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The Catar

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The mortal enemies of Monsoon, this breed of catlike humanoids thrives in the toxic jungles surrounding the ancient ruins.

by Ali May Sang

Unlike many of the strange manifestations brought on by Chaos’ infection, hybrids have existed for generations long before that fateful day. The catar are perhaps renowned as teachers of the first samurai warriors. Many of the temples and ancient texts of war, commerce, and mathematics feature a wide assortment of feline symbology, which is what makes this turn so tragic. While the people of Monsoon claim the catar went mad and turned on their pupils, the same accusation goes the other way as well. Fearing the temples have been corrupted by Chaos’ taint and citing the poisons closing in around them as proof, the catar seek to destroy all that was about the Elemental Spirits and their influence on humankind.

A catar unleashes her qi on a misguided samurai. Art by Kieron O’Gorman.

Few catar has demonstrated an individual qi power, causing many to wonder if they display the ability. Far from the truth. They have collectively applied their qi towards gaining an immunity to poison in order to blend with the jungle and strike with stealth and precision. They hide no qualms about killing those they are trying to protect; they have been corrupted and must be destroyed in order to be saved. Other than their cause and the deadly accuracy of their guerrilla war with Monsoon, little is known about them or how many live in the trees of the Pale Jungle.

Catar As Lead Characters

Taking on the role of a non-human character is quite simple in the High Plains Samurai Roleplaying Game and requires only a small substitution with any of the pre-generated characters from High Plains Samurai: Legends.

To play a catar as a lead character, you can replace your qi power with the following perk. If you play Mauser, you will start with 10 Vitality and gain the following perk.

Immune to Poison: All catar are immune to any poison-based complications, including damage.

Change the name of your character’s Homeland to “The Pale Jungle” and gain the following perk in substitution of your character’s existing perk.

Never Seen, Never Heard: You gain an additional +1 step bonus whenever you apply a resource for stealth.

The Wastes

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The scourge of the One Land and the source of its qi. 

from High Plains Samurai: Legends

Life in the One Land revolves around the Wastes; not only as the heart of the continent but as a blight on the whole world. Sand storms created by its slicing winds hurdle past its borders without warning, earthquakes from shifting mountains rumble in all directions, and an unseen ooze of corruption leaks out into the dried up riverbeds winding across the land. There is not a day that goes by without the Wastes, without reason, extending its reach and bringing misery to thousands.

Tainted by the anger of Chaos, this place is in a state of constant change. Even the land does not remain the same for long, creating a maze for those who do not wish to be found. Perhaps this is why it appeals to those who seek refuge from the anger of warlords or freedom from their oppression, even if the chances of death increase exponentially. While the whispers of city dwellers believe only the crazed and maniacal would call this place home, there can be more honour found here than most other places today.

Those who call it home have adapted to the harshness of it all. And what hardships they must endure: An eternal blasting sun that scorches the skin within minutes, stirring up the air to create a curtain of heat that blinds a weary traveller, or perhaps a sudden storm with waves of rain and hail pelting down on anyone without shelter. Another day could bring on massive earthquakes as the rock itself rises and falls to build new monuments of stone, sometimes wiping out entire settlements in minutes. Despite it all, those they call Outcasts call this home. Nomads, devout believers in their way of life, and incredible hunters, these few lead meagre lives because they are either unwelcome or wanted for dead by one of the five warlords. Part of the Outcasts’ code is to aid all survivors and give them an opportunity to live a free life away from the oppression of the Cities.

Rust, City of Industry

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Forced underground by their own pollution, Rust has become a beacon of hope and a bastion of disease.  

from High Plains Samurai: Legends

Tall spires of scrap metal pierce the horizon in this pocket of the One Land ripe with strong electrical currents as bolts of lightning bounce from one tower to the next. These towers are a monument to a world of bizarre creations and marvels that cannot be found until you begin to look underground. Buried beneath the barren soil, everything that is this final City is concealed beneath the earth. That is perhaps its greatest defense. Blending salvage engineering with religious devotion, Rust is a beacon of hope, for those who can both physically and morally endure, in an otherwise dreary hellhole. Yet most would rather take their chances in the Wastes.

Every street, building, and construct in Rust was built from the wreckage of the world before Chaos’ wrath, and its people have completed wondrous feats with these remains. Despite the brown-flecked appearance of the metal applied in these inventions, its citizens have manufactured some of the most advanced forms of technology available today (some even more than what was possible before it was all destroyed). They even have the ability to harness the electricity flowing through the air around them (a lesser side effect of the storm-riddled northern landscape above) to provide heat and illumination. It is this ingenuity that makes Rust a powerhouse among the Five Cities as it sits on a powder keg of weaponry. While all the other warlords would unleash an army to seize this city for their own, none would dare face down a barrage of contraptions built for the sole purpose of tearing a man in half.

Ingenuity in the face of devastation is the signature conceit of this final City overseen by the Council of Iron and its messiah, the Minister. The people of Rust have built impressive technologies and architecture using the leftovers of the world before Chaos’ judgement and have dedicated themselves to the worship of the Minister as their guide to the afterlife away from all of this toil and death. Total subjugation is the price for living in a city of electricity and advancement, with the Council of Iron acting as the Minister’s voice. While they may seem to have it all compared to the remaining Cities, everything a family owns can be stripped at a moment’s notice at the Council’s whims. Those who have managed to flee with their lives intact speak of the Minister’s madness and the rampant disease from a life surrounded in rusted metals and an unkempt populace.

Khar’tep, City of Mountains

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Home of nomadic clans scattered across the northern mountains, they are a people both united by cause and divided by stone.  

from High Plains Samurai: Legends

There is a reason why the Five Cities have not turned to outright war due to so many harsh words and threats exchanged between them. When it comes to Khar’tep and its current warlord, Khar of the Hawk Clan, there is the slight matter of scaling the rocky mountains in which this City lies. While not a City in the traditional sense, what it known as Khar’tep is in truth a nomadic gathering of barbarians relocating from one peak of the mountains to the next as conditions demand. Out here, change is a constant. Even the name of the City is altered when a new warlord is proclaimed – its former name was Roth’tep in favour of its previous warlord, Roth of the Goat Clan.

Life is firm and unrelenting in the heights of the northeastern mountains. While each clan tends to their own, they all form groups of hunters, gatherers, parents, gardeners, and warriors working apart but for the same purpose: the survival of the clan. Only their clan elders engage with the other clans and ensure little to no violence breaks out between them. Such peace between the clans is only maintained because of Khar’s wishes as he prepares for the days of total war with the other Cities.

Home to a gathering of numerous clans, Khar’tep maintains order through might alone. These people have been raised to live a warrior’s code: what is desired is taken and fought for. While not as organized and dutiful as the soldiers in Monsoon, they are indeed a force to be reckoned with. All manner of harsh crimes are permitted when raiding parties are sent out, and few that oppose them are left alive. Ruling them all is their unchallenged warlord. Never defeated in battle, it is told, this hulking warrior has slain ten people for every year of his life. The youngest of all the warlords, his quick temper and swift reactions make him the most feared of them all.

Never underestimate the barbarians of Khar’tep. Art by Kieron O’Gorman.

Monsoon, City of Ruins

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Hidden deep within the poisonous southern jungle canopy, Monsoon stands ready to take back the world they thought they knew.

from High Plains Samurai: Legends

Monsoon’s borders are strictly guarded by their samurai warriors. Art by Kieron O’Gorman.

Do not let the full name of this third City fool you. Monsoon is a place of true beauty and antiquity, one of the few to embrace the past, even if it is for nefarious purposes. Settled at an assembly of four tainted rivers running to the western coast of the One Land, Monsoon is located at the base of a waterfall where the rivers merge and flow down to give life to one of the few surviving jungles. Under the canopy of dense trees, and watched over by the singing birds and swinging monkeys that also call this place home, are ancient temples dedicated to the Elemental Spirits, libraries of vast knowledge, and a fortress from which the warlord Hoth Kap Sing, also known as the General, rules with absolute efficiency and determination.

Beyond its beauty and splendour lies a people under military rule. All who would call Monsoon home must serve at least three years in full arms guarding the walls and marching out into the One Land as the General sees fit. His forces are unmatched compared to the other Cities and this is what makes Monsoon so feared by the other warlords. Should the day ever come that the General feels obliged to take what is not his, the legion may be unstoppable. Yet no aspirations of power have crossed the General’s mind to date. At least, not until he has learned the secret buried within the temples of Monsoon, a secret he believes will grant him the power to cleanse the impurities of the world and grant him right as supreme ruler of the One Land. Few outside of the General’s inner circle are aware of the power he seeks in the ruins, but many have their own theories.

Having fathered no children in his lifetime, the General’s life is dedicated to his military. Power is to pass on to his second-in-command. As of today, it is Lu Qing‘s hands that grasp that title. Also known as the Winds of Death, Lu Qing is a fierce swordsman with lightning fast reflexes and the ability to summon tempest winds with a whistle. Lu Qing’s loyalty to his commanding officer is unbreakable and many who have failed to bring the General his quest for ultimate power have left this world because of the Winds of Death’s twin katanas.

Yung Zhi, City of Lights

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Spared the worst of Chaos’ Wrath, every last space in Yung Zhi is packed with refugees hoping for a better life. Even if it kills them.

from High Plains Samurai: Legends

There is much about Yung Zhi you cannot understand until you have wandered all its streets. At one moment, you may suspect this City to be the definition of impoverished as its people cram to fit within the towering walls of sandstone forming the jagged edges of the crevasse they call the Devil’s Throat… and home. The desperate who made it inside literally dwell on top of each other as each ramshackle building flimsily stacks atop the last to create an outer rim of swaying buildings, creaking wood, and tragedies waiting to happen. And that is for those who can find room within this immediate zone, leaving the rest to camp along the windy chasm as unsettled refugees.

The heart of the City is a very different story, one of greed, power, and unappreciated technology. Yung Zhi’s true power lies with its warlord, Xang, and her dominance over the rival gangs populating the illuminated streets of neon-fueled night clubs, polished automobiles, and heavy firepower. Caught up in their own opulence, these brash youngsters seek nothing more than good times at the cost of enforcing Xang’s demands until such time as another will take the old woman’s place. When blood does not run into the sewers, parties carry on well into the night and long into the morning hours. In Yung Zhi’s heart it is not money that commands attention, but booze.

Many a skilled mercenary has answered Xang’s call to join her gang, including a varied collection of qi warriors. Filling the role of second-in-command is a particularly vicious killer: Bolo, once the main enforcer of the very Desert Sun Gang that brought so much grief to Xang and her fellow warlords. A silent man and efficient killer, Bolo has sworn allegiance to his new master and proven himself invaluable to her family. Those who would dare question his loyalty faces the firm reply of his iron fists.

Serenity Falls, City of Despair

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An ocean view put Serenity Falls on the map and the anger of a god took it away.

from High Plains Samurai: Legends

What was once a bustling City of furs and mining is now no more than a rusted trophy commemorating a long forgotten past. Ruled by the Tom family since before dark days fell on us all, the City’s resources were scant able to keep up with the eventual demand from a growing population seeking a promising life in the southeast border of the One Land. It now exists as a wind-blown shell embraced by thieves, murderers, and the foulest of personalities. They seek a place to rest their heads and feed their urges without the bother of settling down or leaving a mark as to their arrival and departure. Closer to the Wastes than any other City, it is now the epitome of corruption.

Today it is ruled by Asoko Tom but you may probably know him more as Grandfather, the greedy protector of Serenity Falls. While the depraved and wicked come to his City wanted by other warlords, Grandfather tolerates their ways until they threaten either of the pair he truly cherishes: his money or his children. Those who forget this rule face a dedicated legion of trained marksmen that have become the signature of the City, standing on rooftops with hawks’ gazes on everything that goes on in the City. Anyone not killed by his Watchdogs face Grandfather’s judgment: take your own life or suffer a life as a slave in the mines concealed behind the empowering fortress that is his home. His people pay heavy taxes to gain this harsh protection, as they have for generations. Grandfather is a staunch believer in the old ways and his quest to bring back the past has lead his City to ruin.

Standing at his side since her tenth year is Kiki, his adopted daughter and bodyguard. Raised in view of tortures, beatings, and murders, this graceful girl has grown to become a crazed killer when unleashed. Armed with her legendary Crescent Whip and her terrifying efficiency in dealing death, Kiki – and her ambitions – may have reason to fear for her life as there are stirrings in Hunan of uncertainty within the Tom household.

The Devil’s Throat

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The densest population in all of the One Land are those desperate to enter the slums of Yung Zhi.

by Ali May Sang

When I think of the suffering of our people since Chaos brought down his anger on our world, I think of a canyon winding between the chaotic Wastes and the streets of Yung Zhi. In the journey from the edges of the Iron Reaches to the outer perimeter of the City, within the mountain gorge that protects it from invaders, lies a canyon known as the Devil’s Throat. Little is known about what awaits at the top of the gorge as those who have climbed out of the Throat have never been seen again, but there are plenty who can tell you about life within the Throat. I have seen it with my own eyes and it haunts me to this day to have seen so much suffering jammed into so large an area. More than ten times the population of Yung Zhi huddle in makeshift tents and narrow caves carved into the side of the Throat call this home as they slowly shift closer and closer to the official border and find a place within the Shell.

Stationed at the entrance to the Throat, a garrison of well-armed qi warriors and thugs from Xang’s personal retinue provide transportation to those entering Yung Zhi on official business. Lead by a massive reconfigured truck with a cowcatcher mounted at the front, those invited to meet with one of the City’s gangs or seek to do business them (at a price) may enter without the burden of making their way through the crowd. Refugees eager to make the inner sanctums of Yung Zhi their own leave these convoys alone and some who cannot get out of the way in time pay the ultimate price. Of the three times I have come to the Throat, only once did I dare cross by foot. It took me three months to reach the City.

While many consider themselves part of Yung Zhi, they receive no official protection from Xang or any of the gangs. So they have adapted to create their own civilization modeled after the familial organizations in the City. Upon their first arrival within the Throat, newcomers can either make camp wherever they can find a bare spot on the rocky ground or along the thin ledges etched along the side of the canyon. Various semi-permanent structures have been erected over the years, each claimed by a pack who mark them based on a colour code. As space slowly becomes available, refugees enter new pack domains under a new colour and must make new protection arrangements or join the local pack in order to earn a chance at a share of the food and water they bring their territory. A cross between brutal gangs and caring community leaders, these packs run the full gamut with over a hundred of them operating from one end of the Throat to the other. As these pack leaders are able to move closer and closer to their aspiring home in the Shell, others take over and the pack undergoes a dramatic transformation. It is believed most packs will only exist for about six months at a time.

Without any natural sources of food or water available in the Throat (the once mighty river that floating through here from Yung Zhi’s mighty waterfall is now dry as dust), packs conduct raids on other packs further out from their true goal. Meaning those who have spent less time living in the Throat are vulnerable to savage attacks from those growing more and more desperate to stay alive long enough to make a home in the Shell under the feint protection of Xang and her seven families. Some daring raids have even occurred within the Shell during desperate times of famine and open war between the packs.

There are permanent structures within the Throat, mainly religious temples carved into the sides of the canyon. While some have been converted into makeshift hospitals and soup kitchens, other continue to serve as monuments to the faithful of the Elemental Spirits. Perhaps those worshipping inside do so with empty prayers simply to take shelter from the harsh wind and crowded life of a refugee, but the monks tend to these people as their predecessors did before Chaos’ Wrath. All temples are viewed as neutral ground from the packs and have been used to negotiate truces between warring packs in bloody times and trade between the peaceful ones. Rumours exist of secret tunnels providing undiscovered access to the Shell and the sewers until the Pearl, Yung Zhi’s elite district, but I have not yet been able to substantiate those stories.