Built atop a First Age city bearing the same name, Wu-Jian’s narrow maze of dead-end alleys, teetering houses, and rickety rope bridges is confusing and hostile. Yet, starry-eyed sailors flock here — they dream of settling the gateway island, only to find land at a premium and themselves relegated to the slums, or seek passage further West to be stranded by overpriced berths and unscrupulous captains. The locals pay them no heed and no pity — they have their own struggles to contend with.

Geography

The rich and powerful claim the countryside, while Wu-Jian’s citizens are crammed together in precariously stacked high-rises. Wu-Jian is far larger than its population warrants, as the city is riddled with uninhabited pockets infested with ghosts and malignant spirits, taken over by gangs and underworld princes claiming whole blocks for themselves, sealed off due to plague and never reopened, or simply too deteriorated to live in. The Shades and Mud districts make up most of the city, and see the most visitors looking for danger and adventure.

Inland

Wu-Jian’s island is steep and rocky, but it nonetheless contains a few attractive pieces of land. After two centuries of dispossession, thuggery, and bribing the satrap, the Dragon-Blooded have claimed every scrap of worthwhile countryside — driving out what farmers and shepherds the island once had, replacing rice and sheep with lawns and gardens. Each estate is walled, gated, and patrolled. All land is privately owned, and trespassers dealt with at the owner’s discretion.

Sesus Nemoia holds a modest estate here, where she hosts valued guests and emissaries of the Realm. The Sesus garrison is also stationed here, led by Tepet Berel Alun and — as satrap Nemoia intended — far removed from the bustle of daily life in Wu-Jian. Much of the garrison’s manpower has been withdrawn to the Blessed Isle or other Sesus satrapies, as the house believes the city’s geography makes it unassailable by any but the most powerful naval forces.

Topside

Merchants lacking resources to claim an Inland estate, powerful gang bosses, and Dynasts looking to “rough it with the natives” find a place in Topside. At the upmost levels of Wu-Jian, these homes are narrow, lopsided, and sway dangerously in the wind — but at least they have wind, and sunlight. Topside also grants a spectacular view of the ocean. Sesus Nemoia spends most of her time here, valuing the proximity to her kingdom of criminals.

Selachii raptors occasionally ravage Topside, carrying death on swift wings. Birds of prey with water and coral substituting for flesh and bone, these monsters were created by the aquatic raksha — a parting gift to the Realm. When the raptors come, the elite of Topside move to lower districts — hiring thugs and bribing guards to forcibly evict lesser citizens from any semi-appealing homes.

Shades

High enough above Mud’s sluice streets to diminish the stench of stagnant ocean water, yet low enough that houses are affordable, Shades is packed with every entertainment. Bars lure customers with homebrewed liquor, and brothels are open at all hours. Arenas hold regular competitions — none officially to the death, but they offer no guarantees after a wounded combatant leaves. Gambling is rampant, with casinos packed into tiny corner shops while bookies take bets on everything from the weather to the next Wyld Hunt. Shops peddle all manner of fish, rice, seaweed, and occasionally meat.

Wu-Jian’s citizens live wedged between this cacophony, sharing too-small rooms in buildings cast in perpetual shadow. But much of Shades remains untenanted, though not necessarily empty. Abandoned buildings hold a plethora of shrines to ocean spirits — be they gods outlawed by the Immaculate Order, demons of the deep, or aquatic raksha.

Mud

Wu-Jian’s tidal sluices officially open and close twice a day, diverting ocean water to canals used for traffic and sewage, then draining out to sea when the tide falls again. In reality, many sluices are so clogged no one remembers when they last functioned. Never wasting resources, the people of Mud grow rice and raise small livestock atop the trash and ocean silt. They’re sponsored by gangs who claim a lion’s share of the profit. Citizens unwilling to indebt themselves turn to mudlarking, digging up lost treasure and coins carried on the tides.

Mud is filled with practices and creatures outlawed by the Realm. Two outcaste sisters practice their sorcery, rebuffing any offers of adoption by the Dynasty. An exiled Fair Folk, Crimson Water Hues At Twilight, makes their home on Pig Street, selling invocations of luck in exchange for a suckle on a soul — and disposing of accidentally dream-eaten customers in the ocean. The Hungry, a family of bandits whose ancestors mated with raksha, come out to hunt mortal flesh on moonless nights. Rumors persist of an Anathema, a demon-goddess of war, who escaped the Wyld Hunt and now hides under the filth and wreckage. Restless dead return to Mud on the tide, spirits of murder victims and undocumented travelers unceremoniously flushed out through the sluice system.

The Bloat is a neighborhood in Mud that has a notoriously bad reputation. Due to its location and the natural flow of tides, most of the sea junk that flows into it has already flowed into another section of Mud and been pushed back out to drift further down the coast and float in somewhere else. As a result, the salvage that other parts of Mud rely on is particularly bad here. Another side-effect is that the corpses that wash-up here are never fresh, they have always already been picked over and left to become water-logged and bloated before arriving in the Bloat. That abundance of bloated corpses is also how the neighborhood got its name. In addition to poor salvage, those corpses brought another economic problem to the Bloat: hungry ghosts. While the dead are a problem in all parts of Mud, the Bloat is worse than most. As a result, only the most desperate are willing the make the Bloat their home. The neighborhood has a sense of paranoia due to desperate criminals and run-away slaves that are in constant fear of being discovered. Any sense of community is dashed by they high death rate and people leaving the neighborhood on any opportunity available. There has come to be one mainstay of the Bloat recently, however. The Acrid Scions of Wu-Jian have been operating out of the neighborhood for nearly a decade now and many of its members have not fled for greener pastures at the first opportunity. Unfortunately for the Bloat, however, the members of the dojo are too focused at lashing out at their betters to bother improving where they live.

The Docks

Wu-Jian’s massive port offers berths for vessels traveling to and from the West. The bulk of these are Imperial Navy ships belonging to House Peleps, outnumbering Merchant Fleet vessels outfitted by House V’neef. Guards patrol the docks, as much to keep Dynasts of the rival houses from escalating their petty feuds to a street war as to protect the warehouses. The latter are stocked with goods, sometimes deliberately held back to create shortage and drive up prices.

Even with the Dynastic presence and mortal guards, pirates dock under cover of night and false flags to fill Wu-Jian with illicit wares. The outcaste pirate Storm Mother’s Son still makes regular stops, trading gems and firedust stolen in the South. Underwater lie the broken remnants of the Crescent Temple — dedicated to Luna, her Chosen toppled it into the sea at the end of the First Age lest the usurpers desecrate it.

Organizations

The Realm

Nissar Vedan - Ruler - Its ruler, Nissar Vedan, belongs to a cadet house that broke the reign of the Lords Criminal and installed itself as Wu-Jian’s governing authority with House Peleps’ assistance, yet the downfall of the city’s crime princes has merely left Vedan to contend with countless smaller gangs and syndicates.

Sesus Nemoia - Satrap - Meanwhile, satrap Sesus Nemoia cultivates influence with local gangs to circumvent Vedan and House Nissar, as well as the drunkard garrison commander Tepet Berel Alun. Nemoia is unaccountable to anyone but the Empress, and the latter hasn’t been an issue for five years. House Sesus has inquired if Nemoia would — hypothetically speaking — back a play for the throne, but she’s politely postponed the conversation. Nemoia is loyal to her house, and Wu-Jian would be invaluable in moving troops and resources from the Western Archipelago to the Blessed Isle, but she needs more assurance than mere hypotheticals. Sesus Nemoia is very laissez-faire: As long as trade flows unhindered and respect is paid — at least nominally — to the Immaculate Philosophy, citizens and Dynasts are free to do as they will. Nemoia does come down on fights between scions or sailors of House Peleps and V’neef, both of whom use Wu-Jian as a steady harbor, but she can be bribed to turn a blind eye. Meanwhile she fills the empire’s coffers, and her own pockets, with gains both well and ill-gotten.

Tepet Berel Alun - Garrison Commander - Drunkard garrison commander.

The Immaculate Order maintains a mission near the island’s pinnacle, housed in an ancient temple- manse, serving as support haven for Wyld Hunts heading West. Beyond that, a few small temples and numerous shrines are scattered throughout Topside and the Shades. Monks do their best to tend to the faithful, but much of the city is too lawless for even Immaculates to travel safely. The Thirteen Schools have largely opposed the Order’s attempts at rooting out heresy in Shades and Mud, though a few schools seek to gain power or help defend the weak by allying themselves with the Immaculates.

Thirteen Schools

The so-called Thirteen Schools, underground martial arts societies whose initiates swear mighty oaths of obedience to their masters, have existed in some form or another for centuries. Some ancient and some newly fledged, all thrive in the vacuum left by Nemoia’s hands-off reign, and they’ve never been more powerful. Some protect the downtrodden against thugs and thieves. Others form criminal gangs controlling their domain through violence and intimidation. Each school claims a corner of Wu-Jian as its own and, capricious as the ocean, forms alliances and enmities at a dazzling pace. When members of opposing schools meet, citizens scatter — Wu-Jian’s rickety buildings are no match for the fists of a martial artist.

The Acrid Scions of Wu-Jian call the Bloat, a neighborhood of Mud, their home. There is little money in their neighborhood, so they often make forays into territories claimed by other schools. They make money on blackmail, theft, racketeering, extortion, and the drug trade. Their ranks are filled with angry and disaffected youth, revolutionary madmen, and run-away slaves. What binds them all together is a burning anger toward those in power in Wu-Jian, whether it be the Dynasts, the wealthy, or even the more powerful dojos. They practice the Laughing Monster Style and often dabble in Monkey Style as well.

Ocean’s Endless Slumber is one of Wu-Jian’s oldest schools. Its masked disciples claim their master comes to them in waterlogged dreams to teach them the flowing murder-movements of Seven-Limbed Tempest style. The school rules the sluice streets in Mud, demanding a tithe from all sluice farmers. Those who can’t, or won’t, pay are taken during the five nights of Calibration — when the school sacrifices wine, flowers, and its enemies to the dark waves.

Thousand Waves Break the Shore is comprised of mortals rising in unity — and anonymity — against Dragon-Blooded dominance. The Guild funnels money to the school, made untraceable through a web of pirates. The school actively undermines the Dynasty, hiding suspects wanted (for any reason) by the Realm, stealing taxes, and offering protection to preachers willing to go against the Immaculate Philosophy. The school’s Prince-Eating Mendicant style focuses on attacking in groups and striking quickly before vanishing again into Wu-Jian’s alleys.

The Blood paint their bodies and faces with dark red sigils. These are meaningless, intended only to intimidate and misdirect enemies and lend members a mysterious air. The Blood run a racketeering ring in Shades, offering protection against malignant ocean spirits and raksha. So far, the only real victims are shopkeepers who refuse to pay, though the Blood stage an elaborate ceremony replete with props once a year to make it seem they’re indeed driving off spirits and fae. The school’s Roaring Iron style incorporates firewands — not all in working condition, but the Blood manage to obscure that with their forceful posturing.

Lintha

Wu-Jian’s lawlessness provides an ideal environment for the dreaded Lintha crime family. Reavers run protection rackets in Topside and Shades, the spoils of piracy are fenced at underworld auctions, and smuggler ships loaded with all kinds of contraband set sail from Wu-Jian’s docks to ports all across Creation. Far from the family’s headquarters on Bluehaven, its local operations are overseen by a pair of Lintha elders.

Grandmother Fang is the local family’s unquestioned crime queen, a master necromancer served by a spectral retinue of Lintha ghosts that spy on her foes and scour the ocean floor for sunken relics.

Grandfather Maw is a retired admiral who mastered countless exotic martial arts in his journeys, and whose clout with the Thirteen Schools has made him an arbiter of disputes among them. He prefers to resolve disputes in his illegal bloodsport arena, pitting a student of each school against each other in a fight to the death.

Offshore

The Spirit Court of Drowned Promises consists of old allies of Luna, and they’ve failed to impress the Immaculate Order. Starved of prayers, the spirits have turned against each other — rumors swirl that Kindly Hetrokonta devoured one of her grandchildren — and their discord is spilling over to worshippers in Shades.

The Gazrhan People are a seafloor civilization of eelfolk. In times of prosperity, they conduct trade with Wu-Jian; in times of want, they raid merchant vessels sailing to and from its ports. They worship an ancient crystal idol that sank beneath the waves an age ago, which speaks to Gazrhan priests during certain convergences of the stars.

Azure Dunes of the Deep, ill-pleased at the Realm driving them from Wu-Jian. The court’s raksha prince, Dreaming Coral, works to bring the Ocean’s Endless Slumber school under her sway, teaching martial prowess in exchange for access to dreams and minds. Dreaming Coral plans to unleash the school on a murderous rampage during Calibration, so the Azure Dunes of the Deep may feast on the victims’ souls.

Other

Sources

Exalted 3e Core - pages prologue, 103
The Realm - pages 172-175