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Campaign Arcs of Kaidan

Kaidan is a stand-alone setting allowing for endless random encounters, or dealings with an evil government and social structure, so that a gaming group that is just looking for fun in a dark, Japan flavored environment - it works!

For those looking for a structured adventure path, Kaidan has a number of over-arching campaign goals and periodic major events that create endless opportunities for high adventure and cosmic changing achievements.

Outsiders of Kaidan

Those considered "gajin" or foreign adventurers to Kaidan as an add-on setting, will find many opportunities for culture clashing and faux pas, being outsiders in a system that is alien to their way of thinking. Falling outside the caste system will cause conflict everywhere they go. Lacking the education or skills to meet challenges makes things a learning process.

The danger of death in Kaidan, adds its own problem to gajin adventurers. There is no possibility of ressurrection. Once you die, you are a pawn of the Wheel of Life and caught in the endless cycle of reincarnations. Not only that, but the reincarnation will be of Kaidanese blood and not a gajin any longer. As described the process to escape the construct is difficult.

Once a PC dies and reincarnates, there is a loss of memory of the previous life, beyond dream-like reflections on what might have been. Not only is the PC in the body of a local, he may not remember his former party members and in that sense be lost to the machinations of Kaidan.

There are ways of bringing to fore, the memories of past lives, but finding those mediums and spellcasters that can help is an adventure unto itself. The issues of memory loss and return is an ongoing issue in Kaidan.

Also the possibility exists of dying and becoming undead, which is even worse than reincarnation. This too can be reversed, but only in freeing the soul to move along the Wheel of Life, not returning to a previous life.

The Boddhisattva Resolution

There is a belief among those following the Path to the Pure Land (Boddhisattva Heresy) that an ending day will come, when the Mages of the Minamoto will fight a final war against the Empire to bring an end to the Wheel of Life and hope of enlightenment for all its citizens.

It will be a final war between good and evil, where the ultimate goal is breaking the curse that made Kaidan which can only involve a combination of the final death of the Shogun, and the pacification of the soul of Antoku to escape his Yurei curse.

This event will involve the mustering of great armies at major battle sites, combined with acts of espionage, infiltration, assaults on the empire itself, and supra heroic acts to enable it.

With a final resolution that will end the planar fabric of Kaidan and bring a cessation of existence on the island empire.

Shogun Taira no Kiyomori the military ruler of the Empire