Burning Shaolin is the first of the Coriolis line of D20
adventures published by Atlas Games. In
Coriolis, an adventure supports D20 and one of Atlas’ (or in this case, Robin
D. Laws’) Roleplaying Games. In this
first Coriolis adventure, you get a Feng Shui/D20 Adventure.
Expectations
I had the following expectations coming out of Burning
Shaolin. They were:
- A good
Wuxia rule base.
- An
evocative setting for an adventure.
- Also,
Campaign starting material.
Burning Shaolin fulfills all these quite nicely. In the words of Robin D. Laws, it is a “wild-and-wooly,
demon-butt-stomping, mook-filled, blows-up-real-good-at-the-end supersize can
of whup-ass.” In other words, it is
the introductory adventure good for fulfilling your Munchkin or Power Gamer
fantasies.
Base Systems
Burning Shaolin is written for two RPG systems: Robin D.
Laws’ Feng Shui and the D20 Fantasy Game System. For Feng Shui all you need is Feng
Shui. For the D20 Side of the
adventure, what you need is. . .
·
The Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition
Player’s Handbook.
·
The Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition
Dungeon Master’s Guidebook.
·
And the Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition
Oriental Adventures.
I don’t think I need to repeat myself, but here goes. You need Oriental Adventures to
create characters with the proper flavor, because the adventure’s setting is in
Mythical China. So create those Taoist Wu
Jen void disciples, those dexterous Shintao Monks (replaces Shaolin
Monks until somebody gets around to making a prestige class for them, hint
hint), maybe a Tattooed Monk or two, and combine them with your basic
fighter, rogue, Buddhist Priest combination (Cleric with either the Healing,
Law, Good, or Enlightenment Domains).
And, since this adventure is written by Robin D. Laws, Feng
Shui’s lawful owner, he wrote the adventure for 3-6 characters of 7th-9th
level. For 7th level
characters are the equivalent of beginning Feng Shui characters.
Basic Premise
There’s big
trouble brewing in Mythic China (or in the Dragon Lands of Rokugan). An evil Demon has taken a Feng Shui site for
himself and is seeking another Feng Shui site.
And all in the backdrop of Turmoil in the Imperial Government of China
during it’s age of Cultural Advancement (69 A.D.). A time when a Shaolin Monastery is need of your help (or Shintao
monastery). China is in need of brave
heroes to do the impossible . . . embedding their footprints permanently on one
demon’s scaly buttocks!
Adventure Overview and New Rules
Although some of the material presented in Burning
Shaolin may be of interest to players, they are urged to stop reading now
or they must commit seppuku!
The play begins when the heroes are at loose ends in a town
or city in Ancient China (or a small village in the Dragon Lands of
Rokugan). They either head there
because of a Feng Shui assignment (from the Prof.) or they need to get supplies
(in D20). However, somewhere along the
way they find five men, who are wounded.
What is worse is that a Faceless Horde of rioters wants to take
their lives. Their only defense is, of
course, the player characters. But how
can the player characters take on a bunch of people in a riot?
Wuxia, Feng Shui style!
They will fight them off, of course! For the DM is armed with the Chi of Wuxia
Style Combat! And it came to pass
that the DM introduced the Fu of Stunts, Player-Created Props, Extra
Mobility, Death-Defying Gravity and Improvised Weapons to his
group of munchies and power gamers.
The Fu of Stunts allows the D20 Player to come up with their
attacks in an entertaining way. Take
these examples:
1.
“I leap up into the air, slicing at his neck as I jump over
him!”
2.
“I jump into the air, twirling around like a top, slashing all
around me with my sword.”
3.
“I leap to the roof, and gathering all my Chi, I cast the
mighty Stinking Cloud down upon the riot with much intensity of muscle!”
The DM is encouraged to award an xp bonus equaling the
character’s level x 10 for the first time the stunt description is used in the
current fight.
The mighty Fu of Player Created Props encourages the players
to invent minor features of the set where the action scene appears. Here are some more examples.
1.
“I grab some shingles off of the roof, and using some
accuracy, throw them at the rioters!”
2.
The floor is tiled, so I use my toe to dislodge the tile, and
then kick it towards Kan Kuei’s nasty, scaly head.”
3.
“I grab some sulphur from an Alchemist’s shop and focusing my
Chi on the sulphur and saying some choice words, I cast my devastating Fireball!”
Of course, to keep your munchies from going overboard, you
the DM is encouraged to rule out certain props that are obviously have no place
in the setting of the adventure. You
should rule out rods of smiting, sub-machine guns, and all sorts of
props that do not appear in Drunken Master, or Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon.
The Fu of Extra Mobility is just that, extra mobility for
player characters in the game. In
Kung-Fu movies, characters are always in fluid action during a fight. This makes your player characters maximum
distance for forward or upward leaps is doubled, unless one of your players is
playing a sword dancer.
The Fu of Defying Gravity (called Gravity, Schmavity in the
adventure) makes any structure capable of supporting your weight. For any entertaining move should not be
ruled out by the requirements of basic physics.
And the Fu of Improvised Weapons means that in a fight,
characters rarely finish a fight with the weapons they started with. So this means that they might be
disarmed. The big plus for munchies is
if they lost a magical weapon, their improvised weapon does the same damage as
the original to monsters that can only be hit by magic weapons!
And so, on with the adventure’s overview . . .
The fight takes place in the village square. Thus there are a lot of improvised weapons,
and places to put foes. Just make sure
you break the fruit cart and let the chickens loose. After the Faceless Horde is defeated, the player characters meet
the five wounded. They include
No-thumbs Chan, No-Foot Li, No-Tongue Chow, No-Guts Mui, and No-Eyes Lau. These guys are members of the Dragons and
sworn enemies of Kan Kuei.
To stop Kan Kuei, the adventurers must seek out Johnny Ko,
who resides in Limbo. After venturing
through Limbo, they come upon Johnny Ko, who gives them an overview of Kan Kuei
and asks the player characters face up to Kan Kuei, especially if he is trying
to take over or destroy some interesting or unusual location (a Chi power
center).
So the player characters go to Kan Kuei’s base and, of
course, face down two or three demon monks – Sung Chien, Sung Pi, and Sung
Kun. After their little fight with the
demon monks, they find a supporting character in the way of Chein Cheih, they
must head towards the Shaolin Temple at Bountiful Mirror Lake.
This is one of the Interesting or Unusual Locations that
Johnny Ko talked about. This is the
location where the Big Beatdown happens and your player characters get their
chance to make a lasting impression on Kan Kuei. Yeah right, on his buttocks.
Besides facing down another faceless hoard, the player
characters have a faceless hoard on their side. The fight between Lawful Good faceless hoard and Chaotic Evil
faceless hoard has begun. And the
player characters fight Kan Kuei and do some Kung Fu Butt Kicking!!
In the aftermath, they saved a Chi power site and saved the
Shaolin master. Further adventures can
go along this vein; save other feng shui sites from other secret power groups
(of course, you need Feng Shui to follow this campaign) or the player
characters can return to leading a normal adventurer’s life.
Other Features
The D20 part of the adventure features some new D20
plug-ins. They include the Faceless
Horde, the rod of lingering agony, the demon monks, and flying
coffins. Sadly, the adventure wasn’t
meant to be a hard bridge between Feng Shui and the D20 fantasy game
system. So don’t expect to use the
adventure as a conversion guide between two great systems.
Overview
This adventure is the first true Oriental Adventures
adventure. Besides showing how
versatile the rules in Oriental Adventures are, even though it does not
use Oriental Adventures nomenclature, it also shows how versatile the
Open Game License really is. And this
adventure is perfect for a bunch of players to fulfill and burn out their
Munchkinism in an All Out, No Holds Barred, Wu-Jen Spellslinging, Tattoo Monk
fire-breathing, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stunt-flying, Samurai
kiai-ing, rip-roaring, “KUNG FU KICKS BUTT!” Adventure!
I give this
adventure a 4 for style, and a 5 for substance.
