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Wulin Factions

Four Ox Union

Destiny Cost: 3

The Four-Ox Union is considered to be the Beggar Fraternity's ugly cousin - a criminal syndicate made up of outcasts, unskilled laborers, and similarly "low-born" sorts. The heart of their power is their control over the comings and goings of goods from the docks of Bird's Progress. Well, that and a well-earned reputation for violence. Over the years, they have been hated as criminal scum and praised as champions for the downtrodden, sometimes within the same breath.

• 3+ Status: You are a member of the Four Ox Union.
• 0: bonus: You may choose a free Might specialty: Lifting Things or a free Inspire specialty: Intimidation.
• 3+ Fortune: Whether or not you are a member of the Four Ox Union, you have friends in low places and can call upon their help. The extent of their help depends on the amount of Destiny invested.
• 5 Disadvantage: Criminal. Whether or not you truly are, your association with the Four Ox Union lends you a shady reputation. This is free if it's your first or second disadvantage.

Secrets of Destiny: Four Ox Union Kung Fu

• 0: Bonus: As a member of the Four Ox Union, you get a one-time 2-Destiny discount when buying one of the following as a secondary External Style: Bone-Fed Wolf Fang, Blossom Harvest, or Heavy Iron Sword.
• 0 Technique: If you are a member of the Four Ox Union, you probably have Dragon God's Footsteps as your primary Internal Style. You can learn all of its techniques, rather than one of each level.
• 5 Technique: Without Pride, Without Pity
  • If you're in the Bone-Fed Wolf Fang Stance and use Footfalls Shake The Earth, it also applies to Disrupts targeting Toughness
  • If you're in the Bone-Fed Wolf Fang Stance and use Angry God Throw, you may instead choose to inflict a Disorient marvel.
• 5 Technique: The Mountain Still Stands
  • If you're in the Blossom Harvest Stance and use Dragon Turns Over, it also grants a +15 bonus to breaking Cover Ground waves.
  • If you're in the Blossom Harvest Stance and use Insensate God's Yawn, it has a round-long duration if you took a ripple last round.
• 5 Technique: The Center Cannot Hold
  • If you're in the Heavy Iron Sword Stance and use Mountain God's Knee, that technique also grants +5 Strike.
  • If you're in the Heavy Iron Sword stance and use Dragon Claw Flexes, your opponent's defense cannot Laugh At you.

Wulin Greats

Azure Dragon

(The following is a supplement to the loresheet options on p. 106; purchasing this loresheet requires the Wulin Greats loresheet on p. 105. Originally written by ru, with contributions by katechon.)

• 6 Destiny: You have already been brought into Meng Zhang's exclusive retinue; he is a mentor (and perhaps much, much more) to you, which means that he may give you some instruction in his sword-based kung fu, and that you are welcome in the Peerless Bamboo Manor.
  • 0 Bonus: Being a part of the retinue of a Saint Beast is an exclusive honor; you have 3 Status among the Wulin.
  • 0 Bonus: The Saint Beasts have many contacts, connections and agents; covert and not. You may spend 1 Joss to declare a story detail establishing a connection to any of the Four Saint Beasts, and have a +5 bonus to social interactions with their agents.
  • 5 Disadvantage: The Four Saint Beasts see themselves as the pillars and balancers of the Wulin; they do not hesitate to involve themselves in the doings of the great factions, and the Azure Dragon is no different. Many resent their intervention, and their suspicion will naturally fall upon you, to say nothing of those who would seek revenge. When this causes you trouble, gain 1 Destiny. -5 This is your first or second disadvantage.
  • -2: Though you have been accepted into Azure Dragon's retinue, you have yet to fully prove yourself. Until you do, the Azure Dragon's plans and whims will cause you endless complications.

Secrets of Destiny: Azure Dragon's Kung Fu

• 0 Bonus: You get a one-time 2-Destiny discount when buying one of the following as a secondary External Style: Flying Red Silk, Subtle Force, or Graceful Crane.
• 0 Bonus: If you have Parables of the Sword Saint as your primary style you can learn all of its techniques rather than one of each level.
• 3 Technique: The Music of the Saints. If you know the Deadly Music Formless technique, any attacks made with it count as selective Area attacks, and those affected always Fear those attacks.
• 2 Technique: You learn the Effortless Grace stance. You have been trained to use your weapon as if it is a natural extension of your very body. Your sword attacks count as being unarmed. This allows you to claim the weapon bonuses of both and to combine different types of styles. If you know multiple Secrets that improve your unarmed fighting, you can only use one at a time; choose at the start of each round which one you’ll use.
• 3 Technique: You learn the level 3 formless technique Brush drawing clouds, that gives +15 block.

Meng Zhang, The Eastern Saint Beast

• 10 Destiny: Meng Zhang sees you as his protege; this is a tremendous honor, and an onerous responsibility.
  • You have Status 5 ('Protege of the Eastern Saint Beast') among the Wulin at large.
  • You have a -3 discount for buying a Legendary Weapon given to you by the Saint Beast.
  • (Other bonuses/discounts TBD)
  • -2 You are not the Azure Dragon's only protege, and at least one of the others will see you as a rival to his or her ambitions.
• 10 Victory: Through a great deed, you have gained the respect of your patron, and in recognition he grants you one of his collection of Legendary Weapons, each an incomparable work of art. Don't get it dirty!
  • -2 He has granted you this weapon for a specific purpose; when you have completely the task, he will expect its prompt return!

The Peerless Bamboo Manor

• 3+ Fortune: You know a secret about the The Peerless Bamboo Manor, and the priceless works of art contained within. Lost treasures from across Shen Zhou are gathered here, what secrets do they contain?
• 5 Fortune: The splendour of the Manor astounds the senses and bewilders the mind; it also has unmatched feng shui. One versed in its intricacies can exploit these effect to gain a +5 bonus to employing the Courtier's or Priest's arts.

The East

Bird's Progress

(The following loresheet options supplement the Bird's Progress loresheet on p. 140; they require at least 3 Involvement to purchase.)

You ask me why Bird's Progress is perpetually on the edge of chaos? Hmmph. Barges loaded with every conceivable good coming in and out at all hours; people from every corner of Shen Zhou and beyond all mixed together pell mell; the meanest laborers mingling with the wealthy during the day, yet barred from their luxurious mansions at night; the close attentions of the Imperial Bureaucracy on a place once a Yang Kingdom redoubt—and all this to say nothing of a city where magistrates kowtow at the feet of mere merchants! Is it any wonder a place that accommodates—nay, is built upon—such a bald repudiation of the order of heaven should suffer such profound disorder?
—Zhou Junde, Master of the White Jade Academy, Falling Leaves Society member, and Martial Sage.

And who could argue with Master Zhou? Bird's Progress is barely governable, and the Magistrates sent from Jiankiang are ill-disposed to try.

The City Above

(2 Destiny)

High upon the cliffs, far above the noise and bustle of the merchants and laborers below, there is a veritable paradise. Here are the wealthiest residents of Bird's Progress – the heads of the largest trading concerns, a few aristocratic families, and officials grown fat on bribes and kickbacks – living lives blissfully free of the lower city's muck and mire. The roads from the lower city to the upper are few and tightly guarded; the City Above's streets are impeccably clean and well-patrolled.

• 1 Fortune: You can pass between the two cities without trouble; perhaps you possess a pass (obtained licitly or otherwise) that permits you to use one of the official gates, or perhaps you know of a secret route.
• 2+ Status: You have made a name for yourself in the high society of the Cloud Happiness District; this doesn't mean you're thought of as 'one of them', necessarily, but you're known.
  • 0 Bonus: You get the Politics specialty High Society for free.

Cloud Happiness District

Perched high atop the cliffs that ring the lower city are the mansions of the city's wealthiest residents: the very best families, the most successful merchants, and of course the officials who enrich themselves on the trade flowing through the city.

• 2+ Involvement: The families that make Cloud Happiness their home are in constant, vicious competition to outdo their neighbors: to build more impossible homes, to throw more fabulous parties, to sponsor the more praiseworthy temple, or artist, or whatever fashion might demand. These are generally low-stakes affairs, but occasionally they spiral into something ... bigger. You've found yourself embroiled in just such a circumstance!
• 3+ Fortune/Treasure: The small group of architects (known as The Blue-Sky Goose Guild) employed to build the gravity-defying homes in which the wealthy dwell are at the very forefront of their art in Shen Zhou; Daoist principles are married to the bleeding edge of Mohist mathematical studies in order to produce these marvels. You have either come to know one of these architects, or have come into possession of their valuable plans.

Golden Bay Overlook

While it does not quite rise to the standard of the Willow Districts in Magnificent Ink or Notably Picturesque, for sheer spectacle, Golden Bay Overlook, the upper city's Willow District, is hard to match. Like the grand homes of Cloud Happiness, the inns and theaters of the Overlook hang over the vertiginous cliffs, but instead of looking down on the city below, they sit on a promontory over the Bohai Bay itself.

Yang's Last Bastion

Long ago, when Bird's Progress was a small fishing town, a mighty fortress called Stone-Conquers-Sea sat upon the high cliffs that now house the wealthy & powerful, watching over the same waters that now carry treasures into Shen Zhou. In the chaotic days after the fall of the Han but before the arrival of the Jin, the Yang Kingdom occupied this fortress to safeguard the naval approach to their lands. When the Xiongnu invaders who would become the Jin did come to the East, they tried, without success, to lay siege to Thrashing Minister; as long as the Yang controlled the naval approach, the capital could be supplied indefinitely. So the Xiongnu came to the fortress, and the battle that commenced shook the very foundations of the earth - in the climactic battle, a great Xiongnu warrior named Thunder-Shakes-the-Earth cast down Yang Lide, daughter of the Yang King and the last of the defenders, and with her the better part of the fortress collapsed, falling to the marshy ground below.

The castle now known as Yang's Last Bastion is what remains of that fortress. It now houses the imperial military detachment assigned to Bird's Progress; among those in the know, it is widely believed that the feared Liquid Metal Delegates maintain agents stationed here.

• 2 Destiny: The legend of the battle between Thunder-Shakes-the-Earth and Yang Lide is among the most popular in Bird's Progress (and across the whole of the East), and forms the basis of many popular songs, plays, and poems. You are somehow connected to this story, either by ancestry, martial tradition, or something more mystical.
• 3 Fortune: You are so inspired by this story, it has instilled in you a Minor Paired Chi Condition, likely an Inspiration to follow the example of one the heroes and a Passion involving hatred, fear, or contempt for the other. Work with your Sage to determine the details.

Silver Bough Park

Beyond the northern gates of the city, a magnificent park is maintained for the pleasure of the well-born; it is best known (and named) for its magnificent and rare silver-barked scholar trees, but placid pools and well-tended flower gardens can also be found by those who wander its many narrow paths. For all its beauty, however, a pall hangs over the woods: it is said that demons haunt the park, waiting to entrap unwary visitors. There are all too many stories of people going off for a stroll and never returning, or found hanging from one of those scholar trees, or coming back ... but somehow fundamentally changed.

• 2 Fortune: You have walked the paths of Silver Bough Park and returned, (mostly) unscathed. When and if you return, you will always Laugh At and never Fear any challenges or obstacles its strange influence presents.

The City Beneath

(2 Destiny)

Bixi Gardens

Long before Bird's Progress was a city; before Stone-Conquers-Sea fortress was built upon the cliffs; before there was even a minor fishing village to take advantage of the bay's bounty, there stood a garden of steles standing atop dragon-headed, tortoise-bodied Bixi statues. None know who built these steles, what they commemorate or who they propitiate or what they ward off; they are marked, but with a strange and ancient script that frustrate the attempts at translation of even the best scholars in all of Shen Zhou. Common folk treat these stele with something approaching reverence, but even the educated tread lightly around them. The district that has grown around this garden is home to many temples and shrines; it's thought that the mystical energies that collect around these monuments.

Endless Prosperity Gate

Great Open Yamen

Like almost all cities in Shen Zhou, at the very center of Bird's Progress is its walled Yamen, the administrative compound from which the Imperial magistrates exert the influence of the Jin Empire. But whereas every other city's Yamen is fortress of Imperial authority, held fast by power military and civil, the Bird's Progress Yamen is a glorified open air bazaar. Instead of enforcing Imperial law, its magistrates are glorified night watchmen, making sure the merchants' concerns remain secure. It is a perversion of Confucian ideals, and it is the very soul of Bird's Progress.

Plain-Girl's Nest

Less of a defined district than the absence of defintion, this is the place that houses the city's laborers, its indigent, its underclass. Because of the sheer numbers of such residents, the Nest is a sprawling place; but because space is at a premium in the lower city, that sprawl must go vertical rather than horizontal. Rickety buildings spread upward like kudzu on invisible supports, and the compounds that result are both incredibly dangerous and all but impossible for outsiders to navigate. The magistrates and their constabulary pay little attention to this area if they can avoid it, and as a result it is very popular indeed with organizations that run afoul of the Imperial law.

• 1+ Involvement: You either currently or once did make your home in the Nest, and its current residents treat you as one of their own.
  • 0 Bonus: You always Laugh At and Never Fear the confusing and dangerous surroundings of Plain-Girl's Nest.
  • 2 Fortune: Not only do the residents treat you as one of their own, but they really like you. Within reason, you can count on them to provide you shelter, hide you from the constables, and other small story benefits.

Spear Maiden's Purchase

When the Xiongnu destroyed Stone-Conquers-Sea fortress, the better part of it collapsed onto the marshy ground beneath. When the small fishing village at the base of the cliffs began to grow into a city, it wasn't long before residents took advantage of the now-stable ground to expand. It wasn't long after that that entrances into the ruined-but-not-destroyed fortress were discovered; while the above-ground district provides a place to live and set up shop (mostly to those who can't abide living in Plain-Girl's Nest but can't afford to live in Virtuous Poesy or Bixi Gardens), the submerged halls beneath have become a kind of distorted mirror image of the great bazaar of Great Open Yamen, where goods and services that cannot be traded in the light of day are up for sale.

• 3 Fortune: Finding the Looking-Glass Bazaar is all but impossible for those who have not already been led there; you are one of the 'lucky' few who have.
• 2+ Treasure/Fortune: You have come into possession of one of the strange treasures (or contracts for service) that are traded in the Looking-Glass Bazaar. Work with your Sage to determine the details.

Virtuous Poesy District

A haven of calm amid the roiling sea; a shelter from an unending storm; a bastion of virtue, of filial piety, of righteousness amid a world that has lost its moral bearings—this is how the residents of Virtuous Poesy view themselves. These are some of the oldest families of the East, many of whom have deep and abiding ties to the Yang Clan of Thrashing Minister. Their compounds are tasteful and, in comparison to the grand mansions of Cloud Happiness District, modest. It is also home to the White Jade Academy, a traditional Confucian school for the training of future magistrates (and hopefully better ones than the current crop who govern the city) and the headquarters of the small, but influential Fallen Leaves Society of Bird's Progress.

The Grand Docks

(2 Destiny)