Help Topics

Every combat round is divided into segments. An ability's speed is how early in the round it takes effect: faster abilities resolve sooner, so they can land a strike, raise a shield, or move before slower actions go off. Instead of a raw number, each ability shows a named speed tier.

Speed tiers

• Instant resolves at the very start of the round, before almost anything else.
• Very Fast resolves early, ahead of most actions.
• Fast resolves in the first part of the round.
• Average resolves around the middle of the round.
• Slow resolves later, after most quicker actions.
• Very Slow resolves near the end of the round.

When two actions share a tier, the exact order is decided within the round by small timing differences. Passive abilities are always active and have no speed tier. Movement is scheduled along the same round timeline, and when a move and a strike would land at the same instant the move is taken first; see help combat for how a full round plays out and where movement falls relative to attacks.

Usage: help ability speed

See Also: styles help

The Commonwealth of Aldermark is a colonial industrial power from across the western ocean: a parliamentary, mercantile state under a ceremonial sovereign. It trades steam engines, rifles, and factory patterns for the empire's silk, tea, and medicines, and holds a fortified concession on Zhūwān's southern quays. It works no cultivation or magic of its own, yet its machine industry outstrips every rival, and the Five Kingdoms remain bitterly divided over whether its offered tutelage is opportunity or leash.

Office of the Ambassador of Aldermark to Zhuwan. Currently held by Audanieverae Elperieormee. See `help "Audanieverae Elperieormee"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Audanieverae Elperieormee

Office of the Ambassador of Jīnjiǎ to Zhuwan. Currently held by Měnghǔ Feng-Zhancalius. See `help "Měnghǔ Feng-Zhancalius"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Měnghǔ Feng-Zhancalius

Office of the Ambassador of Qiānjīn to Zhuwan. Currently held by Xiāngchéng Jīn-Jindoro. See `help "Xiāngchéng Jīn-Jindoro"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Xiāngchéng Jīn-Jindoro

Office of the Ambassador of Sìshuǐ to Zhuwan. Currently held by Tiānláng Xióng-Lanaris. See `help "Tiānláng Xióng-Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Tiānláng Xióng-Lanaris

Office of the Ambassador of Táimí to Zhuwan. Currently held by Jīnghún Yào-Liradi. See `help "Jīnghún Yào-Liradi"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Jīnghún Yào-Liradi

Office of the Ambassador of Tōngzhì to Zhuwan. Currently held by Shòuwén Chóng-Shuveri. See `help "Shòuwén Chóng-Shuveri"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Shòuwén Chóng-Shuveri

Ambassador of the Commonwealth of Aldermark to Zhūwān, third son of a minor Aldermark administrative family, and the lone standing presence of a largely hostile foreign power on imperial soil. He listens visibly and weighs what was meant rather than what was said, and is widely assumed to be the most dangerous person at any dinner he attends.

See Also: Aldermark Ambassador of Aldermark to Zhuwan

Every Jīnjiǎ military unit, militia, and guard formation raises its banner at dawn in its home square. Each banner is renewed if torn, replaced if fading. The unit's oath is re-sworn in front of whatever townspeople come to watch. The fact that Banner Day falls during Sealing, when the civil bureaucracy is closed, is the joke and the point. Jīnjiǎ does not take its orders from the seals. The other kingdoms find this in poor taste, and the Empire has periodically tried to move the date. Jīnjiǎ has periodically refused.

Mechanics

• Style: Radiant Edge (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You loose a blazing cut that sears your adjacent target for fire damage equal to half your main roll (rounded down), then sweep a two-wide by three-long swath of flame across the hexes behind them, away from you, burning every enemy caught there for the same amount. Allies and you yourself standing in the swath are spared, and the primary target is not burned a second time. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style radiant edge

Mechanics

• Style: Iron Claw (level 4)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Melee
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

For one round you turn your own injury against your attackers: when a melee slashing or piercing blow lands on you, the striker takes fire damage scaled by your furnace heat, twice your heat for a slashing weapon and once your heat for a piercing weapon. Ranged attacks never trigger it. With no heat banked there is no retaliation, and the returned fire neither feeds heat nor triggers a counter-retaliation. Activating it costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style iron claw

Blood sorcery draws its power from the simplest and oldest currency of the living world: a life given in exchange for a working. A chicken's throat opened over a chalked sigil might still a fever or sour a neighbor's wine. A bullock bled at the village stone can turn a season's hail aside. A grown man or woman, willing and prepared, can pour out enough force to raise a ward around an entire town for a generation. The art takes no side. What the sorcerer asks for, and what the sorcerer is willing to kill to get it, is the only moral question that matters, and on that question practitioners scatter across the whole range from saintly to monstrous. The most infamous of them gather under the banner of the Scarlet Meridian, a cult that holds spilled blood to be the truest scripture and pursues workings of appalling scale. Far more numerous, though, are the solitary practitioners: hedge-witches, exiled scholars, ambitious bandits, grieving widows. In some remote valleys the village ritualist is a respected elder, and the spring lamb offered at the boundary stone is no more sinister than any other rite of the calendar. Cultivators bleed differently. The disciplines refined in the body make their blood a fuel of terrible potency, and sorcerers hunt them with patient hunger. This is among the older reasons the noble houses keep the cultivation arts behind closed gates and unmarked names; a known cultivator on the road is a walking offering. Against all of this stands the Unbleeding Seal, whose oath admits no gradient. To them a child's lamb at a shrine stone is the first step on a road whose end is the Scarlet Meridian's altars, and they ride against both with equal severity. Their purges have broken cults and saved cities. They have also burned out wise-women whose worst crime was a sparrow at the solstice, and in many country districts the white seal on a rider's banner is feared more than any sorcerer.

A supportive art of the Radiant Chorus, Blossoms Barrier wakes qi in the living world, coaxing trees from stone, sealing doors with thornwork, layering allies in verdant auras that spread and regrow with every wound. Practitioners tend the battlefield like a garden: their blossoms shield the wounded, their thorns snare the charging, their petals swirl into razored storms. The strongest wall, they say, is the one that blooms.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +3
• Ranged +7
• 1 HP threshold +5
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +9

Damage defense

• Resistance: bludgeoning, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: piercing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Verdant Aura

Infuse someone's qi aura with verdant natural energy to help protect them.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after switching out of this stance, any helpful action (shielding, guarding, going back-to-back) with an ally also gives them a point of verdant aura.

Abilities

1. Nature's Kiss. Slow tactical. You touch a friendly target with restorative qi, granting them one point of verdant aura
2. Blossom's Dance. Very Fast tactical. You wreathe yourself in distracting, obscuring blossoms as you move
3. Nature's Grasp. passive. A passive blessing of the wild
4. Flower's Rebuke. Fast main. You ward a friendly target with retaliating blossoms, granting them one point of verdant aura
5. Guardian's Bloom. Fast main. You shield a chosen ally plus the two allies nearest them, each gaining a protective bloom worth half your main roll in shield points and one point of verdant aura
6. Forest's Bulwark. Fast main. Verdant energy flares in every aura across your side
7. Thorn Snare (advanced)
8. Guardian Tree (advanced)
9. Blossom Storm (advanced)

See Also: school radiant chorus ability nature's kiss ability blossom's dance ability nature's grasp ability flower's rebuke ability guardian's bloom ability forest's bulwark ability thorn snare ability guardian tree ability blossom storm

Mechanics

• Style: Blossom's Barrier (level 2)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You wreathe yourself in distracting, obscuring blossoms as you move. On any round you have actually moved, every attack against you that round deals 35 percent less damage from all sources, and this reduction multiplies with any other reductions in play. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

Out of combat

On adventure rolls for a task the arbiter judges a fitting display of grace or charm, your dice explode on 6, 7, and 8 (self). Type blossoms to summon a drifting flurry of blossoms in the room described in your own words; it lingers for about an hour.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke blossom_dance

Command: blossoms

See Also: style blossom's barrier

- Dùjīn Qiáo ("Bridge of Crossing Gold"): Grand bridge over the Jīnhé near Zhūwān, on the empire's busiest commercial road - Mòchuān Dù ("Ink River Crossing"): Grand bridge over the Huáimù Hé near Cángjìng, on the empire's longest road - Nánjīn Dù ("Southern Ford Crossing"): Grand bridge near Qīngyuán Gǔ in the southern trade kingdom - Ànshuǐ Qiáo ("Dark Water Bridge"): Grand bridge over the Yōután Jiāng near Fēnglǐng, on the Cháng Hǎi Guān Dào - Jùchuān Huìdù ("Great River Confluence Crossing"): Grand bridge at the Jīnhé-Yōután Jiāng confluence near Fēiyín Dū

Mechanics

• Style: Earthen Guardian (level 3)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: An adjacent ally (1 hex)
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You pair with an adjacent ally to take their danger onto yourself, raising a stone shield that absorbs 5 damage (10 while you are anchored). From then on, each attack aimed at that ally has a 50 percent chance to be redirected to you, striking your shield first before any of it reaches your own health. The pairing lasts until you and the ally are no longer adjacent or until one of you falls. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style earthen guardian

Queen Consort of Qiānjīn, third daughter of the Velsu merchant clan, who brokered a concord between two warring trade houses at nineteen. She sees several moves ahead and declines, on principle, to explain the first; her loyalty to the King is total.

See Also: Qiānjīn Consort of Qiānjīn

Governor of the Eastern Tōngzhì Region, son of a civil archivist and a river-spirit cataloguer, who earned his post salvaging the Siltmouth Compact when three magistracies neared open conflict. He withholds warmth until he judges a person has earned it, and runs his archives like a swordsman's forms.

See Also: Tōngzhì Governor of Eastern Tōngzhì Region

A high-valley waystation where the Jīnhé is fordable between the Wànshí walls and Dìnghú lies below. A handful of families run the inns and stables. The Chuānjīn Xiàn railway follows the Jīnhé through the valley, and the station is busiest during trading season when herders drive livestock through to lowland markets, near-deserted in winter when the pass snowbinds. Eighty permanent souls, all of whom know each other's business.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Jīnhǔ Wáng-Lanaris

**Bìhǎi** · Spirit of the Ocean Bìhǎi embodies depth, vastness, and the alien indifference of the deep sea. It is the least comprehensible of the dragon spirits to mortals; its moods shift like tides, its motives are opaque, and it seems genuinely unable to grasp why land-dwellers fear drowning. Sailors pray to it constantly and trust it not at all. In human guise, Bìhǎi shifts presentation often; a favored form is a weathered fisherman who smells of salt and speaks in non sequiturs that only make sense hours later. Manifested: an azure-blue dragon covered in fish scales, with a great fin running from its crown down the length of its back, trailing spray and mist wherever it moves.

A fishing and salt-panning settlement turned naval provisioning point on the Hánshā desert coast, sheltered by a rocky headland that breaks the eastern wind. The garrison changed everything, the town now has a shipyard, mechanized salt pans, and a fish-curing operation supplying military rations. Even the fishing boats keep to a schedule. A coastal rail spur terminates at the harbour. The Dōngyuè Cuìwéi highlands rise behind the town, and the volcanic glow of Yānshān is visible on clear nights.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Wǔyào Feng-Zhancalius

A commemoration of the kingdom's war dead and surviving veterans. The kingdom's living veterans walk a slow procession through their town's main road in their old armour or its replica. Behind them, draped over horses, are the helmets of the recently dead. The captives of the festival name are the dead, taken by war and walked once a year through the streets that remember them. At noon the procession arrives at a temple, where the names of the dead from the past year are read aloud. At sunset the helmets are returned to the dead's families. A festival of deep dignity. Visitors stand silent on the roadside.

Mechanics

• Style: Stormbreaker (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: A targeted enemy
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

Loose a bolt that strikes your target for half your main roll in wind damage, then arcs from one body to the next. Each hop reaches up to 3 hexes to the nearest unstruck character (friend or foe) and loses a quarter of its force per jump. It can make up to a third of your main roll in bounces before it dies out. The first target's hex also gains a pressure zone. It costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

After casting in a fight, you can type lightning_fingers to make lightning arc between your fingers as a purely visual flourish, or type static_shock with a willing player to give them a small narrative static jolt.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Command: lightning_fingers, static_shock

See Also: style stormbreaker

Heir to Qiānjīn, schooled in ledgers by day and the old courtly rites by candlelight, taught before he could grow a beard that wealth without ceremony is merely noise. He leads by inspiring rather than maneuvering, and carries the welfare of Qiānjīn's people with deliberate gravity.

See Also: Qiānjīn Heir of Qiānjīn

Qiānjīn's southernmost settlement, a fishing village on a long sandy beach near the Qīngmù Lǐng foothills. Boats are still hauled ashore by hand; the tidal flats provide natural salt pans. Low whitewashed houses, nets drying on every surface. The Southern Coastal Spur railway terminates here, connecting the fishers to the wider market, though the settlement retains a pre-modern air. The salt-panning families maintain their own traditions, including an equinox offering ceremony. Young people leave for Zhūwān or the capital, and the population has aged, but the fish and salt trade endures. An oddly traditional place for the merchant kingdom, too remote for Qiānjīn's usual restless innovation.

See Also: Qiānjīn Hǔdǐng Yún-Jindoro

A bay settlement at the foot of the Xuěfēng sacred peaks, where the mountain rises directly from the coast, its summit lost in cloud more often than not. The waterfront is still a working fishing harbour, but the upper town serves pilgrims and cultivators ascending the mountain. A stone arch carved with sutras marks the trailhead. The Wàn Lǐ Guāndào, the empire's longest road, begins its cross-island journey here. Fishers feed the pilgrims; pilgrims bring coin to the fishers. The arrangement is practical and ancient, very Tōngzhì in its quiet efficiency.

See Also: Tōngzhì Zhìwén Xīngláng-Shuveri

Chéngyuè lies in a shallow basin between the western reaches of Sìshuǐ and the Qiānjīn marches, a sheet of water so still that on a clear night the moon hangs upon it without a tremor. Folk from Cuìyá Bùkǒu and Sānhé Mìjìng say the lake has two skies, the one above and the one beneath, and a careless boatman who looks too long into the lower will forget which way is up. Fisherfolk out of Rùlín Wān and Shígēng Wān work the lake at dawn and dusk for silver carp and sweet shrimp, while herb-gatherers from Cǎohǎi Yá comb the marshy edges for water lotus root and the bitter moon-grass said to grow only where the reflection falls brightest. A modest road skirts the northern bank between the two prefectures, and pale stone shelves rise on the western shore where herons roost. It is widely held that anyone who sees the moon unbroken on Chéngyuè should make no oath he does not mean to keep, for the lake remembers promises spoken over still water.

A crimson ridge of volcanic rock within sight of Yānshān, the Smouldering Mountain. The lower quarter still smelts iron rich in trace minerals and the island's purest sulfur. The upper ridge belongs to fire-element cultivators, temples and meditation halls built directly on exposed volcanic stone, monks in caves heated by geothermal vents, alchemists paying handsomely for the rare mineral salts that crystallize in the fumaroles. The Eastern Highland Branch railway reaches a junction below the ridge. Miners and monks coexist in practical Jīnjiǎ fashion: each needs what the other provides.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Wǔyào Feng-Zhancalius

A high priest of the Grand Temple of Zhūwān, raised in the hill-country parishes of Táimí and seminary-trained, with a scholar's appetite for liturgical argument that has bested masters twice his age.

See Also: The Scarlet Meridian

**Chóulǎo** · Spirit of Regret Chóulǎo embodies the weight of roads not taken and words left unsaid. It is quiet, gentle, and profoundly sad. Not malevolent, but its presence makes old wounds ache. It is drawn to those carrying unresolved grief and has been known to sit with the dying, listening to their confessions without judgment. Favors a middle-aged scholar who always seems to be writing in a journal they never finish, with ink perpetually drying on their fingers. Manifested: a giant tortoise with a garden of dead, leafless trees growing on its back, moving with unbearable slowness through places where something was lost.

The kingdom's signature festival. Three days of unrestrained celebration before Lunar New Year's family observances begin. Every Qiānjīn town becomes a parade ground: floats covered in fake gold (paper, painted wood, occasionally real gilt), masked dancers, beggar-monarchs crowned and carried through the streets, fire-eaters, stilt-walkers, and the famous Coin-rain ceremony, where city merchants throw real cash from balconies into the crowds. Drinking is constant. The kingdom's distilleries produce a special spiced rice wine sold only that weekend. The carnival is also Qiānjīn's traditional time for inverting roles for entertainment. The kingdom's governor briefly cedes the city to a Carnival Monarch chosen by lottery from among the city's beggars and prisoners-with-light-sentences. For three days the Carnival Monarch's word is held to be law, within carefully circumscribed limits: no actual orders are obeyed, but every shopkeeper smiles and bows. At midnight on Sunday the Carnival Monarch is "deposed" with a mock execution involving cabbages, and the governor returns to office.

The Commonwealth of Aldermark is a parliamentary mercantile power seated across the western ocean, governed by an elected Assembly of Burgesses and a smaller Lords' Bench, with a sovereign whose role is ceremonial. Its citizens speak of liberty, charter, and free trade in the same breath as gunboats and coaling stations, and they are entirely unembarrassed by their empire. Aldermen reckon the world in ledgers: every port a column, every treaty a clause, every colony an investment expected to return. They consider themselves the natural tutors of younger nations, by which they mean every nation but their own. Aldermark seems to be the only known nation that has no magic at all, but their technology seems to surpass all others. Rumors are that they slew their gods in return for industrial power. They are known to have several 'ever-engines' which require no fuel and run forever, these power their most important factories. Aldermark first traded with the empire in 615, bartering clocks and woolens for tea and silk. By 809 they had pressed their advantage into a formal concession at Zhūwān, where their warehouses, drydocks, and counting-houses now line the southern quays. From there flow the steam engines that drive the empire's new mills, the rifles that arm both loyal garrisons and unsavory others, and the patterns for the factories rising along the coast. From there also flow crates marked as medicine, tea, and lamp oil, whose true cargo rots the lungs and purses of half a province. The embassy above the concession is the only foreign banner permitted to fly inside imperial soil. The arrangement breeds quarrel. The Lamplighters argue openly that the empire should accept Commonwealth tutelage and join as a chartered member; the Chainless Compact answers that no chain is heavier than a friendly one, and the Unforged refuse the bargain on older grounds. The River Wardens shadow every Aldermark agent who steps beyond the concession gates, and have done so with redoubled vigilance since the Lotus Quay massacre of 901, an affair in which Aldermark's hand was loudly denied and quietly suspected.

Mechanics

• Style: Silken Viper (level 5)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: One enemy (no fixed distance is enforced)

You throw a dagger coated in an amplifier toxin. It deals no damage; instead, every toxin already on the target has its remaining duration extended by your main roll/2 rounds (a roll of 0 or 1 extends by nothing). Casting it again later extends whatever toxins are present at that moment. Casting it has no penalty.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style silken viper

Mechanics

• Style: Razor Petals (level 3)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

A passive that hides your fans until you strike. On the first round of a fight you start in Razor Petals, your opening melee blow lands at 1.5 times its normal damage. The bonus fires only on that first round and only if you were present from the start of the fight, not as a reinforcement.

Out of combat

Your attack and concealment rolls against an unsuspecting target gain +5. Typing nick performs a quick mock cut gesture toward someone, available once you share at least 3 emotes with that person in the session.

Adventure use

Their guard was not for a fan, and by the time it is, a fan is no longer what you hold.

• On attack or conceal or unsuspecting target tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke concealed_weapon.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke concealed_weapon

Command: nick

See Also: style razor petals

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 4)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Fast
• Range: 6 hexes
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You draw a pool of shadow over a chosen ally or hex within six hexes and the six hexes ringing it, cloaking everyone standing there in concealment for two rounds. Recasting it replaces your previous patch of concealing shadow rather than stacking. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round. Can be used while stealthed.

Out of combat

On an adventure, this is a group ability: it grants every member of your party a +3 bonus on stealth tasks. You can also type dim_room out of combat to draw shadow over your surroundings, dimming the room for an hour.

Adventure use

Shadows thicken around your companions.

• On stealth tasks, you roll +3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke concealing_shadows.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke concealing_shadows

Command: dim_room

See Also: style darkened veil

Mechanics

• Style: Snaring Storm (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: 3 hexes
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You hook an enemy up to three hexes away and deal your main roll in damage. If at the moment of resolution the target stands adjacent to one or more of their own allies, the rope tangles them together, halving the movement speed of the target and every such adjacent ally for one round. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style snaring storm

Office of the Consort of Jīnjiǎ. Currently held by Lánglì Zhancalius. See `help "Lánglì Zhancalius"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Lánglì Zhancalius

Office of the Consort of Qiānjīn. Currently held by Báiláng Jindoro. See `help "Báiláng Jindoro"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Báiláng Jindoro

Office of the Consort of Sìshuǐ. Currently held by Cǎiqiú Lanaris. See `help "Cǎiqiú Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Cǎiqiú Lanaris

Office of the Consort of Táimí. Currently held by Húnshén Liradi. See `help "Húnshén Liradi"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Húnshén Liradi

Office of the Consort of Tōngzhì. Currently held by Qīnglì Shuveri. See `help "Qīnglì Shuveri"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Qīnglì Shuveri

A spirit which has been corrupted by some dark magic, taking the form of some large creature or chimera of two creatures.

Mechanics

• Style: Patient Edge (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Self
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

Ready a freezing reprisal. Through the round it tracks every distinct enemy who attacks you or a neighboring same-faction ally. At the end of the round, each of those attackers takes water damage equal to half your main roll. If no one attacked, the reprisal simply fizzles and you pay no cost. When it does fire, it costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style patient edge

Mechanics

• Style: Patient Edge (level 2)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: Melee

Ready this as a reactive counter. Once armed, the next time an enemy strikes you in melee you answer instantly: you deal bludgeoning damage equal to your main roll, knock the attacker three hexes back, and leave them prone for one round. The counter respects Mirror Stance like any of your main rolls: while you are in the stance its roll is halved, and after you have left the stance a queued stance bonus is spent on it. If no enemy triggers it that round, nothing happens and you pay no cost.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style patient edge

Cultivation is the refinement of qi through disciplined breath, sworn forms, and the ingestion of herbal pills distilled from rare mountain flora and stranger things besides. A practiced cultivator can shatter stone with an open palm, stride across water, deflect bullets from their skin, wield the elements like weapon, and perserve enough vitality that they never pass beyond middle-age. It is well-established that only those of noble blood are capable of Cultivation, and while occassional commoners stumble upon it's ways it's always quickly established that they had some long hidden noble blood. The noble houses cultivate openly, and beneath them the four great schools shape the discipline into rival traditions: the Ember Fist, the Veiled Grace, the Mirrored Tempest, and the Radiant Chorus. Sect elders, often centuries seasoned, guard the higher pill formulas as jealously as any crown jewel. Qi deepens through romantic chemistry, and most fiercely between rivals whose passions are sharpened by opposition. Two cultivators circling one another in suspicion, longing, or open enmity will both ascend faster than either could alone. Court matchmakers, sect rivals, and scheming dowagers exploit this without shame, and half the duels recorded in the histories are also love letters. Blood sorcerers covet cultivators above all other prey. Refined qi saturates the blood, and a single cup drawn from a sect disciple outweighs barrels taken from the commonborn. See `help "Blood Sorcery"`. Shades are also drawn to culviators, their qi making the creatures feel some semblance of life's warmth once more. The two arts stand at opposite poles of the empire's regard, and a cultivator does not walk both roads at once. Cultivation is the noble's open path: martial, herbal, honoured in the daylight, and earned only through the slow refinement of one's own qi. Blood sorcery buys its power from a life laid down, and even where a village rite passes for harmless the art keeps its place in the empire's underside. There is no law of nature that bars a noble from learning to spill blood over a sigil, and the histories whisper of a few who did. But for one whose own veins are the sweetest fuel a sorcerer could hope for, the prey turning predator is reckoned the foulest of betrayals: it spends the honour of house and self, it brands the cultivator a deviant in the eyes of every sect, and it draws the Unbleeding Seal, who ride against the sacrifice arts in all their forms and care nothing for noble blood when they catch its scent. A cultivator who hungers for swift power has the cultivation arts and the duelling rivalries that sharpen qi; the sacrifice road offers only a name no honourable house will own.

Some great act of dishonor or tragedy has manifested into an embodied curse, often taking the form of large, twisted animals or chimeras. Sometimes will regenerate or are unkillable unless the curse is resolved, sometimes only killable in a specific way related to the curse.

Wooden houses bolted to spray-lashed cliffs, connected by steep timber stairways above the surf. The Fāng Yǔ Lín jungle presses to the cliff edge, staining the rock green, hence the name. The Hǎicuì Xīdào coastal road and two railway lines, the Cāngbō Xiàn and the Western Coastal Branch, connect the settlement along the coast, though the steep terrain makes the final descent to the harbour a climb. The fishers salt and dry their catch for coastal shipment to the capital, and a shrine to the sea spirit crowns the highest point. Cuìyá folk are known across Sìshuǐ for saying little and expecting less.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Yǐnghuáng Dúhuī-Lanaris

The most remote settlement in Jīnjiǎ, where ancient Hǎifēng Sōng pine forest meets the northeast sea. A hundred permanent residents, doubling in cutting season. The draw is the timber: dark, dense, salt-resistant pine that shipwrights prize above all other wood. Ox-teams drag logs to a sheltered cove for barge shipment south. The Jīn Àn Xiàn and Dèngdào Xiàn railways meet here, an unlikely junction for two trunk lines, but the timber trade demanded it. Individual trees have names. The locals have a reputation for stubbornness that even other Jīnjiǎ folk find impressive.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Wǔyào Feng-Zhancalius

A jungle-fringed cove on Táimí's northern coast, so sheltered by green headlands that approaching boats sometimes miss it entirely. Everything rusts, mildews, and grows moss, the canopy hangs over the settlement like a second roof. Fishers work the offshore waters; loggers float jungle hardwood to the cove for coastal barge shipment. The Xuěfēng peaks are visible on clear days to the north. Access is by sea and by the Cāngbō Xiàn railway, which threads through a narrow jungle cutting to reach the cove. A small, self-sufficient place where the forest provides and the spirits are consulted before any tree is felled.

See Also: Táimí Qīnghǔ Yún-Liradi

Folk call it the Spine: a knuckled ridge of ashen stone rising from the southwestern hills, its great peak shouldering above all others on the island at two thousand eight hundred and thirteen paces. The rock is pale and bitter, streaked dark where the rains run, and almost nothing grows on it; people in Wàngpō say the summit looks burnt on clear winter mornings, as if some fire passed long ago and left only the bone. Traders out of Cháo Píng and the bay villages of Rùlín Wān and Shígēng Wān go around it, never over, while the herb-gatherers of Qīngyuán Gǔ work only the lower skirts where stubborn thyme and rock-moss cling. What the mountain offers instead is weather, and those who watch its cap of cloud know when to draw the boats in. Older people in the valley say the Ashen Crags are a place the spirits abandoned, and that to sleep a night on the bare stone is to wake without one's name.

Prince Consort of Sìshuǐ, drawn from a riverward branch of House Lanaris. He governs no province and signs few decrees, yet the palace household, its petitions, ceremonies, and quiet counsel all pass through his hands. The court still tells how he once turned a quarrel among canal lords into a treaty by seating them at an opera rather than a council table.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Consort of Sìshuǐ

Grassy highlands drop to the sea in sheer cliffs; on windy days the spray mingles with meadow flowers. Fishers and sheep-graziers merged here over generations, perched between open ocean and the dense Fāng Yǔ Lín interior. Boats launch from a steep path down the cliff face to a rocky cove below, no harbour for large vessels, this is a small-boat coast. Wool, hill-cheese, and salted fish travel inland by the Cāngbō Xiàn railway and the Hǎicuì Xīdào coastal road. The locals read weather by instinct, watching storms build across the water from Xuánmíng Dǎo's direction.

See Also: Táimí Hǔfǎn Dúgū-Liradi

Mechanics

• Style: Razor Petals (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You move with qi lightness for one round, gaining its nimble footwork without paying the usual loss of qi dice regeneration. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

Out of combat

Sets the floor on your balance and footwork rolls to 4, so quick stutter-steps and tightrope work never come up worse than that. Typing silent_entrance arms a 15-minute flag that lets you slip into a room without broadcasting your arrival to onlookers who are not right at the entrance.

Adventure use

Your footwork finds the ground even when the ground shifts beneath you.

• On balance or footwork or quick roll tasks, every die counts as at least 4.

Arm it before the roll with invoke dancers_grace.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke dancers_grace

Command: silent_entrance

See Also: style razor petals

There are two ways to actually dance in Romance of Five Kingdoms, and one combat ability that happens to share the word. Plain roleplay dancing with no mechanics behind it is done with emote.

Hiring a taxi dancer in a ballroom

The grand ballrooms of Zhūwān keep professional dancers on hand for the evening. While you are in a ballroom such as The Pearl Ballroom, The Crystal Ballroom, the Grand Hotel Ballroom, or the Starlight Dance Hall:

• dancers lists the dancers working tonight, each with their tier and their fee for the hour in Silver Li.
• hire <name> takes a partner onto the floor. The fee is paid from your Silver Li wallet, the set lasts one hour, and the dancer takes your arm and follows you while it runs.
• dismiss ends the dance early. There is no refund for the remaining time.

Dancing at a society event

When a host has launched a society event in the room, the host can open a group dance and guests can step onto the floor together.

• The host starts it with start activity dance (optionally naming a piece of music, for example start activity dance Morning Rain).
• Guests join with join dance. You are paired with another guest; if no partner is free yet you wait in the queue until one is.
• The host can pause dance and resume dance, shuffle to re-pair everyone with new partners, and stopdance to close the floor.
• You can step off at any time with leave.

Who you are matched with is shaped by your social preferences: guests you have marked as liked are favoured as partners, and guests you have marked as avoided are skipped where possible. Guests who spend at least half of the dance on the floor earn a standing bonus to their social influence from the event.

Fan Dance is something else

The Fan Dance of the Razor Petals combat style is a fighting move, not social dancing. After you use Fan Dance in a fight you can type flourish to sweep your bladed fans through a brief shimmering display in the room. It has nothing to do with ballrooms or society events.

Usage: help dance

See Also: dancers hire dismiss join emote ability fan dance

A ranged mystic art of the Veiled Grace, Darkened Veil turns shadow against the mind. Enemies struck by its qi grow disoriented: blows go wide, certainty curdles. Its practitioners fade from view, snap back into missed positions, send shadow-replicas to deliver kicks from across a courtyard, and wreathe targets in darkness until illusory soldiers strike them down. The fight you win best is the one your opponent fought only with phantoms.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +3
• Ranged +7
• 1 HP threshold +9
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +5

Damage defense

• Resistance: bludgeoning, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: slashing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Disorientation

Disorientation builds on enemies targeted by Darkened Veil attacks and can be exploited. Enemies gain one disorientation whenever they lose a HP to a Darkened Veil attack.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style, taking an HP from an enemy or applying any sort of debuff causes them to gain a point of disorientation.

Abilities

1. Mastery Bleed. passive. A passive payoff for mastery in this style
2. Disorientation. passive. The core mechanic of the style, working quietly behind your every attack
3. Shadow's Veil. Instant tactical. You fade into the shadows
4. Distraction. Fast main. You flood a target's senses with shadowy illusions
5. Shadow Strike. Average main. You perform a powerful spin kick, and as it finishes a shadow replica of you launches from your body to deliver the kick to a target up to six hexes away, dealing shadow damage equal to your main roll times three halves
6. Concealing Shadows. Fast tactical. You draw a pool of shadow over a chosen ally or hex within six hexes and the six hexes ringing it, cloaking everyone standing there in concealment for two rounds
7. Shadow's Return. Very Slow tactical. You leave a shadow of yourself where you began the round, then act freely
8. Shadow's Dance. Fast tactical. Your shadows rise into a host of illusory soldiers that fall upon every disoriented enemy at once, regardless of distance
9. Shadow Field (advanced)
10. Shadow Army (advanced)
11. Invisibility (advanced)

See Also: school veiled grace ability mastery bleed ability disorientation ability shadow's veil ability distraction ability shadow strike ability concealing shadows ability shadow's return ability shadow's dance ability shadow field ability shadow army ability invisibility

Mechanics

• Style: Radiant Edge (level 2)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Within your weapon's reach (3 hexes)
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 1 each round

You flash blinding glare across an enemy's eyes, shifting their damage thresholds 3 points easier to cross for one round, so the same raw damage carves deeper wounds. Re-casting refreshes the effect rather than stacking it. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 1 each round.

Out of combat

Typing fireworks sets off a cascade of dazzling sparks, a brief ambient room effect lasting about 30 seconds. It is armed each time you cast Dazzle.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Command: fireworks

See Also: style radiant edge

Mechanics

• Style: Radiant Edge (level 3)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You drive a dazzling melee strike into an adjacent foe for metal damage equal to half again your main roll (your main roll times three, divided by two, rounded down). Because it is both a melee attack and a main action, it feeds both of your paired counters at round end. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style radiant edge

Short answer: no, you cannot be permanently killed. Losing a fight in Romance of Five Kingdoms knocks you unconscious; it does not end your character. There is no death penalty and no permadeath in the closed alpha. You always wake up and carry on.

What happens when your health runs out

Wounds in a fight cost you health (HP). Check yours any time with score. When your health drops to zero you are knocked out, not slain. You fall unconscious, drop to the ground, and take no further part in the fight. Surrendering before it comes to that leaves you conscious but helpless, which spares you the knockout while still ending your fight.

Waking up again

• You cannot wake while the fight is still going. The wake clock only starts once the fight is over.
• Left alone, you come round on your own about ten minutes after the fight ends, with nothing required of you.
• A companion can rouse you sooner with wake, but only after the first minute has passed. Before that you are too dazed to be woken. See help wake.

Coming round restores your awareness, not your wounds, so you will still want to mend the health you lost (see below).

Recovering your health

Your health comes back through a few reliable routes: log out and stay offline for six hours or more to wake healed, soak at the Mineral Springs Tea House in town, use delve recover inside a delve, or use activity heal on an adventure rest round. For the full details see help healing. If you would rather practise fighting without any bruises at all, spar scores touches instead of real damage, so no one loses any health.

Stepping away from a character

To stop playing for now, simply quit to log out; your character is waiting when you return. There is also a reroll command that wipes a character for good and sends you to make a new one, but it is locked unless your character is dead. Since the world does not kill you in the closed alpha, you will not reach that state through play, so reroll is effectively unavailable for a living character right now. See help reroll.

Usage: help death

See Also: healing wake reroll score spar combat

Mechanics

• Style: Radiant Edge (level 1)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Self
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You weave your twin sabers into a deflecting guard, raising a shield worth twice your main roll that soaks only slashing and piercing damage; any other damage type passes straight through unabsorbed. The shield halves in strength at each round end, fading quickly. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style radiant edge

To channel demon is to invite a second heartbeat into your chest, one that beats out of time with your own. Cultivators describe it as warm static along the spine, a whisper that knows your true name. Manifested, the element shows as a low violet light that drinks the colors around it, sometimes shaping horns, hands, or open mouths at the edges of a technique. Common folk call it the ninth breath, and spit when they say it.

Looking for the Omen you chose at character creation (The Wanderer, The Fox, and the like, shown on your score)? That is a separate thing — type help omens. This page is about the Destiny resource you earn and spend during adventures.

Destiny is a per-character resource that exists only inside an active Auto-GM (Jianghu) adventure. You earn it by playing your character with heart, and you spend it through the assert command to weave new facts into the unfolding story.

Earning Destiny

Destiny accrues when you act heroically, make sacrifices, or stay true to your character's higher purpose. Setbacks also feed it: if the adventure pushes back against you (a failed roll, losing health in combat) and you respond with a substantial, in-character emote, your next Destiny award is multiplied. Your balance is capped at 8 points.

Destiny Levels

Your current standing is described in qualitative tiers you may notice when you look:

• None (0)
• Flickering (1 to 2) — "A faint warmth stirs within you..."
• Steady (3 to 4) — "The spirits watch you with quiet approval..."
• Bright (5 to 6) — "Heaven's gaze rests gently upon you..."
• Radiant (7 to 8) — "You feel the full weight of heaven's mandate..."

Spending Destiny with assert

Each kind of assertion costs Destiny. If you cannot afford an assertion, it will not go through.

• environment — change the scene or surroundings (1)
• npc — introduce a new NPC (2, limited to one per scene)
• connection — assert a relationship between characters (2)
• complication (targeted) — add a complication aimed at another player (1, one per target per scene)
• complication (on yourself) — add a complication to your own character (free)
• gift — hand an advantage to another player (1)
• revelation — reveal a secret or hidden truth (3, once per adventure)
• converge — propose a story convergence others can join (2, once per adventure)

The GM may accept an assertion as written, suggest an adapted wording for tone, or reject it. Use assert accept or assert reject to respond to a suggested adaptation or to a complication someone aimed at you.

Destiny and Rewards

At the end of an adventure your Destiny play boosts your rewards, up to a 1.5x multiplier. The biggest bonus comes from generosity: Destiny you spent on others (gifts, connections, complications aimed at other players) counts most. Adding complications to your own character helps a little (with diminishing returns), and leftover unspent Destiny gives a small bonus. Hoarding Destiny is worth far less than spending it to enrich everyone's story.

Usage: help destiny

See Also: omens assert adventures

Mechanics

• Style: Silken Viper (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: One enemy (no fixed distance is enforced)

You throw a dagger coated in a disorienting toxin that cuts the target's outgoing ranged damage by 50 percent for 1 + main roll/3 rounds. It only weakens their ranged attacks, not their melee. Re-casting on an already-afflicted target adds to the remaining duration rather than refreshing or stacking. The venom is tagged as a toxin, so Compromise can later prolong it. Casting it has no penalty.

Out of combat

On an adventure, gives a +3 bonus to any roll to identify a substance.

Adventure use

Your fingers know the shape of every dose, every grain.

• On identify substance tasks, you roll +3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke disorientating_venom.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke disorientating_venom

See Also: style silken viper

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 1)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

The core mechanic of the style, working quietly behind your every attack. Whenever an enemy loses at least 1 HP to one of your Darkened Veil strikes, they gain a point of disorientation. Disorientation stacks up to ten points on a target and lingers for three rounds, refreshing its duration each time a new point is added. The stacks do nothing on their own, but they are the fuel that Shadow Army chains through and that Shadow's Dance converts into crippling vulnerability.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style darkened veil

Mechanics

• Style: Radiant Edge (level 5)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

A passive that runs the whole time you hold the Radiant Edge stance. When an enemy melee-attacks an ally standing next to you, your flashing blades distract the attacker and reduce their melee damage by twice your Radiant Edge counter. Multiple Radiant Edge fighters do not stack; only the single largest reduction applies.

Out of combat

On adventure skill rolls the style lends a +5 bonus on tasks that distract or impress an audience. Typing sword_juggle starts a brief sword-juggling flourish, an ambient room effect lasting about 30 seconds, always available while you hold the Radiant Edge stance with no cast needed to arm it.

Adventure use

Bright blades dance through the air, pulling every eye in the room.

• On distract or impress tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke distracting_blades.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke distracting_blades

Command: sword_juggle

See Also: style radiant edge

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 2)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: 6 hexes

You flood a target's senses with shadowy illusions. The target gains a point of disorientation, and for the next three rounds their own attacks land softer: their ranged damage is reduced by five percent per point of your main roll and their melee damage by two percent per point, each capped at a 95 percent reduction. Does no damage of its own and carries no activation penalty. Can be used while stealthed.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style darkened veil

People climb high places, wear sprigs of dogwood (zhūyú), and drink chrysanthemum wine. A hiking festival, a literary festival, and an occasion to visit aging parents and ancestral graves. The doubled nines stack yang energy in a way that is both auspicious and dangerous; the abundance can become corrosive. The climb is partly an evacuation of the household to the heights while the spirits of excess pass below. In Sìshuǐ this is the mountain festival; climbing parties book inns on Mount Wǔbái months in advance. In Táimí it is a forest ritual of moving to higher ground in honor of the woods. In Jīnjiǎ it is a martial pilgrimage where retired soldiers walk to peak shrines together. In Qiānjīn it is a picnic festival with carrying-baskets of chrysanthemum wine. In Tōngzhì it is the year's astronomy night, with high observatories opening their doors and eccentric great-houses hosting star-charting gatherings.

The Duànfēng Jiàn comes down out of the eastern peaks in a single hard line, as if some old blade had been drawn across the mountains and the cut had never healed. The water churns white between dark walls of stone, cold even at midsummer, and folk near Tōngzhì and Jīnjiǎ simply call it the Ridge-Cutter, pointing to it when they want to show a child what stubborn water can do to stone. No barge will live in that torrent, so trade goes overland and crossings are made at a handful of plank bridges and rope spans kept up by those who use them. Hunters and herb-gatherers follow its feeder streams up into the pine slopes for deer, bitter root, and cliff-fungus, and in late autumn men set weirs in the slower bends below the gorges for the dark trout that fatten there. Older folk say the Duànfēng was opened by a sword stroke in some quarrel of the high powers, and that the spirit of the cut still lives in the deepest pool, where the water turns black and goes silent.

The river festival. Boats race; rice in lotus-leaf parcels (zòngzi) are thrown into the rivers to feed the river-spirits. Houses hang calamus and mugwort against pestilence; children wear five-color thread bracelets and pouches of realgar against the season's five venomous things, abroad on this doubled-yang day: snake, scorpion, centipede, toad, and gecko. Sìshuǐ holds the largest races and is the de facto host kingdom. The imperial dragon barge appears once every seven years. Jīnjiǎ runs swimming and water-combat displays. Qiānjīn floats theatre barges. Tōngzhì races by torchlight after sunset. Táimí keeps it as a quieter ancestor-water rite by the forest streams.

**Duījīn** · Spirit of Greed Duījīn embodies the compulsion to accumulate beyond need: not wealth alone, but power, secrets, and influence. It is jovial, generous with flattery, and always offering deals that seem favorable until the terms come due. Mortals who bargain with Duījīn invariably discover they have traded something they did not realize they were giving. Favors a male presentation: a fat, prosperous merchant with a finely oiled mustache and a laugh that makes you want to trust him against your better judgment. Manifested: a twenty-foot-tall minotaur with a golden bull's head, whose hooves leave coins embedded in the earth that turn to lead by morning.

High in the central mountains, cradled between ridges of dark pine and grey stone, lies Dìnghú, the Settled Lake: a sheet of black water so still it seems poured rather than gathered, holding the cliffs and clouds upon its surface without a tremor. Travelers coming down from Tiěxiá or up from the river crossings at Tiě Yán Dù all describe it the same way, and even in the high storms the lake itself scarcely ripples. The folk of Wànshí Kǒu and Bìgǔ Dù come for its cold, sweet water and the medicinal herbs that grow thick along the shaded banks; hunters track deer to the edge, though most will not loose an arrow there. Stones dropped into it sink without sound, or so the boatmen at Jìngpō Dùtóu like to claim, and the lake feeds no great trade, for it has no outflow that any have charted. Old wives in the crossing towns say the stillness is no accident, that something beneath the water keeps it so, and to break that quiet with shouting or quarrel invites a year of ill fortune.

The Dōngyuè Cuìwéi rear up from the eastern coast like the green-jade teeth of some sleeping beast, five sharp summits crowned in mist even when the lowlands swelter. Folk in Chìyán Gǎng and Shēn Lín Wān mark the hour by which peak the sun touches, and travelers climbing the pass at Tiěguān Yākou know the wind there bites colder than any winter on the shore below. Herb-gatherers from Fēnglǐng work the high meadows for bitter root and cloud ear, hunters take goat and pheasant in the lower folds, and fishermen out of Chìyán Gǎng read the peaks to forecast the day's weather before they ever wet a net. The pass remains the only sensible road between the inland villages and the eastern harbors, and more than one path that looks gentle from Bìwān ends in a drop into salt spray. It is said the five peaks are sacred to the old mountain spirits of the east, and children are warned not to whistle on the heights, for the wind there is thought to answer back.

To channel earth is to borrow the patience of mountains. The cultivator feels a low, settled hum rise from the soles of the feet, heavier than blood, slower than breath. Ember Fist disciples shape it into braced stances and stone-knuckled blows, drawing on its refusal to yield. Radiant Chorus adepts coax the same weight into shielding walls and steady binding-work, holding the wounded together while wood does its quiet labor. Manifested earth rarely flies: it rises in slabs, sets in dust collars about the wrists, or crusts the ground in ochre veins that pulse once and go still. Those who channel it long enough begin to speak more slowly, as if every word required foundation.

The sentinel art of the Ember Fist, Earthen Guardian teaches the body to become the mountain. Its Stone Anchor stance roots the practitioner in place, trading mobility for unbreakable thresholds. From that footing, guardians punish anyone who tries to flow past them: stone fists knock enemies back, spinning fragments wreathe them in a grinding shield, and the earth itself splits at their stamp. Around them, allies stand behind a wall that does not break.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +7
• Ranged +3
• 1 HP threshold +5
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +9

Damage defense

• Resistance: bludgeoning, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: piercing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Stone Anchor Stance

Anchored stance roots the practitioner in place, trading mobility for damage resistance.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after exiting Earthen Guardian stance, can stay in Stone Anchor stance. If not in Stone Anchor stance for those rounds, gain +2 to the 2/3 HP thresholds and movement effects move the practitioner half as much as they typically would.

Abilities

1. Stone Anchor. Very Fast tactical. You root yourself to the ground and enter the Stone Anchor stance, becoming immovable
2. Stone Anchor Exit. Very Fast tactical. You release your roots and leave the Stone Anchor stance
3. Guardian Strike. Fast main. A decisive melee strike against an adjacent enemy, dealing your main roll in your weapon's damage type
4. Bulwark. Very Fast tactical. You pair with an adjacent ally to take their danger onto yourself, raising a stone shield that absorbs 5 damage (10 while you are anchored)
5. Steadfast Authority. passive. A passive bearing with no direct combat effect
6. Stone Fist. Slow main. Your fist packs with earth and slams an adjacent enemy for your main roll in earth damage, knocking it 4 hexes away
7. Spinning Stones. Fast main. A whirl of stones orbits you for 2 rounds
8. Earth Break (advanced)
9. Grand Sentinel (advanced)
10. Immortal Stone (advanced)

See Also: school ember fist ability stone anchor ability stone anchor exit ability guardian strike ability bulwark ability steadfast authority ability stone fist ability spinning stones ability earth break ability grand sentinel ability immortal stone

The Nine Elements form the foundation of all cultivation across the Five Kingdoms. Every cultivator, regardless of school, learns to draw upon and shape these currents of spiritual energy: fire, water, earth, wind, wood, metal, shadow, poison, and demon. Scholars divide the nine into two families. The six natural elements (fire, water, earth, wind, wood, and metal) arise from the visible turning of the world. The three subtle elements (shadow, poison, and demon) move beneath that turning, harder to perceive and harder still to govern. Demon is the most feared of all, for it channels malign spirit, and even masters who teach it walk under suspicion.

The school of overwhelming power, unbreakable stances, and the belief that the shortest distance between two points is through whatever stands in the way. Its styles teach practitioners to channel qi into devastating strikes and superhuman endurance, hardening the body like forged metal and striking with the force of a landslide. Styles include heavy striking arts, iron body techniques, and elemental channelling of fire, earth, and metal.

Styles taught by this school

• Earthen Guardian. Defensive melee style that manipulates earth to harden the body and protect allies with stone shields.
• Iron Claw. Aggressive melee style that manipulates metal and fire, turning skin to heated steel to strike.
• Shattered Star. Aggressive style focused on area damage and dazing opponents.

See Also: style earthen guardian style iron claw style shattered star

Office of the Emperor of Sìshuǐ. Currently held by Jīnyǔ Lanaris. See `help "Jīnyǔ Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Jīnyǔ Lanaris

Mechanics

• Style: Iron Claw (level 5)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

An adventure-only boon of the style with no effect inside a fight: your gaze carries the furnace's menace, sharpening your ability to cow others and to peer through fire and smoke.

Out of combat

Grants +5 on adventure rolls to intimidate and +5 on rolls to see through fire or smoke. Typing eyes_of_fire turns your eyes into pools of living fire for ten minutes as a cosmetic effect; it can be reactivated at will.

Adventure use

Your eyes blaze with inner fire; the bandit captain flinches.

• On intimidate tasks, you roll +5.
• On see through fire or smoke tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke eyes_of_fire.

How to use

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke eyes_of_fire

Command: eyes_of_fire

See Also: style iron claw

Mechanics

• Style: Razor Petals (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You weave a decoy dance so that the next attack aimed at you may instead be redirected onto an adjacent combatant. Your main roll at cast time sets the redirect chance (three times the roll, as a percent). When an attack comes in, each living combatant adjacent to you other than the attacker is tested in turn (the engine does not check whether they are friend or foe), and the first that succeeds takes the blow in your place. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

Your distract and influence rolls while dancing gain +5. Typing fan_dance arms a brief ambient fan-dance flourish in the room for 30 seconds.

Adventure use

Your fans paint a bright lie across their eyes.

• On distract or influence or dancing tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke fan_dance.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke fan_dance

Command: fan_dance

See Also: style razor petals

Mechanics

• Style: Razor Petals (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: 7 hexes
• Cost: -5 to your other abilities this round, easing by 5 each round

You loose a cascading arc of blades that seeks out every enemy within seven hexes who is carrying Shallow Cuts. For each, the ability consumes all of their cuts and strikes them once per cut consumed, the first hit dealing a third of your main roll in slashing damage and each following hit decaying to three quarters of the last (never below 1). A kill partway through one target's cascade does not stop the storm from reaching the rest. Costs a -5 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 5 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style razor petals

Editor-in-chief of a Zhūwān bulletin, daughter of a Qiānjīn trading house who chose dispatches over ledgers and burned every bridge in her home city exposing a harbour inspector's bribery ring. She treats information, routed correctly, as the most profitable commodity of all.

See Also: The Inkstone Society

The festival calendar of the Àolǎng Empire is organized into three layers: **Empire-wide festivals** (observed across all five kingdoms): - Sealing the Jade: Imperial offices close as the jade seals are locked away until midwinter ends. - New Year's Eve and Solar New Year: The civic year flips with public feasting, fireworks, and the first lanterns of the season. - The Lantern Festival: Lanterns burn nightly until the third Saturday of January, the year's great public courtship night. - Lunar New Year: The family New Year: ancestral meals, sealed homes, a week of household-only time. - Longtaitou, the Spring Dragon's Waking: The Spring Dragon wakes; rain returns; the year's great new-looks festival opens. - Shàngsì, the Spirit Bathing: A water-purification weekend of bathing pavilions, drunken poetry contests, and quiet courtship. - Imperial Examination Days (Spring): Local schools and trade guilds sit their spring examinations; the Golden List goes up Saturday. - Imperial Examination Days (Summer): Local schools and trade guilds sit their summer examinations; the Golden List goes up Saturday. - Imperial Examination Days (Palace): The year's prestige examinations; the palace tier sits in the capital. - Imperial Birthday: State pageantry, foreign tribute, and amnesty on the reigning emperor's birthday weekend. - Duānwǔ, the Dragon Boat Festival: Dragon-boat races, lotus-leaf rice parcels, and plague-aversion charms against the season's venomous five. - Ghost Fortnight and the Ghost Festival: Fourteen days the dead walk: river lanterns, joss-paper offerings, and a long list of taboos. - Qīxī, the Bridge of Birds: The year's great romance night, when the magpies bridge the celestial river so two star-spirits can meet. - Loyalty Festival, the Cold Fire: A week of deprivation; the last three days every household fire goes out and only cold food is eaten. - Double Ninth: A hiking festival: climb high, wear dogwood, drink chrysanthemum wine, visit aging parents. - Mid-Autumn, the Moon Festival: A quiet rooftop evening: mooncakes, osmanthus wine, secrets shared by moonlight. - Founding Day, the Joining of the Kingdoms: Parades, banners, and a state dinner commemorating the joining of the Five Kingdoms; deliberately paired with Double Ninth. - Lěi-shén Night, the Festival of First Thunder: Gazetted for the weekend after the year's first thunderstorm: incense, rain bowls, and family auguries. - The Children's Walk: Children under thirteen walk the city unescorted; shopkeepers give small gifts; magistrates open their gates to questions. - Lǎo-rén Day, the Elder's Day: Households visit elderly relatives, ask one piece of advice, and bring food the elders can no longer make themselves. **Kingdom-specific festivals** (observed in the home kingdom): Sìshuǐ: - Stone Eel Run: Whole villages fish the spring stone-eel migration from causeways and pole-bridges. - Mountain Tea Picking: The Sìshuǐ tea-mountains hold their first picking; the imperial tribute is cut and the second flush sells to visitors. Táimí: - Moss Walk: The longest day's vigil: villagers walk the Moss Way in silence by candlelight from sunset to sunrise. - Spirit Mask Carnival: Every household carves a mask of its household spirit and wears it for the weekend; the mask is a person. Jīnjiǎ: - The Hundred Bouts: A week-long open sparring tournament in every Jīnjiǎ town's main square; wagers legal only this week. - Banner Day: Every Jīnjiǎ unit raises its banner at dawn and re-swears its oath, deliberately during Sealing. - Captives' Walk: Living veterans walk in their old armour; behind them, draped on horses, the helmets of the recent dead. Qiānjīn: - Coin Carnival: Three days of floats, masked dancers, coin-rain from balconies, and a Carnival Monarch crowned by lottery. - Masquerade Week: A week-long permission to wear masks in public; the masked are held to be strangers, even when everyone recognizes the voice. - Floating Theatre: Theatre barges float down the rivers performing the year's most pointed political satires. Tōngzhì: - The Long Night Wake: A drunken intellectual carnival on the longest night, held together by rare-book races, token-thefts, and tall-tale tournaments. - The Liar's Festival: For one day in Tōngzhì, anything said is presumed false; contracts void, oaths unhonored, confessions inadmissible. - The Moonless Market: On every new-moon weekend, Tōngzhì cities open a lantern-lit market for rare books, banned editions, and information. For any festival, use: `help ""`.

Festivals specific to the kingdom of Jīnjiǎ. ## The Hundred Bouts A week-long open sparring tournament in every Jīnjiǎ town's main square; wagers legal only this week. ## Banner Day Every Jīnjiǎ unit raises its banner at dawn and re-swears its oath, deliberately during Sealing. ## Captives' Walk Living veterans walk in their old armour; behind them, draped on horses, the helmets of the recent dead. Empire-wide festivals are also observed in Jīnjiǎ; see `help "Festival Calendar"`.

Festivals specific to the kingdom of Qiānjīn. ## Coin Carnival Three days of floats, masked dancers, coin-rain from balconies, and a Carnival Monarch crowned by lottery. ## Masquerade Week A week-long permission to wear masks in public; the masked are held to be strangers, even when everyone recognizes the voice. ## Floating Theatre Theatre barges float down the rivers performing the year's most pointed political satires. Empire-wide festivals are also observed in Qiānjīn; see `help "Festival Calendar"`.

Festivals specific to the kingdom of Sìshuǐ. ## Stone Eel Run Whole villages fish the spring stone-eel migration from causeways and pole-bridges. ## Mountain Tea Picking The Sìshuǐ tea-mountains hold their first picking; the imperial tribute is cut and the second flush sells to visitors. Empire-wide festivals are also observed in Sìshuǐ; see `help "Festival Calendar"`.

Festivals specific to the kingdom of Táimí. ## Moss Walk The longest day's vigil: villagers walk the Moss Way in silence by candlelight from sunset to sunrise. ## Spirit Mask Carnival Every household carves a mask of its household spirit and wears it for the weekend; the mask is a person. Empire-wide festivals are also observed in Táimí; see `help "Festival Calendar"`.

Festivals specific to the kingdom of Tōngzhì. ## The Long Night Wake A drunken intellectual carnival on the longest night, held together by rare-book races, token-thefts, and tall-tale tournaments. ## The Liar's Festival For one day in Tōngzhì, anything said is presumed false; contracts void, oaths unhonored, confessions inadmissible. ## The Moonless Market On every new-moon weekend, Tōngzhì cities open a lantern-lit market for rare books, banned editions, and information. Empire-wide festivals are also observed in Tōngzhì; see `help "Festival Calendar"`.

Cultivators describe the first kindling as a pressure behind the sternum, then a brightness that runs the length of the arms and pools in the palms. Ember Fist adepts favor it above all others, pairing its fury with the weight of metal to break guards and shatter stances. Manifested, it shows as banner-flame in red or gold, sometimes pale blue. A practiced strike leaves the air smelling of struck flint and dry pine.

Mechanics

• Style: Solar Song (level 2)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You weave a flickering fire dance, and for one round you take 25 percent less damage from ranged attacks and 50 percent less from fire and from shadow. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

Out of combat

After casting Fire Dance in a fight you can type fire_dance_room to make the flames in the room twist and sway for an hour. In adventures, grants +5 to rolls that impress or distract with a fire dance, or that let you pass as a civilian entertainer.

Adventure use

Your dance threads fire through the air; every eye follows.

• On impress or distract or civilian entertainer tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke fire_dance.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke fire_dance

Command: fire_dance_room

See Also: style solar song

Mechanics

• Style: Solar Song (level 5)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: A target hex; the blast covers that hex out to two hexes around it
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You hurl a fireball that bursts on the target hex. The target hex and the six hexes immediately around it take half your main roll in fire damage, and the next ring out takes a quarter of your main roll, each boosted by your Solar Dance stacks. The burst is a true area effect, so allies caught in it are hit too. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

In adventures, when you spend qi on a roll for large-scale destruction, the explosion's qi-die range expands to 6, 7, or 8 instead of just 6.

Adventure use

The blast goes wide, a sun in miniature; nothing is left standing.

• On large destruction or demolish tasks, your qi die explodes on 6, 7, and 8.

Arm it before the roll with invoke fireball.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke fireball

See Also: style solar song

Mechanics

• Style: Iron Claw (level 1)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Slow
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You sweep a kick through the enemies standing adjacent to you, dealing half your main roll in bludgeoning damage to each of them. Only enemies are struck, so allies beside you are spared. Activating it costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style iron claw

Romance of Five Kingdoms is a romantasy wuxia game. It is unapologetically dramatic, and the systems, lore, and culture are all bent toward a specific cluster of tones. Knowing the themes the game is reaching for will help you write a character who feeds into them rather than fights against them. None of this is a checklist; pick what speaks to you. But if your character touches none of these, you may struggle to enjoy yourself. ## Wuxia The bones of the game are wuxia. Wandering martial heroes, codes of honor, sect rivalries, secret techniques carried from one master to the next, breathtaking duels on rooftops and in bamboo groves. Style matters as much as outcome. ## Cultivation Cultivation is the preoccupation of most PCs, to grow ever stronger in their martial and supernatural abilities through practice, meditation, and refinement of pills. Some even take a strategic approach to romantically powered cultivation. Cultivation is the main progression mechanic in the game, and wanting to enhance your qi and learn new techniques provides a strong driver for your character to do things. As long as your character cares about cultivation it should generally be easy for you to have reasons for them to get involved in the game's systems and with other PCs. ## Adventure The empire is large, varied, and mostly underexplored by any one character. There are spirits in the rivers, monsters in the high passes, ruins under the rice terraces, smugglers in the Zhūwān harbours, and trains that will take you somewhere you have never been by morning. The world of the game is vast and one of the main themes involves going out into the wilderness of the Jianghu and having wild martial artist adventures, whether those are battling monsters or solving mysteries. ## Action Many of the game's systems feature high octane action, from stealthy heists, to epic battles or frantic chases. In combat characters can be fighting groups of enemies and leaping from tree branch to tree branch while a group of thugs fire machine guns at them from below. ## Noble Intrigue Your character is a Prince or Princess of one of the royal houses, as well as likely having loyalties to their martial school and perhaps one or more sects as well. This is part of the fantasy of the setting, you'll go to fancy balls, wear absurdly expensive outfits, scheme and plot over expensive teas and whiskeys and work to dominate others through superior social maneuvering as much as martial footwork. In the high reaches of society a well placed backhanded compliment does more damage than a well placed backhand. Both the upsides of the royal fantasy, extravagance and importance, and the downsides of the fantasy, duty, obligation, are part of the setting. ## Forbidden Romances With most marriages being arranged and qi growing stronger the more opposed you are to your romantic interest the setting strongly encourages romances which are forbidden or between enemies or rivals. The friction between who you want and who you should pursue is core to the theme and plays out in long, slow burning flirtations that often ultimately explode in qi-unleashing passions. While romantic obstacles like this are common in Romance stories they are unusual in RPGs, and it's worth thinking about how your character will interact with these themes. ## Advice This setting is a whimsical, high fantasy action-adventure romantasy setting. It isn't grimdark fantasy, nor western dungeons and dragons style fantasy, or a comedy setting. If you try and play a character that doesn't suit the theme you're unlikely to have a good time. The best characters will all involve elements of martial arts cultivator, adventure, noble, and romantic lead. How you combine those elements or spin them is up to you. While there are no rules against making for instance a character disinterested in adventure, or in romance you will be locking yourself out of significant amounts of the story and potentially end up battling the game's mechanics in a way that is unlikely to be enjoyable. - `help "aolang culture guide"` for the cultural ground rules. - `help cultivation` for the mechanical and dramatic centre of the world. - `help sects` for the orders, sects, and schools that organise most adventures. - `help kingdoms` for the five kingdoms and their distinct flavours. - `help honorifics` for the language the empire uses to mark every social move.

See Also: Àolǎng Culture Guide Cultivation Sects The Starlight Order Honorifics

Qiānjīn's contribution to Duānwǔ. While the rest of the empire is racing dragon boats, Qiānjīn floats theatre barges down its main rivers. Each barge is a small theatre, with sets, lanterns, and performers, and the day's traffic is a parade of plays passing by river-bank audiences. Plays performed on the Floating Theatre are traditionally political: the year's most ambitious satires, often parodying named officials of all five kingdoms, sometimes the emperor. The Empire has tried periodically to censor the Floating Theatre and has periodically failed.

Mechanics

• Style: Blossom's Barrier (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: An ally in reach

You ward a friendly target with retaliating blossoms, granting them one point of verdant aura. For the rest of this round, anyone who strikes that ally in melee takes damage equal to half your main roll from slicing petals; ranged attackers provoke no rebuke. Recasting on an ally refreshes the ward rather than stacking it.

Out of combat

Type bloom to create a small flower with sharp petals in your inventory, described however you like; it is purely decorative.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Command: bloom

See Also: style blossom's barrier

Mechanics

• Style: Shattered Star (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: 4 hexes (meteor hammer reach)
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You launch forward and crash the hammer down. The more ground you close on the target this round, the harder it lands: damage is your main roll plus 2 for every hex of distance you closed (closing counts only if you did not net-move away from where the target started). The target is knocked prone and hurled back 3 hexes, plus 1 more hex for each point of your Momentum bonus. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

Out of combat

When the pushback from this ability throws someone, typing heavy_landing plays an ambient room emote of the ground cracking where they land.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Command: heavy_landing

See Also: style shattered star

## The empire is a mixed people You can build a character of any ethnicity, with a name and a face drawn from any tradition, and that character belongs in the Àolǎng Empire as fully as anyone born under its bronze skies. ## Origins Less than a thousand years ago, the world was in what's now called the Age of Dreaming, this was an era of unparalleled magic and everyone could travel across the world at the speed of thought. There was little to no distinctions between cultures and ethnicities. When the age of dreaming ended people were scattered to different lands and cultures became more distilled, but 1000 years is a short time in civilizational history and individuals with other cultural names, other ethnicities, and other cultural artefacts are as much a part of the Empire as any other. ## In practice No one will blink twice if a character doesn't have an East Asian Ethnicity, or name, or sense of style. The setting is a fictional world, not based on history or mythological China. China's histories and legends influence this world in a similar way to Western Europe's histories and legends influenced Middle Earth. ## Royalty This is also true of royalty, Royal and noble families are no less likely to have different ethnic backgrounds or cultural trends.

See Also: Àolǎng Culture Guide Àolǎng Empire Commonwealth of Aldermark Shirogane

Mechanics

• Style: Blossom's Barrier (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -8 to your other abilities this round, easing by 4 each round

Verdant energy flares in every aura across your side. Each ally carrying verdant aura (including you) gains a shield worth half your main roll multiplied by their verdant aura points, then has all of their verdant aura consumed. The shields decay by 30 percent each round. Costs a -8 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 4 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style blossom's barrier

The day commemorates the Joining of the Five Kingdoms under the first Àolǎng emperor. The official line is celebration. Parades of each kingdom's banners, ceremonial reading of the founding accord, and a state dinner where the five governors share one table. The unofficial reality is older and more political. Founding Day is when each kingdom's quiet resentment of unification is most visible. Sìshuǐ flies its banner half a length lower than the imperial one. Táimí's parade is conducted in silence. Jīnjiǎ marches its veterans through the capital in a display one wrong word from a threat. Qiānjīn turns the day into a carnival that bleeds the official ceremony of dignity. Tōngzhì alone seems to celebrate without irony, which is itself suspicious. The empire pairs Founding Day with Double Ninth deliberately: climbing the heights is a way to be doing something else.

Spirits of mischief and chaos, with schemes varying from the educational to the cruel, come in three power varients, three-tailed, six-tailed, nine-tailed. Uses enchanting and illusory magic.

The Fāng Yǔ Lín spreads thick and green along the western coast, where the sea wind drags warm rain inland day after day, and folk who walk its edges say the forest breathes a heavy sweet breath of wet leaves, blossoming vine, and bark sap that never dries. The canopy knits so close that even at noon the trails beneath run in a soft green dusk, and travelers between Qiānjīn and Sìshuǐ skirt its outer paths rather than cut through, for the inner reaches turn a walker around within an hour. Herb-gatherers from Yún Jiē Tián and Cuìyá Bùkǒu rise before dawn to find bitter bark and fever root, while the dyers of Wàngpō trade for the deep reds and indigos pressed from its blossoms. Caravans moving through Sānhé Mìjìng and down to Cǎohǎi Yá carry its spices and resins to markets far inland, and a good year of harvest is felt in every kitchen and apothecary on the coast. Old wives in the bordering villages warn that the rain there is not only rain, that the forest weeps fragrance because spirits of forgotten healers still walk its paths, and a gatherer who strips a tree bare will find the trails knotted against them until they wander out empty-handed, if at all.

Governor of the Northeastern Qiānjīn Region, third son of a merchant family who restructured its trade routes at seventeen and doubled its returns in a single winter. He runs his meetings as polite, perfectly prepared sessions where the real decisions were made several meetings earlier.

See Also: Qiānjīn Governor of Northeastern Qiānjīn Region

A hilltop herding community with a military signal station, between the Qífēng peaks and the volcanic slopes of Yānshān. A spring-fed well made settlement possible on this exposed height; the wind-swept grazing produces Fēnglǐng's famously dense, fine wool. A watchtower built during border tensions two centuries ago became a permanent garrison, the summit commands views across the Dōngyuè Cuìwéi highlands toward Tōngzhì. A railway halt at the foot of the hill connects to the Eastern Highland Branch. Herding families and soldiers coexist in wary Jīnjiǎ fashion: each respects the other's competence without warmth.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Huǒ Yìxióng-Zhancalius

The kingdoms' most cinematic two weeks. The gates of the Below open on July 8, and the hungry dead roam looking for food and revenge until midnight on July 21. The fortnight has taboos: - No swimming. Drowned spirits drag the living under to take their place. - No weddings. A wedding's good fortune attracts the envious dead. - No moving house. Spirits follow the cart. - No whistling at night. Whistles are an invitation. - Never pick up coins or red envelopes lying in the street. These are spirit money, left for the dead; taking them is taking their inheritance, and the dead will follow you home to collect. Families set ancestral tablets on tables with three meals a day. At curbside, joss paper spirit money, paper clothes, paper houses, and paper horses burn to send their substance to the dead. Public getai (ghost opera) stages go up with the front row left empty for the spectral audience. On the night closest to July 15, kept on the Saturday for popular observance, river lanterns float downstream: paper lotuses, each carrying a single candle, guiding souls home. Shrine-priests perform deliverance rites at every major temple. In Qiānjīn and Tōngzhì the night also accommodates ghost masquerade: people dress as the various ghosts of folk painting (the lewd horned spirits, the unprovoked dead crushed under their own carts) and parade through the streets. For players: the fortnight modifies many systems. Certain quest-givers refuse contracts. Loot found on the road may not be loot. NPCs become more superstitious; paid bodyguards may refuse night work, ferrymen will not cross certain rivers at dusk, and unburied corpses in dungeons gain new mechanics.

The Emperor rules over all. Kings/Queens rule each indepdendant Kingdom Governers rule districts within Kingdoms Magistrates Manage towns in districts Zhuwan has it's own governer and isn't officially part of any Kingdom, it's a special economic zone although it is geographically inside Qiānjīn. Most Magistrates only have a few enforcers and secretaries, most Kingdom's militaries are roughly evenly split between forces serving directly under the monarch and those working under particular governers. Other beaurocracy is similarly roughly evenly split between Kingdom and District level with Magistrates handling minor day-to-day issues.

Office of the Governor of Eastern Jīnjiǎ Region. Currently held by Wǔyào Feng-Zhancalius. See `help "Wǔyào Feng-Zhancalius"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Wǔyào Feng-Zhancalius

Office of the Governor of Eastern Sìshuǐ Region. Currently held by Jīnyǔ Míng-Lanaris. See `help "Jīnyǔ Míng-Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Jīnyǔ Míng-Lanaris

Office of the Governor of Eastern Táimí Region. Currently held by Xīnchái Tiānláng-Liradi. See `help "Xīnchái Tiānláng-Liradi"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Xīnchái Tiānláng-Liradi

Office of the Governor of Eastern Tōngzhì Region. Currently held by Báiláng Wen-Shuveri. See `help "Báiláng Wen-Shuveri"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Báiláng Wen-Shuveri

Office of the Governor of Northeastern Qiānjīn Region. Currently held by Fānghǔ Wáng-Jindoro. See `help "Fānghǔ Wáng-Jindoro"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Fānghǔ Wáng-Jindoro

Office of the Governor of Northeastern Táimí Region. Currently held by Qīnghǔ Yún-Liradi. See `help "Qīnghǔ Yún-Liradi"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Qīnghǔ Yún-Liradi

Office of the Governor of Northern Jīnjiǎ Region. Currently held by Huǒ Yìxióng-Zhancalius. See `help "Huǒ Yìxióng-Zhancalius"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Huǒ Yìxióng-Zhancalius

Office of the Governor of Northern Tōngzhì Region. Currently held by Zhìwén Xīngláng-Shuveri. See `help "Zhìwén Xīngláng-Shuveri"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Zhìwén Xīngláng-Shuveri

Office of the Governor of Northwestern Qiānjīn Region. Currently held by Měnghǔ Lǐ-Jindoro. See `help "Měnghǔ Lǐ-Jindoro"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Měnghǔ Lǐ-Jindoro

Office of the Governor of Northwestern Sìshuǐ Region. Currently held by Yǐnghuáng Dúhuī-Lanaris. See `help "Yǐnghuáng Dúhuī-Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Yǐnghuáng Dúhuī-Lanaris

Office of the Governor of Southeastern Qiānjīn Region. Currently held by Hǔdǐng Yún-Jindoro. See `help "Hǔdǐng Yún-Jindoro"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Hǔdǐng Yún-Jindoro

Office of the Governor of Southwestern Jīnjiǎ Region. Currently held by Hǔzhèn Dugu-Zhancalius. See `help "Hǔzhèn Dugu-Zhancalius"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Hǔzhèn Dugu-Zhancalius

Office of the Governor of Western Sìshuǐ Region. Currently held by Jīnhǔ Wáng-Lanaris. See `help "Jīnhǔ Wáng-Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Jīnhǔ Wáng-Lanaris

Office of the Governor of Western Táimí Region. Currently held by Hǔfǎn Dúgū-Liradi. See `help "Hǔfǎn Dúgū-Liradi"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Hǔfǎn Dúgū-Liradi

Office of the Governor of Western Tōngzhì Region. Currently held by Wèifèng Zhāng-Shuveri. See `help "Wèifèng Zhāng-Shuveri"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Wèifèng Zhāng-Shuveri

Office of the Governor of Zhūwān. Currently held by Xiūhuī Hǎi-Lanaris. See `help "Xiūhuī Hǎi-Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Xiūhuī Hǎi-Lanaris

Mechanics

• Style: Earthen Guardian (level 2)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

A decisive melee strike against an adjacent enemy, dealing your main roll in your weapon's damage type. If that enemy was slipping past you this round (it started adjacent and ended the round no longer adjacent), it is knocked prone and shoved 4 hexes away. While you are anchored, that shove instead reaches 6 hexes and the strike lands 4 extra damage. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style earthen guardian

Mechanics

• Style: Blossom's Barrier (level 5)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: An ally in reach (the chosen ally; the two nearest allies are picked automatically)

You shield a chosen ally plus the two allies nearest them, each gaining a protective bloom worth half your main roll in shield points and one point of verdant aura. If any of these shielded allies later loses HP, the shield spreads to one adjacent unshielded ally, who receives a shield of the same original value and one verdant aura; that spread shield does not spread again. The shields fade by 2 points each round.

Out of combat

On adventure rolls where you are assisting an ally, your blossoms gild the assist so the assisted ally rerolls 2s (target).

Adventure use

The blossoms gild your assist with golden pollen.

• On a fitting task, you reroll any die showing 2.

Arm it before the roll with invoke guardian_bloom.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke guardian_bloom

See Also: style blossom's barrier

A shaft-timberer's son and hard-won problem-solver of the Hán Kuàng Lǐng mines, the man the Miners' Guild sends for when an old working collapses. He learned the shafts with the same patient, wordless attention his father gave to load-bearing timber.

See Also: The Ninth Pouch

A village-trained spirit-medium of Táimí who reads the mood of a grove before others feel it shift, and who seals the pacts that let loggers and settlers work spirit-claimed ground. He is sought out wherever an agreement must name the unseen parties as well as the seen.

See Also: Spirit Walkers

A forest settlement on a raised terrace left by an ancient river course, between Yāntán and the Hánfēng Lǐng highlands. Charcoal-burners founded it; paper-makers gave it purpose. The mill uses clean forest stream water to produce Gùhé paper, wood-pulp sheets used by the kingdom's bureaucracy for official documents. A dock on Yāntán connects to the lake trade. No electricity, but the waterwheel provides mechanical power. "Gùhé work" is a Tōngzhì compliment meaning something done carefully without fuss.

See Also: Tōngzhì Zhìwén Xīngláng-Shuveri

**Gǔshí** · Spirit of the Southern Mountains (Wànshí Range) The oldest spirit most mortals will ever encounter. Gǔshí embodies endurance, silence, and the slow patience of geology. It rarely intervenes in mortal affairs and measures time in centuries; a conversation with Gǔshí might include pauses that last for days. Those who seek it out in the high passes sometimes find wisdom, sometimes find only stone. In human guise, Gǔshí favors a weathered old hermit with dust-caked hands and an expression of infinite, unhurried contemplation. Manifested: a large, heavy grey dragon with rocky skin, slow-moving and immovable, whose very presence makes the ground feel more solid.

**Gǔtái** · Patron Spirit of Táimí The most beloved and accessible of the kingdom patrons. Gǔtái embodies the quiet persistence of growing things and the patient reciprocity between land and people. It wanders freely through the spirit lands and is known to sit and listen to anyone who speaks to it, from village elders debating water rights to children describing their dreams. Favors a barefoot herbalist with soil-stained fingers, a gentle manner, and moss growing in the seams of their clothing. Manifested: a giant stag of living wood, moss-covered, with antlers that branch into a full canopy of leaves, sheltering everything beneath it.

A onetime initiate of the Order of the Smouldering Ascent, the fire-cultivators whose meditation halls stand on the volcanic stone of Chìyán Gǎng, until a botched Meridian Unsealing burned out the channels that let him endure the geothermal vents. He now haunts the threshold between the ridge temples and the lower smelting quarter, trading half-formed alchemical insights to anyone who will spare him a minute.

See Also: The Ascending Path

Mechanics

• Style: Stormbreaker (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: A hex you target
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

Wring the nearest pressure zone out of the sky into a rolling hail storm. It consumes the pressure at the charged hex closest to the hex you target and blankets that area (the center hex plus three rings around it) with hail that batters everyone standing in it for water damage at the end of each round for four rounds. The harder the pressure consumed and the higher your main roll, the heavier each round's hail. If there is no pressure anywhere on the field, the cast does nothing.

Out of combat

After casting in a fight, you can type change_weather with a weather type to override an outdoor room's weather for one in-game hour (it refuses indoor rooms).

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Command: change_weather

See Also: style stormbreaker

Office of the Heir of Jīnjiǎ. Currently held by Xióngwǔ Zhancalius. See `help "Xióngwǔ Zhancalius"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Xióngwǔ Zhancalius

Office of the Heir of Qiānjīn. Currently held by Cháiláng Jindoro. See `help "Cháiláng Jindoro"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Cháiláng Jindoro

Office of the Heir of Sìshuǐ. Currently held by Yàojīn Lanaris. See `help "Yàojīn Lanaris"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Yàojīn Lanaris

Office of the Heir of Táimí. Currently held by Xiānhuǒ Liradi. See `help "Xiānhuǒ Liradi"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Xiānhuǒ Liradi

Office of the Heir of Tōngzhì. Currently held by Mínghǔ Shuveri. See `help "Mínghǔ Shuveri"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Mínghǔ Shuveri

Xiame - Inferior ally Weime - Superior ally Xiadi - Inferior rival Weidi - Superior rival Empire naming convention: (honorific) (first name) (surname)-(house name). **Wei** marks the subject as the speaker's superior: better at a task, higher in rank, older, or of greater social standing. **Xia**, its antonym, marks the subject as inferior. **Di** marks the subject as the speaker's rival: someone who represents opposing interests, disagrees, or stands in active opposition. **Me**, its antonym, marks the subject as an ally. Honorific forms are entirely context dependent and can even change sentence to sentence. Speakers also use honorifics as second-person pronouns, especially in one-on-one conversation. Omitting an honorific is seen as dishonest: a deliberate refusal to reveal where one stands. If two people are close enough however that sort of dishonesty could be understood as teasing. Noble society prizes the subtle use of honorifics to convey meaning without direct speech. For example, shifting from 'me' to 'di' can signal disagreement while remaining perfectly polite by not verbally contradicting the speaker. In romantic relationships, 'di' honorifics carry a flirtatious edge. More controversially, Wei conveys associations with topping, penetrating, and traditional masculine relationship roles; Xia conveys the opposite.

See Also: Xiame Weime Xiadi Weidi

The Huáimù Hé runs broad and unhurried across the northern country, tea-dark in the forest shadows and pale jade where the banks open onto bean fields, millet, and reed beds where herons stalk. Old folk read its wet-season rising by the smell of the silt long before the water shows. Flat-bottomed boats carry timber down from the upper forests, while grain and salted fish move between the river hamlets, and fishermen set night-lines for carp and the heavy whiskered catfish. The name, Cherishing Wood, is said to mark a promise between river and forest that one would carry what the other gave. Children are warned not to cut a green branch over the water, lest the river take a finger in trade.

Governor of the Northern Jīnjiǎ Region, third son of a military family from the northern passes, given no inheritance but a commission and a surname to defend. He asks one question where others would ask five, and lets silence sit until it does his work for him.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Governor of Northern Jīnjiǎ Region

**Huǒbào** · Spirit of the Volcano (Yānshān) The youngest and most volatile of the potent spirits. Huǒbào embodies eruption, transformation, and the raw creative force of destruction that clears ground for new growth. It is brash, loud, impatient, and incapable of subtlety, yet fiercely honest and incapable of deception. It respects daring above all else and despises caution. Favors a young warrior with a laugh loud enough to rattle shutters, who picks fights for the joy of it. Manifested: a great leopard of liquid flame, leaving scorched pawprints that smolder for days and filling the air with the smell of sulfur and hot stone.

A thousand meters up on the Qífēng plateau, near the Sìshuǐ capital Fēiyín Dū, iron ore and building stone mined since before anyone can remember who started. The town is built of its own stone: grey, angular buildings that look like they grew from the rock. The miners' guild controls the shafts and negotiates with the capital's buying agents. The Dèngdào Xiàn and Pine Coast Branch railways meet here, and the Fēngjīn Dào road connects the mines to Fēiyín Dū. Cold winds sweep the ridge year-round. A shrine to the earth spirit sits at the entrance to the oldest shaft, maintained with Tōngzhì precision, the offerings catalogued.

See Also: Tōngzhì Báiláng Wen-Shuveri

Hánfēng Lǐng rises north of Lake Yāntán like a wall of grey bone, its ridgeline scoured bare by the wind that gives the range its name, and folk in Gùhé and Sōngyán Bǔ say you hear the ridge before you see it: a long thin howl that comes down off the spine even on still summer days. The slopes are stony and sparse, twisted pines clinging to the lee sides, long bands of scree where nothing roots at all, and snow lingering in the high gullies well past the thaw below. Traders bound between the lake towns and the country beyond keep to the narrow track through Lǐng Cāng Guān, where the pass walls cut the worst of the gale; hunters out of Mòlín work the lower draws for goat and marten, and herb-gatherers from Cháoshān Fúkǒu climb in late spring for the small bitter roots that grow only where the wind keeps the soil thin. Fisherfolk on Yāntán read the ridge for weather, since a wind shifting down its flank means the lake will turn within the day. Old people say the wind on Hánfēng Lǐng is the breath of something sleeping under the stone, and travellers passing through leave a stone on the cairns at either end, one for going and one for safe return.

The Hánshā is what folk in the eastern reaches call the cold belly of Jīnjiǎ, a great spread of stone and grit that begins where the Wànshí range turns its back on the rain. The wind has scoured the country down to bone: flat shales, cracked pans, ribs of rust-colored rock, and gravel that sings under the boot. Only one river crosses it, threading the waste from the mountain shadow out toward the lower country, and every traveler from Tiěguān Yākou to Tiělěng Dù knows that to leave its banks is to gamble with thirst. Caravans out of Bìwān and Cāngsōng Kǒu hug the river road when they carry hides, salt, and the bitter desert herbs that grow only in the lee of certain stones, while hunters from Shēn Lín Wān come down in the cold months for hare and horned antelope. Old folk in Tiělěng Dù say the Hánshā was once a sea the mountain drank dry, and that on still nights you can hear the wind keening through the stones like a distant tide.

Queen Consort of Táimí, raised in the delta village of Sòngwei where philosophy was argued by fishermen and festival-drummers. She is celebrated for a court of velvet and well-timed provocation, and for sharpening the King's deliberations with a quicker register of her own.

See Also: Táimí Consort of Táimí

**Hēijīn** · Spirit of Zhūwān The guardian spirit of the empire's great port city, as streetwise and adaptable as the city itself. Hēijīn embodies hustle, resilience, and the sharp instincts of those who survive by their wits. It keeps no fixed territory but moves through Zhūwān's markets, docks, and back alleys, drawn to cleverness and repelled by cruelty. Favors a dark-haired street hustler with quick hands and a grin that suggests they already know how this conversation ends. Manifested: a bear-sized black panther with shimmering golden eyes, padding silently through the city's rooftops and narrow lanes.

The Hǎifēng Sōng cling to the cliff edges of the eastern peninsula like old fishermen bent against a gale, their trunks twisted landward, their needles always combed in one direction by the sea wind that gives them their name. From the lower paths out of Chìyán Gǎng you hear them before you see them, a long dry hiss the harbor folk call the breath of the pines; up close, their roots split the stone, and the bark smells of salt and resin in equal measure. Woodcutters out of Cāngsōng Kǒu work only the windfall, for it is bad luck to fell a standing sea pine, and the crooked branches are prized by boatwrights for ribs and brackets that will not warp. Herb-gatherers climb the safer ledges for the sticky resin, which is burned against coughs and rubbed into nets to keep them sound. In Wàngcháo they say a watcher on the cliffs can read the coming weather by which way the pines lean hardest, and that the souls of drowned sailors come ashore through the roots, which is why offerings of rice wine are poured at the trunks each autumn.

Governor of the Southeastern Qiānjīn Region, third son of a merchant-noble family of the port of Jīnkǒu. His region is the slowest in the kingdom to balance its books and the fastest to volunteer relief for any other, and he answers his correspondence by hand.

See Also: Qiānjīn Governor of Southeastern Qiānjīn Region

Governor of the Western Táimí Region, son of a village arbitrator who settled disputes by listening to the land as much as the people on it. Gentle in audience and exacting on the levy rolls, he lets silence do the work lesser officials fill with noise.

See Also: Táimí Governor of Western Táimí Region

King of Tōngzhì, third child of the previous sovereign, raised among bureaucrats and examination candidates in the administrative palaces. He reassembled a dismantled telegraph before his eighth birthday, runs the kingdom by trusting his archivists, and intervenes personally on the one question a year everyone expects him to ignore.

See Also: Tōngzhì Monarch of Tōngzhì

Governor of the Southwestern Jīnjiǎ Region, son of a retired colonel who ran his household like a garrison. He speaks three steps ahead of his sentence and carries a settled certainty the veterans of his region have learned to respect.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Governor of Southwestern Jīnjiǎ Region

An Aldermark educator trained in the Missionary Society's inland colleges, now head of the Aldermark Missionary School in Zhūwān's foreign quarter, where she teaches literacy in both the Aldermark tongue and the classical script.

See Also: The Lamplighters

Mechanics

• Style: Patient Edge (level 3)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: An ally in reach
• Cost: -2 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

Wrap an ally in a shield of ice equal to your main roll, plus 4 more if you are guarding them or standing back to back with them. The shield soaks damage of any type and melts away by 25 percent of its remaining strength each round. A stored Mirror Stance bonus, if you have one queued, is spent to boost the main roll. Costs a -2 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 2 each round.

Out of combat

Type sculpt to leave a delicate, glittering ice sculpture standing in the room for a few hours.

Adventure use

A shell of blue ice rises around you before the blow lands.

• On ice tasks, you roll +4.

Arm it before the roll with invoke ice_armor.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke ice_armor

Command: sculpt

See Also: style patient edge

Mechanics

• Style: Patient Edge (level 6)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

Sheet the ground around you in ice, a 19-hex field centered on where you stand. Any mover with three or more hexes of movement that round who steps onto the ice loses their footing and slides clear across to the far edge, ending their movement there. The field shrinks each round, from radius two to one to gone over three rounds. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 3 each round.

Out of combat

Type freeze to lay down a smooth patch of ice in the room that invites skating, lasting a few hours.

Adventure use

The floor becomes treacherous; only you know how to stand.

• On slippery surface tasks, you roll +3.
• On tricky surface tasks, you roll +3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke ice_zone.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke ice_zone

Command: freeze

See Also: style patient edge

Mechanics

• Style: Solar Song (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: A target (no fixed distance enforced)
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You set a target ablaze, applying a burn that lasts for half your main roll in rounds and deals fire damage each round; recasting refreshes the burn to the longer of the two durations rather than stacking. Requires at least 4 Solar Dance stacks to cast, and is rejected if you hold fewer. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

After casting Ignite in a fight you can type ignite_decoration to create small fire decorations in the room. In adventures, grants +5 to any roll that can be helped by starting a fire.

Adventure use

A small flame answers your gesture and finds the fuel.

• On start fire or ignite tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke ignite.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke ignite

Command: ignite_decoration

See Also: style solar song

Court fasting lifts. Foreign tribute envoys present their gifts. The capital hangs red lanterns and dragon banners. Every kingdom's governor sends a delegation; every guild sends a gift; every temple lights extra lamps. The day is also amnesty: the emperor traditionally pardons a small number of prisoners, and judges may commute sentences in their name. When succession happens mid-campaign, the previous Birthday falls off the calendar and a new one is gazetted, sometimes mid-festival-week. Old loyalists who keep observing the old date are committing low-grade treason.

The November sitting is the prestige one. The palace exam falls in November in normal years and decides the year's top placements for the Imperial Academy. The Enróng Banquet on the Sunday in the capital is one of the social events of the year; an invitation to attend, even as a spectator, is currency.

Three times a year the empire sits its examinations. Local schools test their juniors; guilds test their apprentices; the Imperial Academy holds its provincial, metropolitan, and palace tiers on the dates aligned to seniority. Friday is the closed-door examination day. Saturday is the marking and the publication of the Golden List. Sunday is the Enróng Banquet, when successful candidates parade through their city. The custom of plucking flowers fills the air with garlands hung from windows along the parade route, thrown to graduates of every rank. The November exams are the prestigious ones; the palace exam falls in November in normal years. The March and July exams are local and trade-guild driven. For players: examination weekends offer crowd-cover, espionage opportunities, recruitment of failed candidates as henchmen, and theft from distracted households where the family's results matter more than the front gate. A failed candidate is one of the standard NPC archetypes: angry, educated, and available for work.

See Imperial Examination Days (Spring). The summer sitting is local and trade-guild driven; results post Saturday and parades fill the streets Sunday.

The fire-and-metal striking art of the Ember Fist, Iron Claw forges its practitioner into a living weapon. An Internal Furnace kindles with every blow given or taken; as heat climbs, skin hardens to searing steel, blood turns to burning oil, and punches land with the weight of a cast ingot. Molten comets, erupting lines of flame, and phoenix-stance detonations carry the fight forward. The longer the exchange, the hotter the Iron Claw burns.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +9
• Ranged +5
• 1 HP threshold +3
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +7

Damage defense

• Resistance: slashing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: bludgeoning, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Internal Furnace

Every time you take an HP of damage or deal an HP of damage, your internal furnace grows in heat by 1. Each new level adds +2 to your melee attack rolls, stacking to a max of +8. If you don't take or do any damage in a round, you lose all furnace heat.

Mastery Bonus

Internal Furnace continues to stack and provide benefits for (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style.

Abilities

1. Firestorm Kick. Slow main. You sweep a kick through the enemies standing adjacent to you, dealing half your main roll in bludgeoning damage to each of them
2. Through the Flame. Fast tactical. You steel yourself against flame so that all incoming fire damage is halved for this round and the next
3. Steel Skin. Very Fast tactical. You harden your skin into a 10-point shield that absorbs only piercing damage, decaying by 5 each round until it is gone (about two rounds)
4. Blood of Fire. Fast tactical. For one round you turn your own injury against your attackers: when a melee slashing or piercing blow lands on you, the striker takes fire damage scaled by your furnace heat, twice your heat for a slashing weapon and once your heat for a piercing weapon
5. Eyes of Fire. passive. An adventure-only boon of the style with no effect inside a fight: your gaze carries the furnace's menace, sharpening your ability to cow others and to peer through fire and smoke.
6. Searing Fist. Average main. You drive a heat-charged punch into an adjacent foe for metal damage multiplied by your banked furnace heat: once at heat 0 to 1, double at heat 2 to 3, triple at heat 4 to 5, quadruple at heat 6 to 7, and five times at heat 8
7. Molten Comet (advanced)
8. Eruption (advanced)
9. Phoenix Stance (advanced)

See Also: school ember fist ability firestorm kick ability through the flame ability steel skin ability blood of fire ability eyes of fire ability searing fist ability molten comet ability eruption ability phoenix stance

Past the salt-tide line west of Qiānjīn, where Zhūwān's coastline softens into mud and standing water, the reeds of Jiāyǐng grow taller than a man on horseback, and even at noon the fog hangs low enough that a punt-pole length into the beds you cannot see your own hand. The water runs ankle-deep, but the channels beneath the rice-grass shift with the moons, and folk from Cuìyá Bùkǒu say the marsh has its own way of breathing. Punters from Rùlín Wān and Shígēng Wān work the shallows for wild rice, fowlers out of Cháo Píng take duck and crane in the cold season, and herb-gatherers from Sānhé Mìjìng come for the bitter root and pale lotus of the deeper sloughs. Children are told not to follow voices into the reeds, for more than one punter who knew the channels by heart has poled in at dusk and never poled out. Old fowlers leave the first bird of the day on the bank, beak toward the water, so the marsh remembers you were polite.

On the eastern shore of Dìnghú, the Settled Lake, where the water is so supernaturally calm that fish can be spotted from the surface. A ferry connects the Jīnjiǎ shore to Qiānjīn communities on the western bank, operated by the same family for nine generations. Sound carries strangely across the water; locals speak in low voices by habit. The Wànshí range rises behind the town. A railway halt nearby connects to the wider network, and Dìnghú's calm waters allow boat trade with the western shore. Dried Dìnghú fish, said to have mild restorative properties, commands premium prices in the capital's apothecary markets.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Hǔzhèn Dugu-Zhancalius

Jìngyuè Xī slips down from the high pines above Lake Dìnghú in a thread so narrow a child can leap it, running clear and slow over pale stones. On still nights the moon settles so perfectly on its surface that the stream seems not to move at all, and from this the old folk give the name: a stream that holds the moon without breaking it. Too shallow for boats and too small for any market catch, it draws the women of the high country for watercress and slender pink-stemmed herbs, and mountain folk fill their gourds here on the way to and from the lake. On the night of the full moon, couples are said to walk its banks to make quiet vows. Grandmothers warn that one must not throw stones into Jìngyuè Xī after dusk, lest the moon's reflection be wounded and ill fortune follow the thrower home.

King of Táimí, born in the hill-village of Ossenroot and taught cartography by his father as the art of listening. He treats his kingdom's decentralization as a system to be tuned rather than forced, and is known for long, considered silences his subordinates learn not to mistake for hesitation.

See Also: Táimí Monarch of Táimí

Ambassador of Táimí to Zhūwān, daughter of a house-marker who painted spirit-sigils on thresholds and bargained with the spirits already in residence. She arrives at every meeting knowing the outcome she can accept and the one she cannot, and treats diplomacy with the rigor of a logistics review.

See Also: Táimí Ambassador of Táimí to Zhuwan

The Jīnhé cuts a long, slow arc across the heartland from the southwest uplands to the far northeast lowlands, its broad surface throwing back a yellow shine in the morning light from the silt it carries down from the high country, and from this glow the river takes its name. In some stretches it runs wide and lazy enough that a man on one bank cannot make out faces on the other; in others it narrows between pale bluffs where the current pulls hard at any boat foolish enough to drift sideways. Half the trade of the heartland moves on its back: flat-bottomed barges carry grain, salt, cured fish, and bolts of cloth, while fishermen set night-lines for the big bottom-feeders and herb-gatherers comb the reed flats at dawn. Old folk say the Jīnhé carries gold dust down from a mountain no living man has found, and that a child born within sight of the water will never drown in any river anywhere.

King of Qiānjīn, born aboard a merchant-galleon and raised on trade routes and contract law. He has held his throne for fourteen years by courting his merchant princes with patient attention; the kingdom's coffers swell under his hand, and his rivals find him unreadable.

See Also: Qiānjīn Monarch of Qiānjīn

Governess of the Western Sìshuǐ Region, second daughter of a canal-side magistrate, raised on courtroom benches and grain-warehouse arguments. Her regional capital licenses more new midwives, brewers, and money-lenders, most of them women, than any other in the empire, and she speaks in short sentences that already sound like conclusions.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Governor of Western Sìshuǐ Region

Jīnjiǎ Ruling House: House Zhancalius Words: Earn your Name Flag: Horizontally divided, iron black below and ox-blood red above. A bronze crown sits atop a clenched fist at center. Philosophy: Power is the only real currency, and it flows from discipline and talent. The people of this kingdom believe in strength through adversity and in the constant drive to improve oneself and test one's abilities. Social Texture: A rigid, hierarchical, military society. Everyone of note has served in the military and still uses their rank long after retirement. Dueling culture pervades all levels, and proving oneself martially remains one of the surest paths to advancement. Nearly everything takes the form of competition: children's games pit rivals against each other, royal court sessions unfold as formal debates, and most festivals revolve around tournaments. Colors: Ox blood · Crimson · Brass · Iron black · Pale ochre Architecture: Fortress-inspired and imposing. Thick walls, angular lines, and vertical emphasis. Stone and iron dominate. A Provatian city hall resembles a military academy crossed with an Art Deco skyscraper: sharp geometric reliefs of duelling figures, brass-capped columns, banners hanging between brutalist pillars. Fashion: Sharp, military-influenced. Even civilian dress borrows from uniform: structured shoulders, brass buttons, belted waists, high collars. Rank insignia and tournament honours are worn openly. Colours run dark (blacks, deep reds, charcoal) with brass or gold accents.

See Also: House Zhancalius

**Jīnqún** · Patron Spirit of Qiānjīn Mercurial, glamorous, and impossible to pin down. Jīnqún embodies fortune, trade, and the restless energy of those who thrive on change. It loves novelty, loathes routine, and treats every interaction as a negotiation. Jīnqún is the spirit most likely to be encountered at a party and the one most likely to have already left by the time you realize it was there. Favors a young, sharp-witted socialite in expensive silks who seems to know everyone and owe favors to no one, though it shifts presentation more often than any other kingdom patron. Manifested: a great sea-serpent with scales that shift between teal, silver, and gold, gliding through the harbor waters and leaving schools of luminous fish in its wake.

Empress of Sìshuǐ and sovereign of the Five Kingdoms. Second daughter of the late Emperor Héliú Lanaris, she came to the throne in 912 by acclamation after her elder brother Cairan renounced his claim, the first sibling-second since the founding to take the Mandate. She is known for ruling through patient negotiation and river-village reform, and for a memory for names that few in court can match.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Emperor of Sìshuǐ

Governor of the Eastern Sìshuǐ Region, born to a minor administrative family and placed second in his imperial examination cohort, a result he has never forgiven himself. His reforms tend to arrive as accomplished fact, and his questions make subordinates wish they had prepared a second answer.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Governor of Eastern Sìshuǐ Region

Prima donna of the Tiāngǔ Opera House in Zhūwān, a teahouse family's daughter from inland Qiānjīn who absorbed arias the way other children absorb folk songs and talked her way into a conservatory audition with no letter and no coin. She pursues artistic perfection with single-minded devotion.

See Also: The Twice-Sworn

King of Jīnjiǎ, third son of the previous king and never meant to wear the crown. He entered the officer academies at thirteen and graduated top of his cohort through an uncanny read of his rivals; beloved by his soldiers, he leans toward whoever has just said something worth hearing.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Monarch of Jīnjiǎ

Chief of the Zhūwān Constabulary, a harbour magistrate's daughter from the Far Shore who earned a commissioned watch rank in her home port before the city of Zhūwān swallowed her whole. She reads tide tables and court transcripts with equal appetite.

See Also: The River Wardens

**Liúhǔ** · Spirit of the Great River (Jīnhé) The spirit that bonds with the Emperor through the enchanted bracelet, merging its will with that of the imperial heir. Liúhǔ embodies patience, inevitability, and the quiet power of water that carves through stone. It is ancient beyond reckoning and speaks rarely, but when it does, its words carry the weight of law. In human guise, Liúhǔ favors an androgynous presentation: a serene figure in imperial navy, unhurried and watchful, who seems to be listening to something no one else can hear. Manifested: a golden dragon with a tiger-like face, sinuous and vast, moving through the air as though swimming through an invisible current.

The Spring Dragon, the great river-spirit that sleeps the winter beneath its mountain, wakes. Rain returns to the kingdoms. Farmers turn the first furrows. Everyone else marks the day with dragon foods: pancakes called dragon scales, jiaozi called dragon ears, longevity noodles called dragon beard, and popcorn called golden beans (recalling the folk-story that popcorn-blossom freed the Spring Dragon from beneath its mountain on the first Longtaitou). It is also the year's great new looks festival. The waking of the dragon is the kingdom's cue to reveal whatever has been quietly prepared through the winter: a redesigned wardrobe, a debut hairstyle, fresh tattoos and piercings, painted eyes and lacquered nails, new jewelry, a new walking-stick or carry-bag. Tailors, barbers, and cosmeticians do a year's business in three days. Some householders save the year's most striking outfit for Saturday morning specifically; a person who has been planning a major image change (taking up the family business, ending a long mourning, leaving an old life) typically debuts the new self on Longtaitou and is greeted accordingly. New hairstyles, sleeves, or marks often signal new availability for those seeking partners. Ashes are spread around wells to invite the Spring Dragon home.

A festival of deprivation. The folk-story behind it is a tale from the kingdoms' founding age, of a vassal who burned in the woods rather than break loyalty to an exiled lord who later, restored to power, set the fire to draw the vassal out for reward. All household fires extinguish for the last three days of the week. Only cold food may be eaten: cold porridge, mugwort-dyed qīngtuán rice balls, pickles, cold sliced meats, cold pastry, and dried fruit. The imperial court traditionally passes new fire candles outward on the Monday after, in a graded ritual from the palace to the homes of the Five Dukes. The order of receipt signals the year's political favor. In the kingdoms, the same gesture happens at smaller scale: the governor lights a brand from a temple altar and walks it to chosen households, conspicuously skipping others. The order in which lit brands reach the great families is studied like an academy essay. For players: a magnificent week to operate, because cooking is forbidden but eating is encouraged. Inns sell prepared cold food at marked-up prices. Smiths cannot work. Anyone caught with a lit fire on the cold weekend faces a fine and a real social shaming. Spellwork or alchemy requiring open flame is harder.

The older, deeper New Year. The solar New Year is the empire's clock; the lunar New Year is the family's. Households clean and seal the home, paste red couplets at the doorposts, and host an ancestral meal where the empty places at the table belong to the dead. The first three days are strict family time; the last four are visiting and gift-rounds. Banks and most shops close for the week. For players: NPCs go home this week. Generic shopkeepers vanish; named NPCs scatter to ancestral villages; travel between kingdoms chokes with people heading home. A good week to leave the cities and clear out a haunted ruin. Because the date floats, the empire publishes the year's lunar date each autumn in the Imperial Almanac, alongside Longtaitou's lunar mark, the Lantern Festival peak, and the three Examination dates.

Queen Consort of Jīnjiǎ, third daughter of a garrison family who earned the Zhancalius name twice over: first by out-dueling noble daughters at the Jade Spine Academy, and again when the court realized how many royal decisions were hers. She is carried like a sheathed blade and cedes ground to no one carelessly.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Consort of Jīnjiǎ

**Líncuì** · Spirit of the Great Forest (Qiāncuì) Líncuì embodies growth, wildness, and the indifferent cruelty of nature that devours what it creates. It is playful and mercurial, generous to those who respect the forest, swift and ruthless toward those who exploit it. Hunters who enter Qiāncuì without offering respect sometimes walk for weeks without finding the edge. Líncuì favors a female presentation, most often a keen-eyed huntress with leaves tangled in her hair and bare feet that leave no tracks, but shifts freely and has appeared as everything from a giggling child to a towering androgynous figure wreathed in vines. Manifested: an emerald-green antlered dragon, lithe and silent, whose scales are living leaves that change with the seasons.

The Língjiè Shuǐ does not rush so much as wander, threading the low hills west of the great roads with the patience of something older than the villages that drink from it, clear over pale stones in the shallows and glassy green where the banks steepen. In autumn the mists gather thick along its bends, and travelers passing between Táimí and Sìshuǐ say the far shore can vanish entirely, leaving only the sound of water and the cry of a heron. Fishermen set weirs for carp and soft-shelled turtles, herb-gatherers walk the wet ground at dawn for water-mint, sweet flag, and pale fungi from the willow roots, and small flat-bottomed boats move charcoal, pelts, and dried mushrooms toward the larger waterways. Common belief holds the river marks a thin place, where the boundary between the living world and the spirit realm wears through. Mothers warn children not to call across the water after dusk, lest something on the other side answer.

The empire's most weather-dependent festival. When the year's first true thunderstorm rolls through a region, the local magistrate gazettes Lěi-shén Night for the upcoming weekend. Households open their roof-vents, set out brass bowls to catch the rain, and burn a single stick of incense per family member. How each stick burns is read as that person's augury for the year. Children stay up late to witness the storm; the first thunderclap heard is held to be the year's true beginning. The festival is informally regional. Sìshuǐ may observe it three weeks before Tōngzhì. The Imperial Almanac records each region's prior-year date, which has become its own kind of climate journal. For players: the incense itself is sold year-round, not at a special festival stall. In Zhūwān, the Húnxiāng Funerary and Incense Shop carries the sandalwood sticks households burn on the night (a bundle of one hundred for forty Silver Li), along with agarwood coils and burning resin. Run 'directory incense' in town to list the shop, then click its name or use 'walk' to travel there. If you want a proper vessel rather than a household bowl or saucer, the Gǔzhì Antique Store in Zhūwān stocks a bronze incense burner with chimera feet for eight hundred and fifty Silver Li; find it with 'directory antique'. These shops are presently only in Zhūwān. The rain bowls are simply ordinary brass bowls from any household, set out to catch the storm; there is no particular bowl to buy.

The counterweight to the Children's Walk, and the last warm festival of the year. Households visit elderly relatives, bring them food they cannot make themselves anymore, and ask them for one piece of advice. Many elders save up the year's advice for this weekend and deliver it in full. Some refuse to give any at all, which is a quiet message of its own. The state observes Lǎo-rén Day by reading out the names of all imperial pensioners who died that year at a public ceremony in each kingdom's main square.

A fortified settlement at two thousand meters on the Qífēng heights, commanding sightlines over three kingdoms' territory, near Fēiyín Dū and the Hánfēng Lǐng range. Massive stone granaries store grain from the fertile river delta below, hauled up by the Fēngjīn Dào road and the Dèngdào Xiàn and Cāngbō Xiàn railway lines. The garrison is maintained even in peacetime; the commander doubles as civil administrator. Market days run on military time. An unusual settlement for scholarly Tōngzhì, but Tōngzhì has always understood that controlling information means controlling the high ground.

See Also: Tōngzhì Báiláng Wen-Shuveri

- Wàn Lǐ Guāndào ("Ten Thousand Li Imperial Way"): The empire's longest road. Cháoshān Fúkǒu coast → Cángjìng → Sōngyán Bǔ east coast - Qújīn Dào ("Thoroughfare Gold Road"): Jīnhuì → Zhūwān → Qīngyuán Gǔ - Fēngjīn Dào ("Peak Gold Road"): Fēiyín Dū → Hán Kuàng Lǐng mines → Lǐng Cāng Guān fortress - Jīnyù Lù ("Gold and Jade Road"): Tiějué → Bìwān on the eastern coast - Hǎicuì Xīdào ("Jade-Green Sea Western Road"): Western Táimí coast: Cuìyá Bùkǒu, Cǎohǎi Yá, Tànmù - Imperial Highway (,): Pre-existing named highway - Jīnhé River Road (,): Along the Jīnhé river - Mountain Imperial Road (,): Fēiyín Dū mountain approach - Southern Jīnjiǎ Road (,): Southern Jīnjiǎ route - Tiělěng Military Road (,): Military road along the Tiělěng Chuān - Táimí Forest Road (,): Through Táimí forest - Northern Forest Road (,): Northern forest route - Western Coastal Road (,): Western coastal route - Tōngzhì Coastal Road (,): Tōngzhì coastal route - Tōngzhì Lake Road (,): Tōngzhì lake route

A week-long permission to wear masks in public. Qiānjīn's mask-makers do their year's business in the month before; every household commissions or makes a mask. The mask grants the wearer traditional anonymity: a Qiānjīn citizen in a mask is held to be a stranger, even if everyone recognizes the voice. The week is therefore the year's de facto window for things one would not do as oneself, including confessions, propositions, settling of old scores, and transgressions of caste. The Empire has never formally approved Masquerade Week, since the customary anonymity makes it a magistrate's nightmare, but the Empire has also never formally banned it.

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 1)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

A passive payoff for mastery in this style. When you switch out of the Darkened Veil stance, your shadow lingers for a number of rounds equal to your level in the style. While it lingers, any enemy who loses at least 1 HP to a strike of yours gains a point of disorientation, and any enemy you afflict with a debuff likewise gains a point of disorientation. This lets you keep stacking disorientation on your foes even after you have moved on to another stance.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style darkened veil

To channel metal is to feel the marrow set like a struck anvil, every breath ringing faint along the bones. Cultivators of the Ember Fist favor it for the way it sharpens fire's roar into a single, decisive edge; where flame batters, metal cleaves. Manifested, it shows as pale grey light running the length of a strike, or as scale-bright plating that flickers across the knuckles and forearms before a blow lands. Some adepts describe the sensation as standing inside a struck bell, the body humming long after the form is done.

The intimate counterweight to the Lantern Festival's noise. Families gather on rooftops and in courtyards; mooncakes are eaten (folk-story says rebellion messages were once baked inside); osmanthus wine is poured. The moon is told to. The festival is for sharing secrets, for things that can only be said by moonlight to those who matter most. In Tōngzhì the festival has a transgressive variant: the night when secret societies admit new members under the moon and the year's political conspiracies are quietly seeded. In Qiānjīn the moon is an excuse for a long picnic that turns into an all-night party. In Sìshuǐ the moon over the river is the entire point; boat-parties drift downstream until dawn.

Mechanics

• Style: Patient Edge (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Self

Mirror Stance is a tactical action you toggle on or off. While you hold it you fight to absorb rather than to strike: all of your outgoing main rolls are halved, but each round you bank half (rounded down) of the strongest incoming main roll an enemy used against you, building a queue of stored bonuses. You also quietly note which damage type hurt you most each round. When you leave the stance, those banked bonuses pay out one per round onto your future main rolls, most recent first, and the recorded damage types feed the Elemental Mirror passive.

Adventure use

Still water reads the storm before it breaks.

• On methodical or insight tasks, you roll +3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke mirror_stance.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke mirror_stance

See Also: style patient edge

The school of the tactician and the chess player, where every exchange is a problem to be solved. Its practitioners read the geometry of a fight, the spacing, the timing, the patterns in an opponent's habits, then exploit them with effortless redirection, turning their opponents' strengths into weaknesses. Styles focus on grappling and throws, counterattacks, and water and wind manipulation.

Styles taught by this school

• Patient Edge. Defensive style using ice and metal, focused on counterattacks against those who strike the practitioner or allies.
• Snaring Storm. Ranged melee style that whittles opponents down with light wind attacks, then entangles them with the rope when they try to close, or redirects with throws.
• Stormbreaker. Channeling style that uses ice, wind, and shadow to confuse enemies and deal area damage.

See Also: style patient edge style snaring storm style stormbreaker

Office of the Monarch of Jīnjiǎ. Currently held by Liefeng Zhancalius. See `help "Liefeng Zhancalius"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Liefeng Zhancalius

Office of the Monarch of Qiānjīn. Currently held by Jīnhǔ Jindoro. See `help "Jīnhǔ Jindoro"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Jīnhǔ Jindoro

Office of the Monarch of Táimí. Currently held by Jīnghún Liradi. See `help "Jīnghún Liradi"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Jīnghún Liradi

Office of the Monarch of Tōngzhì. Currently held by Hǔshì Shuveri. See `help "Hǔshì Shuveri"` for the current officeholder.

See Also: Hǔshì Shuveri

The longest day's vigil. Táimí villagers walk single file into the forest at sunset, each carrying a small candle. They walk a marked path called the Moss Way until they reach a chosen clearing, where they sit in silence with their candles burning until dawn. The walk back, by daylight, happens in conversation. The silence is the gift the forest is owed; the conversation is what the forest gives back. Outsiders may join the Moss Walk, but the rule is strict: anyone who speaks during the silence must remain in the woods for one additional day.

The Sìshuǐ tea-mountains hold their first picking of the year. The earliest leaves are tribute reserved for the imperial court, but visitors who arrive that weekend may walk the rows, watch the picking, and buy the day's second-flush leaves directly from the mountain. The festival has become a fashionable retreat for the courts of the other kingdoms. Jīnjiǎ generals and Tōngzhì scholars are both seen at the same inns, which is itself a minor scandal.

Méiyuè Lín stands along the western shore of Lake Chéngyuè, a thick band of old pine and dark-leafed oak whose canopy knits so close that even at noon the light beneath runs blue and silver, as if the moon had been caught in the branches and forgotten to leave. The ground is soft with needles and moss, the air cool and smelling of wet bark, and the lake's edge can be heard long before it is seen. Hunters take deer and pheasant from the outer reaches, herb-gatherers go in at dawn for ghost-cap mushrooms, moon-vine, and the pale roots said to grow only where sunlight never falls, and night-fishers from the lake beach their skiffs along its shore for shelter. Woodcutters take only the deadfall, never the standing trees, lest the forest claim something of theirs in return. It is widely held that the moon does not truly rise over Méiyuè Lín so much as sleep there, and that travellers who stray too deep after dusk walk out a season later, or not at all.

Heir to Tōngzhì, raised in the limestone quiet of the deep libraries by a father who made officials bow and a mother who made spies lie to him. He earned his first acclaim quelling a dockside fire-spirit panic in Zhūwān before turning twenty, and keeps a room moving without ever standing still.

See Also: Tōngzhì Heir of Tōngzhì

Where a broad river emerges from the forested hills near Yāntán into open country, water-powered mills grind grain and press paper pulp. Mòlín produces more paper than anywhere else in Tōngzhì, which in a kingdom of scholars and bureaucrats makes it quietly important. A steel millrace and a small electric generator power lights in the drying sheds. The mill-workers have organized into a cooperative that negotiates prices with Cángjìng's buying agents, one of the kingdom's few examples of organized labour. The Cāngbō Xiàn railway connects the town to Cángjìng's markets, but the thump of the millstones is still the town's heartbeat.

See Also: Tōngzhì Wèifèng Zhāng-Shuveri

**Mòlóng, The Stranger King** · Spirit of Disempathy and Othering Widely considered the most malevolent force in the Empire. Mòlóng feeds on the instinct to divide people into us and them, to see the unfamiliar as threatening. It whispers across borders, stokes old grudges, and turns neighbors into strangers. Where its influence grows, trust withers and communities fracture. In human guise, Mòlóng favors a male presentation: a veteran soldier in black armor with a face that seems trustworthy until you try to recall its features. Manifested: a massive black dragon with too many legs, each one moving independently, as though it were several creatures wearing one skin.

Proprietor of the Golden Bear cabaret in Zhūwān, an herbalist's daughter raised in the alleys behind Herbalist Street who knew every vendor, tram conductor, and customs clerk by name before she could read a ledger. She trades in favours as fluently as in wine.

See Also: The Silken Gloves

**Mùhè** · Patron Spirit of Sìshuǐ The guardian spirit of the Imperial Kingdom, often found traveling the rivers at dawn and dusk. Mùhè embodies the meditative calm and quiet watchfulness that House Lanaris aspires to. It rarely speaks directly but has a habit of appearing beside those facing difficult decisions, offering no counsel beyond its presence. Favors an elderly riverboat operator with calloused hands and kind, distant eyes, poling a skiff that always seems to arrive at the right moment. Manifested: a crane as tall as a tower, with ivory plumage that glows faintly at the edges, wading through mist along the riverbanks.

Ambassador of Jīnjiǎ to Zhūwān, second daughter of a garrison commander and a lieutenant by nineteen on the strength of a siege exercise her unit won against the odds. She enters every reception as though she has already decided how it ends, and usually has.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Ambassador of Jīnjiǎ to Zhuwan

Governess of the Northwestern Qiānjīn Region, born to a merchant household whose teahouse doubled as a clearinghouse for traveling traders. Her regional capital runs windswept and hard under one woman's hand, and her warmth lands on a person like a sudden shaft of afternoon light.

See Also: Qiānjīn Governor of Northwestern Qiānjīn Region

Mechanics

• Style: Blossom's Barrier (level 3)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

A passive blessing of the wild. You and your allies cling to natural surfaces like spiders, so this ability is felt out of combat rather than during a fight.

Out of combat

On adventure rolls, whenever you or your group climb or cross anything made of wood or other natural materials, you may reroll 1s (group). You and your group also gain +3 when dealing with natural-terrain hazards such as thorns (group).

How to use

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke natures_grasp

See Also: style blossom's barrier

Mechanics

• Style: Blossom's Barrier (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Slow
• Range: An ally in reach

You touch a friendly target with restorative qi, granting them one point of verdant aura. Any damage-over-time effects already afflicting that ally have their remaining duration shortened by one round, and any that drop to zero rounds end at once.

Out of combat

Type soothe to ease an ally's aches with a gentle, personalized touch, an emote shared with them and the room that changes nothing mechanically. Type qi_gift to prime a transfer of one of your qi regeneration ticks to that ally, which is delivered the next time you assist them.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Command: soothe, qi_gift

See Also: style blossom's barrier

The civic year flips. Families clean the house, paste new door-spirits at the threshold, and feast on New Year's Eve. At sundown the first lanterns of the season go up. Drums and fireworks at midnight; every gate-tower in the capital answers the next. New Year's Day is for visiting elders, paying respects, and beginning the year's first proper meal at noon. This is the secular New Year, distinct from the family-religious Lunar New Year. Officials take the day off; merchants and farmers do not, since trade and field do not know the calendar. Compared to Lunar New Year it is brighter, louder, and more public.

An omen is the mark of fate your character is born under — the pattern of fortune and misfortune the heavens draw toward them. You choose one when you create your character (shown as **Omen** on your `score`), and it colours the kinds of stories that find you. Each omen, in full, is below; type `help ` (e.g. `help the wanderer`) for one on its own. The omens of the Àolǎng Empire: **The Masked Sovereign** The omen of the reluctant ruler. Power flows to you whether you seek it or not. Others look to you for decisions and leadership, and fate places responsibility on your shoulders at every turn. **The Devoted Blade** The omen of the sworn protector, one who serves. Your life is defined by the tension between what you have pledged and what you want. Impossible duties and life-or-death pledges find you, and great events turn on your discipline. **The Wanderer** The omen of one who breaks away, drawn to belonging and home but unable to stay for long. Old debts resurface, old friends remember your betrayals, and every place you return to has changed in ways that make you a stranger. **The Fox** The omen of cunning. Fate brings you secrets and constantly tempts you with opportunities to betray. At the same time, others seem inclined to betray you, and genuine connection can seem all but impossible. **The Shadowed Student** The omen of forbidden knowledge. You often find or figure out things others would rather you not know. People treat your intelligence with suspicion, doubting you came by what you know in the way you claim. **The Unbroken** The omen of the survivor. Fate often directs calamity your way, yet it also ensures you always survive it. Those around you, however, are often less fortunate, and your path seems destined to be a lonely one. **The Bridge** The omen of one caught between two forces: two kingdoms, two cultures, two worlds. You can serve as a great diplomat between sides and achieve great things, yet both always see you as belonging more to the other, and few trust you completely. **The Embered Eyes** The omen of prophecy. You are plagued with the ability to intuit what is to come, to feel disaster on the wind and danger in the clouds. Yet even as fate blesses you with warning, it curses you with disbelief; those you try to tell dismiss your feelings as silly or, at worst, as proof that you had a hand in the calamity. **The Unchained** The omen of the rebel. You chafe under any authority, and fate blesses you with the ability to slip free of any command, yet curses you to be seen always as untrustworthy. You are destined to walk a life both free and lonely. **The Weeping Heart** The omen of tragic love. You are cursed to fall in love with enemies, those of another class, those promised to another, or simply those who do not feel the same. In turn, many become infatuated with you, but never those for whom you feel the same. **The Weightless Scales** The omen of sacrifice. Great feats are possible for you, but only through sacrifice. You might change the world if you are willing to give up enough, or survive the impossible if others sacrifice themselves for you. Nothing of note in your life will ever come with ease. **The Rising Tide** The omen of change. You can accomplish great things, but in a way that disturbs all those around you. Your accomplishments are always unstable, always contingent on the greater change that surrounds you. During a rebellion you might rise from peasant to general; if the rebellion fails, you will be the first to lose your head.

See Also: The Masked Sovereign The Devoted Blade The Wanderer The Fox The Shadowed Student The Unbroken The Bridge The Embered Eyes The Unchained The Weeping Heart The Weightless Scales The Rising Tide

Mechanics

• Style: Shattered Star (level 2)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

A tactical action that whirls the meteor hammer into a wide orbit around you for the rest of the round. Any enemy who moves into a hex adjacent to you takes 5 bludgeoning damage from the spinning head, once per enemy per round. Forced movement that shoves an enemy into reach triggers it too. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round, and the orbit must be re-declared each round to keep spinning.

Out of combat

Typing orbit_show puts on a spinning hammer display; for the next 5 minutes your next non-combat roll to impress onlookers gains a +3 performance bonus. On adventure rolls this ability also grants +5 when you are trying to prevent someone from approaching or to keep them at bay.

Adventure use

You spin your meteor hammer in a slow orbit, nothing enters easily.

• On prevent approach or keep away tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke orbiting_spiral.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke orbiting_spiral

Command: orbit_show

See Also: style shattered star

The swordsman's art of the Mirrored Tempest, Patient Edge wins fights by absorbing them. In Mirror Stance the practitioner halves their offense to store an enemy's blows; when the stance ends, every stored bonus returns as a reflected strike. Ice armor coats allies, frozen zones slide charging enemies off their lines, and counters ride every melee swing back to its source. The chess player who waits longest moves last, and hits hardest.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +5
• Ranged +3
• 1 HP threshold +7
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +9

Damage defense

• Resistance: piercing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: bludgeoning, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Mirror Stance

When in Mirror Stance all main action rolls are halved, but half of other people's main action rolls against you are stored (or, if NPC, half their damage), storing the max each round if multiple. When switching out of the stance, all your main action rolls get those added as bonuses in inverse order. So if you stored 4 in round 1 and 6 in round 2, then switch out of Mirror Stance, you'd get a 6 point bonus in round 3 and a 4 point bonus in round 4.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style, continue to benefit from the bonuses acquired during Mirror Stance.

Abilities

1. Mirror Stance. Instant tactical. Mirror Stance is a tactical action you toggle on or off
2. Counter Kick. Average main. Ready this as a reactive counter
3. Ice Armor. Fast main. Wrap an ally in a shield of ice equal to your main roll, plus 4 more if you are guarding them or standing back to back with them
4. Counter Blizzard. Instant main. Ready a freezing reprisal
5. Reflective Strike. Instant main. Ready a mirrored riposte
6. Ice Zone. Fast tactical. Sheet the ground around you in ice, a 19-hex field centered on where you stand
7. Swirling Blizzard (advanced)
8. Perfect Lunge (advanced)
9. Elemental Mirror (advanced)

See Also: school mirrored tempest ability mirror stance ability counter kick ability ice armor ability counter blizzard ability reflective strike ability ice zone ability swirling blizzard ability perfect lunge ability elemental mirror

To channel poison is to invite a slow, deliberate cold into the meridians, a sensation cultivators liken to silk drawn through a needle's eye. It does not roar as fire does, nor crash as water; it seeps. Adepts of the Veiled Grace particularly esteem it, pairing its patience with shadow to deliver strikes that bloom long after the hand has withdrawn. Manifested, poison appears as a violet vapor or a thin green sheen along the blade, sometimes as droplets that crawl upward against gravity. Its mastery is measured not in spectacle but in stillness.

Poison in Romance of Five Kingdoms is a combat tool, not a vial you buy and smear on a blade. The only way to poison someone is to learn and fight in the Silken Viper style, taught by the Veiled Grace school. Every Silken Viper venom is thrown as part of a strike in combat; there is no separate step where you coat a weapon, and no coat, envenom, or apply poison command.

How to poison someone

1. Learn the Silken Viper style (a Veiled Grace style). Its venoms unlock as your style level rises.
2. Out of combat, make Silken Viper your active style with stance silken_viper. You cannot change stance mid-fight.
3. In a fight, choose a venom ability from the combat menu on your turn. The venom is delivered by that attack — you do not poison a weapon ahead of time.

The venoms

• Wilting Venom (style level 1). Poison damage over time: 5 poison damage at the end of each round for 1 + a third of your main roll, in rounds. Re-applying extends the duration rather than stacking.
• Slowing Venom (level 2). Halves the target's movement speed for a few rounds.
• Disorientating Venom (level 4). The target deals 50% less ranged damage for a few rounds.
• Compromise (level 5). Throws an amplifier toxin that extends every venom already on the target. It deals no damage of its own; the point is to prolong what is already in the blood.
• Weakening Venom (level 6). The target deals 50% less melee damage for a few rounds.
• Toxic Mastery (level 9, passive). While Silken Viper is your active style, you take 25% less poison damage.

Because the debuff venoms (slowing, disorientating, weakening) all linger, Silken Viper rewards layering several on one target and then using Compromise to keep them all running.

Usage: help poison

See Also: style silken viper ability wilting venom school veiled grace stance lore.element.poison

- Hú Kǒu Tóu ("Lakemouth Dock"): Ocean dock near Gùhé, where lake meets the sea route - Yōután Dù Kǒu ("Yōután River Crossing"): River dock on the Yōután Jiāng near Gùhé - Shān Jiǎo Dù Kǒu ("Mountain Foot Crossing"): River dock on the Tiělěng Chuān in the Jīnjiǎ highlands - Wài Dǎo Gǎng ("Outer Island Harbor"): Harbor on the remote island off the northwest coast

Mechanics

• Style: Stormbreaker (level 1)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

Passive. The first ranged hit you land on a given enemy each round seeds the air with a pressure zone, a broad charged footprint centered on their hex (+3 there and on the six hexes around it) and spreading +1 across the next two rings out. Pressure keeps building each round you keep landing ranged hits on the same target and lasts the whole fight, stockpiling the charge that Call Lightning, Thunderclap, and Hail Storm later cash in. It only fires when you carry a ranged weapon.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style stormbreaker

Mechanics

• Style: Stormbreaker (level 3)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

Summon a thick mist over your hex and the six around it, granting concealment to whoever stands in it. The mist lasts a number of rounds equal to a third of your main roll and follows you, re-anchoring on your new position whenever you move and at the start of each round. Casting it also seeds a pressure zone on your hex. The mist makes no combat noise, so you can raise it while hidden.

Out of combat

When the mist is contextually available, the party rerolls 1s on stealth and avoid-ranged rolls in adventures. After casting in a fight, you can type summon_fog with an area to roll out a fog effect over an outdoor area for one in-game hour.

Adventure use

The mist parts only for those you keep, fumbles fade in the haze.

• On stealth or avoid ranged tasks, you reroll any die showing 1.

Arm it before the roll with invoke protecting_mist.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke protecting_mist

Command: summon_fog

See Also: style stormbreaker

Qi is the inner vital force that runs through every living thing, and the raw material of all Cultivation. A cultivator does not gain qi so much as refine it: through disciplined breath, sworn martial forms, and the ingestion of herbal pills distilled from rare mountain flora, raw qi is purified into the kind that lets a practitioner shatter stone with an open palm, stride across water, turn aside bullets, and hold off old age until well past the years that would bend a common back. The more refined a cultivator's qi, the higher they are said to have climbed. Sect elders centuries seasoned carry qi so polished that a single breath can still a room, and they guard the pill formulas that deepen it as jealously as any crown jewel. It is held that only those of noble blood can refine qi at all, and on the rare occasion a commoner manages it, some long-hidden noble ancestor is always conveniently discovered. Qi deepens through romantic chemistry, and most fiercely between rivals whose passions are sharpened by opposition. Two cultivators circling one another in suspicion, longing, or open enmity will both ascend faster than either could alone, which is why so many recorded duels read equally well as love letters. Refined qi saturates the blood, and this makes cultivators the favored prey of blood sorcerers: a single cup drawn from a sect disciple is worth barrels taken from the commonborn. Shades, too, are drawn to cultivators, the warmth of their qi lending the creatures a borrowed echo of life. To learn how qi is trained and spent in practice, see `help cultivation`.

See Also: Cultivation Blood Sorcery

The folk of the surrounding country call it Qiāncuì, the Thousand Greens, and the name falls short: stand at the forest edge near Yún Jiē Tián or Qīngcǎo of a morning and you will count the black-green of the ridge pines, the wet jade of the fern hollows, the pale moss creeping over fallen trunks, and the river-light green where the canopy thins above a stream. It rolls away north and inland without end, the heart of the continent, and even the woodsmen of Tiěkēng Zhài admit that no one has walked it through. Herb-gatherers from Sānhuì Wāndì work the damp lowland edges for bitter roots and fungus, charcoal-burners and timber crews out of Tiěkēng Zhài press deeper for hardwood and pitch, hunters from Qīngcǎo bring back boar and pheasant, and even Cāngwān Ào on its far water takes Qiāncuì's timber down its shores. Old folk will tell you not to whistle past the third bend of any forest path, and not to answer a voice that calls your name from inside the trees, for the Thousand Greens has a thousand eyes to match. Children are taught to leave a pinch of rice at the wayside shrines before gathering, and most households keep a small offering bowl turned toward the green wall.

Qiānjīn Ruling House: House Jindoro Words: On the winds of fortune Flag: A single triangular junk-sail in gold on sea teal, curved as if catching wind. Philosophy: Wealth is freedom. Success depends less on what you know than on whom you know, and adaptability is the key to opportunity. The Merchant Princes champion individual liberty and the virtue of living one's most pleasurable life by whatever means one sees fit, and the importance of amassing the fortune to sustain it. Social Texture: A kingdom of traders and travelers, first to adopt new technologies and foreign fashions. Tradition holds little sway here, and the population is the most diverse of any kingdom. Status is fluid and transactional: wealthy merchant commoners command near-noble respect, while impoverished nobles endure near-common treatment. The arts flourish as rich patrons compete for prestige through cultural sponsorship. The cities are the loudest, most colourful, and most chaotic places in the Empire. Colors: Silver · Gold · Pearl · Sea teal Architecture: Colonnaded market-arcades, ornate balconies, tiled facades with neon signs in classical calligraphy, wrought-iron railings draped with silk banners, Art Nouveau storefronts beside traditional teahouses. Every surface serves as advertisement or statement. Fashion: Locals mix traditions with abandon: a qipao in foreign silk with a feathered headpiece, a pinstripe suit in plum with an embroidered waistcoat, pearl ropes over everything. Fashion changes with the seasons. Accessories are maximalist: rings on every finger, elaborate hair ornaments, lacquered cigarette holders.

See Also: House Jindoro

A Tōngzhì dock ledger-keeper's son who learned the abacus before he could swim, now keeper of the accounts for one of Zhūwān's pleasure houses. Along the harbour he is known as a man whose books always balance and whose memory for a debt runs longer than most.

See Also: The Gilded Abacus

Qífēng rises from the central range like a thing that grew wrong, its summit split and leaning as though some great hand had tried to wring it out and left it half-turned. The stone is dark and veined, breaking into ledges that point in directions no honest mountain should, and on still days a thin haze clings to its crown even when the surrounding peaks stand clear; folk from Fēnglǐng and Sōngyán Bǔ say the eye refuses to settle on it. Hunters from Hán Kuàng Lǐng work its lower skirts for goat and pheasant, and the bolder herb-gatherers climb the broken shelves after a bitter root that fetches a fair price in the markets at Lǐng Cāng Guān, but no one cuts timber on its slopes and no shepherd grazes there overnight. It is widely held that the peak was bent by something older than any kingdom, and that the wind off its shoulders carries voices if you listen too long. Travelers tie a strip of cloth on the roadside shrines before turning toward it, and most prefer to be off the ridge before dusk.

Master of the Arena in Zhūwān, a garrison commander's son raised on hardship and silence who outgrew every sparring partner by fourteen and spent his twenties as a circuit duelist. He oversees the city's sanctioned matches with an unnerving stillness.

See Also: The Unbleeding Seal

A herders' gathering point turned border market where Sìshuǐ grassland meets the Qiāncuì forest and Tōngzhì territory beyond. The cattle market runs three days a week; a monthly horse fair draws families from scattered homesteads across the northern plains. An imperial customs post regulates cross-border trade and is tolerated but not loved. A canal connects the town to the wider waterway network, and the nearby railway halt brought a telegraph office, a clinic, and an ice house for meat preservation, but life still follows the seasons and the herds.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Yǐnghuáng Dúhuī-Lanaris

Governess of the Northeastern Táimí Region, daughter of a spirit-reader and a living-root-bridge keeper, raised where shrines outnumbered rooftops. She runs the region's most-attended salons and most-feared budget reviews, and has a gift for making a room feel it has finally been introduced to itself.

See Also: Táimí Governor of Northeastern Táimí Region

Queen Consort of Tōngzhì, third daughter of an archival family raised among spirit-sighting ledgers and library stacks. She wrote the court protocol manual currently in use, and is the only person who reliably knows when to ignore it.

See Also: Tōngzhì Consort of Tōngzhì

The Green Wood Ridge rises gently from the southwestern lowlands, a long spine of modest peaks cloaked in tangled pine and broadleaf, while between the higher summits the land opens into grassy saddles where the wind moves freely and the sky feels close. Folk from Wàngpō and Cháo Píng say it is not a hard climb, only a long one; a traveler can walk half a day under green shade before catching sight of bare ridgeline. Herb-gatherers from Qīngyuán Gǔ work the damp hollows for fungus and root, hunters out of Xī Yáng Gǔ take deer and boar from the lower woods, and the grassy gaps between peaks have long served as summer pasture, with footpaths threading the wood toward Qiānjīn. Old folk in Cháo Píng still leave rice cakes at certain trees, saying the ridge holds quiet spirits that favor those who walk softly and take only what they need. Children are warned not to whistle in the high grass, lest something answer.

A mountain valley below Qīngmù Lǐng, whose snowmelt feeds a lake so clear you can count stones on the bottom at three fathoms. A hundred and fifty souls, herders, woodcutters, gatherers, in a sheltered valley that catches the morning light and turns the lake to polished silver. The reflection of the peak in the still water is considered one of Qiānjīn's most beautiful sights, drawing the occasional painter, poet, or cultivator. The Qújīn Dào road passes through, and both the Southern Coastal Spur and Jīn Àn Xiàn railways have halts in the valley, concessions to Qiānjīn commerce that the residents tolerate quietly. Near Cháo Píng and Zhūwān by distance, but a world apart in temperament.

See Also: Qiānjīn Hǔdǐng Yún-Jindoro

The kingdoms' great romance festival. Folk-story tells of two star-spirits, the Weaver and the Drover, lovers parted by an angry sky-spirit who drew the celestial river between them with a single stroke. One night a year, the magpies of the kingdoms fly up and form a bridge across the river so the two can meet. The festival is for forming relationships, gift-giving, writing poetry, and skill-displays meant to impress a potential partner. Households hold qǐqiǎo ("begging for skill") contests: anyone who hopes to pair with a partner by year's end threads seven needles by moonlight, embroiders by touch, or carves melons against a sand-clock. Bowls of water sit out overnight in courtyards to catch the night's web from the Weaver. Tea, fruit, and cosmetics rest on a small altar. The stars are watched for the moment of reunion. In Tōngzhì the festival takes on a tournament structure, with suitors competing for a single named beloved through stages of skill and grace. In Qiānjīn the festival expands into a full night of street performances. In Sìshuǐ the festival happens on the riverbanks, with lovers exchanging woven river-grass tokens. Food: qiǎoguǒ, deep-fried lattice pastries of flour, oil, and honey, shared between would-be lovers.

Where other schools channel qi through the body, this school projects it outward, turning kicks and strikes into elemental projectiles, forming shields, or infusing allies with qi to empower or heal them. Styles include healing and restorative arts prized by every kingdom, defensive techniques that generate barriers and wards from elemental qi, and offensive channelling that rivals the destructive power of gunpowder munitions.

Styles taught by this school

• Blossoms Barrier. Supportive style channeling wood, earth, and water to protect and strengthen allies while snaring enemies.
• Radiant Edge. Melee style that empowers attacks with elemental force.
• Solar Song. Offensive channeling style with high single-target and area damage.

See Also: style blossoms barrier style radiant edge style solar song

The twin-saber art of the Radiant Chorus, Radiant Edge pairs melee and qi projection into a self-reinforcing loop. Each melee strike sharpens the next ability; each ability sharpens the next swing; push either side too far and the bonuses backfire. Blades deflect piercings in flurries, flare into fire arcs, and finish with a shield-ignoring slice when the eyes gleam brightest. A swordsman's discipline, at the tempo of a fireworks show.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +9
• Ranged +3
• 1 HP threshold +5
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +7

Damage defense

• Resistance: slashing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: bludgeoning, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Radiant Edge

Every round you use a melee attack, you gain a point of Gleaming Eyes, giving your main action abilities +2. Every time you use a main action ability, you gain a point of Radiant Edge, giving your melee attacks +2. If either bonus reaches +6 it backfires, losing all bonuses and inflicting (bonus size) damage to you.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style, continue to stack/benefit from Gleaming Eyes and Radiant Edge.

Abilities

1. Deflecting Flurry. Instant main. You weave your twin sabers into a deflecting guard, raising a shield worth twice your main roll that soaks only slashing and piercing damage; any other damage type passes straight through unabsorbed
2. Dazzle. Very Fast tactical. You flash blinding glare across an enemy's eyes, shifting their damage thresholds 3 points easier to cross for one round, so the same raw damage carves deeper wounds
3. Dazzling Flurry. Average main. You drive a dazzling melee strike into an adjacent foe for metal damage equal to half again your main roll (your main roll times three, divided by two, rounded down)
4. Twirling Flurry. Slow main. You spin both blades in a wide arc, striking your primary target for slashing damage equal to half your main roll (rounded down), plus the same amount to up to two other enemies standing adjacent to YOU
5. Distracting Blades. passive. A passive that runs the whole time you hold the Radiant Edge stance
6. Blazing Slash. Fast main. You loose a blazing cut that sears your adjacent target for fire damage equal to half your main roll (rounded down), then sweep a two-wide by three-long swath of flame across the hexes behind them, away from you, burning every enemy caught there for the same amount
7. Blinding Eyes (advanced)
8. Radiant Bullet (advanced)
9. Perfect Slice (advanced)

See Also: school radiant chorus ability deflecting flurry ability dazzle ability dazzling flurry ability twirling flurry ability distracting blades ability blazing slash ability blinding eyes ability radiant bullet ability perfect slice

- Jīn Àn Xiàn ("Gold Bank Line"): The empire's longest railway. Zhūwān → Jīnhuì → Tiějué → Tiěxiá, spanning the whole southern coast and martial heartland - Cāngbō Xiàn ("Dark Wave Line"): Táimí's western coast through Táiyōu to Cángjìng capital, the scholarly kingdom's main line - Chuānjīn Xiàn ("River Gold Line"): Zhūwān port inland along the Jīnhé river valley - Huítiě Xiàn ("Returning Iron Line"): Loop around the martial kingdom connecting Tiějué, Tiěxiá, and Tiělěng Dù - Dèngdào Xiàn ("Cliff-Ledge Line"): Coast through Tōngzhì mountains to Jīnjiǎ, connecting Wàngcháo, Hán Kuàng Lǐng, and Cāngsōng Kǒu - Imperial Main Line (,): Pre-existing named trunk line - Northern Line (,): Pre-existing named northern route - Western Line (,): Pre-existing named western route - Tiějué Line (,): Pre-existing named Tiějué route - Name: Route - Western Coastal Branch: Western coast, Cuìyá Bùkǒu to Zhuōshuǐ Wān - Northern Forest Line: Through the Qiāncuì forest, Cángjìng to Yǐn Mù Guān - Táimí Interior Branch: Interior Táimí, Sānhuì Wāndì to Yún Jiē Tián - Eastern Highland Branch: Eastern highlands, Chìyán Gǎng to Shēn Lín Wān - Southern Coastal Spur: Southern coast, Cháo Píng to Qīngyuán Gǔ - Fēiyín Connector: Connects Fēiyín Dū to the main network - Jungle Branch: Jungle route to Rùlín Wān - Jīnhuì-Xī Yáng Spur: Jīnhuì to the wine valley - Pine Coast Branch: Hán Kuàng Lǐng to Sōngyán Bǔ on the coast - Tiěkēng Spur: Short spur to the Tiěkēng Zhài mines - Mountain Imperial Railway: Fēiyín Dū mountain approach - Fēnglǒng Spur: Pre-existing named spur - Huǒtǔ-Fēnglǐng Branch: Pre-existing named branch - Hánlín Extension: Pre-existing named extension - Hékǒu-Línbiān Coastal: Pre-existing named coastal line - Lánjiāo Coastal: Pre-existing named coastal line - Suǒ Gǔ-Tiěxiá Branch: Pre-existing named branch - Sānjué-Míngzhū Branch: Pre-existing named branch - Táimí Branch: Pre-existing named branch - Táimí Interior Line: Pre-existing named interior line - Tóngmài Spur: Pre-existing named spur - Tōngzhì Coastal Branch: Pre-existing named coastal branch - Tōngzhì Eastern Branch: Pre-existing named eastern branch

Mechanics

• Style: Stormbreaker (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: A hex you target
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

A tactical action that channels atmospheric pressure into a hex you target and the rings around it (the same broad footprint as a natural pressure zone), stacking onto any pressure already there. It deals no damage; it simply builds the charged zone so Call Lightning, Thunderclap, or Hail Storm can later cash it in. Because it makes no combat noise, you can use it while staying hidden. It costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style stormbreaker

The fan-dancer's art of the Veiled Grace, Razor Petals kills to music. Its practitioner spins through a crowd on bladed fans, leaving a trail of shallow cuts that deepen into bleeding wounds, crippled footwork, and thresholds shaved to nothing. Pirouettes carry them through allies and enemies alike; fan dances redirect enemy strikes onto whoever stands nearest. At court the practitioner passes for an entertainer. Until the first cut opens, and the dance is already over.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +7
• Ranged +5
• 1 HP threshold +9
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +3

Damage defense

• Resistance: slashing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: piercing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Shallow Cuts

Melee attacks apply stacks of shallow cut to the target, which can be exploited.

Mastery Bonus

Attacks continue to apply shallow cut stacks for (mastery) rounds after switching out of the style.

Abilities

1. Dancer's Grace. Instant tactical. You move with qi lightness for one round, gaining its nimble footwork without paying the usual loss of qi dice regeneration
2. Whirling Fans. Average main. You sweep your bladed fans at every enemy adjacent to you (one hex away), each taking slashing damage equal to half your main roll
3. Concealed Weapon. passive. A passive that hides your fans until you strike
4. Fan Storm. Average main. You loose a cascading arc of blades that seeks out every enemy within seven hexes who is carrying Shallow Cuts
5. Shred. Instant tactical. You mark an enemy so the next hit they take, of any kind, is doubled
6. Fan Dance. Very Fast main. You weave a decoy dance so that the next attack aimed at you may instead be redirected onto an adjacent combatant
7. Pirouette (advanced)
8. Crippling Slashes (advanced)
9. Blood Sacrifice (advanced)

See Also: school veiled grace ability dancer's grace ability whirling fans ability concealed weapon ability fan storm ability shred ability fan dance ability pirouette ability crippling slashes ability blood sacrifice

Mechanics

• Style: Patient Edge (level 5)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Melee
• Cost: -2 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

Ready a mirrored riposte. The first enemy to wound you in melee this round has a share of that harm reflected straight back as metal damage. The amount scales with the HP that hit cost you and with your main roll (the formula is HP lost times main roll times 8 percent, never less than 1), and its output lands as raw metal damage through the normal thresholds. Only the first attacker each round is answered. When it fires it costs a -2 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 2 each round; if nothing triggers it, you pay nothing.

Adventure use

Every studied movement becomes a mirror, returning what was given.

• On methodical or counter response tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke reflective_strike.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke reflective_strike

See Also: style patient edge

Mechanics

• Style: Snaring Storm (level 4)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You spin into a whirling ribbon dance, raising your 1-HP threshold band by 5 for one round so glancing blows that would have nicked you for a point of HP fall short instead. The deeper wound bands are unaffected. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

Out of combat

On a roll to distract someone with a ribbon dance or to pass as a civilian dancer, you gain a +5 bonus.

Adventure use

Your ribbon dance commands every eye in the room, and frees every other hand.

• On distract or dance or disguise dancer tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke ribbon_dance.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke ribbon_dance

See Also: style snaring storm

Mechanics

• Style: Solar Song (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

Flames rise from your hex and the six hexes around you for one round, leaving fire hazards on the ground that can ignite spilled oil or be lit further by other fire effects. The hazards do no damage on their own as they are placed. For that round you cannot catch fire yourself and take 50 percent less fire damage. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

After casting Rising Flames in a fight you can type flare_candles to briefly flare up all candles and fires in the room. In adventures, grants +5 to any roll involving fire.

Adventure use

Flames rise where you ask them to.

• On fire tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke rising_flames.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke rising_flames

Command: flare_candles

See Also: style solar song

Mechanics

• Style: Snaring Storm (level 2)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Self

You anchor the rope spear and run the walls with qi lightness for the round, which means you cannot make a melee attack while wallrunning. Any ally standing adjacent to you when you launch may follow your wallrun to your landing hex, and you and each adjacent ally gain back-to-back defense for the round. No penalty to your other abilities.

Out of combat

On an adventure roll to swing on or anchor a climb with the rope, you cannot roll below 4.

Adventure use

The rope finds its anchor; the swing carries you true.

• On swing or climb anchor tasks, every die counts as at least 4.

Arm it before the roll with invoke rope_anchor.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke rope_anchor

See Also: style snaring storm

These rules keep the game fair, the fiction immersive, and the community safe. Read them once, then play.

The Rules

1. One account per person. Do not create alt accounts to evade limits or interact with yourself.
2. Remain in character at all times. Public rooms and channels are IC; use OOC tools when you need to step out.
3. Do not use OOC information ICly. Anything you learn from Discord, the wiki, or other players out-of-character does not belong to your character.
4. No harassment, hate speech, or slurs. Do not harass or abuse anyone OOCly, and never use hate speech or slurs in any OOC communication.
5. Protect yourself as a player. Use permissions blocks and related tools to stop unwanted OOC contact, DMs, or interaction from players you find unpleasant.
6. No powers you do not have. Do not roleplay abilities, authority, or knowledge your character has not earned, and do not roleplay around the game's code or established lore.
7. No hidden information in roleplay. Do not include details others could not perceive, such as your character's internal thoughts. Show inner state through action and speech.
8. Keep IC themes PG-13 by default. Engage in sexual roleplay only when you and the other participants are under the private flag. Engage in other disturbing, triggering, or mature themes only in Unrestricted scenes where everyone has opted in.
9. No exploits. Do not deliberately exploit any aspect of the game design in a way that was not intended.

Tips

• Use permissions consent to set your content consent preferences and per-player overrides.
• Use tickets new to report bugs, unintended behaviour, or rule violations to staff.
• Use permissions blocks to block players who are harassing you OOCly.

Usage: help rules

See Also: permissions tickets help

A working port on Qiānjīn's western shore near Zhūwān, where the Jiāyǐng marshland gives way to dense jungle that almost closes over the anchorage. Logs float downriver and ride the Jungle Branch railway for shipment to Zhūwān's shipyards; the forest yields resin, dye-bark, and exotic hardwoods at premium prices. Everything mildews, metal rusts overnight, and the jungle reclaims any ground not actively defended. Rough-cut timber buildings, muddy paths, a frontier population of loggers and foragers who consider themselves tougher than their southern neighbours. A local saying: "The forest feeds you, and the forest eats you."

See Also: Qiānjīn Měnghǔ Lǐ-Jindoro

The imperial astronomers fix an auspicious day near the solstice for the emperor's jade seals to be ceremoniously locked away in lacquered chests. The seals of every ministry, prefecture, county yamen, magistrate's bench, and tax-collector's office follow within the day. The government stops. Petitions cannot be stamped, executions pause, lawsuits freeze, and most contracts that require a magistrate's chop are unenforceable until Unsealing on January 15. Couriers race across the kingdoms in the last hours to deliver papers before the wax goes on. For players: any business with the state, including guild registrations, deeds, inheritance disputes, and criminal pardons, suspends for the period. This is when fugitives travel, smugglers thrive, and forgers do their best work. NPC clerks may accept "expediting gifts" to mark a document pre-dated to December 21.

Mechanics

• Style: Iron Claw (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -9 to all your rolls this round, easing by 3 each round; -8 to your other abilities this round, easing by 4 each round

You drive a heat-charged punch into an adjacent foe for metal damage multiplied by your banked furnace heat: once at heat 0 to 1, double at heat 2 to 3, triple at heat 4 to 5, quadruple at heat 6 to 7, and five times at heat 8. Then you shove them back a number of hexes equal to your heat. The strike spends all of your heat. It carries two costs that decay separately: a -8 penalty to your other abilities fading by 4 each round, and a -9 penalty to all of your rolls fading by 3 each round.

Out of combat

After landing Searing Fist you can type brand in a room with a flammable surface to sear a lasting handprint into it that persists for 24 hours.

Adventure use

Burning fingers methodically reduce the flammable to ash.

• On destroy or flammable tasks, you reroll any die showing 6, 7, and 8.

Arm it before the roll with invoke searing_fist.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke searing_fist

Command: brand

See Also: style iron claw

Sects and orders of the Àolǎng Empire: - The Ninth Pouch - The Crimson Cleavers - The Unbleeding Seal - The Unforged - The Inkstone Society - The Twice-Sworn - The Keepers - The Chainless Compact - The Silken Gloves - The River Wardens - Spirit Walkers - The Gilded Abacus - The Scarlet Meridian - The Lamplighters - The Ascending Path - The Starlight Order

See Also: The Ninth Pouch The Crimson Cleavers The Unbleeding Seal The Unforged The Inkstone Society The Twice-Sworn The Keepers The Chainless Compact The Silken Gloves The River Wardens Spirit Walkers The Gilded Abacus The Scarlet Meridian The Lamplighters The Ascending Path The Starlight Order

Spirits of warriors that died in dishonor and cannot move on. Appears as warriors of corporeal black shadow and drain the Qi from cultivators when they strike them. Come in three power variants, apprentice, ourneymen, masters. May sometimes be in service to a sorceror or other magic user, many serve The Stranger King, others are simply drawn to Cultivator's Qi like hungry ghosts.

To channel shadow is to feel the world thin around you, as though the air itself had grown a second skin you could slip beneath. It does not roar in the meridians the way fire does; it settles, cool and patient, pooling in the hollows of the breath. Cultivators of the Veiled Grace favor it, pairing its quiet with poison's certainty to end a duel before the opponent knows it has begun. Manifested, it shows as a soft blackening at the edges of sight, a smear of dusk clinging to a sleeve, a footstep that arrives a heartbeat before its sound.

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 3)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: 6 hexes
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You perform a powerful spin kick, and as it finishes a shadow replica of you launches from your body to deliver the kick to a target up to six hexes away, dealing shadow damage equal to your main roll times three halves. On a hit it also marks the target with a point of disorientation. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round. Can be used while stealthed.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style darkened veil

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 6)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Fast
• Range: All enemies on the battlefield
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

Your shadows rise into a host of illusory soldiers that fall upon every disoriented enemy at once, regardless of distance. For each foe, all of their disorientation is consumed, and in exchange their damage thresholds drop by four for every point consumed, lasting the rest of this round and the next; the more disorientation they had stacked, the harder they are to defend and the more HP your blows tear from them. Does no direct damage. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round. Can be used while stealthed.

Out of combat

On an adventure, conjuring a host of shadow soldiers can grant a +5 bonus on intimidation tasks, subject to a narrative judgement that the situation involves frightening, misdirecting, or confusing a target. You can also type shadow_constructs out of combat to add a shadow-soldier line to the room description for about ten minutes.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke shadows_dance

Command: shadow_constructs

See Also: style darkened veil

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 5)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Slow
• Range: Self
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You leave a shadow of yourself where you began the round, then act freely. At the end of the round you snap back to that starting position (if it is occupied, you slip to the nearest open hex within three). While the technique is armed, anyone who strikes you in melee gains a point of disorientation for their trouble; ranged attackers are unaffected. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round. Can be used while stealthed.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style darkened veil

Mechanics

• Style: Darkened Veil (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Instant
• Range: Self
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You fade into the shadows. Until you take your first attack or ability action, any ranged attack against you deals only half damage; melee blows are unaffected. The veil holds until the moment you act offensively, and acting spends it. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round. Can be used while stealthed.

Out of combat

On an adventure, fading into shadow lends you a +3 bonus on stealth tasks, but only when the task itself involves shadow or darkness.

Adventure use

You melt into shadow, a pooling silence.

• On stealth tasks, you roll +3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke shadows_veil.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke shadows_veil

See Also: style darkened veil

The meteor-hammer art of the Ember Fist, Shattered Star fights by orbital mechanics. Its practitioner winds the weighted chain into wide arcs, building momentum across the battlefield: every hex of travel between targets adds force to the next blow. Strikes chain from one enemy to the next, shatter shields, knock foes prone, and rain down from above. The meteor hammer, they say, does not swing. It falls.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +9
• Ranged +7
• 1 HP threshold +3
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +5

Damage defense

• Resistance: piercing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: slashing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Momentum

Gain a damage boost the greater the distance between the location of your previous round's main target and the location of the current round's main target, including when it's the same target (due to movement). Every hex of distance is a +0.5 bonus, max +2 per round, max +6 overall. Resets on any round where you make no melee attacks or your target is in the same place.

Mastery Bonus

Continue to stack and gain benefits from momentum for (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style.

Abilities

1. Whirlwind Strike. Fast main. You sweep the meteor hammer through a full arc
2. Orbiting Spiral. Fast tactical. A tactical action that whirls the meteor hammer into a wide orbit around you for the rest of the round
3. Side Swipe. Average main. You sweep the hammer laterally in a rhythmic side-to-side pattern, dealing your main roll in bludgeoning and shoving the target 3 hexes to one side
4. Shattering Blow. Fast main. You drive the meteor hammer straight through the target's guard
5. Flying Strike. Average main. You launch forward and crash the hammer down
6. Double Strike (advanced)
7. Gravity's Friend (advanced)
8. Falling Star (advanced)

See Also: school ember fist ability whirlwind strike ability orbiting spiral ability side swipe ability shattering blow ability flying strike ability double strike ability gravity's friend ability falling star

Mechanics

• Style: Shattered Star (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: 4 hexes (meteor hammer reach)
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You drive the meteor hammer straight through the target's guard. Any damage shields protecting the target are stripped first, then your main roll lands as bludgeoning damage. Your Momentum bonus is added to the main roll before damage is calculated. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

On adventure rolls where you spend qi to break an object or obstacle, your roll explodes (rolls again and adds) on a 6, 7, or 8.

Adventure use

Qi flows through your strike and the obstacle shatters at the node.

• On break object or break obstacle tasks, your dice explode on 6, 7, and 8.

Arm it before the roll with invoke shattering_blow.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke shattering_blow

See Also: style shattered star

Shirogane is an archipelago kingdom across the Eastern Sea, a chain of pine-cliffed islands ruled from the white-walled capital of Hakurei. Its people speak their own tongue, write in a script borrowed and then bent away from ours, and order their houses around clan loyalty, sword-saint lineages, and shrines to sea and storm. Their warriors are feared across the waves: disciplined infantry, peerless single-blade duelists, and a navy of lacquered war-junks that move like cormorants. Three invasions still live in the empire's memory. In 576 their fleet broke on the rocks of Qiānjīn in a brief, brutal raid. In 678 they returned and held the coastal prefectures of Jīnjiǎ and Qiānjīn for ten years before being driven back. In 771 they came a third time, repelled only when the young Emperor Hǔjūn called down the power of Liúhǔ on the burning shore. Today the two realms keep a formal peace, signed in ink and watched in iron. Envoys exchange gifts at the solstices; warships shadow each other along the trade lanes; neither side names the other a friend. It is a rivalry that breathes. How a citizen feels depends on where she was born. In Jīnjiǎ, grandmothers still spit at the name Shirogane and bar their shutters on the anniversary of the occupation. Sìshuǐ's court diplomats prefer a cool, courteous distance, all bows and no warmth. Qiānjīn merchants, whose ledgers love the silver that comes off those island ships, trade carefully, smile thinly, and keep one hand near the knife.

Mechanics

• Style: Razor Petals (level 5)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Instant
• Range: An enemy whose rear arc you stand in (no fixed distance is enforced)
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You mark an enemy so the next hit they take, of any kind, is doubled. This only works when you stand in the target's rear arc and the target is committed to attacking someone other than you, rewarding coordinated flanking. The mark lasts one round. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style razor petals

A water-purification festival drawn from the kingdoms' oldest spirit-practices. Shrine-priests set up bathing pavilions on east-flowing streams and pour orchid-infused water over anyone who comes, cleansing the spirit for the year ahead. Wealthy households host qūshuǐ liúshāng gatherings, where guests sit along an artificial winding channel, retrieve floating wine cups, and compose a poem or drink the cup as forfeit. Drunken poetry of remarkable quality survives from these. In the older folk-religion communities of Táimí and the river-villages of Sìshuǐ, Shàngsì is also the year's quiet sanctioned-courtship day. Unmarried people walk together under the temporary blessing of the spirits without scandal. Arrangements made at Shàngsì are honor-bound but not legally binding until formalized. The drunken poetry contests are part of the festival's atmosphere, the work of the wine-loosened hosts and guests who fill these gatherings. There is no scored contest to enter and no command that judges a verse. If you would like to recite or compose a poem of your own at one, do it as roleplay: speak the lines aloud with `say`, or describe yourself reciting them with `emote`. Others in the room will see what you perform.

At the foot of Cāngyán Jǐ, where the great mountain's volcanic soil flattens into terraces of rocky, fertile ground. The stony earth is hard to work but produces grain with unusual flavour and keeping quality. A canal below carries produce downstream, with a railway station nearby; the trail above carries pilgrims, herb-gatherers, and cultivators drawn to the peak's qi. A trailhead inn and mule-handlers serve the ascent. Everything here comes from the mountain, soil from its eruptions, water from its snowmelt, livelihood from its slopes.

See Also: Qiānjīn Fānghǔ Wáng-Jindoro

**Shíliè** · Spirit of Honor Shíliè embodies oaths kept at great cost, duty that outlasts love, and the terrible clarity of those who know exactly what the right thing is and do it anyway. It is stern, unyielding, and respected more than liked; even other spirits treat it with a certain wariness. Mortals who have broken oaths sometimes feel its gaze as a physical pressure. Favors a middle-aged widow in mourning garb with scarred hands and steady eyes who speaks plainly and never raises their voice, because they never needed to. Manifested: a great stone lion with burning eyes, motionless as a monument until it moves with sudden, decisive violence.

Ambassador of Tōngzhì to Zhūwān, of a collateral Shuveri line schooled in calligraphy, spirit taxonomy, and the detection of poison in almond cakes. She arrives at every salon courteous, exacting, and almost indecently calm.

See Also: Tōngzhì Ambassador of Tōngzhì to Zhuwan

Founded by war refugees who found a forest hollow in the Dōngyuè Cuìwéi deep enough that pursuing soldiers lost the trail. The crown did not acknowledge its existence for decades. Two hundred souls in a sheltered microclimate, warmer winters, rich leaf-fall soil, a spring that has never gone dry. Charcoal, mushrooms, wild honey, and selective timber sustain the economy. The forest grows so close around the houses that newcomers describe feeling swallowed. The Eastern Highland Branch railway reaches a halt at the forest edge, but the settlement itself remains deliberately quiet.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Huǒ Yìxióng-Zhancalius

The most isolated settlement in Táimí, deep in the Qiāncuì where the canopy is so thick the sky is rarely seen. Less a town than a loose community of forest-dwellers, trappers, hermits, refugees, the occasional cultivator seeking solitude. Houses scatter among named, venerated trees connected by footpaths only locals can follow. The Northern Forest Line passes through a clearing at the settlement's edge, the only concession to the wider empire, carrying furs, dried mushrooms, and medicinal roots out, and salt, tools, and cloth back in. The forest provides everything a person needs, and they mean it.

See Also: Táimí Xīnchái Tiānláng-Liradi

Mechanics

• Style: Shattered Star (level 3)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: 4 hexes (meteor hammer reach)
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You sweep the hammer laterally in a rhythmic side-to-side pattern, dealing your main roll in bludgeoning and shoving the target 3 hexes to one side. The push alternates side each time you use it (left, then right, then left again), resetting to the left side whenever you re-enter the stance. Your Momentum bonus is added to the main roll first. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

On adventure rolls, grants +5 when redirecting force or using a fulcrum or lever to mechanical advantage.

Adventure use

You lean into the leverage point and redirect the force entirely.

• On redirect or fulcrum tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke side_swipe.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke side_swipe

See Also: style shattered star

The poison-and-shadow art of the Veiled Grace, Silken Viper refuses to hold still. Its practitioner leads with a clawed hand and answers with a throwing dagger, slipping between melee and ranged so nimbly that each shift sharpens their defense. Every strike carries a toxin: some that slow, some that weaken, some that linger for days, some that amplify whatever else is already in the blood. Serpents do not duel; they choose the moment.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +7
• Ranged +9
• 1 HP threshold +5
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +3

Damage defense

• Resistance: piercing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: bludgeoning, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Evasive

Adds +1 to all HP thresholds every round you alternate between melee and ranged, e.g. if you used melee last round and ranged this round you get the bonus. Using a mix of both in a round counts as either one beneficially. Using abilities does not count. Max +5. Resets when you lose an HP. Also gain +2 to all HP thresholds for attacking different targets, based on how many rounds it's been since you attacked that target, e.g. attacking two targets alternating would keep you at +2 constantly; attacking three on a rotation would be +4 constantly. Using a targeted ability counts. Max +8. Resets when you lose an HP.

Mastery Bonus

Continue to stack and benefit from stacks of Evasive for (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style.

Abilities

1. Wilting Venom. Average main. You throw a dagger coated in a decay toxin, afflicting the target with a poison that deals 5 poison damage at the end of each round for 1 + main roll/3 rounds
2. Slowing Venom. Average main. You throw a dagger coated in a sluggish toxin that halves the target's movement speed for 1 + main roll/3 rounds
3. Disorientating Venom. Average main. You throw a dagger coated in a disorienting toxin that cuts the target's outgoing ranged damage by 50 percent for 1 + main roll/3 rounds
4. Compromise. Fast main. You throw a dagger coated in an amplifier toxin
5. Weakening Venom. Average main. You throw a dagger coated in a weakening toxin that cuts the target's outgoing melee damage by 50 percent for 1 + main roll/3 rounds
6. Kick Off (advanced)
7. Slither Step (advanced)
8. Toxic Mastery (advanced)

See Also: school veiled grace ability wilting venom ability slowing venom ability disorientating venom ability compromise ability weakening venom ability kick off ability slither step ability toxic mastery

Chief of Zhūwān's Zōngjì registration office, a merchant family's son raised to believe that to write a name down is to say a person existed and mattered. He keeps the city's family trees and mediates its inheritance disputes with meticulous care.

See Also: The Keepers

Mechanics

• Style: Stormbreaker (level 5)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

Passive, with no combat effect. It is an ambient weather-sense: you read the sky well enough to see storm fronts coming from twice the usual distance.

Out of combat

Sky Eyes lets you spot storm fronts at twice the normal range, and lends a bonus to weather-related rolls in adventures.

Adventure use

You read the sky and the front beneath it; nothing on the horizon escapes you.

• On weather or forecast tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke sky_eyes.

How to use

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke sky_eyes

See Also: style stormbreaker

Mechanics

• Style: Silken Viper (level 2)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: One enemy (no fixed distance is enforced)

You throw a dagger coated in a sluggish toxin that halves the target's movement speed for 1 + main roll/3 rounds. Re-casting on an already-afflicted target adds to the remaining duration rather than refreshing or stacking. The venom is tagged as a toxin, so Compromise can later prolong it. Casting it has no penalty.

Out of combat

On an adventure, when you spend qi on a roll to chase someone, the dice explode on 6s, 7s, and 8s (each such result rolls again and adds on).

Adventure use

A whisper of toxin in the air drags at their stride.

• On chase tasks, your dice explode on 6, 7, and 8.

Arm it before the roll with invoke slowing_venom.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke slowing_venom

See Also: style silken viper

The rope-spear art of the Mirrored Tempest, Snaring Storm fights at the perfect distance. Its practitioner keeps opponents one hex out, close enough to whittle, too far to retaliate, and punishes every attempt to close. Those who charge are tripped and flung past; those who flee are dragged back; those who crowd together are tangled into each other. The rope is a leash, the wind a sting, and the geometry of the fight belongs to the Snaring Storm.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +7
• Ranged +5
• 1 HP threshold +9
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +3

Damage defense

• Resistance: slashing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: piercing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Perfect Distance

Can melee attack at 1 hex range. Enemies you've struck at that range with a melee attack cannot hit you with melee or ranged attacks while at that range.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style, can continue to benefit from Perfect Distance.

Abilities

1. Sting. Average main. You sting an enemy in melee or up to two hexes away, dealing your main roll in damage and leaving a lingering wound that shifts the target's whole wound-penalty curve down by one for 20 rounds, making them that much easier to hurt
2. Rope Anchor. Instant tactical. You anchor the rope spear and run the walls with qi lightness for the round, which means you cannot make a melee attack while wallrunning
3. Stinging Wind. Very Fast tactical. You fling stinging wind at an enemy up to three hexes away, halving the damage of their ranged attacks for one round
4. Ribbon Dance. Very Fast tactical. You spin into a whirling ribbon dance, raising your 1-HP threshold band by 5 for one round so glancing blows that would have nicked you for a point of HP fall short instead
5. Wind Trip. Very Fast tactical. You arm a reactive trip
6. Confounding Pull. Very Fast main. You hook an enemy up to three hexes away and deal your main roll in damage
7. Lashing Pull (advanced)
8. Whispering Winds (advanced)
9. A Thousand Needles (advanced)

See Also: school mirrored tempest ability sting ability rope anchor ability stinging wind ability ribbon dance ability wind trip ability confounding pull ability lashing pull ability whispering winds ability a thousand needles

Mechanics

• Style: Solar Song (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Slow
• Range: 10 hexes
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You pour a concentrated barrage of solar fire into a single target up to 10 hexes away, dealing one and a half times your main roll in fire damage plus your Solar Dance stack bonus. A target beyond 10 hexes is out of range and the cast is rejected. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style solar song

Mechanics

• Style: Solar Song (level 3)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: A target (no fixed distance enforced)
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You mark a target and the six hexes around it with a solar beacon, stripping concealment from everyone standing there. For this round and the next, those marked take 25 percent more damage from ranged attacks and cannot benefit from concealment at all (this lights both enemies and allies in the area). Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round, plus a -4 penalty to your other rolls that fades by 4 each round.

Out of combat

In adventures, when you spend qi on a roll all of your allies gain +5 to rolls dealing with darkness or obscured vision.

Adventure use

A solar beacon answers the dark; your companions see clearly.

• On darkness or obscured vision tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke solar_beacon.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke solar_beacon

See Also: style solar song

Mechanics

• Style: Solar Song (level 1)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

While Solar Song is active you build one Solar Dance stack at the start of every round, with no cap, and each stack adds +2 fire damage to your fire-channel attacks and to your damaging Solar Song abilities (Solar Lance, Fireball, Solar Barrage, and the rider from Infuse the Sun). The heat is dangerous up close: if an opposing fighter is in melee range with you at both the start and the end of the same round, and you still hold stacks, the accumulation detonates on you for 3 fire damage per stack and splashes 1 fire damage to everyone adjacent on both sides, then your stacks reset to zero. When you switch out of Solar Song with any mastery, your stacks freeze and keep feeding your ranged and ability damage for a number of rounds equal to your mastery; during that bleed the melee fire bonus is gated off and any detonation deals 2 damage per stack instead of 3.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style solar song

The fire-channeling art of the Radiant Chorus, Solar Song turns its practitioner into a rising sun. Stacks of Solar Dance build round by round, feeding brighter lances, wider fireballs, and targets that simply catch and burn; linger in melee too long and the practitioner detonates the accumulation on themselves. Fire dances twist arrows aside, a solar beacon strips enemies of concealment, and a final chorus infuses allies' weapons with the same flame. Offensive channeling that, as the school boasts, rivals gunpowder.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +5
• Ranged +9
• 1 HP threshold +3
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +7

Damage defense

• Resistance: piercing, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: slashing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Solar Dance

Every round gain +1 stack, increasing fire channeling and ability damage by +2. If an enemy stays in melee range with you the whole round, your stacks explode, doing 3 damage per stack to you and 1 to all adjacent characters and resetting the stacks.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style, ranged attack and ability damage continues to benefit from Solar Dance bonuses. The bonus no longer stacks, but stacks can explode; damage is 2 per stack however.

Abilities

1. Rising Flames. Very Fast tactical. Flames rise from your hex and the six hexes around you for one round, leaving fire hazards on the ground that can ignite spilled oil or be lit further by other fire effects
2. Solar Dance. passive. While Solar Song is active you build one Solar Dance stack at the start of every round, with no cap, and each stack adds +2 fire damage to your fire-channel attacks and to your damaging Solar Song abilities (Solar Lance, Fireball, Solar Barrage, and the rider from Infuse the Sun)
3. Fire Dance. Instant tactical. You weave a flickering fire dance, and for one round you take 25 percent less damage from ranged attacks and 50 percent less from fire and from shadow
4. Solar Beacon. Very Fast tactical. You mark a target and the six hexes around it with a solar beacon, stripping concealment from everyone standing there
5. Ignite. Very Fast main. You set a target ablaze, applying a burn that lasts for half your main roll in rounds and deals fire damage each round; recasting refreshes the burn to the longer of the two durations rather than stacking
6. Fireball. Fast main. You hurl a fireball that bursts on the target hex
7. Solar Barrage. Slow main. You pour a concentrated barrage of solar fire into a single target up to 10 hexes away, dealing one and a half times your main roll in fire damage plus your Solar Dance stack bonus
8. Fire Breath (advanced)
9. Infuse the Sun (advanced)
10. Solar Lance (advanced)

See Also: school radiant chorus ability rising flames ability solar dance ability fire dance ability solar beacon ability ignite ability fireball ability solar barrage ability fire breath ability infuse the sun ability solar lance

Mechanics

• Style: Earthen Guardian (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

A whirl of stones orbits you for 2 rounds. Any adjacent enemy that attacks you in melee takes your main roll as an immediate reactive strike. At the end of each round, every adjacent enemy that did not attack you in melee takes a third of your main roll. The roll is fixed when you cast and is reused unchanged across both rounds. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style earthen guardian

An individual who has gained great elemental powers by ritually consuming a spirit, causing natural damage as a consequence.

The kingdom's loudest festival. Every Táimí household carves a mask of the household spirit, the small woodland spirit that lives in the rafters and protects the family, and wears the mask for the weekend. Different households' masks are wildly different, since each spirit is its own thing, and the carnival is in part a chance to see what your neighbors' spirits look like for the first time. A mask is a person; a player wearing one is treated as that spirit for the weekend. Any insult given to a masked person is held to be an insult to the spirit and is remembered by the forest. At the end of the carnival the masks hang in the rafters of each home for the year.

Individuals who serve spirits by allowing less-powerful ones lacking corporeal form to possess their bodies. They empty themselves through meditative practice and then invite a local spirit to experience corporeality for a time. Reasons for doing so vary: some see it as a religious mission, others enjoy the sensation of being half outside their own bodies, and some incorporate it into their martial arts, bonding with spirits to empower their abilities.

All spirits can assume a human guise, and most shift freely between apparently male, female, and androgynous forms. Their appearance changes regularly, sometimes between encounters, sometimes mid-conversation. A few spirits favor one presentation over others, but even these choose rather than submit to constraint. In human guise, spirits can pass for mortal to the untrained eye, though cultivators and Spirit Walkers often sense an uncanny stillness or intensity about them. When a spirit manifests its true form, there is no ambiguity: the air changes, animals flee, and the natural world bends toward it. Dragon spirits are the greatest powers in the world, embodiments of vast natural forces or profound concepts. The potent non-dragon spirits are less overwhelming but no less consequential: patrons of kingdoms, guardians of cities, and incarnations of ideas that shape mortal lives.

Mechanics

• Style: Earthen Guardian (level 4)
• Type: Passive
• Range: Self

A passive bearing with no direct combat effect. Its weight is felt out of combat, when you stand behind a promise of protection.

Out of combat

On persuasion adventure rolls where you promise protection (safety, shelter, or defense), you may reroll results of 1 or 2 once. The connection to a protection promise is judged from the task text, with no qi required.

How to use

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke steadfast_authority

See Also: style earthen guardian

Mechanics

• Style: Iron Claw (level 3)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You harden your skin into a 10-point shield that absorbs only piercing damage, decaying by 5 each round until it is gone (about two rounds). Reapplying it refreshes the shield rather than stacking. Activating it costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style iron claw

sticky and stickymode are webclient input helpers that make repeating commands painless. They are handled by the web interface itself, so they work in the browser client (not over a raw telnet connection).

sticky <command>

Prefix any command with sticky to send it and leave it sitting in your input box, ready to fire again with a single press of Enter. Its result is also kept in the main feed rather than tucked into the observe pane.

• sticky roll 2d6 — roll, then roll again and again without retyping
• sticky say Yes? — repeat a line during a busy scene
• sticky look — re-check the room as things change around you

It combines with the pane prefixes, in any order: sticky asleft say hi keeps the command in your box and sends it as if typed in the left (OOC) pane.

stickymode

Type stickymode on its own to toggle sticky behaviour on or off for all temporary output. While it is ON, transient results (rolls, looks, and similar) stay in your main feed instead of going to the observe pane — no need to prefix each command. Type stickymode again to turn it back off. The client confirms the new state with a 📌 notice.

In short: use sticky <command> for a one-off, and stickymode when you want it to stick around.

Usage: sticky <command> | stickymode

See Also: commands

Mechanics

• Style: Snaring Storm (level 1)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: Melee or up to 2 hexes
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 1 each round

You sting an enemy in melee or up to two hexes away, dealing your main roll in damage and leaving a lingering wound that shifts the target's whole wound-penalty curve down by one for 20 rounds, making them that much easier to hurt. The sting stacks, so each cast piles on another shift. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 1 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style snaring storm

Mechanics

• Style: Snaring Storm (level 3)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: 3 hexes
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You fling stinging wind at an enemy up to three hexes away, halving the damage of their ranged attacks for one round. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

Out of combat

On a group stealth roll where you could fling wind to blind guards, you gain a +5 bonus.

Adventure use

A sudden sting of wind into the guards' eyes, your companions slip past unseen.

• On stealth or blind guards tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke stinging_wind.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke stinging_wind

See Also: style snaring storm

Mechanics

• Style: Earthen Guardian (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self

You root yourself to the ground and enter the Stone Anchor stance, becoming immovable. While anchored, your 2-and-3 health-point damage thresholds shift favorably, so moderate blows shed a health point less often, and any attempt to push, shove, or knock you back is nullified. The stance has no cost and persists round after round until you explicitly leave it with Stone Anchor Exit.

Out of combat

On adventure rolls for planting yourself or resisting being pushed or moved (tasks tagged avoid push, avoid move, or resist forced movement), you gain a +5 bonus.

Adventure use

You plant yourself; the ground refuses to let you slide.

• On avoid push or avoid move or resist forced movement tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke stone_anchor.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke stone_anchor

See Also: style earthen guardian

Mechanics

• Style: Earthen Guardian (level 1)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self

You release your roots and leave the Stone Anchor stance. The favorable threshold shift and the immovability both end the moment this resolves. It costs nothing and is only useful while you are anchored.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style earthen guardian

Sìshuǐ's spring fish-migration festival. The stone eel, a thick black freshwater eel that runs upstream in vast numbers each March, is fished from causeways, weirs, and pole-bridges by entire villages working in shifts. The catch is smoked and dried and eaten through the year. The festival is the catch and the cooking at once. Outsider visitors are welcomed, traditionally fed for free, and expected to help haul nets.

Mechanics

• Style: Earthen Guardian (level 5)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Slow
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

Your fist packs with earth and slams an adjacent enemy for your main roll in earth damage, knocking it 4 hexes away. While you are anchored, the knockback reaches 6 hexes instead. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

Out of combat

On methodical adventure rolls aimed at breaking, destroying, or shattering something (when you spend qi), your qi die cannot roll below 5. Out of combat you can also type statue followed by a description to shape a small stone statue that decorates the room for 24 hours (once per day).

Adventure use

Methodical pressure cracks stone like old bread.

• On break or destroy or shatter tasks, your qi die counts as at least 5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke stone_fist.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke stone_fist

Command: statue

See Also: style earthen guardian

The lightning-channeling art of the Mirrored Tempest, Stormbreaker weaponizes the sky itself. Every ranged attack seeds the battlefield with pressure zones; when pressure rises high enough, the practitioner calls lightning down onto every enemy standing in it. Chain bolts skip between targets, mist trails the practitioner for cover, and hail storms wring the harvested pressure into rolling damage. By the time the first clap of thunder arrives, the weather has already been arranged.

Combat bonuses

• Melee +5
• Ranged +9
• 1 HP threshold +7
• 2 to 3 HP threshold +3

Damage defense

• Resistance: bludgeoning, 3 less taken
• Vulnerability: slashing, 3 more taken

Unique Mechanic: Pressure Zones

First ranged attack you make against a target, or on some abilities, creates a pressure zone. Pressure is +3 at the target hex and surrounding hexes, and +1 on the two surrounding layers of hexes from that. Pressure stacks and is exploitable.

Mastery Bonus

For (mastery) rounds after switching out of this style, continue to apply pressure zones with ranged attacks and targeted offensive abilities.

Abilities

1. Pressure Zones. passive. Passive
2. Raise the Pressure. Very Fast tactical. A tactical action that channels atmospheric pressure into a hex you target and the rings around it (the same broad footprint as a natural pressure zone), stacking onto any pressure already there
3. Thunderclap. Fast main. A blast that only works when the target stands on a hex already carrying at least 6 pressure; without that charge it fails and does nothing
4. Protecting Mist. Very Fast tactical. Summon a thick mist over your hex and the six around it, granting concealment to whoever stands in it
5. Chain Lightning. Fast main. Loose a bolt that strikes your target for half your main roll in wind damage, then arcs from one body to the next
6. Sky Eyes. passive. Passive, with no combat effect
7. Hail Storm. Average main. Wring the nearest pressure zone out of the sky into a rolling hail storm
8. Ride the Lightning (advanced)
9. Lifting Winds (advanced)
10. Call Lightning (advanced)

See Also: school mirrored tempest ability pressure zones ability raise the pressure ability thunderclap ability protecting mist ability chain lightning ability sky eyes ability hail storm ability ride the lightning ability lifting winds ability call lightning

A celebrated chef of Zhūwān, a fishmonger's son from the river-market town of Wènchí who turned a hard apprenticeship into lacquered dishes fit to dazzle foreign embassy guests. He guards his recipes jealously and is said never to serve the same creation twice.

See Also: The Crimson Cleavers

Sìshuǐ Ruling House: House Lanaris - Imperial House Words: All returns to the river Flag: A golden bridge on a navy field. Philosophy: Life flows like a river, nourishing the land, finding a path around every obstacle. Never stopped, only redirected. All water drawn from the river returns to it. This house counsels patience, tolerance, and a light hand that steers natural flows rather than forcing them. Social Texture: The Imperial Court is a cosmopolitan space that draws and accepts people of all types from across the empire. A heavy emphasis on balance manifests in elaborate seating arrangements, gift exchanges, and formal procedures. Members of the Imperial family are renowned for their skill as mediators, diplomats, and administrators who pride themselves on seeing all sides. Colors: Imperial navy · River blue · Old gold · Ivory · Jade Architecture: Sweeping curved rooflines over pale stone and dark timber, built along and over waterways. Bridges, canals, and reflecting pools are integral; modern touches include curved chrome railings along marble canal-walks and fan-shaped windows in government halls. Fashion: Layered, flowing garments in navy and ivory with gold trim. Court dress involves elaborate multi-layered robes with water-motif embroidery. Modern Amniran style favours long double-breasted overcoats over high-collared suits, silk scarves, and jade accessories.

See Also: House Lanaris

Where swamp, jungle, and open grassland meet between Tànmù and the Táiyōu capital, the land is low, wet, and extraordinarily productive. Houses stand on stilts above the seasonal flooding. The market trades jungle pepper, swamp-reed baskets, fresh milk, medicinal fungi, and wild honey within a few stalls' distance, three ecosystems' bounty in one clearing. The Táimí Interior Branch railway passes through on raised embankments above the floodplain, and a rutted road serves cart traffic in the dry season, though punt-boats remain the preferred local transport. The locals navigate the shifting paths with the ease of long practice, reading the landscape the way Táimí people read spirits, as something alive and conversational.

See Also: Táimí Hǔfǎn Dúgū-Liradi

Where the Fāng Yǔ Lín jungle, Chéngyuè lake, and the Língjiè Shuǐ converge, the settlement exists in green twilight on stilts above damp ground, connected by plank walkways. Three ecosystems overlap here, jungle plants, lake fish, riverbank medicinals, rare fungi, and apothecaries across the kingdom pay premium prices for all of it. The Língjiè Shuǐ earned its name at this confluence: locals say the river marks where the human world ends and the spirit world begins. The Western Coastal Branch railway passes through on its way down the coast, and a river dock on the Língjiè Shuǐ connects to boat traffic on Chéngyuè lake.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Jīnhǔ Wáng-Lanaris

A bay where pine forest meets sandy beach on the Qífēng coast, near Hán Kuàng Lǐng's highland mines. Three family workshops have built clinker-hulled fishing boats here for generations, using coastal pines whose straight grain is ideal for planking. Rocky headlands yield shellfish at low tide; kelp beds offshore are harvested for food and fertilizer. Timber-framed houses weathered grey by sea spray, the smell of pine resin and fish smoke. The Pine Coast Branch railway and the Wàn Lǐ Guāndào road pass through, and the sheltered bay serves as a working ocean harbour. A salt-crusted, practical place, the scholarly kingdom's coastline, where the work is done by hand and the books stay dry.

See Also: Tōngzhì Zhìwén Xīngláng-Shuveri

(NPC-only organization. Players cannot join.) Individuals who have discovered a method of consuming spirits whole, devouring their essence to absorb their power, memories, and influence over natural forces. Depending on the type and strength of spirits they consume, practitioners often manifest incredible supernatural abilities, and many grow individually stronger than an advanced cultivator. Yet the power carries a steep cost: the natural world decays and dies once local spirits are consumed and often takes decades to recover, and the practitioners' own strength wanes over the course of a few months, compelling them to consume again and cause further devastation to maintain it.

The omen of one caught between two forces: two kingdoms, two cultures, two worlds. You can serve as a great diplomat between sides and achieve great things, yet both always see you as belonging more to the other, and few trust you completely.

A loose confederacy of nobles, regional loyalists, and disaffected officials who believe the Emperor to be a tyrant wrongly imposed on the five kingdoms through an unholy spirit union and that each kingdom should govern itself as it did before unification. Their members range from sincere constitutionalists who want a federation of equals to vengeful royalists who simply want their own house on top.

A modern festival, only about two emperors old. On the first Sunday in June, children under thirteen may walk the city in groups without adult escort. Shopkeepers traditionally give them a small thing (a sweet, a paper toy, a coin) when asked. Magistrates open their gates and answer questions from any child who comes; the answers are sometimes recorded in a chapbook later sold at temple fairs. A child emperor's parent instituted it as a gesture of accessibility. Whether the gesture survived its original purpose is a question for the player.

Ask in any Jīnjiǎ market and they will point you to them without ceremony: the commoners of the iron kingdom, the forge-hands of the Táigang valleys, the dockmen hauling war-cargo down the Shíliú, the dry-plateau farmers coaxing grain from stone. You will see them in the lower tournament courts too, a stamped brass disc from some neighborhood bout worn on a cord at the collar, the one ornament their station allows.

They have no love for House Zhancalius, only the old bargain: that any spine with enough iron in it might climb the tournament ladder. A handful do, in every generation, and the taverns keep those names polished. The rest keep the ledger of conscripted sons who did not return, of grain levies, of mountain herbs now bought up by colonels' apothecaries to feed the cultivation pills of their betters.

They are known for blunt practicality and a low, unhurried voice. They do not plead. They count, and they wait.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Kingdom_class of Jīnjiǎ

Ask anyone where Qiānjīn's true engine turns, and they'll point you not to the gilded halls of House Jindoro but to the dockfronts and stall-rows of Zhuwan, where the commoners of Qiānjīn unload the dawn crates, haul the tidal nets of Pearl Bay, and set the day's prices before the Merchant Princes have lifted their tea. They are the fishers, the craftsmen, the rope-braiders and sail-stitchers, the market-vendors whose voices carry over every harbor in the kingdom.

They are not a fixed caste. A clever dockmaster may end the decade owning a minor trading house, and a ruined speculator may end it back on the wharf by week's end. They have known the Merchant Princes' bargain for generations: productivity in exchange for deep harbors, passable roads, and a market loose enough to let a common fisher deal with a foreign buyer.

They are known for fair weights and sharp tongues, populist without being preachers. Their argument is never that they suffer, only that they are being cheated, and they sharpen the kingdom's own gospel of fair commerce into a blade. Lately they speak, dryly, of a "second harbor wall."

See Also: Qiānjīn Kingdom_class of Qiānjīn

Walk any wharf in Zhuwan before the mist lifts, or follow the irrigation ditches inland along the Jīnhé's tributaries, and you will find them: the commoners of Sìshuǐ, the river's own people. Fisherfolk, rice-farmers on the terraced floodplains, dockhands hauling foreign lacquer off the barges, net-weavers and reed-paper makers in the canal towns. In every kingdom the small folk feed the throne, but here they say it differently: they feed the river, and the river feeds the Emperor.

Their bargain with House Lanaris is old. A lighter hand on the tax-rolls, grain depots stocked against the flood years, and in return a loyalty that runs deeper than law. They believe the wearer of the jade bracelet truly speaks for the water, and they have, for generations, addressed the Court not by petition but by offering, leaving their grievances at river-shrines for the spirit to carry upstream.

They are known now for their grief. The northern branch of the Grand Middle Canal silts up while palace annexes rise, and the shrines along its banks groan with tripled offerings. Ask one about it and you will hear that patient, weathered voice: "The old people say they have not seen the water this color since the great silt." No demand. Only witness, and the river remembering what the Court has forgotten.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Kingdom_class of Sìshuǐ

The commoners of Táimí are the farmers, fishers, weavers, and grove-keepers you will meet in every valley and along every river-bend of that kingdom. You will know them by the shuttle-patterns at their cuffs (each valley its own design) and by the bone-white spirit-sigil worn openly at the throat. They are not a peasantry as Sìshuǐ would name one. They are the people the land speaks through, and they will tell you so without raising their voices.

Their bond with House Liradi has always been less rule than negotiation. The speaking seasons, those festival-assemblies where elders bring grievance before noble holders, are old as the river-pacts themselves, and the commoners remember exactly which lords honored them and which did not. Fields, it is whispered, remember too. Just now, the road-surveying parties of Liradi's younger faction have set every grove-village muttering, for no proposed route avoids some spirit's claim.

What they are known for is patience, the slow, immovable kind. They argue not by principle but by witness: this stream, this stone, what happened the last time a boundary was moved without asking. They are not threatening. They are informing.

See Also: Táimí Kingdom_class of Táimí

Ask in any Tōngzhì tea-house who keeps the kingdom running, and the answer comes with a shrug toward the next table: the commoners themselves, the farmers and fishers and craftsmen and dock-hands of House Shuveri's lettered realm. You will see them at harbor weigh-stations filing catch reports, at the mill gates reading the day's grain register, at the ward office queuing with neatly folded petitions. They are, by some measure, the most literate common folk in the empire, and quietly proud of it.

Their bargain with the Crown is old. The throne builds schools, mends roads, propitiates the river-spirits; the commons pay taxes, supply levies, and send their cleverest children up the examination ladder into the bureaus. Generations have lived inside that compact, raised on agricultural manuals, guild examinations, and the steady hum of paperwork.

These days they are known for petitions, not pitchforks. They cite statute, quote founding precept, and point politely to the gap between stated intent and current practice. When their patience cracks, it is the eastern fishing villages, and the silence is loud.

See Also: Tōngzhì Kingdom_class of Tōngzhì

A guild of hunter-cooks who track and kill dangerous, exotic monsters and creatures of all types, then turn their kills into elaborate feasts, experimenting with different flavors and cooking techniques to create novel meals. They guard their recipes jealously and refuse to create the same dish twice.

The omen of the sworn protector, one who serves. Your life is defined by the tension between what you have pledged and what you want. Impossible duties and life-or-death pledges find you, and great events turn on your discipline.

The omen of prophecy. You are plagued with the ability to intuit what is to come, to feel disaster on the wind and danger in the clouds. Yet even as fate blesses you with warning, it curses you with disbelief; those you try to tell dismiss your feelings as silly or, at worst, as proof that you had a hand in the calamity.

In the long years of the War of Five Banners, when no kingdom could keep the peace for long, Jīnjiǎ broke into Sìshuǐ at the head of an iron column, and Queen Yuèhé Lanaris led her army out to meet them. She fought to the last sword. Her banners were cut down in the silt, her riders scattered, and Yuèhé herself was struck from her horse and carried away by the current. She woke floating in the Jīnhé, which had turned red from the blood of her people. When at last she climbed ashore and looked upon the destruction, she swore to end all wars between the kingdoms. The queen marched for days along the red-running banks. She climbed the mountain, and at last came to the source of the Jīnhé, where the river falls from beneath the snow in a single silver thread. She knelt in the snow and begged the dragon spirit Liúhǔ to hear her plea. Seven days and seven nights she waited there with neither food nor drink, until at last she fell senseless in the snow. When she opened her eyes she lay in a great watery cave beneath the mountain, and Liúhǔ loomed above her. She pleaded with him to help her prevent all wars to come. He was cold to her, until she showed him the blood still on his own scales, and how the war was staining even his great river. Yet still he refused her, for such power as he might grant would corrupt any king or queen who held it. So Yuèhé offered to surrender her cultivator's immortality, to age and die like a common woman, and to pass the gift along so that no one ruler should ever hold it for too long. Then Liúhǔ agreed, and told her what she must craft to seal the bargain: the Mandate. Yuèhé travelled the five kingdoms in the guise of a simple wanderer. She wrestled with Gǔshí until he gave up gold from the heart of his mountain. She sang to Líncuì until the forest spirit, moved at last, parted with jade from the heart of her forest. She debated Bìhǎi until he surrendered three pearls drawn from the deep. She tricked Mòlóng out of one of his daggers for the steel, and the trick was easier than it should have been. Then she stole into the forge of Huǒbào in the throat of Yānshān, and there she set the metals against the fire. The crafting was long. Huǒbào returned just as she was finishing, and in a rage gave chase. The queen fled, the Mandate clutched against her heart, and ran for days westward through the mountain passes with the burning leopard at her heels. At the banks of the Jīnhé she slipped the Mandate onto her wrist and threw herself into the waters. What rose to meet Huǒbào on the far bank was no mortal woman but the manifest form of the dragon Liúhǔ, his soul entwined now with Yuèhé's own. Knowing himself outmatched, Huǒbào slunk back to his mountain. Long thought dead, the queen returned to her capital and reclaimed her throne. Then she set out across the five kingdoms, and each ruler she brought into the fold in a different way. The King of Jīnjiǎ she met on the duelling ground at dawn, and they fought from sunrise to noon; when at last he laid down his sword he said no opponent had ever truly tired him, and pledged before evening fell. To the Queen of Qiānjīn she came not with armies but with the sailing charts of an empire's river-roads, and the Queen, who had counted coin before she could walk, kissed the imperial ring before she had finished reading. The King of Tōngzhì she asked a single question that none of his scholars could answer; she answered it herself before she left the chamber, and his pledge followed her retinue out the gates. The Queen of Táimí required nothing. She knelt the moment Yuèhé crossed her threshold, for she alone, of any ruler in the five kingdoms, could see the second shape that walked beside the queen. And so Yuèhé was raised to the throne of all five kingdoms, and brought lasting peace, wisdom, and strength to the new Àolǎng Empire.

About forty-seven years ago, in the reign of Emperor Héliú, a wealthy merchant who lived in the southern half of Zhūwān was spotted by his daughter in the middle of an affair. Realising what she had seen, he chased her down through the household to stop her from talking, and murdered her. In the struggle he knocked over an oil lamp, and the house began to go up in flames. The fire officers came but could not put out the blaze, which burned higher and faster than any fire they had ever fought. The merchant fled from the house, but the flames on his clothes could not be smothered, and he burned to death on the streets as the fire kept spreading around him. Onlookers spoke afterwards of seeing the manifest form of Shíliè, the Spirit of Honor, stalking the streets through the smoke: a great stone lion with burning eyes, walking with the slow certainty of a judgement already passed. The fire spread until it had consumed the whole southern side of the city, and only the river prevented it from crossing to the northern half. Since then the southern half of Zhūwān, now called the South Ruins, has remained a burned wreck and a cursed land. People rarely visit it, and those who do rarely stay for long. No priest has yet been able to predict with any accuracy when the wrath of Honor might fade enough for the quarter to be re-settled. Among the few who do venture into the ruins are cultivators, because while the curse causes all sorts of dangerous phenomena in the catacombs beneath the burned city, it also causes rare and valuable cultivation ingredients to grow there. The event is variously known as the Fire of Zhūwān, the Great Fire, the Southern Fire, or the Fire of Honor.

See Also: Zhūwān Shíliè

The omen of cunning. Fate brings you secrets and constantly tempts you with opportunities to betray. At the same time, others seem inclined to betray you, and genuine connection can seem all but impossible.

(NPC-only organization. Players cannot join.) A sprawling criminal empire of opium, gambling, smuggling, and protection rackets made up of countless individual fiefdoms and gangs that coordinate loosely throughout the Empire. A shared set of rules and agreements holds the compact together, providing for the settlement of inter-gang disputes and enforcing a code that treats betraying fellow guild members to the authorities as the ultimate dishonor. The guild is most organized in cities and urban centers, but most criminal groups maintain some connection to it.

A week-long open sparring tournament in every Jīnjiǎ town's main square. There is no bracket. Matches run continuously, called by stewards, and any combatant may step up at any time. The total bouts fought through the week traditionally adds to one hundred per town; the actual number is whatever it is. Wagers are legal that week and only that week, illegal the rest of the year. The peak weekend is a public spectacle; the weekdays draw a quieter crowd of serious fighters and gamblers.

A network of storytellers, historians, and traveling performers who see stories as an almost holy thing, carrying their own spiritual essence and helping to shape the world's meaning. They are often thrill-seekers who chase adventure and notable experiences while gathering and preserving histories, weaving them into plays, tales, and other stories. Popular among the common people throughout the Empire, they are less well-liked by the ruling class for their tendency to stir up trouble.

A secretive organization dedicated to cataloguing, verifying, and protecting the bloodlines of the noble houses in the Empire. Their records can prevent succession disputes, but their fervor often leads to the ruin of families or even the assassination of those they consider a threat to noble purity.

(NPC-only organization. Players cannot join.) A network of merchants, reformers, and disillusioned officials who believe the Empire should join the Aldermark Commonwealth. Some members are genuine idealists convinced that modernity offers a better future for the people of the Empire; others are bought and paid for by Aldermark itself; and many fall somewhere between the two. Their membership is generally secret, although many express Aldermark-friendly views in public all the same.

Lanterns burn nightly from New Year's Eve through to their peak on the third weekend of January, the night the jade seals reopen. The capital becomes a Lamp Mountain: wooden scaffolds dressed with painted scenes and thousands of oil lamps, revolving "horse-running" lanterns spinning silhouettes across walls, riddles tied to every paper lantern with a small prize for the answer. Bonfires in the squares; rivers carry tiny floating candles. The festival is the year's great public courtship night. Riddles are answered between strangers; notes pass through the crowds; lovers slip away from their groups in the press of light and music. Half the love-stories in popular fiction begin "they met beneath the lamp tower." The cliché is older than the empire and has not yet stopped working. The Imperial Unsealing happens at sunrise on the Monday after. Petitioners line up before dawn.

For one day, the social contract is suspended. Anything anyone says in Tōngzhì that day is presumed false. Contracts signed are void. Oaths sworn are not honored. A confession made on Liar's Day cannot be entered into a magistrate's record. The kingdom's tradition holds that the day exists as a relief valve for everything one must otherwise say or pretend to believe. The festival is observed informally everywhere in Tōngzhì and formally in the kingdom's main cities, where the magistrate's gates close and the bell that opens court does not ring. Outside Tōngzhì the festival is held to be in deeply bad taste, and is one of the standard reasons the other kingdoms find Tōngzhì insufferable.

Tōngzhì's signature festival, and the kingdom's loudest argument for the proposition that knowledge should be enjoyable. On the longest night of the year, the kingdom's great houses and academy halls throw their doors open and run the night as a single rolling party held together by a loose program of intellectual games. A typical Wake includes: - The Reading Race. Three readers compete to finish a chosen rare book aloud first, with the audience interrupting to dispute pronunciations, marginal notes, and the author's claims. Hecklers win small prizes for the cleverest interruption. - The Drunken Astronomy. A round of star-charting on the roof, where each new observation is toasted; observations recorded after the third cup are filed in a separate ledger marked "to be verified at sunrise" and are usually wrong, sometimes beautifully so. - The Theft of Tokens. Each guest arrives wearing a small marked token, a coin, a ribbon, a pin, and spends the night trying to steal others' tokens without being caught. At dawn, the guest with the most tokens is named Crow of the Year and given a paper crown. - The Lying Bracket. A tournament of tall tales scored on plausibility and grace. The audience boos out the rounds. The most accomplished liars are quietly tracked by the kingdom's diplomatic corps as recruitment prospects. - The Anonymous Confession. Guests submit unsigned notes to a sealed box. At midnight, the host reads them aloud. By tradition, at least one confession every Wake turns out to be politically explosive; by tradition, no one is supposed to ask which guest wrote it. - The Recital. Sometime before dawn, when the room has quieted to whatever pretends to be quiet, the year's best new poetry is read seriously, in one of the night's two genuinely solemn acts. The other is the sunrise porridge. Invitations to a Long Night Wake are status. Being invited to a particular house's Wake places you within that house's circle for the year. Players who secure an invitation gain real access. Players who crash one and survive the night with credit gain more. Players who crash one and embarrass themselves carry the story for years.

The omen of the reluctant ruler. Power flows to you whether you seek it or not. Others look to you for decisions and leadership, and fate places responsibility on your shoulders at every turn.

Ask after the Supply-Pillars in any tea-house from Zhuwan's brass-lantern quarter to the dustier inns along the Ironsand Roads, and someone will point you to the merchants of Jīnjiǎ. You will know them by the charcoal wool coats cut to a soldier's shoulder, the double row of brass buttons stamped with the Pillar sigil, and the road-weight in their stride. They are not counter-clerks. They are caravan-masters and harbor brokers who wear rank on their lapels because the kingdom demands it shown.

Their charter is old as the Zhancalius consolidations. The first lords needed coin for their campaigns, and the road-clans and barge-houses gave it, in trade for toll rights, court petition, and the Supply-Pillar title that buys a merchant a soldier's standing. Every decade still, by oath, each great house outfits a company of troops.

They speak in tactical assessments, not pleas. Press them on the Internal Toll Gates and you will hear, in measured low cadence, a war plan dressed as a ledger.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Kingdom_class of Jīnjiǎ

Ask any traveller stepping off the Pearl Bay docks who truly runs Qiānjīn, and they will laugh and point you to the counting-rooms above the silk arcades. The merchants of Qiānjīn are no single guild but a living lattice, caravan-masters, money-changers, and silk-and-spice houses whose ledgers reach across three continents. You will see their factors everywhere worth seeing: at the tariff houses of Zhuwan, in the embassy quarter teahouses, leaning on the rails of ships that have not yet finished unloading.

They are old as the road itself. Long ago they struck a quiet compact with House Jindoro: the throne licenses the routes and hangs the bandits, the houses fund the festivals and the fleet. Each generation renews it over banquets nobody admits are negotiations.

They are known for the smile that means math. Warm, measured, precise, allergic to shouting, fond of precedent. By the time their position reaches the throne, it already sounds like everyone's idea.

See Also: Qiānjīn Kingdom_class of Qiānjīn

The Merchants of Sìshuǐ are the river's own gentry, the silk-and-tea houses, money-changers, and caravan-brokers whose counting-halls line every wharf of the Jīnhé. You will spot their factors in the lock-towns and the Pearl Bay embassies of Zhuwan, and you will see their spokesman seated, by quiet ancient right, in the outer ring of the Imperial court itself.

They rose, so the saying goes, not beside the throne but because of the water. In the early consolidation centuries, when House Lanaris was knitting the five kingdoms into one cloth, it was merchant credit and merchant caravans that did the stitching. The favors granted in return, gentle tolls on the Jīnhé locks, preferential berths at Pearl Bay, were never written down. Merchants, after all, prefer their compacts renegotiable.

They are known for never raising their voices. They speak in the language of flow and nourishment, smile, defer, and adjust a caravan route three provinces upstream. By the time you notice, you have already agreed.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Kingdom_class of Sìshuǐ

Ah, the merchants of Táimí, yes. You will know them by the open-diamond weave of their wool, by the spirit-marks renewed at the wrist before any meeting of consequence, by the small offering-pouch that hangs at the belt beside the ledger. They are the walkers of the kingdom, the caravan-masters and shopkeepers who keep a shrine behind every counter and pour millet wine for the hearth-spirit before opening the shutters.

They were never the silk-and-ledger houses of Sìshuǐ, nor the pearl consortiums of Qiānjīn. Táimí grew its merchants slow, generation by generation, out of the hard art of asking permission, of grove-spirits and river-dragons and stone-elders who decide which pass opens in which season. House Liradi has long found them useful and watched them sidelong, and they remember every favor asked and every petition delayed.

In council they are deferential in form, patient in substance, speaking of rivers and stones when they mean profit. Broad calloused hands rest open on the table. The voice is low, unhurried, and very rarely finished.

See Also: Táimí Kingdom_class of Táimí

You will see them in the licensed counting-houses of every Tōngzhì city, in the back rooms of the Collegium of Records where re-certifications are stamped, and at the long tables of the merchants' councils in Zhuwan. They are the empire's most precisely organized trading class, not its richest (that honor belongs to Qiānjīn's silk-and-spice dynasties), but its most thoroughly woven into the bureaucratic apparatus of House Shuveri.

Generations ago, the throne understood that goods carry intelligence along with their weight, and the trading houses were cultivated rather than left to grow wild. Caravan-masters file route reports. Money-changers note the wear on foreign coin. The licensing and examination system that binds them was, in time, learned and weaponized by the cleverer houses themselves.

They are known for documenting rather than shouting. Pressure, in their hands, arrives as a ledger, a projection, an amendment request perfectly within the rules. Patient, sorrowful, precise, they believe any obstacle yields to enough well-organized information, and they can outwait almost anyone.

See Also: Tōngzhì Kingdom_class of Tōngzhì

Ask any traveller who has passed through Jīnjiǎ's garrison gates, and they will tell you the same thing: the Military is not a branch of the kingdom, it is the kingdom. From the mountain passes of the north to the dueling yards beside every barracks, the officer class holds the bones of Jīnjiǎ together. You will see them at court in ox-blood coats and high mandarin collars, brass buttons catching the lamplight, an empty sword-frog at the hip that somehow speaks louder than a drawn blade.

They were forged alongside House Zhancalius itself, and they have never let the throne forget it. Two generations past, when the Counting Empress tried to trim their budgets, bandits troubled the eastern roads until the coin returned. The lesson took.

In debate they are patient, courteous, and quietly devastating, finishing arguments the way a duelist finishes a bout. Of late, they speak more often of cultivation, of herbs, of merit, and the throne is learning to listen.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Kingdom_class of Jīnjiǎ

Walk the wharves of Pearl Bay any morning and you will see them: the officers of Qiānjīn's standing army, sea-teal coats cut close as any merchant's, gold sash hung with campaign seals instead of tassels. They keep posts in the counting-house cities and the customs gates, as much fixtures of the market square as the spice-weighers, and they bow to the Merchant Princes of House Jindoro with a politeness that is famously, deliberately exact.

They were never a temple-bred warrior caste. The corps grew up beside the trading fleets, cutting its teeth on pirates along the Pearl Bay coast and on the smugglers who slip the kingdom's porous borders. Generals here hold shares in the very convoys they protect, which is why old garrison families and newly-purchased commissions still, somehow, share a table.

In council they speak low and clipped, the voice of professionals tired of being remembered only when the silver stops moving.

See Also: Qiānjīn Kingdom_class of Qiānjīn

Ask any merchant who has watched a tribute caravan roll out from the capital, and they will point to the men in the deep navy overcoats with the tight river-wave braid at the cuffs. The Military of Sìshuǐ is the Imperial Court's standing arm, its garrison commanders and ceremonial captains, the officers you see flanking the throne at audience and riding the long roads between the border forts and the inner provinces.

They are an old institution, grown around the House Lanaris the way reeds grow along a riverbank. Their senior families have served the throne for three or four generations, and many of their colonels rose as much by examination ink and court connection as by sword. They have held the Qiānjīn passes, chased pirates out of Zhuwan's waters, and escorted more tribute trains than any chronicler cares to count.

They are known for impeccable bearing and a baritone politeness that never quite raises itself. They do not argue; they submit memorials. When displeased, they grow more formal, not less, and a banner quietly missing from an honor guard tells the courtiers everything.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Kingdom_class of Sìshuǐ

Ask any traveller who has crossed a Táimí border-pass and they will tell you the same thing: you do not meet a general here, you meet a warden. The military of Táimí is the loose brotherhood of valley officers and garrison commanders who keep the kingdom's mountain roads, grove-marches, and bay-side watchtowers. You see them at the threshold of a sacred wood, baton at the belt beside a polished river-stone, the spirit-mark of their valley stitched in bone-white thread along the shoulder of an earth-toned robe.

Most of them began as village wardens, the sort of officer sent to escort herbalists through spirit-marked terrain or to settle a quarrel where a river-spirit's grievance carried as much weight as a farmer's. House Liradi has never given them a central command, which suits the throne and chafes the officers in equal measure. They are soldiers raised inside the animist web, not above it, and their rank means less here than it would anywhere else in the empire.

What you notice first is the patience, a low and measured baritone that waits for weather, for sign, for the proper moment. Press them on the coast, though, on Pearl Bay and the foreign sails testing the tidal flats, and the patience tightens. They will not override a spirit-speaker in public. They will, gently and repeatedly, reframe every petition for readiness as a duty owed to the land itself.

See Also: Táimí Kingdom_class of Táimí

In Tōngzhì, when folk speak of "the Military," they do not mean a man on horseback. They mean an institution, a slate-coated officer corps you see walking the ramparts of the mountain-pass forts, surveying river-mouths with brass instruments, or seated quietly in the back rows of academic councils in the capital. Their officers wear midnight long coats with mandarin collars, dark-steel spectacles, and rank stitched so subtly into the cuffs that only another officer would read it.

Three generations past, the old warlord clans were dissolved, and their retainers folded into a single examination-credentialed corps. The trade was negotiated, not imposed: hereditary command surrendered in exchange for permanent funding, a seat for the Marshal-Assessor on the Court's council, and a place within the kingdom's revered examination hierarchy. They have not forgotten the terms.

They are known for patience. Where other kingdoms field armies that march, Tōngzhì fields armies that watch, record, and wait, speaking softly precisely because everyone present understands they could speak otherwise.

See Also: Tōngzhì Kingdom_class of Tōngzhì

A Tōngzhì recurring observance. On the darkest nights of each lunar month, the kingdom's main cities open the Moonless Market in a single designated district, lit only by paper lanterns, running from sunset to dawn. Goods sold at Moonless Markets are not illegal, but tend toward the unusual: rare books, banned editions, foreign curios, alchemical reagents, information. The customary etiquette is anonymity; most attendees wear hooded cloaks or simple masks. The customary currency is hard silver, no copper. The market is technically watched. The watch tends to look the other way.

A sprawling network of beggars, laborers, and displaced commoners whose members are ranked by the number of cloth pouches on their belts and whose operatives are embedded in every city, slum, and labor camp in the Empire. They provide mutual aid, settle disputes among the poor, and run the most extensive intelligence network in the Aurium Empire.

Travelers riding the iron roads of Jīnjiǎ will sooner or later cross paths with one of the titled lords of House Zhancalius's old compact, the men and women in ox-blood coats whose brass buttons clink with tournament seals. You see them in garrison courtyards, at the high tables of provincial assize halls, and in the upper tiers of the Grand Assembly, sitting with that soldier's stillness that the kingdom teaches its highborn from the cradle.

Their grandfathers won those titles, the gossips say, sword in hand on the borderlands, when the early emperors needed lords willing to bleed for their seats. From that bargain came the Compact of Earned Names, the old charter that still lets any titled house challenge a crown decree in open court. Every estate, every hill-county, every river pass, was paid for in service, and they will remind you of it.

They are known for ceremony sharp as a blade. A grievance becomes a formal challenge, a rivalry becomes a duel, and their voices, low and iron-weighted, quote the dynasty's own founding philosophy back at the throne whenever centralization presses too close.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Kingdom_class of Jīnjiǎ

You will see them at the harbor courts of Qiānjīn and along the colonnades of the Regional Assemblies, robed in layered silver-white silk with sea-teal at the cuff, a single band of gold thread at the hem, pearl ropes at the throat. The titled class of the kingdom, they sit on the licensing benches, sign the toll-rolls, and convene the local magistracies. Mark the lacquered tide-wave sash-clasp and the rings on exactly three fingers: that is how old wealth tells itself apart from new.

Most of their patents were granted within living memory, gifts of the Jindoro Merchant Princes to able governors, cadet kin, and a few old houses that learned to invest before they were taught to bow. They have always lived in productive friction with the throne, and lately in quieter friction with the Pearl Compact, whose Zhuwan-registered trusts have been buying out their tenantries.

In speech they are low, deliberate, resonant, fond of dressing self-interest in the language of stewardship, balance, and the kingdom's "productive inheritance."

See Also: Qiānjīn Kingdom_class of Qiānjīn

Walk any market town along the Jīnhé tributaries and you will hear them spoken of simply as the Houses, the titled stewards of Sìshuǐ whose jade pendants mark them at a glance in any banquet hall from the capital to the lacquer-forest provinces. They hold the irrigation licenses, the ferry charters, the flood-wall contracts, and the ceremonial care of the lesser river-spirits. To meet one is to meet a straight-backed figure in Imperial navy and ivory, water-motif gold at the cuffs, ink faint at the inner knuckle of a long-fingered hand.

Their roots reach to the old river-pacts that first bound the Imperial heartland together, and for centuries they have made themselves indispensable to House Lanaris rather than rivals to it, supplying the prefects who collect the revenue and the commanders who walk the inland passes. Cadet Lanaris blood runs in many of them, which is why some Houses outlast three generations of mortal competitors without seeming to hurry.

They are known, above all, for patience. They do not refuse a throne's request, they request a further consultation; they do not protest a reform, they lament on behalf of precedent and the river-spirits. Their voices are low and deliberate, their objections arrive in triplicate, and a policy that displeases them tends, somehow, to take a very long time to reach the water.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Kingdom_class of Sìshuǐ

Ask after the keeper-families of Táimí, and any merchant on the Zhuwan road will know whom you mean: the moss-robed lords and ladies of the valley clans, the holders of grove and river-bend, whose painted spirit-marks run from collarbone to jaw. You will see them at no glittering court. You will see them on hillside paths, at the stone markers of their domains, and twice or thrice a year at the Conclave of Named Places, where they gather whenever the throne's quill strays too near sacred ground.

Their houses were not bent by the early Liradi sovereigns but folded in, granted titles on the condition that the local spirits did not object. So their oaths bind them to the land first and the crown second, and they will tell you, with no embarrassment, that House Liradi is the first among spirit-listeners, not a master above them.

They are known for patience that wears down stone. They lead with obligation, never interest, reframing every road and tax as a question of whether the earth was asked. They accommodate, they defer, they agree to study a matter, and then study it for a generation. When at last they refuse, it is with the quiet sorrow of those who have listened, and found the answer to be no.

See Also: Táimí Kingdom_class of Táimí

You will see them in Tōngzhì at every place where paper outranks steel: seated at the high table of a regional college's examination hall, walking the colonnades of a provincial archive, presiding over a tax audit as though it were a recital. They are the landed gentry of the kingdom, governors and estate-holders both, recognizable by the spare midnight-slate coat, the parchment-linen collar, and the small jade estate-seal worn flush at the left lapel. The ink stains at the first two fingers of the right hand are practically a badge of office.

Most are cadet kin or sworn affiliates of House Shuveri, descended from the families who funded the first colleges when the throne built its examination network. They have held their lands by being useful to that apparatus ever since, placing sons in archives, daughters in spiritualist licensure, cousins in quiet corners of the Court.

They are known for the long view and the longer footnote. They do not shout in audience; they annotate. Their petitions arrive cross-referenced, their objections phrased as questions a reasonable administrator would naturally wish to resolve. Speak with one, and the voice is low, measured, and dry, the tone of someone who has read your family's file and is too well-bred to mention it.

See Also: Tōngzhì Kingdom_class of Tōngzhì

Ask any traveller who has passed through Jīnjiǎ and they will speak, half in respect and half in wariness, of the Priesthood of the Iron-Crowned Shrines. You see them at every consequential threshold of the kingdom, consecrating the banners before a campaign rides out, certifying duels in the courtyard squares, pronouncing the will of the spirits at the opening of court. Charcoal and dried-blood crimson robes, brass medallions at the breast, a short bronze rod at the sash: once you have seen the silhouette, you do not mistake it.

They were forged alongside the kingdom itself, useful first to House Zhancalius as a quiet means of declaring rivals inauspicious, and rewarded with temple-lands, conscription exemptions, and a monopoly on the training of spirit-mediums. Centuries of such favors made them rich enough to stop needing favor. Now they walk beside the throne rather than behind it.

They are known for pronouncements, not pleas. They cite the omens, recall what befell rulers who ignored them, and offer a path back into alignment, low and deliberate, as a scout delivers a report before battle.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Kingdom_class of Jīnjiǎ

Walk the harbor districts of Zhuwan and you will find them: the Priesthood of Qiānjīn, robed in sea-teal and aged ivory, presiding over shrines tucked between counting houses where pearl-glass wind-chimes whisper of favorable tides. Their temple-keepers and oracles are as much a fixture of Qiānjīn's commercial quarters as the brokers and the bonded warehouses, and no Merchant Prince takes his seat, no fleet leaves on the long passage, without their blessing first inked upon a lacquered tablet.

They are an ancient body, older by generations than the current Jindoro line, and their relationship with that House has always been a careful dance of patronage and pride. Harbor-front endowments, tax exemptions, ritual fees from venture-blessings: these were the old compacts. Yet the throne, ever fond of novelty, has more than once flirted with foreign diviners to thin the temples' hold, and the Priesthood remembers each slight the way a ledger remembers a debt.

They speak in the oracle's mode, oblique and weighted, framing spiritual service as the invisible foundation beneath Qiānjīn's prosperity. Cross them, and the auspicious winds turn ambiguous; honor them, and the tides somehow favor your hull.

See Also: Qiānjīn Kingdom_class of Qiānjīn

Ask any boatman on the Jīnhé who blesses his nets, and he will point you toward the Priesthood of Sìshuǐ. They are the robed keepers of the river compact, seen most grandly at the Grand Rite Hall of the Imperial Capital, where senior elders in deep navy and ivory, marked by a pale celadon water-drop at the chest, preside over the seasonal rites that confirm the Emperor's bracelet-merge. But they are also the old woman at your neighborhood hearth-shrine and the oracle on the mountain road.

Their lineage runs back to the patriarchs who first brokered the compact between the founding Empress of Sìshuǐ and the river spirit itself. Since then, throne and Priesthood have leaned upon one another, partners more often than rivals, though every Emperor who tried to trim their shrines has found omens turning suddenly murky until the matter was forgotten.

They are known for an unhurried, resonant manner, speaking in sacred precedent rather than open argument. They never threaten. They simply let the river's silence speak first.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Kingdom_class of Sìshuǐ

Ask in any Táimí village who speaks for the unseen, and you will be pointed not to a great temple but to a hearthstone shrine, a fog-pooled mountain spring, or a square where the spirit-medium dances at the turn of the season. The Priesthood of Táimí is less an order than a thousand quiet offices, each tending its own grove or river-bend, robed in moss and bone white, mantles stitched with the marks of whatever shrines they serve.

They grew, so the elders say, from the soil itself, older than House Liradi and written into the founding compact of the kingdom: the throne does not rule the spirits, it listens, and the Priesthood is the ear. Every road laid, every levy raised, every treaty signed has passed through their ritual consultation, sustained meanwhile by household offerings of grain, oil, bone, and dyed cloth.

They are known for never quite arguing. They testify, they report what the river has already decided, and they wait. Cross them, and the omens multiply.

See Also: Táimí Kingdom_class of Táimí

You will know them by the charcoal coats and the small silver pin at the breast, a disc cut with the character for "threshold." The Priesthood of Tōngzhì are the kingdom's temple-keepers and oracle-readers, though to call them only that is to undersell the matter. They walk the halls of the Ash-Smoke Oracle in the capital, the mountain shrines along the eastern passes, and, more quietly, the antechambers of every administrative college that requires a rite consecrated before its doors may open.

Their station is older than House Shuveri's rule. When the Shuveri consolidated Tōngzhì three generations ago, they did not raze the temples but embedded Doctrinal Examiners within them, a compromise the Priesthood accepted with visible grace and, the tea-houses say, a deeper reserve held in private.

They are known for arriving with documents rather than prayers, speaking in low and measured cadence, and meeting the Court on its own ground. When displeased, they perform a rite flawlessly, then pronounce the day inauspicious. The message, as they say, is received.

See Also: Tōngzhì Kingdom_class of Tōngzhì

The omen of change. You can accomplish great things, but in a way that disturbs all those around you. Your accomplishments are always unstable, always contingent on the greater change that surrounds you. During a rebellion you might rise from peasant to general; if the rebellion fails, you will be the first to lose your head.

A covert group that operates outside the formal Imperial hierarchy to investigate and deal with threats to the Empire and Imperial rule. Members carry a distinctive token granting them significant extralegal authority, but their mandate and the exact extent of their powers remain deliberately vague. Those the Wardens deem a threat are more likely to wash up drowned on a riverbank than to stand before a magistrate.

(NPC-only organization. Players cannot join.) A cult of blood sorcerers who value their own arcane power and knowledge above any moral concern. Though often antagonistic toward one another, they close ranks when protecting each other from the agents of the Empire and other would-be do-gooders. They often build safe havens in secluded areas where they can conduct sacrifices and experiments far from prying eyes, yet many also lead double lives as reputable, even noble members of society, using that privilege to lure those with particularly valuable cultivator blood into their dark clutches.

The omen of forbidden knowledge. You often find or figure out things others would rather you not know. People treat your intelligence with suspicion, doubting you came by what you know in the way you claim.

An exclusive society of aesthete-criminals who steal only from the powerful, never through violence, and almost always leave a calling card at the scene. They range from redistributors of wealth, to thrill-seekers who set out to carry off the most difficult crimes, to those who want their exploits to become the stuff of legends. Many give away their proceeds, yet most also keep hidden vaults full of ill-gotten gains.

A monastic order for cultivators who renounce noble life entirely. For as long as there have been cultivators, there have been those who broke away from their noble families to strike out on their own; for most of imperial history they were declared traitors. In the early 700s a push was made to formalize a path for these individuals, drawing on the scattered itinerant traditions of the Grand Master, and the Starlight Order was born. Its name names them as the counterpart to the noble families who walk in the golden sun of the empire: the Order walks by the cooler, scattered light of the stars. On joining the Order an initiate surrenders all claims to land, title, and family, undergoes a ritual that leaves them unable to have children, and pledges the remainder of their life to causes of Justice and Spiritual Enlightenment. Day-to-day life inside the Order is enormously varied. Some members live as priests, studying the spirits and the secrets of cultivation in monasteries; others wander the empire as itinerant seekers, picking up local injustices and quietly making themselves the people who solve them. Joining the Order is also the only legal way to escape an arranged marriage or the other dynastic obligations placed on the nobility. Officially every initiate is heeding a higher calling; in practice, a large share of the membership simply needed out: those refusing a marriage, and those whose lives and loves did not fit the dynastic script their houses required of them. The cost is real and is not paid back. Initiates give up great wealth, comfort, and the ability to have biological children, and the choice cannot be undone once it has been made.

A chivalric order dedicated to the cultivation of romantic devotion as both spiritual practice and martial discipline, whose members strive to give themselves as completely as possible to the cause of love through extravagant demonstrations of affection and a willingness to throw themselves into danger on behalf of their sworn beloved. Their infatuations, however, tend to be quite fleeting, and warnings abound about falling for their charms.

A militant order dedicated to the total eradication of blood sorcery in all its forms, including the "harmless" village sacrifices and battlefield mercy-oaths many people consider acceptable. Their purges have saved countless lives from genuine dark practitioners, but their absolutism often puts them at odds with rural communities and others who take a more permissive approach.

The omen of the survivor. Fate often directs calamity your way, yet it also ensures you always survive it. Those around you, however, are often less fortunate, and your path seems destined to be a lonely one.

The omen of the rebel. You chafe under any authority, and fate blesses you with the ability to slip free of any command, yet curses you to be seen always as untrustworthy. You are destined to walk a life both free and lonely.

Traditionalists who believe that foreign technology corrodes the spirit. They refuse firearms, trains, motor vehicles, explosives, and foreign-produced textiles. This self-imposed austerity makes their lives harder, yet it earns members considerable respect; most people regard them as particularly moral and incorruptible. Their headquarters, the Inner Workshop, is hidden behind the Jīndǐng Forge in the port city of Zhūwān, reached through the slag-room at the back of the forge.

The omen of one who breaks away, drawn to belonging and home but unable to stay for long. Old debts resurface, old friends remember your betrayals, and every place you return to has changed in ways that make you a stranger.

The omen of tragic love. You are cursed to fall in love with enemies, those of another class, those promised to another, or simply those who do not feel the same. In turn, many become infatuated with you, but never those for whom you feel the same.

The omen of sacrifice. Great feats are possible for you, but only through sacrifice. You might change the world if you are willing to give up enough, or survive the impossible if others sacrifice themselves for you. Nothing of note in your life will ever come with ease.

Yānshān, the volcano in the eastern mountains of Jīnjiǎ, has erupted. There was little lava, but heavy ashfall is smothering farmland across the eastern reaches of Jīnjiǎ, Sìshuǐ and Tōngzhì, and the harvest is in peril. The port of Chìyán Gǎng, on the volcano's own slope, is worst hit. Aldermark has offered farming-machinery and clean-up aid from its Zhūwān concession; some would sooner petition the wild spirits to harden the land; and the Empress is said to be riding east to seek council with Huǒbào, the burning-leopard Spirit of Yānshān. Just after midnight on Friday the 19th of June, Yānshān woke. While the lava flow was mostly harmless to the west, a column of ash climbed miles into the eastern sky and drifted down like a grey snowfall across the highlands of Jīnjiǎ, the eastern reaches of Sìshuǐ, and the ridges of Tōngzhì. The town of Chìyán Gǎng, built on the mountain's own slope, has fared worst of all: ash lies ankle-deep in its lanes, and residents cannot venture outside without cloth held close around their faces. Panic spreads as the extent of the damage to local crops and livestock is estimated, and no one is entirely sure what to do. Merchants of Aldermark are already offering their newest machines to help, claiming out of their benevolence that payment need not be worried about until later. Others say this is a sign of the spirits' anger, and that only pleas to the spirits of the wild will restore the natural order. Word has it that the Empress is headed to the volcano in person, there to attempt to treat with the spirit of the volcano, Huǒbào. Against this background, the royal and noble houses mobilize. A presence in Zhūwān is more important than ever: to make deals with the Aldermark merchants, to prevent others from falling to their schemes, or to ensure their people and lands get first claim on any foreign food aid.

Mechanics

• Style: Iron Claw (level 2)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Self

You steel yourself against flame so that all incoming fire damage is halved for this round and the next. Reapplying it refreshes the effect rather than stacking. It carries no activation penalty and can be used without breaking stealth.

Out of combat

On adventure rolls tagged as fire challenges, your result cannot fall below a floor of 3, so even a poor roll still clears a basic fire hazard.

Adventure use

Your skin drinks flame; the heat cannot slow you.

• On fire tasks, every die counts as at least 3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke through_the_flame.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke through_the_flame

See Also: style iron claw

Mechanics

• Style: Stormbreaker (level 2)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: A targeted enemy
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

A blast that only works when the target stands on a hex already carrying at least 6 pressure; without that charge it fails and does nothing. On a hit it consumes all the pressure at that hex and deals half your main roll in wind damage to the target. For one round it also weakens the target's outgoing damage by five percent for each point of your main roll, and shifts the target's wound thresholds by half your main roll in the direction that makes them HARDER to wound for that round, not easier.

Out of combat

When known, Thunderclap lends a bonus to rolls for startling or scaring a crowd in adventures.

Adventure use

A clap of thunder cracks the air; the crowd flinches as one.

• On startle or scare crowd tasks, you roll +5.

Arm it before the roll with invoke thunderclap.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke thunderclap

See Also: style stormbreaker

## The Age of Dreams Ends 0 - End of the Age of Dreams, a semi-catastrophe in which magic recedes from the world, the great wonders collapse, and long-distance travel collapses to foot and sail. Because every region had mingled freely during the Age, the closing of the gates leaves the island permanently multicultural and multiracial. ## The Founding of the Kingdoms 253 - The Great Master, discovers the secrets of cultivation and founds a school high in the Wànshí range. 287 - The Great Master dies. His five greatest pupils disagree about the future of the school and depart, settling in different regions of the island and becoming the ruling families of the five kingdoms: Lanaris in Sìshuǐ, Liradi in Táimí, Zhancalius in Jīnjiǎ, Jindoro in Qiānjīn, and Shuveri in Tōngzhì. 339 - The five kingdoms stabilise behind their distinct philosophies and capitals. Each royal line guards cultivation as its closest secret; any commoner found practising is quietly declared a long-lost noble descendant and absorbed. 432 - The Inkstone Society begins as a loose confederation of court historians and itinerant playwrights moving between the five kingdoms, becoming the empire's main thread of cross-kingdom cultural memory. ~478 - The Ninth Pouch, originally a mutual-aid society among the riverside laborers of eastern Qiānjīn, formalises its ranked pouch system. Within a generation its branches reach every major city. ## The Shirogane Wars 576 - First Shirogane invasion. The fleet lands on the eastern coast of Jīnjiǎ and presses inland; Jīnjiǎ repels the campaign after two years of heavy losses. Its military hardens thereafter into the duelling culture it still carries. 579 - The war forces the royal houses to extend cultivation beyond strict royal blood to the wider nobility. The first official cultivation schools open as state institutions and over the next century distil the patchwork of regional styles into the four great schools recognised today: the Ember Fist, the Veiled Grace, the Mirrored Tempest, and the Radiant Chorus. 615 - First contact with the Commonwealth of Aldermark. A single trader-galleon makes harbour at the small fishing village of Zhūwān; limited trade in salt, dye, and curiosities begins. 641 - After a string of blood-sorcery atrocities, surviving family of the victims found the Unbleeding Seal, a militant order dedicated to the eradication of blood sorcery in all its forms. 678 - Second Shirogane invasion. After heavy imperial naval losses, Shirogane forces occupy the coastal regions of Jīnjiǎ and Qiānjīn for eleven years. 688 - The empire pushes Shirogane from the island, and reconstruction begins. The southern kingdoms, which bore the brunt of the occupation, never forgive the northern kingdoms for what they regard as slow and grudging support. ## The War of Five Banners 697 - Jīnjiǎ declares war on Tōngzhì over the broken support pledges of the occupation years. Qiānjīn joins on the side of Jīnjiǎ; Táimí enters on the side of Tōngzhì. Sìshuǐ alone stays impartial, declaring Fēiyín Dū a neutral mediation ground. 697 to 722 - The War of Five Banners rages for twenty-five years. Kingdoms occasionally switch between allied and independent, but the alliance shape stays mostly stable for the full duration. The war reshapes borders, depopulates the central forests, and leaves all five kingdoms financially exhausted. ## The Founding of the Empire 723 - Queen Yuèhé Lanaris of Sìshuǐ, having watched the war ravage her kingdom, travels up the mountain to the mouth of the Jīnhé and pleads with the dragon spirit Liúhǔ for audience. (See the fable of Yuèhé.) 724 - Empress Yuèhé Lanaris, now bonded to Liúhǔ through the enchanted bracelet that becomes the founding regalia of the Imperial House, routs the armies of Jīnjiǎ. Thus begins the formation of the empire. 727 - All five kingdoms have pledged to Empress Yuèhé. The War of Five Banners ends. The Àolǎng (Profound Radiance) Empire is born, with House Lanaris as its imperial house and Sìshuǐ as its imperial seat. 756 - Zhūwān, the port town that has become the hub of Aldermark trade, officially becomes the largest city in the empire by population. Qiānjīn's wealth, channelled through Zhūwān's customs houses, begins to rival that of all the other kingdoms combined. ## The Mandate of the River 759 - Empress Yuèhé Lanaris dies. The Mandate of Liúhǔ passes to her eldest son. 761 - Emperor Mòchuān Lanaris declares Zhūwān an independent zone, free of Qiānjīn jurisdiction, its customs revenue to be shared by all five kingdoms equally. The decision wins broad popularity outside Qiānjīn. 763 - Assassins kill Emperor Mòchuān. The Mandate passes to his four-year-old son. Empress Dowager Dìngshuǐ Lanaris assumes regency on behalf of the boy emperor. 764 - The Dowager marries the five-year-old Emperor Hǔjūn Lanaris to the sixteen-year-old Princess Rújīn Jindoro of Qiānjīn. 764 - The Dowager forms the the River Wardens as a small covert order answering only to Imperial Seat , charged with investigating threats the magistracy cannot reach. Their tokens grant deliberately vague extralegal authority. 771 - Third Shirogane invasion. After initial Shirogane success against the imperial fleet, the twelve-year-old Emperor Hǔjūn manifests the power of the dragon over the eastern coast and scatters the Shirogane fleet in a single afternoon. The shock ushers in a new age of imperial unity. Empress Dowager Dìngshuǐ retires to the floating palace of Yúnhé. 778 - The Compact of Three Lanterns, held at Cángjìng, formalises the modern lineages and curricula of the four cultivation schools. Each school accepts imperial license; the empire in turn pledges to leave senior masters out of court politics. 809 - The Aldermark Commonwealth opens its first formal trading concession in Zhūwān. Imported steam engines arrive within five years; the Tōngzhì engineering colleges acquire most of the early stock, and Aldermark factories begin to fill the harbour quarter. 822 - Engineers complete the Imperial Main Line between Fēiyín Dū and Cángjìng, the empire's first long-haul railway. 831 - Emperor Hǔjūn Lanaris dies after a sixty-eight-year reign. The Mandate passes to his eldest daughter, Empress Yàohóng Lanaris ## The Reign of Empress Yàohóng 841 - Aldermark establishes a permanent ambassadorial residence in Zhūwān. The Lamplighters first appear in pamphleteering circles around the same time, arguing that the empire's future lies in joining the Commonwealth. 852 - The Chainless Compact takes shape during the long Zhūwān tariff debates, a loose confederacy of regional nobles and disaffected officials who reject the Imperial Bracelet as an unholy spirit-union and call for a return to five-kingdom self-rule. Empress Yàohóng tolerates them publicly. 867 - Empress Yàohóng Lanaris dies. The Mandate passes to her eldest son, Emperor Héliú Lanaris. ## The Reign of Emperor Héliú 872 - The Fire of Zhūwān. A lamp knocked over in a southern Zhūwān merchant's household during a private murder kindles a fire that the city's officers cannot quench. The blaze consumes the whole southern half of the city before the Jīnhé river halts it. Witnesses report the manifest form of Shíliè, the Spirit of Honor, walking the burning streets as a great stone lion with eyes of fire. The southern half stands abandoned and cursed ever since, drawing only cultivators willing to risk the catacombs beneath it for the rare ingredients that grow in cursed ground. Also known as the Great Fire, the Southern Fire, or the Fire of Honor. 874 - Joint imperial-Tōngzhì engineering completes the Cāngbō Xiàn (Dark Wave Line) between Táiyōu and Cángjìng. The Jīn Àn Xiàn (Gold Bank Line), the longest railway in the empire, opens its first segments along the southern coast. 886 - The Broken Copper Panic. A forged tariff circular, traced eventually to a faction within the Qiānjīn merchant princes, destabilises the empire's coinage standard for three months. Emperor Héliú creates the official Gold Dollar standard currency, each paper bill backed by gold by the state and developed with unique numbering and the best anti-counterfitting technology. While stabalizing the currency remains far too expensive for most people to use. 896 - Jīnyǔ Lanaris, then the second daughter of the imperial house, weds Cǎiqiú Lanaris of a riverward branch of the Lanaris line. The first of their three children, the future Crown Princess Yàojīn Lanaris, follows within the year. 901 - The Lotus Quay incident. Most evidence pins on Mòlóng, the Stranger King, a forty-dead ethnic riot in Zhūwān's foreign quarter that the River Wardens silence only by shutting down the rumour-mills behind it. The Aldermark ambassador's role in either inflaming or quieting the violence remains contested. 905 - The Black Silt Fever spreads along the western Tōngzhì rail corridor. Investigators trace it to a newly-awakened marsh spirit; Governor Zhāng Wèifèng's quiet year-long negotiation ends the outbreak peacefully. 912 - Emperor Héliú Lanaris dies. The five kingdoms offer the Mandate first to his eldest son, Prince Cairan Lanaris, who declines and renounces the world for a hermit-mountain order in the southern Wànshí range. After three months of formal mourning and consultation, the Mandate passes to Héliú's second daughter. ## The Present Day 912 - Empress Jīnyǔ Lanaris takes the bracelet at thirty-eight in the river court of Fēiyín Dū. Since the founding she is the first sibling-second to wear it, and the first sovereign to take the throne by acclamation rather than primogeniture. 918 - An imperial inquest names the Ascending Path openly for the first time after three regions of the Qiāncuì forest die in rapid succession. The four cultivation schools issue a rare joint condemnation. 919 - Crown Princess Yàojīn Lanaris, twenty-two, resolves the long Zhūwān Pearl Bay tariff deadlock with a single ministerial proposal her court spends a year unable to argue against. Her formal designation as heir is confirmed at year's end.

**Tiānláng** · Patron Spirit of Jīnjiǎ Fierce, exacting, and unapologetically competitive. Tiānláng embodies martial discipline and the belief that strength earned through hardship is the only strength worth having. It respects those who fight with honor and holds cowards and cheats in open contempt. Known to challenge mortals to contests (arm-wrestling, riddles, sparring) and to respect those who lose well almost as much as those who win. Favors a dark-haired, powerfully built blacksmith with scarred forearms and a direct gaze that feels like a provocation. Manifested: a giant wolf with steel-bright teeth and iron claws, whose howl rings like a struck anvil across the mountains.

Ambassador of Sìshuǐ to Zhūwān and a collateral kinswoman of House Lanaris, a water-vein cultivator and survivor of the Lotus Quay incident. She works the embassy galleries with a quick smile and a quicker eye for who has been left outside the circle, and the causes she adopts are famously hard to disengage from.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Ambassador of Sìshuǐ to Zhuwan

Iron has been smelted here since before the empire, in the rocky heights where the Zhōngyuè Qiónglǐng ridge meets the Wànshí range. The town is built on and into the rock, grey stone houses, workshops sunk into cliff-faces, mine shafts honeycombing the hillsides. Ore dust stains everything rusty red. Barges load at the canal below and carry raw iron downstream to the capital, and a railway halt nearby connects to the wider network. Mining families pass shaft-knowledge from parent to child; the furnaces burn day and night in working season.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Jīnyǔ Míng-Lanaris

A fortress commanding the only viable pass between Jīnjiǎ and the interior, barely wide enough for two carts abreast, sheer walls on both sides. Iron-banded stonework rebuilt twice since the kingdom wars. The garrison commander is the de facto town authority, and the three hundred residents are nearly all connected to the military. Travelers present papers and submit to inspection conducted with theatrical Jīnjiǎ thoroughness. A constant cold wind funnels through the gap. A railway halt serves the pass, though the steepest gradients above still require mule trains. ## Táimí Capital: Táiyōu

See Also: Sìshuǐ Jīnyǔ Míng-Lanaris

The Iron Thorn Forest sprawls across the lowlands southeast of the Jīnjiǎ heartland, a dense tangle of black-barked pine and finger-long thorns that harden with age until a blade rings against them as on armor. Light reaches the deeper hollows only in narrow shafts, and folk from Tiěguān Yākou say the wood swallows sound the way a quilt swallows breath. Soldiers from the garrisons at Tiěguān Yākou and Tiěxiá use its trackless interior for drills, and at dawn the sound of drums sometimes drifts out at the verges, where hunters take boar and herb-gatherers prize a black-stemmed thornleaf said to thicken the blood. Old women warn children that the thorns remember the blood of every recruit who has bled upon them, and that a coward who flees his post will find the wood has closed behind him.

Prospectors followed iron-stained streams uphill into the Qiāncuì forest edge and found the rock riddled with ore. The settlement that grew around the shafts is rough and functional, stone huts built from mine spoil, charcoal kilns smoking in clearings, ore carts on wooden rails to the pithead. The Tiěkēng Spur railway connects the mines to the network at Táiyōu. Two hundred souls, all connected to the pits. A shrine sits at the mouth of the oldest shaft, decorated with iron offerings to the earth spirit, Táimí even in its mining is mindful of what it takes from the ground.

See Also: Táimí Qīnghǔ Yún-Liradi

The Tiělěng Chuān runs cold even at midsummer, its dark waters cutting through the southeastern reaches of Jīnjiǎ over grey shale and rust-colored gravel, and in certain bends the current carries a metallic taste that lingers on the tongue. Folk along its banks say the chill on its stones can numb a hand within moments of dipping it in. The river belongs to the armored country in more than name: patrols water their horses at its fords, supply barges move iron stock and salted goods between garrison holdings, and reed-cutters work the lower banks where bitter cress and a hardy black ginger push up through the wet stones. Old soldiers will tell you the Tiělěng never washes a bloodstain clean, only carries it further down, and mothers warn children that its cold will steal the warmth of a living body and not give it back.

A highland ford on an open plateau between the Hánshā desert and the Dōngyuè Cuìwéi highlands, where the Tiělěng Chuān runs wide and shallow over gravel, fordable in dry season, treacherous in spring melt. Stone markers on the riverbank record high-water marks and the names of those who drowned attempting bad crossings. Low stone buildings, corrals, a weekly livestock market. The river water is bitingly cold even in summer, straight from mountain snowmelt. The Huítiě Xiàn railway crosses the river here, and a military relay station keeps the eastern garrisons connected to Tiějué. ## Qiānjīn Capital: Jīnhuì

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Hǔzhèn Dugu-Zhancalius

The formal border crossing between Sìshuǐ and Jīnjiǎ, where the Wànshí range splits at a river gorge. The fortress walls predate the empire; concrete reinforcement was added forty years ago. Railway, coastal shipping, and customs make it a major transit point, the disciplined military quarter faces the rougher civilian strip along the rail station, where traders, travelers, and off-duty soldiers mingle in tea houses. The Tiějí Lín forest presses close on the Jīnjiǎ side. Tensions with Sìshuǐ merchants are a constant low-grade entertainment.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Hǔzhèn Dugu-Zhancalius

Mechanics

• Style: Radiant Edge (level 4)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Slow
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You spin both blades in a wide arc, striking your primary target for slashing damage equal to half your main roll (rounded down), plus the same amount to up to two other enemies standing adjacent to YOU. When more than two extra foes qualify, the lowest-numbered are hit; adjacent allies are spared. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that eases by 2 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style radiant edge

One of the oldest settlements in Táimí, predating the empire, a logging camp that refused to leave. Over centuries the town found its balance with the forest: selective felling, charcoal kilns burning deadfall and coppice wood, the woodland regrowing so close that the settlement is nearly invisible from Xuánmíng Dǎo's direction. Oil lamps and hand tools still predominate in the workshops, though the Cāngbō Xiàn and Táimí Interior Branch railways have brought the settlement within reach of the wider empire, and the Hǎicuì Xīdào road connects it along the coast. At the town's centre stands a shrine on a massive stump from the original clearing, now overgrown with moss and ferns, the forest spirit's due for what was taken. ## Jīnjiǎ Capital: Tiějué

See Also: Táimí Hǔfǎn Dúgū-Liradi

Táimí Ruling House: House Liradi Words: Every Stone Has a Name Flag: Horizontally divided, grey below and green above. A bone-white tree stands at center, its root system perfectly mirroring its canopy. Philosophy: The world is alive, and every part of it has a voice worth respecting. Throughout the wider empire, people pray to spirits and offer sacrifices, yet they draw a clear line between religious life and daily life, between those who dedicate themselves to the spirits and those who do not. In the spirit lands of Numinveld, no such line exists. Everyone trains from childhood to remain aware of the spirits at all times and to weigh their wishes in every action. Social Texture: Radically decentralized. Each village, valley, and river-bend has its own spirits, and consequently its own customs and laws. The spirit lands often seem uncivilized to outsiders: roads wind around sacred groves, and fertile fields lie untilled at the wishes of local spirits. Yet this is also the land of the most striking natural beauty, and its people are largely content. Few hierarchies persist; noble houses and common folk share a closeness rare in other lands. Colors: Deep moss · Spring green · Warm sand · Bone white · Heartwood Architecture: Buildings curve around the landscape rather than impose upon it. Walls hug boulders, living-root bridges span ravines, homes burrow into hillsides. Timber and undressed stone dominate. Even in towns, buildings stay low and organic, with spirit shrines at every threshold. Fashion: Layered, earth-toned clothing with hand-woven textiles; each village keeps distinctive patterns. Spirit-marks (painted or tattooed symbols of local spirits) are common. Where modern fashion appears, it adapts: a tweed jacket lined with spirit-warding embroidery, wooden toggle-buttons carved with local sigils. Adornments tend toward natural materials: bone, horn, polished stone, woven grass.

See Also: House Liradi

Tōngzhì Ruling House: House Shuveri Words: The Truth Serves Flag: A slate-grey field bears a purple emblem at center: an open book on the left joined to an open barbed fan on the right. Purple dye is costly, so many flags substitute pink, blue, or white. Philosophy: Knowledge is the source of all real power. Any problem can be solved once it is understood well enough. The kingdom maintains some of the greatest libraries and intelligence networks in the empire. Its people dedicate significant resources to spiritual practice, though they emphasize understanding spirits rather than simply venerating them. Social Texture: A cohort of quiet, efficient bureaucrats manages the society, overseeing and coordinating the scientists, engineers, archaeologists, and spiritualists who drive much of the kingdom's innovation. Colleges and schools abound, linked by a complex network of entrance examinations. Many of the administrators are, in fact, trained assassins and spies who use knowledge-seeking expeditions to gather intelligence for the court and keep their wards in line. The Court publicly denies that any training schools for these agents exist; one can never tell whether a student lauded for admission to an elite academy is studying the principles of engineering or of poison. Colors: Midnight slate · Royal purple · Aged parchment · Ash · Charcoal Architecture: Clean lines, pale stone, and precisely proportioned windows. Buildings run deeper than they appear: libraries extend underground, offices hide secret rooms, and corridors connect buildings beneath the streets. A Scipian government building resembles a 1930s university library: austere limestone, bronze lettering, an air of quiet authority. The most dangerous rooms look like the most boring ones. Fashion: Muted colours, precise cuts, quality fabrics without flash. A local bureaucrat wears a perfectly fitted charcoal suit with a single subtle pin. Scholars favour long coats over mandarin-collar shirts. The one indulgence is eyewear: the kingdom is known for distinctive spectacles, and frame quality serves as a quiet marker of status.

See Also: House Shuveri

The school of the unseen strike, the redirected gaze, and the principle that the fight you win best is the one your opponent never knew they were in. Its practitioners cultivate speed, misdirection, and precision. Styles lean toward shadow and poison manipulation, acrobatics, and assassination techniques refined into high art.

Styles taught by this school

• Darkened Veil. Ranged mystic style that confuses and distracts opponents.
• Razor Petals. Quick melee style focused on debuffs and damage over time.
• Silken Viper. Mixed melee and ranged style using poison, shadow, and nimble movement across the battlefield.

See Also: style darkened veil style razor petals style silken viper

To channel water is to surrender the shape of your own intent. It enters the meridians cold and patient, then turns sudden, finding the lowest seam in an opponent's stance and pressing until something gives. Adepts of the Mirrored Tempest favor it above all, pairing its yielding weight with wind's quickness to read a battle the way a riverman reads a current. Manifested, it rarely roars: it coils as pale ribbons around the wrist, sheets across the ground like spilled silver, or hangs in the air as a thin mist that bends the light wrong. Old masters say a true water-cultivator strikes only once, because the river has already decided where you will fall.

Mechanics

• Style: Silken Viper (level 6)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: One enemy (no fixed distance is enforced)

You throw a dagger coated in a weakening toxin that cuts the target's outgoing melee damage by 50 percent for 1 + main roll/3 rounds. It only weakens their melee attacks, not their ranged. Re-casting on an already-afflicted target adds to the remaining duration rather than refreshing or stacking. The venom is tagged as a toxin, so Compromise can later prolong it. Casting it has no penalty.

Out of combat

On an adventure, gives a +3 bonus to rolls to identify injuries, diseases, or causes of death.

Adventure use

Wound and ailment alike speak in a language you have learned to read.

• On identify injury or identify disease or identify cause of death tasks, you roll +3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke weakening_venom.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke weakening_venom

See Also: style silken viper

Weidi - Superior rival See `help honorifics` for the full honorific system.

See Also: Honorifics

Weime - Superior ally See `help honorifics` for the full honorific system.

See Also: Honorifics

Mechanics

• Style: Razor Petals (level 2)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -6 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You sweep your bladed fans at every enemy adjacent to you (one hex away), each taking slashing damage equal to half your main roll. Every target that survives the sweep picks up one Shallow Cut. Costs a -6 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style razor petals

Mechanics

• Style: Shattered Star (level 1)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Fast
• Range: Melee (1 hex)
• Cost: -3 to your other abilities this round, easing by 3 each round

You sweep the meteor hammer through a full arc. Your primary target takes heavy bludgeoning equal to two thirds of your main roll, and up to two other enemies standing adjacent to you (lowest-numbered first if more qualify) are caught in the backswing for half your main roll each. Your Momentum bonus is folded into the main roll before damage is figured. Costs a -3 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 3 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style shattered star

Mechanics

• Style: Silken Viper (level 1)
• Type: Main
• Speed: Average
• Range: One enemy (no fixed distance is enforced)

You throw a dagger coated in a decay toxin, afflicting the target with a poison that deals 5 poison damage at the end of each round for 1 + main roll/3 rounds. Re-casting on a target that already carries Wilting Venom adds to its remaining duration rather than refreshing or stacking. The venom is tagged as a toxin, so Compromise can later prolong it. Casting it has no penalty.

Out of combat

On an adventure, gives a +3 bonus to any roll to interrogate a target.

Adventure use

The wilting venom loosens the tongue; resistance withers.

• On interrogate tasks, you roll +3.

Arm it before the roll with invoke wilting_venom.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

Arm before a roleplay roll: invoke wilting_venom

See Also: style silken viper

To channel wind is to feel the breath leave the lungs and return as something larger, a current that braids through the meridians and asks only to be let go. Cultivators of the Mirrored Tempest favor it, pairing its sudden lift with the patient pull of water to outthink an opponent before striking. Manifested, it shows as pale ribbons threading the air, the faint silver bend of light over a hot road, or a sudden hush before a sleeve cracks like a banner. Wind rarely roars in a duelist's hand: it prefers the small cut, the redirected blade, the arrow that arrives a breath too late.

Mechanics

• Style: Snaring Storm (level 5)
• Type: Tactical
• Speed: Very Fast
• Range: Self
• Cost: -4 to your other abilities this round, easing by 2 each round

You arm a reactive trip. When an enemy who began the round at a distance (two or more hexes away) charges in adjacent to you, the wind sweeps their feet, knocking them prone and flinging them three hexes past you along their charge. It fires once per cast, on the first such charger, and then disarms. Costs a -4 penalty to your other abilities that fades by 2 each round.

How to use

Used in combat. Chosen automatically in this stance.

See Also: style snaring storm

To channel wood is to feel a slow green pulse beneath the breastbone, patient and insistent, like sap rising before one has noticed the spring. It does not strike so much as reach, threading outward through limb and lung until the cultivator and the room share a single quiet rhythm. Disciples of the Radiant Chorus esteem it, for wood lends itself to mending bone, soothing fevered minds, and carrying a sung note further than any throat ought to manage. Manifested, it shows as pale lacework along the skin, or as drifting motes the color of new bamboo, flowering briefly at the fingertips before fading into the air.

A rocky promontory on the northeast coast near the Hǎifēng Sōng pine forests, commanding views where you can see weather systems building far out at sea. Tōngzhì's court has maintained a signal station here for centuries, officially for weather observation, though locals understand it watches more than weather. The Dèngdào Xiàn railway and telegraph were strung early, connecting this headland to the intelligence network. Below the cliffs, deep-water fishers work the offshore grounds and harvest seaweed beds. The fishing families have intermarried for generations and maintain a spring festival where boats are blessed with seaweed garlands.

See Also: Tōngzhì Báiláng Wen-Shuveri

A highland market town on grassy plains between Dìnghú and the ocean, set back from the coast, coastal raids taught an earlier generation to keep their distance. Fishers trade salt and catch for shepherd wool and cheese at the weekly market. Low stone buildings, corrals, a covered market hall built to withstand gales. The exposed position makes weather visible for miles; locals read approaching storms by the colour and shape of distant clouds. Wànglán wool is well-regarded. The Jīn Àn Xiàn railway passes through, and the exposed coast provides ocean access for small vessels. On clear days you can see the horizon curve.

See Also: Qiānjīn Hǔdǐng Yún-Jindoro

An old hill-crossing settlement where the southern road meets the route from Qiānjīn, near the Cāngyán Jǐ foothills. The junction gives Wàngpō a border-town character, mixed accents, blended customs. Terraced paddies cascade down the slopes, tended by the women while the men drive mule trains to market. A gravel truck road and a canal opened lowland markets to the hill country's pickled vegetables and produce, with a railway halt a short distance away. Known also for its hardy ponies and long views south toward Fāng Yǔ Lín.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Jīnhǔ Wáng-Lanaris

The folk of the southern towns call them Wànshí, the Ten Thousand Stones, a pale grey spine that climbs from Yún Jiē Tián in the southwest and marches eastward until it loses itself in cloud beyond the eastern passes. Snow lingers well into the warm months, and from its melt are born the rivers that feed Bìgǔ Dù and the lower fords. The salt road through Tiě Yán Dù winds along its lower folds, pack trains pause at Wànshí Kǒu where the range opens its mouth to let travellers through, and each spring the slopes above Qīngcǎo fill with herb-gatherers hunting bitterroot and small white flowers that fetch good coin from town apothecaries. It is common wisdom that the high stones listen: travellers leave rice wine and paper at the pass shrines before any long crossing, and the eldest grandmothers in Yún Jiē Tián still teach children to bow toward the peaks at first snowfall, for what gives water and road may also withhold.

The only easy route through the Wànshí range for fifty miles, hard against the Zhōngyuè Qiónglǐng ridge with Dìnghú visible below. Caravans funneled through this gap for centuries, and a canal now carries barge traffic through the same notch. The old caravan inns still serve travelers during the slow passage, the nearest railway halt is a few miles east at Jìngpō Dùtóu. Pass folk identify with no single kingdom, the dialect borrows from Sìshuǐ and Jīnjiǎ, the food is a hybrid of both, and the occasional bandit finds the mountain approaches useful.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Jīnyǔ Míng-Lanaris

Governor of the Western Tōngzhì Region, a quiet scholar whose brilliance declared itself during the Black Silt Fever, when he ended a marsh-spirit outbreak along the rail corridor through a year of patient negotiation. Courteous to the point of danger, his gentleness wraps a very sharp administrative edge.

See Also: Tōngzhì Governor of Western Tōngzhì Region

A fertile clearing in the Qiāncuì where centuries of leaf-fall have composted into rich, dark soil. Fields are well-tended, granaries in good repair, and a small school serves the farming families, the scholarly kingdom's orderly hand visible even here at the forest edge. Root vegetables and grain grow abundantly. A canal and cart roads connect the clearing to nearby settlements. Dense forest on three sides, the Wànshí foothills beyond. Scholars from Cángjìng sometimes retire here, finding productive land and forest solitude a worthy combination.

See Also: Tōngzhì Wèifèng Zhāng-Shuveri

A river bend in the forest near the Táimí border, where the Huáimù Hé curves through dense woodland creating a sheltered pocket of flat ground. Timber houses under the canopy, punt-boats on the bank, charcoal smoke drifting through the trees. Fish, mushrooms, medicinal roots, and resin move by punt-boat upstream to market or downstream to wherever the river leads. Close to Yǐn Mù Guān and Cángjìng, but reached only by water or a narrow forest track. Residents say they cannot sleep without the sound of the river.

See Also: Tōngzhì Wèifèng Zhāng-Shuveri

Governess of the Eastern Jīnjiǎ Region, of a cadet line of the Zhancalius court, who refined breath and flame into a discipline colder than steel under a widowed aunt of the royal house. She administers her region like a long poem, and speaks softly enough that rooms lean toward her.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Governor of Eastern Jīnjiǎ Region

Xiadi - Inferior rival See `help honorifics` for the full honorific system.

See Also: Honorifics

Xiame - Inferior ally See `help honorifics` for the full honorific system.

See Also: Honorifics

Heir to Jīnjiǎ, born during the Festival of Iron Crowns and read by the court as an omen. Sent to the military academies at seven and made to earn his surname the hard way, he commands a room not by raising his voice but by being immovably still.

See Also: Jīnjiǎ Heir of Jīnjiǎ

Ambassador of Qiānjīn to Zhūwān, of a collateral Jindoro line that kept ledgers for silk roads and rival princes. She made her name tracing the forged tariff circular behind the Broken Copper Panic, and turns embassy banquets into listening posts and concessions into chains of silk.

See Also: Qiānjīn Ambassador of Qiānjīn to Zhuwan

Heir to Táimí, raised on the old queen's belief that heirs learn nothing in throne rooms; she was rotated through the kingdom's villages from the time she could walk. She turns up to spirit-shrines, embassy galas, and her own birthday with the same wry good humor, and learns a stranger's name within minutes.

See Also: Táimí Heir of Táimí

Governor of Zhūwān, the empire's special economic zone, born in its harbour quarter to a merchant family that traded with Aldermark and a dozen lesser foreign houses. Fluent in three languages before his voice broke, he sits politically beside the city's six embassies and structurally above them, and remains the one official every ambassador hopes will like them.

See Also: Zhūwān Governor of Zhūwān

Xuánmíng Dǎo rises from the cold northwestern sea like the back of some sleeping leviathan, its black basalt cliffs streaked with salt-rime and its crown wreathed almost always in a pale, motionless mist. Those who walk its shingle beaches speak of a silence that presses against the ears, broken only by the slow breathing of the tide and the cry of gulls that, the old fishers swear, never land on its stones. The island belongs to no village: pilgrims sail from Cǎohǎi Yá and Sānhuì Wāndì at the proper seasons bearing rice, paper offerings, and mugwort, hunters from Tiěkēng Zhài and Tànmù will not loose an arrow within sight of its shore, and the Táimí people hold the place as holy ground that outsiders must approach empty-handed and quiet. It is said that here the veil between the living and the dead grows thin as wet silk, and those who sleep a night beneath its pines wake either blessed with sight or wholly emptied of their wits.

Xuěfēng rises alone from the lands north of the great lake, a single white spire that catches the morning sun long before the lowlands warm, and folk from Cāngwān Ào say you can pick it out across the water as a pale tooth standing apart from any range. Snow sheathes its upper slopes through every season, and even in the hottest months the streams running down toward Gùhé and the lake shore carry a cold that aches the teeth. Hunters out of Tiěkēng Zhài work the lower flanks for goat and marten, herb-gatherers from Yǐn Mù Guān climb higher in late spring for cold-loving roots that grow nowhere else nearby, and traders passing through Cháoshān Fúkǒu mark their road by the peak rather than by any post or marker. The mountain is held sacred without argument: offerings of salt and millet are left at the stones where the snowmelt first gathers, and it is considered ill luck to cut living wood on the upper slopes or to speak the peak's name in anger.

A valley that opens southwest toward Cāngyán Jǐ, catching long afternoon sun while the hills block cold wind, a trick of geography that made it the premier wine-producing settlement in Qiānjīn. Terraced vineyards replaced the grain fields three generations ago. Each family operation produces a distinct vintage; competition is intense and conducted with elaborate courtesy. Wine merchants built stone houses with courtyards and a tasting hall where buyers sample the year's production. Connected to the capital Jīnhuì by the Jīnhuì-Xī Yáng Spur railway and a cart road, the valley has developed a sophistication unusual for the hills, very Qiānjīn in its ability to turn good soil into good commerce.

See Also: Qiānjīn Fānghǔ Wáng-Jindoro

Governor of the Eastern Táimí Region, born to a minor Liradi cousin and a carpenter who could name every shrine within three days' walk. He watches until he understands the shape of a matter, then offers the kind of quiet counsel that carries farther than louder voices.

See Also: Táimí Governor of Eastern Táimí Region

Endurance, warmth, quiet strength. Bear-year people are steady presences, grounded, physically comfortable in the world, slow to commit but immovable once they do. They tend to accumulate all manner of resources, friendships, and knowledge. Others gravitate to them for stability. At their best: generous, deeply protective, patient builders who create things that outlast them. At their worst: possessive, stubbornly immovable, capable of explosive rage when their sense of safety is threatened.

Grace, justice, clarity. Crane-year people carry themselves with natural dignity and have strong convictions about right and wrong. They're often drawn to service, scholarship, or art, anything where precision and principle matter. At their best: fair-minded, eloquent, capable of seeing beauty in austerity. At their worst: judgmental, emotionally detached, so principled they become inflexible.

Rebirth, passion, transformation. Phoenix-year people burn brightly; they're magnetic, emotionally intense, and drawn to causes. They reinvent themselves constantly and can be inspiring leaders or exhausting companions. At their best: visionary, courageous, deeply loyal once committed. At their worst: self-destructive, melodramatic, unable to let go of grudges.

Intuition, subtlety, hidden knowledge. Serpent-year people read rooms instantly and keep their own counsel. They're drawn to secrets, mysteries, and the spaces between what people say and what they mean. At their best: deeply empathetic, elegant problem-solvers, fiercely protective of inner circles. At their worst: manipulative, paranoid, emotionally withholding.

Boldness, magnetism, restless energy. Tiger-year people dominate a room without necessarily meaning to. They're naturally commanding, physically expressive, and drawn to action over deliberation. They trust their instincts and move decisively, which makes them thrilling allies and dangerous enemies. At their best: courageous, generous in victory, capable of inspiring others to act when everyone else is frozen. At their worst: reckless, domineering, prone to boredom that curdles into destructiveness.

Loyalty, hunger, instinct. Wolf-year people live through their bonds: family, friends, and sworn companions. They're fiercely competitive but channel it through collective identity rather than solo ambition. At their best: tireless protectors, honest to a fault, deeply attuned to group dynamics. At their worst: territorial, prone to tribalism, capable of cruelty toward anyone outside their circle.

Heir to the imperial throne, eldest child of Empress Jīnyǔ and Prince Consort Cǎiqiú. At twenty-two she broke the long Zhūwān Pearl Bay tariff deadlock with a single proposal the court could not refute, and was confirmed as heir that year. She is sent to the disputes too delicate for generals, and is known for cold, exact strategy.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Heir of Sìshuǐ

Eldest foreman of the charcoal clans of the Gùhé forest terrace, who learned the trade by walking every trail until his feet knew the ground better than his eyes. His authority carries no seal or register; the clans simply bring their disputes to him, and have for years.

See Also: The Unforged

**Yáoqín** · Spirit of Love Yáoqín embodies romantic love in all its forms: the ecstatic, the devoted, the unrequited, and the destructive. It is tender and melancholic in equal measure, drawn to genuine feeling and repelled by those who perform love without experiencing it. Musicians and poets sometimes feel its presence as a sudden ache of inspiration that leaves them weeping over work they do not remember composing. Shifts presentation freely and frequently, with no strong preference; a favored form is a young musician carrying an instrument that changes each time (a qín one day, a flute the next). Manifested: a giant swan with ivory feathers tipped in molten, glowing silver, whose wingbeats produce faint harmonic overtones that linger in the air.

Hundreds of hand-built stone terraces climb the hillsides between the Qiāncuì forest edge and the Wànshí foothills, each wall representing a family's generations of patient labour. The floodplain waters and forest-enriched soil produce Sìshuǐ's finest rice, cool nights at altitude give the grain a sweetness lowland paddies cannot match. In planting season the flooded steps reflect the sky, and the town appears to float among clouds. Granaries, threshing floors, and a canal down to the barges are the whole economy. The Táimí Interior Branch railway has a junction here, connecting the terraces to distant markets. Quiet, prosperous, and unhurried, pure Sìshuǐ.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Yǐnghuáng Dúhuī-Lanaris

Yānshān rises from the eastern range of Jīnjiǎ like a great hunched beast, its shoulders streaked with old ash and its crown wreathed always in pale smoke that the folk of Bìwān and Fēnglǐng see drifting eastward on clear mornings. At night a faint red glow sometimes pulses behind the ridgelines, as though the mountain breathes in its sleep, and lower down its warmth feeds strange thickets of fern and steam-loving moss found nowhere else. Hunters out of Shēn Lín Wān know the lower flanks well, for boar and goat gather at the warm springs even in deep winter, and herb-gatherers from Cāngsōng Kǒu climb higher still for sulphur-flowers and ash-lichen that fetch good coin from apothecaries down in Chìyán Gǎng, whose very name recalls the mountain's red breath. The old folk say a sleeping dragon lies within and its smoke is the creature dreaming; when the ground trembles, villagers leave rice wine and salt at the trailhead shrines and speak softly until the mountain quiets again.

Yāntán lies cupped between the slow waters that drain toward Tōngzhì and the colder current bound for Sìshuǐ, a great pale sheet that no eye has ever fully crossed, its mist sitting on the water like a second skin in every season. Stand at the reed-banks below Cāngwān Ào on a still morning and you will hear water lapping somewhere beyond your sight but see only white, and fishermen out of Gùhé say a weighted line will pay out until your arms tire and still find nothing to rest against. The folk of Cháoshān Fúkǒu work the shallows for pale, soft-fleshed fish that take the hook even in the gloom, herb-gatherers from Mòlín wade the marshy fringes for cold-loving roots, and no one rows past the second reed-line; the wardens at Yǐn Mù Guān keep the road around the water rather than across it, and travellers pay the longer way without complaint. Old folk in all five towns will tell you the mist is breath, not weather, that what breathes beneath the pool is older than any kingdom, and that a child must never answer when a voice calls its name from out on the water, for the voice will know the name and it will not be kin who is calling.

The Yōután Jiāng winds down out of the northern forest in slow, black coils, its waters so dark beneath the pine canopy that even at noon a paddle dipped under the surface vanishes from sight before the wrist. The current is gentle but deep, and old foresters say the riverbed dips into pools no weighted line has ever touched bottom in; mist clings to the banks well past sunrise until the river spills from the tree line and broadens into the great lake. Folk within a day's walk come for fish that run fat and strange-colored from the deep pools and for the medicinal mosses and shade-loving herbs along its banks, while hunters follow its course inward when tracking deer and boar, for game trails crowd the water in dry seasons. It is widely held that the dark pools are doorways and that what looks back from them is not always one's own face; mothers warn children not to lean over the still places, and travelers returning safely from the forest road often pour a cup of wine into the current before going home.

Deep in the Qiāncuì forest at the Táimí-Tōngzhì border, invisible until you are practically inside it. The canopy filters daylight green, the air is still, and sound carries strangely between the trunks. Táimí timber and charcoal cross here heading east; Tōngzhì paper and ink head west. The Northern Forest Line railway and a canal provide the means of transport. A border-post official stamps documents with performative gravity. The population is small and watchful, accustomed to strangers, never fully trusting them. Near Yāntán and Wānlín Zhài, but feeling far from anywhere.

See Also: Táimí Xīnchái Tiānláng-Liradi

Governess of the Northwestern Sìshuǐ Region, of mid-ranking Lanaris administrative blood, raised by a mother who managed flood-gates with the precision she gave her ledgers. She does not fill a room so much as organize it, and the imperial treasury asks for her by name when a region's books are suspect.

See Also: Sìshuǐ Governor of Northwestern Sìshuǐ Region

The only firm ground in a landscape of reed beds, peat bogs, and still black pools where Chéngyuè lake meets the Jiāyǐng marshland and the Fāng Yǔ Lín forest edge. Houses stand on raised platforms; walkways are timber planking over mud; the smell of peat-smoke and drying fish is permanent. But the wealth is real, medicinal marsh herbs found nowhere else on the island, rare fungi, and reed-woven goods traded as far as Zhūwān. Gatherers navigate by punt-boat through channels only they know. The Western Coastal Branch railway passes through on raised embankments, and a canal connects to the wider waterway network, but the marsh itself remains the domain of the locals, outsiders who try it alone get lost, and the locals find this amusing.

See Also: Qiānjīn Měnghǔ Lǐ-Jindoro

Once a rising officer of the imperial Bureau of Strategic Cartography in Sìshuǐ, indispensable for maps that doubled as political logic, until a reversal he will not name. He now lives as a reclusive mapmaker, keeping charts and freight ledgers far from the court.

See Also: The Chainless Compact

**Zhìhuì** · Patron Spirit of Tōngzhì Endlessly curious, unsettlingly perceptive, and difficult to deceive. Zhìhuì embodies the drive to understand, cataloging and cross-referencing everything it encounters. It asks more questions than it answers and has a reputation for knowing things it should not, a trait that mirrors the kingdom it guards. Those who seek its counsel receive not solutions but better questions. Favors a young, energetic explorer with ink-stained fingers and too many pockets, who speaks rapidly and changes the subject without warning. Manifested: a house-sized owl with ash-grey plumage and sky-blue eyes that seem to look through walls, perched motionless on rooftops, watching.

Governor of the Northern Tōngzhì Region, son of an examination clerk and a bridge-keeper, who first carried his name south after the Bitter Snow Flood. His is a famously sociable governorate where every grievance is heard at table, though its courtesy turns on iron hinges.

See Also: Tōngzhì Governor of Northern Tōngzhì Region

The folk of Sìshuǐ call it simply the Vaulted Summit, though Zhōngyuè Qiónglǐng heaves up from the island's heart in pale grey shoulders of bare stone, its lower slopes broken into rocky hills where little grows but wind-twisted scrub and stubborn lichen. From Tiě Yán Dù on a clear morning the central crown looks almost like a temple dome arched against the sky, and from Wànshí Kǒu at dusk the same peak glows the color of old bone. The massif shapes nearly every road in the interior: caravans bound between Bìgǔ Dù and Qīngcǎo must skirt its flanks, the porters of Shēn Mù Jìng have learned a dozen narrow tracks through the stony cuts that halve a day's walk, and herb-gatherers climb higher still after bitter roots that grow only where soil is thin. Old folk say the Vaulted Summit was raised by heaven itself to anchor the island, and travelers passing the high saddle still leave a chip of rock or a coin in the cairns there, for few who have seen a storm break upon those naked ridges think the custom foolish.

Geographically inside Qiānjīn but politically its own special economic zone, the empire's largest port and the single place where the Five Kingdoms meet foreign goods, foreign money, and foreign ideas on equal terms. The Jīnhé empties here into a deep natural bay, and the city straddles the river mouth inside a walled peninsula half jungle and half stone. Technology runs at roughly the 1940s level: electric trams along Governor's Way, a telegraph station near the opera house, cabarets and nightclubs on Herbalist Street, all under tile-roofed eaves. The walled city is ten blocks wide by five deep. A civic core of palace, grand temple, hospital and barracks sits below Palace Row; a central park breaks the grid at cols 3-4. The western coast lies outside the wall proper, the Sìshuǐ, Táimí, Tōngzhì, Jīnjiǎ, Qiānjīn and Aldermark embassies hold prime coastal lots, and the Ocean Dragon Temple's oldest hall juts directly into the surf. Docks, seafood market and industrial sheds crowd Harbou

See Also: Zhūwān Xiūhuī Hǎi-Lanaris

The place people call the "Zhūwān Ruins" is the Zhūwān South Ruins, the burned southern half of the great port city of Zhūwān. About forty-seven years ago a fire tore through the southern quarter and left it a cursed wreck; it has stood abandoned and dangerous ever since, and only the Jīnhé river kept the flames from crossing to the living city on the north bank. For the story behind it, read help The Fire of Zhūwān.

Getting there quickly

The fastest way is to type walk delve. This routes you across the river to one of the ruins on the south bank and walks you there automatically, dropping you in a spot from which a delve can be started. You can also type walk delves, and any of the movement verbs work the same way, such as go delve or run delve. It picks a ruin for you, so you will not always arrive at the same one.

Getting there on foot

The Ruins are not a separate place on the world map; they are the south bank of Zhūwān itself, just across the river from the living northern city. If you would rather travel the route yourself:

• If you are in another town, use journey to Zhūwān to plan the overland trip, then eta to check how long it takes. You will arrive in the living city on the north bank. See help journey for the full travel options.
• From northern Zhūwān, make your way to the riverfront and cross to the south bank over one of the Jīnhé bridges. Three bridges span the river: the Tōngjīn Shìqiáo, the Gāoàn Shīqiáo, and the Gǔdù Shíjiāo. You can walk to a bridge by name, or simply keep heading south until a bridge carries you over the water into the Ruins.
• Use look and exits to see which way leads toward the river, and map city to view the whole street grid, where the river divides the living city to the north from the Ruins to the south.

Descending into a delve

Reaching the Ruins only brings you to the surface. To actually enter one of the instanced dungeons below, stand inside a ruin and type delve enter. Type delve enter deep to brave a deeper, riskier descent. If you are not standing in a ruin, the game will tell you so. See help delve for how delving works, including time limits and fog of war.

A word of warning

The Ruins are shunned for good reason. The lingering curse breeds dangerous phenomena among the burned streets and in the catacombs beneath them, and few who venture in stay long. The one draw is that rare cultivation ingredients grow nowhere else, which is why the occasional cultivator braves the ash. Go prepared, and do not expect help if you get into trouble down there.

Zodiac years of the Àolǎng calendar: - Year of the Phoenix - Year of the Bear - Year of the Serpent - Year of the Crane - Year of the Wolf - Year of the Tiger

See Also: Year of the Phoenix Year of the Bear Year of the Serpent Year of the Crane Year of the Wolf Year of the Tiger

Many combat abilities cost you a temporary penalty on your later rolls. Ability text often calls this a malus to your "ability rolls." It is a real, tracked cost, not flavour text: using a strong ability makes you a little less sharp for a few rounds while you recover.

The two kinds of penalty

• Ability-roll penalty hits only your OTHER ability rolls. It never touches your basic attack roll, and it never penalises the very ability that caused it. Most abilities use this kind.
• All-roll penalty hits EVERY roll you make, both basic attacks and abilities (again excluding the ability that caused it). A few heavy abilities carry this on top of the ability-roll penalty.

Penalties are negative numbers added to your roll total, so they make a roll lower (and a lower roll is easier to fully resist). Each penalty fades on its own: every round it recovers by a fixed amount until it reaches zero and disappears. A larger penalty, or a smaller per-round recovery, means it lingers longer.

Do abilities roll?

Yes. An ability resolves with its own roll, to which your relevant stat modifier and any active penalties are added. The ability's own listed effect is the source of truth for what it adds; it does not borrow your basic attack modifier. Abilities that simply shield, buff, or reposition still roll, but they do not roll to "hit" an opponent the way a basic attack does, which is why they can feel like they do not roll. Spending Qi on an ability adds extra exploding dice to that ability's roll.

Tracking your active penalties

Your current ability-roll and all-roll penalties appear under "Your Status" in the combat status command, with how many more rounds each one will last. In the web client they also show in the combat status bar as a warning tag, with the per-round recovery shown as a superscript.

An adventure is a guided story session that the game runs for you. There is no adventure command to start one yourself. Instead, the world watches for a player who has settled into a quiet moment and offers them an unfolding tale: a chance encounter, a problem to solve, a turn of fortune. When that happens you are dropped into a narrated scene and invited to play it out.

How an adventure begins

Adventures start on their own when you are idle. If your character has been standing still for a few minutes, is alive and online, is not in disguise, and has enough energy to spare, the game may choose you for one. You also need to be out in the wider world: adventures do not begin while you are inside Zhūwān or a kingdom capital, where there is already plenty to do. After one finishes there is a cooldown of about half an hour before that same character is eligible again, so they are an occasional event rather than something you grind.

Starting an adventure spends some of your energy, so keep an eye on your reserves with score. You can build energy back up through offline work; see help earning money and help activity.

Playing through one

While an adventure is running it is narrated for you, scene by scene, and you respond in character. You can also help steer the story with the assert command, which lets you spend Destiny to assert facts about the world: a new arrival, a complication, a sudden gift or revelation. See help assert for the kinds of things you can assert, and help destiny for how Destiny is earned and spent. Completing an adventure pays out rewards such as treasure you can sell, standing, and crafting ingredients.

Adventures versus delves

It is easy to confuse the two, so here is the difference:

• An adventure comes to you. It is a narrated story session the game starts automatically when you are idle out in the world. You shape it through play and the assert command.
• A delve is something you start on purpose. Type delve enter inside the ruins of southern Zhūwān to explore a procedural dungeon for loot and treasure. See help delve.

Usage: No command. Adventures start automatically when you are idle. An overview topic. See also: activity, assert, destiny, delve.

See Also: activity assert destiny delve

This topic covers two separate things: the AI built into the game that you meet while playing, and the community policy on AI-generated art that players share outside the game. They are unrelated, so read whichever you came for.

The AI built into the game

Some of what you see while playing is shaped by AI working behind the scenes. In plain terms, that includes:

• Animated characters who hold a conversation. Many of the people you meet can talk back, react, and act in their own voice rather than repeating a fixed line.
• Generated places. Room, building, and town descriptions, along with the weather and the mood of a scene, are often written for the moment rather than picked from a short list.
• Polished combat writing. The blow-by-blow of a fight is turned into flowing prose, on top of the underlying dice and rules.
• Composed names. Names and their meanings are put together for new people and places.
• Optional story beats. Missions, adventures, small activities, and the auto storyteller can offer threads for you to follow.

This writing is generated, so once in a while it can come out wrong: a person might say something that does not fit, a description might contradict what is in the room, or a name or detail might read oddly. That is worth reporting, and it is easy to do.

Reporting an AI oddity

Yes, you can report it. Use the ticket system, the same channel you use for any other problem. Type bug (or tickets and choose Submit Ticket) to open the report form, then describe what happened. The most useful details are:

• What was said or shown — quote the odd NPC reply or paste the strange description if you can.
• Where — which room, building, or town, and which character or fight it came up in.
• When — roughly the time it happened, so staff can match it to the logs.

Your current location, character, and any active fight or activity are attached to the ticket automatically, so you do not have to restate them. Filing the ticket alerts staff and keeps a record you can follow with tickets. For the full picture of reaching staff and tracking replies, see help contacting staff.

---

Short answer: you are welcome to use AI-generated art in and around the game. The one rule is disclosure: you must declare that a piece is AI-generated whenever there is any reasonable chance someone would otherwise conclude it is art you made yourself.

When do I have to disclose?

Whenever someone could reasonably mistake the AI output for your own handiwork. If a viewer might look at it and think you drew, painted, or designed it, say up front that it is AI-generated. In practice this comes up most often with AI art posted to the sharing channels on the Discord, but the same principle applies in any other situation where the same confusion could arise.

When don't I have to disclose?

If the generation is photographic, or otherwise not something anyone could reasonably imagine was art you actually made, you don't have to disclose it. The rule is only about preventing AI work from being mistaken for your own original art — not about labelling every image that ever touched a model.

The rule in one line

Use AI art freely — just don't let anyone believe you made it by hand when you didn't. When in doubt, declare it.

Usage: No command. The community policy on AI-generated art: it is allowed, but you must disclose AI art whenever it could be mistaken for art you made yourself (mostly the Discord sharing channels). Photographic or obviously-not-hand-made output needs no disclosure.

See Also: tickets bug contacting staff

The backstory you wrote during character creation is saved with your character. You can read it again, and change it at any time, on your web profile page.

Where to find it

Open your profile page in the web client (the Profile link in the menu, at the /profiles address). Choose the Edit Details tab, then the Background sub-tab. Your saved Backstory appears there in full, along with your Personality, Goals, and narration point of view.

Changing your background

Your appearance, background, and voice can be edited at any time. Update the Backstory text in the Background sub-tab and use Save Background. There is no waiting period for these changes.

Usage: No command. Open the web profile page (Profile link, /profiles), then the Edit Details tab and the Background sub-tab.

See Also: profile settings

Some foes are too big to fight face to face. A giant beast — a chimera, a great serpent, whatever horror the wilds produce — enters the fight as a single monster made of several parts: a head, claws, a tail, and the like. Each part has its own health, tracked separately, and the beast fights on until its body as a whole gives out — so ruining one limb is real progress even while the rest still snaps at you.

Fighting it limb by limb

• Choose Attack from the combat menu and pick the beast; a limb menu opens listing every living part with its health and distance.
• Auto (closest limb) strikes whichever part is nearest each swing — the sensible default while the beast wheels around.
• Pick a specific limb to lock onto it and concentrate your damage. A part battered to nothing is destroyed and menaces you no more.

The weak point

One part is marked ⚔ WEAK POINT in the limb menu and shows a small red dot on the battle map. The mark is a promise, not a shortcut: attacking it from the ground is just a normal hit. To collect on the promise you must climb the beast itself:

1. Mount. Move adjacent to the beast; the Movement menu then offers Mount.
2. Climb. Each round while mounted, choose Climb to work toward the weak point — it takes several rounds, and the menu shows your progress — or Cling to simply hold on. The beast will try to shake you off: a climbing rider risks being hurled to the ground (perhaps into a hazard), while a clinging rider always keeps their grip. Climbing is faster; clinging is safer.
3. Strike. Once you reach the weak point, your next attack is devastating: triple damage, dealt to every living part of the beast at once.
4. The fall. The blow enrages the beast and it flings you off. Pick yourself up, close back in, and start the climb again.

You can choose Dismount at any time to drop off safely instead.

Keep moving

• The Movement menu offers Move toward and Retreat from the beast, alongside Stand Still — and Mount when you are beside it.
• On the battle map you can also simply click any hex to move there.
• Do not loiter in a charging beast's path: a big monster tramples whoever it runs over, battering them and shoving them aside — and anyone with nowhere to be shoved is knocked flat.

Usage: No typed command. Use the combat menu: Attack → the beast → pick a limb; Movement → Mount / Move toward / Retreat from. See also: attack, combat, flee.

See Also: combat attack fight flee movement

Chemistry is the bond that builds between your character and another, whether the pull is desire or the sharper heat of rivalry. It is not a command you type and it is not the same as cultivation: pills, herbs, and refining qi through training belong to help cultivation and help qi. Chemistry is about people, and it shapes how brightly your qi burns in a fight.

What chemistry is

• The game tracks a private chemistry level between you and each character you grow close to. As it rises it passes through named tiers: Spark, Kindling, Flame, Blaze, Inferno, and at the very peak, Transcendent.
• Chemistry is one-directional and personal. How you feel about someone and how they feel about you are scored separately.

What it does

• Chemistry sets your Qi Level, the size of the qi dice you roll in combat (shown on your score as a word from Four up to Twenty). A higher tier means larger dice, so your qi swings harder behind an attack, a defence, an ability, or a burst of movement.
• The bond counts for most when the other person is near. Sharing a room weighs full, the same building or city less, and a partner you have not seen in days fades toward the floor.
• It counts for most of all in conflict. When you face someone you share chemistry with across the line of a fight, the heat between you multiplies your qi, fiercest of all in a one-on-one duel.
• Once your qi burns bright enough you take on a visible radiant glow that others in the room can see.

How to build it

• Roleplay together. Flirtation and strong scene-craft earn a first foothold on their own, though flirting alone only carries you to the lower tiers.
• Beyond that first spark, your shared scenes are weighed for what makes a bond deepen: wit and banter, playful rivalry, real vulnerability shown before others, meaningful gestures, dressing for the moment, and genuine care. Crudeness, cold distance, condescension, and mere passivity all work against you.
• Rivalry counts as surely as romance. A worthy adversary whose feelings are sharpened by conflict can raise your qi as much as a lover.
• Bonds are not free. Spreading yourself across many partners quietly cools the rest, and some intimacies can lower a bond rather than raise it.

Can you see who you have chemistry with?

• There is no list. Chemistry is kept private on purpose, so there is no command or panel that names the individual people you share it with, and no one can read yours.
• What you can see is the result. Your score shows a single Qi Level, the word that reflects your strongest bond, and once your qi burns bright enough others in the room see your radiant glow. Watch your Qi Level rise as a bond deepens.
• The surest sign is the roleplay itself. Chemistry grows from your shared scenes, so the people you keep returning to are the people you are building it with.