Rob Hobart

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Download the Budoka Cert
Download the Reward Cert

This module was put together with material taken from two different module submissions, along with some ideas of my own. Normally, I would have done a new module in March and then three more at CogCon in April, but due to my insane work-schedule during this period of time I was only able to do the CogCon modules. (At one point I went through a stretch where I was literally writing during every free minute, either on HoR modules or on EotE, for six straight weeks.) In fact, I didn’t finish the third CogCon module, A Hard Rain Will Fall, until two days before the con.

In this case, I pieced this module together from an earlier submission about a corrupt murdering monk, then added in selected elements from a submission by Alex that I was unable to use in its entirety. I stirred in some material of my own as well, most notably the setting (I set it in Sparrow lands, partly because we hadn’t been there yet in the campaign and partly because it provided an interesting perspective on how the disaster in Crab lands was affecting their neighbors).

As always, I enjoyed working on a mystery scenario, rounding out and detailing the basic storyline of a murderous monk that Chris had sent me. I also liked including a number of call-outs to earlier story elements, such as the destruction of the Tsume (with the PCs encountering one of the family’s few survivors). The sequence at the inn, with the PCs potentially getting into a wrestling match with a Mantis grappler, was derived from Alex’s submission. Alex had wanted to do a “wu shu” scenario that paid tribute to the over-the-top martial arts scenes in Chinese films; although I liked the idea, I felt it was a little too strange and offbeat for HoR, especially at this late point in the storyline, so I dropped the rest of his story and just used the inn sequence. The “Rewarded by the Brotherhood” cert, whereby players who lost PCs fighting the corrupt monk could replace them with Brotherhood characters, was also taken from Alex’s submission – I liked the idea a lot and felt it was worth using.