Fantasy Core RPG: Jianghu Setting-Lake Ward

Fantasy Core RPG

© Jerry Harris 2013

Published here as Open Game Content.

(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)

Jianghu Setting

The Lake Ward

No one respectable enters this place without a good reason.

The Lake Ward (the south end of the city) and the Third Gate (or the Fish Gate) faces So Lake.  Much of the outgoing goods of the city pass through here on their way to barges on the lake, and then down the Yang River into the rest of the Empire.  Fish from the lake are also brought through here, though wisely the fish markets are actually in the villages outside the city (as are the pig and cow slaughterhouses).  There is still a bit of an aroma.  This is generally the poor, bad part of town, the slums.  A great deal of the city’s menial labor lives here, along with most of the foreign immigrants in the city, and the Triads secret society is pervasive here. 

Being a generally unsavory piece of real estate, the Lake Ward is also home to Shang-tu’s largest cemetery, the Necropolis.  There are several mausoleums, large and small on the surface, and several underground layers and chambers where the dead are kept.  There are three temples next door to it.  Temple shamen frequent the graveyard to ensure the dead rest quietly there.  Any intelligent undead or supernatural creatures in the city actually stay away from this district.  However, if you’re looking for bodies that no one will likely miss, this is the place to go. 

The most dangerous road in the city.

The Necropolis is also famous for its myriad number of criminal hideouts.  There are connections between the crypts and the sewers that form the “Tong Highway” for moving goods and people.  Authorities are aware of this arrangement, but the official route changes constantly and is almost impossible to shutdown.  It is marked in a secret manner, which no outside group has cracked.  This underground path through the sewers and graveyard is confusing, unpleasant, and scary to say the least.        

If the deal cannot be made on Backward Street, one should seriously reconsider the transaction.

Backward Street (so named because all its buildings are numbered in an opposite fashion than the rest of the city) in the Lake Ward is well known to Shang-tu’s underworld.  It is the location of most of the “fences” for illegal goods in the city.  Officially, they are brokers or pawn shops.  Though they are all loyal to the Tongs (the main criminal gang of the city), there is a good deal of competition between the fences. 

The existence of this place is only tolerated by the authorities because they overpay on their taxes and maintain a façade of legitimacy.  There is also an understanding that if certain items are deemed too “hot” by the authorities, Backward Street will shun them.  (Thus forcing the thieves to go to much less reputable dealers.)  While the Tongs own most of the aldermen, judges, and constables in the Lake Ward, there is the ever-present threat that one day, soldiers may tramp down the street and shut the whole thing down.  Driving all illegal commerce in Shang-tu underground would probably not be in anyone’s interest at this time.

A nightmare on earth for some.  A pleasant holiday for others.

Akagi Prison is also present in the ward.  It is the largest such facility in the city and infamous for its dungeon, where the hardest criminals are held.  However, the Tongs run the place from behind the scenes.  While true villains are punished severely here, it is also a place for “show” incarcerations for valued Tong and Triad members who are caught committing crimes.  Think of it as a “country club” prison for some criminals.  There are bosses there running their operations from opulent cells, completely safe from the authorities and other criminals.  By and large, the Governor and his ministers are kept ignorant of these conditions by prison officials, owned by the Tongs.