Hearts of Wulin is a TTRPG in the Powered by the Apocalypse family, published in 2021 by The Gauntlet and co-written by Agatha Cheng and Lowell Francis — you can see their original Kickstarter here, and check it out for purchase here on DriveThruRPG. It’s focus is on emulating the melodrama and martial arts action of Chinese wuxia film and TV shows1, and it is distinguished from a lot of PbtA games by its stripped-down combat mechanics and focus on triangular2 relationships between PCs and NPCs — similar to games like Monsterhearts and its monster-high-school-soap-opera genre emulation.
Hearts of Wulin uses the core PbtA mechanic of Roll+Stat with strong hits, weak hits with consequences or costs, and misses causing dramatic reversals. Its stats are based on the five classical Chinese elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Metal, and Wood. These elements represent not physicality, but emotionality — here’s how Hearts of Wulin describes them, with their positive and negative associations:
Source: Hearts of Wulin // Francis & Cheng
We’ll learn more about the system as we go, but for longtime followers of PTFO:Stonetop or players of PbtA games, it should feel very familiar.
Ironsworn is, of course, the premiere solo TTRPG of the moment. For the purposes of this story, we’ll be using most of Hearts of Wulins core systems, character sheets and moves, stats, and GM and player principles, and we’ll be adding in Ironsworn’s vow and progress mechanics — Hearts of Wulin’s approach to high-level narrative is very unstructured, and for the purposes of solo play, I thought Ironsworn’s milestone-based vow system would be a worthwhile addition. Integrating the two systems at this level should be fairly easy, and I’ll get into how I plan to run it when it comes up in character creation.
Heartsworn is the closest, thematically and tonally, to our first series, PTFO:Stonetop. Like in the Stonetop campaign, Heartsworn will focus on themes of friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice, but in this story, these things will often conflict with our characters’ filial duty to their families, love affairs, and the ideals they hold dear.
Hearts of Wulin, and the wuxia stories it emulates, are all about heroic figures fighting to do the right thing — however clear or ambiguous that idea might be — in a world where law rests on a shaky foundation. In Chinese fiction, this setting is called jianghu, literally “rivers and lakes,” The Hearts of Wulin core book writes of the jianghu world:
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, poets and writers began to use jianghu to describe a fictional world where protagonists lived by their own moral principles. The moral principles are similar to the Western concepts of idealized knighthood: chivalry, righteousness, virtue, loyalty, and vengeance. But they are not knights, ronin, or samurai. They are heroes who uphold Confucian ideas of honour and help the weak…
…Jianghu only crystallised in the 20th century when writers like Jin Yong and his ilk created their worlds of swordsmen and gentlemen warriors who operated on a basis of righteousness and conflicts that pitted martial artists and clans against each other in grand acts of good versus evil.
Our story will not be taking place in the core Hearts of Wulin setting, however — I’ll be taking the concept of the jianghu and adapting it to a setting that brings in classical Indian influences alongside the Chinese ones to create a somewhat3 original fantastical setting. Let’s get into it!
It is better to live one’s own dharma, even though imperfectly, than to live another’s dharma, even though perfectly. (Bhagavad Gita, chapter 18 verse 47) // Image source: Midjourney
The Red River Valley, an abode of warriors
At the far northern edge of the Laasaka Empire, far from the capital and the Sapphire Throne is the Red River Valley. Here, the cold and clear water descends from the snow-capped peaks and sheer cliffs of the Killer-of-Hosts and begins its meandering journey through the Dawha Forest to join the mother river, Janani, five hundred leagues to the south.
Long ago, the valley led to a mountain pass that cut through the Killer-of-Hosts to the lands beyond, populated by a multitude of strange and sometimes warlike peoples, before an earthquake sealed it during the reign of Emperor Jaghan IV. In those days, the people of the valley were the shield of the Empire against incursions from the north, and two hundred years ago, two sworn brothers — defenders of the pass — established an akhara: A martial school for the warrior-aristocrats of the Empire to learn the skills and philosophies to make them able servants of their family line and the Akashic Emperor. This akhara — known as the Akhara of Two Swords Sworn to One Purpose, or the Two Swords Akhara for brevity’s sake — was unique, in that it trained two martial styles beneath one great roof.
The Two Swords Akhara
The southern wing of the school teaches the Adamantine Tower style, which cultivates the elements of Metal and Earth, and focuses on personal discipline, propriety, meditative focus, and intensive study of the Raja Sutras — admonitions to rulers handed down by the gods themselves. Students are encouraged to dedicate themselves to the monastic lifestyle, eschewing rich food, intoxicants, and gentle company while they ‘ascend the tower.’ The style and its philosophies are honored throughout the Empire; Many important figures in the Legion Imperial and influential courtiers are trained in it, and its star is considered on the rise.
The style’s most powerful techniques allow its users to exert their will over the elements themselves — Metal adepts can wield their blades with only the focus of their minds, and Earth adepts can use the force of their blows to raise pillars of stone or fling earthen orbs like deadly missiles.
The northern wing of the school instructs students in the Thousand Blades of Grass style, which cultivates the elements of Wood and Water and emphasizes awareness, adaptability, patience, curiosity, and personal virtue. Thousand Blades style is considered more humble and pastoral than its sibling school and is studied by rural gentry and errant wanderers. Some of the greatest popular heroes of the Empire’s folk tales were students of the Thousand Blades.
The school’s preternatural disciplines allow Wood adepts to dance lightly across treetops and for Water adepts to control the flow of rivers and lakes with their movements and skate across the surface of still water.
The founders of the school were boon companions and blood brothers, who swore they would face King Yama on the selfsame day, and the akhara has proceeded based on that tradition. Despite the differing philosophies of the two styles, students of the Two Swords Akhara are encouraged to form friendships and, more commonly, rivalries with one another to push themselves to greater martial feats.
At the very edge of the empire // Source: Midjourney
In the early days of the Two Swords Akhara, its warriors were dedicated to the defense of the High Path, the mountain pass between the frontier of the Empire and the lands claimed by the Gondhu clans beyond the mountains, and its graduates were some of the great heroes of the realm. Today, the High Path is closed to all but the most canny of mountaineers, but the akhara remains a prestigious school to which the worthies of the Empire entrust their brightest hopes.
Outside the Akhara’s Walls
The Two Swords Akhara, home to fifty students and a few dozen teachers and staff, sits against the tall mountain cliffs and is surrounded on three sides by Darpana Lake — clear, cold, blue, and deeper than any student has been able to swim in recent memory. Students can come and go on small punts launched from the school’s docks, or, if they feel bold, a few narrow and treacherous mountain trails that loop around the lake to the east and west.
Across the lake is Kingfisher Village, a town of about 800 people. The locals tend to rice paddies, sorghum fields, tea bushes, and mango groves. There is a tradition of beekeeping as well, thanks to the wildflower patches that garland the foothills of the Killer-of-Hosts, and the honey the villagers gather is made into madhu4, a honey wine for which the region is renowned.
At the far north of the valley, near the closed mountain pass, is Autumn Snowfall Castle, an ancient and crumbling fortress, the official residence and stronghold of the valley’s Imperial governor.
Dahwa Forest, a deep, thick expanse of green that runs from the foothills of the Killer-of-Hosts to the banks of the River Janani, extends its tendrils into the Red River Valley. Nestled deep in the woods, on the eastern side of the Red River is Realm’s End Temple, which houses a shrine to King Yama, the God of death and the law, who weighs the righteousness of each soul after they pass from the world and assigns them their just reward, whether it is a sentence of torment in Naraka or the rewards of paradise or rebirth. Also secreted somewhere in the deep forest is the Temple of the Hidden Heart, containing a shrine to Princess Kalyani, goddess of beauty, prosperity, good fortune, and love — it is said that only the true of heart can find the way through the winding forest trails to the gates of the temple.
The woods are awash with rumors of the supernatural — friendly forest spirits, terrifying ghosts of vengeful killers and forlorn lovers, and magical creatures that bestow curses and grant wishes. Though in the great cities of the Empire, these sorts of things are rarely seen, locals know the valley is a place where creatures from the bygone age of heroes still roam.
Two Pupils and an Outsider: Our Heroes
Heartsworn will follow three player characters — two students at the Two Swords Akhara and one outsider, nonetheless trained in secret in a powerful martial style.
As a PbtA game, Hearts of Wulin uses Playbooks to define a character’s wuxia archetype, an approach that should be pretty familiar to longtime readers. Let’s get into the three archetypes in play here.
Kai of House Sinh, dutiful heir of a noble lineage
House Sinh, known as the Lions of Laaksa, is an ancient clan of warrior-aristocrats who, according to legend, were one of the original vassals of Emperor Ashoka, the first and wisest ruler to sit on the Sapphire Throne. For six hundred years, its noble warriors have been models of martial skill and virtue, at the vanguard of the Empire’s many wars.
Today, however, in the wake of the Ruby Throne Pretendership, House Sinh’s fortunes have faded. Its star has been eclipsed by others who more eagerly threw themselves into the treacherous, bloody fighting of the civil war, but their honor and propriety are unbowed. Surely the next generation of warriors will restore the house’s place at the right hand of the Akashic Emperor, and it is Kai who leads that generation.
Kai is tall and lithe with sharp, aristocratic features and a confident, unflinching gaze. He wears his long, hair bleached blonde and bound up in a traditional warrior’s braid, and his clothes are a study in aristocratic austerity — unornamented, but made from the finest silks by the most skilled artisans. In his martial practice, he wields the khanda, a straight, double-edged sword favored by noble warriors.
He is the eldest son of Lord Koda, patriarch of House Sinh, has been a student of the Adamantine Tower style for the last three years. All of Sinh’s hopes and dreams rest on his shoulders, and for the first year of his tutelage, that pressure nearly broke him. He struggled with the stances and forms of the Adamantine Tower, his once-pure focus and clarity clouded by his fears that his family’s fortunes would continue to fall, if he were to fail, and his doubts that he could walk in the footsteps of the ancestor heroes of House Sinh.
Everything changed when he met Ral, a student of the Thousand Blades style. The son of a lesser house, Ral was unfit in station to befriend someone like Kai, but become friends they did. Ral led Kai on secret outings to Kingfisher Village in disguise5, drinking madhu til the late hours with the villagers there, telling and hearing lurid folk tales and fantastical legends, and playing dice and Chaturanga, before sneaking back to the dormitories. Kai, in turn, aided Ral in his studies and stoked his heart with dreams of greatness — perhaps greatness beyond his station.
Through their friendship and rivalry, Kai and Ral have risen to become the foremost students of their respective styles — some even say that they are the founders of the Two Swords Akhara, reborn for some great purpose.
Kai’s playbook is the Loyal, whose narrative agenda is to express tension between duty and self. Each playbook contains three sub-archetypes, and Kai’s is the Devoted Child: He’s loyal to his family and will strive to act in their interests, and in turn, they support him with their influence. This sub archetype has no discrete mechanical benefits, but it creates a ton of fictional positioning for Kai to throw his family’s weight around.
Kai’s stats are Earth +2, Metal +2, Fire 0, Water 0, Wood -1. He has tremendous self-discipline and is a careful, cautious fighter, his skill honed by the nigh-unbreakable defensive forms taught by the Adamantine Tower school. But this iron focus is also inflexible — he is not very creative or curious, and is more like to stubbornly pursue a failing course of action than to adapt his approach — unless Ral is there to temper him. Each character has to choose a single style discipline (even though in the fiction, the Adamantine Tower school cultivates two elements), and Kai’s style element will be Metal — the strength of his stance is in his iron focus.
Starting characters in Hearts of Wulin get two playbook moves: Kai’s first is Strife for Mastery, which allows him to call on his family’s authority to give NPCs orders, so long as they have a modicum of respect for his status — Bandits? Probably. Rakshasa? No.
His second move is Legend of the Mountain, which allows him to very effectively stand in defense of someone or something. Normally, this would be adjudicated by Hearts of Wulin’s Defy Danger-style move, which is called Overcome, but Legend of the Mountain provides some additional benefits that allow the PC to take control of the narrative situation after a successful defense.
Ral of House Ukusha, feckless scion of a merchant prince
House Ukusha has risen recently, created by the Akashic Emperor and his Thrice-Wise Regent in the aftermath of the Ruby Throne Pretendership to reward the loyalty and courage of a commoner.
Arun Ukusha was a riverboat captain who mapped the westernmost headwaters of the Janani River and used that knowledge to amass a great trading fortune, and then turned around and spent a tremendous share of that fortune to arm and feed the armies of the boy emperor-in-exile during the Pretendership. For this investment, he was richly rewarded: The lands and hereditary titles and duties of one of the lesser traitor houses were awarded to him and his line in perpetuity. House Ukusha is renowned for its generosity and closeness to the people, but older, more established houses look down on them, considering them little better than peasants.
Ral is the eldest son of Arun’s eldest son. His father is away on a trade mission to Inkhara, far to the east, but his uncle Vikram oversees his education, and that education has led him to the Two Swords Akhara and the Thousand Blades style. Though he was not a student, the philosophies of this style are prized by House Ukusha’s founder — flexibility of mind, awareness of surroundings, and patience to wait while the moment ripens. Ral took to the studies easily, though he was often chastised for his reluctance to adopt an ascetic life, and was held back by his lack of focus and ambition.
He is a short, thick-thewed young man — strong, but comfortably padded by his generous lifestyle. His black hair is short and unkempt, and his face is soft, round and friendly. He dresses in fine, almost ostentatious clothes — fur-lined robes and heavy gold jewelry, and he has an easy, bellowing laugh and a deep voice. In combat, he wields a heavy iron gada, a tremendous club which he swings in wide, graceful arcs.
Kai and Ral met during a crisis in Kingfisher village — a band of outlaws, led by a disgraced traitor lord, took residence in a ruined temple deep in the woods and began to harass the local trade. The Imperial governor’s forces could not deal with the lord’s martial skill, and so the masters and students of the Akhara were asked to provide aid. Kai was moved by his desire to prove himself to the masters, and Ral was irked by the bandit’s rough treatment of the locals, and in a running duel that took them from Kingfisher Village to the Realm’s End Temple, deep in the woods, Ral and Kai overthrew the bandit lord, captured him, and handed him over to the authorities. That night they celebrated in Kingfisher Village, and their friendship was kindled.
Ral’s playbook is the Bravo, whose narrative agenda is to Live life to the fullest. His sub-archetype is the Favored Eldest, which, like Kai’s move, doesn’t provide him any specific mechanical benefit, just fictional positioning. As the Favored Eldest, Ral always has money, and wherever he goes, merchants and innkeepers roll out the red carpet for him, thanks to House Ukusha’s considerable wealth.
His stats are Water +2, Wood +1, Fire +1, Metal +0, Earth -1. He is aware of his surroundings and the rhythms of others, and he’s curious, patient and creative, but he is sometimes unfocused and reckless — unless guided by Kai. His style element is Water — his strength is in his physicality, but also his keen awareness to the shifting tides of a duel or a battle.
His first move is Midnight Orchid — he has a lavish wardrobe, and regardless of how bedraggled he might be, he can always get himself together and look correct for the next scene. This move also comes with a personal retainer — we’ll envision for him an advisor named Auntie Heartless6, who we’ll detail when we talk about the various factions.
His second move is Tracing Shadow, which allows him to read an NPC’s web of connections, learning about their relationships with other NPCs and their secrets — the Thousand Blades style has taught him to always be awake to the inner lives and patterns of others.
Maya of Kingfisher Village, tavern maid and masked rebel
The House of Honey and Song overlooks the market commons in Kingfisher Village, and has since long before anyone can remember. A three-story inn built of red brick and rosewood, with trellised windows, hung with flowering vines of blue morning glory, it offers the finest hospitality possible at the very edge of the empire. And since she was a little girl, Maya Song has served warm, sweet Madhu to weary farmers, traders from faraway places, and students of the akhara (in disguise, of course).
Maya is her father Sukhar’s last living child — her four older brothers were all drafted into the Imperial legions during the Pretendership and gave their lives in service of the Akashic Emperor, and their mother died shortly thereafter in the great sickness that came in the aftermath of the civil war. Sukhar, the proprietor of the House of Honey and Song, dotes on his last living loved one to a fault, fending off ‘unworthy’ suitors from the village and preparing her to take over the duties of innkeeper when he is gone, to the chagrin of the more conservative villagers (and other potential successors within her family). Sukhar even went as far as to teach Maya a few martial techniques he had picked up in his long and meandering life — though she was instructed to keep these secret, as the study of the warrior’s arts is forbidden to the peasantry.
Maya is a rare beauty with dark hair, emerald eyes, and features that some say evoke the goddess Kalyani herself. Scorned suitors and their spiteful mothers claim that her hands are too calloused from work, and her frame is too indelicate from years of chasing after her father, but she still receives inquiries from matchmakers all the same. In the practice of her forbidden martial arts, she wields a sula— a six-foot leaf-bladed spear, though a simple staff can serve just as well.
For most of her life, Maya didn’t think much beyond her place in the inn, but in the last two years, all that has changed. In the aftermath of the bandit attack on the village (foiled by Kai and Ral), the incompetent Imperial governor was replaced by a lean and hungry man named Virash7 Kety. Kety, a son of the ambitious and rising House Yhagga, was awarded the governorship of Red River Valley after his family’s zealous — bloody-handed, some might say — service to the Emperor during the war of the pretendership. Kety brought with him a personal guard 100 strong, and an entourage of courtiers and hangers-on, who dug into Kingfisher Village like ticks. Taxes and takings increased, and villagers who resisted were beaten and humiliated.
Quickly, resistance to Kety’s corrupt governance arose, in the form of a bandit brotherhood known as the Seven Against the Throne. Lead by a masked master of the martial arts known only Red Iron Glare, the Seven began to take action against Kety’s corrupt retainers, though the governor presents himself as a paragon of virtue, and always seems aloof from their shady dealings. Their membership is secret, even to one another — they wear masks at all times and take on martial names to protect their families.
Kety’s injustices awakened a fire in Maya’s heart, and she asked her father for permission to train her in his martial arts so that she could join the Seven in their fight against Kety and was roundly rejected. Undaunted, she sought after and found a rumored swordmaster-hermit named Anteki who agreed to train her in the Agni-dama — the Disciplined Flame — a swift and free-flowing martial style. Her training went quickly — the techniques her father taught her when she was young seemed to blend seamlessly with Anteki’s instruction. Adepts of the Disciplined Flame can produce fire from the smallest spark and vanish like smoke in the wind, and once Maya had attained these techniques, she donned a black spirit mask and joined the Seven Against the Throne, taking the martial name Six Arrow Flight.
Maya’s playbook is the Outsider, whose narrative agenda is to act against convention. Her chosen sub-archetype is Rebel, which allows her to call on other members of the Seven Against the Throne to aid her, though she may also be called on to provide aid (potentially putting her in conflict with the other PCs).
Her stats are Fire+2, Metal+1, Wood+1, Water+0, Earth-1. She is quick, creative, and fiery, and has a good amount of personal discipline and patience, but she can be a little obsessive and incautious. Her style element, obviously, is Fire — the Agni-dama is a style that emphasizes overwhelming aggression from many directions.
Her first move is Reign of Assassins, which allows her to become undetectable using shadows and concealment. Her second move is Heroes Shed No Tears. This move is a more complex one — it ties into the core move Inner Conflict, which is an important part of the drama of Hearts of Wulin. Let’s take a look:
Source: Hearts of Wulin // Lowell & Cheng
Entanglements are key relationships noted on each PC’s character sheet that drive the drama of the story. When characters are placed in difficult, emotional situations due to their entanglements, they trigger this move (and mark XP — one of the few ways to do so in Hearts of Wulin), and are at risk of fleeing the scene or ‘marking an element,’ which is the HoW equivalent of taking damage. With that in mind, here is the text of Heroes Shed No Tears:
Source: Hearts of Wulin // Lowell & Cheng
The Heroes Shed No Tears move represents Maya’s resolve in the face of strife — she’s a tough lady, and in fraught situations, that shines through. When she succeeds on a Inner Conflict roll (even if she flees the scene), she can exert some control on people who saw her struggle, either getting a bonus against them in the future, making their Inner Conflict rolls tougher, or creating a new 1-1 scene with them.
Other Notables in the Red River Valley
The last part of character creation is envisioning the PC’s Entanglements — trianglar relationships that pull our main characters in different directions. To build those out, we’ll need some NPCs to play off, arising from the factions defined in our characters’ bios above. Let’s get into them:
The Two Swords Akhara
Despite representing two styles, the akhara has only one grandmaster, with each style taking turns at the school’s head. The current grandmaster is Rani-ji, a master of the Adamantine Tower style. She is advised by Kura-ji, a master of the Thousand Blades of Grass school. The two enjoy a largely healthy working relationship — Kura is young in his position, and often overwhelmed by Rani-ji, who has been waiting and preparing for decades for her turn as grandmaster. The former grandmaster, a wizened old practitioner of the Thousand Blades style named Rotha, still lives in the valley, having withdrawn to a solitary life in the forest for his final years, as is tradition among the warrior-elites of the Empire.
House Sinh
The seniormost member of House Sinh in the valley is Amiya Sinh, Kai’s great uncle and advisor, and an instructor of the Adamantine Tower at the Two Swords Akhara.
In the Sapphire Empire, older nobles are expected to enter a monastery in their later years, focusing on a life of contemplation and teaching the younger generations, and Amiya has entered his hermitage at the Two Swords Akhara. Technically, he is not supposed to meddle in House Sinh’s affairs, having renounced earthly life, but of course, this tradition is more honored in the breach than the observance and Amiya keeps a careful eye on his grand nephew.
Also present in the valley is Tevi Sinh, Kai’s young cousin and one of the akhara’s younger students. Tevi looks up to Kai as his elder but is extremely competitive and eager to make a name for himself in the House.
House Ukusha
The seniormost member of House Ukusha in the valley is Vikram Ukusha, Ral’s uncle, his father’s youngest brother. Vikram is a trader — crass and crude by the standards of the Empire’s great houses, but clever and insightful nonetheless. He comes and goes from Kingfisher Village and Bodhpur, the nearest major city to the south, trading rice, stoneware and metal tools, and always seeking an inroad in the Madhu trade. He frequently checks in on his favorite nephew with gifts and advice — Ral knows, of course, that his uncle’s favor is contingent on his status as the heir apparent.
Residing at the akhara with Ral is the aged Auntie Heartless, a longtime maid and advisor to the household. She has known Ral since he was a baby and trained him in matters of courtly dress and etiquette, as she did his father and Arun Ukusha as well. She seems harmless enough, but Ral can’t help notice how senior members of his household listen carefully when she speaks.
House Yhagga
The ambitious and rising House Yhagga is represented in the valley by Imperial governor the Virash Kety, a veteran of the Pretendership war and a skilled martial adept. Rumors of corruption swirl around Kety, but the dirty work is done by his retainers, and his personal honor remains largely unblemished.
His eldest son, Lan Yhagga, is a new and rising student at the Two Swords Akhara, studying the Adamantine Tower style, and as skilled as he is arrogant.
The Seven Against the Throne
Nobody really knows how many of them there are, or who they are, only that they are a band of skillful masked fighters who have united against the corruption brought by the new Imperial governor.
Red Iron Glare is acknowledged as first among equals — he speaks with the growl of an old man who has seen much tragedy, and wears a monkey mask carved from white willow.
Vengeful Blade is the group’s firebrand — quick to violence and eager to shed the blood of Kety’s corrupt retainers. Red Iron Glare cautions him that he may push things too far, too fast, but his young heart yearns for blood. He wears a rosewood mask carved in the likeness of a wrathful asura.
Entanglements & Vows
To close out character creation and the pilot, we’ll look at the PC’s starting entanglements, which come from the Hearts of Wulin ruleset, and their initial vows, which come from the Ironsworn ruleset. For this campaign, I’ll be using both vows and entanglements to drive the story forward and (hopefully) create drama between the characters. Each PC is created with one ‘general’ entanglement and one ‘romantic’ entanglement.
Here’s an example entanglement from the Hearts of Wulin book:
“I love _______, but my family member, ________, has been accused of a crime by them.”
They’re intended to be easy to run afoul of and hard to resolve, pitting personal desire against filial piety. Let’s get into them:
Kai’s Entanglements
My rival Lan Yhagga and I both vie for the attention of Maya,despite her apparent indifference to both of us.
Maya and Kai have caught one anothers’ eyes, and there is a growing attraction. She has other things to worry about, however, and is used to ignoring the attentions of young men and is aware of the dangers of their status differences, so she feigns indifference to him. Lan, the son of a rival clan, is also trying to woo her, which brings him and Kai into conflict.
My uncle, Amiya Sinh, suspects that my friend, Ral Ukusha, works against the interests of our House.
Amiya is concerned about the falling fortunes of House Sinh, and sees rivals everywhere. And he may well be right — House Ukusha has ambitions of their own, and may try to advance them through Ral.
Ral’s entanglements
Local authority Virash Kety is establishing an alliance with my uncle Vikram, but I do not trust him.
House Ukusha sees potential advantange in Kety’s position in the valley, and while they aren’t asking Ral to get involved, he might get dragged into it all the same.
I suspect my friend Maya Song’s father is the rebel Red Iron Glare.
Ral is an insightful man, and his careful study of both the rebel leader Red Iron Glare and the old innkeeper have led him to suspect they are one in the same. We don’t need to establish yet whether he is correct, but the old man’s martial skill (which Ral was able to glean by carefully studying the grace and care of his movements) is certainly a substantial piece of evidence.
I decided to envision only ‘general’ entanglements for Ral, rather than one general and one romantic, because Maya’s romantic entanglement will name Ral, creating a love triangle between the three PCs.
Maya’s Entanglements
RalUkusha loves me (as Six Arrow Flight), but that will change if he learns of my attraction to Kai Sinh.
At some point in the recent past, Ral encountered — perhaps even dueled — Maya in disguise as Six Arrow Flight. He became enamored of her rebellious fire, and the feeling was mutual. Maya knows the Ukushas are a more humble noble house, and the possibility of a marriage between them is at least less unthinkable than to a scion of House Sinh, but they both seem pretty out-of-reach. Add that to the fact that Ral could be a powerful ally to the Seven Against the Throne, and things become a bit messy between Kai, Ral and Maya. She’ll definitely work on untangling all of this — after Kety is dealt with. If Ral finds out her real identity before then, that will certainly complicate matters.
My friend Tevi Sinh suspects Vengeful Blade of evil, but I remain steadfastly loyal.
Vengeful Blade is the most extreme member of the Seven Against the Throne, and young Tevi Sinh claims to have witnessed him murder three sleeping guardsmen at a remote watchtower before disposing of the bodies. The investigation was inconclusive, and officially, the men are marked as deserters, but Tevi still insists he saw what he saw. The boy is known to tell tall tales, and Maya is mostly confident in Vengeful Blade’s sense of honor. Mostly.
Session 1: Initial Vows & Inciting Incident
It is the second year of Kety’s governorship, and to celebrate the upcoming Jai Festival, the Virash has sponsored a martial tournament with a princely prize. Martial adepts from other regions will be traveling to participate, honored dignitaries will be in attendance and the most skilled students are expected to represent the Two Swords Akhara.
Kai and Ral will both swear to their families that they will acquit themselves well at the tournament, before the eyes of the Empire. Their initial vows are I will bring honor to my family at the Jai Festival Tournament.
Maya, on the other hand, will swear to the Seven Against the Throne that she will use the tournament as an opportunity to reveal Kety’s corruption in front of his noble peers. Her initial vow is I will shame Virash Kety before his peers at the Jai Festival.
Session 1 will cover the swearing of these vows, and then move into Kai and Ral’s training for the tournament and Maya’s plan and preparations to shame Kety, which she will likely draw the boys into.
If the idea of martial arts melodrama in a fantastical ancient India intrigues you, choose this pilot! Voting will begin later this week, I’ll be sending out a poll link and then revealing the results on January 11. If you feel so inclined, leave a comment below with your initial thoughts on the three pilots, and as always, thanks for reading!
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and The House of Flying Daggers are a few of my favorites — they’re not the deepest cuts, but they’re truly great films that are worth checking out if you haven’t seen them.
It is a Wuxia convention that disguises are very effective at concealing one’s identity, even from people who know them well, and we’ll be employing that trope as well.
This is one of the ‘Martial Names’ suggested in the Hearts of Wulin book and as such it’s a bit more Wuxia than it is ancient Indian — but I liked it too much to forego it.
“Virash” is a fictional title derived from the Sanskrit word for ‘warrior’ — in this world, I’ll be using it as a rough equivalent of ‘Duke’ or ‘Count.’
Really love the setting ideas here, this is definitely gonna be my top pick.
This is going to be such a hard vote for me. I'm still so very stuck on Stonetop. I'll have to read/listen to all of them again!