Casting Shadows

The Casting Shadows blog’s second Serial Setting is set to run once a week over a six-month period, and provide details for heroic pulp adventures set across the Korean peninsula, present a fictionalized community oppressed by faceless enemies and their own countrymen, and suggest routes, leads, and hooks for GMs to entice groups based elsewhere in the world to get involved. This post ends the first month of actual entries.

4 The Air Strip – Magnificent men and women, flying machines

After a fatal crash landing in the mountains surrounding Samhang due to the unfortunate confluence of storm, low fuel reserves and pilot error, a highly placed official of the occupying forces was killed. His relatives demanded such an event be avoided in the future and mobilized workers to construct emergency air strips in remote regions on confiscated land traditionally used for food production and housing.

The first of these was constructed slightly to the West of Samhang and a small fuel reserve, repair facility, and permanent hangar were also built-in deference to the powerful storms of late summer and fall. The land appropriated for its construction was drawn from the formerly private property of the mayor of Samhang (deceased). Engineers determined the best location for the strip ran through the main house. Construction stopped just short of disrupting the family plots. Despite this seeming show of deference to the dead, the local mudang (shaman) often speaks of the restlessness of the ancestors.

The strip was well-planned, but the conscripted labour force cannot be said to have followed instructions with whole-heartedly. Pilots who use the strip comment that it is both too short, and the air pockets one has to navigate when crossing the mountains make the approach one of the hardest in Asia. Used infrequently, the strip manages an accident to safe landing ratio of 1 in three. It has a reputation among fliers in Asia and beyond of being a death trap, and as such attracts those who think that a thing is not a challenge unless your life is on the line.

Ha JuHee – Seer, Sage, and Seamstress 

JuHee, Ha was born old, and her looks faded fast, but in some ways she is the lifeblood of the community. Her advice is sought in matters of marriage, in times of trouble, in times of stress, after dreams of import, and before momentous occasions. She offers means to make amends to the dead, and seek answers when only the dead can make sense of the madness of the living.

Through blood, and ecstatic dance channeled so as to never show a loss of control, through blade and flame, she guides the community, growing ever older, but somehow more alive each passing day. The oppressors hate her, and the ties to the old culture she represents but have not yet been willing to take the steps which will end her. Perhaps the spirits are protecting her. Perhaps another revolt is not what the overseers need right now. To kill her may not start a war, but it will make it far more cruel when it comes.

Tiny in stature, but strong in spirit the mudang Juhee, Ha has an eccentric and flowing style of dress with overlong sleeves, and many layers. She generally keeps to herself in a small hut not too far from the South Beach where she tends a small garden for her own subsistence, fishes from time to time, and keeps a small number of livestock. The locals cover her other needs in payments for her services. Her face is a dry creek bed of wrinkles and implied laughter. Her eyes glittering stars in shadowed sockets. Her grip is firm and like the talons of an eagle.

The oppressors believe her to be possessed. The locals know her to be.