Qi Lung Aftermath CH 1 NOTES

INTRODUCTION:

The newly established realm of Qi Lung is a land of steam, smoke, mist, fog – high grasses and low mangroves, like the Dead Marshes or Beowulf’s fen country. This is a realm that largely maps to a subtropical land in a monsoon belt. This means it has two seasons: rainy and warm (20s °Centigrade) and sticky and hot (upper 30s °Centigrade). The sticky-hot season is only dry by comparison to the rainy season - flash floods are still common even in the driest of months. Monsoon rains during the rainy season count as storm conditions!

The sundering of Qi Lung away from the yomi realm of Sajavedra after some of us rid the realm of an artefact that was poisoning the land has tied the normal winds and rains up like knotted snakes. Cataclysmic monsoons can pour over the mountains (instead of rushing up from the sea), followed by baking drought for three days, followed by glowing purple hail. Rinse and repeat.

In the wake of the Great Sundering, the keepers of the stupas, monks once sworn to peace and meditation, have chosen older sorceries to try and maintain some semblance of order, delving deeper into the magics of the lotus cult spread by spores from the previous world. The magic of the lotus cults comes from the most ancient ways, from before the bodhisattvas and devas taught men to tame the world. The Lotus, which some say fell to the yomi wan before the first plants of the middle kingdom were made from chaos, and others say was planted by the ministry of dreams so that the world would never be closed to them. The Monks of the Lotus are holding down the structural integrity of the newly independent Qi Lung Valley, using highlevel geomantic sorceries.

All Monks of the Lotus wear robes colored like lotus petals, a rich saffron-gold. They shave their heads and carry only staves and begging bowls. The lotus monks have deep golden eyes, the signature of membership in the cult, derived from exposure to and ingesting the essence of the lotus, which augments their abilities.

I say this, because this is where our journey will begin - the great monastery of Mandul Xiem.


MANDUL XIEM

The 440-structure stupa (shrine) and wat (temple) complex at Mandul Xiem covers several square miles of canals, intricate statuary, towers, Aeolian wind-flutes, bell chapels, lotus gardens, and reflecting pools, all centered on one eight-lobed stupa, gilded to look like a great golden lotus flower. Alone in all of the Valley, it shimmers perfectly, untouched by the recent events of the war between yama kings and the sorcerous bombardment from the Great Sundering. The sprawling complex look like it could easily hold nearly 300 monks.

Each dome of a stupa (rounded, pointed, spiral, smooth) holds a relic of some mighty cleric or monk, a true saint whose
miraculous ways once harnessed the energies of the land and bound them into a harmonious pattern. The nearby wats, or monasteries, house monks dedicated to meditation, and to defending the devout pilgrims of the land from the depredations of Outlanders.


It is in the central reflecting pool of the complex that the group will emerge!