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Qi Lung: The Broken Bridge 2

Mar 9th, 2019
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  1. INTRO
  2. After a turbulent descent into the seemingly bottomless darkness of the pool in Danny's Oasis of Yin, everyone will be coughed up and out the other side into ... a river! The Qi Lung river! This is the mighty river which gives this nascent and developing Yomi realm its name. The current is swift and foaming one minute and still as a painting the next. Strange reflections in the water reveal fat catfish and round stones scaling the river bottom, then fallen soil darkens the water like some dead demon's blood.
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  4. An empty rickety looking sampan (a relatively flat bottomed Chinese wooden boat - http://tinyurl.com/yat8phsa) manifests out of the thick low fog that hugs the top of the river in places. It slowly drifts over near the group. The sampan includes a small shelter on board that offers shelter from the incessant light rain that falls from the sky.
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  6. RIVER VISION
  7. You receive a sudden vision! A vision of the river uncoiling like a long, beautiful, snake-woman, her mouth full of fangs and her body trailing the matter of the world off of her like a sweating jug.
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  9. RIVER VALLEY
  10. The Qi Lung river valley is a subtropical realm. This means it has two seasons - rainy and warm, and sticky and hot. Monsoon rains and flash floods are common regardless of season, varying only in intensity. The ongoing magical war between the two Yomi Kings that is giving birth to this realm has tied up the normal winds and rains like knotted snakes. Not to mention contributed to the sudden onset of fevers, plagues and typhus that strike the villages that dot the lands around the river. All from the tainted Chi that leeches into the realm's waters and soil from the Cylinder that lies hidden somewhere unknown.
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  12. DROWNED VILLAGE VISION
  13. You receive a sudden vision! A vision of the river uncoiling like a long, beautiful, snake-woman, her mouth full of fangs and her body trailing the matter of the world off of her like a sweating jug. She feasts on drowned and bloated corpses while giving birth to amphibious humanoids of all manner.
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  15. WEST PRALAJ
  16. Eventually the sampan drifts to a lazy stop on the west bank of the river, bringing the party to the village of West Pralaj. Up ahead you can see where the great bridge that used to connect west and east Pralaj has been broken and shattered. The east side of the riverbank is in much worse shape than the west - flooded and sunken and misty. West Pralaj seems to be struggling, but remains unflooded. A single stupa (temple shrine) rises up above the huts and stuctures.
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  18. Surrounding the village are paddy fields and hog runs, enclosures for water buffalo, fishing seines, and small gardens - all necessary for feeding the village during normal times. These are NOT normal times. They are all untended, the village having grown swollen with refugees sick with tainted chi and typhus. Parts of the village appear looted, signs of a pillaging comany of mercenaries evident here or there. Most of the vilagers are women, children and the elderly from the looks of it.
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  20. THE VILLAGE PRIESTESS - SIIN SIJILA
  21. From the central vilage stupa (shrine), a villager comes to greet the party. Siin Sijila - a young woman, barely into womanhood, dressed all in white. When she speaks, the observant /might/ notice that her teeth are filed.
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  23. EAST PRALAJ
  24. East Pralaj has seen better days. What drainage may have once existed is now gone. The village remains ever-flooded in knee deep waters as a result. In some places, a thick mist hugs the top of the waters, rendering visibility even that much more difficult. Catfish and other things occasionally brush up against the party's legs. Its likely a creepy sensation, but otherwise harmless. The doors of all the village structures here have either rotted off their hinges from the damp and mold or worse, they've been bashed in and down. Strange claw like marks adorn the fallen doors here and there. Ominous makings to be sure.
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  26. THE ARAQ (Ancestor Spirit)
  27. In the center of this largely drowned village is their stupa (temple shrine), fallen into disrepair and rot from all the wet and damp. From inside the ruined stupa? Noises. Sounds. And something that feels like an invitation!
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  29. Once inside the stupa, something manifests. An Angry Ghost! This ancestor spirit appears to be an araq - a family or village spirit guardian - by the looks of him. He floats in the air before the party, glowing with a soft silver light.
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  31. NAGA KIN
  32. Scaled and web-fingered humanoids! Flipper handed humans with the faces and whiskers of catfish! Bloated frog-like goblins - or are they children? An old and wizened mostly human looking woman - mostly, other than the four tiny wriggling heads growing from her neck! Floating in the knee deep murky waters around them are good old drowned corpses, growing pale and bloated from their time in the brackish waters.
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  34. THIP QELAY
  35. Thip Qelay is a town built on pilings and rafts, platforms and suspension catwalks. It stands in the center of a great swamp, built around a giant fallen baetyl-stone from The War. Strange orchids grow there, of lavender, heliotrope and fuschia. When we track those unseen that come pillage, all signs eventually lead in that direction. We sent a scout, but the scout has yet to return.
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