Monday, May 25, 2015

FASERIP: The Five Monarchs

I now have a couple of working titles for this campaign, but neither has really charmed me yet:

  • The Five Monarchs Campaign
  • Chasura City Campaign

Let me know in the comments which one you like better.

So, originally I was going to have the five monarchs based on the five colors of the rainbow (as originally postulated by Isaac Newton) with a mix of Eastern and Western elements to color the special effects of campaign powers. I was reminded, however, by Svafa of wu xing. I quickly realized that this elemental model was a much more useful than the one I had come up with. Not only does each element have more special effects, but there are far more implied relationships between the elements.

What follows is a summary of each Monarch, their organizations, goals, relationships and special effects of the powers their vassals exhibit when using their powers.

Red Monarch


Element: Fire

Sp. Effects: Light, Fire, Radiation

Likes Working With: Wood

Rivals: Water, Metal

Cover: UTU (United Trade Unions)


Goals: The Red Monarch wants to return to normal time and space by any means possible, short of destroying the city or its people. The UTU is a loose confederation of workers with ties to criminal gangs and politicians. They are not afraid to use violence, terror and crime to further their agenda; however, murder is not deemed as an acceptable method of coercion. Murderers are hunted down and turned over to the CCPD. UTU works closely with the CCPD, especially through its political influences because despite wishing to return home, the status quo is better than trying to push Chasura City into some other kind of space or time.

Yellow Monarch


Element: Earth

Sp. Effects: Gravity, Rock, Sand

Likes Working With: Fire

Rivals: Wood, Water

Cover: GeoTech (does much of the construction/infrastructure found in Chasura City)


Goals: The Yellow Monarch is obsessed with researching the space and time in-between in order to find a guaranteed safe way of moving Chasura City back to normal space and time. Going into a different space and time is deemed too dangerous for Chasura City and its people. GeoTech works closely with UTU because of similar goals and as a means of keeping the more dangerous impulses of UTU in check.

Green Monarch



Element: Wood

Sp. Effects: Wind, Sound, Mind

Likes Working With: Water

Rivals: Earth, Metal

Cover: CCPD (Chasura City Police Department)


Goals: The Green Monarch wants to protect the status quo and keep the city safe. It is more dangerous to try to remove Chasura City from its current state in-between time and space than remaining in its current state. The CCPD keeps very close ties with CCE in order to monitor their actives and minimize the effects of their radical efforts. CCPD has used CCE to shut down various experiments by other factions simply by denying them access to CCE’s power utilities.

Blue Monarch


Element: Water

Sp. Effects: Electricity, Fluids, Shadow

Likes Working With: Metal

Rivals: Fire, Earth

Cover: CCE (Chasura City Energy)



Goals: Ever since Chasura City shifted into its current state in-between time and space, the Blue Monarch has discovered a variety of potential power sources unknown in regular time and space. The Blue Monarch believes that these power sources indicate a space-time that has far more to offer humanity than does regular time and space. Using CCE and several secret underwater research facilities, the Blue Monarch wishes to push humanity forward into this new reality by any means possible, short of destroying Chasura City or its people. CCE works closely with AESTech due to their similar goals.

Purple Monarch


Element: Metal

Sp. Effects: Iron, Ice, Ether

Likes Working With: Earth

Rivals: Fire, Wood

Cover: AESTech (produces much of the hi-tech/electronic devices found in Chasura City)


Goals: The Purple Monarch is obsessed with researching the space and time in-between in order to find a guaranteed safe way to move Chasura City into a new space and time, because to go back would be too dangerous for those in normal space and time. AESTech works closely with GeoTech because, despite having different goals, both are dedicated to safe research. The more they know about their current state the safer it will be to move beyond it.

5 comments:

JB said...

"The Five Monarchs Campaign." Much more descriptive of what the whole thing's about.

Thiles Targon said...

This great. You could put a summary of their goals for the city with the rivals covers etc, since they amount to "safe way to move Chasura City into a new space and time"

Svafa said...

I like The Five Monarchs, as it describes the setting rather than just naming it.

You hit on a few of my favorite details of the five elements; most of which are just unintuitive to a western elements mindset. For example, ice being part of the metal element rather than water, or electricity being part of the water element.

It's also more interesting due to the change in rivalry dynamics due to the additional element. For example, Fire melts Metal and is doused by Water, but it also feeds off Wood and produces Earth. And I like how you represented both with the rivalries and "likes working with".

FrDave said...

Thanks for making me look this stuff up. As you can tell, it has been quite an inspiration for this campaign.

Svafa said...

Glad to be an inspiration. I meant to mention and forgot, but I like the art too, especially the green dragon - makes me want to throw some sort of weed-dragon at the players in my campaign. >.<