Jade Empire
=== Setting ===
Jade Empire takes place in a fictional kingdom inspired by ancient China. The game developers had a constructed language, Tho Fan, created for the game by Canadian linguist Wolf Wikeley. The language has been designed to sound ancient and distinctly Asian. Tho Fan does without the verb "to be"; instead, articles are used to mark tense. In the game, the Tho Fan phrases do not actually match up to their on-screen translations—most of them are actually a set of a few dozen pre-rendered phrases. In fact, the game will often use exactly the same audio track to say successive sentences, as also occurs in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
=== Story ===
Chapter 1: Two Rivers
The game begins with the player cast as a martial arts student under the tutelage of Master Li, head of the Two Rivers martial arts school, based in the Golden Delta.
The player's training is interrupted as the town of Two Rivers comes under attack from an aggressor in a strange ship, who summons ghosts to attack the student. The attacker is defeated by Master Li, who comes to the student's rescue and reveals that the attacker was a member of the Lotus Assassins, a mysterious force serving the Emperor of the Jade Empire. Gao the Lesser, a rival of the student, issues a challenge for a duel and loses. He is expelled from the school after he attempts to use explicitly forbidden magic on the student. Master Li explains that the student is the last of the order of Spirit Monks. He, a brother of the Emperor and leader of the Empire's army, had ordered an attack on Dirge, where the Spirit Monks' temple existed, in order to end the Long Drought. He claims to have opposed the act and to have saved the student and the Dragon's Amulet.
He sends the student to a cave beneath the school, where the student finds part of a Spirit Monk amulet and has a vision of the Water Dragon—the entity whose death at the hands of the Emperor ended the decade-long Long Drought, but left spirits roaming the land. Dawn Star, one of the students at the school and a friend of the player, is kidnapped by Gao The Lesser. The student rescues her but returns to find the village in flames and Master Li kidnapped. The student, Dawn Star, and Sagacious Zu, a man whom they met in the swamps around the village, head off in a borrowed flying machine towards the Imperial City, where Master Li has been taken.
Chapter 2: Tien's Landing
The party crash-lands their machine in Tien's Landing and sets out to find a new flier and a wind map that will show them the way to the Imperial City. The new flyer, called the Marvelous Dragonfly, is taken from the base of Gao the Greater, the father of the dead student of the first chapter. Gao the Greater is working with Grand Inquisitor Jia's elite subordinate, Inquisitor Lim, and is distressed to hear of his son's death. The player tracks down and kills him, and recruits Sky, a rogue, and Kang The Mad, Gao's personal engineer.
The party goes to a recently drained area near Tien's Landing, which flooded when the dam was first constructed. The Lotus Assassins opened the dam in order to search the ruins of old Tien's Landing. The student fights Chai Ka, a demon bound in the body of a little girl, and learns that Chai Ka was sent to protect the student and that the Lotus Assassins already have the amulet. The player can then close the dam or destroy the controls, keeping it open forever.
The student then heads to the Great Southern Forest, which is owned by Lord Yun. The player then has the option of helping the Forest Shadow defeat a demon known as the Mother, or helping the Mother's cannibalistic demons destroy the Forest Shadow. In either event, the player can convince Lord Yun that the forest is recovering and get his wind map. Inquisitor Lim will ambush the player at this point; the player kills him and recovers a piece of the amulet.
Chapter 3: Imperial City
The party lands in the Imperial City and meets Silk Fox, who is revealed to be Princess Lian the Heavenly Lily, daughter of the Emperor. She is unconvinced that her father is behind the sickness and plagues of the land, and believes that Death's Hand, the black armor-clad head of the Lotus Assassins, is responsible. After joining either the Executioners or the Inquisitors, the student's party infiltrates the Lotus Assassins' training ground to recover the last part of the Spirit Monk amulet. Sagacious Zu reveals that he was one of the Lotus Assassins who killed Master Li's family. During their quest, the party helps Master Gang assassinate his superior, Master Shin, making the deed look like an accident, and puts a corrupted Spirit Shard into a Jade Golem, causing it to malfunction. The golems go out of control, damaging the underground complex. The party battles two Jade Golems and a handful of Lotus Assassins, killing Master Gang in the process. They also find Grand Inquisitor Jia, who reveals that the Emperor knew about what Death's Hand and the Lotus Assassins were doing and had, in fact, ordered them to do it. The player kills her, but Death's Hand arrives. Sagacious Zu sacrifices himself to save the student, burying Death's Hand in rubble.
Chapter 4: Imperial Palace
The party fights their way to the Emperor's throne room where Silk Fox learns of what her father has done. He is aware that the Water Dragon's death is stopping the dead from reaching the underworld but is mad with power. The Emperor knocks down everyone in the throne room with a blast of magic and summons guards to attack the student, who defeats them. The student battles the Emperor, who is able to alternate fighting styles and damage immunities. The student kills the Emperor, but Master Li gets up, takes the Jade Heart for himself, and kills the student.
Chapter 5: Spirit Monk Temple
The student wakes up in the underworld as a spirit. The Water Dragon reveals that Sun Li had planned this all along; he wished for the Water Dragon's power and needed to obtain the amulet and defeat Emperor Sun Hai. The student meets up with the spirit of Abbot Song, who reveals what truly happened at Dirge. He explains that Sun Li wore the armor of Death's Hand and killed the abbot when he tried to stop Sun Li and his brothers. The brothers arranged for Dirge's fountains to be tainted with human blood, weakening the Water Dragon, and Emperor Sun Hai killed Sun Kin (later Death's Hand) when he and Sun Li attempted to oppose him. Abbot Song then reveals that one of his order attempted to escape with the student, but Sun Li, who had escaped from Sun Hai, killed the student's guardian and assumed his identity. The player and Abbot Song make their way through Dirge and learn that an evil being has taken control after the fall of the temple. The student reaches the place where the Water Dragon was slain, and defeats aspects of the student's darker emotions. The student then returns to life, and the rest of the party, who learns about this through Dawn Star, flies to Dirge to reunite with their friend.
Chapter 6: Defending the Temple
While the student was dead, Sun Li realized that action would have to be taken in case the student managed to return to the realm of the living, and he retrieved Death's Hand from the rubble of the Lotus Assassin headquarters. He then sends the Imperial Army against Dirge. Sky pretends to betray the group, and lures Death's Hand out so that the student can defeat him in single combat. However, this is not enough to defeat him; Death's Hand rises again, but the student uses the force of his will to expel Sun Li's influence. The player may then release Death's Hand, use him as a slave, or convince him to seek redemption.
Chapter 7: Back to the Palace
The party flies back to the palace to confront Master Li, now the Emperor. As they make their way through the palace they discover that Emperor Sun Hai had stopped the drought by cutting open the Water Dragon's corpse and letting the water that flowed from it feed the Empire. The student chooses either to destroy the Water Dragon's body, thus freeing her spirit and allowing the dead to find the underworld, or to defile the water, weakening the Dragon, and then claim her power after defeating the new Emperor.
The student reaches Emperor Sun Li, who first sends Constructs of Bull and Elephant demons, the most powerful in the game, after the player. Sun Li then encases the student in stone and attempts to defeat the player with the force of his own doubt. However, if the student's companions survived, they will reduce the number of enemies that must be fought in each of the two stages. Sagacious Zu appears and helps free the student from his mind.
Emperor Sun Li offers to help his student live in legend forever, if the student dies without fighting. If the player makes this decision, the student is remembered as a hero for knowing his or her place as Sun Li looks on and laughs. If the player does not, Sun Li attacks, and the student defeats him.
==== Endings ====
If the student follows the Open Hand and chooses to free the Water Dragon's spirit, then the end sequence shows the people of the Jade Empire cheering the student and their party. If the student follows the Closed Fist and chooses to enslave the Water Dragon, the end sequence shows the Lotus Assassins kneeling at the feet of the student. After this end sequence, there are short text summaries detailing the fate of any characters who survived the adventure. These vary depending on whether the student chose to enslave or free the Water Dragon, and also on what romance options the student pursued.
Dawn Star: If the student chooses the path of the Open Hand, then she either settles down with the student, settles down on her own, or rules the empire with the student. If the student talked her into a Closed Fist philosophy or abandoned her, then she wanders the Jade Empire alone.
Silk Fox: If the student does not romance Silk Fox, she will become Empress of the Jade Empire. If the student is male and romances Silk Fox, he and Silk Fox will rule the empire fairly, or with an iron fist. If the student is female and romances Silk Fox, Silk Fox will either rule the empire fairly with her 'companion,' or will rule with an iron fist, and both the student and Silk Fox will don the Silk Fox costume to silence dissenters.
Sky: Sky will use the Guild for good purposes, or serve as the student's consort or as the new Death's Hand. If the student romances Sky, they leave the imperial city and live on the outskirts of Tien's Landing, unless the student is male, in which case they continue on their adventures through the Jade Empire, not content to settle down in one place.
Black Whirlwind: Black Whirlwind initially takes a contract hunting demons for the Celestial Bureaucracy, but the red tape annoys him and he ultimately leaves. After leaving the Empire for some time—he is likely responsible for a sudden influx of outlanders with missing limbs—he returns, vowing to never leave the Jade Empire again. He gets bored a week later and heads north.
Henpecked Hou: After a series of mishaps, Hou starts a delivery business which he immediately uses as a method of escaping his overbearing wife.
Chai Ka: Chai Ka will either return to the heavens, freeing Wild Flower and giving her the gift of life, or remain trapped in Wild Flower's body causing her to wander the empire as a raving lunatic.
Ya Zhen: Ya Zhen will either serve the student until the student passes away, at which point Ya Zhen moves to bigger plans, or else will serve the student forever and loyally.
Death's Hand: Death's Hand will either become more evil, mutating so badly that his armor cannot hold his demonic form, or he will spend the rest of his days wandering the empire as a crusader for good in order to make up for his past misdeeds.
Kang the Mad: Kang will continue to invent machines until an explosion appears to take his life, although strange machines will continue to appear on the student's doorstep every year on the anniversary of their victory. As Lord Lao, Kang's lack of danger affects his imagination in building machines, so as a radical solution Kang starts arming the mobs that chase after him. If the player chose the Closed Fist ending, Kang works for the emperor (the player), worrying his use will eventually be worn out and he will be disposed of. Eventually, he crafts a portal to another dimension and disappears in a huge explosion, taking an entire lake with him.
Yet another ending is available if the Student agrees to the terms of surrender presented by Sun Li in the final confrontation. The ending sequence features a statue of the student being praised years later by a class of children with a skin condition similar to that of the Lotus Assassins. One child asks what life was like before the protagonist's honored sacrifice and is quickly shushed by his teacher as a Jade Golem readies an axe to quell such questioning. The sequence ends with Sun Li laughing evilly; the decision to surrender has ultimately led to misery and corruption in the Jade Empire.
good versus evil, violence, action, flashback