Investigating Censor Roleplaying Wargame: Steppe Cataphract Edition

          A Roleplaying Wargame by Dave Greggs

          Grand Commodore           Fierce Firelight

Welcome to the second edition of the dark rules-light roleplaying wargame Investigating Censor. The game is set amidst a campaign by oracular warrior monks to eliminate a sect of human-sacrificing pirates.

The leaders of these monks, Investigating Censors, can enlist anyone into their retinue on pain of outlawry. Anybody who is not an enemy can be turned into a party member.

Proper use of this power will bring powerful alchemists, spirit-binders, sword saints, and courtesans to the cause of the Investigating Censors.

Misuse of the Investigating Censors' charter will arouse fanatical resistance among the people of the pirate regime.

Allies will be needed, as the warrior monks must wage archery battles from horseback, fight pirate ships at sea, storm sacrificial fanes in the caverns of the rocky coast, and survive encounters with supernatural creatures and their powers of prophecy.

          Steppe Cataphract Edition

Investigating Censor: Steppe Cataphract Edition contains a revised and expanded edition of the original Investigating Censor Roleplaying Wargame, and has integrated:
-The revised Seven Leopards enemy dossier and region.
-The revised and expanded introductory adventure, The Hands of Lacquermere.
-A refined and expanded rundown of Investigating Censor's fundamental game loop: deputization, investigation, and decisive battle.
-A refined and expanded Combat section.
-Revisions and readability fixes across all chapters.
-Cover art by Evlyn Moreau.

          Investigating Censor: Impermanence

A brand-new adventure for Investigating Censor: Steppe Cataphract Edition.

Disappearances plague a region of the fallen pirate regime. These have many sources, each of which will try to make the Investigating Censors disappear...

          Complete Investigating Censor: Steppe Cataphract Edition Game Index

Investigating Censor
          The Mission
          Finding the Pirates
          Cachet and Skill Investment
          Crescendos

Four Pirate Temples
          Winter Temple
          Plunder Temple
          Conflagration Temple
          Infrared Temple

The South Coast Region
          The High Road
          Urban Vice District
          Massive Excavation Operation
          Treetop Willow Musth Harvesting Annex
          Manorial Valley

Seven Leopards
          Port Umber
          Sugarcane Mire
          The Forest of Molten Memories
          The Rosebud Bocage
          The Sea of Steeples
          Mount Submission
          The Open Wilds

The Investigating Censor’s Retinue
          The Search for Allies
          Corruption, Loyalty, and Resolve
          Co-Opting Centers of Gravity and Key Personalities
          Retinue Personalities

Monasticism
          The High Dreaming Citadel
          Monks of the Lower Orders

Opposition
          Pirates
          Secret Societies
          Local Hostility

The Rules
          Skills
          The Uses of Fetches & Fetishes
          The Uses of Alchemy
          Combat

Appendix N: Commentary

Variants

Introductory Adventure: The Hands of Lacquermere

          Passages from Investigating Censor

You are an Investigating Censor of the High Dreaming Citadel, a warrior monk from a temple of stricture and prophecy. Your temple is built upon the world’s highest peak, but you have been brought into the lowlands by a tragedy of nations.

The Castellans of the north initiated a great invasion across the sea of the libraries on the Poison River, and called upon the people of the southern coasts to aid them.

At that time, the southern coasts were ruled by a pirate regime loyal to the Castellans. In the pirate realms, human sacrifice was regarded as a necessary bane. They looked upon the war without fear. They would be protected by the bodies they cast into the sea.

The pirates shepherded the northern armies to the Poison River and preyed upon the ships of every nation, enjoying the best raiding seasons in their history.

A hundred thousand northern warriors were shipped up the Poison River and died there. Only the pirate realm profited from the war. They attributed the losses among the northerners to their lack of proper sacrifice.

With the ruination of the Castellans, the monks of the High Dreaming Citadel descended from their mountain peaks, joined forces with the lowland monasteries, and gave a new law with their iron clubs. The remnants of the Castellans were destroyed and many pirate lords were killed. Their regime has fallen.

You are now deployed against the Cult of Preservation, the underground remnants of the pirates. Your mission is to burn their pirate ships, tear down their wharves, seize their assets, eliminate their captains, save their captives from sacrifice, and send their cliff-face temples tumbling into the sea.

You go into a land where the people have every reason to believe in the righteousness of their cause, however bitter its method. The people of the southern coast were the only ones to profit from the Castellans’ disastrous wars. 

Your tools in your quest are the people who will follow you.

---

Brazen candelabras burn scented red candles and emit the scent of faraway lands, holding the sacred brine air at bay.

Other temples would like to see this one fall, and so the regime official keeps a standing coterie of armored guards. They wear brown lamellar tunics segmented like cockroaches, and carry a variety of halberds and pikes that they lean on, long black lines projecting from their bodies.

Some also carry magnificent longswords, gifts from the overlord or prizes from sea-sorties, lacquerware scabbards shimmering like golden ghosts in the cavern’s half-light or sheathed in venous prepuce, oasis tree resin, lavender moonsail, or dripping bloodworm silk.

There are barrels of luxuries, pristine works of a loving artisan, split, spilled, and stepped through, etched and carved with records of their capture.

There is coffee, turmeric, gallstone, saffron, liverwurst, hyperephedra, bloodglass, and celestial peacock down, spilled and reveled in, mixed in scattered heaps or piled in wooden bowls.

The quarters of the Former Regime Official are most sumptuous of all. He lives amidst lionskin, his rug and sheets and drapes and mantles all lion’s mane, harvested from the living article on stolen ships which feed distant arenas.

In contrast to the subtle lacquerware cabinets of the common rooms, this place blazes eternal gold as if a circle of protection against darkness.

His armoires are scaled with gold and blaze in curling arches that would smoke if given animation. What lacquer there is wears bows of light from the ever-burning torches. The smoke coats saints’ faces painted on the ceiling tiles with an indiscriminate hair of soot like the beards of antediluvian savages.

---

His pirates wear black with red bands, and are chained to outcroppings so that they can ascend into rocky perches and then fire at invaders or descend on them like waiting spiders. Straps of tan orbs hang off their bodies, bundling up as they crouch. These are fire bombs which they will throw or plant with lit fuses. They face the same danger of employing alchemical explosives as any other character and employ them with reckless abandon.

---

High Road Encounter Table

d20
1: d8 Peasants
2: d6 Drovers (mounted)
3: d4 Hunters (1/8 chance of hostility) (d6 Acuity, d6 Archery)
4: d6 Miners (d6 Prowess)
5: d4 Wise Women (d6 Alchemy)
6: d6 Gamblers (d6 Gambling, d6 Prowess)
7: d4 Thieves (1/8 chance of hostility but may prove troublesome in other ways) (d6 Acuity, d6 Impersonation, d6 Prowess)
8: d10 Mercenaries (1/4 chance of being demobilized regime soldiers who are hostile to the ICs) (d6 Acuity, d6 Archery, d6 Gambling, d8 Prowess)
9: d8 Caravaneers (d6 Archery, d6 Horsemanship, d6 Prowess)
10: d8 Lumberjacks (d8 Prowess)
11: d12 Bandits (3/4 chance of hostility) (d6 Archery, d6 Gambling, d6 Horsemanship, d6 Prowess)
12: 1 Pirate Leader (d10 Prowess, d6 Archery, d6 Acuity) and 3d4 Pirates (d6 Archery, d6 Prowess) heading inland
13: 3d4 Hinterland Militiamen (d6 Acuity, d6 Archery, d6 Fetches and Fetishes, d6 Prowess)
14: d4 Fetch Whisperers (d8 Acuity, d8 Fetches and Fetishes)
15: d4 Wandering Sages (d6 Acuity, d6 Alchemy, d6 Fetches and Fetishes, d6 Poetry)
16: d4 Traveling Courtesans (enclosed palanquins with 2d12 bearers and 2d4 guards with d6 Prowess) (see Appendix E: The Search for Allies)
17: d4 Lower Order Monks (see Appendix E: The Search for Allies)
18: d4 Foreign Eunuchs (see Appendix E: The Search for Allies)
19: d4 Soothsayers (d6 Poetry, d6 Prophecy)
20: Sword Saint (see Appendix E: The Search for Allies)

---

5. Volksgeist that slithers through the pipes:
d4
1. Tempting and devouring people
2. Gambling with lone celebrants in out-of-the-way places, putting forth dangerous otherworldly artifacts for its part
3. Eating and drinking vast quantities of the Vice Fortress’ reserves
4. Killing those who’ve lost everything 

Volksgeist 
Acuity: d12
Alchemy: d20
Fetches and Fetishes: d20
Flute: d20
Gambling: d20
Impersonation: d12
Prophecy: d20
Prowess: d20

---

6. The cult of prosperity here has taken a dark turn, with individuals sacrificing body parts and giving undue favors to goldtalkers for luck at cards. There is a frenzied social contagion as people heap the goldtalkers with food, incense paper, and heirlooms, while the goldtalkers implore them to spread the good news and concentrate the luck nexus around those most devoted.

Soon, Luck Angels are attracted to the proceedings and stand perfectly still with their freakishly proportioned bone, wax, and ceramic bodies near the goldtalkers, their false porcelain faces low in their scale-ribbed chests. They move only when following the goldtalkers, or to blow burning gold dust on those who accuse this cult of prosperity of malfeasance. Those touched by the dust will die of freak accident or confrontation in d4 days after the encounter.

d4 Luck Angels
Acuity: d20
Archery: d20 gold dust. Causes death in d4 days. The Luck Angel will instantly blink to melee if someone tries to fire at it
Prophecy: d10
Prowess: d12

The authorities:
d4
1. Hope to co-opt this cult of prosperity
2. Are ignoring the situation, hoping it will peter out
3. Are planning to deal with the situation using their own personnel 
4. Are seeking outside help to deal with the situation

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Twelve Loyal Personalities (d12)
1 Duty-oriented
2 Conscientious
3 Up for an adventure
4 Loves to kill people
5 Weak-willed, accepts what powerful personalities say 
6 Despises the pirates for their depredations
7 Human sacrifice abolitionist
8 Stoic, accepts exterior conditions, attempts to act in congruence with plans that may bring harmony
9 Sees chance of distinguishing self in advance of future monastic empire
10 Needs the protection of a powerful group due to vengeful enemies
11 Agreeable, likes monks, displeased by the Castellans and the pirates
12 Aspiring Sword Saint

Twelve Disloyal Personalities (d12)
1 Absolutely feckless, drinks to excess at every chance, will fail to carry out orders in absence of the direct presence of the ICs
2 Seething with generalized resentment 
3 Foreign spy with his or her own agenda
4 Secretly serving a millenarian cult or ideology
5 Enraged about being forced into service
6 Lay initiate of the Cult of Protection
7 Feels this is an opportunity to seize some powerful, life changing artifact, and either utilize its transformative power or provide it to an outside source in exchange for wealth or position
8 Former pirate, maintains links with old associates
9 Former marshal of the Castellans’ Alliance; fled and has been living under alias since the Poison War
10 Sees no future in monastic rule, expects ICs to fail, seeks to curry favor with their enemies
11 Deeply in love with someone, will take the first opportunity to provision self and escape
12 Aspiring warlord, will seek to co-opt the organization and materiel of the ICs in order to set off as a potentate (or bandit lord)

---

The houses are unpainted wood and have round portals in their faces. They are dark inside, as is the preference of this fire-prone town.

Tiger-striped kittens are draped along the tiled walls. Postal stations stand at crossroads, their brown cabinets on lacquered poles.

The morning dew comes so heavy in Lacquermere that new rivers slide like scaled glass down the hills at dawn. Dew clings to the trees so thickly that it rains from the boughs when the sky turns blue. The streets are ceilinged with low-hanging foliage, the bark striped along its length. The branches are draped with snails like opalescent condensate.