The Kitchens of Oishihara Island (GLoGmas 2025)

My GLoGmas recipient for this year was discord user Liches over at Liches Get Stitches, I decided to make a setting location for their Tengoku Isles setting.

Oishihara Island 

    A medium sized island with a city so large it reaches the coastline on three of the four sides. A large tower rises up from its center. Iron and wood banded stone make up the first three tiers, getting narrower each time they step up, topped off with a pagoda.

    An isthmus to the east connects to a smaller connected landmass, made up mostly of a massive crater that's remains wild, and a series of sea-caves on the far shore.

The City 

The people in the city aren't allowed to carry weapons, so they'll be immediately  distrustful of anyone who openly does so. There are also Enlistees regularly patrolling the city, being jerks, and stealing food; as per encounters. Players will be able to find people to sell most things at poor to middling quality with two exceptions: nobody makes or sells any weapons, and all food found will be of the worst quality, while also being sold for a premium.

Every week, any newborns in the city are rounded up by the various thugs in the tower. They then show up months later stumbling around the streets  as a fully grown adult. This is treated as completely normal here. Shinrippā is the elusive Demon Lieutenant of this Isle, though he's known now only by reputation, having not left the tower in over a hundred years. 

Denizens of the City:

You find them wearing a kimono embroidered with patterns of:

1. Mandarin oranges and paper butterflies.
2. A rooster betwixt a tangle of weeds.
3. Cherry blossoms and kusudama.
4. A red crane set before the moon. 
5.  Plum blossoms and fans.
6. Maple leaves and paper lotuses.

And they are:

1. Running from 1d6 Enlistees.
2. Discreetly feeding a stray animal.
3. Following someone else while loudly defaming them.
4. Ushering a small crowd into their cellar.
5. Laboriously carving wooden figurines with a blunted knife.
6. Carrying an armful of fresh but wild and sad fruits. 

 

The Dungeon

    The main iron-reinforced wooden doors to the tower are barred from the inside, If you can scale to the second tier, there's a locked iron bar door on the wall left of the main entrance that leads into the Bellows.

     The level of watchfulness in the dungeon will vary based on any of the following conditions:

        unconscious bodies found - low threat.

        dead bodies found -  +3 encountered enemies.

        intruders reported - increase encounter frequency (however appropriate). 

Tier 1

1. Genkan: doff your shoes and replace them with the complimentary slippers, it's customary.
2. Storage Room: 1d4 drunk Enlistees, racks of barrels filled with cheap booze and fish. Hidden entrance to a narrow vertical shaft terminating at 3. Dry Storage.
3. Armory: Full of equipment for the Enlistees. If worn, it'll fool Finks and other higher-ups, but not other Enlistees. If searching thoroughly, there is a Masterwork weapon belonging to the top-ranked Enlistee, they're the only one allowed to carry their weapon outside the tower.
4. Mess Hall: 2d10 Enlistees and 2d10 Finks, If you move past this room and aren't careful, 2-in-6 chance someone inside spots you walking past. If this room is left along for at least an an hour after entering the dungeon, the rowdy argument taking place here devolves into an all out brawl that distracts from any loud activity on these levels.
5. Quarters: tiny box rooms with cots hanging from the walls. 2-in-6 chance for a sleeping Enlistee, 1-in-6 chance for conscious Enlistee. If you take time to search, find 10 gold worth of items.

Encounters (D6):

        1-4: 1d4 Enlistees (Can just use the die result).

        5: 1d8 Enlistees

        6: 1d6 Enlistees accompanied by 3 Finks. 3-in-6 chance they're already bickering. 

Tier 2

1.  Hub: 1 Fink. The main access to this level terminates into a hub with doors on 3/4 sides. Its the same staircase that runs from floor one to floor two, but the staircase going from floor 2 to floor 3 is demolished, the walls greased, and has a rope ladder bundled up at the top. If the players are too loud while using the staircase the Fink here will hear it and investigate. The fourth wall in this room has the heads of multiple former Enlistees mounted on it.
2. Walk-in: Large steel door requires a strength check or combined strength score of 30 to open. 2 Finks inside. A muffled bassy thrum can be heard from this room in any room adjacent to it including between levels. In the center of the room, a massive frozen heart hooked by a girthy chain beats coolant through tubes keeping food on all the wall racks cold. The food stored in this room is very high quality.
3.  Dry Storage: Storage for all the high quality dry goods.
4. Storage Closet: disorganized cleaning supplies as well as 3 partially shredded, twitching, harmless papermen from Tier 4. If mended properly, can be made fully functional by and loyal to a magic-user.
5. Bellows: d6+5 Finks. Twin engines blast heat through pipes into the room above, kept alive by the Finks here. If these aren't running for any reason, the Chef in 6. Kitchen becomes unable to use any of its special meal-based attacks.
6. Kitchen: 4 Finks and the Chef. A metal cage on a pulley leads into The Cells above. The chef's chasyaku is used to extract the adolescence from a person and age them artificially. Used as a sweetener that surpasses all others but is horribly addicting.
7. Staging Room:  A series of dishes are being plated to be presented to Shinrippā by 6 Finks. If eaten grant benefits according to your favorite potions table.

Encounters (D6) 

        1-4: 1d6 Finks

        5:  2 Finks bringing either a fresh prisoner to the cells, or carrying a use-up one to dump outside in             an alley.

        6: A lone Enlistee trying to be as sneaky as possible. 

The Cells

     A narrow walkway mazes around this whole tier, good chance to use this procedure for labyrinths. The cages have captives in various stages of adolescence, all in a stupor as if drugged. 

    The Jailor, which wanders these corridors, is simpleminded and has orders to attack anyone not delivering food or prisoners. Carrying food will draw attention from the imprisoned youths, but this is not out of the ordinary. In certain circumstances however it would make it difficult to pass through the maze both sneakily and safely.

Encounters (D6):
        1-4:  2 Finks escorting a prisoner toward the cage, or a dish toward the staircase leading up.

        5-6: The Jailor. 

TIER 4 

    A table at the top of this staircase (3-in6) has a dish waiting on it. Of the two rooms in this section, Shinrippā will either be in the Youshitsu during the day, or the Washitsu if it's night. Each paper-walled room is on its own floor surrounded by a hallway that wraps fully around, with windows allowing natural light inside.

    The Papermen servants patrol this area in both their hostile and harmless variants. The hostile ones fold flat onto the paper walls and will peel off to attack if they sense intruders. Shinrippā will notice the silhouette leaving the wall or, failing that, the subsequent sounds of combat. The harmless papermen look like upside-down octopodes but with tiny waddling feet. Their upper limbs used to carry dishes into the Youshitsu room. wearing one of them like a hat will ward off the hostile papermen.

1. Youshitsu: A low table rests in the center of the room, and a pile of empty serving dishes lie astrewn near the door. A perfectly preserved and flayed Fink stands at attention in the back corner serving as a lamp after death.
2. Washitsu: A simple tatami room, with a tokonoma containing art pieces worth 500 gold to the right investor, an bone Orb with a domain over Midnight, and a cursed sword with a bound sheathe. If you peel off the mats and test the floorboards, one of them can be removed to reveal an additional cache of 500 gold.

 

 

 Monk Order - Drifting Feather style

A) Spend a chi to make yourself weightless for one round, must move by pushing off of surfaces.

B) Touch someone on their chest and you can feel by the weight of their heart whether or not they are lying or harboring guilt. 

C) Signature Move: Swap the apparent weight of two objects you can touch. [1 chi - hand size, 2 chi - Armful, 3 chi - Dragged, 4 chi - immovable]

D) Carried on the Winds: Spend 1 chi while weightless to fully avoid a blow, the slight breeze pushing you away just outside the blow's reach.

Live underground in the caves to the east of the island. They cover their faces with shrouds and drink goo from a cave under the meteor. This dissolves and replaces their tongues with goo rendering them unable to speak. The incorporeal Master of the order knows the name, but will not be able to say it.

Bestiary - 

• Enlistee - Stats as bandit. armed with truncheons and man-catchers instead if they're patrolling the city.
• Fink - Stats as bandit. Armed with oversized kitchen implements. Man-sized demonic creatures, they are prone to having random mutated features; the most consistent being wings for every 2-in-6.
• The Jailor -  4 HD, Stats as bear. Wide as two men and a head taller, head is covered by an iron dome with just enough holes to see out of. fights with caged and spiked fists and headbutts, can attack up to 2 times per round. He attacks anyone not carrying food or escorting prisoners.
• Hostile Paperman - in the shaped of various origami animals, move as the appropriate animal, with slicing papercut attacks. 2HD appearing in medium to large sized groups. If they get well saturated they are effectively incapacitated.
• Chef - Stats as bear, stands behind a horseshoe griddle preventing melee combat without having some kind of reach. Holds a 2-foot-long cleaver in one hand and a chasyaku in the other. preps a variety of dishes during the fight which can cause a variety of effects. (e.g. Tempura Calamari: Save vs Blindness until you can clean out your eyes). Posesses a Headband with the following special move: When knocked prone or successfully grappled, the swordsman can make 7 free attacks against the target. If you have witnessed this technique, you can save to instead be dealt one free attack.
• Shinrippā - 6 HD, stats as ogre. eight-and-a-half feet tall. Big war club deals double damage to its system equivalent, as his arms swell up with muscle. If he picks you up and you don't break free by the start of his next turn, he swallows you whole before taking his normal allotted actions.

a Tale in the Telling (GLoG Class: the Mythmaker)

Pacts are one way to gain power through a spirit's dealings, another is to tame lesser souls you find around you. Of course, there is occasionally a circumstance where that relationship is less transactional, when a spirit deigns to simply give a gift, and watch what drama follows.

 

[A]: Spiritual Favor, Heroic Gambit

[B]: Renowned Warrior

[C]: Unexpected Trick

[D]: The Victor Stands Bloody Handed

Spiritual Favor:

Whether you earned their favor through an impressive feat, pity, or sheer luck, you have found yourself blessed by a powerful spirit. You gain one of the following:

1. Gift of the Scorned: one of your hands has the resting temperature of a hot ember. once per day you can produce a cone of flame (1d6 save reduces by half).
2. Gift of the Prisoner: You possess a blade that is itself possessed, and counts as a magic weapon. It shackles an additional six lives to your own. When the sixth is lost, the blade shatters.
3. Gift of the Grief-Eater: Your voice carries across great distances. You can scream loud enough to rupture the eardrums of all around you, doing so renders you speechless for the remainder of the day.
4. Gift of the Watcher: up to [templates] times per day, may re-roll any dice, taking the new result.
5. Gift of the Staunch: If you have time to dig your heels into the ground, nothing can knock you off your feet. If you attack without doing any other actions in a round, add 1 to your Injury roll.
6. Gift of the Tyrant: Objects you break are utterly destroyed, incapable of reconstruction. If you roll exactly your build score while making an attack, you may choose any object on your target to sunder.

Heroic Gambit:

If you would die in such a way as it would occur off-screen, such as wrestling with a tentacled monster as the current carries you downstream, being eaten whole by a giant beast, or falling down a dark hole, you have an templates-in-6 chance of instead surviving with whatever the maximum recovery period of the system is. After that time has passed, the character can chance upon the party once more.

 

Renowned Warrior

Tales of your exploits have begun to spread to even the unlikeliest of corners. Whether famous or infamous, people are immediately familiar if you announce yourself, and have a Templates-in-6 chance of recognizing you by sight alone.

Other warriors will always accept your challenge to a duel, and cowards will quickly debase themselves or else flee if threatened. If you are known to be dishonorable in your challenges, your opponents will know this and act in kind. 

 

 Unexpected Trick

 Once per turn, you may make a free maneuver in combat. You can only do this if the maneuver is something that you have not (in common knowledge) done before.

 

The Victor Stands Bloody Handed

 As long as your hands are coated in fresh blood that isn't your own, you may add an extra d6 to any combat maneuver rolls. You also roll with an extra Injury Die on successful attacks.

 

Was uncredited in my images folder. Internet is too enshittified to track down a source.

This class is meant to encourage taking risks, and designed to be played in which players have a stable of characters to play. The inspirations for this class were the Champion, from Locheil; along with the Summoner from Hilander's Lost Fable.

Puncher

 

Starting Gear: Powdered Jerky, One-quart Flask, 50 lb. Training Weights (x2).

[A]: Physique of Fists, Techniques

[B]: Devoted Student

[C]: Techniques

[D]: Perfected Form

Physique of Fists

You have exceptionally powerful muscles honed by years of training that are all specialized towards the punching motion. You can treat your punches as lethal weapons, and always count as having at least 15 in your Build score as long as the roll is relevant to making a punching motion.

  

Techniques

You have an additional Injury Dice to roll each time you attack, this Injury Dice can only be applied when using a Technique that you know. Any time you roll a 6 on your additional Injury Dice, it is expended for the remainder of the day. Each time you gain this template, you get an additional Injury Die to use on your techniques, as well as a new technique from the list below.

1. Cradle of Fists: Apply [most] to the target you're choosing to attack. The first target is pushed into another target who applies the [least] die, or into an immobile object causing the first target to also take [least] die. Both targets are knocked over.
2. Gut Punch: Target has the wind knocked out of them and vomits up the [most] most recent things they've eaten. They will only take defensive actions for [least] rounds. 
3. Soul-Searing Sucker-punch: The target has their soul knocked out of their body for [least], temporarily leaving them defenseless against all but magical attacks. If any result of your rolls for this technique are a duplicate, the target is immediately possessed by something very angry and very scary.
4. Steely Fist: Trade hardness with a nearby object for [dice] rounds. Your initial Injury Dice will automatically be rolled as a 1-6 based on how hard the object is with a 1 being harder than a fist, and a 6 being harder than metal. You still roll your additional Injury Dice as applied to the technique but only for the first attack. You can also use this technique to attempt to break the object you traded hardness with, applying [dice]*the hardness of your fists adding any Injury Dice applied to the technique. 

 

Devoted Student

If you successfully save someone weaker than what you defended them from, you gain them as a follower. Your follower will attempt to mimic your actions, but is ultimately useless in combat. You can only have one such follower at any given time, and they can be commanded to do things as a hireling, but with an additional 1d6 bonus when rolling to convince them to do something they otherwise wouldn't do. If your follower ever sufficiently proves themselves in combat, they cease becoming your follower and gain their first template as a Puncher.

 

Perfected Form

You gain an additional Injury Die. Whenever you roll exactly your Build score, or a 15 while making an attack, you can choose to roll any number of Injuries as long as you continue to have unexpended Injury Dice in your pool.