The Ruins of Old Tien's Landing were once the town known as Tien's Landing. After the building of the Great Dam, the town was flooded without warning and a lake covered the buildings. Twenty years later, the Lotus Assassins opened the Great Dam. The lake drained, and the Ruins of Old Tien's Landing were revealed.
The flooding of Old Tien's Landing[]
Eighteen years before the Player character arrives in Tien’s Landing, Emperor Sun began public works all over the Empire, including the Great Dam down-river. The workmen came and started building near Tien’s Landing. Some occupants were worried that it might flood them out, but even they assumed that someone in authority would come and tell them what to do if there was indeed any danger.
Instead, the builders continued their work, and no one came to tell the residents of Tien's Landing anything at all. When the Great Dam was finished, the floodgates were closed. The town flooded in just minutes, and the people took what they could and fled. Mothers ran about screaming for their children who had gone out to play. Children screamed for their dogs. Some people climbed up to the roofs of their houses and just refused to leave. A chain gang of prisoners working in a nearby quarry drowned, condemned when one of their own, Strangler Jizu, killed Turnkey Shiji in a fit of rage when the guard foreman returned to free them.
Those who made it out had to run onward as the water kept rising. Old Wei carried a boy and a girl. He saw another boy fall, but he couldn’t carry him as well. He collapsed and when he woke, the water had stopped rising. The Great Dam had created an enormous lake, and the survivors of the flood settled their new town on the banks. The lake completely covered the ruins of the Old Tien’s Landing. Life went on, and no word ever came from the Imperial City. No explanation for the building of the dam or the tragedy it had caused was ever given. Some people wondered if they had displeased the Emperor. The crewmen who manned the Dam came to the town sometimes, but didn’t know any more than the townspeople did. The people started a new life, but there was much pain and sorrow. Conversations would trail off… at night, women and men sobbed for those who died. Eventually, everyone stopped talking about the past and pretended it never happened.
Arrival of the Spirit Monk[]
The last Spirit Monk arrived while the Great Dam was opened, leaving the ruins on dry land for the first time in decades. It remained a dead place, however, filled with nothing but ghosts, ruins and bones. The Lotus Assassins arrived and searched tirelessly with their own agents and with Rat Demons, trying to find one of the gems that belonged to the Spirit Monk's amulet. In the end, the Spirit Monk succeeded where the Assassins failed, and took the gem for themselves, and in the process gained the power to decide the fate of Tien's Landing- old and new.
- If the Player closes the Great Dam, the water again floods Old Tien's Landing, burying it forever beneath the waves. This means an end for the old town, as no one can reach it anymore, but new Tien's Landing gains new life from restored river trade and fishing.
- If the Player destroys the Great Dam's controls and leaves the Dam open, Old Tien's Landing is permanently left on dry land, but it remains a desolate ruin, haunted by wandering spirits from its past. New Tien's Landing is little better off, as it is cut off from the fishing and river trade on which it had depended.