Ryoko Owari (Journey’s End City) is more commonly known as the City of Lies and it is from this classic Legend of the Five Rings boxed set that much of the information for this campaign will be drawn. Opening the boxed set reveals:
- A Map of the city (of course) – black and white approximately A3 in size
- A map of Rokugan – actually a very handy map of the Emerald Empire (note if you have the 3E Oriental Adventures map there are notable discrepancies and this map not the OA one should be considered more accurate for use with Rokugan).
- 5 “books”
- Introduction to Ryoko Owari – 8 pages long for the DM only.
- The Journal of Asidaka Naritoki – a player handout/prop
- City of Green Walls – The location guide for the city. 56 pages.
- City of Stories – Player’s Guide to Ryoko Owari. 88 pages.
- City of Lies – The GM’s Guide to Ryoko Owari. 95 pages.
All in all the books provide a comprehensive guide to the city and the major players while still leaving enough space for a DM to play around in to suit their own purposes. In particular the DM’s guide uses a particularly interesting approach to the NPCs giving each major NPC 2 or 3 different plot hooks for the DM to choose from, and making it so that even if a player has read the book the answer for the campaign must be discovered through playing.
So not wanting to stomp all over AEG’s copyright material (as you can buy the product from DriveThroughRPG in pdf format (see here)) the following is going to be a brief outline of the city to expand on the ideas put forward in the first article for this campaign.
Parts of the City
The city is roughly divided into 5 sections; Leatherworker’s Quarter, Fisherman’s Quarter, Merchant Quarter, Temple Quarter, Licensed Quarter, and Noble Quarter. Yes I notice that there are 6 quarters, but the Leatherworker’s & Licensed quarters are actually outside the city and so not truly “quarters”. In addition to these highly urban areas there are other areas of interest around the city itself including a number of villages, a bandit camp or two and a nearby mystical temple and its associated lands.
For the L5R campaign PCs are assumed to live in the Noble Quarter and have authority over the nobles to some extent granted to them via the distant Emperor. In a DnD campaign a different approach could well be to place the PCs in the more difficult position of being residents of the Merchant Quarter. The simple reason for this is that DnD characters will quickly surpass the physical power of many of the key NPCs and so means other than “combat power” may be needed to keep the campaign on course. Thus while the PCs are operating in the Heroic Tier they can be hired by the nobles and become entangled in their plots and schemes, making friends and enemies, only to find themselves thrust among them in Paragon when they are elevated to be members of the noble families. Making this dangerous is then a matter of politics being “life or death” as it is in the default setting of Rokugan.
- Kawa no Kin (Golden River): The river divides the city in half, widening to be the “Bay” of Drowned Honor between the Moment’s Edge Bridge and the Bridge of Drunken Lovers. Just south of the city proper it runs around Teardrop Island.
- Leatherworker’s Quarter: This slum lies on the south eastern edge of the city. It is populated by the people who handle the city’s wastes, the dead, torturers, and tanners. As such the region has a particular odour that is quite unmistakable. The most notable features of the region are the city’s crematorium (there is no graveyard in the city) and the marketplace where you can purchase mostly fertiliser for farmers, but more importantly black-market goods are also available here. The quarter is notable (other than for its aroma) for being flat (no buildings of more than 1 story largely), brown (unpaved roads and mud covered dwellings) and bright (it is spread out allowing a lot more light in than most of the rest of the city). This is the part of the city where you are most likely to find “evil” races such as goblins, kobolds and orcs as they can trade with the less scrupulous elements of the quarter.
- Fisherman’s Quarter: This quarter lies on the eastern shore of the Bay of Drowned Honor and is surrounded by city wall. Much like the Leatherworker’s quarter to the south this part of the city has a distinct odour as well, fish and smoke. The Fisherman’s quarter is where the cities craftsmen and sailors live, work and play. It contains smokehouses, warehouses, opium dens, taverns, brothels, inns and the homes of its residents. The roads of the quarter are narrow and cramped, some so narrow that a person in heavy armour cannot pass through! Most buildings are low to the ground still but their closeness and the haze of smoke that hangs over the quarter can blot out the sun. The number of fires, and the wooden construction of many of the buildings makes firemen among the most important people in the quarter. Unfortunately the city’s governing nobles do not supply these people, instead they are the drawn from the local populace. As a result of this the firemen are the quarters most dangerous gangs, resorting to extortion, bribery and violence to ensure they control the quarter.
- Mechant Quarter: Across the Bay of Drowned Honor from the Fisherman’s Quarter is the Merchant Quarter. Dominated by warehouses and merchant stores this quarter is loud, wealthy, bright and fast. The buildings are tall with dramatic curves of roof that carve the sky into crescents. This quarter runs the gamut from wealthy merchants carried in palanquins to new merchants dressed as well as they can manage but mostly wearing an aura of greed as they hustle, scheme and above all sell, sell, sell. This is the quarter where people from outside the city most attempt to come, and where the nobles mix with the common folk, and with its wealth it also brings taxes and corruption of the more financial sort. It is here that characters will hear the most talk of lands beyond the city, in fact the merchants are particularly dissatisfied with the land’s treasurer feeling he (unlike the city’s governor and her lord) unduly taxes the cities residents, using taxes as a weapon because he cannot do anything else to affect the city or its lords.
- Temple Quarter: West of the Merchant Quarter lies the Temple District, the single largest building in which is the temple of the god of wealth (Daikoku (Big Money!) in Rokugan, Waukeen in FR, etc), a structure that is so large that part of the quarter is known as the god’s shadow. The quarter is one of the quietest of the city’s quarters, the street-side vendors wait for customers instead of crying out, the chants of monks blend with the songs of birds as you walk the wide sunlit streets. The quarter is so placid that even its firemen are respectable! Aside from the massive temple to wealth there are a few other notable faiths, the prominent god of the kingdom (Amertarasu the sun goddess in Rokugan) has a temple here, as do a few other favoured local goods such as the God of Trickery.
- Licensed Quarter: On Teardrop Island there is only one business, entertainment, and the island is a world apart from the rest of the city. Here horses are rare, and the sounds of music and laughter (and other pleasures) are common. Here are play houses, brothels, taverns and opium dens. Here a noble can relax their guard as weapons are not permitted on the island, here a noble can enjoy their wealth without the strictures of society at large. Here decadence is sedate and refined and suits the appearance of the clientele. The whole island is now manicured to create a sense of relaxation and pleasure, the buildings are carefully signed, and sedate in design, the gardens are well cared for, and lanterns (magical and otherwise) keep the island well lit throughout the day and night. Here it is easy to relax, enjoy and forget the troubles of the world outside. One thing stands out here from all the others though, the House of Foreign Stories is a tavern & play house run and staffed by people from distant lands or other planes (in Rokugan theses are simply people from outside the Empire, but in DnD these could be Gith, Succubi, Fey, and so on).
- Noble Quarter: High on a hill to on the south eastern side of the city sits the Noble Quarter. All the smells of the city seem to commingle in the noble quarter, every delicacy finds its way here when perfected, and here the houses are the largest, the buildings the most graceful, and the gates and gardens the most well kept. Even the paved roads are kept smooth and even to be comfortable beneath the feet of nobles and their steeds. If a thing is good in Ryoko Owari eventually its best comes here, of course this means that the intrigue of the city is at its peak in this quarter. Here is where you are most likely to end up dead for a mis-step in an intrigue, not because your opponent kills you personally, but because you are left ruined and are arrested for execution.
In a DnD world there is a great deal of scope to exploit much of the city, especially if the players are initially restricted from entering Teardrop Island and the Noble Quarter. It is particularly important to realise that a lot can happen in the city as it is huge, and in a fantasy setting not everyone that is working to gain power needs to be a PC Race. Monsters like Illithid, Beholders and such should be drawn to the city and its underworld. Consider that the population should be 30,000 or more people and that people in Paragon tier should not be unknown and you have a lot of scope for trouble.
Plots
In the City of Lies book there are several plots loosely outlined for the DM to call on in setting up a campaign. For the purposes of this campaign there are three major plots lines I see as relevant that can be tied together to bring the PCs into a position where they become central to the later Iuchiban story.
- The Truth is Out There – Part 1: In this plot the PCs become entangled in a group claiming to gain powers from a dead god (say in 4E core the former god of death Nerull). Investigating this group ultimately leads into the module Night of 1000 Screams.
- The Truth is Out There – Part 2: In Rokugan there is a sinister organisation called the Kolat (which very little was known about at the time of this book, and so things changed a lot after it was released). In the module they are involved in the summoning of a demon and binding it to an unwilling noble. This noble then makes a good villain for as they try to implement the schemes of their master. This can in turn be linked to the Iuchiban plot because of the tie in with the demon.
- Opium Wars – This plot is expanded on and what could be considered a “Treatment” is given for it. This plot of nobles is a good way of getting the PCs involved in what the noble families are doing.
All three of these plots are easily tied together with missing persons, threats from gangs, and so on. The PCs can become “people’s champions” and rise in attention until they are trusted by the nobles and moved into more important roles. Key here is that for example the noble for The Truth is Out There part 2 could be an ally for the Opium Wars and The Truth is Out There part 1, but an enemy when related to their own plots. This sort of intertwined plot is difficult to carry off but creates rewards when the players have to resolve those conflicts of interest by creating challenges that cannot simply be solved with a roll of the dice.
The next entry for the campaign will look at the existing NPCs and how to tweak them for DnD use.