Jade Regent - World Background

The mantra for this Adventure Path aka campaign is "much is about the journey not the destination".

Map of Tian Xia

The "blurb" for the Jade Regent AP

When a decades-old secret is exposed, an unassuming local tavern-owner and a close friend of the PCs discovers her birthright is to rule one of the ancient Dragon Empires of Tian Xia—the empire of Minkai. Yet the current ruler of this empire, the mysterious and increasingly cruel Jade Regent, has no intention of giving up his hold over the throne. In order to save Minkai from a would-be tyrant, the PCs must not only escort their friend from Varisia to Tian Xia, braving the frozen horrors of the Crown of the World, but must aid her in gaining the trust and support of a nation on the edge of anarchy.

Players that are interested should read the Jade Regent Players Guide. Page 16 has the rules for running and leveling a Caravans and for Caravan combat!

The Jade Regent Adventure Path begins in the small town of Sandpoint on the west coast of Varisia—but it isn't going to stay there. The Jade Regent Adventure Path will be leaving the comfortable town of Sandpoint before the first adventure in the campaign is done. While your character should be from the town of Sandpoint (or at least from that region, if only to explain how your character established his or her relationship with one of the four key NPCs), you should avoid building in any long-term character goals that require your PC to remain in town. The Campaign Traits mostly encourage a sense of adventure and wanderlust and a desire to see the world beyond Sandpoint, but part of the responsibility for cultivating that mindset falls upon you as the player. Remember that when you sign on to play an Adventure Path, you're signing on for a specific story. While you still have an enormous amount of freedom in designing your character, if you focus your design choices on ones that fit this Adventure Path's theme of long journeys, you'll have a much more enjoyable and rewarding experience in the end!

Troubles with Teleportation

One of the key themes of the Jade Regent Adventure Path is the concept of the mythic, heroic journey. Numerous classic stories have covered this topic—the Lord of the Rings, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, and The Odyssey all spring to mind. In all of these stories, the journey itself was as important as the events that play out at the conclusion—had the protagonists skipped the journey, not only would they have missed out on a lot of the best parts of the story, but they would have found themselves ill-prepared to deal with what waited for them at the story’s climax. Jade Regent fits right in among these storylines, with the overland journey aspect playing a key role in the campaign’s development. As a result, don’t expect to be able to skip past the significant long overland journey sections with spells like teleport, wind walk, or shadow walk. You can certainly still use these spells when you become powerful enough to use them for other purposes, but don’t plan on using these powerful effects to “fast forward” through adventures to get to the end!

Minkai Overview

The vast continent of Tian Xia is made up of many distinct nations, each with its own cultural traditions and rich history. With the collapse of the Imperial Lung Wa over a century ago, much of the continent’s mainland has been thrown into disorder and civil war, though the outlying nations remain independent of these internal conflicts. The Minkai Empire, one the largest nations in Tian Xia, would have been the most powerful region left standing after the collapse of Imperial Lung Wa had it not quickly begun to see the demise of its own power structure as well. The official ruler of Minkai, the unenthused Emperor Shigure Higashiyama, has recently been removed from the Jade Throne and taken into hiding by the Higashiyama clan, supposedly for his own safety. The Higashiyama clan installed a temporary ruler in his place to maintain order as the nation began to fall apart, but the Jade Regent is becoming an increasingly infamous public figure, and none can tell how much longer the unstable nation will remain standing.