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[Let's Read] Unbreakable Volume 1

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Libertad:


The bamboo is strong, resilient, unbreakable.

-Morihei Ueshiba
There’s no denying that medieval Europe dominates the conceptual playspace of Dungeons & Dragons when it comes to fantasy counterpart cultures. And even on that note it draws most of its influence from Medieval Britain, with a multicultural sprinkling of various monsters. Official and fanmade worlds have been delving beyond these constraints, with Oriental Adventures being one of the most notable older works. However, much like the British-centrism of not-Europe, OA’s own focus draws heavily from Japanese pop culture with a smattering of Chinese influences here and there. Beyond this, a lot of Fantasy Asia write-ups tend to be by people with no strong ties or ancestry in the locations they’re deriving influence from, and the adoption of folklore, culture, and other features all too often ends up inaccurate or stereotypical.

Unbreakable is a 3rd party D&D project of adventures written by Asian creators, with emphasis on showcasing content beyond the stock archetypes seen in Western popular culture. It’s but one volume in a larger project of yet-to-be-released books. Each chapter lists a short biography and social media links of said writer, as well as what media and/or folkloric influences they used when said adventure derives inspiration from an existing work. There’s also Content Warnings for material that gaming groups may find objectionable or uncomfortable, and there’s brief talks of Safety Toolkits which are handily linked to in a Google Document. In terms of objectionable content nobody was edgy enough to portray sexual violence thankfully, although there are some darker inferences such as torture in one adventure and another centering around monsters that kill and eat children. But some of the CWs seem to be things that are either common enough in fiction that the types of people who would have trouble engaging with them in an adventure would be ill-pressed to play tabletop gaming in general: for example, the first adventure’s CW is Water & Storms, and the seventh lists Poverty & Shapeshifting under its CWs. But I cannot object too much, especially given that the opposite effect is far too common in most gaming groups.

Other commonalities of the adventures include separation of content into Chapters, pronunciation guides are given for proper names, and NPCs of note are given pronouns next to the first time their name appears. Quite a bit of the adventures have notable nonbinary characters, as seen through the use of they/them pronouns. But beyond these universalities it is very clear that the book has different authors. From writing style to mechanical design, the adventures differ greatly in content. They are also setting-agnostic; while they hint upon elements that point to specific cultural elements, most of the Unbreakable adventures take place in relatively isolated locales and city-states whose specific outlying regions and borders are left to the whims of the Dungeon Master.


Through the Dragon’s Gate
Our first adventure is scaled for 1st to 4th level characters and is a rather straightforward wilderness trek where the PCs visit a gold dragon’s abode to reverse a spate of weather-related disasters. The set-up involves a pair of dragons, Jin-Zhi and her daughter Jin-Hao, who watch over a mountain range with a village at its base. Jin-Zhi had a good relationship with the villagers, who often asked her to use her magic to bless the weather to avert famine and the worst of nature’s wrath. While on a business trip Jin-Hao was placed in charge of the mountain due to some convincing on her part, and in a case of mistaken identity was asked by the local magistrate to perform magic beyond her capabilities. Eager to prove herself, Jin-Hao inadvertently summoned a hailstorm which ruined the village’s crops and stranded the magistrate in the mountains. Jin-Zhi was none too pleased to learn about this turn of events and transformed her own daughter into a golden-scaled carp. The villagers are now angry at Jin-Zhi for “betraying” them and have resorted to overfishing the nearby river to avoid famine.

Enter the PCs, who come upon the village while on their travels and hear about the recent ill news. The initial arrival has some role-playing and skill checks to help the desperate villagers out, whether helping them get more fish or convincing them not to overfish. Jin-Hao is caught by a net, who in magic talking carp form is the immediate adventure hook: pretending to be a water spirit, she offers to help find out the fate of the missing magistrate and parley with the mountain’s dragon “as a fellow spirit.” The local villagers are either too busy attending to domestic duties, too resentful of the dragon, or too ill-equipped to make the dangerous mountain trek themselves.

Jin-Hao is willing to accompany the PCs, but is too prideful to be taken in a container of water and instead opts to swim along the river running down the mountain. The various encounters involve dangers along said river or involve persevering against the watery elements. One such encounter includes helping an ogre hermit find his lost maps (buried in his house’s rubble due to the hailstorm) in exchange for unblocking a dam of rocks, a nest of blood hawks lying in wait near a malfunctioning Boot of Levitation (formerly owned by the magistrate) which acts as a “sitting duck floating in mid-air” trap to those who step over it, and the use of skill checks and possible magic to track down the magistrate via finding his scattered belongings. Sadly Fa-Zhong, said magistrate, suffered injury to his legs from a lightning strike and believes that the dragon will be able to heal his wounds. He can still walk, but not very well. As the party is closer to the mountain’s peak than the village, he and Jin-Hao view this as the more prudent course of action.

The final part of the adventure takes place by a mountain lake, and Jin-Zhi’s lair is at the top of a flat mountain peak with an archway at the top marking the Dragon’s Gate. Carved to look like a pair of golden dragons, it transports those who pass through it into a beautiful grove. Magical protections prevent any form of approach besides manually climbing the cliffside via a damaging invisible force field, and Jin-Hao will warn the party as much.

Jin-Zhi will confront the party as they enter the grove, and Jin-Hao will intervene before any hostile misunderstandings on her mother’s part occur. She’ll explain to her mother and the party the truth of things and asks Jin-Zhi to heal the magistrate. Jin-Zhi proposes that she’ll grant this request and also teach her daughter the magic needed to restore the village’s crops should she be able to best her in combat. Jin-Hao says that this task is beyond her, and instead offers for the party to fight in her stead after all they’ve done in proving themselves along the way. Turns out this was a secret test of character by Jin-Zhi to see if her daughter learned her lesson in humility, and accepts these terms if the party does as well.

The duel with Jin-Zhi is not to the death: she is an Adult Gold Dragon, but attacks nonlethally and only in the form of a weaker animal shape. Said animals range from giant crabs to crocodiles, formidable opponents yet nothing too out of range for a party to handle. Jin-Zhi has a set of unique lair actions which can conjure mist for one round and to change shape into another animal form. She ceases combat after receiving a predetermined amount of damage from the party, which ranges from 40 to 80 depending on the overall numbers and level of said party. If the party’s KOed they will wake up in the lair, but overwise the ending to the adventure is more or less the same: the magistrate Fa-Zhong’s legs are healed, a spell is cast to restore the crops, and Jin-Zhi transforms her daughter back into dragon form and flies everyone down to the village to explain what happened. The villagers are understanding and apologies are given and accepted on both sides. For their troubles, the party is given a golden oyster that can produce a single-use Pearl of Power every 30 days.

Thoughts So Far: I find this to be a passable adventure, if a bit linear for my tastes. Its main weak point is that although suggestions are given for adjusting encounter difficulty, very low-level PCs play very differently than the upper limits of what the adventure suggests. 1st level PCs are very fragile and have a lot less resources to draw upon before requiring rests. I do like the relative sparsity of outright combat and in the case of the ogre a nonviolent alternative which would be good for such a low level. I admit that the final encounter with Jin-Zhi had a lot of tension lost given that the end result is the same whether or not the PCs manage to beat her in a duel. I get that she’s meant to be Lawful Good and is unlikely to let the villagers starve, but maybe something like offering the magical item as a “win condition” or only offering to do one of two miracles (healing Fa-Zhong or restoring the crops) on a loss would put some actual stakes in the fight.

Join us next time as we read Feeding the River, an adventure where the party must put a stop to a powerful pollution spirit despoiling nature and the riverside villages!


--- Quote from: Author’s Notes & Acknowledgements ---This adventure is based on the Chinese Proverb, “The Carp has leaped through the Dragon’s Gate.” In Chinese mythology, the Dragon’s Gate is a waterfall. It is said that if a carp is strong enough to swim up the turbulent river and over waterfall, it will transform into a dragon. This proverb is often used to demonstrate that if one exemplifies perseverance, success will eventually be achieved. The theme of this adventure plays on this proverb by also including a caveat - that one’s successes are not only due to personal skill, but also with the help of others.

I would like to thank Jacky Leung (Death by Mage), for inviting me to this project. It has been a great experience working with other Asian Americans and Asian Canadians as we bring our own experiences to this game we all love.
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--- Quote from: About the Author ---Ethan Yen is a writer and content creator. Ethan can be reached at ethanyen.com or via Twitter @ethnyen]
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Libertad:

Feeding the River
This adventure is for four 4th-level-level PCs and is inspired by elements of Cambodian and Khmer culture. It’s less linear than its predecessor in that while it has a clear start and end point, there’s a smattering of encounters both fixed and random which can happen along the way and grant additional rewards and information about the eventual goal. It takes place along the Kr nhaom River which various communities use for transportation along with typical fishing and agricultural pursuits. Unfortunately a form of supernatural pollution afflicting it threatens all those living off its waters: fish grow sickly and die, monstrous oozes crawl up on land to attack people, and the water levels remain unnaturally low even during the monsoon season. The PCs, whether for reasons of a moral or mercenary nature, are incentivized to find the cause of this malaise and put a stop to it.

The bulk of the adventure takes place with the party on a boat ride (courteously lent by a local village) going down the Kr nhaom River, with an in-character map showcasing various settlements and other points of interest upon it. Their eventual goal will be the town of Pak Leb, whose magitech industry produces toxic byproducts which gave rise to a powerful spirit of pollution that is worsening things. There are 10 random encounters the PCs can find on the river, and not all of them are violent. A few act as stepping stones to future encounters and minor plots, such as an inhabitant of a stilt-village asking the party to find a lost wedding bangle in exchange for a minor monetary reward, or an apsara (water spirit) woman who when saved from a giant bat teaches the party a song to lead them to her people’s hidden grove in the Serpent’s Coil.

Speaking of which, the Serpent’s Coil is a region home to spirits and is left virtually untouched by mortals. Four inlets sprouting from the river lead into respective groves which ease house various trials the PCs can help with: the spirits of nature have their hands full dealing with the unnatural pollution, and easing their burden will help return things to a relative sense of normalcy. One trial involves helping a group of apsara complete a dance to cleanse the grove, which is a puzzle mini-game where the DM tells the players a group of Khmer words. Going by memory, the players match symbols to the words as the dance progresses. The second and third trials are more straightforward combats, where the PCs aid a group of naga warriors* fighting mutated minotaurs, or clearing out a nearby farm of crocodiles and oozes at the request of local rice spirits. The fourth trial comes at the request of a catfish spirit, where the PCs must free the rest of his school from various dangers (discarded nets, trapped in a closed-off pond of polluted water, etc). The completion of each trial gives a riddle or direct advice as to the source of the pollution.

*who are CR 1 humanoid shapechangers who can take a serpentine or hybrid form rather than the more explicitly magical snakes of typical D&D faire.

The town of Pak Leb sits at the delta of Kr nhaom. It is separated into two halves, with a bridge spanning from west to east connecting both sides. The western section of town is new and mostly under construction, and so the only places to dock are on the east. The PCs will encounter a group of oozes of various types attacking villagers and a shaman by the name of Sothy. Said shaman will join the party as a DMPC, asking them to come with her west across the bridge in order to track down the spirit she believes is responsible. The western section of town is full of slime monsters, and Sothy can aid the party with some minor druid spells and summon her tiger spirit familiar. Said familiar can either manifest as a ghostly claw ranged attack, or beneficially possess party members to grant them the Pounce ability of a tiger and advantage on Stealth rolls. Pretty sweet.

After some investigation, Sothy and the PCs reunite with the mayor and other villagers at the pollution’s source: a big iron and clay-producing factory. The PCs are granted 3 different suggestions of resolution: first, they can banish the spirit of pollution by destroying the physical objects binding it to this world so that Sothy can conduct a ritual to banish it; this option has the best long-term result for restoring the natural order. Alternatively, they can destroy the spirit like any other monster, which will halt the supernatural malaise but not undo the damage done. Finally, the mayor will offer more reward money than his initial offer if they find a means to enslave the spirit and force it to reabsorb the river’s pollution. Sothy is capable of enslaving the spirit, but will be against the idea unless a successful Persuasion check is made.

The spirit is an aberration that can make multiple claw attacks, as well as summon gray oozes and can cast a limited allotment of Druid spells (thunderwave, enhance ability, hold person, etc). It should not be very hard to defeat in straight combat, although if doing the exorcism route the PCs need to protect Sothy from its attacks for 1 minute on top of finding and destroying the binding objects, which is significantly more challenging.

Each solution grants an additional reward type: Sothy will grant the PCs a unique magical item (Fishing Cloak) that can transform into a binding net if exorcised; the PCs can harvest the spirit’s residue if it’s killed to imbue into a weapon or armor to grant additional damage or Resistance respectively regarding Poison; or they can earn 300 gp for enslaving the spirit on top of a 400 gp reward that the mayor gives regardless of the outcome. Each outcome also details what happens to the Kr nhaom region and how its people adapt: exorcism sees the waters restored to normal although Pak Leb hardly grows. Enslaving the spirit has the same result albeit the town becomes a major industrial hub, but the spirits of the land will leave. Killing results in the corruption being halted, but the tainted areas remain the same and the people adapt the best they can.

Thoughts So Far: I like this adventure. The mixture of straightforward encounters along with minor plot developments gives a sense of natural progression and relative freedom on the PC’s part to handle tasks as they wish. Rather than being strong-armed into any single option, completion of said tasks and encounters gives rewards and makes their future endeavors easier. The multiple means of dealing with the pollution spirit are cool, even if said solutions are a bit obvious in the “immoral yet materially rewarding” or “moral yet impractical” outcomes.

Join us next time as we explore an undead-haunted village in Drowned Souls of the Hidden Stream!


--- Quote from: Acknowledgements ---This adventure draws upon on Southeast Asian folklore and spiritualism. Nature is more than just nature; it has a life force that allows it to exist. When it is tainted, it becomes corrupted and causes an imbalance in the world. I had a lot of fun creating the challenges within the Serpent’s Coil that was more than just combat as well as drawing upon Southeast Asian folklore. Thank you to my dad for helping me with the Khmer translation for the mini-game. It means a lot to have reflected on my relationship with Cambodia culture and the effects of that disconnect due to intergenerational trauma.
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--- Quote from: Author Bio ---Collette is a California-based writer and game designer. She has a strong passion for diversity and inclusivity either by creating or inspiring others to get into creating themselves. Her work can be found in Uncaged Volume 3, Book of Seasons: Solstice, and Friends Foes and Other Fine Folks. Follow her on Twitter @collettequach.
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Libertad:

Drowned Souls of the Hidden Stream
This adventure is for 4-6 1st level PCs. It takes place entirely within Songxi, a low lying village near a bridge-dam known as the Hidden Stream. The avaricious Emperor Xie desired to build canal projects from the local river to create more farms and villages to exploit and tax the natural resources in spite of the risks, but fatal construction errors resulted in the flooding of Songxi. Those unable to escape the sudden rushing waters in time became caught between the realms of the living and undead, existing as semi-aware husks that seek to drown the living.

The solution to the woes of the flooded village lie in a dearly-departed couple. Leping was guardian to the local temple which housed the legendary Sword of Jixia, which he tried and failed to save from the flood. His wife, Duan, climbed to the temple’s roof to await her beloved but died of dehydration. Both became undead, and depending on how the PCs deal with them may determine whether or not the rest of Songxi’s souls will find true rest.

The adventure opens up with the PCs heading to Songxi for whatever kind of business would summon them to such a town (4 sample hooks are provided). Their first obstacle is the bamboo forest known as Fanyang which smells of rotten mulberry that a Religion check associates with an omen of flooding.* Survival checks are necessary in order to avoid natural hazards, which range from Exhaustion-generating dehydration to visibility-reducing heavy rain.

*the author notes that the phrase “mulberry fields” is an historical Chinese term associated with unstoppable changes to the world and how nature is beyond man’s control.

The village itself is thoroughly flooded, with only multi-story buildings poking up from the waterline. The stench of corpses and the faint sounds of crying in the surviving vine-choked structures can be heard. Proper skill checks will notice an absence of aquatic life, as the magically-enhanced plant growth catches fish and feeds upon their bodies once they starve to death. The PCs can traverse the village via jumping and climbing between the taller structures or swim, although a group of drowned souls will stalk the party throughout their travels. Said monsters number 4 to 10 depending upon the size of said party and how merciful the DM’s feeling. Exploration and the proper skill checks in some places can uncover minor belongings such as a Wand of Frost, and also uncover the sense of spiritual unease in the form of phantom noises of those in their final moments.

The Drowned Souls are new undead monsters in this adventure. They are not very strong, but they can cause an adjacent target to drown via 1d10 bludgeoning damage on a failed Constitution save instead of a normal slam attack which is quite deadly to level 1 characters. Although they can swim and fly, they must remain within 30 feet of a water source which can limit their mobility if PCs can reach a sufficiently tall building.

Exploring Songxi Temple will attract the attention of Duan, who is not immediately hostile and if approached nonviolently will tell the characters of what happened; they can also gain visions of those who died in the village via her Aura of Sorrow on a failed save. She’ll also add that the imperial rangers betrayed the people, slaughtering fleeing survivors under a hail of arrows. She begs the party to retrieve her husband and perform the proper funeral rites to lay him to rest. The rite involves the use of food offerings, cremation, incense, and joss paper which is automatically part of a Priest Pack for characters from a Chinese setting, but can also be found as items elsewhere in the temple.

Leping’s corpse can be found underwater, pinned beneath a pillar as it grips a sword wrapped in fine silk. Unfortunately he’s not as reasonable as his wife and will attack the party as a spirit on the first round of combat. He will then possess his own corpse on the second round, lifting the pillar off of his body effortlessly. He is a pretty tough ‘boss encounter’ for 1st-level PCs, being Resistant against nonmagical bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage and against a variety of common energy types (acid, fire, lightning, cold, thunder). In ghost form he has a 1d8 necrotic touch attack that can grant half its damage as restored hit points. He’s actually less powerful when inside his corpse, although he can unleash foul gasses and fluids that impose the poisoned condition to nearby targets on a failed save whenever struck by an attack. Leping cannot move more than 50 feet from this corpse as a ghost, but both forms can fly meaning that a tactical retreat is unlikely.

If properly laid to rest, the remaining undead become inanimate corpses. The party may claim the Sword of Jixia as loot, which while it’s non-magical it ignores damage resistance that blocks against slashing attacks. Future plot hooks are hinted at in the conclusion, such as finding the sword’s paired dagger to “form a key to heaven,” or finding some incriminating orders upon the corpse of a ranger implicating Emperor Xie.

Thoughts So Far: I’m not as fond of this adventure as I am of the previous two, although that is more due to my biases against level 1 play. Beginning PCs are notoriously frail, where every attack can spell defeat. Although death saves and the Healing Word spell mute this lethality a bit, it is very possible for players to TPK from the Drowned Souls and unlike Through the Dragon’s Gate there’s not really a non-violent solution to bypassing the undead menaces save for Duan. Duan herself has stats and is tough yet manageable at this level, but I can see most PCs choosing to parley with her.

But overall the encounters in question are brief and there’s more emphasis on exploration and atmosphere, which is a good way to go about things.

Join us next time as we pull off an artifact auction heist in Bamboo in the Dark!


--- Quote from: Author’s Notes and Acknowledgements ---One of the major experiential inspirations for this game’s setting was Songxi, a fully restored Tang and Song Dynasty village in Pujiang China. Faithfully restored by the Chinese government, this village is home to a modern rural population that I had the honor of visiting during my time working in China as an archaeologist. Inspiration was also drawn from Houtouwan, a fishing village on the Chinese island of Shengshan. It was made a ghost town after the fishing supply was depleted by trawlers originating from Shanghai.
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--- Quote from: About the Author ---Daniel Kwan is a Toronto-based podcaster, developmental editor, game designer, and educator. He is the co-host and GM of the ENnie Award nominated Asians Represent! Podcast (@aznsrepsent). As a designer, Daniel has published Zany Zoo, Wolf of the South, and Ross Rifles – a game he successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2019. He has also written for games like Haunted West and FlipTales. Daniel is also the cofounder of Level Up Gaming, an organization that provides adults with autism and other disabilities opportunities to develop their social skills through group gaming experiences.

You can reach Daniel at danielhkwan.com or via Twitter @danielhkwan
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Libertad:

Bamboo in the Dark
This adventure is for 3-5 players and a very wide level range from 5th to 10th. It is different from the others we encountered so far in that it’s an open-ended plot in the vein of heist films. Taking place in the unnamed City, a big festival dedicated to folk hero Thánh Gióng is underway, and an auction of smuggled artifacts is being held in an undisclosed location. It’s possible that a stolen cultural treasure valuable to one or more PCs is up for sale; or they could be working for the local Magistrates (voluntarily or not) seeking to bust up the ring; or they could just be your typical murderhobos out for a quick gold piece. Regardless of their reasoning, not only do they need to find the hidden auction and get the artifacts, they have to get out of the city with their lives and freedom intact!

There’s a mini-system known as the Reputation Scale and Adversity Track, representing how covert the PCs have been overall. These are not binary states, but give general outlines for minor boons and complications that can affect each other to minor degrees. Reputation reflects how easy it is for PCs to covertly contact information sources, to what extent locals will be inclined to aid or hinder their ability to hide from authorities and/or criminals, and to what extent they’ll give up or sell minor items and favors. Adversity Track is akin to the “alert phases” of various stealth video games, where PCs who do a sloppy job will get more people on their tail. This has a sliding scale of negative consequences, from rumor mongering locals negatively affecting reputation, Magistrates looking to bring them in for questioning,* a contact becoming compromised, increased security at the auction, and/or the criminal factions sending out hit squads to kill the party.

*PCs working with them may get a talking-to about being “a loose cannon” and waste several hours on a first offense, although further offenses will get them tossed in jail for being an unreliable asset.

As you can tell, this is the kind of adventure where the fewer fights the PCs get in, the better things can work out. A clean get-away with nobody the wiser is an ideal solution, but the writer realized that making everything go pear-shaped as soon as initiative is rolled is not fair either. For that, a house rule for Stealth Combat is employed. What this means is that presuming the PCs aren’t being intentionally loud and flashy, characters beyond 30 feet of a fight when initiative is rolled will not notice provided that the following conditions are filled: the PCs have surprise on an enemy, combat lasts no longer than 2 rounds, and no spells higher than 2nd level are cast barring cases of the DM’s discretion. Additionally, most people do not want to die and will seek shelter if combat turns against them. Given the sheer crowds around town, it’s not amiss for PCs and NPCs to disappear among the chaos of the crowds or simply outmaneuver pursuers, and people’s memories aren’t perfect for finer details when in a panic or fleeing to safety. Furthermore, failed skill checks “fail forward” rather than hitting PCs at a dead end: a failed Investigation may give a lead or clue but give the party less time to prepare should they follow up on it, while a poor Charisma-based skill check may impact Reputation/Adversity.

The adventure is divided into 3 chapters, although given the open-ended nature are less about locations and encounters and more the general phases of a heist set-up. Chapter 1: the Legwork outlines the City and ways of traversing it, the 3 adversarial factions, and sample contacts. The City’s divided districts which are typical for fantasy settlements: Sticks are the haphazard urban slum, the Scales are the docks, the Temple Ward has shrines and festival rituals, etc. But a notable feature is that waterways criss-cross through most of the districts and “water taxis” regularly ply their trade ferrying people when going on foot would be too slow, crowded, or otherwise impractical. The seven Sources of information all use Commoner stats, but they all can tell the PCs different things and have preferred stomping grounds should the party be in need of finding them.

There are three Adversarial Factions, albeit one of them may be allies of convenience for the PCs. Each faction has 4-5 NPCs, with their own names, stat block references, and brief personality traits and physical descriptions. Furthermore, they all have goals which put each other at cross-purposes which clever PCs can use to their advantage. The Smugglers are the ones bringing in the artifacts for auction and are organizing the events under the guise of a legitimate business. Statwise they tend towards martial pursuits (Assassin, Bandit, Veteran) although their boss, Lien Phan, is a Mage who has a unique jade longsword she is proficient with and can use as an arcane focus. The Magistrates all share the Knight stat block and represent the local government. They are aware of a smuggling ring operating in the City but do not know the location, and are rather conspicuous in their uniforms and positions. They will prioritize safety of civilians, even if it means letting criminals flee. The Rival Crew are a group of adventurers after the same things the PCs are, and act at a cross-purpose. Although it’s possible to team up with them, they have no intention of sharing and will betray the PCs when convenient. Their stat blocks are the most versatile and closest to a typical adventuring party: they use the Priest, Gladiator, Veteran, and Spy archetypes.

All of these stat blocks are freely available on 5esrd, and there’s a few commonalities. None of them have very high Passive Perception scores, ranging from 10 to 13 on average with the Spy stat as the highest at 16. The spellcasters’ magic isn’t optimized to guard against enchantment and illusion spells, which I assure you players will pick for their PCs if running this adventure as a one-shot. Granted this isn’t going to make things trivial, particularly when the whole party has to roll for sneaking around, but rather the most common opposition aren’t geared towards thwarting thief types which seems rather odd.

*Detect Magic and Dispel Magic are the most obvious options, but would be the types deployed once they realize that something is wrong.

Chapter 2: the Job centers on the Deck, a high-class invitation-only club. The auction takes place at 9 PM after a big fireworks festival begins which the PCs can learn during the Legwork phase. If the Magistrates are in cahoots with the PCs they will tell them to infiltrate the place and confirm any suspicious activity. They don’t have a warrant and thus cannot just barge in and risk the guilty parties fleeing. If they’re blackmailing the PCs they’ll order them to make arrests and confiscate the evidence themselves. If the party’s willingly working with them they’ll be on standby for a signal of some kind, but in either case if the Deck is in a state of “high alert” then the Magistrates will raid the Deck 10 rounds after alarms are raised.


The Deck itself is a two-story, 13 room building filled with civilians and a few NPC guards in addition to the Smugglers. Rival Crew members will be in disguise and/or staking the place out, barring any interventions the PCs done that may change up their tactics. PCs disguised as civilians will be patted down by guards looking for hidden weapons, and they’re canny enough in the magical arts to identify spell component pouches and staves disguised as “an old man’s walking stick.” High-security areas or ones with heavy traffic will have a pair or more of guards by default, and there are various events and distractions for PCs to take advantage of: examples given are waiters on smoke breaks, laborers carrying in crates of food to smuggle things in, a storage space where confiscated items are kept, and so on. There’s also a password-only secret casino in a back room, and an adjacent high-security vault room that contains the smuggled items. Said vault can also be accessed via the banquet hall via dumbwaiter. This is how said items are transported up for the auction. In cases of high alert the vault will be reinforced with a magical Alarm spell, and if a fight breaks out that’s not Stealth Combat there’s a list of who shows up first and in what order based on rounds the combat lasts.

The items for auction range from non-magical jewelry and art objects to a forged map and plate armor with magnanimous stories behind them. But the two items most of interest to PCs include the magical staff Tre Dang Nga, a weapon once wielded by Thánh Gióng, and the unnamed McGuffin personalized to one or more PCs’ backstories. The bidders are rich and the gold piece values can easily run into the five or six-figure digits for the most valuable items, which more or less precludes simply buying them.

Chapter 3: the Getaway is the shortest of the chapters and includes brief advice on how to resolve things once the PCs get their hands on the valuables. The book advises against letting them easily exit the way they came back, both for drama’s sake and to show that no plan survives contact with the enemy. A grease fire in the kitchen may block off that section of the Deck for escape, for example, and if the PCs were sloppy in covering up evidence (tampered/destroyed locks, unconscious bodies, etc) then a 1 on a 1d6 roll per vulnerability means that someone discovers it and puts the Deck on a state of heightened alert. If the PCs need to lie low then the DM should ask them what plans they have in mind for safehouses, rendezvous points, friendly contacts, etc. Such scenes would not be RPed out individually, but if the players have a convincing enough argument that may let them bypass one or more obstacles when fleeing the City.

There’s also mention of a standoff/showdown with one of the rival groups as a climax after the PCs escape and are enjoying their just desserts, albeit it’s an optional suggestion more in line with heist movies. I don’t really watch that subgenre, so I cannot comment on how appropriate this is or not. Personally I feel that a successful getaway is it’s own reward.

The Tre Dang Nga staff has its own stats. It requires attunement by a Lawful Good character, but once attuned is quite powerful: a +3 quarterstaff with the Versatile and Reach properties, can cast a small array of spells, grants a bonus attack when alone and outnumbered in melee, and extra speed for your mount. It can unlock even more spells if the character is attuned to Thánh Gióng’s legendary armor, but said item is not detailed in this adventure and meant to be found as a plot hook for future adventures.

Thoughts So Far: I really like Bamboo in the Dark due to the fact that it’s unconventional and open-ended in how it can be resolved. I have not played it so I cannot speak to the quality of the Reputation/Adversity system, but it seems that the adventure did a good job of covering the most pertinent information and outcomes for the Dungeon Master. If there are any weak points, it would be the fact that the adventure could use a second editing pass. Although not a constant, there were sentences which were either too long or constructed oddly in that the information delivered was not clear:


--- Quote from: Example ---Rail thin, his own person is disheveled to the exact point one imagines is the exact degree of unkempt he can get away with without being reprimanded, and is accompanied by a perfectly groomed happy-go-lucky white haired Pekingese-Shih Tzu mix named Tazz who Sgt. Hoang does not seem to mind draws most of the attention.
--- End quote ---

So does Sgt. Hoang (a Magistrate NPC) not mind that his pet draws more attention than him, or is it an animal whose annoying ways don’t bother him but bother everyone else?

Beyond this, the adventure requires a more specific party set-up than others. Although it’s possible to go in loud, the fact that the heist must be accomplished within a specific time frame means that classes and archetypes focused around short rests instead of long ones will shine better. Furthermore, the large number of NPCs that can get involved in combat at once means that a rather unsubtle party can get in over their heads and risk an enemy faction getting away with the goods if they tip their hands too early. To the adventure’s credit it advertises this in the initial pitch, but if running Unbreakable as a series of adventures for the same group it may take some tinkering in case you have one too many Fighters and not enough Arcane Tricksters.

Join us next time as we go on a firebending dungeon crawl in Hearts Aflame at Lan Biang!


--- Quote from: Author’s Notes & Acknowledgements ---Much thanks and love to my friends & family who listened to me stress over this project and helped workshop and playtest the many versions of this module. And thanks to the Unbreakable team for the opportunity to share my first written adventure and helping bring Asian stories by Asian people to the tabletop space.
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--- Quote from: Author Bio ---Kevin Nguyen is a 2nd generation Vietnamese-American in Orange County, California quietly running & designing (but rarely finishing) tabletop games, painting miniatures, and trying to reconnect with his roots.
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Libertad:

Hearts Aflame at Lan Biang
So far our adventures explored a treacherous mountain pass, a polluted river, a flooded town, and a fantasy heist in the middle of a big city. But we’ve been missing something iconic lately: a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, and this adventure is ready to deliver for a party of 4-5 6th level PCs!

The mountain of Lan Biang is famed for its temple’s everburning flame and the order of mystics protecting it. But the fire’s been out for three days, and the nearby village fears an ill omen has come to pass. The adventure starts up at the village, and the PCs can learn a bit about the temple: it’s home to a group of monks famed for being able to manipulate fire in supernatural ways. As the party ascends the mountain steps they encounter a jaguar...on the run from something even more vicious, a bipedal crystalline monster!

Two rounds into combat a monk by the name of Ai Hoang joins the battle. When the monster’s reduced to less than 50 hit points its heart is exposed (a hint at its weakness) but eventually it dies. The crystals around its head crack off, revealing the face of a person. It is one of the senior monks, who tells Ai and the party that a dire curse afflicts the people of the temple by transforming them into crystalline monsters. He hints that “as long as our hearts burn with hope, darkness can never take us.”

After giving him a tearful farewell and decent burial, Ai joins the party. She’s a younger and more impulsive member of the order, and can fill them in on the basics: they’re ascetic martial artists who learned how to manipulate fire to do supernatural feats, that said element represents hope to them, and that she initially thought the monsters were invaders who trapped the rest of her order (she was away at the time the curse fell). The day the flame was snuffed out was when another order of white-robed monks visited the temple and gave a silver chalice as a gift to Lan Biang, and she suspects a connection.

Before we go any further, there’s a bit of an unconventional game mechanic for saving the monks instead of killing them. Crystalline constructs are new monsters who come in 3 varieties: hulking, spear-throwing, and small. They’re more or less straightforward dumb bruiser monsters, although the former two are actual possessed monks, while small versions can pop off of the hulking one and thus aren’t ‘people’ of their own. When they’re reduced beneath a certain number of hit points they go berserk and their heart becomes exposed. A heart is attacked with disadvantage, but someone wielding Lan Biang fire that deals 20 or more damage in a round to it turns the monster into the original unconscious character.

So what’s the deal with Lan Biang fire? Not just any mundane or magical flames will do: special braziers in the temple are lit or can be lit by a Lan Biang monk, who can carry said fire in their bare hands and deal additional damage with it on their attacks. Other people can carry the flames as well, although they automatically take more fire damage every round and it doubles for every turn they hold the fire in their hands; the monks only suffer 1d6, but can avoid this damage if they drop or get rid of the fire before the end of their turn.

It’s possible for the PCs to save up to 6 monks beyond Ai. While the adventure claims that the combat gets harder “because they have more people to keep safe,” the monks all share the same stat block and are rather capable fighters in their own right. Due to action economy it shouldn’t be very hard for them and PCs to overwhelm their opponents, even if the amount of brazier flames in a given room are limited.

The dungeon has four rooms, each with a lit and unlit brazier and a number of crystalline constructs to fight. The temple entrance is a rather flat and featureless plane, although the reliquary room has spear-throwing constructs with the lit brazier on a second-floor balcony. The third room is a narrow hallway with a gauntlet of crystal constructs of all kinds, where one must take the lit brazier at the start through up to two unlit braziers at the respective middle and end portions of the room.

The final room is the high altar at the top of the mountain, with five unlit braziers and a silver chalice sitting where the Lan Biang’s eternal fire once burned. The artifact pulls a One Ring and telepathically promises offers of ultimate power and riches, and Ai begins to fall to temptation as crystalline growths slowly appear on her body. She needs the moral support of the PCs to resist the urge via goold role-playing or an appropriate DC 14 check that increases by 1 for every retry. The chalice will summon ectoplasm to fashion into a large transparent body bound by silver spiked chains.

This adventure’s boss fight is a pretty cool one, and the terrain alone has quite a bit of variety: the dry detritus can light the entire area on fire if exposed to enough Lan Biang fire damage, and it is possible to knock people off the ledge which the chalice spirit is eager to do as it can teleport back into the arena if it itself is knocked out of the ring. The chalice spirit has a pair of spiked chain reach weapons that can grapple on a hit, and a recharge ability to summon small crystal constructs or heal them if it reaches the maximum summon number of six. It can also automatically snuff out multiple braziers per turn based on a die roll. As a reaction it can send tempting visions to a target to stun them for 1 round on a failed Wisdom save, and as a Legendary Action can do the same thing but to all Lan Biang monks at once once when it drops below 65 hit points.

All in all a rather creative climax with a variety of options on both sides.

Once destroyed any remaining crystalline constructs shatter, the threat dispersed for good. The monks are not a wealthy people, but can part with some funds up to 2,500 gold (which makes them sound pretty wealthy) and can teach the PCs their secrets if at least one monk survived. Said special ability teaches the Control Flames cantrip, and also gives a character a 10d6 dice pool that can be spent as a bonus action to spend any number of dice from the pool to reduce incoming fire damage by that amount. The latter ability is recharged after a long or short rest while within sight of an open flame. Sounds really neat, although given that it’s a bonus action and not a reaction means that it requires some foresight in order to use. It also doesn’t specifically state if the spent d6s eventually fade if not used in time.

Thoughts So Far: It’s a rather small dungeon, and it doesn’t have much in the ways of traps or treasure, but the ‘puzzle monster’ aspect as well as the climactic battle with the chalice spirit makes up for it. My main concerns are that a party that realizes the riddle of the heart weak point can gain a significant advantage if they successfully rescue multiple monks. One thing that springs to mind is the off chance that the party contains a Monk with the Way of Four Elements subclass, particularly if they have fire magic. I can see such a player making the argument that they should be able to manipulate the Lan Biang brazier flames with reduced risk. While it may not be rules-legal, I as DM would allow such an option considering that the Four Ways Monk is an overall underpowered class and that this can give them a chance to shine.

Join us next time as we cover the Lost Children, a Nepalese horror story!


--- Quote from: Author’s Notes and Acknowledgements ---It’s never too late to reconnect with a piece of your familial or cultural history.
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--- Quote from: Author Bio ---Steve is a recent addition to the Toronto-based podcast Asians Represent. Specifically he’s part of their actual play Dungeons & Da Asians where the crew plays in an unabashedly Asian-inspired setting. He works full-time as a business consultant and spends the rest of his time pursuing cooking, lifting heavy stuff, crossfitting (with relatively few injuries), talking about education, and working on D&D module design - often all on Twitter (@DeeEmSteve). Sometimes he also sleeps. If you asked him what he likes most about TTRPGs, he’d say it’s their capacity to help build empathy. If you asked him after a few drinks, he’d make a lot of loud noises and start flexing on you. He means well.
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