Tako Bell
Hobgoblin samurais, warblades, fighters and their daimyo leaders vie for control of the land, the subjugated human peasants are actually secret ninja clans.
Knowledge (local) DC 5
The hobgoblins often hire the ninjas to eliminate rivals.
The hobgoblin priesthood is open to both sexes and worship a lawful neutral death goddess they despise the human ninjas that are also arcane casters but the male warrior elite find them useful pawns and do not back the priesthood in this matter.
The open use of magic or holding a weapon is punishable by death.
The ninja villages vary in training methods and styles and there is a constant rivalry over who is best, some are ninjas, some monks, some rogues, some masters are multi-classed, having trained at each village.
Most of the human ninja villagers are secret worshipers of the death goddess, some villages worship other gods, some more benign, others darker.
A very few hengeyokai and spirit folk also live in some of the villages or outskirts.
Starting Point
In the Kingyo Province of the Shimaru Empire the ogre mage governor, Dog Bones, is known for his laziness. There are three small villages within a days walk of his shoddy palisade he calls the Lotus Citadel.
There are five styles of Ninjutsu, one for each the five elements - Wind, Water, Earth, Fire and Void.
Wind - The villagers of Genshirin are wood cutters and vintners.
Water - The villagers of Ryoushi are fishermen and oyster farmers.
Earth - The villagers of Kouzan are miners and blacksmiths.
Fire - The humans of the Yakedo clan live in the province capitol, the Lotus Citadel.
Void - The humans of Hoshizora live hidden in the mountains, the last of the free humans.
REGIONAL TRAITS
Genshirin: You are proficient with Great Axes.
Ryoushi: You gain a +1 trait bonus to damage dealt with unarmed strikes and a +1 trait bonus to Swim checks. Swim is always a class skill for you.
Kousan: You gain a +1 trait bonus on Stealth checks. This trait bonus increases to +2 in hilly or rocky areas.
Yakedo: You gain a +1 trait bonus to Stealth and Escape checks.
Hoshizora: You gain a +2 trait bonus on Initiative checks.
LOCAL NINJA FEATS
Genshirin Ninja Training
You have learned the Genshirin secret of taking an ass whipping and recovering
Prerequisite: Toughness.
Benefit: When you have half your total hit points or fewer, you may heal yourself of 1d4+1 point of damage per level as a move action. You may only use this ability once per day.
Special: You can take this feat more than once. Each time you do, you may heal yourself one additional time per day.
Ryoushi Ninja Training
You have learned the Ryoushi style of fighting.
Prerequisite: Reckless Offense.
Benefit: You deal +2 points of damage with unarmed strikes when attacking recklessly.
Kouzan Ninja Training (i.e. the Darkstalker Feat from Lords of Madness)
You have learned the Kouzan style of hiding.
Benefit: When you hide, creatures with blindsense, blindsight, scent, or tremorsense must make a Perception check to notice you, just as sighted creatures would make Perception checks to detect you. You cannot hide in plain sight unless you have that ability as a class feature. In addition, you can flank creatures that have the all-around vision special quality.
Yakedo Ninja Training
You have learned the Yakedo style of counter-ninjutsu.
Benefit: Opponents do not gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls for flanking you, although they can still sneak attack you. You also gain a +2 bonus on Sense Motive checks made to resist a foe's feinting in combat Bluff checks.
Hoshizora Ninja Training
You have learned the Hoshizora style of meditation.
Prerequisite: Monk Bonus Feat.
Benefit: You gain a bonus on Will saves against mind affecting spells and abilities equal to one-half the number of monk bonus feats you possess.
You gain a reserve of 1 psionic power point for each monk bonus feat you possess.
The Tako Bell
The tako race has a relic from their god, a magic bell which only works for them, it blesses the whole tribe for a month at a time but it has been stolen by sea demons, they need an expert group of ninjas to seek it out and return it to them.
Bad guys are sauhagin and they have the Tako Bell in their shark filled lair.
The tako offer the PCs a fortune in pearls of all sizes and colors and the location of a forbidden sunken temple as a reward.
When the PCs check out the temple they find a map to a long dead shadow dragons mountain top hoard on an island far to the south, beneath the ruins of an ancient city called Xoltor.
Ninjas vs Thugee
The shortest route to Xoltor is over the mountains and then downriver through the remenants of an ancient empire. The pass through the mountains contains the bandit hideout of a craven ogre-magi and his brutal half-ogre kin and a few debased humans and ronin hobgoblins who prey on villages on both side of the mountain. They currently have a crow headed tengu swordmaster prisoner who will gladly train those who free him in the art of swordmaking or swordfighting.
Chadozee fishing villages along the rivers, in the jungle covered hills high in giant trees are villages of monkey hengeyokai.
Crow-headed tengus, vanara clerics and psions wander from village to village, rakashasa thugee deceivers prey upon the unwary.
Jungle covered ruins still contain arcane lore but are inhabited by yuan-ti or naga scholars or the lair of fiendish dire tigers drawn towards the evil that still emanates from stained and broken altars to a six armed goddess.
Ninjas vs Pirates
Kanjii Island - giant loathsome aberrations from the deep dark places of the ocean come here every few decades to fight for a mate until the sea runs black with their blood, the victors then crawl ashore to spawn.
The coast is all thousand foot tall wave wracked cliffs except for a single mist shrouded cove that has a log palisade at the mouth of a river.
The palisade is used as a base by pirates made up of chadozee swashbucklers, hobgoblin ronin and outcast human ninjas.
The pirates do not go inland often, the place is crawling with hungry little compsognathi and their bigger deinonychus cousins, guards posted during the darkest nights report hearing maniacal screaming in the distance.
After the aberration spawning battles despicable merchants make black sea salt and pickled aberration eggs (yummy aberration caviar).
The twisted trees in the encroaching corrupted jungle resemble a cross of wet mottled purple fungus and wood, they grow unnaturally fast and when cut, slowly writhe for a few moments leaking sickly yellow sap and releasing spores that leave irritating red whelps. Fae creatures and the little compsognathi burst into masses of writhing tentacles when attacked and the dark sidhe brew an addictive golden lotus wine that causes vivid dreams and nightmares slowly eating away the addicts sanity.
Ninjas vs Tentacled Elves
The Dark Sidhe sacrifice intruders to an awakened fiendish dire ape they worship as a god, they start life as shark toothed Petals (MM3) for a 100 or so years then form a red veined, black pulsing oozing cocoon for a year then out pops a maladjusted dark sidhe. The vile ooze is one of the ingredients in the golden lotus wine.
Dark Sidhe are elves with half fey and pseudo natural templates.
CthulhuPunk the Masquerade
Xoltor is a dark, under populated, soot-covered ruined industrial city, most of the population of the destroyed temple district were turned into shadows long ago, cannibalistic skulks and packs of ghouls prowl the unlit streets at night.
A Master of Flies (Savage Species prestige class) and his awakened giant spiders spin webs in dark alleys and abandoned buildings, selling spider silk, poison and the urchins they don't eat to slavers.
In the undercity rat swarms carry the Zombie Plague and duergar forges belch black smoke into the ruins above as tireless golems hammer away in unison beneath the streets, giving the city a pulse.
Powerful merchant guilds run the undercity and vie for control of the weapon, spider silk, poison, graft and slave trade, prophets of a mad dreaming god and cults of Pazuzu and Dagon are rampant among the slavepits.
The city's nobles are decandent vampire spawn who idle away the night hours in an unending sanguinary grand ball.
Spider silk is used for clothing, ropes, nets, rugs and mixed with molten glass to make armor.
Others serve the vampire led merchant guilds like the ronin half-golems, renegade swordsages and outlaw shadowdancers.
They make a living snatching the best craftsmen for rival guildlords, rounding up jungle abberations, fiendish gibberlings and ghouls for the fleshwarper shops and smuggling golden lotus wine into the city.
The map leads to a buried secret door amidst the mountain top ruins of Xoltor which leads to an ancient spiraling stone staircase that descends into the depths dimly lit by phosphorescent fungi.
Side passages of well worn natural caverns are inhabited by fiendish gibberlings which run amok across the island on moonless nights.
These stairs connect to the Endless Stairway in the Abyss on certain nights, otherwise they lead deep below the mountain to a temple of Dagon and its kuo-toan clerics.
