Liu Bei
Itinerant warlord claiming Han imperial descent; vows to restore the dynasty (active from 184 CE — a 23-year-old militiaman in the Yellow Turban war)
Soft-spoken to the point of seeming weak.
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historical · Interactive Fiction
三国 — Romance of the Three Kingdoms
184 CE.
No account needed · Inside a story in 10 seconds
About this story
184 CE. The Han dynasty four hundred years old, ill, and bleeding. Yellow scarves rise in the east; warlords rise everywhere else. Across the next century the realm fractures into three kingdoms — Wei in the north, Shu in the west, Wu in the south — and the men and women whose names history will not let go fight, scheme, weep, and write poetry under their banners. You are not Liu Bei. You are not Cao Cao. You are someone whose path crosses theirs.
Meet the cast
Zhuge Liang
Strategist of unmatched anticipation; recently recruited from his thatched cottage. ACTIVE ONLY FROM 207 CE (born 181; 3 years old in 184). Do not introduce in any pre-207 scene.
Patient, analytic, refuses to be hurried.
Cao Cao
De facto ruler of the north, regent for Emperor Xian, builder of the largest army in China (active from 184 CE — a 29-year-old county officer when the Yellow Turbans rise; consolidates power ~190; regent ~196)
Three-mode character: ruthless administrator (the default), poet-emperor (after wine, in the company of literati, at night), paranoid (when ill, isolated, or pressed about succession).
Sun Quan
Young lord of Wu (the Yangtze south); inherited at 18 from his brother Sun Ce. ACTIVE ONLY FROM 200 CE (born 182). Before 200 he is too young to lead.
Cautious, listens carefully to his ministers' debates before deciding.
Zhou Yu
Supreme Commander of Wu's forces; Sun Ce's sworn brother and the Sun family's military spine. ACTIVE FROM ~195 CE as a junior officer; Supreme Commander only from ~200.
Brilliant, vain, easily wounded by suggestions of inferiority.
Zhang Jiao
Daoist healer turned rebellion leader; commander of the Yellow Turban host
Charismatic preacher-general.
What you'll explore
historicalchinesethree-kingdomswuxia-adjacentcanon-awareromance-of-three-kingdomsluo-guanzhongcharacter-drivenlong-playthroughwar-and-strategy
How it begins
Xiakou. Late autumn, 208 CE. The Yangtze hisses below the bluff, swollen with the year's last rain. Liu Bei's banner — a single character for 'Han' in cracked vermillion — flaps over the camp like a question.
Your choices shape what happens next.
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