Cinq Supplices

The final part of the campaign, book 6 was covered in five sessions with a fairly free-flowing structure for the PCs. A chance to settle scores and face their previous choices.

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Forum summaries

• In Search of Ranksacaan
• The Jade Urn
• Return to Harbin
• The Lake of the Watchers
• Denouement

In brief

In Harbin, the group tails Sergei Sebastianovich. Yellow Snake leaves the city by sea to recover from his wounds — the investigators reason that Harbin's walls offer few guarantees, and that if he reaches the sea, he could try to contact his allies still alive. The group then tries to find the location of Ranksacaan in order to destroy the jade urn, depriving Sayk Fong Lee of his main bargaining chip with the Skinner. With the research moving slowly, Sergei urges the group to waste no more time before rescuing young Marshal Zhang Xueliang from his opium dream. The group begins a divination ritual to contact a "Black Dragon" capable of joining them at the Marshal's side, so that he can free him from the dream's grip. Fernand enters the opium dream, meets the Black Dragon — who bites him to free him from any outside influence — and saves the Marshal from a horde of ghouls. In the real world, Zhang Xueliang shows his gratitude: he entrusts the group to a man he trusts, Captain Yiang, and grants them the use of one of the army's three Fairchilds to locate Ranksacaan.

Arriving in Mongolia, the investigators unmask the Tcho-Tcho shaman, thereby earning the support of Oïkan Joïra. They walk into the Tcho-Tcho ambush, prompting Zhude to pull the pin on a grenade to wipe out most of the attackers in one go. Sadly, his plan works too well: knocked out by a savage, he dies in the explosion alongside the Tcho-Tcho and Captain Yiang. This spectacular stroke does have the merit of greatly limiting the threat posed by the natives, allowing the group to eliminate the last survivors and locate the urn. The return trip to Oïkan Joïra's village requires slipping past Sayk Fong Lee's troops. A few skirmishes with the Manchurian soldiers convince the PCs to take the northern road, led by Naranbaatar, their impetuous young guide. Sayk Fong Lee's men pursue them, having taken control of the Fairchild. The evil minions crash-land not far from the group's destination, only to be greeted by Shen De and Gaunt Beasts of the Night. Since the conflict doesn't directly concern them, the investigators set sail for Manchuria, where they meet up with Ivan Dimitri Donovief. The fake Russian refugees accompany the group to Harbin, but the group gives them the slip after discovering suspicious radio communications between Ivan and his Russian contacts. The PCs locate the abandoned temple from which darkness pours into the world. They eliminate the Shen De and dissipate the column of darkness, recovering along the way all the belongings that had been stolen from them. Guang Ying, however, meets his death — a final one this time — in their explosive intervention. The old man's shadow had indeed been captured along with the Pages of the Necronomicon, giving the Deep Ones a prime guinea pig for experimenting with the Arcanum of the Five Torments.

Cut off from their allies, the PCs slowly drift down the Songhua River. They try to locate the famous Lake of the Watchers using the map of portals, but only the timely arrival of Yellow Snake, a good ten days later, gives them a way to confirm the spot: contacted by radio, the Manchurian authorities indicate that a Japanese detachment is about to be intercepted by a small Manchurian troop in the Khandankhatala mountains. The group follows the trail, reaches the lake and discovers the Watchers, along with the sinister visions of what the future holds for them. The Russian soldiers eventually pick up their trace. They see eye to eye: their objectives all require the death of Sayk Fong Lee. Together, they prepare their defense, notably by cutting the ramp linking the monastery to the lake. When Sayk Fong Lee drowns his enemies to enter the tomb of the last Ransomer of Divine Right, the PCs hurry to join him. Left alone at the monastery, the Russians hold out as best they can against the survivors of both enemy armies, but eventually retreat. The soldiers interrupt the Watchers' meditation, freeing the last Ransomer from his torpor. Two characters — Fernand and Jacques — thus secretly pass under the enemy's control, but the Messenger of Torments frees Jacques from his servitude, while Fernand is neutralized by the team. The valiant PCs take part in a three-sided confrontation, against the Ransomer on one side and Sayk Fong Lee's group on the other. Happily, their sacred grenades triumph over the Ransomer, while the shadows of the Wandering Merchant and the Gaunt Beast deal with the Manchurian sorcerer and his allies. The Celestial Skinner, satisfied to have his urn back, consents to graft the supreme tattoo onto Fernand. The latter takes control of the Messenger of Torments, gathers the group and locates nearby the tapestry once kept aboard Yellow Snake's junk. This portal, brought by the Shen De, allows the group to flee as the water surges back toward it. In the Empire of Shadows, the PCs choose to spare Liu Chen, whom they send back to the world of the living. The French PCs head for Europe, the Asian ones stay in China, and Fernand embraces his role as Ransomer of Divine Right in the Empire of Shadows, there to wage an eternal, timeless war against his new emperor: Sayk Fong Lee.

Commentary

Barely rid of the first wise-old-man-who-knows, the group falls into the clutches of "Sergei", another specimen eager to teach them many things. Guang Ying had heavily damaged the story's credibility, so I chose to make Sergei less omniscient than the author intended. He had few answers to the PCs' questions and generally could only point them to his precious library. By poring over books, the players at least felt they were doing something. Beyond using their Library Use skill, they had to think about the kinds of books they were after and plan their reading time between two outings in Harbin. I can only encourage you to do the same: Doctor Kafour's epigones are a plague who curb the pleasure of discovery. Only the Watchers' spokesman had a kind of legitimacy in his role as a "PC spoiler". The entity, inhuman, can afford a few wise revelations by virtue of the Arcanum of the Five Torments, all the more as the "grand finale" atmosphere suits them rather well. "Reliving" the events from Paris, and prompting the players to ask questions about the topics still gnawing at them, worked rather well with my group.

Among the passages that deserve a rewrite, the Marshal's opium dream ranks as a priority. Nebal shrewdly flagged it: the players have strictly nothing to do. Yet it is an important passage of the campaign, since the players gain a heavyweight ally there. We can accept a few sequences of this kind for atmosphere's sake, but not string them together. After the Coronation of Sayk Fong Lee — where the players are meant to lose their footing amid a string of revelations — it would be dangerous to deprive them of actions and thinking once more in order to rescue Zhang Xueliang. So I cooked up an alternative dish, blending my prior knowledge of Chinese divination (I had liked the oracle bone script in Qin) with a few slightly exaggerated extrapolations about the power of the Messenger of Torments. After all, the Dragon's venom is known to remove its victim from the Seal of the Dragon's influence. Might as well assume it can free one from everything, including opium's grip. For the PCs, the task was to contact the Dragon so it would bite them inside the opium dream. From then on, they were free to move and could actively rescue the Marshal. I would be curious to know how the players experienced this passage, but it was probably better than handing them a free victory after five minutes of reading.

The Mongolia trip is one of the very best passages, to be enjoyed without moderation. Between the tribulations of traveling by air (and the planning they demand), the discovery of Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, the handling of relations with Oïkan Joïra's tribe, the varied scenes suggest plenty of resolutions all by themselves. The Tcho-Tcho ambush is one of Nebal's main criticisms: he dislikes the string of forced events imposed by the campaign's author. They didn't give me any trouble.

• The ambush is designed to capture the PCs, but it is not a mandatory passage. My group found out the hard way, and Zhude's death at least allowed them to gain the upper hand. On a side note, one can indeed criticize the over-the-top use of references to Cthulhu and Hu Feng in every incantation of the campaign, like those the Tcho-Tcho shamans are supposed to cast. Here, Cthulhu is in his right place, but Hu Feng would have done better to stay home.
• The star-spawn larva's crippled state explains the Tcho-Tcho survival: it is hardly a scenario inconsistency. This weakness of the larva obviously offers the group a means of survival, but don't expect the slide to be risk-free for all that: if a tentacle strike gets through, a PC drops dead. In the end, only the providential ledge feels a bit overdone; you can say that the cave has a great many nooks and that this one is simply the closest able to shelter humans.
• The arrival of Sayk Fong Lee's minions is only logical. As soon as they leave Harbin for Mongolia, the players know the sorcerer's men are on their heels. They pass them on the way and can easily estimate having only a day or two's lead once in Ranksacaan.
• The minions' victory is beyond doubt. Weakened by an attack of Hungry Shadows unleashed by the Shen De, then by the confrontation with the PCs, the Tcho-Tcho are already far from fighting fit. Faced with a troop of seasoned soldiers backed by a few of Sayk Fong Lee's gifts (the tattoos), the cannibals stand no chance of prevailing. So yes, when the minions land, the Tcho-Tcho still standing cannot resist.

In Mongolia, only one passage deserves to be struck out. If your characters are captured and the minions flee with the urn, forget the Gaunt Beasts of the Night attack. They come out of nowhere, display an all-too-human temperament, and "cancel out" the consequences of the PCs' actions. If the urn falls into Sayk Fong Lee's hands, your players will have to manage to get it back on their own. Otherwise, the sorcerer will arrive at the Lake of the Watchers with a definite advantage. And honestly, it won't do him any harm.

What else? My group's signature "scorched earth" policy nearly got the better of that poor jade urn. Once again, we are talking common sense: why risk the urn falling into the sorcerer's hands when they can destroy it for good? Happily, my players showed a tad more delicacy than usual. They couldn't really have guessed it upon leaving Mongolia, but it saved their lives at the end of the campaign. Just keep in mind your group might react like mine. If the urn is destroyed, the Skinner would presumably seek to return to the Empire of Shadows before the Burner finishes destroying all living shadows on Earth. Consequently, Sayk Fong Lee and Tsatoba would lose their chances of bearing the supreme tattoo, but the last Ransomer would eventually awaken. If your group counts many marked characters, the end of the campaign could turn quite grim. Likewise, if you play the scene where a PC catches Ivan discussing with his superiors over the radio, don't necessarily expect your group to "confront" the Russians and ride off with them again. My players literally left the Soviets stranded in Harbin, because they wanted to avoid the risk of another betrayal. Hard to hold it against them.

The temple fight went well: the stakes were real (victory and defeat both being covered by the campaign), and my players had to rack their brains to win. One of them pointed out that using a floor plan brought a lot to this scene (I probably should have used them more often), to better visualize the place settings, the firing angles and the movement options. As one of the campaign's two final showdowns, it seems fitting to give it the scope it deserves. The scene also lets you highlight the players' earlier gains and past defeats: in our game, Guang Ying was a prisoner of the Arcanum (he probably revealed the ritual's secrets under torture, by the way), and the portals as well as the map were hidden among the Deep Ones' belongings. Only the tapestry was in the possession of the Shen De infiltrated among the Japanese platoon in the Khandankhatala mountains.

The Lake of the Watchers passage also worked well (as far as I know). The twilight atmosphere established since the return to Harbin contributed to the group's feeling of isolation. The visions answered a few questions the players still had about the campaign's plot: was Mei Fang really a traitor? What are Sayk Fong Lee's motivations? If your group has questions, don't be stingy and go for it clearly. The divinatory Arcanum represents the last chance to appropriate the story and clarify the intentions of the various players before the grand finale. After that, the granting of powers and beefed-up shadows feels more like a guilty pleasure than a coherent plot device, but my players didn't flinch. For once, they felt powerful without it having anything to do with their grenades.

The grand finale was a pleasure to prepare, but I wouldn't have said no to a few extra pointers. Two examples:

• Besides his obscure fee policy already mentioned in the previous book's commentary (if one coin is enough to tear off the supreme tattoo, why was Sayk Fong Lee looking for the jade urn?), has the Celestial Skinner already arrived when the PCs land at the lake? Is he able to tear the tattoo off the Ransomer if the latter is awakened? I answered "no" to both questions: the fact that the Skinner must be escorted by Sayk Fong Lee gives the PCs an opportunity to intercept the minions. And if the Skinner is unable to face the Ransomer, it falls to the group to neutralize him.
• Are there alternative access routes to the monastery? In principle, no. And as usual, my group blew up the ramp (you can hear a weary sigh from the author of this review), to prevent anyone from exploiting it. I had to cook up an alternative route through the mountains to justify the soldiers being able to reach the monastery and thus put pressure on the players.

To let the group organize the finale as it saw fit, I gave them a small day of respite around the lake. The PCs were able to (try to) find their bearings, reinforce their positions and try to anticipate the movements of the sorcerer and the armies. Direct involvement: I was ready to reveal Sayk Fong Lee's plan regarding the explosives — my players just didn't push that far. If yours do, try to keep at least one explosion (south or north), so that the lake drains. Failing that, well, the outcome wouldn't be so bad. The confrontation with Sayk Fong Lee would probably take place on the lake's shores. The Ransomer of Divine Right would have every opportunity to ride the Messenger of Torments out of the tomb, greatly limiting the group's options to strike back. And why not improvise an alliance de facto between the PCs and their Nemesis, long enough to cut down the Ransomer? Or even, why absolutely insist on imposing an "end boss" on the campaign? The Ransomer's secrets can well stay drowned underwater, provided the PCs eliminate both the surviving Shen De and Sayk Fong Lee.

Among the small victories, my group discovered the convoy of minions positioned in the mountains, tasked with escorting the Skinner from his arrival at the lake to his meeting with Sayk Fong Lee. They were able to intercept him coming down the mountain and negotiate the tattoo graft. When the dam gave way, I started three visible "timers" in front of the players, without them knowing what they meant. The shortest represented Sayk Fong Lee's progress toward the tomb (a quick path, according to the author). The intermediate one represented the Shen De's various stages of advance, from their arrival in the lake's depths to their extermination by the ghouls. The third represented the time it would take the soldiers to take control of the monastery — and therefore, involuntarily awaken the Ransomer. My players took their time coming down; all three timers had run out before they entered the tomb. Two characters were therefore secretly under the Ransomer's influence, but the Messenger bit one of them — the one wearing the shadow armor — to make everyone understand the situation. The fight against the awakened Ransomer, kept away from his steed, was… mixed. In truth, two options are possible. Either the PCs have grenades and treat themselves to a feast of cheap explosions in the tomb (don't hesitate to, say, discreetly reinforce the walls' resistance, otherwise everyone risks ending up drowned when the water flows back in). Or the PCs have no grenades and you get a real fight (essentially thanks to the Ransomer's regeneration power). Unfortunately, my group had preciously kept their explosives for their final confrontation with Sayk Fong Lee. You know what happened next.

When Fernand finally became the Ransomer, staging the escape from the tomb was no easy feat. The return of the waters felt arbitrary: my players already didn't quite believe in the dam theory, and they gave me a suspicious look when I announced the final deus scriptum. Granted, it drops in like a hair in the soup, despite the author's plausible explanations (the players still have to grasp this natural-basin logic). Perhaps here too you could create a timer representing the waters' return: the players would know something is brewing, without knowing exactly what. Conversely, the risk would be the tomb ending up buried in the middle of the confrontation — a rather bitter way to end the campaign. Then again, using the supreme tattoo as a portal doesn't follow at all. In our campaign, the portal tapestry was on hand with the Shen De, close by. It "only" had to be retrieved to flee. My players naturally preferred to use it rather than gamble on their buddy Fernand's portal (which he couldn't have followed them through). I did try to hint that if the Ransomer could brave the waves long enough to retrieve the portal, the other group members would have had a harder time surviving. Between their successful dice rolls and my scruples about drowning four PCs at the last moment, I caved. And in the end, it's all the same: they landed near the washhouse, took the time to discuss Liu Chen's fate, then realized Fernand's tattoo led to the folding screen from the third book. The two French characters therefore went through it — discovering along the way the true nature of the Celestial Skinner, who had taken the opportunity to resurrect — while the two Asian PCs were dropped off in China and Mongolia by Fernand through the washhouse.

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