Ordos - The Walled City (PV)

Overview

Ordos is one city, but its warded wall encloses far more than streets: farmland, a bamboo forest climbing into mountains, a vast cave system crawling beyond the walls, an enticing red flower field so vibrant and beautiful that makes it difficult to leave, and a awe-inspiring brilliant green flats that goes on for hundreds of miles.

• The city proper sits at the center, governed by the ten magistrates. See #City districts.
• The Bamboo Sea and the mountains form one edge of the wall, home to the beast-folk.
• #The Red Sea is a vast field of red flowers that naturally attracts wonderous, fantastical creatures.
• #The Jade Flats are a blinding plain of solid jade, mirror-like after rain.
• #The Under-Maze runs beneath the city and the mountains, older than the wall itself.

The wall does not follow a clean circle. Where it cuts through the mountains, some beast-folk villages sit right on the line, which matters when the ward flips.

The Manyou System

Exploration outside these walls has become systemized and relatively safe via the Manyou System and the Oracion Seas.

Under a charter from the ten magistrates, the Oracion Seas alone may license explorers, called Manyou, to work beyond the wall. A license brings real privileges and real obligations, and earning one is famously hard.

The Oracion Seas

The Oracion Seas is Ordos's adventurers guild, and its hall gives its name to the district around it. Members call the wilds beyond the wall "the seas," and the guild's name comes from the prayer every expedition speaks before setting out.

The hall is built into the wall itself, with its own gate, the Seas Gate, used only by Manyou. Inside are the contract board, the training yards where trials are held, an altar to the Loyal General, and the bell tower that sounds the Bell. A guildmaster leads the Oracion Seas, with a second-in-command who runs its day-to-day work and knows every member by name. The taverns around the hall are where crews form, rivalries start, and new Manyou celebrate their seals.

The Trials

The guild holds its initiation once a season. Candidates must pass five trials in order, and most fail the first year they try. These trials have been hold secret to most, one part of the vow newly initiated Manyou must keep

• The Trial of Lore
• The Trial of the Bamboo
• The Trial of the Night
• The Trial of the Sovereign
• The Oath

Ranks

Every Manyou carries a seal that shows their rank. Rank decides which contracts they may take and how far beyond the wall they may go.

Privileges

While a license is active, a Manyou may:

• Pass through any wall gate at any hour.
• Carry weapons and use lethal force against monsters anywhere in the city.
• Enter restricted grounds, including the Ten Halls' archives, while on contract.
• Keep salvage rights to monster parts and sell them in Ashmarket untaxed.
• Requisition supplies from city stores during emergencies.
• Be tried by a guild tribunal, not the magistrates, for acts committed on contract.

Obligations

In return, every Manyou must:

• Answer the Bell: when the wall's alarm sounds, every Manyou in the city reports to the Lantern Ring.
• Complete a minimum number of contracts each season to keep their license.
• Report every discovery beyond the wall to the guild.
• Protect civilians before contracts, salvage, or their own safety.
• Never abandon a contract once accepted without the guild's release.

Local Legend

City districts

There are 8 major districts in the city proper

Local Legends

The Bamboo Sea and the Flower-Fruit Peaks

A dense bamboo forest rises from the city's edge into steep mountains, home to most of Ordos's beast-folk. Inspiration: Sun Wukong's Mountain of Flowers and Fruit from Journey to the West, and Kishkindha, the kingdom of Hanuman's people in the Ramayana.

Peoples: tabaxi, kenku, tortles, harengon, leonin, owlin, and lizardfolk, plus a homebrew monkey-folk who see themselves as the peaks' first people. They trade with the city but govern themselves.

Places

• The Bamboo Sea: stalks so dense that paths close behind travelers. Locals navigate by sound, and outsiders hire guides.
• The Water Curtain: a cave behind a great waterfall, seat of the beast-folk council. An empty stone throne waits for a king who never returned.
• The Herb Terraces: high slopes where a rare healing herb grows, sought by every healer in the city.
• The Wall Line: the ward cuts straight through the peaks. Some villages sit on the line, and families live on both sides.

Legends

The Under-Maze

A cave system beneath the city and the peaks, older than the wall and far deeper than anyone has mapped.

Structure: the upper tunnels are known ground: cave dwellers, smugglers' routes, orphans' shortcuts, and old storage vaults. Below them, the levels grow stranger and only the Manyou are allowed to enter.

Places

• The Smoke Wards entrance: the most common way down, through collapsed foundry cellars.
• The Mirror of Retribution: a chamber whose mirror shows each visitor the worst thing they have done
• The gatehouses of Ox-Head and Horse-Face: the undermaze guardians, here as old wardens who still patrol the deep levels and question intruders.
• The tunnels under the wall: passages that run beneath the ward, possibly the only way in or out once it reverses.
• The Bridge at the bottom: the deepest level ends at a bridge over a dark river. No one who reaches it comes back to say what's there.

Local Legends

The Red Sea

A vast field of red spider lilies, so dense it looks like a red sea from the hills. In Chinese and Japanese tradition, these flowers bloom along the road to the underworld. Their leaves and flowers never appear at the same time, so the two never meet.

Ties

• Yapian Row's strongest drug is distilled from these flowers, and users dream of other skies.
• The Under-Maze surfaces at the field's edge, matching the flowers' place on the road to the underworld.
• Whoever holds the lovers' Soul now may carry an unresolved regret: a purification quest waiting to happen.

The Jade Flats

A blinding plain of polished jade stretching to the horizon, flat as a salt pan. In Chinese tradition jade stands for purity and immortality, and Han-dynasty nobles were buried in suits of jade to keep their bodies from decaying.

Features

• The Mirror: after rain, a thin film of water turns the flats into a perfect mirror, like a salt flat. Here the reflection doesn't show the hell realm's sky. It shows other skies, glimpses of the realms above.
• Jade cutters: crews harvest slabs for shrines, wards, and trade, and guard their claims fiercely.
• The sealed dead: bodies in ancient jade suits lie preserved beneath the surface, perfectly intact, from a time before the city.

Local Legends

Local gods

Six local gods drawn from Chinese folk religion, each with shrines on Incense Street and a stake in the wall. Suggested domains and patrons are for cleric and warlock players.