Beigang, a bustling and multicultural port city of the Northern Earth Kingdom's Xinbei Province, is a gateway to the canal system of the Central Plains surrounding Ba Sing Se, bringing a steady flow of trade goods from as far as the Northern Water Tribes to the Royal capital. Merchants here also sell the products of the Earth Kingdom's heartland to anyone who can pay, from the indigenous traders of the Tributary Water Tribes living under the suzerainty of the Earth King, to representatives of the Ganjinese mercantile empire, to the North Sea sailing ships that will take the goods on the long voyage to the Northern Water Tribes. And of course, powerful - and often corrupt - customs officials are present to extract tariffs on all goods passing through the harbor. With the decline of the Hao-Ting dynasty of Earth Kings, such corruption has become rampant, and the local government has been ill-prepared to deal with the refugee crisis provoked by General Iroh's campaign to conquer Ba Sing Se.
Accordingly, when people living in one of the city's neighborhoods, Guopiao Street, began to have problems with unusual spirits, they turned, not to the government, but to the Baitang, the "White Hall People's Self-Defense Society." This organization, tolerated if not liked by the legal government, is something between a vigilante organization, a social club, and a private mutual security organization. Some of its rivals, particularly the Hongtang "Red Hall People's Self-Defense Society" from which it branched a few years ago, accuse it of being itself a protection racket, but that's mostly just a smear campaign.
You are agents of the Baitang, charged with the investigation of the spirit problem. A successful resolution will greatly benefit the reputation of the organization, as the Hongtang is already known to have been trying to solve the issue without success for the past week. You will need to be careful, though, as the affected neighborhood is claimed by the Hongtang as their territory, and your organizational rivalry threatens to get in the way of your mutual desire to solve the problem. Good luck!
(This game is set in 93 AG, before General Iroh's siege of Ba Sing Se, during the last years of Fire Lord Azulon, and two years prior to the planned start of the main Avatar campaign.)
Pre-Made Characters
If you would like to modify characters to more suit your desires, or make a custom character, please let the GM (Bryce) know so the changes can be incorporated. Thanks!
Physical Fighters
ZHUO Sanbao is a twenty-two year old man, the third son of a Jianzu (Eastern Peninsular) family who have completely assimilated into Central Earth Kingdom culture and the old settler community of Xinbei province. His family are prosperous short-season millet farmers and market hunters living upriver from Beigang. One aspect of Jianzu culture they have preserved assiduously is their family tradition of fletchery and shortbow hunting. Sanbao is seeking his fortune in the port city, and joined the Baitang mainly to bolster his reputation with good Old Zhongzu social circles. However, he does genuinely also want to help his fellow citizens against the criminals and bandits the official constabulary has not been able to effectively control. His abiding hatred of bandit groups and his willingness to put arrows into those the Baitang's officers have identified as dangerous criminals is unquestioned despite his relatively short tenure with the organization.
CAI Endi, a twenty-four year old man, nicknamed "Two-Knives Cai", an enforcer of the Baitang. Not a very cordial fellow, Endi is unabashedly here to stab such problems as can be fixed with stabbing. Although he accepts (and appears to enjoy, sometimes) his reputation, he is determined to use violence only in the cause of maintaining order and the interests of the people protected by the Baitang. He is proficient in knife fighting in melee and in throwing knives, and carries plenty of them inconspicuously on his person. He has a scar across his forehead, which he conceals with a bandana.
XIONG Ge, known to his friends "Big Axe" Xiong, a twenty-nine year old man, an enforcer of the Baitang, skilled in fighting with things that are not legally considered weapons. He is particularly fond of... you guessed it, axes. He was raised in Beigang by working-class Zhongzu family, and spent his teenage years swinging a hammer in the royal dockyards. He became involved with the Baitang after getting married; his wife's family had a woodcut printing operation often used by the organization, and they told their contacts about his physical prowess and interest in martial arts. He has since become quite useful to them, and instructs younger recruits in improvised-weapon fighting.
KIM Yi-Jin, a twenty year old woman, secretly the rebellious daughter of a respectable Jianzu banking family in Newport, but pretending to be the fifth daughter of a family of yeoman farmers from West of Port Baojia, sent to the city to earn some money. Yi-Jin has been a talented fighter from a young age, often besting her older brothers with her precision and pain tolerance. Her family did not encourage this behavior, and refused to let her get training in unarmed fighting, despite her obvious talent for it. Never a well-behaved child, she ran away from home and concocted a cover story. She joined the Baitang as a low-level "footsoldier," joining security patrols in the downtown business districts where weapons would be conspicuous, and has been successful in the organization so far. She might need to amend her cover story soon, though, as she is making decent money, and should probably have accumulated plenty for a country dowry by now...
Nijiang (no surname), a twenty-four-year-old woman, of Zang ("Zheing", in their dialect) descent. She comes from an outlying village on the Astringent River. Like many of her fore-bearers, she worked as a guard for Ganjinese merchant caravans for several years. When visiting Northport, she was involved in a barroom brawl and ended up saving the life of the Red Pillar Officer of the Baitang; he rewarded her with an offer of a job with the organization. Nijiang is a good fighter, and physically imposing - she is taller than most men and almost all other women. She fights with a shortsword and is very quick on her feet. She has mostly given up her traditional Zang furs for conventional urban Northern Earth Kingdom attire, though she retains a bulky fur belt and hat. She is a pragmatist and somewhat hard-headed.
LIN Qian, a twenty-six year old man, of new Zhongzu descent. His family arrived in the North a few years ago, after their farm in the Western Plains Province was destroyed by the Fire Nation invasion; his parents and inlaws were all killed. He at first made a meager living for himself, his wife's grandmother, and his two children as a day laborer, while his wife worked as a maid for a wealthy Old Zhongzu family involved with the Baitang. Through this connection, he eventually came to be hired a facilities maintenance man for the group. One of the group's martial arts instructors noticed his impressive physical strength and offered to train him in martial arts. He took to it like a badgermole to the soil, and soon became a valued "soldier" of the Baitang, keeping watch at night in neighborhoods they patrolled and breaking up fights -- sometimes with words, sometimes with a few sharp raps of his staff.
Benders
WANG Xue-e, a forty-one year old woman, who retired from a career as a civil earthbender for the city after her passion for actually doing her job, and lack of political tact, rubbed too many lazy bureaucrats the wrong way. She joined the Baitang as a second career, wanting to support an organization that was actually helping the citizens of Beigang. She is one of the city's strongest earthbenders, making up for her only middling prowess in combat earthbending with her impressive power. She often holds back when fighting in the city, though, out of fear of damaging her beloved civil infrastructure. She also manages the Baitang's infrastructure improvement plans. She is single, though she did raise her brother's son after her brother and his wife were killed in a house fire, and her nephew regards her as a mother. (He is now an adult and is studying at Ba Sing Se University.) Her family descend from an old settler clan who arrived in the Ting dynasty.
Kamak (no surname) is a nineteen-year-old man who is the son of a Beituzhu (i.e. Northern Aboriginal) shaman in a traditional village on the Astringent River. A talented earthbender and his father's eldest son, the proud young man expected to inherit his father's position as shaman when his father died, but he was passed over by the village elders who chose his younger brother instead - they felt he had a stronger connection to the spirit world. Unwilling to live in the village under such circumstances, he decided to leave and seek his fortune in Beigang instead. He almost enlisted with the Royal Army, before receiving a warning that most of the provincial earthbenders recruited would end up doing mind-numbing work on the canal system and deciding to seek other employment. After a few years of working as an earthbender-for-hire, he established a good reputation and began to be hired by the Baitang for its civil infrastructure repair projects. He made a favorable impression and was soon sworn in as a full member, and trusted with more sensitive work.
Tekki LI, an nineteen-year-old woman of mixed Shuizu and Ganjinese descent, a native of Beigang. Tekki's father was a trader of one of the indigenous tributary water tribes (Shuizu) of the Northern Earth Kingdom, and her mother LI Xinyi was the daughter of a Ganjinese merchant in Beigang. Tekki's father wanted to take her and her mother to live in his ancestral village north of Ami Town, but Xinyi's family wouldn't hear of it, and so she was mostly raised by her mother alone until she was discovered to be a waterbender. At that point, her grandparents conceded to Tekki living in her father's village to learn healing from the village shaman. Tekki was an apt student, and picked up some basic combat waterbending as well, but was homesick for the city and returned in her teenage years. She originally wanted to join the Self-Protection Force of the Ganjinese enclave where she was born, but was discriminated against and felt she didn't fit in with them. So, instead, she joined the Baitang, which had recently replaced the Hongtang as the larger vigilante group to which the enclave was affiliated. Her healing abilities make her a valued member of the organization.
LING-MU Zhao, a.k.a. SUZUKI Akio, a seventeen-year-old young man whose mother was an Earth Kingdom subject from the South Hu Xin province living in territory occupied by the Fire Nation, and whose father was a Fire Nation soldier, a certain Sgt. Suzuki. When, after Zhao's birth, the illicit romance was discovered by Sgt. Suzuki's commanding officer, he was transferred to another city. Shunned by her community, Zhao's mother killed herself when he was seven years old, and he was given up to a group of wandering mendicant monks. With them, he discovered he was a firebender, and although the monks (of a nonbending, spiritually-focused Earth Kingdom tradition tolerated by the occupiers) could not teach him directly, he learned self-discipline from them as they traveled the Earth Kingdom on foot. Reaching the age of decision while in the North, he decided not to take full vows, and instead joined the Baitang, hoping to bring justice and order to a lawless area. His firebending is powerful enough to be useful, but his technique is unrefined and mostly self-taught.
Specialists
CHONG Biyu, a thirty-six year old woman of an Old Zhongyu family who moved to Beigang shortly after its rebuilding under Avatar Kyoshi. Like her father and his sister before her, she joined the Hongtang to protect the community when she became of age, though mostly serving as a negotiator and manager rather than an enforcer. When the Baitang split from the Hongtang, she followed her family to the new organization, and has continued to serve it in an managerial role, negotiating protection contracts and helping to administer the Baitang's social programs. She has a husband, who owns a seafood market, and two adolescent daughters. Her household also contains a cousin who recently returned to Beigang from Ba Sing Se University, concerned with the Fire Nation advance. She knows a lot about the city, its people, and their secrets, and is well-known as a person to talk to to get things done in the community.
LI Qingfu, a nineteen-year-old man, is a rogue and a burglar, the sort of person the Baitang would normally run out of town (or worse) if they caught him. And in fact, he was caught. However, the Baitang members who caught him breaking into the estate of a wealthy miser listened to his truthful pleas that he was stealing to feed his six younger siblings, orphaned after their mother died of tuberculosis and their father was killed in a tryworks accident. He leapt at the chance to have an honest (more honest, anyway) job working for the Baitang, though they keep him on a short leash, as many remain suspicious of his virtue and background. His family are New Zhongzu who arrived in Beigang about ten years ago, after the Fire Nation took over their ancestral village. He is nonetheless valued for his skills at picking locks and sneaking around, and is handy with a knife. He is able to support his siblings now.
CHONG Yuyu, a twenty-three-year-old young woman, originally from the Fire Nation colony of Yu Dao, and although a member of the Central Earth Kingdom Zhongzu ethnic group, she and her family were practitioners of the Air Nomad Religion. Though having no Air Nomad heritage herself, her faith community nonetheless started to be persecuted when a new governor was installed in Yu Dao, and her mother, a lay teacher, was martyred for her faith. Her father decided to move rather than die or renounce their faith, and so they moved to the North, far from the Fire Nation's likely medium-term goals. Yuyu's family had been employed as mechanics operating Fire Nation machinery in Yu Dao, and brought their knowledge with them to Beigang when they moved here a few years ago. Yuyu is skilled with machines and mechanical things, and her father is employed at the Dragon Stove Company, which is protected by the Baitang. Yuyu joined the Baitang out of a duty to help keep the peace, and is particularly concerned with maintaining the ethnic harmony of the city. She has helped to build bridges between the Baitang and the indigenous Beituzhu community, and is seen as an up-and-comer in the organization despite her commitment to use violence only for immediate defense of people.
LU Meijing, a fifteen-year-old shrine maiden of the Mubianshi Temple (a.k.a. Wood-Changing-to-Stone Temple or Petrification Temple) which pays the Baitang for its protection. Because spirits are under serious consideration as a cause of the matter at hand, Meijing's services as an exorcist are offered to the Baitang for this mission. Meijing is the youngest daughter of a very respectable family who were among the first Zhongzu settlers in Xinbei province, and her grandfather was Master of the Royal Dockyards. She is literate and cultivated but does not have experience fighting anything other than minor spiritual pests.
SIMA Wei, a thirty-six year old man, from the Five Grains Province. Technically a New Zhongzu, he came to Beigang not as a refugee but to take the Royal Civil Service Examination in a provincial backwater, where he and his family supposed the competition would be less stiff than in the populous and wealthy provinces of the Central Plains. Studying for two years and supporting himself as a scribe at first while he established residency in Xinbei province (where Beigang is located), he was hired as a bookkeeper for the Hongtang. Unfortunately, he failed the civil service examination in Xinbei too. When the Baitang split from the Hongtang, on (among other issues) whether or not New Zhongzu could be members, he defected to the new organization and became a full member, accepting that an official career was not in his future. He isn't much in a fight, but he is quite knowledgeable about local and broader lore, and is a good negotiator who can move easily in erudite circles. He knows most of the better families, part of the reason for his failure at the examination being that he spent a bit too much time socializing instead of studying. He has a wife, who is a local poet, and two young children.