the skills within.

For a while our heroes cast about for news of the lost scrolls, but could not find any clue. In their wanderings they learned of the news that General Yen had ordered all blind beggars in the region to be seized and interrogated, and that Prince Gui, a nephew of the late Ming emperor, had raised a banner of rebellion in the Yellow Mud Lake region in the west, and was calling for loyalists to join him in overthrowing the Qing.

Following the rumours, Wu, Soong, and Wang (see PC profiles here), arrived at the Green Dragon Tavern, where it was said that recruiters for the prince could be found. Unbeknownst to them, they were being tracked by the Black and White Emissaries, who confronted them at the tavern, demanding they handed over the scroll. Our heroes refused, and the Emissaries and their thugs attacked - but they had underestimated our heroes, and they were defeated and slain.

Witnessing their prowess in kung fu, a man approached our heroes, and introduced himself as Chow, a servant of Prince Gui, and offered to make an introduction of them to the prince. Following Chow, our heroes traveled to the edges of the marshes around Yellow Mud Lake, where they were taken by a sampan to a hidden isle, upon was built a large wooden house. They were brought to the gallery on the upper floor of the house, where they saw the prince in the midst of composing a four-line poetry. The prince appeared to have been stuck after composing the first three lines, and so Wu proposed an ending to the poem. The prince was much impressed, and called for wine to be shared.

They then spoke at length, and when the prince thought he knew the hearts of our heroes well enough, he offered them a mission. General Yen, he revealed, was planning a moon appreciation feast at Carefree Lake in Hefei on mid-autumn night. He had invited Ming generals and officials in the areas still not under Qing control to attend, and it was understood that those who answered his invite would be showing their allegiance to the Qing.

Now the prince suspected that some of the generals and officials who were in his faction would be attending the feast, and so he needed someone to spy on the feast and identify these traitors, who would be traveling to Hefei and Carefree Lake in secret.

Our heroes accepted the mission, and after shaving their heads in the Qing fashion and learning the appearances of the generals and officials under Prince Gui by studying their portraits, traveled to Hefei. Outside the city, Soong waited by a tea house until he spotted one of the officials, whose entourage had stopped for a break. He spiked the tea of one of the sedan chair carriers with laxatives, and when the man became afflicted, he offered his services, and were taken into employment on account of his strong physique.

Inside Hefei, Wu found the musical troupe which would be performing at the feast that night, and managed to impress them with his virtuosity at erhu, and so was likewise taken into employment.

Wang, meanwhile, met a contact in the Beggar Sect in Hefei, and through him was able to smuggle himself, hidden in the food supplied for the feast, into the two-storeyed pavilion on the island in Carefree Lake where the feast would take place. Under the cover of darkness, he moved from the kitchen to the upper floor, and hid himself among the rafters of the roof.

Came mid-autumn night, our heroes kept their eyes and ears peeled, as they observed the guests as they exited their covered sedan chairs, as they moved about in the banquet hall, and as they greeted each other by names. By these means of subterfuge, our heroes were able to learn of the identities of 27 of the 28 guests who arrived in covered sedan chairs to pledge their allegiance to the Qing emperor and their support to General Yen on an attack planned on Prince Gui's hideout in a month's time.

With this information, our heroes made their way back west, where they were to rendezvous with Chow on the road to Yellow Mud Lake. When they arrived, they found Chow waiting for them with a band of armed men. Chow asked them for the list of those whom they had seen. Suspecting something on account of Chow's eagerness, Soong lied and said that they had made no list, but had memorised the names, which they would report to the Prince personally. Chow then asked if they had revealed the information to anyone, and when our heroes replied that they had not, Chow produced a list of names from his robe, and asked that they gave the prince the list instead.

Chow revealed that he had in fact pledged his allegiance to the Qing, and that the list contained the names of generals and officials who were actually loyal to Prince Gui. Chow exhorted our heroes to join him on the side of the rising Qing against the waning Ming, just as a wise bird would choose a healthy tree to perch upon.

Such a proposal was an anathema to our heroes, who rejected it and denounced Chow. Chow ordered his men to attack, but the traitors were easily defeated, and Chow, seeing his men slain, threw himself at our heroes' mercy.

Our heroes hog-tied the traitor Chow, and brought him back to the Prince. When he had heard the testimonies and seen the made-up list, Prince Gui ordered Chow to be drowned in the waters of the lake. Then, after perusing the list the heroes had made, he came to the conclusion that with so many of his men turned, his position was no longer tenable. He resolved to join his brother in the south, and asked our heroes to join him too. But with revenge still in their minds, our heroes declined, and instead promised that they would fight the Qing in their own way. As parting gifts, Prince Gui presented a paper fan to Wu, upon which he wrote the words "Iron Fan Esquire" (after the latter's signature weapon), and a letter of introduction bearing his seal, addressed to the Master of Qiyun Temple, an offshoot of the Wudang Sect, where news of the Trigram scrolls may be found.

What awaits our heroes at Qiyun Temple? If you desire to know, please turn to the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

After our game was postponed a total of four times due to various illness (including covid), we were finally able to play the second session of the campaign, even if there was a last-minute drop-out (due to yet another illness).

This session was based off the idea in the module Bohemian Grove. At the end of the previous session I asked my players what they wanted to do next, and they said they wanted to find some rebel factions to join. Now there were indeed several rebel factions, some of them formed around Ming princes, so I decided that they would hear about one such factions and try to get recruited.

The fight in the tavern is of course a standard requirement for wuxia. My players were able to fight in a more co-ordinated fashion this time, and utilised the verticality of the battlefield, which gave them the initiative throughout most of the fight to defeat the enemies convincingly.

The site of the mission was chosen based on the module, which set the action on an island in the middle of a lake. I found a map of old Hefei, and saw that there was a lake within the city walls with a small island in it, which seemed a likely setting for a secret meeting. I had no idea how the players would achieve their mission, but they were able to capitalise on their characters' strengths to find a way into the pavilion.

I gave away Chow's betrayal too early when I reached for my map book before I roleplayed the interaction between Chow and the PCs, telegraphing that a fight was going to take place. Rookie mistake - have to watch out for that one in the future.

At the end of the session I asked my players again what they wanted to do next, and they replied that they wanted to continue the search for the scrolls, and so I picked a spot on our map and came up with an in-game reason for them to go there.

Art of Wuxia - A Partial Review

This is going to be a partial review of the Art of Wuxia RPG rules. It's "partial" not because I am biased, or because I haven't read the entire rulebook (I haven't) or played the game, but because I have decided to not use much of the rules for my campaign and so I did not read those parts thoroughly, and I cannot give a review of them.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are a few wuxia RPGs out there, but because of my own idea of how I want my wuxia setting to be and how I want the play to feel, I eventually decided on getting Art of Wuxia. Rather than giving a detailed and systematic review of the system, I will just highlight those aspects of the rules which sold me on it.

The first is how "schools" or "sects" of kung fu are represented in the game. One of the core tropes of the wuxia genre is different schools having different strengths and weaknesses. In Art of Wuxia this is depicted by having a list of over thirty kung fu Techniques. These Techniques are like the special skills in Blood Bowl, and as your character levels up, he can learn more skills. The genius here is, each school typically 'teaches' only 5 or 6 skills, which together define a certain fighting style: an assassin style school will have skills that grant dexterity and missile bonus or moves, while a "brute" style school will have skills that increase your melee attacks or damage. Since the combination of the sets of Techniques are unique (I believe) to each school, practitioners from each school will have different fighting styles or combat roles within a party. You can choose which school your character is from by looking at the 'build' you want him to achieve over the course of a campaign, in the same way you would build a Blood Bowl player.

More broadly, schools are either of the Internal Qi of the External Qi style. The concept of Qi is of course another core trope of the genre, and here I feel the author did a great job representing not just Qi in general, but also the differences between the Internal school and the External school. Both schools can use Qi points for things like healing surge or re-rolls, and the External schools have some abilities not available to the Internal schools, but only the Inner school has the ability to use Qi for 'Lightness' or flying/wire-fu. This superpower is offset by the way the rules for Lightness works: characters typically have 3 points of Qi, and using Lightness does not expend a Qi point but requires you to have at least one point left, while carrying someone while you 'fly' will require you to have two points in reserve. This is a simple but elegant way of balancing the game without making the choice a forgone one.

On to the mechanical part of the rules. The basic system is a d00 system, so characters succeed by rolling equal to or below a target number. This is pretty standard, but the rules allow you to take multiple actions in a turn, with the successive action incurring a 20% penalty. This means that a character with a high score in, say, melee can make multiple attacks with good chances of hitting. In addition, some Techniques allow you to make additional attack or defence rolls without incurring the 20% penalty (or rather the penalty is deferred to the roll after if you choose to take another action, as I understand it), so high level characters can take on several opponents alone.

Another thing I like about Art of Wuxia is the way human NPCs are represented. Unlike PCs (and monsters, which I don't use), NPCs do not get a full 'stat block'. Instead, a 'mook' level NPC will just get a single score of say 60 as a target number for combat and tasks/skills that he is good at, and half that for tasks/skills he is not so good at. (This is the same concept behind the Monster Math in Five Torches Deep RPG.) This simple system allows the GM to run a large number of low level NPCs, certainly another beloved trope of the genre, without having to look up several numbers.

Major and Master level NPCs have more stats, with a different number for taking actions and resisting attacks, and they also have skills and Techniques like the PCs. In another stroke of genius, the author represents the "fighting formations" by treating the mooks who will make up one of these formations as a single Major NPC, so a GM can recreate this trope without having to learn another set of rules.

So those are the things I like about Art of Wuxia. There are many other aspects of the rules that I think work fine, but don't really make me excited.

The Class/Skills system is a hybrid of a class-based and skills-based character system, in that each class encompasses a number of skills, but some skills rolls can be tried by a character even if he is not of that class, while some class skills like those of the Alchemist and Mystic can only be made if your character is of that class. There are ten classes, and each PC takes two (one of which is almost certainly the Warrior class). Since I omit three of the classes (Diviner, Mystic, Sorcerer), I can't really comment on how the rules for magic and divination work.

There is a default setting and fluff for the game, but I have set my campaign in historical China, and the rules can certainly accommodate that. There are rules for a more high fantasy campaign, including the Journey to the West style with humanoids, deities, and demons. Perhaps one of these days I will run such a campaign, but for now I think we can have a perfectly good campaign even when we don't use all the magic and monsters - after all, many popular and beloved wuxia novels/movies/TV series don't either.

If there is one complaint about the rules, and I am really nitpicking here, it is in the 'translation'. Specifically, it is the names of some of the Techniques, schools, and items, and also some of the quotes from characters in the flavour text. Now I am functionally and compulsively bilingual, so when I read or hear something in English in entertainment media (yes, it's rather specific) I automatically translate it into Chinese in my head. And the thing is, certain word that sound cool together in English don't always sound cool when translated into Chinese. To be fair most of the names are good, and the whole is certainly not the travesty that is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny.

All in all I am very happy with the rules, and if you are looking for a set of rules for a wuxia campaign, I hope you have found my review helpful.

The Trigram Chronicles #1

L to R: Li, Wu, Zhang, Luo, Wang, and Soong 

Assassination attempt on General Yen fails; our heroes are saved by Cripple Li

Tiantai Monastery burned to the ground; our heroes outwit the Black and White Emissaries

It was the third year after the Qing's passage through the Great Wall (1464 CE). Prince Regent Dorgon had issued the queue edict during the previous year, and it was being enforced in the lands south of the Yangtze with great brutality. Chief among these enforcers was General Yen, a former Ming general who had defected to the Qing. Forces under his command massacred those who defied the edict - tens of thousands perished.

Our heroes - former imperial assassin Zhang Ziyi, warrior-scholar Wu Wen Xiong, blind beggar Wang Ah Hu, and lay student of Shaolin kung fu Soong Wu Qing - all of whom have lost family to General Yen's forces, came to learn that he was traveling to the north, and thus laid an ambush on his entourage as it passed by a narrow defile. But they had overestimated their own skills, for while they were able to slay several of his guards, the four were no match for General Yen - Zhang and Wu were sent off the side of a cliff to the river below, while Wang narrowly escaped capture, saved only by the quick wit of Soong - together the two leapt off the cliff too to avoid falling into the hands of the Qing.

When they awoke, our heroes found themselves in a cottage, tended to by an old physician who called himself Cripple Li, and his student Li Hui. They had drifted down the river, unconscious, until they were found by fishermen and brought to Li's cottage. Cripple Li learned of the heroes' quest for revenge, and tried to dissuade them from their mission, but they could not be convinced. Cripple Li revealed that General Yen had mastered the Heaven and Earth Kung Fu, and possessed such power that was matched only by a few in the wuling.

His tale was then interrupted by the arrival of Qing soldiers, hunting for our heroes. Cripple Li handed Li Hui a bundle, and bade her to take the heroes to a shack in the mountains nearby via a hidden path, and thence to find his friend the Claypot Monk at Tiantai Monastery at Jiuhua Mountain, while he tried to stall the soldier. As the party climbed the foothills, they could see smoke rising from the village, and Cripple Li being cut down by the Qing soldiers...

When they had reached the shack, which was used for shelter by Cripple Li and Li Hui when they went to gather medicinal herbs, Li Hui opened the bundle to find a letter from her master. In it he told Li Hui that despite her natural aptitude for kung fu, he had instead taught her the healing arts, believing that it was more virtuous to save lives than to take lives; however, in times such as those they faced now, one sometimes had to kill the wicked to save the lives of the innocent, and thus he had passed his kung fu manuals to his student.

The party traveled south, eventually arriving at the great Jiuhua Mountain, and ascended to its summit. When they arrived, they found the main prayer hall of the Tiantai Monastery smothering, its pillars burnt out and its great tiled roof collapsed. In the courtyard laid the bodies of more than thirty monks and twenty thugs, each wearing a red scarf around their neck, all of them bearing wounds. Li Hui, who had met the Claypot Monk once when he visited Cripple Li, could not find the body of the man. The party searched the compound, but found only ransacked quarters, kitchen and scripture hall. It actually took blind Wang, prodding through the tiles of the great hall's collapsed roof, to find the monk's body. When they unearthed him, they found his body covered with wounds, and his arms were wrapped around a buddha statue. Once again, it was beggar Wang who felt the cracks in the back of the statue, giving a clue to a secret compartment within. Just when the party had figured out how to open the secret compartment, they were interrupted by the voice of a man demanding they hand the statue over.

The party looked up to find themselves surrounded by ten men, eight of whom wore red scarves around their necks; the remaining two, who appeared to be the leaders of the band, wore broad-brimmed straw hats; one wore a black cloak, and the other a white cloak.

Wu recognised the two as the Black and White Emissaries, two of the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan, leaders of a vast band of bandits that terrorised the lands after the collapse of Ming authority. Our heroes refused the Emissaries' demands, and the bandits attacked. Outnumbered, our heroes began to fall one by one, until Zhang fled the fight with Li and the buddha statue, drawing the Emissaries away. Zhang hid Li in the monastery's kitchen, and then led the Emissaries on a chase, until at last Li emerged and offered to surrender the statue for their lives. With many of their thugs dead and the White Emissary wounded, the Emissaries agreed, and left with the statue. Unbeknownst to them, Li had opened the secret compartment and removed the metal scroll case which was hidden within.

To learn what was hidden therein, gentle reader, please turn to the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

So went the first session of our wuxia campaign, and I must say I have not had this much fun GMing for a long time. That is not to say that I did not enjoy our previous campaigns, but because of how familiar all of us are with the wuxia genre, we found ourselves speaking in character much more than we did in our other campaigns. Granted, most of the dialogue were "cut-and-paste" lines from various wuxia novels, movies, and TV shows, but one can say that this is the essence of the genre and indeed much of classical Chinese literary tradition, and it was a lot of fun saying them, sort of like an extended session of an RPG session where the characters spoke exclusively in Month Python quotes. To further encourage my players, I tossed them replica Chinese copper coins representing Experience Points each time they said something in genre.

The second fight scene of the session and the idea of the Twelve Banes of Jiangnan was inspired by the 12 Golden Butchers, but the other scenes are just tropes you must have seen in over a dozen wuxia movies.

The opening scene was railroady, but the players were happy to go along for the ride, with two of them even throwing their characters off the cliff into the river because they knew that was what they were supposed to do. Sadly for them, they did not all wake up in a cave where the text of the ultimate kung fu could be found inscribed on the walls as they had hoped...

The second scene was an exposition scene, where the players could tell their backstories, and where I could further detail the dastardly deeds of General Yen.

The third scene did not go quite as I expected it to. As these rules are new to us, we did not manage to get all of the rules correct, and the players certainly did not yet know how to use all of their characters' special skills. As a result they were overwhelmed by the bad guys, but fortunately for everyone they managed to outwit the opposition, and pull off another wuxia trope.

What I realised after the game was that the players and their characters had failed to fight as a team to capitalise on their strengths and to cover for each other's weaknesses. This was not necessarily a bad thing though, as this would be realistic from the narrative point of view too. Hopefully we will see them gel together in the Avengers fashion after a couple more fights.

I started this campaign with nothing planned beyond these three encounters, but thankfully my players gave me some ideas on what their characters want to do next. The next session will be in two weeks, which will give me ample time to plan for it. Stay tuned!

Art of Wuxia - The Trigram Chronicles

When we neared the end of our Space Opera campaign, I realised that I will need a 'filler' campaign for the months of February to May, when I hope to start my Blood Sword campaign. I had earlier planned on running a "The Last Kingdom" campaign using "The Hero's Journey" rules, but I didn't think it was a good idea to run a fantasy campaign right before the another. I asked my players for ideas, and one of them suggested a wuxia campaign.

Now we are all but one of us East Asian in ethnicity, yet despite that we have never played any "oriental" campaign. And the wuxia genre is not an unfamiliar one to us: I must have watched more than a thousand hours of Shaw Brothers kung fu movies and Hong Kong TV series based on the works of Louis Cha, and even read a few wuxia novels back in my childhood. Anyway, everyone liked the idea of playing something different, and so I started planning for campaign.

There are no lack of kung fu RPGs on the market. I spent several days googling and looking at various forums, and in the end I decided that Art of Wuxia was the set of rules that seemed to fit what I have in mind the best. Its full rules and default setting are still a lot more fantastical than the setting I have in mind, but it was easy to just omit all the magic and monsters and keep the rest of the rules. Perhaps I will do a more detailed rules review in the future.

For the theme of the campaign, the player suggested it to be about fighting government tyranny. What came to my mind then was the queue edict issued by the Qing government in the early years of their conquest of China - this was an order issued not for any practical reason, but solely to demand a demonstration of submission, on pain of death; tens of thousands of Han Chinese were slaughtered for disobeying the order, ironically at the hands of Han Chinese soldiers under the command of Han Chinese generals who defected to the Qing. This premise also gave me a villain for the campaign, as well as a reason for the PCs to get together: they will all be novice martial artists who have lost family and loved ones to the order, and their goal is to take revenge on the general who led the massacres, who I have decided will look like Donnie Yen in Once Upon in China II.

Over the course of the campaign, we hope to cover the usual genre tropes, with the heroes meeting and fighting mooks and villains with "evil kung fu", learning new kung fu as they level up, and eventually avenging the deaths of their families.

The Qing Conquest of China was of course a drawn out and complicated affair, and for the purpose of our campaign I will utilise artistic license and not be sticking to history, so I hope the more learned readers will forgive me.

The Party

Li Hui - Physician. An orphaned Muslim girl, Li Hui was taken in by Cripple Li, a former army physician. Cripple Li had initially taught his student only the healing arts, but after her master's death, Li began to learn kung fu.

Luo Yun - A foundling raised by farmers, Luo Yun was recruited by the White Lotus Cult and learned kung fu. When the Qing government began to suppress the cult, Luo Yun returned home to lie low but found his entire village slaughtered by Qing soldiers under the command of General Yen.

Soong Wu Qing - Soong's family ran a famous armed escort company, but when his father refused to work for General Yen, his entire family was killed in retaliation. Soong was away in Shaolin Temple studying kung fu, but left upon learning his family fate to seek revenge.

Wang Ah Hu - Wang served as a soldier under an officer in Yen's army when he was still serving the Ming emperor. Rightly concerned that the officer and his men would not take kindly to his decision to defect to the Qing, Yen ordered the unit into an ambush laid by the Qing. Wang lost his sight in the ensuing battle, and became a beggar, but driven by his thirst for revenge, he had learned to overcome his disability.

Wu Wen Xiong - Born a sickly child to a rich family, Wu was not favoured by his father. His mother, formerly of the Sword Sisters Sect, secretly taught him kung fu to make him stronger. Wu's family were arrested and executed after General Yen accused his father of sedition over a poem the elder Wu had written, and their property seized. Wu managed to escape, and had sworn vengeance since.

Zhang Ziyi - Formerly an assassin in the service of the Ming, Zhang was ordered to assassinate one of her relatives who had earned the displeasure of General Yen. Zhang refused the mission and fled, but when she reached her home village she found that her family had been murdered on order of General Yen.