40x30 Battlemap - Battle of Mount Akagi

An overgrown stone path leads up onto the mountain peak, blood has been spilled on the ground here and multiple bodies lay lifeless, some of the sacred trees even burn their delicate pink blossoms drifting through the cold mountain breeze before crumbling. The path way is flanked by old stone lanterns, and crosses over the cool waters of the river via timber curved bridges where a waterfall flows down to the warmer forested land below.

A staircase that has been carved into the rock curves around, climbing ever higher until you reach the peak where a small shack has been built under a large cherry blossom tree. To either side of the shack are two statues of guardian dogs.

Adventure Seed

You’ve been sent to seek the old sensei, an acolyte who long ago left his life to live atop the peaks of mount Akagi. He’s tended to the gardens and small shrine atop the peak with the other acolytes for many decades and guarded a very special secret, one of the first steps required to find the location of the artifact known as the “eye of god”.

However something is wrong, when you reach the peak you begin to smell smoke and the flickering lights of fire begin to show themselves in the distance. When you finally reach the gardens you find bloodied bodies covering the ground. Several bloodied men are guarding the end of the bridge that leads to the old sensei’s shack and refuse to let you past, attacking you if you approach.

When you reach the shack at the top of the gardens, a tall, a scarred man is holding the old bloodied sensei by his neck yelling at him. However when he notices you he drops the man, and prepares himself, laying a hand on his blade swords hilt. He seems upset you’ve managed to make it this far as his soldiers should have dealt with anyone that was going to disturb him.

When defeated, his last words are “The black master will not be pleased...”. The old sensei beckons you forward, he is not long for this world and pleads that you take his secret with you and defend the eye of god from the black master, with this he gives you the first step to finding the eye of god before dying of his magically inflicted wounds from the black sword.

What’s going on? Long ago the old sensei was a powerful and wizened teacher whom taught many promising apprentices at a temple of magic, one of these apprentices however never managed to learn the importance of many of the temples virtues and eventually the old sensei refused to teach him any longer. This infuriated the apprentice, left only to return years later as a powerful necromancer with his own loyal followers, killing the remaining apprentices and forcing the old sensei into hiding after barely surviving.

This apprentice wishes to undercover the location of the eye of god, an artifact that allows you to peer into the afterlife. However it has taken him decades to once again find the old master and send his followers to procure the information from him. The scarred man managed to get this information from the old sensei before his death however if his body is not destroyed other followers will eventually come to reclaim it and the necromancer will resurrect him and retrieve the information.