Riverwheel Monastery

"'Strength. Wisdom. Discipline. These shall be the pillars upon which we build our school.'""—Grandmaster Ojutai"The Riverwheel Monastery is a temple located in the southwestern mountains surrounding the Valley of Four Winds. It has a symbiotic relationship with the town of Halfhill; the town provides the temple with a supply of students and food, and the temple, in turn, protects the village from outside threats. The Riverwheel monks have attained local fame for their martial and spiritual prowess, but the Riverwheel Masters, being the most skilled of their order, have achieved semi-legendary status.

The Riverwheel Masters
The Riverwheel Masters have spent a lifetime mastering different martial arts. While they may be supremely skilled in other schools, they have achieved true, demonstrable mastery of their discipline of choice. The Riverwheel Monastery does not put a limit on how many Masters it can maintain, but each Master must have demonstrated to the Grandmaster their abilities, and must also be willing to take on willing students, ensuring that their knowledge will last through the generations. To this end, once a student of the Monastery has achieved a sufficient level of mastery, they may then choose a Master's path to pursue. This choice is not made lightly, and in many ways the Masters have inadvertently developed individual cults of personality. The Masters are very careful not to allow their position of influence to lead into pride or arrogance, and must regularly submit to the Grandmaster for rigorous inspection. Should a Master be found wanting, they will be summarily removed from their post, but will be granted the opportunity to study under the other Masters, or even the Grandmaster, to regain their place.

Master Shen-zin Su, the Lorewalker
Master Shen-zin Su is a large, slow-talking librarian, who loves a smoking pipe and a warm meal, but his students do not mistake this lackadaisical nature for a lack of discipline. Shen-zin Su is one of, if not the most well-read of the Masters, and keeps very careful track of each Master's private records. Every student's forms, every visitor's arrival papers, every arcane teaching that the Masters pass on to their students, it all at one point was probably in Shen-zin Su's hands, and he forgets none of it.

To properly defend the Monastery and the privacy of his pupils, he developed his own school of thought. By sheer mastery of the self, Shen-zin Su is capable of channeling the spirits of legendary warriors, bringing them to life through his storytelling. Reality itself seems to bend to Shen-zin Su's will, as the stories he tells literally leap off the page and, hence earning him the title of "Lorewalker." This makes him one of the deadliest, most versatile, and most unorthodox of the Masters.

Master Ozoki, the Barrel Breeze
There have been many times when a student of the Monastery would challenge Master Ozoki, claiming that this particular style of drunken brawling is not a true martial art, and therefore he should be removed from the temple posthaste. Such foolhardy students are then challenged to remove the Master themselves, and it is only when their blows bounce off his rubbery hide and they themselves are beaten senseless by fists of iron that they fall to their knees, begging for Ozoki's forgiveness. The Master then bids them rise, gives them a friendly pat on the back, and offers them a cup of tea as a consolation prize.

In this way, Master Ozoki may appear as a staggering lunatic, but the truth is much more complex. The Master's art of ritual inebriation allows him to fight without reservation, and think thoughts that no sober creature would ever think. Moreover, Ozoki is a surprisingly adept alchemist, capable of brewing ever-stronger liquors to fit a variety of situations. His personal favorite, the Lazy Fisherman's Solution, is highly flammable, and allows the Master to breathe fire as though he were a dragon. Such a brew is not for the uninitiated, however, and there have been many who have submitted to the Monastery infirmary for scorched innards after sneaking a sip.

Master Ivgorod, the Spirit's Judge
All the students of Riverwheel are trained in the art of mastering one's spirit, or chi, but few have taken their teachings to such an extreme as Master Ivgorod. When pushed to their limit, Riverwheel initiates may harness their chi and perform feats that one may consider superhuman, but Ivgorod took his studies one step further. He was no longer studying the divine to imitate what they do. He was studying the divine to imitate what they are.

Master Ivgorod is capable of walking on water, or even up vertical surfaces if prompted. In combat, his signature staff erupts with blue flames, and he moves as though he were not like the wind, but the wind itself. If a foe manages to land a blow on Ivgorod, the Master wills his body to repair itself and continues to fight, although such a feat of concentration cannot be maintained forever and he is occasionally nicknamed "the Sleeping Master" as he rests for days at a time after healing several wounds at once. Perhaps most impressive is Ivgorod's mastery over not only his spirit, but the spirits of others, making Ivgorod unusually adept at combating ghosts or performing exorcisms.

Master Yurnero, the Masked Juggernaut
A legend in the Riverwheel library tells of the Isle of Masks, and of their blade-wielding samurai warriors. One such warrior was set adrift on the seas in exile for a crime that stripped him of his rank and honor in the eyes of his lord. However, in the eyes of the gods, he was without fault. In retribution, the gods sank the Isle of Masks, and guided the exile to Ascaria's shores. There, he set about on a personal quest to restore his honor in his own eyes. Whether or not Master Yurnero is the warrior in this legend, he does not say.

There have been various attempts to imitate Yurnero's uncanny abilities with varying degrees of success. His skill with a blade is nearly unmatched, but his truest power is shown when anyone attempts to stop him. Yurnero, when provoked, is a virtually unstoppable force. There have been many experiments conducted by his fellow Masters to test Yurnero's prowess, involving ice, tar, and buckets of molasses, but nothing seems to slow Yurnero's endless advance.

Master Tae-Sook, the Wandering Blossom
Of all the Masters of Riverwheel, none are so well-traveled as Master Tae-Sook. While she was previously a student under the tutelage of Master Shen-zin Su, she found that staying within the library and studying the manuscripts disagreed with her. To truly know the world, she believed that one must experience it firsthand. With a small entourage of followers, she set out, eager for enlightenment. When she returned, she demonstrated her newfound knowledge to the other Masters, was presented before the Grandmaster for review, and was promptly given the rank of Master.

While she may have attained the rank she sought, Tae-Sook has not become sedentary. Her martial style, which focuses on unparalleled mobility, has bled into her life, meaning that nine times out of ten she is not in her dojo at the Monastery. Rather, she continues to travel the world with a retinue of students, showing them ways to think outside of the box that the Monastery occasionally puts them into. This has also had the somewhat unintended effect of spreading the word about the Riverwheel Monastery, meaning that it is common for Tae-Sook to return from her voyages with more students than when she had first set out.