• Player Group

Viktor Haag (ref)
YU Jian Mo, newly appointed magistrate of Penglai, a town district on the northeast coast of East Jingdong Circuit. Referred to as "Judge Yu" or "the judge", "the magistrate", and so forth.

James Nicoll
GONG Fang, Judge Yu's trusty physick and apothecary. Referred to as "Younger Brother Gong", "Apothecary Gong" or "Doctor Gong".

Vidal Bairos
GONG Shen Yao, a close friend of the Yu family and confidante of the Judge. Referred to as "Elder Brother Gong", "Scholar Gong" or simply "Scholar".

Dave Ferguson
FU Sheng, a reformed gambler placed under the guidance and tutelage of Judge Yu. Referred to as "Fu".

Pat Phillips
LI Fang Zhang, a trusted assistant of the Judge. Referred to as "Instructor Li".

• Administrative Notes

This page contains the game writeup of the adventure, and isn't intended to be very detailed, or lyrical, but merely to remind players what happened when.

Outlaws of the Water Margin is © 1998 by Paul Mason, and is published by Panurgic Publishing. The contents of this page are not in any way intended as a challenge to this copyright.

Made with GNU Emacs.

The Case of the Murdered Magistrate

At the start of the adventure, the group had just finished the Case of the Woman in the River, and had left the city of Maoyi to continue their journey to Penglai. A portion of the road to Penglai veers southwest into hilly country, and it is amongst these hills that the adventure begins.

Prologue -- a man in a hurry, and a man in no hurry at all
The Judge and his associates leave Maoyi before the return of Maoyi's magistrate. They leave the details of the case with the assistant magistrate. Mrs. Yee, relieved to have her handmaiden returned to her, provides them with some money to "cover their travel expenses".

When the group leaves Maoyi, the roads are fairly busy with travellers. However, the farther they travel from Maoyi, and the farther into the hills they go, the sparser becomes the traffic on the roads.

As the afternoon reaches a close, the travellers spy a rider some distance down the road, riding quite fast, leading another horse by its bridle. As the rider approaches they can see that he's a man of average stature, wearing travelling clothes. Strapped to the saddle of his horse is a the large red cash box of the district tax collector. The characters move aside to let the rider pass, as he doesn't seem to willing to change his speed or direction on their account. The group remarks on his strange behaviour, but they make no effort to detain or chase the individual.

They continue on, and within a short time, the light begins to dim as evening falls. Off the roads some distance, up into the hills, they can spy what looks to be an old farmstead, and can see the light of a fire coming from one of the windows (and a plume of smoke rising into the sky). They decide to approach, and see whether they can pass the night there.

When they approach the farmstead, they notice that it's dilapidated except for one small building which has been fixed up a little bit. It's from one of the windows in this building that the group spied the flickering light of a cooking fire. Also, Instructor Li, using his keen senses and knowledge of the outdoors, begins to notice something odd about the surrounding countryside--he can notice no signs of any insect life in the area, no fireflies, no midges or mosquitos, no thrumming crickets, etc. Instead, he notices an overwhelming preponderance of spider webs in the tall grasses, and in the crooks of trees and shrubs. He remarks his observation to the rest of the group.

Inside the small, refurbished building, they notice a man in well worn clothes tending a small fire and cooking pot. He appears to be making some sort of stew. The perceptive Instructor Li notices that at the mans side is a tatty scabbard wrapped in rags of cloth. The hilt and shape of the sword lead him to believe that it could be quite valuable.

The group asks if they can share his fire for the night, and he agrees. He warns them that he hasn't very much food, but they warmly inform him that they have food aplenty, and begin to break out some of their travel rations. The man introduces himself as Chen. He has few words to say over dinner, but engages in a certain amount of pleasant conversation with the group. He tells them he's a woodcutter who gathers and sells firewood to some of the local farmers.

After supper, Chen tells them he has a full day ahead, and so will turn in. He climbs a rickety ladder up into a makeshift loft (at which point the group notices that he limps slightly), and soon the group hears the sounds of snoring.

The group then has a short discussion about the curious Chen and his sword, and whether or not they should set a guard. The group comes to the general conclusion that Chen's probably a veteran of the wars, and if he's comfortable sleeping with them in the house, then they likely have little need to worry, so no formal watch schedule is set. Instructor Li, being a careful and wary fellow, decides that he will make an extra attempt to sleep lightly...

In the morning, the group awakes, and stretches, and then notices the complete absence of the firepit and cooking pot in the middle of the packed earth floor. They also notice that the inside of the house looks a good deal more run down than it did the night before. Dead leaves, twigs and detritus are strewn about the floor, and there are holes in the walls that no-one seems to remember being there last night.

One of the characters (Gambler Fu?) goes up into the loft to see about Chen, and notice no bedrool, or Chen. There are a few old crates strewn around in the loft, and a large bundle (man sized) over against one wall. When the bundle is examined, it appears to be an old, dessicated corpse wrapped in wisps and bands of spider silk. It appears quite likely that this is Chen's body (or perhaps the body of a relative, some brother? suggests Scholar Gong). The group also notices that Chen's sword is missing.

A closer examination is made of the boxes in the loft, and the group finds them filled with old dusty chards of rough clay. Instructor Li says that they remind him of the kinds of clay molds, or blanks, that weapon smiths use to fire spear and arrow tips, polearm blades, and so forth.

The group spends a little time discussing what they should do, and when they go outside the little house, it's plain to them that the countryside has taken on a completely different appearance. No longer are there spider webs everywhere, and there's plenty of natural insect life at this point. Also, from the outside, the small hovel seems no less delapidated than the rest of the farmstead. After a little further musing, the group decides not to pursue the matter any further, but to write it off as a mysterious occurance. They decide, instead, to continue on the road to Penglai, as they've already been delayed once.

Arrival at long last
After another long day on the road, the group finally arrives at the walls of Penglai in late afternoon. The Judge announces himself to the guards at the city gates, and he is immediately passed through and pointed in the direction of the tribunal (he refuses an escort).

At the tribunal, he is shown by one of the tribunal guards into the scriptorium where an aged, grey-bearded gentleman is supervising the work of a handful of young scribes. The Judge introduces himself, and his companions, and the grey-beard becomes immediately very nervous and twitchy. He kowtows fervently, and apologizes profusely for not having an official reception prepared, and swears that he was not informed of the Judge's intended arrival. The grey-beard informs the group that his name is Tang, and that he's the chief Scribe of the tribunal. He's been working at the tribunal for over forty years. He appears quite fastidious, but a rather sensitive and nervous fellow.

Scholar Gong immediately asks whether the tribunal had sent out a tax collector in the past day or so, and Tang responds that he doesn't think so, but that the chief clerk, Fan Choong is responsible for collecting the district taxes. When Gong Shen Yao then asks where Fan Choong is, Tang has to respond that he doesn't know. Fan Choong had left on holidays some while ago, and was expected back yesterday morning, but hadn't yet appeared. That morning, Tang sent a messenger out to Fan's farm to check on him. Fan's tenant farmer reported that Fan Choong had returned yesterday morning, and then left again at about noon. No-one has seen the man since. Judge Yu is not amused: not only must he deal with the mystery of the murdered magistrate, but now he must also deal with a missing chief clerk.

The Judge calls a general inspection
He tells Tang that he would like to have an immediate general inspection called, so he can view all the employees in the tribunal. Tang complies. Within a few minutes, forty-odd individuals gather in the tribunal's main compound. Of those forty, about two thirds make up the tribunal's complement of guardsmen and constables. There's one headman in charge of all the constables, who's also an extremely dubious and shifty looking individual (Fu Sheng immediately assumed that (a) he was on the take, and (b) that he could therefore be usefully manipulated), and a small number of sergeants in charge of the general rabble of men with sticks.

The other third of the tribunal is its administrative staff. There's a small body of clerks, a handful of scribes, Tang, the missing Fan Choong, and the cultivated and meticulous Dr. Shen, the tribunal's coroner.

After a brief inspection, Yu announces that he's placing Instructor Li as Master Sergeant in charge of all the guardsmen and constables, to oversee their discipline and training. As his immediate assistant, he's appointing Fu Sheng. He's appointing Scholar Gong as Chamberlain of the tribunal, to oversee the smooth running of the tribunal and all its administrative affairs. He's also appointing Apothecary Gong as assistant coroner to Dr. Shen, so that he can learn the trade from a practiced professional.

The facts of the case
Judge Yu tells Tang that he'd like to begin looking into the case of the previous magistrate's murder immediately. He asks Instructor Li and Fu Sheng to first put the constables and guards through their paces, and then to go out into the town and start getting a feel for its people and places. He then goes inside with the doctor and Scholar Gong, to talk with Tang about the case.

Tang informs Judge Yu that two weeks previously, Magistrate Wang was found dead inside his library. The previous night, Wang had retired to his library, and in the morning one of his servants had become concerned because Wang's bed had not been slept in. Tang then discovered that the door to the magistrate's library was locked, and he summoned several guards to force it open.

Inside, they discovered Wang's body laying on the floor, with a spilled tea cup near his outstretched hand. Dr. Shen (the coroner) was immediately sent for, and when he arrived he examined the body, and tested the remainder of the tea in the magistrate's teapot. It was found to contain a virulent poison. The magistrate's tea leaves were also tested, but they turned up normal. The pot that Wang had used to boil his tea water in wasn't able to be tested, as it had boiled dry.

Tang and the staff at the tribunal immediately sent a dispatch messenger to report the magistrate's death to the prefect. Wang's body was taken to the White Cloud Temple, just to the east of the temple, for storage until his next of kin could be notified.

Four days lateer a court investigator appeared, with several soldiers from the fort upriver deputized as agents. He thoroughly questioned all the staff at the tribunal, and examined the scene of the crime. After a couple of days, the court investigator packed Wang's private papers in a box and left rather hurriedly for the capitol. Judge Yu confirms that he read the court investigator's report, but that it seemed rather sketchy in spots, and that the investigator had quickly been reassigned to another matter in the south of the empire. Judge Wang's private papers had either been misfiled, lost, or were still in the court investigator's possession.

The man in the hosuecoat
At this point, Yu, Scholar Gong and the doctor decides that they wish to have a look at the library for themselves, and Tang leads them through the scriptorium and court offices into the part of the tribunal compound housing the private apartments. As they are walking down the hall towards the library, the group of men spies someone at the end of the hallway. He is dressed in a simple grey housecout, with no hat, and his hair is a little dishevelled (as if he'd just had his rest disturbed). Judge Yu expresses a little outrage at one of the tribunal's employees wandering around in such a state of undress, and Tang promptly faints.

Scholar Gong takes off down the hall after the housecoat-man, while the doctor attends to the aged Tang. The housecoat-man disappears into the private apartments that had once been Wang's living quarters. Gong calls for the rest of the group, informing them where the man has gone. Guards are immediately called for and set outside the doors, while Gong, the doctor, and Judge Yu open the doors to Wang's apartments and begin a search for the housecoat-man. The search reveals nothing, but the characters get a better idea about how the tribunal's laid out.

When Tang is brought around, he confirms that the man in the housecoat was (he believes) the ghost of the dead magistrate. This is the second time he has seen the ghost. Angrily Yu asks him if has been hiding any other details, and Tang denies it. He explains that he wasn't really sure the first time, and though his stress and fatigue were playing tricks on his mind. Yu and Scholar Gong then ask to see the library. The doctor is left to take care of the aged chief clerk.

Looking into the library
As they examine the library, Gong Shen Yao immediately notices the dark stain on the ceiling of the library directly above table containing Wang's tea stove. On closer examination, the stain seems still a bit sticky, and the two conclude that the poison was set there in a resin or wax, and the steam from the tea stove melted it so it would drop into the boiling water from which Wang then made his tea.

The two examine Wang's desk closely and find no papers that look suspicious. They look over his collection of books and discover volumes of poetry of all sorts, from the romantic to the erotic. They also notice a number of books dedicated to obstruse metaphysical arguments, and also books describing interesting puzzles and intricate machines and devices of various sorts. As they are pulling books and scrolls of the shelves to look at, they turn up a small notebook tucked in behind the others, hidden.

It appears to contain about two months worth of dates accompanied by complicated figures and calculations. Judge Yu asks Scholar Gong to go over the book in detail, and attempt to figure out what's in it. At this point, the men inside the tribunal's aparments decide to call it an evening.

The instructor and the gambler have dinner
The ministrations of Instructor Li and Fu Sheng leave the constables and guards feeling rather exhausted and sore; especially the young guardsmen who Li employed as his demonstration partner...

After a few hours of hard word, the instructor dismisses the company, and he and Fu Sheng clean up a little and go out into the town looking for some dinner. They discover a nice little noodle shop directly across the square from the yamen.

Inside they make the acquaintance of the one-armed veteran who owns the place, and he joins them for a drink. In conversation with this man they learn a number of his opinions.

First, it's his opinion that Tang and Fan Choong are a funny pair, and rather greedy. Fan Choong especially was fond of feathering his nest at the expense of honest business folk in the town. The one-armed veteran voices his opinion that he "knows" that the previous magistrate Wang was murdered in his sleep, and then chopped into bits, by the pair of them so they could hide their nasty practices.

Second, he warns the pair that the hills outside surrounding the city are being plagued with a were-tiger's attacks, and that they should exercise caution if they have to go outside the city walls, especially at night.

Finally, he tells Instructor Li and Fu Sheng about a deserted temple nearby the city. Nine years ago, it used to be affiliated with the White Cloud Temple, and four monks from that monastery lived in this smaller temple. One morning, these monks were found brutally murdered, and ever since then, the temple has been deserted. However, the ghosts of those monks still haunt the temple, and people have noticed odd lights shining from it late at night, and sometimes shadowy figures wandering around.

Going for a small dip
After having dinner, and the attendant conversation, the instructor and the gambler take a stroll around town to get more familiar with the setting. They notice that, as the evening wears on, the mists descending on the city get more and more dense. Soon, the visibility is quite poor.

As they walk long the canal that passes through the southern wards of the city, they notice up ahead (through the mists) a dim view of a gang of men carrying the stiff figure of another man. They stop for a minute, and with a heave, they toss the stiff figure into the canal. Our heroes hear a loud splash, and the gang of men disappear into the mist.

Running to catch up, Instructor Li and Fu Sheng stop and identify the spot where the gang did the tossing (they can see the scuff marks in the mud by the canal). It's at this point that it begins to rain. They descend gingerly into the water of the canal to see if they can find/rescue the man pitched in, but discover nothing. By the time they pick themselves out of the canal (rather dirty and wet), the rain's coming down in fair buckets.

end of session one: the writeup will continue after the next playing session