(Guapre Five: Thus oF Sus. EHAPTER FIVE: FACES OF. SICK Sincerity is'the way of Heaven. = Mencius, Works. Many aspects of Storftelling for the Wan Kuei don't sft if yal wari do somieteseaith, che bibliography in change from on¢ a to the next. Before ting Blood the Introduction sw Good plate ro start. & Silk chronicle, take the time toreview Chapter Seven a a y SE indeed ofthe Ease. The tater blow covey she aE Founparjons — problems and opportunities unique tothe Fourth, hhoy’to handle thentin your chronicle. SETTING THE SCENE You've decided to undertake a Blood & Silk chronicle: Your players like the idea of playing in a different part of the World of Darkness, removed in both time and space from the ‘usual setting. Everyone's willing to make the effort to play in another culture. How.do you help your players (and yourself)get a feel for the setting? Ithelps to do a little study of the time'and’place you choose to start yout chronicle. You don’t have to do. homework — hobody’s going to'come around and make ‘youtake a test. I?'Sjust that the moréyou know, the'more {yoit can improvise. Playersalways think of something you didn’t, and you should feel Gonfident in yGuPability to ‘cavérthe plotholes, The better afeel” you can get for the settingy the better off you'll be. Keep in mind, however, that this is a game about vampires, not a high schdol hatteppeehaee ore ‘Some parts of Asian society chanke very little through cout the centuries of the fate Fourth Age. Each of the following sectionsprovides Youqwith some generalizations ‘on life acsthe time;-tohelp you porray/ these major settings. They'also provide a,series-of Vignettes, quick svehemihat you cof yeas ready made story ceede-of simply 95 source of furdherinsight. Crres ano Viuiages Except inithe immediare aftermathoof war, plague and, other disasters,settlements of all sizes arecrowded. People swarm the streets on their yarious errands, Soial distine- tons manifest theiiselves at every turn, Peasants deferto soldiers andmerchants, often With a show of contempt along with fear or envy, Everyone gers out of the way of rich péople and officials. Withini@aeWClass, finer grada- tions emerge. Low-ranking bureaucrats yield to theif superiors,and this often means old men who lacked the; right connectigys yielding to young then who had better fortune, Thegies of children to paréptsand theirextended‘thei various (and at times wayward) charges. igersseldom find much in the way of welcome.In._best.-. fait Migetl ried of the pope ore atadjone Perot / another, and strangers immediately stand out. Children gather to stare at themjuntil the local civil authorities arrive todemand iiforma ties and business. In big ities, people pele ignore the. gf Strangers, unlesslocal cohniversseeach it honest or not). 2 Peasants build wth whatever materials néar atband? ‘wood, mud and stone; mosteommonly. Keep intaind: Jong-settled areasoften lose all theitnative forests and that, thereafter, wood buildings are marks of status, ait ind thar! he the yery pootest family homes consist of a square or angle of buildings set aouind.an interioc courtyard Ac nearly blank wall faces the. public a N's personal affairs govomiat'a bit “divellers build larger, more permanentstructutes- selying on stone quarried! some distance away from't es three stories abov'ground level. | eas City homes and businesses sometimes rise two a he wailing over what they must Some.cities and towns are very clean, whent ment as pur people and authoritiescare about it. Othersare just & A dirty village often signifies trouble — some-local ce ntkunn ee cireumstance makes people feel uncertain that it’s worth the effort to clean up. Chinese and othereivilized peoples tend oseeal barbarian setlementeas ty, whetherthey actually are or not. i Vignettes of City and Village Life: © A smalf shrine of the road carries a Sign with the “name of the next town. Plaques commemorate honors eee to inhabitants of the town, and-usually (but not or god of the town receives sacifices here i The town cemetery occiipies-a-hill a few. poe Way —an artificial mound, ifthe surrounding fand flat. Are the graves well-tended? Have families been. ~ performing the properritesto honor their aitcestors? Walk Kueican see the ghosts: Do they'seameantent, drdo they 1% have complaints? If the ghosts do:cotaplain, are fo ges serious0r init just the whining of bored souls ing something to fill die time? * One of the characters deitiok shatural power. NoBody visibly recoils (unless the poweris verily” a destructive), but bystanders find reasons to be elsewhere = immédiately and in all future encounters with the, ‘uncouth stranger. Thereafter, that characser and any- ‘one known as his associate facesa +1 or greater difficulty Penalty of social interactions, unless somehovt he can ‘earn back the-favor of the townspeople * The charactérsfind the outskirts of town deserted, ‘There'sa festival going on inthe center oftown. It might honor the birthday of a.prominenc, inhabitant of the w town, celebrate some great event in the tdwn’s history (like victory over invaders) of mark the completion of (egeteeefamilies show when responsible adults try t0.round up — some part of the annual fatming cycle. Whatever the about the strangers’ identi than his used | getting demoted forsome offense. ter stumbled unawares int lways) identify high-ranking officials. The suardian spitie., ~This is stoop labor year. (Some exceptionally fertile areas \get*three, at a ferocious cost in labor.) In between crops, villagers must 7 4 ‘Broo & Sux, oceasion, itléts the characters see townspeople at theit ‘and lets unscrupulous people examine the rest of. the town unseen by anyone except the aged and infirm, who cannot take partin the festivities. srAftcua charac etbungletsotne social it@ction ith. local officials, let her allies study the situation. to haps Disciplines) leads to the in- the current magistrate isoflowersocial stand-\s who to be the magistrate . The offending d knot, which wu. Keepin } might-be untied (0 che advantage of 1¢ HebWork-of mortal ob! “plex asthe Wan Kul pretation system and includes, many more participants. “s(¢-The chataeters find a rown being hinitesin “J ‘one too many wars, famines or floods (or ) and other calamities) well. The town's families drag their precious, ines a governor imposés abandon went for a town’s ihisdeeds.Do the” cents? face ‘of manifest'wickedness? Do the characters try £0. per [risk offending any. warching ane®stors of involved and risk offending. the” mortal wy through some inadvertent slight? Fars 8 Mariy people aitust | ters sympathize with the bel themselves and.the city i whére there's enough water for it, bug its" -equiresanenorthousamount of abot The ‘specially.eerided bes. LBs aod eae break up the ground of the rice paddies, chen flood them, a Women tra seedlings to the draining paddies. - contributes ta early back: takes 2 day's labor (or even more) to. plantrot than the womafuistall. The wn corns out dur pro get the paddies seeded The rice:then grows for three months (more or esi~. depending on how favorable pansy ak atest time, women and mei use knives to cut “stalks. Bundles ofstal the threshers, who grind stalks to let the heavy: |and the lighter chaff | away. Harvesting req whole like planting; few days’ error can lea ‘of a Grop. Once threshed, the rice Millers then pound the grains to split hulls and extract the white rice within. More pounding produces rice flour. Most parts of the Middle Kingdom produc rice top. Very rain and warm areas-get two crops.per: 4ss that Keep the paddi moist and myst stored spread fercilizer tegularly, Pad- dies mustbé level, and claiming new paddies out of hilly land requires constructing terraces. There’s never much time off for rice growers. Discupting this cycle atariy poi means losing some or allof the:haryest: Ory the most thoroughly. callous brigandsd that. Mést banditry takes place in che weeks after harvest, when the bandits can élaim their share of the newFice gains, In countries so ull of people, it's easier to find more laborers than it is to get more land under cultivation aid only great magic can répair a crop once damaged along the way. a Bea. grow, everything from wheat silk. Riceis the universal erop, however, the bnethatformany philosophers marks the presénce of civilized humanity © ‘Vignettesiof Farm Life: © |” * While'on some other mission, the wu finds devas- tied rice paddies: kes boken fale polluféd, no one working. It’s either planting or harvesting time, one of \. those critical moments, when the work tag, get done, Without help, the villagers will die. Do the characters help?Isitajuscpanishment oran evilWarkanting Heaven's ‘wrath? Where is duty whénisuffering calls? Do the charac- “ers even care about mortal pain and starvation? # The we passes a series of healthy fields on its way to the Aéxetown. Many opportunities fSrsmall encoune) tersarise along the way. Farmers often workhefore dawn. and after sunset. Children tend the gates of irrigation, ‘ystems. It’s a standard of-rothantic stories for appassing stranger to fall in love with a beayrifulmaiden working lin the fields; creatures asdriven as the Wan Kuei may |) well fulfill che cliché = at lease uncil cheies nature comes-to the fore. . 4 Waperness - Ih some parts.of the Fourth Age Middle Kingdom, ess presses\close, such as inthe mountains of iP an and Korea. In others, it’s far from anywhere.the acters might goXAlmost all of easf@m China, for instance, has been settled for hundreds or thousands 3b Yyears,and the landscape is altogether tame. Wherever ‘the landsis wild; ®'holds a combined fascination and ‘error for civilised sortals, Chinese influenced notions of “wildefMess” usually feature mountains: The steep-sloped,, round-topped ‘mountains of Chinese painting aren’e just séjlized — theyereallY exist high up the great river valleys. Beyond ‘them, the-Himalayas, Tien Shan and other mountain ringes separatéthe Middle Kingdom from the barbarian *Sworld beyond. The peasshold the tutns of ancienccities, Thurman and otherwise, and @wide variery of monsters, in _ addition tothe purely natural remrors of desolation, ‘exposure and the like. p ? ‘