All Things Under Heaven, Session #7

Our Setting: Iron Springs is a moderately-sized town at the north-western frontier of civilized Tianxia, looking out over a region that many call only The Wastes. The town is built on the broad banks of the Lièkǒu River, the only lifeline that it has back to the Imperial world of bureaucracy and well-tended order, and is supported by terrace-farms cut into the surrounding hill country. It is home to around a thousand souls, making it the largest inhabited center in the surrounding lands.

From Iron Springs a rich tapestry of terrain stretches out towards the sunset: vast and trackless forests, stinking marshes, windswept plains, rugged hills and towering mountains where the workshops of the old Zhang witch-alchemists may still stand. These Wastes are wild, untamed, dangerous, and haunted by beasts and spirits and yet stranger things.

Iron Springs’ extreme remoteness and the wild and untamed nature of The Wastes have contributed to its reputation as a place of last resort, somewhere that only the greedy, the foolish, or the desperate would try and make a life. Those who chafe at the yoke of Imperial authority find the distance from any real governance appealing, while scholars and seekers after the weird and macabre find it a valuable source of information and research subjects.

The Wastes beyond Iron Springs are the stuff of many a legend, promising all those things that are best in life: wealth beyond measure, endless opportunity, danger to be faced, glory to be won, secrets and wonders to behold and uncover, and a means to transform your life. Tame the Wastes, the buzz in the teahouse goes, and the Emperor has promised that a noble title will be yours along with deeds to whatever you manage to wrest from the trackless wilderness.

Our Cast:

• Mei-Xiu, a human Monk (Way of the Tiger's Soul). Given away as a child to a warlord, one of the Rén catfolk. She was raised as an assassin, and now wanders the Wastes to challenge the strong. 
• Major Quest: Find someone with knowledge of how to revive her fallen master.
• Ling, a Paladin. One of the Bie turtlefolk, from the Tribe of the Tortoise. She fought against and alongside Mei-Xiu and Shi on distant battlefields, and now wanders the Wastes to increase her wealth.
• Ming-Hua, a Wizard (School of Evocation). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Ibis. She tired of reading about the arcane in dusty libraries, and now wanders the Wastes to study the weird. 
• Major Quest: Become a student of the immortal alchemist Xianbal. 
• Shi, a Fighter (Champion). One of the Rén catfolk from the Tribe of the Leopard. He was a criminal back in the civilised world, and now wanders the Wastes to encounter the strange. 
• Sun Thuy, a Rogue (Swashbuckler). One of the Rén catfolk from the Tribe of the Fox. She was heir to a noble family back in her homeland, and now wanders the Wastes to protect the weak. 
• Xiang Wang, a Druid (Circle of the Five Elements). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Heron. They were a roamer and a vagabond already, and now wander the Wastes to seek the path. 
• Major Quest: Find the surviving lizardfolk and deliver their master's message to their leader.

The Session

Day Five (cont.): Mei-Xiu charges over to defend Ming-Hua as the group set Death in their sights and focus their attacks on the shrouded creature. The shroud tears and people begin to see what lies beneath - for Mei-Xiu, the bloody shrunken face of the Warlord Zang; for Sun, the severed head of a lower-class friend executed for rebellion against her parents; for Ming-Hua, the broken corpse of her dead child - and Ming-Hua flees the emotional trauma into unconsciousness. 

Death's touch overcomes Mei-Xiu, causing her to pass out beneath Xiang's sphere of flame and perish from its deadly heat. Death moves on to Shi, grasping his face and trapping him in an illusion of being conscious of his own dead body's decay. 

Xiang wakes Ming-Hua from her stupor, and in a frenzy of rage and sorrow over the reminder of her dead child and the fall of Mei-Xiu the wizard sends a raging torrent of flames to incinerate the shrouded figure of Death and the skeletons around it. 

With its shroud gone, Death's bones collapse into a heap on the floor and then into dust along with the skeletons. For a moment the group simply stand, shell-shocked and speechless, and then Xiang reaches out with their magic and tears the mural on the wall into ruined shards with a scream of rage. The destruction reveals a dark recess in the wall with a scroll inside, written in an unknown language.

The group take the scroll, along with the bronze gong and stone flask they noticed before, and build a stretcher to bear Mei-Xiu out of the Tomb of the Nameless Hero. They set up camp in the lee of the Tomb's tunnel entrance as they did on their first visit and settle, exhausted and weary with grief, into sleep.

Day Six: As the sun rises the group spot a figure on the horizon, approaching across the plains. She turns out to be a Bie named Ling, an old rival of Mei-Xiu's come to stop her from wasting her life trying to revive her master. The news of Mei-Xiu's death is broken to Ling and she decides to join the group on their journey back to help bear the body home for burial. 

The group press themselves hard through the day, setting a punishing pace as they move through the lush rolling wetlands before settling in for the night in a spot cradled and concealed by gentle hills. They set a watch, and Ling raises the alarm during the night as a group of five rat-demons launch an attack from the hilltops above.

The fight is short and brutal, Ling proving her worth by holding off a pair of the creatures as Sun picks them off from behind and Ming-Hua blasts away with sheets of flame. Xiang and Shi provide support from a distance and the group swiftly wipe out the creatures, cleansing the Aoxian Plains of the rat-demon menace for good.

Day Seven: The group continue to run themselves ragged with a punishing pace, passing from the lush wetlands into the flatter land of wispier grass beyond. By the time they stop, the hills around Iron Springs are in sight and the group decide to settle down for the night, passing a quiet evening. 

Day Eight: Still the group press onwards, arriving at the Shetou River around midday. Shi, Sun, and Xiang cross easily, while Ming-Hua is slowed by the need to protect her various valuable scrolls and Ling is weighed down by Mei-Xiu's body. Halfway through the crossing Xiang notices floodwaters upstream, a wave bearing down on the group with jagged rocks riding the swell and the whole picture resembling the maw of some great serpent. 

The rest of the group race for shore but Xiang freezes, stuck in their tracks as they recognise the smell of draconic chi coming from the incoming water and connect it with their old master. The rest of the group throw them a rope and pull them onto dry land just before the wave crashes down and quickly subsides. 

After recovering their breath, the group resume their journey and come into Iron Springs just as darkness slowly falls and the town's lights are kindled.

In Town: The group immediately seek out the temple, and with the help of Priest Yan (an elderly Bie) say their farewells to Mei-Xiu. Her body is laid out before the temple's statue to Kwan-Yin and prayers and chants sung over it before it is bodily consigned to the Celestial River, dissolving into pure white light as incense rises up to Heaven. 

Returning to Broken Spear's teahouse, the group retire for the night and mourn in private for Mei-Xiu before falling into heavy and cathartic sleep. 

The following morning they visit the broker and receive some extra gold from their vases' sale in the Capital and sell the antique bronze gong. They also visit the apothecary and have the contents of the stone flask identified: a powerful sleeping draught. The group also invest in the town, providing money for the improvement of the temple and the expansion of its library and purchasing a small house for their own use. 

Ling speaks with the town guard, repairing the damage done by Xiang and Mei-Xiu and hearing rumours of a wolf-headed Celestial with power over the storm out on the Aoxian Plains. Sun and Ming-Hua busy themselves in the library, but find its current paucity inadequate to their needs, while Shi attempts to follow up on rumours about god-boars on the border of the Niron Fens and Gulao Forest but fails.  Xiang investigates the local rumour mill, discovering a number of locations where the native lizardfolk of Tianxia may still endure. 

Nights draws in and the group return to their new home. They drink a last toast to Mei-Xiu as the town goes dark and drifts into slumber, until the only light is the candles in the temple that illuminate a plume of incense still rising up to the heavens for Mei-Xiu. 

END OF SEASON 1.

All Things Under Heaven, Session #6

Our Setting: Iron Springs is a moderately-sized town at the north-western frontier of civilized Tianxia, looking out over a region that many call only The Wastes. The town is built on the broad banks of the Lièkǒu River, the only lifeline that it has back to the Imperial world of bureaucracy and well-tended order, and is supported by terrace-farms cut into the surrounding hill country. It is home to around a thousand souls, making it the largest inhabited center in the surrounding lands.

From Iron Springs a rich tapestry of terrain stretches out towards the sunset: vast and trackless forests, stinking marshes, windswept plains, rugged hills and towering mountains where the workshops of the old Zhang witch-alchemists may still stand. These Wastes are wild, untamed, dangerous, and haunted by beasts and spirits and yet stranger things.

Iron Springs’ extreme remoteness and the wild and untamed nature of The Wastes have contributed to its reputation as a place of last resort, somewhere that only the greedy, the foolish, or the desperate would try and make a life. Those who chafe at the yoke of Imperial authority find the distance from any real governance appealing, while scholars and seekers after the weird and macabre find it a valuable source of information and research subjects.

The Wastes beyond Iron Springs are the stuff of many a legend, promising all those things that are best in life: wealth beyond measure, endless opportunity, danger to be faced, glory to be won, secrets and wonders to behold and uncover, and a means to transform your life. Tame the Wastes, the buzz in the teahouse goes, and the Emperor has promised that a noble title will be yours along with deeds to whatever you manage to wrest from the trackless wilderness.

Our Cast:

• Mei-Xiu, a human Monk (Way of the Tiger's Soul). Given away as a child to a warlord, one of the Rén catfolk. She was raised as an assassin, and now wanders the Wastes to challenge the strong. 
• Major Quest: Find someone with knowledge of how to revive her fallen master.
• Ming-Hua, a Wizard (School of Evocation). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Ibis. She tired of reading about the arcane in dusty libraries, and now wanders the Wastes to study the weird. 
• Major Quest: Become a student of the immortal alchemist Xianbal. 
• Shi, a Fighter (Champion). One of the Rén catfolk from the Tribe of the Leopard. He was a criminal back in the civilised world, and now wanders the Wastes to encounter the strange. 
• Sun Thuy, a Rogue (Swashbuckler). One of the Rén catfolk from the Tribe of the Fox. She was heir to a noble family back in her homeland, and now wanders the Wastes to protect the weak. 
• Xiang Wang, a Druid (Circle of the Five Elements). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Heron. They were a roamer and a vagabond already, and now wander the Wastes to seek the path. 

The Session

In Town: The group head out from Auntie Ma's into Iron Springs, selling the pair of gems retrieved from the rat-demons' lair for a good sum, though slightly under their value. Sun hangs around the teahouses and hears rumours of a dry lakebed out in the Huangdi Fells caked with valuable alchemical reagents, while Ming-Hua investigates further information on Xianbal, the alchemist who lives in the mountains beyond the Niron Fens.

She finds mention of him in historical records going back to the last days of the Nine Kingdoms period, suggesting that he has attained that greatest of alchemical goals: immortality. She also uncovers writings that attribute the discovery of tulpa - solidified thought-constructs capable of physical action and even violence - to him and identify him as the greatest outwardly-focused internal alchemist still living. 

Each new discovery about the alchemist further inspires and fascinates Ming-Hua, who sets her heart on becoming his student. She asks the group for assistance, but Shi wants to pursue rumours of god-boars dwelling on the border of Gulao Forest and the Niron Fens and Mei-Xiu wishes to return to the Tomb of the Nameless Hero. Sun sides with Mei-Xiu and is insistent that first the group must return to the tomb before it stays unsealed too long, and the group are won over by this argument. 

They restock on supplies and visit the town fortuneteller, preparing themselves to return to the demon-haunted Aoxian Plains.

Day One: The group depart from Iron Springs, sticking to the valleys of the hill-country around the town and trying to keep a low profile. A few hours out, however, they encounter a small herd of rhinoceroses and their calves and are forced up onto the hilltops to avoid them. Returning to the valley, they travel on and cross the river that runs between the hills and the Aoxian Plains in late afternoon.

An hour into setting up camp they spot a group on the horizon: travelling hunters and poachers carrying rolled-up pelts and cured haunches of meat who Shi identifies as coming from the western shantytown of Mowangzhi. The travelers are invited to share the camp for the night and trade for a pangolin scale (which the hunters' shaman claims has magical powers) and a number of warm pelts. The two groups set up a shared watch, and the night passes safely.

Day Two: The group farewell the travelling hunters and strike off again north-west, travelling without incident until they spot a group of strangers attempting to sneak through the tall grass of the plains around midday. Emerging from concealment (but leaving Shi hidden at a distance just in case), the group attempt to make peaceful contact.

The strangers turn out to be intensely paranoid and xenophobic, mistaking the beast-folk for demons and Mei-Xiu (the sole human) as a sorcerer and rejecting overtures of diplomacy. The situation threatens to escalate to violence until Sun, backed up with displays of supernatural prowess from Mei-Xiu and Ming-Hua, plays into their misconception and threatens them with demonic wrath unless they flee.

The strangers flee in a panicked hurry as the group press on, making good distance before settling in for a quiet night.

Day Three: The group travel onward, the landscape changing around them from flat plains covered with long wispy grasses to gentler rolling country with lusher reeds and grasses. Coming up on a hill in the early afternoon, they surprise a grazing rhinoceros and are aggressively charged. They strike even as they dart out of the way, weakening the great beast without it harming anyone until Ming-Hua is able to burn through its chest with a blast of flame.

Settling into a safe camp, they pass the night in peace.

Day Four: The group travel stealthily onward, coming into territory they recognise from their previous journey and starting to get their bearings toward the Tomb of the Nameless Hero. The day is quiet and without danger, and the night the same. 

Day Five: Around sundown the group come into sight of their destination, and Xiang and Ming-Hua repeat their respective divinatory rituals to learn that demonic chi from the nadir to the south is being drawn into the Tomb of the Nameless Hero now that the seal has been broken. The group hurry on inside, concerned about what awaits them but unwilling to wait. 

Passing through the empty chambers of Failure and Suffering as Xiang summons a crab-spirit to strengthen their numbers, they find themselves once more lurking in the doorway to the chamber of Death. The group press on inside, finding a room empty save for a tarnished bronze gong in one corner and a stone flask on the floor in another. 

The silence in the room has an almost palpable weight and dust lies inches thick upon the floor, and the mural that hangs upon the wall is a shadowed featureless black. Mei-Xiu approaches the mural with torch in hand, illuminating a buried human figure draped with a brilliantly-white funeral shroud. The figure stirs with a rattling deathly groan that creates a sympathetic vibration in the gong, setting the dust on the floor to trembling and reforming into a quartet of skeletal warriors. 

Mei-Xiu leaps into action against Death, her blows proving ineffective but drawing the creature's retaliation away from the rest of the group. Ming-Hua provides magical support, while Xiang, Shi, Sun, and the crab engage the skeletons, more of which are forming from the dust with each passing moment. 

Sun cuts down a number of the skeletons on one side of the chamber while a pair of them on the other side tear the crab-spirit apart, flesh and spirit alike. Xiang conjures a sphere of flames that rolls into death and sets its grave-shroud to smoldering and scorches a number of the skeletons. 

Death finally lands a blow on the elusive Mei-Xiu, the touch causing her awareness of her body to dull and become distant, before the creature moves over to where Ming-Hua is surrounded by skeletons and comes very close to seizing her throat in its bony hand. At the same moment, indistinct skeletal figures slowly emerge from the painted recesses of the shadowed mural and begin to stumble towards the lighted room...

All Things Under Heaven, Session #5

Our Setting: Iron Springs is a moderately-sized town at the north-western frontier of civilized Tianxia, looking out over a region that many call only The Wastes. The town is built on the broad banks of the Lièkǒu River, the only lifeline that it has back to the Imperial world of bureaucracy and well-tended order, and is supported by terrace-farms cut into the surrounding hill country. It is home to around a thousand souls, making it the largest inhabited center in the surrounding lands.

From Iron Springs a rich tapestry of terrain stretches out towards the sunset: vast and trackless forests, stinking marshes, windswept plains, rugged hills and towering mountains where the workshops of the old Zhang witch-alchemists may still stand. These Wastes are wild, untamed, dangerous, and haunted by beasts and spirits and yet stranger things.

Iron Springs’ extreme remoteness and the wild and untamed nature of The Wastes have contributed to its reputation as a place of last resort, somewhere that only the greedy, the foolish, or the desperate would try and make a life. Those who chafe at the yoke of Imperial authority find the distance from any real governance appealing, while scholars and seekers after the weird and macabre find it a valuable source of information and research subjects.

The Wastes beyond Iron Springs are the stuff of many a legend, promising all those things that are best in life: wealth beyond measure, endless opportunity, danger to be faced, glory to be won, secrets and wonders to behold and uncover, and a means to transform your life. Tame the Wastes, the buzz in the teahouse goes, and the Emperor has promised that a noble title will be yours along with deeds to whatever you manage to wrest from the trackless wilderness.

Our Cast:

• Mei-Xiu, a human Monk (Way of the Tiger's Soul). Given away as a child to a warlord, one of the Rén catfolk. She was raised as an assassin, and now wanders the Wastes to challenge the strong. 
• Ming-Hua, a Wizard (School of Evocation). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Ibis. She tired of reading about the arcane in dusty libraries, and now wanders the Wastes to study the weird. 
• Shi, a Fighter (Champion). One of the Rén catfolk from the Tribe of the Leopard. He was a criminal back in the civilised world, and now wanders the Wastes to encounter the strange. 
• Sun Thuy, a Rogue (Swashbuckler). One of the Rén catfolk from the Tribe of the Fox. She was heir to a noble family back in her homeland, and now wanders the Wastes to protect the weak. 
• Xiang Wang, a Druid (Circle of the Five Elements). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Heron. They were a roamer and a vagabond already, and now wander the Wastes to seek the path. 

The Session

Last Time: Hearing that the rat-demons must be nearby, Sun and Mei-Xiu seek the highest ground of the hummock and spot a broad squat hillock bare miles away to the north-east, with a yawning black pit in the side where the earth seems to have collapsed inwards and into which a dark shape furtively scurries...

Day Five: Shi arrives, having stayed an extra night at Auntie Ma's to try and capture and interrogate any rat-demons that might come raiding, just as the group make preparations to enter the rat-demon lair. The group sets out stealthily for the hillock, making good time and reaching it around an hour and a half later. 

Stepping up into the area of churned-up mud and clay outside the pit-mouth and entering the tunnel,  Sun and Ming-Hua puncture their feet on the refuse (broken bones, shell pieces, shards of metal) scattered through the mud. The filthy chi in the soil means that supernaturally-fueled infection sets in, and one of the doses of leech dust is used to clean Ming-Hua's more serious wound.

Ming-Hua and Sun are bandaged up by Shi and the group move on, deeper into the warren of tunnels beneath the hillock. Mei-Xiu steps wrong into a muddy hollow where a rat-demon sleeps, the creature waking and stabbing at her leg with a vicious blade. It lets out a warning shriek, awakening two more rat-demons from hollows in the walls, and battle is joined. 

The rat-demons swarm forward, Mei-Xiu taking the brunt of the attack, but fail to do any real harm before being cut down. The last, however, gets off a loud scream that rings out through the tunnels, and summons another five of the creatures who crowd around the front-line: Mei-Xiu and Sun. 

From the rear, Xiang grows a carpet of roots and vines that binds the creatures in place and leaves them unable to evade a roaring wave of flame from Ming-Hua. Shi fires arrow after arrow with precise accuracy while Mei-Xiu and Sun contend with restraint by sticky clay-like mud that bursts off each rat-demon corpse. 

The group whittle down the enemy numbers to one last rat-demon, that scurries up a side-tunnel and out of sight.

Pressing on just far enough to see that the main tunnel leads to an open chamber with a thick central pool of mud where the creatures slept, the group set a magical alarm across the main tunnel and pursue the lone surviving rat-demon up the side-tunnel. They discover a tiny cramped chamber, inexplicably empty until Ming-Hua spots a narrow crawl-space high in the wall that leads away. 

Mei-Xiu's tiger-cub familiar is sent to investigate, and finds a large chamber where more rat-demons relax and wallow and the stolen barrels and sacks of the farmers' food have been piled into a crude chair for a particularly well-fed rat-demon. The rat-demons spot the familiar and though they hurl crude knives fail to dispose of the spy. 

The group take an hour's rest, catching their breath and chewing some salt-fish to regain strength. As they are already preparing to press onwards they overhear a scrabbling from the crawl-space, and arrange themselves to ambush the unwary would-be attacker within. 

They are the ambushed, however, as five rat-demons burst from the muddy floor in front of Shi (guarding the entrance to the cramped chamber) and begin wreaking havoc. The too-small room dissolves into chaos and panic: Shi is swarmed and brought down with a punctured lung, Ming-Hua's fire-spells prove highly effective except against the sneering well-fed leader of the rat-demons, and Xiang collapses the crawl-space on top of the sole rat-demon within before Mei-Xiu disposes of it.

The combat ends as suddenly as it begun, leaving the group in poor shape. Ming-Hua has become re-infected through her open wounds and Sun's condition continues, while Shi's copious wounds and his near-immersion in the filthy mud has the infection running rampant through his system. The blood-poisoning forces haste on the group as they search the warren, retrieving a pair of gems, a pair of bamboo-culm vials, and the stolen supplies of the farmers before retreating to the flat top of the hillock. 

There, Xiang's magic cures the two less serious cases (Ming-Hua and Shun) while the leech dust draws the toxins from Shi's blood. Concerned about their visibility on the hilltop, the group make their way back to the subsided hummock where they spent the night. Xiang's earth-moving magic and Mei-Xiu's skill at camouflage create a secure hidden camp and the group settle in for the afternoon and evening. 

Ming-Hua tries and fails to identify the liquids in the bamboo-culm vials, while Sun unlocks the secrets of the magically-blank book she stole from her parents before leaving home. It spells out the secrets and significance of items left nearby, and after some experimentation it reveals that one vial contains a potion of rapid hyper-accelerated healing and the other a potion that will turn the drinker, body and chi alike, into an immaterial gaseous form. 

Shi sharpens his weapons and does maintenance on his gear, while Xiang projects their chi into the spirit-world and mourns with their allies the death of a panther-spirit they had summoned who was torn apart by the rat-demons. Mei-Xiu keeps a lonesome watch for danger but spots nothing, and a proper watch-order is established as night falls and the group collapse into well-earned sleep. 

Day Six: The night passes quietly, though the disruption of waking for their watch and sleeping again leaves Xiang exhausted in the morning. The group strike out back towards Iron Springs, pausing near the edge of the Nírón Fens at the sound of distressed cries like those of a child coming from the distance. Ming-Hua's owl-familiar investigates and finds a trio of giant salamanders, each longer than a cart, half-hidden in a stretch of bog and letting out the luring noise.

The group move on, watching with gladness as the muddy, dreary swampland gives way once more to flooded forest. They journey at speed now, pushing themselves to make good time back to civilization, but around mid-afternoon as the sun begins to set and the temperature falls the heat of their legs in the water attracts a swarm of voracious lampreys.

Shi and Mei-Xiu extract themselves to higher dry ground, while Ming-Hua and Xiang take the brunt of the lampreys' hunger. Mei-Xiu returns, putting herself in danger's way to protect her allies and friends. As Shi attempt to thin the numbers in the water through archery a stray arrow very nearly hits the already-bleeding Xiang, but is snatched from the air by Mei-Xiu in an unprecedented display of skill.

The swarms thin out enough that they are no longer a threat and the group move to dry land, leaving the cover of the flooded forest for the exposed flat plains on the far side of  the river. A few hours later night falls fully, and they make camp in a hollow in the river-bank made by Xiang with their earth-moving magic.

Day Seven: The next day begins early, the group quickly making it to where the flooded forest ended and the hills rose upwards towards Iron Springs on the far side of the river. Crossing the water, they press onward and around midday reach Auntie Ma's stilt-raised farmhouse.

Auntie Ma greets them, treats the lamprey wounds on their legs, and then summons her extended family and the neighbors for a celebratory feast. Ming-Hua, Xiang, and Mei-Xiu all in their own way impress the children, while Sun continues to charm Auntie Ma and Shi slips into an early doze. The feast drags on long into the evening as the group return the stolen food to the community and Xiang tells the fire-shaping assisted tale of their vanquishing of the rat-demons.

The household-shrine to Kwan Yin, goddess of compassion and community, is brought down from Auntie Ma's house and an offering is made along with prayers for a good harvest, for future safety, and for the good fortune and happiness of the group.

All Things Under Heaven

(I've been posting play reports from my current campaign for a month now and have only just realised that I never actually introduced it properly. So, here is a little bit about All Things Under Heaven.)

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All Things Under Heaven is a re-imagining of my previous Wild Seas Under Heaven setting, keeping much of the work I'd done but re-imagining the basis of the campaign. It is a 5th Edition D&D campaign in the sandbox and hexcrawl tradition, heavily inspired by the example of Ben Robbins' Grand Experiment and Stephen Lumpkin's West Marches.

It is inspired by the legendary history of China presented in the Bamboo Annals, classic works of Chinese literature like Journey to the West, the fantastic series of novels The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart, wuxia films that include Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, anime films that include Princess Mononoke and Sword of the Stranger, and Adam Koebel's Court of Swords campaign for RollPlay.  

All Things Under Heaven runs weekly, and play reports should be up about that often. Significant hacking of 5E D&D has gone into it, both on the broader rules level and also in terms of unique Archetypes, Feats, etc. Much of that will probably make its way here over time.

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The World

Tianxia is an enormous island, centremost of all the lands under Heaven, which was shaped by the Dragon-Emperors in a time long since forgotten from clay dragged up from the seabed. It is a rugged land of extremes, with high mountains and plateaus giving way to sweeping valleys and rolling grasslands. Rivers abound, with their original courses often said to have been cut into the land by the tail of the dragon-god Yu the Great.

The time of the Dragon-Emperors is long gone, with the Great Emperor of Jade having ruled over Tianxia for ten thousand years.  The serpent-aspected humanoids that once inhabited the continent have all gone extinct, interbred, or retreated to the wilderness. The central plains and rivers, heartland of the Empire, are now a land ruled and tamed by human beings.

But the margins and the wilderness are not so tame. Separated from the fertile basin of the heartland by the towering Yinmi Peaks and accessible only by the wide and fast-running Lièkǒu River, the north-western frontier of civilisation beckons. 

The Town

Iron Springs is a moderately-sized town at the north-western frontier of civilized Tianxia, looking out over a region that many call only The Wastes. The town is built on the broad banks of the Lièkǒu River, the only lifeline that it has back to the Imperial world of bureaucracy and well-tended order, and is supported by terrace-farms cut into the surrounding hill country. It is home to around a thousand souls, making it the largest inhabited center in the surrounding lands.

From Iron Springs a rich tapestry of terrain stretches out towards the sunset: vast and trackless forests, stinking marshes, windswept plains, rugged hills and towering mountains where the workshops of the old Zhang witch-alchemists may still stand. These Wastes are wild, untamed, dangerous, and haunted by beasts and spirits and yet stranger things.

Iron Springs’ extreme remoteness and the wild and untamed nature of The Wastes have contributed to its reputation as a place of last resort, somewhere that only the greedy, the foolish, or the desperate would try and make a life. Those who chafe at the yoke of Imperial authority find the distance from any real governance appealing, while scholars and seekers after the weird and macabre find it a valuable source of information and research subjects. 

The Wastes beyond Iron Springs are the stuff of many a legend, promising all those things that are best in life: wealth beyond measure, endless opportunity, danger to be faced, glory to be won, secrets and wonders to behold and uncover, and a means to transform your life. Tame the Wastes, the buzz in the Capitol goes, and a noble title will be yours along with deeds to whatever manage to win from the trackless wilderness. 

The Characters

Rule Zero: You are an adventurer because you feel a strong call in your bones to action. The boredom of a calm life doesn't appeal to you – you are driven to leave behind the safety of civilization and explore the wilds: to make your name, to make your fortune, to accomplish some passion or goal. Regardless of what drives you, you are driven. You choose where to go and what to do. There will be a handful of obvious choices, but you don't by any means need to take them. The adventure is in your hands... (From the Player Document)

All Things Under Heaven, Session #4

Our Setting: Iron Springs is a moderately-sized town at the north-western frontier of civilized Tianxia, looking out over a region that many call only The Wastes. The town is built on the broad banks of the Lièkǒu River, the only lifeline that it has back to the Imperial world of bureaucracy and well-tended order, and is supported by terrace-farms cut into the surrounding hill country. It is home to around a thousand souls, making it the largest inhabited center in the surrounding lands.

From Iron Springs a rich tapestry of terrain stretches out towards the sunset: vast and trackless forests, stinking marshes, windswept plains, rugged hills and towering mountains where the workshops of the old Zhang witch-alchemists may still stand. These Wastes are wild, untamed, dangerous, and haunted by beasts and spirits and yet stranger things.

Iron Springs’ extreme remoteness and the wild and untamed nature of The Wastes have contributed to its reputation as a place of last resort, somewhere that only the greedy, the foolish, or the desperate would try and make a life. Those who chafe at the yoke of Imperial authority find the distance from any real governance appealing, while scholars and seekers after the weird and macabre find it a valuable source of information and research subjects.

The Wastes beyond Iron Springs are the stuff of many a legend, promising all those things that are best in life: wealth beyond measure, endless opportunity, danger to be faced, glory to be won, secrets and wonders to behold and uncover, and a means to transform your life. Tame the Wastes, the buzz in the teahouse goes, and the Emperor has promised that a noble title will be yours along with deeds to whatever you manage to wrest from the trackless wilderness.

Our Cast:

• Mei-Xiu, a human Monk. Given away as a child to a warlord, one of the Rén catfolk. She was raised as an assassin, and now wanders the Wastes to challenge the strong. 
• Ming-Hua, a Wizard (School of Evocation). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Ibis. She tired of reading about the arcane in dusty libraries, and now wanders the Wastes to study the weird. 
• Sun Thuy, a Rogue (Swashbuckler). One of the Rén catfolk from the Tribe of the Fox. She was heir to a noble family back in her homeland, and now wanders the Wastes to protect the weak. 
• Xiang Wang, a Druid (Circle of the Five Elements). One of the Guàn birdfolk, from the Tribe of the Heron. They were a roamer and a vagabond already, and now wander the Wastes to seek the path. 

The Session 

Day Ten: The group set off not too long after sunrise, travelling hard and pushing to make it back to Iron Springs without spending another night in the wilds. Around mid-morning they spot a dire horse drinking from a natural spring around a quarter-mile away and are sorely tempted to investigate. Some subtle signs that something is amiss and their desire for a soft bed and a hot meal win out, however, and so they travel on.

They push themselves nearly to the breaking point, marching onwards into the evening and past the point of exhaustion before making it back to the safety of town. Re-entering Iron Springs and finding their way to Broken Spear's teahouse, they collapse onto some old bedrolls in an empty corner of the common-room only an hour or two short of midnight and sleep like the dead.

In Town: The group spend the morning trying to find buyers for various objects they acquired and determine how much they earned. A fist-sized piece of chalcedony is sold to the town apothecary, who also identifies a mysterious powder found in the Tomb of the Nameless Hero as 'leech dust': a powder that cleans wounds and draws out poison. A bolt of exquisite black silk is sold to the town tailor for barely half of what it might have fetched in the Imperial Capital, earning his friendship.

The town broker, who controls the trade of goods back up the river to civilisation, pays upfront for a set of vases he is confident will fetch a good price and provides an advance on a finely-made wooden fan.

The group pay Broken Spear in advance for the night's accommodation and re-outfit themselves. Mei-Xiu trades in her fan for a spear, while Sun acquires a quarterstaff. Xiang confronts the captain of the town guard, Bitter Plum, over her failure to warn the group about the demons on the Āoxiàn Plains.

An argument ensues, during which Xiang learns that the area may hold a gateway to the Eight Hells but burns diplomatic bridges with the town guard. Ming-Hua connects this with the slow drift of chi into a nearby hollow she observed at the Tomb of the Nameless Hero.

The group consider where to go over a hot meal at Broken Spear's teahouse, contemplating a return to the tomb before deciding to go and help the farmers to the north-east with the rat-demon attacks and thefts.

Day One: The group set out slowly to the north-east through the farmland around Iron Springs, searching for a leader in the farming community who could tell them more about the situation. They are directed to the wizened Auntie Ma, whose stilt-raised farmhouse they find around sunset.

Auntie Ma thoroughly charms the group, shares some anecdotes about her past romantic exploits with members of the Ren catfolk and her possible adventuring career, and passes on what little information she has about the rat-demons before giving the group hospitality for the evening.

Day Two: The group pause on the edge of the hilly farmland, Xiang taking advantage of the elevation to perform a ritual to see into the spirit world and examine what lies immediately ahead. They detect several extraordinarily powerful presences in the Nírón Fens: a fading Celestial-feeling presence aligned with birds in the far north of the Fens; an enormous beast swimming through Lake Bōdòng along with a chi-misted island; and a stark brilliant presence gleaming from the mountains beyond the lake that takes notice of them and stares back.

The day's travel then takes the group down out of the hills, between the broad river that passes through Iron Springs and the smaller stream they crossed to the north between hills and plains. Between the two water-courses runs a stretch of flooded coniferous forest, where the group make good progress through the day before making a comfortable camp by lashing a platform of lodge to several forked trees just above the waterline.

Day Three: The group continue to press on, moving slowly and with eyes peeled due to their uncertainty where the rat-demons make their lair. Around mid-afternoon they come to a point where the river widens into a pool and encounter a handful of enormous crabs, each body the size of a prone human torso. The crustaceans are rapidly disposed of, though Xiang does take several nasty bruises to the shins and knees from the crabs' wicked claws.

Pressing on a little longer carrying the meat of the largest crab, the group make another camp above the waterline and enjoy a delicious cooked meal before slowly drifting off to sleep amidst the buzzing of midges and croaking of distant frogs.

Day Four: The group set off again, growing wary as the conifers grow fewer and more gnarled and the landscape gives way from flooded forest to muddy, dreary swampland. They continue to travel slowly and cautiously, looking out for any sign of danger, but find sage passage as they move into the edge of the Nírón Fens.

They find a half-subsided hummock of earth that rises above the water but offers some shelter from prying eyes to spend the night, setting up a magical ward to alert them of intruders and appointing Ming-Hua's owl familiar to watch over them as they sleep.

Day Five: On waking, Ming-Hua and Xiang combine their magical knowledge and rituals of revelation to detect that the soil nearby was saturated with gold-flecked 'clots' of crimson chi, suggesting that the rat-demons lair must be nearby. Ming-Hua also perceived the same awesome blinding presence shining from the mountains beyond Lake Bōdòng that Xiang had encountered days before, and like Xiang before her was perceived in turn.

Hearing that the rat-demons must be nearby, Sun and Mei-Xiu seek the highest ground of the hummock and spot a broad squat hillock bare miles away to the north-east, with a yawning black pit in the side where the earth seems to have collapsed inwards and into which a dark shape furtively scurries...