TEXT: "FOUR BASTARDS" 
  AN ATLAS GAM ES PRODUCTION OF A ROB I N D. LAWS SCENARIO 
  PUBLISHER JOH N NEPH EW 
  EDITOR AND GRAPHIC DESIGNER JEFF TIDBALL 
  PROOFREADERS MI(HELLE NEPHEW AND JOHN NEPHEW 
  COVER ART ANDREW BAKER 
  INTERIOR ART DAVID WHITE 
  Four Bastards is © 2000 Trident Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games. Feng Shuiis a trademark of Robin D. Laws, used under license. All rights reserved. Feng 
  Shuts game mechanics derive from the roleplaying game Nexus: The Infinite City by Jose Garcia, © Daedalus Entertainment, Inc., and are used with 
  permission. Reproduction of this work by any means without written permission from the publisher, except short excerpts for the purpose of 
  reviews, is expressly prohibited. 
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  THE PITCH 
  Premise: A callous orphanage attack leads our 
  heroes to a gigantic conspiracy that crosses 
  junctures and factions. Behind this sinister 
  plot are four fatherless men, each related to 
  the others by "blood. 
  The Twist: Although the Four Bastards work to 
  betray their respective factions, is there a 
  shadowy figure directing their unknowing 
  hands towards his own ends? 
  The Climax: Bullets fly, missiles roar, and heli-
  copters explode at the official opening of the 
  Three Gorges Dam, a massive Chinese gov-
  ernment project to divert the flow of the hal-
  lowed Yiangtze River. 
  This adventure is for a group of heroes 
  already familiar with the Secret War. It assumes 
  that: 
  • 
  The PCs are Dragons 
  • 
  Their headquarters is Hong Kong 
  • 
  They've made contact with remaining leaders 
  of the Dragon faction 
  • 
  They know about the Netherworld and the 
  other factions of the Secret War 
  If they don't live in Hong Kong, but all of 
  the other assumptions pertain, you'll have an 
  easy job adapting this adventure to your series. 
  Just set this teaser scene somewhere else. Every 
  city worth blowing up has orphanages and crime 
  bosses. 
  The other assumptions are trickier to circum-
  vent. Four Bastards is an adventure meant to 
  evoke the epic sweep of the Secret War. Its back-
  story depends on a grand conspiracy that crosses 
  factional lines. Although you can use the big 
  action set-pieces without the Secret War, you'll 
  likely have to create an entirely new plot line to 
  carry the heroes from one shoot-' em-up to 
  another. That means you're on your own, my 
  friend. Here's hoping you come out alive. 
  To adjust the adventure to the current capa-
  bilities of experienced PCs, subtract their average 
  combat AVs from 15. Round that number up 
  and add it to the combat AVs of all non-
  mook characters in this adventure. 
  as is if your series is still in its early days. 
  BACK STORY 
  Ricky Cho hails from contemporary HK, 
  where he committed an act of excessive psycho-
  violence forcing the Dragons to cast him out. 
  T'se Chow resides in the 1850 juncture, where he 
  served the Jade Wheel until they cavalierly 
  threatened his family. Long-Nails Chou is a 
  eunuch and former minion of the Lotus. Dr. 
  Siegfried Zhu toils amidst the heat of the 
  CDCA's cooker vats as a developer of the next 
  wave of arcanotechnology.Recently they discov-
  ered one another, learning that they have two 
  things in common: They are all illegitimate, and 
  all of them share the same DNA. They were 
  fathered by the same man. 
  As each is disenchanted in his own way by 
  the Secret War's ceaseless pendulum of bullets 
  and betrayal, they have chosen to form their own 
  four-man conspiracy to take over all of the junc-
  tures and end the Secret War. Naturally, they 
  intend the war's conclusion to leave them as his-
  tory's all-powerful rulers, treading all who dare 
  oppose them beneath their cruel boot-heels. 
  There's only one can of whoop-ass that can stop 
  them-and the PCs hold the pull-tab. 
  It all started when Kar Fai, the Dragon com-
  mando-in-chie£ went upside the head of one 
  Ricky Cho, kicking him (figuratively and literally) 
  out of the Dragons for acts of violence above 
  and beyond the call of sanity. The final straw 
  came at a joint the PCs may know: the Bun 
  Festival. Like most Dragons who work modern 
  HK, Ricky crossed paths all too often with its 
  owner, Fast Eddie Lo. Never a well-hinged indi-
  vidual, Ricky hated Fast Eddie from the fat man's 
  first taunt. He despised having to come to the 
  corpulent criminal time and again for favors, in 
  each instance having to endure Fast Eddie's snide 
  comments. Finally he snapped and sprayed the 
  Bun Festival with red-hot lead. A civilian was 
  wounded, and even his Wheel buddies had to 
  allow a police crackdown on Eddie's operation, 
  for appearance's sake. Eddie retaliated against 
  Ricky by blowing the covers of five HK 
  Dragons to the Lotus and Architects. One 
  
  of Kar Fai's best operatives was gunned down 
  in a phone booth. The others haven't been able 
  to work in modern Hong Kong since. Kar Fai 
  had to personally apologize to Fast Eddie for 
  Ricky's actions, losing considerable face in the 
  process. No wonder he placed a big black foot-
  print dead center on Ricky's keister. 
  At loose ends in the Netherworld, a bitterly 
  aggrieved Ricky wandered into the 1850 juncture. 
  He offered his mercenary services to a pirate cap-
  tain, and soon found himself in the midst of an 
  assault against an ancient island fortress. During 
  the attack, some of the pirates cornered a beauti-
  ful young woman, ready to subject her to a fate 
  worse than death. Disgusted, Ricky switched sides 
  and introduced the pirates to the fine 20th-centu-
  ry workmanship of Mr. Heckler and Mr. Koch. 
  Ricky was shocked when he first clapped eyes 
  on the master of the fortress, T'se Chow. T'se had 
  nearly a decade on him, but was otherwise 
  Ricky's dead ringer. The two men bonded further 
  when Ricky's information on the pirates led T'se 
  to the inescapable conclusion that they'd acted at 
  the behest of his own organization, the Jade 
  Wheel Society. His superiors had merely been 
  testing his ability to defend the important feng 
  shui site he'd been assigned! His new wife could 
  have been raped, his loyal men slain! All for a 
  test! On that day T'se knew his own loyalties had 
  been completely misplaced. The two men cursed 
  the Secret War and swore 
  revenge on their respective 
  conspiracies. Unfortunately, 
  the Wheel had an informant 
  listening in. They responded 
  to T' se' s vituperations by 
  sending an even bigger pirate 
  fleet to force his resignation. 
  The Ascended make their dis-
  missals more permanent than 
  the Dragons', and T'se had to 
  flee for his life. His wife and 
  retainers were killed by can-
  non-fire. Only T'se and Ricky 
  got away. 
  T'se and Ricky wandered 
  rootlessly through the junc-
  tures, hardening their skills 
  and resolve. One day the 
  Lotus hired them to 
  assassinate an operative who'd failed an assign-
  ment. They tracked their quarry to his laboratory 
  in 69 AD, which just happened to be on the same 
  island T'se had been driven from in a later junc-
  ture. When they saw their target, Long-Nails 
  Chou, they knew they couldn't go through with 
  it. If they were twins, he was a triplet. They told 
  him who'd sent them and why, giving Long-Nails 
  reason to also hate his masters. It was clearly des-
  tiny that had brought them together. Some force, 
  perhaps the weary earth itself, had made a team 
  of them. The world wanted them to rule her. 
  They became surer of this when, in the 
  Netherworld, they found the fourth Bastard. Dr. 
  Siegfried Zhu, still a loyal functionary of the 
  Architects, was stationed at the Biomass 
  Reprocessing Center (Feng Shui p. 206) when they 
  spotted him browsing the stalls of the Bazaar.6 
  Seeing their own faces mirrored in him, they kid-
  napped him and took him to their Netherworld 
  lair. Dr. Zhu came around to their point of view, 
  and agreed to participate in their plan. Although 
  he would never have dreamed of betraying his 
  masters without the intervention of the other 
  Bastards, his meeting with them filled in the 
  missing pieces in the puzzle of his life. He 
  agreed to help them. He even performed a DNA 
  test to prove that Ricky, T'se and he were Long-
  Nails' descendants. The results established some-
  thing even more bizarre: All four men had the 
  same father. Their destiny was obvious. 
  In their excitement at finding one another, 
  none of them stopped to do the math. It is well 
  known that the 69 juncture has only been open 
  for a few years. How could a single man have 
  sired Chou in 21, a then-closed juncture, and also 
  fathered Cho in 1974, T'se in 1818, and Zhu in 
  2003? 
  THE BAD GUYS 
  Ricky Cho is like a player character gone bad. 
  Surely you've had somebody playa character as a 
  hair-trigger psycho who goes hyper-violent when 
  his personal boundaries get the least bit crossed. 
  He doesn't play well with others, and the con-
  cept of reasonable force is undreamt-of in his 
  philosophy. Well, Ricky Cho is that guy 
  times two. If you currently have a charac-
  
  ter like this in your group, you should give him a 
  taste of his own medicine by pairing him up 
  with Ricky in dramatic scenes and the final 
  shoot-out. In the modern era, Ricky favors a 
  Hawaiian shirt and a black ball cap bearing the 
  logo of an eighties heavy metal band. 
  T'se Chow could be Ricky's wiser uncle. 
  Though still in his early thirties, the death of his 
  wife has turned him implacably grim. He's a cul-
  tivated man who's turned to war, a loyal man 
  betrayed by those who claimed they'd protect 
  him. He speaks and acts cautiously, but when he 
  does strike, he does so with no quarter given. 
  Long-Nails Chou has been maddened by his 
  traffic with demons. He speaks in the squeaky 
  voice of HK-movie eunuchs and moves like a 
  man intravenously injected with espresso. Of the 
  four, he is the most focused on ruling the world 
  and the least passionate about avenging himself 
  against his former masters. The other Bastards 
  are the only people who've ever shown him any 
  (7) 
  love, and he'll defend them with rodent-like 
  ferocity. 
  Dr. Siegfried Zhu has always been the sort to 
  go along with the crowd and pursue whatever 
  sort of success society defines. In the 2030s, that 
  meant becoming an arcanowave genius. Lately, 
  Illustration by David WhHe 
  
  though, he's become depressed, realizing that sci-
  entific know-how only takes you so far. To 
  advance to the Buro, one needs political 
  instincts, which Zhu lacks in spades. Long-Nails' 
  plan to take over the world seems just the cure 
  (8) 
  for that. He'll show all of those office-politicking 
  brown-nosers at the Biomass Reprocessing 
  Center who's who. Maybe he'll let them lick his 
  boots. If they're lucky. The weasels. 
  THEIR SINISTER 
  PLAN 
  When Ricky and T'se found him, Long-Nails 
  had already been studying a possible short-cut to 
  world domination. His completed rituals permit 
  four men of the same bloodline to take over the 
  world by burning, in quick succession, feng shui 
  sites corresponding to the five elements: air, 
  earth, fire, wood, and (the most potent of all) 
  water. Each site must be the purest or mightiest 
  expression of that element possible. 
  The ritual requires each conspirator to spill 
  the blood of an enemy before going on to 
  destroy the first site. This explains Ricky's attack 
  on Fast Eddie at the orphanage. At about the 
  same time as the orphanage attack (by Inner-
  walker reckoning), T'se Chow blows up the dip-
  per ship on which his Jade Wheel superior sails, 
  Long-Nails tortures a captured rival eunuch, and 
  Dr. Zhu places a letter-spike on the office chair 
  of his manager. Afterwards they'll rendezvous 
  near the first site on their list. 
  The sites they've chosen to burn are summa-
  rized in the insert below. 
  Their plan reaches ultimate fruition at the 
  final site, China's dam to end all dams. By chan-
  neling the power gained from the other four 
  sites, they'll permanently make their mark on 
  the dam as it is officially opened. They'll own 
  time, junctures, the Netherworld, the whole she-
  bang. That is, unless a certain intrepid band of 
  
  rag-tag heroes can figure out their sinister plan 
  and blow the Three Gorges to high holy hell in a 
  budget-busting final cinematic climax. 
  Cinematic License Alert 
  Although the Three Gorges Dam is a real 
  project, it isn't set for completion until 2009. The 
  Chinese government deliberated for nearly forty 
  years before Jiang Zemin finally gave it the go-
  ahead in 1993. It's supposed to provide energy 
  equivalent to twelve coal-burning stations and 
  control the region's disastrous flooding. Critics 
  fear that the flooding required to create the 
  reservoir will displace one or two million people 
  and permanently destroy countless heritage sites. 
  The reservoir may also act as a disease vector for 
  pollution. And then there's always the chance 
  that it will crack open. 
  Well, that's reality for you. Of course, in the 
  world of Feng Shui, there's more than a chance 
  it will crack open. 
  ORPHANAGE 
  AFTERMATH 
  EX~ORPHANAGE.DA~ 
  Fire trucks and cop cars are everywhere. 
  Paramedics tend to injured children. Firemen 
  with extinguishers put out several small blazes. 
  A nurse tries to gather together the weeping 
  orphans. Cops draw chalk outlines around dead 
  mooks. Fast Eddie's personal physician puts his 
  arm in a sling. Eddie looks over at the PLAYER 
  CHARACTERS. 
  FAST EDDIE 
  So was that intended for me - or for 
  you? 
  The orphanage attack is a device to get the 
  story rolling. An investigative phase follows, 
  which should steer the Secret Warriors to the 
  first of the five feng shui sites, Warrior's 
  Crook in the Caucasus Mountains. To get 
  there, the PCs need to uncover two essen-
  tial facts: 
  • 
  Ricky Cho was involved. 
  • 
  Ricky Cho has some big plan, in which a trip 
  to the Caucasus is next on the agenda. 
  As always, focus on conveying these two 
  points, rather than on having the PCs discover 
  the clues in the exact ways detailed below. If an 
  investigative avenue is entertaining and halfway 
  sensible, it should gradually yield the needed 
  info. 
  THE CLUES RICKY 
  LEFT BEHIND 
  • 
  If asked who might want him dead, Fast 
  Eddie replies: 
  Ha! A list of people who want me 
  dead? That'll take all day and half 
  the night! Why, even one of your 
  own guys, that Ricky Cho bastard, 
  has sworn to see me in my grave. 
  Maybe you should check your. own 
  backyard before you go poking your 
  nose into Triad business. 
  • 
  One of the local TV stations videotaped the 
  shootout. They happened to capture the 
  moment at which Fast Eddie's arm got perfo-
  rated. A close study of the tape shows that 
  the attacker was separate from the guys in 
  the van. He was behind the platform, not in 
  front of it. 
  • 
  Video enhancement of the assailant (Fix-It vs. 
  Difficulty 8 to do it yourself, or 
  Police/Investigative vs. Difficulty 8 to know a 
  forensic video expert willing to help) shows 
  that he wore a Hawaiian shirt and a black 
  ball cap with the Iron Maiden logo on it. 
  His face is obscured by sunglasses and the 
  blur of movement. 
  • 
  Shown the video amplification, Fast Eddie 
  positively IDs him as Ricky Cho. 
  • At the first mention of Ricky Cho's name, 
  any PC who is close to Kar Fai (or another 
  Dragon luminary) can make a Police, 
  Investigation, or Int check (Difficulty 5). If 
  
  successful, he knows Ricky's name, his psy-
  cho attitude, his typical attire and weaponry, 
  and the story behind his ejection from the 
  Dragons. 
  • 
  Hey, why not just ask Kar Fai? (Or the Prof 
  or whoever.) Kar Fai knows all of the info 
  directly above, and also knows the other 
  members of Ricky's team. The only member 
  of that team currently available is Michael 
  Yu, a Karate Cop working for the SDUJ 
  • 
  Fast Eddie may also be able to describe 
  Michael Yu as an SDU officer who managed, 
  for a while, to keep a rein on Ricky. 
  • 
  Michael Yu can be contacted through the 
  SDU office. His attitude to Ricky is contra-
  dictory. If the PCs seem to think of him as a 
  hero gone wrong, Michael condemns him as 
  a dangerous nut job. If they slag him, 
  Michael gets hot under the collar and says: 
  Sure he was crazy - crazy enough 
  to risk his ass to save my life! 
  • 
  Play this up for as much 
  testosterone-fueled friction as 
  you can, without having the 
  interrogating PC unholster 
  on Michael at SDU headquar-
  ters. Mter sufficient postur-
  ing, Michael gives them not 
  only the address to Ricky's 
  last known apartment, but his 
  spare key. 
  L.oVl:J-TV<4ils 
  s~s) first spill 
  ~t9 blood of 
  nt9V1 bt9:JiVl to bvrVl ~ 
  t9V1:J 
  'SI-.vi 
  PtVl<4ltf: W <4tt9r • 
  nt9V1: ne ~ovr l1<4st<4rds rvlt9 
  ~t9 t.Jor/d~ 
  The nole found in Ricky {ho's CD (ose. 
  • 
  If the PCs enter Ricky's supposed apartment 
  without double-checking, it's time for some 
  HK-movie comedy stylings. The apartment 
  has long since been rented out to a feisty old 
  granny, who employs a heavy skillet in her 
  attempt to bean the "rapist perverts" enter-
  ing her place. (If you want to be completely 
  true to the breezy insensitivity of such 
  scenes, you can have her look disappointed 
  when it becomes clear that the PCs have no 
  intention of pervertedly raping her.) 
  • 
  A talk with the landlord reveals that he's 
  confiscated Ricky's stuff for non-payment of 
  rent. (Hey, why pay the rent when you're 
  about to rule the world?) To get him to vol-
  untarily turn over the stuff for inspection, 
  try Intimidation (DifficultylO), Police 
  (Difficulty 8, reflecting the trickiness of get-
  ting a real warrant for an unofficial case), 
  Charisma (Difficulty 8), or Seduction 
  (Difficulty 8, provided character is an attrac-
  tive woman). Otherwise, Intrusion (Difficulty 
  8) gets you into the storage locker and past 
  the padlock. 
  • 
  Police or Investigation (Difficulty 8) nets 
  Ricky's secret plan. It's hidden in a CD case 
  for a Beethoven symphony-clearly out of 
  place among his collection of vintage hair-
  metal. (The player doesn't have to figure this 
  out; the check is sufficient.) The plan appears 
  in the insert on this page. Feel free to photo-
  copy this page, cut it out, and hand it over to 
  the player whose character finds it. 
  • 
  To know where Baharistan is, pit 
  Info/Geography, Info/Current Events, or 
  Intelligence vs. Difficulty 6. Or just consult 
  the handy-dandy world atlas Ricky has conve-
  niently left among his abandoned posses-
  sions. He's circled Baharistan in red. It's in 
  Russia's Caucasus Mountains. 
  BATTLE IN 
  BAHARISTAN 
  From news reports, average people (like the 
  PCs) know the following about the thinly-dis-
  guised breakaway Republic of Baharistan. Its 
  (10) 
  
  Islamic mountain men fight an on-and-off guer-
  rilla war against the Russian Federation. Using 
  tactics favored by mountain peoples since the 
  dawning of civilization, they've established de 
  facto independence. The loss of control over 
  Baharistan shames Russians still reeling from 
  their lost status as a true superpower. Attempts 
  to regain control are politically popular, provided 
  that the Russian forces seem to be winning. 
  Although the Russians use brutal tactics no 
  Western country would ever condone, the 
  impression you get from news reports is that the 
  Baharis are Muslim fanatics, like the Iranians, 
  and that the West will be in trouble if the 
  Baharis expand their foothold to neighboring 
  Islamic regions of the former Soviet Union. 
  EXT. AIRPORT TARMAC. DAY. 
  In heroic slow motion, the PLAYER CHARAC-
  TERS stride across the tarmac of an isolated 
  airport in Baharistan. It's cold, so the slo-mo 
  captures plumes of white breath escaping from 
  their mouths as they lope towards the camera. 
  Behind them rise the snow-capped peaks of 
  the Caucasus mountains. 
  Like any self-respecting action movie, this 
  adventure skips the details of flight arrange-
  ments. Who cares exactly how the PCs got their 
  tickets? If a player objects, your hand should 
  menacingly shoot out towards a piece of scrap 
  paper, as if to ball it up into a prop grenade ... 
  Beside the PLAYER CHARACTERS walks a 
  lanky, horse-faced man wearing a camouflage 
  jacket and about a week's worth of beard stub-
  ble. He smiles, revealing a mouth missing a 
  couple of teeth, as he easily carries the vast 
  majority of the group's gear. This is SHAMIL. 
  Tell the PC with the highest Intrusion (or, if 
  no one has Intrusion, Deceit) AV that this is 
  Shamil, an associate-of-an-acquaintance-of-a-
  friend-of-a-contact who you've been advised to 
  hire as your point man in Baharistan. Shamil has 
  been recommended to you as a man with the 
  right shady connections to get your ordnance 
  past both Russian and Bahari officials. 
  Hey, what I tell you? I get weapons 
  past all inspection, no problem A-OK! 
  A truck full of rebel soldiers, wearing camo but 
  no particular uniforms, drives up. Each soldier 
  insolently wields an AK47. 
  Uh-oh. 
  Unless interrupted by a PC (remember, 
  everyone in the world of Feng Shui speaks 
  Cantonese), Sharnil negotiates with the soldier in 
  charge, whose name is Dzokhar. Dzokhar says 
  that his superior insists on meeting with the for-
  eigners. Dzokhar is calm but firm. Shamil assures 
  the PCs that this is just a minor problem and 
  that they should cooperate. All can be worked 
  out if they speak to his superior. 
  FIGHTING THE 
  AIRPORT GUARDS 
  If the PCs decide to shoot it out or make a 
  run for it, the Bahari soldiers are no match for 
  them. But after downing Dzokhar and his 
  troops, they have nowhere to run but the inhos-
  pitable wilds of the Caucasus. Shamil takes no 
  part in any fighting against his fellow Baharii he 
  may be a shady character but he has no reason 
  to burn his bridges with the local powers. Nor 
  does he flee into the woods with the PCs. So if 
  our heroes start a gratuitous fight with the air-
  port guards, they lose the aid of the guy who 
  knows the terrain and situation. Have them 
  wander through wintry mountains, suffer-
  ing frostbite, eating pitiful meals of voles 
  
  and lichen, until they finally stumble upon the 
  feng shui site they were supposed to protect. 
  They find it already destroyed. Allow them to 
  pick up the clue that takes them to the next site. 
  INTO THE 
  MOUNTAINS 
  If the PCs agree to accompany the soldiers, 
  they ride in the truck. 
  EXT. MOUNTAIN ROAD. DAY. 
  A gray sky overhangs the mountains. Desolate 
  stands of pines form an honor guard as the 
  truck winds its way up the road. The land-
  scape is both harsh and majestic. 
  The Bahari aren't much for military disci-
  pline, and are happy to share smokes with the 
  PCs (especially if the PCs are supplying them). As 
  faithful Muslims, they politely turn down any 
  proffered booze if any of the PCs are the sorts to 
  carry whiskey flasks. If offended, the Bahari 
  remain tight-lipped and look annoyed but make 
  no obviously hostile moves. These seasoned guer-
  rillas know that it's dangerous to be baited into a 
  scrap, and that one should fight only on one's 
  own terms. If relations between the Baharis and 
  PCs seem strained, Shamil steps in. 
  From either Dzokhar or ShamiI, the PCs can 
  learn the following during the drive: 
  • 
  The struggle is indeed an old one. One of 
  Tolstoy's earliest short stories dealt with 
  Russian soldiers kept captive by Bahari insur-
  gents. (Shamil will have to supply this tidbit, 
  as Dzokhar is unacquainted with Tolstoy.) 
  • 
  The Bahari remained defiant even during the 
  most repressive days of Stalin, who in retalia-
  tion exiled virtually the entire nation to 
  Siberia. A whole generation of Baharis was 
  born and raised in Stalinist internment 
  camps. The generation who grew up despis-
  ing Russians as cruel oppressors is now in 
  command, and waging a war of indepen-
  dence. 
  • 
  To the Bahari, the difference between the old 
  Communist Russia and the new democratic 
  one is non-existent. 
  • 
  The Bahari President is not the real leader. 
  The real leader is that great champion of the 
  people, Yudsuk Kambiev. He is a mighty war-
  rior and a generous' chieftain. 
  Finally the truck arrives at a walled encamp-
  ment covered by a huge white tent, obviously 
  intended to thwart aerial reconnaissance. A small 
  satellite dish is visible, having been attached to a 
  nearby pine tree. Guards wave the truck through. 
  It travels to the doorstep of a large, ugly, pre-fab 
  building made of corrugated metal. The soldiers 
  get out and usher the PCs inside. 
  THE VELVET WOLF 
  INT. KAMBIEV'S COMMAND CENTER. DAY. 
  The interior of the building contrasts wildly 
  with the exterior. It's a lushly furnished room, 
  with luxurious oriental-style rugs on the floors 
  and colorful ceramic tiles emblazoned with 
  Arabic script on the walls. On a raised platform 
  at one end of the big room are five chairs. 
  Sitting in the center (and largest) chair is a tall, 
  thin man with black hair, penetrating eyes, and 
  a graying goatee. He wears a fine black over-
  SHAMIL 
  //-......-::~ coat over his dark Armani suit and carries a 
  These good people at heart, with 
  whom you should have no quarrel. 
  . silver-tipped cane. To either side of him are 
  grizzled old Bahari men, each wearing 
  
  improbably high ceremonial fur hats. Sitting 
  behind these three are two men who don't 
  look Bahari. The first is a ruddy-skinned, burly 
  guy with a big blond beard. The other is slim, 
  olive-skinned, and sharp-featured. Both wear 
  camouflage gear. 
  The man in the middle is the shadowy 
  Bahari power-behind-the-throne, Yudsuk 
  Kambiev. Before he became a mobster, terrorist, 
  or revolutionary leader, he was a student of liter-
  ature. His soft-spoken manner is almost professo-
  rial. Unlike a lot of men of his type, he's secure 
  enough in his power that he doesn't need to pro-
  ject an air of menace. He even makes self-depre-
  cating jokes at his own expense. Believing him-
  self to be utterly righteous in defending his peo-
  ple, he speaks with complete frankness about his 
  mission and methods. But he won't do so until 
  first ascertaining who the strangers with the bag 
  full of guns might be. 
  The old men to either side of him are Ilyas 
  and Ortsu, tribal clerics who recall the deeds of 
  great Bahari warriors and guard their relics. They 
  teach young warriors the zikr dance, which har-
  nesses the chi power of their feng shui sites. 
  They see Kambiev as the heir to a hallowed tradi-
  tion of enemy-smashing Bahari champions. 
  The bearded man is Wulfgar Wulfgarsson, a 
  Thunder Knight of Nordic extraction. He's a 
  hearty, back-slapping, smiting machine sent by 
  the Thunder King to advise his Bahari friends in 
  the Secret War. His smaller companion is Khalid 
  Laroui, a cynical Fire Assassin expert in covert 
  operations and international subterfuge. Both 
  suspect that the PCs are Secret Warriors, and 
  want to know which side they're on. 
  Kambiev allows Ilyas and Ortsu to begin the 
  questioning. They ask such not-entirely-germane 
  questions as: 
  • 
  Do you acknowledge Allah as the only god? 
  • 
  What are your lineages? Do you come from a 
  line of great heroes? 
  • 
  Do you think to come here and steal the 
  secret of the zikr dance from us? 
  Kambiev doesn't expect useful informa-
  tion to come of this, but does gauge the 
  PCs' demeanor. The two Innerwalkers do the 
  same. When the exchange with the old clerics 
  uses up its entertainment value, Kambiev begins 
  asking questions like: 
  • 
  Who are you? 
  • 
  Who sent you? 
  • 
  What is your purpose here? 
  • 
  Are you Russian agents? 
  • 
  You are from the West, so you must think us 
  barbarians and savages, no? 
  Assuming that they haven't presented them-
  selves as blatantly hostile to the Bahari Republic, 
  the final question offers Kambiev the opening to 
  tell them his story. 
  He was part of the generation deported en 
  masse to internal exile in Siberia. In the seventies, 
  when he was a student, he decided to destroy his 
  hated Communist oppressors. He saw that they 
  were nothing more than a bunch of gangsters, 
  and that the only way to defeat them was to 
  become the biggest gangster of them all. So he 
  went to Moscow with a few stout companions 
  and engaged the leaders of the Russian Mafia, 
  one by one, in single combat. He did this for 
  Baharistan. When the time was right he was 
  strong enough and had the weapons to bring 
  about the freedom of his people. They call him 
  the Velvet Wolf, a name he finds funny. 
  KAMBIEV 
  (laughs modestly) 
  Do I look like a wolf to you? 
  Should the PCs explain that they are here to 
  protect a site called Warrior's Crook, the ears of 
  all five listeners visibly perk up. No one here has 
  heard of Ricky Cho or anyone named Long-
  Nails. They don't know what petroglyphs might 
  be, and can shed no further light on Ricky's 
  cryptic note to himself. 
  Unless given reason to think the PCs should 
  immediately be put to death (in which case they 
  must escape to the inhospitable, mountainous 
  forests and protect Warrior's Crook without the 
  cooperation of its guardians), Kambiev decides to 
  learn more about them and invites them to a 
  feast. 
  
  THE FEAST 
  EXT. BAHARI ENCAMPMENT. NIGHT. 
  Bahari men, women, and children, all of whom 
  look urunistakably rugged, gather arolUld a 
  huge fire. They seem oblivious to the winter 
  night's cold. Several sheep and a goat turn 
  over the fire on a spit the size of a car axle. 
  ILYAS, still wearing his gigantic furry hat, care-
  fully bastes one of the animals. From a coal-
  heated samovar, DZOKHAR offers the PCs tea 
  which is lip-burningly hot, throat-constrictlingly 
  sweet, and teeth-rattlingly strong. 
  The PCs are still under observation. Wulfgar 
  approaches the biggest-looking one for a chat. 
  Khalid seeks out the one who did most of the 
  talking during the interrogation. Both want to 
  learn enough about the PCs to see if they can be 
  trusted. They want the PCs to first reveal their 
  own knowledge of the Secret War. Mter suffi-
  cient back-and-forth, they cop to being followers 
  of their respective Monarchs. 
  Wulfgar talks in the same pseudo-
  Shakespearean dialect you find in old Thor 
  comics. If impressed by the PCs and told that 
  they're Dragons, Wulfgar becomes friendly. He 
  admires the Dragons. If prompted, he reveals the 
  following info: 
  • 
  The Russians are run by the Ascended. 
  • 
  The Baharis' battle prowess comes from their 
  control of Warrior's Crook, an especially 
  potent feng shui site. 
  • 
  They have a special rite, the zikr dance, 
  which allows even their lowliest warrior to 
  partake in the site's power. 
  • 
  The Kings of the Fire and Thunder Pagodas 
  each help the Bahari rebels for their own rea-
  sons. The Thunder King respects their 
  courage and medieval way of seeing things. 
  If the PCs identify themselves as Dragons, 
  Khalid acts like the benevolent fellow they want 
  him to be. He likes Dragons 
  because their idealism makes 
  them easy to manipulate. 
  Khalid reveals the following: 
  
  • 
  The Russians are propped up by the 
  Ascended. They siphon money from the 
  Russian economy and are hip-deep in its con-
  vergence of big business and organized 
  crime. 
  • 
  The Bahari have always been a thorn in their 
  side, and have been able to resist them 
  because they control Warrior's Crook. 
  • 
  Kambiev aims to create an empire of Islamic 
  republics in Russia's heartland. (The Fire 
  King supports the Bahari because they are 
  Islamic militants, and have a greater chance 
  of spreading Islamic power than any other 
  nation. Khalid will only say so directly to 
  characters he knows to be friends of the Fire 
  Pagoda.) 
  • 
  Baharistan is the most cost-effective corridor 
  for a pipeline from Russia's oil fields to the 
  Black Sea. Kambiev's pipeline company 
  trades on the London Stock Exchange. 
  • 
  Kambiev's tactics are as commendably ruth-
  less as his goals are lofty. He knows that to 
  beat a merciless foe one must confront him 
  with a savagery greater than his own. 
  If favorably impressed, the advisers report 
  back to Kambiev, who decides to trust them. He 
  promises to take them to Warrior's Crook tomor-
  row afternoon. But in the morning, they'll 
  accompany him on a pheasant shoot. 
  THE PHEASANT 
  SHOOT 
  EXT. MOUNTAIN RIDGE. DAY. 
  The pes have accompanied KAMBIEV to a 
  high ridge near a mountain pass. DZOKHAR 
  and some of his men have come along. They 
  haul a long, thin wooden box up the treacher-
  ous trail. 
  KAMBIEV 
  I have little helper in the Russian camp. 
  The men open up the long box and hand 
  Kambiev the launcher for a surface-to-air mis-
  sile. 
  (1;) 
  lIIuslrolion by David Wh~e 
  
  KAMBIEV (cont.) 
  If he is correct, a pheasant should be 
  heading this way . . . 
  (checking his tOIFOf-the-line Rolex) 
  . . . right about . . . now! 
  A Russian helicopter flies through the pass. 
  Kambiev shoots it down. Before it explodes in 
  a ball of flame, the pilot ejects. His parachute 
  opens and he drifts down towards a snowy 
  landing. 
  Perhaps you'd care to assist Dzokhar in 
  retrieving this pheasant . . . ? 
  Kambiev has given the PCs the opportunity 
  to earn his trust by helping to corral the prison-
  er. Fu guys with Prodigious or Abundant Leap 
  enjoy a big advantage here. Make other charac-
  ters do some stunt checks reflecting the difficul-
  ty of the terrain. There's always the chance of 
  slipping on ice hidden under the snow, or even 
  triggering an avalanche. 
  The Russian pilot also has a tough time with 
  the terrain. He's so afraid of capture that he'll 
  shoot at pursuers, and even try to kill himself if 
  they get too close. Give the PCs ample chance to 
  stop him from committing suicide. It might lead 
  to an interesting conflict if they promise him 
  he'll be treated in a civilized fashion. Neither 
  side in this nasty war customarily concerns itself 
  with questions of fair conduct. 
  The pilot's name is Dmitri Stepaskhin. He's 
  hurt, terrified of the Baharis, and reluctant to 
  seem disloyal to his oath as an army officer. The 
  more the PCs play to these concerns, the easier 
  it should be to glean the following info: 
  • 
  A new officer has suddenly been appointed 
  to take charge of an upcoming raid against 
  the Bahari. 
  • 
  This Colonel Choketsiniev must be from 
  Mongolia or Tadjikistan or something, 
  because he looks Chinese. 
  • 
  Choketsiniev argued with the local base's reg-
  ular officers. He has some new strategy in 
  mind. Stepashkin's mission had something to 
  do with scouting for Choketsiniev's plans. 
  • 
  Choketsiniev ordered that Russian 
  bombers be armed with some top-
  secret weapon. The planes' bomb bay chutes 
  had to be jury-rigged to accommodate it. 
  • 
  (If shown a picture of Ricky) No, that's not 
  Choketsiniev, but it could be his younger 
  brother. 
  (What's really happening? Passing himself off 
  as a still-loyal Wheel man, T'se Chow has bullied 
  his way into temporary command in the Russian 
  army. He knows he has only a couple of days at 
  most before the Ascended find him out. During 
  this time he plans to order an attack on 
  Warrior's Crook.) 
  WARRIOR'S CROOK 
  EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. DAY. 
  KAMBIEV and ILYAS stand beside the shiver-
  ing PCs as they look up at Warrior's Crook, a 
  strange crescent-shaped mountain peak. The 
  air is pierced by a high-pitched whistling noise 
  which seems to surround every listener. 
  ILYAS 
  This is where our sacred hero, Norkha, 
  first felt the call of Allah in his heart 
  and learned of the zikr dance. The 
  wind you hear is Norkha's righteous-
  ness. Without it, we would be lost. 
  He goes on to say that the PCs are clearly 
  mighty warriors, and that their hearts are in the 
  right place even if they happen to be infidels. He 
  asks if they might help defend Warrior's Crook. 
  Mter what the pilot said, they must assume that 
  the site is the Russians' target. 
  When the attack comes, you can either 
  arrange things so that the PCs are present but 
  Kambiev and the kick-ass named GMCs aren't, 
  or allow each player to control both her own PC 
  and one of the GMCs 
  THE FIGHT 
  The fight begins when about half of the 
  Bahari guards on duty turn out to be traitors, 
  pledged to the Wheel. On signal, they pull 
  out grenades and begin to lob them at 
  
  Warrior's Crook. Mooks keep appearing for as 
  long as you need to keep the fight interesting. 
  • 
  About half-way through the fight, more 
  mooks, in Russian uniform, show up driving 
  snowmobiles mounted with massive military-
  grade machine guns (16/6/200). Use the same 
  stats for Russian soldiers as for Bahari right-
  ers (see p. 12). 
  • 
  If any character is having too easy a time dis-
  patching mooks, have a bunch around him 
  announce their names. Bump up their com-
  bat AVs to 11. Sample names: Sasha, Irgun, 
  Piotr, Mikhael, Giorgiu, Jan, Paul, Ringo. 
  • 
  Snowmobiles can crash into pine trees or flip 
  over and burst into flame. 
  • 
  Others drop from helicopters on parachutes. 
  They throw grenades as they drop, to create a 
  safe landing perimeter. 
  • 
  Artillery shells blast their way into the 
  encampment, forcing PCs to waste actions 
  dodging them. Failure means taking explo-
  sion damage. 
  • 
  There are steep drops on either side of the 
  trail up to the Crook. Snowmobiles can go 
  zooming over them. 
  • 
  Dodging characters can fall over ledges and 
  hang by their fingertips until rescued. PCs 
  can race against mooks to get to their ledge-
  hanging comrades. If a mook gets there first, 
  he gloats and starts to tread on the victim's 
  fingers, one by one. 
  • 
  A character sees a figure, his features covered 
  by his cold-weather gear, climbing up the 
  back face of Warrior's Crook. However, all 
  efforts to get near him are hampered by 
  incredibly fortuitous artillery fire. Sorcerers 
  and other magical fliers are hampered by 
  powerful waves of hostile chi, which buffet 
  them around like paper airplanes in a hurri-
  cane. (That's what happens when you can 
  take advantage of the Ascended's chi power. 
  It's T'se Chow on those rappels, and it's his 
  lucky day.) 
  • 
  When you finally run out of credible ways to 
  keep the PCs away from the rappelling fig-
  ure, Russian bombers roar overhead. Friend 
  and foe alike run for cover as the moun-
  tainside shakes under the impact of mas-
  sive bombs. 
  • 
  Another Russian plane fires smart missiles 
  which rocket towards the crook itself. Allow 
  flying characters to divert all but one of 
  them. Getting hit by a missile should hurt. 
  • 
  The missile that hits doesn't explode. (If no 
  PCs fly, it's okay for multiple missiles to hit.) 
  Instead, it secretes a sticky purple foam 
  which covers the crook. It fills the forma-
  tion's flute-like rock fissures, blocking the 
  winds that usually make the sound of 
  Norkha's righteousness. T'se Chow sticks 
  around only long enough to perform the 
  necessary ritual, and then grabs the ladder of 
  a passing helicopter. Allow PCs to chase it. 
  Try to make T' se' s escape seem something 
  other than foreordained. 
  • 
  When the foam hits the feng shui site, any 
  remaining mooks flee. The Bahari pursue 
  them-especially the traitors in their midst-
  but just can't seem to sustain the energy to 
  keep up the chase, or the accuracy to nail 
  them as they escape. 
  AFTERMATH 
  Inspection of the goop on the mountain 
  shows that it reeks more of Architects than 
  Ascended. It smells like rotting meat and is shot 
  through with pieces of bone and chitin. When 
  touched, a small demonic head appears and tries 
  to bite off the offending finger. The snapping 
  head then devolves back into the goop. The still-
  smoking fuselage of the smart missile has the fol-
  lowing stenciled on it: 
  FSSC Prototype 
  Not To Leave BMRC Lab 11 
  It also has a serial number including an obvi-
  ous date. This was made three weeks ago. The 
  year is 2056. 
  One of the Bahari alerts Kambiev (or the 
  highest-ranking Bahari survivor) that they've 
  found another body. It dropped from one of the 
  planes, strapped to a dummy missile. Kambiev's 
  face flushes with emotion as he sees who it is. 
  
  KAMBIEV 
  Jusa! Jusa!9 
  (turns to PCs) 
  He was like brother to me! In Moscow, 
  in gang wars, together we stood shoul-
  der to shoulder! 
  He goes on to explain that Jusa was his spy 
  inside the Russian army. His eyes welling with 
  tears, he pries open the soles of Jusa's rubber 
  boot with a knife. 
  This is where he always hid contra-
  band. 
  Sure enough, there's information inside: a 
  digital image of T'se Chow, output out on a laser 
  printer. The resolution's not too good, but the 
  PCs can see that he resembles, without actually 
  being, Ricky Cho. On its back, in handwriting 
  Kambiev identifies as Jusa's, is the notation: 
  "Can there really be four of 
  him?" 
  Also under the boot heel is a print-out of a 
  scanned map. It is a historical map of the north-
  ern part of Ontario. (You do know that's a 
  Canadian province right? Don't make me come 
  over there and get all nationalistic on you.) The 
  legend on the map dates it to circa 1850. The 
  original owner of the map has circled a spot out-
  side the settlement of Michipicoten, and written 
  the word "Earth II next to it, followed by several 
  exclamation marks. The writing is in a hand 
  other than Jusa's. 
  As the PCs get ready to leave, Ilyas asks, with 
  choking voice, to come with them. He must find 
  the man who has stolen the Winds of Norkha, 
  and get them back. Otherwise, the Bahari insur-
  gency is doomed, and the next generation will 
  also live as slaves. If they accept, you might want 
  to allow a player to take control of his actions 
  during fights. 
  SHATTERED 
  PETROGL¥PHS 
  INT. NETHERWORLD: THE JUNKYARD. NIGHT. 
  THE PROF pores over a set of maps. 
  PROF 
  Netherworld portals in Northern 
  Ontario, circa 1850? Gosh-willikers, 
  folks, I'm afraid those are rarer than 
  good acting on Babylon 5. 
  The Dragons know no fast route to 1850s 
  Michipicoten. The PCs will have to go to the 
  Bazaar and dicker with an information broker to 
  find a way there. You can take your time over 
  this, playing out negotiations with a series of 
  shady Netherworld types, or you can elide over 
  it, telling the players that it took several days of 
  haggling to locate the right portal. 
  THE MISSILE CLUE 
  During their stay in the Netherworld, the 
  PCs might also investigate the insignia they 
  found on the missile shrapnel. Any PC 
  Cyborg, Monster Hunter, or Abomination 
  
  (or contact with Architect connections) knows 
  that BMRC stands for ~iomass ..Reprocessing 
  Center, the primary Architect installation in the 
  Netherworld. If the PCs have a contact within 
  the Architects, or go to the trouble to find some-
  one who knows someone who et cetera et cetera, 
  they, after suitable effort, learn the following. 
  Later tidbits should be harder to discover than 
  earlier ones. 
  • 
  One of the scientists assigned to BMRC's 
  Lab 11 disappeared a couple of weeks ago. 
  No one knows where he went. The Buro is 
  very interested to know his current where-
  abouts, so they can, ahem ... debrief him. 
  Yeah, that's it. Debrief him. 
  • 
  His name was Dr. Siegfried Zhu. He was a 
  solid researcher, but didn't wield much clout 
  in Reprocessing Center office politics. 
  • 
  He looked like this. [Contact provides a 
  photo of Zhu, showing the family resem-
  blance to Cho and Chow. J 
  • 
  "FSSC" stands for Feng Shui Suppression 
  Compound. It's an experimental substance 
  that prevents a burned Feng Shui site from 
  regenerating its chi naturally. Only a few nat-
  urally-occurring sites can regenerate, so the 
  material is of only moderate interest to the 
  Buro. 
  • 
  Somebody saw Zhu talking excitedly at the 
  Bazaar a while ago. This happened maybe a 
  couple of months back. He was talking to 
  two guys who might have been his relatives 
  or something. One wore a Hawaiian shirt 
  and a ball cap. The other wore specs and 
  dressed like an 1850s Mandarin. The witness 
  can positively ID Ricky and T'se from the 
  PCs' photos. 
  GETTING TO 
  MICHIPICOTEN 
  The trip to Michipicoten entails a certain 
  amount of hardship. 
  Wendiso 
  Cannibal monsters called Wendigo guard the 
  portal. They used to be human, outcasts from 
  the local Algonquin tribe who resorted to canni-
  balism to survive, and were transformed when 
  they set up permanent quarters in the cave 
  where the portal lies. Prolonged exposure to the 
  weird wavelengths emanating from the 
  Netherworld made them monsters. The Wendigo 
  look like hair-covered men with animalistic fea-
  tures and great ivory tusks. They ambush 
  Innerwalkers and eat them, leaving their gear in 
  a pile in the corner, unused. They're still suffer-
  ing bruises and singed fur from two recent 
  fights, one against the Four Bastards and the sec-
  ond against a group of armed Irishmen. They 
  can still dimly understand human speech, and 
  might be able to pantomime out the encounter 
  if successfully interrogated after a fight. Treat 
  them as named characters, one per pc.10 
  Thinas That Could Happen 
  DurinI' the Fiaht 
  • 
  A Wendigo attempts to clout a PC with a 
  gnawed femur. 
  • 
  Another tosses a human skull at someone's 
  head. 
  • 
  The cavern is full of large rocks, which hurt 
  even more than chucked skulls. 
  • 
  Stalactites might be snapped from the cavern 
  ceiling and used as spears or swords. 
  • 
  A slippery slope leads a character down into 
  the bowels of the cave, where he might 
  become stuck. 
  
  WINTER WEATHER 
  Ie s just as cold here as it was in Baharistan. 
  The snow is even deeper. Have fun punishing 
  PCs not accustomed to traveling on foot through 
  the meter-deep snowdrifts that blanket the 
  region's dense timberland. 
  MISSIONARIES 
  Although Ontario has long since become a 
  bastion of English-speaking Protestantism, the 
  hinterlands still harbor a number of Catholic 
  missions staffed by Quebecois priests. The PCs 
  run into a couple of them, Father Montagnais 
  and Father Richard (REE-shard). They offer the 
  PCs any healing they require, post-Wendigo, and 
  provide the following info: 
  lUuslrotion by David Wb~e 
  • 
  The area here is still pretty inaccessible. It's 
  inhabited by Indians, fur traders, and a few 
  hopeful prospectors. Most trade and travel is 
  done during the summer, by water. A nearby 
  river joins two Great Lakes, Huron and 
  Superior. 
  • 
  The local Indians, the Algonquins, are peace-
  ful, though many are still heathens. Still, the 
  Fathers are doing their best to eradicate their 
  abominable practices. 
  • 
  Several dozen Irishmen have come into the 
  area over the last few months. They're proba-
  bly up to no good. 
  • 
  If shown the map: 
  (20) 
  FATHER MONTAGNAIS 
  Notrung of interest there, my son. 
  Just a large rock with a bunch of 
  heathen Indian scratcrungs on it. 
  
  FENIANS 
  Waiting for the PCs as they approach the 
  spot on the map are a group of pissed-off Irish-
  Americans, with a few Irish-Canadians thrown in 
  for good measure. They're Fenians, rebels who 
  hope to force Britain to withdraw from Ireland 
  by attacking targets in Canada.ll Historians refer 
  to this sort of thing as a Doomed Plan. Anyhow, 
  they're pissed off because a bunch of Chinamen 
  who promised them guns have scampered off 
  without delivering the goods. Said Chinamen 
  were, of course, the Four Bastards. Now feeling 
  both desperate and swindled, they're ready to 
  unload their rifles in the direction of anyone 
  who seems weird or foreign. The PCs doubtless 
  fit the bilI. The Fenians are stilI camping in the 
  ruins of the destroyed feng shui site. They 
  ambush the PCs from a rocky outcrop on one 
  side of the trail that leads to it. 
  Things That Could Happen 
  During the Fight 
  • 
  Musket-firing Fenians barrel down towards 
  the PCs in a huge sled. 
  • 
  They roll big snow-covered boulders at the 
  PCs. 
  • 
  Some fire from high up in the pine trees. 
  • 
  Some throw dynamite.12 
  • 
  They've hidden bear traps under the snow. 
  PCs who fail secret Perception checks 
  (Difficulty 5) may get caught. If bear-trapped, 
  take 20 Damage. Also, check Toughness 
  (Difficulty n or suffer 1 point of 
  Impairment until healed. 
  • 
  When things are going badly for the Fenians, 
  their leader, "Bare Knuckles" O'Halloran, 
  calls a halt to the fight in order that he and 
  a PC might "Fight like men, god damn it." 
  He picks the PC who has exhibited the great-
  est Martial Arts prowess in the fight so far. 
  Conversation with the Fenians can only 
  occur after the ambush (or the one-on-one vs. 
  "Bare Knuckles"). IIBare Knuckles" (or, if he's 
  toast, another Fenian) accuses them of being in 
  league with the II accursed Chinaman, god 
  damn it." The PCs can then convince them that 
  they share a mutual foe. They then learn: 
  • 
  A sinister-looking Chinaman with great long 
  fingernails met with them down in Boston, 
  offering them serious munitions in exchange 
  for armed help in dislodging an Indian band 
  from its far northern holy site. 
  • 
  If shown images of Ricky, T'se, or Siegfried: 
  • 
  None of them's the one hood-
  winked us, but they were there, 
  too, god damn it. 
  The Fenians endured 
  hideous conditions on 
  their trek north, dutifully 
  slew the requisite Indians, 
  and watched the 
  Chinaman explode the 
  natives' rocky holy place 
  with a wave of his 
  
  hand. They saw him perform some weird cer-
  emony. Then he left with his fellows, and 
  said the weapons would be waiting for them 
  in a nearby cave. Instead of weapons, they 
  found the Wendigo. 
  In exchange for weapons, rations, or whiskey 
  (in that order), the Fenians offer to escort the 
  PCs to the scene. There they see a rock face 
  that's been blown to smithereens. An appropriate 
  Info check (Difficulty 5) finds, on one of the 
  chunks of rock, a marking that looks like the 
  Chinese. character for Earth. 
  One of the Fenians then steps up and admits 
  that he "inspected" the packs of one of the 
  Chinamen - the one with the spectacles. (That 
  is, T'se Chow.) He produces Chow's diary, which 
  he can't read because it's in Chinese.13 Bidding 
  starts at twice the price the PCs just paid for 
  escort to the site. The journal reveals the follow-
  ing: 
  • 
  T' se' s story: His faithful service to the Wheet 
  their callous attack on his refuge, his meeting 
  with Ricky, the death of his wife, his meeting 
  with the other two Bastards, their discovery 
  that they share the same father - everything 
  you find under the "Backstory" heading, but 
  from T' set s point of view. 
  • 
  The sinister plan, including the locations for 
  the next three attacks, and the order in 
  which they'll occur. The PCs have only hours 
  to get to the next site, the Nahr 'Umar Oil 
  Fields, before the attack. 
  NAHR'UMAR 
  OIL FIELDS 
  INT. NETHERWORLD. 
  The PCs stand in a disused, llllShaped 
  Netherworld passageway, studying a map. 
  They look up dubiously at a manhole cover 
  directly above their heads. The strongest PC 
  reaches up and hauls it down. It opens up into 
  a vertical tunnel. A PC gets a boost up into it. 
  It is lined with metal rungs, and he climbs up 
  to a second manhole, which he removes. 
  EXT. OIL FIELDS. DAY. 
  And finds himself in the middle of a firestorm. 
  Literally. 
  When the PCs arrive, the battle for the site is 
  already in progress. The Bastards have lit the 
  field's oil on fire. Dozens of refinery stacks belch 
  withering flame. The air is full of blinding, chok-
  ing, pitch-black smoke. A wild assortment of 
  minions wander the site, looking for intruders to 
  kill and/or eat. They're made up of disaffected 
  grunts from various factions. Each has been 
  brought to serve the Bastards by the forces of 
  inexorable fate. Their numbers include Buro 
  cops, Chinese soldiers and police officers, 19th 
  century British officers, and a profusion of 
  Netherworld rabble. 
  The mooks spot the PCs, call an alert, and 
  swarm to attack. Every so often you should pro-
  mote one to named status, pumping his main 
  combat AV by 3. 
  Things That Could Happen 
  During the Fight 
  • 
  A gust of air blows smoke onto a Pc. Check 
  Constitution vs. Difficulty 9, or face X shots 
  of inaction, where X is the difference 
  between Difficulty and Outcome. If X is 
  greater than ( take 5 Damage (not reduced 
  by Toughness). 
  • 
  Someone gets dropped into a blazing refin-
  ery stack. Ow! 
  Iraqi army helicopters whir in to investi-
  gate. In doing so, they violate the UN No-
  Fly Zone. US jets scramble and shoot them 
  
  -
  --:..,~~ .... -~ 
  ;::- - . --=~ 
  Illustration by David WhHe 
  (21) 
  down. Consequence: A burning helicopter 
  comes crashing to earth right where the fight 
  happens to be. 
  • 
  Someone with unearthly strength tosses the 
  manhole cover like a frisbee. 
  When you think the fight has gone on long 
  enough, the PCs reach the spot where the 
  Bastards performed their special site-burning rit-
  ual. Now they're climbing into a helicopter to 
  speed away. Their potent chi helps them escapei 
  the clouds of smoke reduce visibility for flying 
  characters to zero. No chance of shooting them 
  down from the ground, either. 
  Next stop, the future, and an island intimate-
  ly familiar to two out of the Four Bastards. 
  
  CONTAINMENT 
  SITE DS4S 
  Containment Site DS4S is the Buro designa-
  tion for the island Long-Nails occupied in 69, 
  and Tse Chow guarded in 1850. Its chi is potent 
  because a grove of perfect bamboo trees sits at its 
  exact center. Not even the anti-life procedures of 
  the Architects have managed to dampen its 
  power. So of course they guard it tightly. 
  This time the PCs have to hunt for the clos-
  est Netherworld portal to Bamboo Island. Make 
  them call in favors, visit weird Netherworld 
  byways, and dicker with cunning rabble. They 
  should make at least one successful Investigation, 
  Intimidation, Detective, Police, or other check 
  per PC before they locate the portal they seek. 
  This is your chance to create some bizarre char-
  acters and have fun interacting with the PCs. 
  ZOMER McZOMER 
  During the course of these inquiries, they're 
  approached by a sometime Jammer named 
  Zomer McZomer. Zomer has a caved-skull only 
  partly bolstered by an aluminum plate. He seems 
  crazy, but claims that the Battlechimp Potemkin 
  is about to pull something big. He's used weird 
  tech to hook in some patsies who are going to 
  help him rule the world, or destroy it, or 
  increase the flow of monkey chow to the 
  Netherworld, or something. 
  ENTER, STACE WET 
  INT. NETHERWORLD. 
  The PCs stand in a corridor lined with archaic-
  looking sculptures of fish, dolphins, squid, and 
  other sea creatures. The design is either 
  ancient Greek or some kind of alien. The corri-
  dor terminates in a solid wall of water. 
  The PCs don their scuba gear and prepare 
  to head on in. 
  Yes, the portal closest to the island is in 
  the middle of the ocean's waters. The PCs 
  about five hundred fathoms below the surface. 
  Oh, and barrelling right towards them is a freak-
  ing huge shark. Characters unaccustomed to 
  fighting underwater face 2 points of Impairment. 
  Spy characters are automatically assumed to be 
  scuba-combat experts. 
  THE SHIP 
  When the PCs break the surface, they find 
  themselves close to a Buro patrol frigate. The 
  crewmen on the deck look more like the 57 vari-
  eties of mook serving the Bastards than a usual 
  Buro complement. The PCs are noticed immedi-
  ately and put in a spotlight. Ricky appears on the 
  deck and gives them the chance to surrender. 
  RICKY 
  C'mon, join the party! After the proper 
  loyalty test, you can join us. Help us 
  rule the world! Meet chicks! 
  The PCs can try to escape if they want. Only 
  mooks chase them, in Buro-styled personal water-
  craft. Or they can learn the villain's sinister plot 
  by allowing themselves to be captured. One thing 
  they can't do, no matter how much they might 
  think they want to, is raise a hand to harm any 
  of the Bastards unless the Four start a fight. 
  They've accumulated so much Chi that even the 
  PCs feel a powerful compulsion to join them. 
  Our heroes automatically succeed in resisting the 
  compulsion - unless a player has failed to show 
  up for tonight's session. His character gets 
  sucked in utterly, and looks forward to helping 
  the Bastards destroy the next sites. He snaps out 
  of it when the player shows up at a subse-
  quent session. It's bad form to get the char-
  acter offed. 
  
  Of course, if a player wants his PC to volun-
  tarily join, either as a subversive element or 
  because he's becoming an anti-hero, you should 
  allow it. Handling this is up to you; you'll know 
  the particular PC better than I. 
  The PCs are stripped of their weapons and 
  confined to quarters. However, they are often 
  called upon to dine with the Bastards, who put 
  pressure on them to join their cause. These 
  exchanges allow you to personalize the villains, 
  making them seem real to the players. They tell 
  their stories from their own points of view. They 
  fill in any exposition the players haven't yet 
  heard. 
  If confronted with the rumor passed along 
  by Zomer McZomer, no Bastard gives it any cre-
  dence. Zomer had no evidence of anything. The 
  four of them have had not one iota of contact 
  with the Battlechimp or any other Jammer. 
  The patrol cruiser draws closer to the island. 
  T'se Chow in particular becomes bitterly moved 
  as he sees it draw closer. The PCs, having read 
  his journal, should know that the tears he sheds 
  are for his murdered wife. 
  The four gather together and begin to per-
  form a ritual - not on the island, but from the 
  deck of a boat. This all becomes clear when Zhu 
  produces a sleek black laptop connected to the 
  ship's communications tower. He punches in a 
  few buttons and, within moments, orbital lasers 
  reduce the island to smoking rubble. The PCs, 
  still flummoxed by the superior Bastard chi, can 
  only stand by as the Bastards burn the penulti-
  mate site on their road to world supremacy. 
  The Bastards then order their mooks to toss 
  the PCs overboard. Ricky argues with the others 
  and throws the PCs their oxygen tanks, so they 
  have at least a shot at survival. 
  The boat speeds away. Buro jets and copters 
  appear within moments to investigate the demise 
  of their site. Wise PCs will boot it back for that 
  underwater portal. 
  (25) 
  lIIuslralion by David WhH~ 
  
  THE BIGGEST 
  DAM BATTLE OF 
  THEM ALL 
  EXT. THREE GORGES DAM. DAY. 
  A row of Chinese officials, each stuffed into an 
  emphatically unstylish blue business suit, 
  makes slow and awkward progress to the mid-
  dle of the concrete walkway atop the dam. The 
  camera pulls out and then pulls down to show 
  that the walkway is the top of a dam so mas-
  sive that it makes the famous Hoover Dam look 
  malnourished. The camera wavers for a 
  moment, as if having spotted something. It 
  slowly, weavingly, zooms in to reveal the PLAY-
  ER CHARACTERS, anxiously waiting for the 
  big fight to begin. 
  STAGES OF THE 
  BATTLE 
  The final set-piece battle unfolds in the fol-
  lowing stages: 
  1. 
  Initial attack by the Bastards. 
  2. 
  Ascended-controlled security forces launch 
  counter-assault, are beaten back. 
  3. 
  Lotus forces appear and attack, are also beat-
  en back. 
  4. 
  Ditto for the Architects. 
  5. 
  The Bastards triumph and mutate into 
  cyborg gorillas. Reality starts to melt down. 
  6. 
  Only the PCs can save the day. 
  THE FINAL 
  REVELATION 
  Oh, didn't I mention the mutating cyborg 
  gorillas part before? Jeez, I was sure I had. Must 
  have slipped my mind. 
  Okay, here's what's really up. The Four 
  Bastards are just pawns in a plot by the 
  Battlechimp Potemkin to strip the world of its 
  chi. The Bastards are really only members of the 
  same ancestral line, not brothers. The Chimp 
  used the Trans-Temporal Hose Job, a device cre-
  ated by one of his techies, to select four individu-
  als, one from each juncture, with the highest 
  possible degree of genetic similarity to one 
  another. The TTHJ then emitted trans-temporal 
  waves which altered their genetic structures. The 
  immediate effect of the alteration was to create a 
  false reading on a DNA test, making them seem 
  like brothers. The DNA of their Ilfather" matches 
  the Battlechimp.14 In a way, he retroactively 
  made himself their father. 
  The TTHJ also generated a number of 
  UESIs15 to set the inexorable log of vengeance a-
  rolling down the hill. It made Ricky Cho snap in 
  Fast Eddie's presence. It motivated T'se's Wheel 
  masters to launch an attack against his island for 
  no good reason whatsoever. A UESI even cat-
  alyzed the brain chemistry that transformed a 
  formerly meek lab jockey like Siegfried Zhu into 
  an embittered powermonger hungry for revenge. 
  Likewise, another neurotransmitter infarction 
  inspired Long-Nails to hatch the entire ritual 
  behind their chi grab. 
  Jammer operatives are stationed in the crowd 
  of onlookers gathered for the ceremony. When 
  they see that the Bastards are just about ready to 
  complete the ritual and attune to the site, they 
  push the button on the one-of-a-kind prototype 
  TTHJ, destroying it and activating the latent 
  Battlechimp DNA, causing the Four Bastards to 
  go ape.16 Thus the attunement counts as a win 
  for the Jammers and all-around chaos, not for 
  the Bastards. Instead of allowing them to rule 
  the world, it begins to drain the world of chi. 
  And only the PCs can 
  save the day. 
  I did say that part 
  already, right? 
  
  MANAGING THE 
  BIG FIGHT 
  The PCs can get involved at any time. The 
  later they wait, the fresher they'll be for the final 
  fight against the Transmutated Bastardchimps. 
  Early joiners, once they realize that a zillion fac-
  tions are chiming in, may withdraw for a while 
  to let the sides wear each other down. 
  The golden rule here is not to bother to roll 
  out combats between GMCs. Sure, roll dice once 
  in a while and peer at the results as if they mat-
  ter. But really the rules only come into play 
  when PC battles GMG 
  Deploy mooks and innocent-bystanders-in-
  need-of-immediate-rescue as needed to keep the 
  Bastards up and functional until the big revela-
  tion. As a last resort, upgrade some mooks to 
  named status and pump their AVs so that they're 
  3 less than those of the PCs with whom they're 
  trading blows. 
  Use the stats on p. 23 for unnamed charac-
  ters on both sides of the fracas. 
  Phase One: 
  Bastard Attack 
  Phase Two: 
  Ascended Counterattack 
  As soon as all of the surviving Party members 
  clear the walkway, security forces stationed on 
  both sides of the gorge open fire against the 
  Secret Warriors occupying it. The forces on the 
  dam return fire. Then other Secret Warriors 
  emerge from the dense foliage and swarm 
  towards the still-loyal Chinese soldiers. They 
  include both abominations and multi-tentacled 
  demons. They too seem to be fighting at the 
  Four Bastards' behest. 
  Thinas That Could Happen in 
  This Phase 
  • 
  Secret warriors fighting on the gorge are 
  thrown down into the river. 
  • 
  Loyalist soldiers flee in terror from the 
  freaks and demons. 
  • 
  A crowd of on-lookers panics; a little child is 
  about to be trampled, and one of the PCs 
  must save him! 
  • 
  A Chinese officer orders soldiers to open fire 
  on news crews. The Ascended don't want 
  footage of this fracas getting out. 
  When this starts to get boring: 
  The security forces are taking it in the chops! 
  Dozens of soldiers are down! Some groups 
  have ringed themselves around important offi-
  cials, as human shields. Others hide under 
  trucks or behind buildings. Many more others 
  just lie where they have fallen, unconscious 
  and bleeding. Their leaders order a ceasefire. 
  An unmarked, black helicopter appears and 
  hovers over the dam. The FOUR BASTARDS 
  quickly disembark from it, climbing down a 
  ladder. More mooks appear, to ferry heavy-look-
  ing boxes onto the walkway. 
  Suddenly, explosions wrack the walkway. 
  Chinese officials go flying everywhere. Some 
  are lifted into the air and plunge dozens of sto-
  ries to ignominious death at the bottom of the 
  gorge. Others flee along the walkway, running 
  in both directions. Swarms of Secret Warriors 
  appear on both sides of the gorge, making 
  their way through the dense green vegetation 
  to run towards the dam. It's the Bastards' 
  usual assortment of motley minions. The PCs 
  even recognize some of the modern-dress com-
  batants as members of the Friends of the 
  Dragon support society. Ricky has no doubt 
  duped them into helping him! 
  More helicopters, these ones bearing the 
  insignia of the Chinese army, rise up over the 
  crest of the gorge like apocalyptic valkyries. 
  //-~~ But they do nothing about the warriors on 
  With no one to oppose them but fleeing 
  officials, the Secret Warriors easily take the 
  dam. 
  the dam. Instead, they land near the offi-
  cials, who rush inside. The army heli-
  
  copters speed away. The Ascended have 
  abandoned the field. 
  The Bastards' mooks begin pulling strange 
  ritual implements out of the boxes. The attune-
  ment is about to begin. 
  If the pes have been merely spectating at 
  this point, you might want to let them rush in 
  where they have previously feared to tread, 
  before starting the next phase. 
  Phase Three: 
  The Lotus Arrive 
  Suddenly the air rattles and shakes. An ear-
  piercing clap of thunder rumbles all around. 
  Lightning smashes down from a black cloud 
  that wasn't there before,17 Out of the lightning 
  bolt pours a corps of eunuch sorcerers!18 They 
  fly towards the dam, magically blasting away 
  as they go. 
  Thinas That Could Happen in 
  This Phase: 
  • 
  Blast effects: Sorcerers create fists which reach 
  onto the dam, grab rival mooks, and hurl 
  them to their deaths below. Electricity fries 
  abomination circuitry. Guns explode, wound-
  ing their operators. The railing comes to life 
  and boa-constricts its way around the chest 
  cavities of several defenders. 
  • 
  Sorcerers assume pes are in league with 
  Bastards and let I er rip, attacking with blasts. 
  • 
  Eunuchs suffer backlash 
  effects. Some explode in 
  midair. Others spiral 
  down into the gorge. 
  • 
  The Bastards' helicopter 
  operator takes a run at a 
  passel of sorcerers, slicing 
  a few flying eunuchs with 
  his rotor blade, before 
  himself being zapped. 
  The helicopter barrels 
  towards a set of bleach-
  ers, behind which 
  many innocent 
  bystanders cower. 
  • 
  A few determined Ascended officers rally 
  and join the fray, only to be smacked down 
  by both sides. (This stops if the pes can 
  communicate to the eunuchs that the 
  Ascended also oppose the Bastards.) 
  When things again start to flag and it's time to 
  move on: Sorcerers take control of demons and 
  abominations, who swarm towards the bridge to 
  attack their former masters. They tear into the 
  dam defenders for a while. Long-Nails works a 
  mighty spell which grows the demons and abo-
  mos to twice their normal size. They fly at the 
  eunuchs, tearing them to bits. They drop the 
  corpses onto the bridge where Long-Nails per-
  forms a second working which brings them back 
  to life as hopping vampires. More thralls for the 
  Bastards! 
  Phase Four: 
  Architects of the Flesh 
  With the eunuchs converted to their use, the 
  Four Bastards again begin to set up their ritual 
  implements. Demons roam the walkway, 
  devouring the slain and sPItting them out as 
  additional hopping vampires. 
  Again, you might want to wait until the 
  pes make a move before: 
  
  Incredibly powerful laser beams zap down from 
  the upper atmosphere. They hit portions of the 
  dam. It begins to crack. Then futuristic attack 
  helicopters appear, disgorging dozens of mis-
  siles. In mid-flight, the missiles transform into 
  abominations. The Architects have joined the 
  fray! 
  Use above statistics for unnamed abomina-
  tions, but add 1 to the Outcome needed to down 
  them.19 
  Thinas That Could Happen in 
  This Phase 
  • 
  Some missile-ized abominations fail to 
  deploy. They hit the dam with a thud. Blood 
  oozes out of them before they fall. More 
  cracks appear in the dam. 
  • 
  PCs must shield bystanders from orbital laser 
  strikes, or simply dodge the suckers them-
  selves. 
  • 
  Long-Nails dominates abominations into 
  attacking PCs or bystanders. 
  • 
  An abomination rips the head off a hopping 
  vampire, sending it hurtling through the air. 
  It hurtles towards a Pc. If the PC doesn't 
  dodge, the still-robust jiangshi noggin clomps 
  its teeth into him. Damage from disembod-
  ied tossed vampiric head bite: 10 per 
  sequence until dislodged. To dislodge, check 
  Strength (Difficulty 5). Damage accrues at 
  the top of each sequence. 
  • 
  Assorted disembodied hopping vampire 
  limbs writhe and wriggle across the walkway, 
  impeding the progress of PCs who try to 
  navigate it. 
  • 
  Abominations on each side charge into each 
  other headlong, colliding 
  in mid-air and exploding 
  in a shower of foul ichor. 
  • 
  If IIyas is present, he gets 
  through to the Bastards. 
  (29) 
  
  He fights valiantly but is outmatched. Ricky 
  Cho dispatches him with a point-blank chest 
  shot. As he goes down, the PCs hear the old 
  sound of the wind whipping through 
  Warrior's Crook ringing mournfully in their 
  ears. 
  When your ability to keep the excitement 
  going-and the PCs away from the Bastards-
  flags, go to the final bit. 
  Phase Five: 
  Gorilla Meltdown 
  The war of attrition seems about over. A few 
  twitching body parts still flop arOlmd on the 
  walkway, but the various mooks are down for 
  the count. Now it's just you and the Four 
  Bastards. The bad news: They've just complet-
  ed their ritual. 
  All characters with Fu or Mag ratings greater 
  than zero fall to their knees for a moment, as if 
  the wind has been knocked out of them. Leaping 
  characters fall suddenly to the ground. Flying 
  ones abruptly plummet: Check the relevant AV 
  (Difficulty 9) to come out of the tailspin without 
  thundering in. 
  Everything you can see-the dam, the gorge, 
  the sky, your own bodies-seem to warp and 
  twist, like reality itself has become a funhouse 
  mirror. The effect seems centered on the Four 
  Bastards, who've fallen to their knees. They're 
  changing-getting bigger . . . hairier! They're 
  sprouting metal limbs and onboard weapomy! 
  They've become cyborg gorillas! And the world-
  warping effect is getting worse, as if all of 
  existence is about to swirl down the porcelain 
  bowl! 
  Notes on the Final Smackdown 
  • 
  Add 3 to each Bastard's Bod. Give 'em flight 
  powers (rockets in their legs) and onboard 
  machine guns (Damage 14, no need for 
  reload, use best combat AV to activate). 
  • 
  If the PCs are having too easy a time of it, 
  the Bastards unconsciously develop the abili-
  ty to warp the very fabric of space itself. 
  They distort PCs' bodies. They cause flailing 
  arms to sprout from the dam itself. They cre-
  ate rips in the space continuum and shove 
  PCs through them, causing reality incompati-
  bility damage. 
  • 
  The best way to end the world-threatening 
  chi-drain effect is to kill the Bastards. When 
  one of them dies, a popping sound reverber-
  ates through nearby ears. Each time, the 
  world seems 25% less warpy. 
  • 
  If Ilyas is lying there in his pool of blood, he 
  tries to get the attention of the PC with 
  whom he had the closest relationship. With 
  his dying breath, as blood dribbles out of his 
  mouth, he removes from his sheepskin coat a 
  carved wooden staff. 
  
  ILYAS 
  Use this - (sputter) - my brave 
  one. Touch it to him. Recapture the 
  energy of Warrior's Crook - I beg 
  you -
  urk! 
  The PC must defeat T'se and touch the staff 
  to him as he loses consciousness. 
  • 
  The mighty chi of the angered Yiangtze River 
  interacts badly with the chaotic chi of the 
  ape-ified Bastards. If any of them fall in the 
  river, a mighty explosion occurs. Result: one 
  atomized Bastard. (It's a bummer if T'se goes 
  this way, forever dispersing the chi of 
  Warrior's Crook. Do what you can to give 
  PCs a chance to avert this.) 
  • 
  If Bastards die in other ways, they revert to 
  human form. They intuitively realize what 
  has happened to them. In a dying mono-
  logue, a Bastard fingers the Battlechimp, rec-
  ognizes his own as role as dupe in a plot to 
  siphon the world's chi, and expires, leaving 
  room for a sequel of your own devising. 
  DENOUEMENTS 
  AND NEW 
  DIRI3CTIONS 
  Someone shows up to provide whatever expo-
  sition is still missing. It could be Kar Fai or 
  another Dragon GMC, passing along the Prof's 
  big explanation of all that went on. Or it might 
  be a Jammer defector or even a Buro contact 
  who's discovered the Battlechimp's plan and 
  arrived just too late to help stop it. 
  When the Jammers find out that the 
  Battlechimp's efforts did something really nasty 
  to reality, some of them begin to question his 
  whole objective of destroying the world's chi. 
  You might want to play this up in a future 
  adventure. Perhaps the PCs help rescue Jammer 
  defectors, or find themselves in the middle of a 
  Jammer civil war. This would naturally entail a 
  great many explosions. 
  For their part, the Chinese government 
  announces that the Three Gorges Dam project 
  will not go on-line until some Ilminor engineer-
  ing defects" are cleared up. In fact, they leave the 
  thing inoperative forever, guarding it heavily lest 
  some other enemy do them the dirty by destroy-
  ing it. They later come to regret investing so 
  much of their chi in one mega-project. 
  But that's a story for another day. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Deduped  Shit/Feng Shui 1/Feng Shui - Four Bastards.pdf