Special Report from Another Reality: The Mad Monks and The Doom Pagodas

 This is a special session report detailing my first solo adventure tabletop game using Mad Monks of Kwantoom and Red Tide. 

Here I will describe the session as well as give my feelings about the solo experience and my experience with using Mad Monks of Kwantoom.

The setting is different from Yoon-Suin, but as well has that Asian flavor so I am using this blog to do the session report. The report is two sessions, one taking up most of one afternoon and another taking up an hour in the morning. Session one was me creating the characters and figuring out how to run the game as well as playing it. Session two was finishing up the adventure.

Creating the characters was a bit troublesome since I had to figure out what game I was using since I don't have Labyrinth Lord which Mad Monks is used for. I tried using OSE thief rules for the monks, but found it too bothersome because of the complexity so I settled on using Delving Deeper's thief rules for the monks for ease of use.  So the rules I was using ending up a combination of OSE and Delving Deeper.  

This highlights a snag that I have with most Asian supplements for tabletop games.  The specialist classes for Asianic media archetypes are too persnickety. Why create a specific martial artist class when you can just make a fighter and play him as a martial artist? Give him a monk robe and say that he can punch people so hard that they explode sort of deal. Why create a Ninja when you can just use a thief? Also, Mad Monks specialist classes involve a lot of clauses, exceptions, and references to other classes which causes a lot of busy work. It is what I mean by problem with specialist Asian classes, asides for the potential othering of Asian peoples. Asian countries don't have fighters, they have "special" classes. 

On this note, I don't find the writer of Mad Monks, Kabuki Kaiser, to be othering Asian people. I find his work actually to be colourful and delightful.  The problem is a broader phenomenon with people's attitude.  

Enough of my babbling, let's get to the session report.

I decided to make the setting a post-apocalyptic fantasy a la Adventure Time or, for your older folks out there, Ralph Bakshi's Wizards to give a reason why there are all these Indian, Japanese, and Chinese elements mixed together.  The world ended somehow sometime and magic and the Gods returned, with the Yellow Springs where the Pagodas of Doom reside being an island off of Japan colonized by a Chinese civilization at one point and with Kwantoom being a city on the edge of a post-apocalypse, fantastical Japan where Ninja, Samurai, Yokai, and Anime Protagonists roam.  (Perhaps this will change with the Yellow Springs being Taiwan and Kwantoom being on an Ryukyu Island.) I hope I am not offending anyone with my post-apocalypse depiction of Asia, I am just trying to be playful with these characters and the setting.

Our Heroes or Adventurers included:

Endo Yumi, the Widow Rohin.  

Endo Yumi is a Tengu and once was a holy Tengu woman who through years of discipline and good deeds was granted apotheosis to the realm of the Gods. However, she declined that grant because she felt in love with a moral woodcut artist and chose to live with him in the moral world. (I've cripped from some Japanese media that I wonder if it was inspired by the Tale of the Bamboo cutter.) That, however, happened a long time ago, now the moral man is dead and all of Endo Yumi's half-Tengu children have flown the coop.  Her nest empty, Endo Yumi decides to becoming a wandering Rohin as essentially for her long-living mid-life crisis.  She wears white for mourning, so perhaps she looks like a female-version of Unosuke from Yojimbo for human disguise. She is a master of the Style of the Five Ancestors (Perhaps she taught or learned with those five).  

Kamei Sachiko, the Run-Away Kunoichi. 

Kamei Sachiko is a ninja of the Technique of the Flying Leg.  She was actually rather the runt of the litter in her ninja clan and relegated to being a roper. However, one day, she killed - - - accidentally -  - - the master of her clan. Now she is on the run from every ninja of her clan who are out to get "The One who killed their Master!" (Yes, it is that martial art motif turned on its head.)  Kamei Sachiko prefers actually to use her bare hands and limbs for assassinations and is this octopus-like grappler who strikes from out of the shadows.  I think she is the one who looks the most like an anime character with her having blue hair. 

Aso Akira, the Kappa Kuroko.  

Aso Akira was once a Kappa poet-monk and master of Kalaripayat.  However, after unwillingly committing an undetermined act of horror and sin, he was thrown out as a monk and became a kabuki apprentice in penance and also as a way of continuing his creativity after not being able to be a poet. As a kuroko, kabuki apprentice, he cannot speak, only communicate by extravagant gestures. He does this for the apprenticeship, but also for the penance.  He wears only black and veils his face of giant round eyes, which, considering he is a Kappa, must make him a foreboding figure indeed.

(A side note here: I gained these names for my characters from Kevin Crawford's Red Tide. In that book, the Japan-esque civilization, the Shogunate of the North is this demon worshiping nation, essentially Eastern religion version devil worshiping Japanese, which makes me wonder what kind of Japan is this in the post-apocalypse.  In Red Tide, the Shogunate worships the Hell-Kings who are based on the Chinese Buddhist Judges of Hell or Yamas, but I wonder what if in this setting the chthonic deity worshiping is a little more Shinto based. Perhaps when the apocalypse event occurred, the Emperor of Japan or someone in Japan prayed for deliverance from the cataclysm and the only Kami who answered their prayer was Izanami, Queen of the Underworld. Now the Japanese of the post-apocalypse only worship the chthonic Kami, Oni, and Yokai, and shun the positive, bright Kami, who betrayed and abandoned Japan, just like how Izanagi betrayed and abandoned Izanami in the underworld.

For those who don't know much about Shinto mythology you probably don't understand this. I'm not an expert in Shinto so I cannot say this is accurate, only I am fascinated with the idea of a Japan that worships Yokai and Oni demons instead of Kami and if you know me, I am a sucker for grotesque, Queen of Demons Goddesses, like how I am envisioning Izanagi here. "Oho, Liberty, is adding another terrible Demon Queen Goddess figure into one of his setting! Who would of guessed.")

These three, seeing that their only resort is to try and strike it out in Kwantoom, meet each other by the road on the way to the City of Innocent Deaths.  They soon strike up a friendship. Endo Yumi tries to put on a older sister/mentor role with Kamei Sachiko and Aso Akira is a humorous and mysterious third, male go-between member.

They reach the city and since they actually know nothing about Kwantoom, decide to stay in the Little Heavenly Murder district because of its other name: the Tengu Ghetto because one of their own is a Tengu. However, they are lost and overwhelmed by the intensity of the city and the district on the first day and end up spending the day and night in the abandoned, gloomy gutter. Next day is more sunny and cheerful. Aso Akira buys a mediocre poem from the Brothers of the Forest.  Da Mei sells Kamei Sachiko a large wooden chest (they need somewhere to put their treasure). They all eat an filling meal of Mountain Surprise at the Golden Snake and have miso at Kitsune Miso Soup.  Endo Yumi buys a Katana from Lam Lun's Dojo.  Kamei Sachiko makes friends with the ninjas of a Shady Office, getting a Ninjato and 16 throwing stars from them.  Endo Yumi meets two fellow Tengus, warrior veterans no less, .  The three debate with the Tengu warriors, offering to hire the Tengu warriors for their journey into the Pagodas of Doom.  A fair offer of a full share of the loot combined with charisma and Endo Yumi being one of them, convinces the Tengu warriors to join the party as henchmen.  

With their weapons, meager belongings, and their grim and unnervingly emotionless faced Tengu warrior allies, our heroes pay a boatman to take them to the Yellow Spring Island which is located in the Sea of Poisonous Jewels in this setting.  

The boatman leaves them off at a Pagoda of Doom near the shore with the Pagoda's entrance looming ominously at the shore.  No monsters vex them and they enter the Pagoda.  The first door they look into has a trap which Kamei Sachiko disarms by throwing a rock, activating the darts in the walls.  The trap seems to have been guarding a strange statue of a hideous demon, but nothing of value.  The party continues on through another door whereupon they immediate meet with a group of 15 ruffian-looking and sketchy men.  Both parties are surprised and the criminal gang is uncertain about the party of five. However, our heroes are just as shady as the gang and suggest to let by gones be by gones and let each other be on their way. They even go so far as to say they won't touch or try and steal the criminals' treasure. This appeases the criminals and they allow our three heroes and two Tengu warriors to continue exploring the Doom Pagoda.

Our heroes continue down the passageway and soon come across a heavy barred door and hear the sounds of a fire on the other side of it. They quickly realized that this is where the criminals store their ill-gotten gain.  Our three heroes and two Tengu warriors then get into a debate on whether to be true to their word for the criminals or try and steal the treasure. Endo Yumi is for stealing the treasure beyond the door as she is attempting an imitation of rohin scoundrel, however Kamei Sachiko, having 'honour amongst thieves" standards (she's a kunoichi, but a kunoichi with standards, dammit), convinces everyone no to betray the criminals and they do not steal the treasure.

They press on through the corridor, coming to a huge square room, held up by four large pillars.  At the other end of this chamber, our heroes met 16 more criminals, brewing a strange, golden, bubbling liquid in their hideout.  The criminal gang's leader is impressed by the integrity of the party not stealing their treasure or attacking them and an alliance is quickly forged. The criminals give the party each five vials of the bubbling golden liquid (a potion of extra healing) and our heroes return back to the entrance of the doom pagoda to journey down the last, unexplored passageway.  

They discover a corridor going parallel to the passageway.  One way of the corridor leads to a dead end, but the party follows the other hazy end to a small circular room where a pool of phosphorescent darkness (it emits a dark light) resides.  They go back to the criminals in their lair and discover that the criminals brew the potion of extra healing from the phosphorescent darkness. The darkness is a liquid that is endowed with healing properties and functions like a potion of healing, but not extra healing.  Our heroes convince the criminals to give them more vials so that they can fill them with the phosphorescent darkness.  

Our heroes leave the pagoda with five vials of extra healing and five of regular healing as well as being friends with the criminal gang. However, though well-stocked and allied, they have not acquired any treasure. Thus they continue staying on Yellow Springs Island to raid the Pagodas of Doom until they find fortune or die.  

Our heroes and their tengu warrior allies find the entrance to another Doom pagoda without trouble and walk in.  They decide to search double-door passage, discovering that it runs parallel to the double doors and is illuminated by three, low glowing candles.  The corridor is misty and hard to see in with the low light of the candles and the party's torch, held aloft by one of the tengu warriors.  They find the origin of the mist is a open barrel of vaporous turquoise liquid. One of the tengus drinks it and is fine (the party doesn't know that it is a potion of fire resistance).  The party becomes uneasy by the course of things shaping yet continue down the corridor, finding it going off 90 degrees to their left. 

The corridor becomes not just misty, but becomes filled with smoke. A single glass lantern lights the passage way. The party discovers another keg, this one filled with more bubbling, golden liquid.  The liquid is what is making the smoke.  Endo Yumi is brave enough to taste this liquid and discovers it is a potion of flying.  She and the other tengus are delighted because it makes them able to fly for a lot longer, (ten rounds in fact), while Aso Akira and Kamei Sachiko are content with staying walking on the ground.  

They journey on through the corridor, appearing in a Persian-esque carpetted room with a Guan Yin statue at the other edge and a door on the left wall.  Our heroes move the carpet a little to see how heavy it is, accidentally releasing three Ting men from its embroidery.  The tiny, fly-like Ting men are happy to have been freed from being imprisoned in the carpet and give the party their bag of 35 sliver pennies.  

The party chagrined at the prospect of having just 35s sliver pennies, try at the door on the left. They discover it is locked. Endo Yumi is upstaged by Aso Akira, a mere kappa kuroko, breaking down the door when she was unable to crush the same door down.  However, Aso Akira's luck is not good either for the door was booty-trapped with an arrow flying straight for him immediately when he broke down the door.  Kamei Sachiko grabs him out of the way in the nick of time. However, the arrow sails past them and hits one of the Ting men, instantly splatting him into oblivion.  The party abruptly runs away down the door's corridor before the two remaining Ting men are soured by this.

The corridor they flee into is a bizarre hallway with tall walls where chimes ring in the upper heights. The chimes ring because hot wax inexplicably drips down from the darkness of the ceiling.  The party fears the dripping wax will snuff out their torch, but nothing like that happens as they run down the hall.

They dash into a small open square room where 14 strange-looking little men in colorful, ornate military clothes squat around a tiny bag.  They are strange-looking because they all have the same features (tiny, bearded, gruff-looking) except for their clothes and decorated helms which are different. 13 of them have skin as white as scorpion larva while the 14th one has yellow skin like a lemon and wears a conical hat. Their bodies are slightly see-through, revealing that they seem to be made up of gems inside their skin.  With their men of gem and earth are a family of three gaunt humans, their slaves.  A small hole is in the ground where these men have come from.  

The men of gem and earth are wary of the party who have stormed in. Aso Akira and Kamei Sachiko in this time have whisked away into the shadows to hide and the gem men are unaware of them, seeing only the three tengus. Endo Yumi meanwhile attempts to parlay with the gem men.  The attempt goes nowhere, with the tengu and the men of gem and earth tensely standing off with one another but not attacking.  As the tengus try and cool things down, Kamei Sachiko is able to discern what is in the little bag they are huddled around.  It is merely a scrap of paper skin with a tattoo on it, a tattoo depicting one of the gem men, the tattoo glows faintly with magic.

The debate between the tengu and men of gem and earth goes on, but the men of gem and earth are suspicious of the tengus and see them as easy-prey, quickly surprising the tengu by surrounding and attacking them.  In this hot rush of battle, the three tengu are discombobulated and are hit badly, one of the tengu warriors immediately going down and dying before he could fight back.  Endo Yumi and the other tengu warrior survive by quaffing their healing potions. 

Yet the men of gem and earth have not seen Kamei Sachiko and Aso Akira hidden in the darkness and soon these two leap out of the shadows to defend their feathered friends and allies.  Aso Akira plain eviscerates into pieces one gem man who ganged up on the fallen tengu while Kamei Sachiko splits another gem man by Endo Yumi a horrendous gash down his body.

Seeing the horrible, frightening figure Aso Akira jump from the shadows and tear apart one of own sends the men of gem and earth into panic, Aso Akira's appearance strikes a remembrance of some boogeyman legend of the gem men.  

The men of earth and gem flee, yet not before Endo Yumi sets her eyes upon the yellow-skinned gem man who holds the bag of the skin tattoo in his hands.  She rushes him through the gem men's flight and strike clear, slicing off the yellow gem man's head and kicking the bag to Kamei Sachiko in the same moment.

Kamei Sachiko catches the bag right as the yellow gem man's head falls to the ground. 

This destroys any bravery the men of gem and earth have left and they all disappear down the corridor of dripping wax and chimes. 

The party is grieved by the death of their tengu warrior comrade. However, before they rightfully mourn him they take a look at the three human slaves who escaped while the gem men ran away.  They are merely a poor, emaciated family of the people who once had a civilization on the Yellow Springs Island (so I guess they are broadly Chinese or Taiwanese).  They include a little boy, his father, and his mother who is Shi Ushi and is strong enough to lift up a weapon.  Our heroes press the mother Shi Ushi into their service to fight with them, saying that they are the only ones who know the way out of this Pagoda of Doom and the island as well as promising her share of the treasure they gain  (they try and pry the clothes and helms off the gem men's bodies, but the clothes and helms are part of their skin, similarly the gems that make up their bodies are inaccessible).

Then they begin mourning their fallen Tengu warrior comrade, cursing the cowardly men of gem and earth for surrounding and murdering him in the back.  They carry his body out of the Doom Pagoda (the two remaining Ting men are too frightened by the gem men's flight to fight the party) and the remaining Tengus fly the body up to the higher roofs of the pagoda as a quick funeral rite, an attempt to have his corpse picked clean by better creatures than the monster that dwell in the pagoda and land.

Saddened and having a less trained back up warrior in Shi Ushi, they continue exploring the Pagoda of Doom, on guard for the evil men of gem and earth.  They find more rooms with Persian-esque carpets and a corridor of smoky candles which lead to a room filled with smashed furniture, but other than that, they don't find anything else.  

The pagoda thoroughly explored, the party debates whether to attempt exploring another pagoda or decide to cut their losses and try to get the three carpets and the kegs of weird liquid back to Kwantoom to sell.  

They decide heading back (remember the gem man tattoo!), using Shi Ushi's family help to carry the kegs of bizarre liquid and carpets back to the beach grounds where the boat will pick them up.  Throughout the long hours carrying the material a bizarre creature that seems to be a mixture of a horse and an eagle flies above them.  The eagle horse circles around them curious for a few moments, then continues flying through the Pagodas of Doom.  Then through carrying one of the carpets, the party is discovered by these strange little people in tiger skin loincloths. The little people are bald and have conical heads. They hold weapons and are curious about our heroes, they have various strange, expensive things that they are carrying. However, they are cautious because of the might of the party. An dirty and bloodless encounter occurs where our heroes try and intimidate and goad away the little conical-headed people and the conical-headed people taunt and insult in return. Yet neither strikes at either side.  The verbal battle ends with our heroes finally scaring the little conical-headed people away.  They continue hauling their treasure back to the beach. The boat comes to pick them up, however, two half-man half-bear things rumble out of the forested ruins of the Yellow Springs. The party then howls at it and their intimidation drives the bear-things away.

Safely on the boat, our heroes Endo Yumi,  Aso Akira, Kamei Sachiko return finally to Kwantoom as successful mad monks. 

Back in Kwantoom, they learn that only members of the Small Swords Society have the legal permission to enter and plunder the Pagodas, discovering that what they did was illegal and their treasure stolen goods.  The party debates whether or not to try to join the Small Swords Society, if they are able to, yet they find Da Mei willing to buy their carpets and the Kitsune Miso Soup shop willing to buy the kegs of strange magical liquid. So they sell their goods, thereby cementing themselves as outlaws in even Kwantoom city.

 They give equal treasure shares both to the remaining Tengu warrior veteran and Shi Ushi's family to start their new life in Kwantoom.

Aso Akira generously forks over most of his share to buy a small apartment the Little Heavenly Murder district or Tengu Ghetto for all of them. Here, they decide to live. It will be not long before they return to the Pagodas of Doom, however, either when the money runs out or when they want a more expensive lifestyle.

This is the end for now.  

My thoughts on my first Solo Roleplaying experience are a mixed bag. I did enjoy myself, even though I had a bothersome time because I was learning the game as I was playing it. However, the main problem is that I got a feeling with Solo Roleplaying that is the same feeling I get when I play video games where I had fun, but I didn't feel enriched by the experience. I get the sense I wasted my time on nothing productive and could have spent the time on better things.  I don't get that feeling when running tabletop games with my friends because then I am participating in a collaborative activity with my friends. Also, because it is difficult to act out every interaction in just your own head, I felt like a got more of an outline of a tale or story rather than a group tabletop game where I eventually see a story spread out for me as characters interact and make their way through the setting.

My thoughts on Mad Monks of Kwantoom are: it was good, but I wonder how well it will run with a tabletop group game as apposed to a Solo Roleplaying experience. The shops and Kwantoom city are fine in a Solo Roleplaying way, but I think there may be trouble if I were to run them with others.  The shops are just a name and a percentage of what items they have in store. Evocative in Solo Roleplaying, probably not enough for a city for a group of tabletop gamers. I would have to add a lot of stuff in Kwantoom for a tabletop game group.  I have a similar criticism for the Pagodas of Doom procedural type creation.  It was great for a Solo Roleplaying experience, though I wonder how things would go if I use the procedural rules on the fly during a group game.

In the end, I did get this monster of a story/session report/review/pondering out of it so Mad Monks of Kwantoom has definitely worth the money.

You can get Mad Monks of Kwantoom here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/129506/Mad-Monks-of-Kwantoom

You can get Red Tide here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/89888/Red-Tide-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Sandbox-Toolkit

If you are curious about Delving Deeper, you can get it free here: https://www.immersiveink.com/?page_id=22