I'm tempted to throw in something else 'first' - yes, they've been invited to Winter Court, but that doesn't follow that Winter Court is the 'next' thing to happen, because obviously it happens at a specific time of year.

They'll be heading back 'home' (technically it's Seppun Tatsuko's home, but they live there and he doesn't) to catch up with their boss (and Ryu), and would probably get a bit of time to recover and plan what they're doing at court, acquire suitable gifts and clothes, for assorted messengers to reach Uiri and Horonigai from their clans when they find out they've been invited to where ? and for me to figure out the roster of NPCs for Winter Court (Yes, there's a Dramatis Personae list for Winter's Embrace , but there'll be plenty of others in residence and I feel like there should be a lot of stuff going on in the sidelines....)

I'd quite like to throw something very different again at them en route home; with Sokorii dead I figure I should remind them of the other plotline that's never been quite resolved (the Kolat), plus reinforce their NEVER TRUST THE SCORPION CLAN EVER reflex, and I have access to some older edition materials....

The logical way to get from Kyuden Hida to the Capital (if you're an Emerald Magistrate and clan boundaries aren't a big deal) is taking a boat up the River of Gold from Clear Water Village up to Scorpion Clan lands, through Beiden Pass then across Lion Clan lands. They travelled south along the coast in a sea-going vessel, but that's because they were heading out to the Mantis Islands; on the way back the Hida are more likely to send them via the inland route not affected by ocean storms.

One sensible place for such a boat to moor during the journey is Shiro Usagi - the Castle of the Hare Clan. Obviously nothing bad could happen there, right?

So... The players have set forth to new horizons...

A fair proportion of the session was spend spending up XP. The main highlights were Uiri and Goriate taking the level 2 comrade bond - making them even better at fighting back-to-back, and Uiri completing the Emerald Magistrate title and gaining Voice of Authority. Horonigai's increased glory made her the first person to become famed, gaining Famously Honest .

• Horonigai had her awkward conversation with Kakita Riku, which the Crane samurai took in about as good spirits as were possible.
  • One pointed question asked was about who had been negotiating the betrothal. Horonigai told her Shika Yuki was the matchmaker.
  • Riku clarified that she was very interested to know who was negotiating on the part of the Crane. Horonigai got the impression she wanted to "thank them personally". Horonigai was rather glad she could honestly say she didn't know.
  • She was somewhat conflicted: despite everything, an invitation to the Winter Court - as a named guest, yet, not even as someone's attendant - is a private dream most courtiers, especially Cranes, hold in vain for most of their adult lives. The sweets and alcohol also helped*.
• Goriate, meanwhile, had regained consciousness, and been filled in on what had happened by his aunt.
  • He sensibly decided not to intrude on the ladies, so went to find Uiri.
    • Uiri, even more sensibly, had spent this time in one of the Hida clan's halls, getting drunk.
  • Goriate found him, and explained everything that had happened between him, his aunt and Kakita Riku (the general outline but not the detail of which Horonigai had told him since leaving Kyuden Hida).
    • He expected to be mercilessly mocked, and was prepared to put up with his friend's teasing.
    • That is not what happened.
  • I should point out that over the last month, Mirumoto Uiri had marched into the Shadowlands, been stabbed (twice!), been imprisoned, half-smothered by a swarm of blood-drinking insects, been poisoned (admittedly accidentally), almost been torn to shreds by a literal army of undead, been threatened (discretely) with execution as a maho-tsukai, and come face to flaming maw with an Oni warlord.
  • In addition to the events of the last few weeks, he'd been drinking for most of the day, and it's fair to say at this point he was hanging on to both his sanity and the contents of his stomach by a thread. The Intoxicated condition doesn't begin to cover it.
  • It should also be noted that he has a Hatred of Formal Ceremony anxiety, which is part of the reason he is so estranged from his immediate relatives (who are mostly Mirumoto ambassadors to other clans or their attendants).
  • This did not occur to Goriate.
  • As a result, when the Hida samurai got to the bit of the story which went " and that's why my family is sending the four of us to Imperial Winter Court at Kyuden Doji ", this triggered his anxiety, causing him to receive in one lump, instantly compromising him.
  • He reacted exactly as you might imagine, unmasking (with Honour's Challenge ) by somewhat unsteadily punching the Crab in the face.

• The following day, the four samurai assembled in one of the entrance halls of Kyuden Hida.
  • In addition to the impressive bruises on the right-hand side of his face from Riku's tetsubo swing, Goriate was sporting the start of a rather impressive black eye on the other side of his face, and Uiri was limping quite a bit. The brawl had - as they often do, in the Hida stronghold - escalated to involve most of the off-duty bushi in the room, with no-one entirely clear who was on which side and the victory going to the last man or woman standing (which it's fair to say wasn't either of them).
  • Horonigai wasn't bruised, but still looked slightly the worse for wear.
  • Riku - slightly annoyingly for Horonigai - was in immaculate formal robes and looked fresh as a daisy, and the only sign of the previous evening was the fact she was glaring daggers at Goriate.
• Kuni Haruna met them there with a somewhat resigned look to her, overseeing attendants bringing travelling packs of food, blankets, and so forth, as well as bundling up their armour and heavier weapons for transport.
  • They had travelled down the coast in a Yasuki trading ship, because they were trying to maintain a low profile and because they were heading to rendezvous with a Mantis clan ship. Travelling back, there was no reason not to travel back along the River of Gold, in comfort befitting their status as magistrates, and not subject to ocean storms delaying or otherwise inconveniencing their passage north.
  • Haruna had arranged quarters on a ship leaving from Clear Water Village, which the PCs joined, and were able to have a relatively comfortable journey north to their first stop, Yasuki Yashidi.
  • The elegant spires of the Black Crane Estates hoved into view about a day later, and the riverboat moored up for the night. The PCs were joined aboard by Shosuro Rei, a more senior Emerald Magistrate (the first one they'd actually met outside Shiro Yogasha other than the Emerald and Ruby Champion), who was en route home to Shiro no Shosuro.
  • During the second day, with the Suzume hills lazily rolling past on the west bank, Uiri took the opportunity to talk to Rei, whilst Goriate finally had his much-awaited talk with Riku, who'd been largely cold-shouldering him for the previous two days. (Horonigai's player had to leave at this point)
    • The scorpion came across as loyal to both clan and Emperor, but very much a pragmatist when it came to minor offences (probably a good thing since Uiri still had the fading bruises from his brawl in Kyuden Hida as they were talking). This didn't stop Uiri's NEVER TRUST THE SCORPION CLAN EVER reflex.
      • She was fairly tight-lipped about her own business, saying Agasha Sumiko had sent her to carry out an investigation amongst the southern clans (though she declined to say precisely what she was investigating for the Ruby Champion). she'd recently visited the Hare and Sparrow and - after a brief discussion with the Crab's Yasuki family - was stopping at Shiro Kitsune on her way home.
    • Goriate finally did something right in a social situation:
      • He was basically completely honest about how he had met Yuki, the Deer Clan matchmaker, and how he had - without realising it - given her the impression he was looking for a bride. Having only spoken to her at length once, he knew when it must have happened - during the Emerald Tournament.
      • He certainly hadn't given her Kakita Riku's name - not that he objected to the match, but he hadn't suggested anyone's name as he hadn't been aware it was going on until after the fact. How Yuki had settled on Riku was therefore something he didn't know either.
      • He had asked Kuni Haruna to keep her behind (and he'd have done the same to everyone else, himself included, if he could, but whilst Kakita Riku's self-imposed quest was important, he and the others had been given a direct order by the Ruby Champion), because " the shadowlands are...not natural. It's not something you can fight. I would back you in any court and in any duel in the empire but everything, every single thing, beyond the wall exists for no reason but to inflict things worse than death . I would never, ever, ever take or send a friend into those lands if I had any other choice ."
      • He spent a void point to invert his Fear of Corruption anxiety - it had been (as you might imagine) a pain in the neck during the events of Mask of the Oni , basically dropping a tonne of strife the first time each scene he encountered something deeply disturbing, which in Shiro Hiruma is basically all the time. This time, though, it actually worked for him, allowing him rerolls on his sentiment check to make entirely clear how horrifying the thought of anyone going into the shadowlands was for him.
      • Kakita Riku still hasn't exactly 'forgiven' him, and certainly hasn't warmed to the idea of their marriage, but they are at least on speaking terms again.
  • By the evening, the boat had reached Shiro Kitsune. The PCs made their way inland from the docks through the beautifully verdant forest to the elegant Castle of the Fox Clan.
    • This was their first real experience of Minor Clans - other than the Mantis, where 'minor clan' status is more a legal status than any reflection of the clan's size - and underlining that on the one hand, the castle was manned by less soldiers than Hida Hachiro's watchtower, but on the other hand Kitsune Gohei - the Fox Clan Champion - was a direct personal vassal of the Emperor, on a par with Doji Hotaru or Hida Kisada, or the Emerald Champion, meant they weren't quite sure what to expect other than the need to bow a lot.
      • Uiri passed a government check to dredge up some background knowledge of the Kitsune clan, largely from his early years amongst the Unicorn. The fact that they were traditional Crane allies and their past relationship with the Lion were dutifully filed away for later reference.
    • They were brought to a reception hall to be presented to Gohei - but found when they arrived that he was busy finishing greeting a higher-status guest; namely Doji Kuzunobu, the husband of the Crane Clan Champion.
      • After the two finished speaking, Gohei greeted the PCs. Kuzunobu and his yojimbo withdrew, with the Crane noble saying he hoped to see them at the banquet later.
      • Gohei was pretty welcoming, and explained, saying that 'with so many important guests at once' it would be unthinkable for the clan not to hold a feast to celebrate and welcome them. He explained that in addition to Kakita Riku and four Emerald Magistrates ( "Four?" "Rei" "Oh." ), they were hosting - as they had seen - Doji Kuzunobu, and, in addition, Akodo Kage; a famous Lion sensei and acting ambassador to the southern Minor Clans, along with his yojimbo and attendant**.
      • Attendants materialised from wherever NPC attendants materialise from in samurai dramas, and whisked the PCs off to their rooms to settle in for the night.
    • With both a high ranking Lion Clan and Crane Clan samurai in a minor clan stronghold at once, their 'imminent shenanigans' radar was going off, they decided there was no way they were walking into the meal without knowing what was going on first.
      • Uiri decided to use sentiment and skulduggery, trying to ferret and/or bribe information out of the servants.
        • He learned that Akodo Kage had been around for some time, and one thing he was doing to consistently irritate everyone within earshot was musing on how much better off the Kitsune would be if the minor clan was folded back into the Unicorn. So far no-one had snapped and said something offensive back but it was only a matter of time, especially with Gohei's younger relatives.
      • Goriate instead took a slightly more direct approach - going to talk not to Kuzunobu himself (to begin with) but Kakita Kaezin, his Yojimbo. Having Riku in tow, as a fellow Kakita and Tsuma graduate, helped, and they were able to get a heads-up on Kaezin and Kuzunobu's suspicions.
        • En route to the meeting, Riku gave Goriate a heads-up on who Kakita Kaezin was, and what a "Kenshinzen" was. Goriate was suitably impressed.
        • Kaezin - unintentionally - somewhat set the tone of the meeting off on the wrong foot by congratulating the couple on their betrothal. Goriate thanked him, and then steered the conversation towards other matters as fast as courteously possible....
        • The Kakita yojimbo was able to warn them that Kage's 'ronin' yojimbo, Akihiro, shared the name and general description of a very skilled Mirumoto Niten Master that he was aware of. Akihiro - if he was who Kaezin thought - was no slouch even by the Kenshinzen's lofty standards. Kuzunobu had assumed that the Lion were trying to bait someone into saying something Kage could take offense at, then provoke a duel which the 'ronin' would unexpectedly win handily (or would have done if Kaezin weren't here, if Kuzunobu allowed him to take the Fox's part).
        • Kaezin let them know Kuzunobu's suspicion - that what the Lion really wanted was a pretext to launch an attack on the Fox. Crane lands were just across the river, stripped of troops to reinforce the northern provinces and largely unfortified against the minor clans who lacked the ability to project force across the River of Gold. A well-garrisoned Lion stronghold on the river here would dramatically change the strategic picture.
        • "I thought great clans were barred by edict from making war on minor clans?"
        • "Just as they are on each other, though by a different edict. But this would be a strictly limited punitive action, not 'open war'. A 'small-scale raid' which would be launched against a great clan in such a situation, though, like the attack on Hisu Mori Toride, could destroy a smaller clan like the Fox."
        • "Surely that would still cause political fallout for the Lion."
        • "Most likely, yes. But that has never concerned them as much as it should."
        • "...Ah."
      • They realised the problem. Doji Kuzunobu - as the highest-status individual around, could call Akodo Kage's bluff, and if his Kenshinzen yojimbo won, and Kage was forced to apologise, he could hardly bring the same subject up again, even after Kuzunobu left. But if it wasn't brought up at the dinner and nothing was resolved, then - since Kage had no specific timetable - as far as the Crane or Fox knew he could just loiter here until the opportunity re-presented itself.
        • Kakita Kaezin couldn't really act as champion for the Fox. Yes, the Crane were traditional allies of the Fox, but right now the Crane were involved in an energetic 'border dispute' with the Lion, and a Crane acting too openly on the Fox' behalf could be spun by Kage as the Fox taking the Crane's side in the ongoing conflict....which arguably would make them a legitimate target in that conflict, exactly the effect Kuzunobu and Gohei were hoping to avoid.
        • Therefore Doji Kuzunobu had to do the slapping down. Which meant Akodo Kage had to say something which justified slapping down - it wouldn't be easy to make him do so, and the only people who could really do so in Shiro Kitsune were the Fox Clan samurai. Who were all keeping their heads down for fear of Lion Clan retribution.
      • At this point, they bounced ideas back and forth for a while. Obviously Kitsune Gohei could easily prod one of his younger relatives into saying something untoward - ideally starting the argument within earshot of Kuzunobu but without Kage realising that, which would be doable amongst the hubbub of a major celebration feast. The big question was whether they could limit the risk of it spiralling out of control.
        • They finally realised (with a rather difficult tactics check) that there was something missing from the whole scheme: the enemy army.
        • The lion clan armies were on the far side of Crane and Scorpion lands, neither of whom were likely to allow a 'punitive expedition' to march across their territory, and neither of whom would want to see a strategic Lion Clan fortress overlooking the junction between the two branches of the River of Gold. For that matter, even sailing down the coast and travelling up the eastern branch of the river would involve an extended journey along Crane coastlines.
        • More to the point, weak by comparison as the Fox' armies were, attempting a contested landing against an enemy fortress from the river would have the potential for disaster. The Mantis, perhaps, could manage it. Few others would have the skills as seafarers to try - and besides which, if the Lion could, they might as well launch their assault against the Crane coast directly.
        • When they discussed this with Riku and Kaezin, the Kenshinzen pointed out that:
        • "It need not be - would most likely not be - the Lion who launched such an attack. Great Clan against Minor Clan, and Great Clan against Great Clan is forbidden by edict. There is no such prohibition on warfare between Minor Clans, and the Hare, just upriver, are traditional allies of the Lion. If their army were to have been secretly reinforced with 'ronin' - either true ronin bankrolled by Lion gold, or else Matsu troops in Usagi colours...then they are a clan responding to an affront to the honour of an ally. How would we prove otherwise?"
      • They realised that whilst the Lion might or might not have a strike force stationed at Shiro Usagi, they had someone - other than the Lion - who knew for definite either way.
        • They took the opportunity to call on Shosuro Rei before dinner.
        • She was - after a brief negotiation with Uiri - able to confirm that not only was there no secret Lion Clan legion prepositioned with the Hare, but that she was confident (and the PCs were - from painful experience - prepared to accept a Scorpion's confidence about other people's secrets) the Hare had no idea what Akodo Kage was doing to their south. Usagi Oda's main concerns at the moment were about trying to secure a suitably influential husband for his daughter, Usagi Tomoe, and if the Lion planned on using his clan as a cats-paw against the Fox, they hadn't spoken to anyone in Shiro Usagi about it.
        • That meant there was no army, and no army coming in any meaningful timeframe. Which meant what Akodo Kage was doing was bluffing - if the Crane didn't know this, the risk that the Lion might manufacture an 'incident' with the Fox would force a cautious and already overextended Crane leadership to station hundreds if not thousands of soldiers in the clan's southern provinces to secure their side of the river against a potential second front with the Lion.
      • Suitably forearmed, they let Gohei and Kuzunobu know the state of play by arranging to have Shosuro Rei speak to the Fox champion 'in pursuit of her investigation'. Events at the banquet played out much as planned, with Kitsune Itsuki - Gohei's younger cousin - suitably placed to respond to Kage's words, and Kuzunobu to step firmly on Akodo Kage's response before he could find a way to take offence.
      • After Kage had backed down and excused himself, the banquet even became quite pleasant - Kuzunobu, remembering his and Goriate's haiku competition at Kyotei, dared him to a rematch. Goriate lost - again - but did better this time, having picked up a rank of the composition skill as a point of principle in the intervening time. Being complemented on his developing skills (Kuzunobu graciously didn't say "for a Crab" though it was left hanging unsaid) was good for a trivial Glory award, raising his glory to 65 and resulting in him gaining Famously Reliable , which was a nice end to the evening.
    • Except that wasn't quite the end of the evening. As the guests dispersed back to their rooms, there was a polite knock on the shoji door of the study shared by Uiri and Goriate. Goriate opened it, to find the stocky figure of Shosuro Rei on the other side.
      • "Apologies for bothering you at such a late hour. But in return for my help, you did agree to owe me a favour..."

There was an out-of-character silence for about five seconds before Goriate's player actually yelled out loud.

"YOU PROMISED THE SCORPION CLAN WHAT !?!?!?!"

* Horonigai's player, suspecting the conversation would be strained, had asked what the closest Rokugani equivalent she could manage was to turning up with "wine and ice cream"

** This is basically the storyline of Tactical Manoeuvres playing out, with the PCs in the backdrop.

I am looking forward to seeing how they deal with the situation in Twin Blessings Village and how they deal with Lord Reje Jikai. Considering that the elements are unbalanced there, a visit to Horonigai by Kaito Daimyo Kosori herself might just be in order to send them off on that adventure. Whether Riku-chan tags along or not could also be an interesting twist especially as that adventure would put her out of her element just as much as travel through the Shadowlands would.

7 hours ago, neilcell said:

Whether Riku-chan tags along or not could also be an interesting twist especially as that adventure would put her out of her element just as much as travel through the Shadowlands would.

I'm probably going to separate them off for a bit post Winter's Embrace . Her immediate reason for following them around (hunting Kitsu Sokorii on Doji Hiroshige's behalf) has now expired and she's an easy enough character to re-introduce as needed without having a permanent NPC tagging along. Besides which, I imagine she'll want to find and 'thank' Shika Yuki and whoever in the Kakita she was negotiating with for their sterling efforts.

The last adventure has - almost by default - been mostly about Goriate (It's very horde-combat-focused, he's the tank, it's set in and around the Shadowlands, he's a Crab, it features a Maho-Tsukai, his aunt is a senior Kuni Witch-hunter, it'd be kind of weird if it didn't) so I'd like to try and spread the story-centric spotlight a bit more, and having Riku take a temporary leave of the group is part of that.

Depending on how long stuff takes to resolve, I may or may not use one of the minor stories from Cresting Wave independently of Sins of Regret . The nice thing about those is that they can easily be added to a generic minor castle anywhere, so can occur whilst travelling across Lion lands back to the capital or from the capital to Kyuden Doji (or back).

Fair enough. I was just thinking this new adventure could give Horomigai an opportunity to shine in her family's prominent role. There is also some potential for Uiri to shine by interacting with the Daimyo's niece Reju Ume as well as his wife Seppun Azusa. How those two play out their strengths and weaknesses is bounded to be interesting. Certainly the stuff from Cresting Waves should keep them on their toes. Please keep us posted on their (mis)adventures.

So.... moving swiftly on from the Fox, the Hare!

• Shosuro Rei's 'favour' turned out to be dumping someone else's problem in their lap. Akodo Kage's attendant, Matsu Chokoku, had a problem involving the Hre which required a degree of discrete investigation, and which couldn't - politically speaking - be pursued by the Lion Clan.
  • Since Emerald magistrates are theoretically impartial, they represented the ideal solution.
  • Rei herself wasn't going to the Hare castle - she'd arranged passage on a Rokugo no Bayushi pirate-hunting patrol ship passing the river junction which would get her home far swifter than the magistrate's merchant riverboat (It wasn't, sadly, bound for the City of Lies) - but the PCs were. And, since they were junior magistrates, she thought she'd volunteer them for this wonderful 'development opportunity'.
  • Introducing them to Matsu Chokoku - a very scholarly looking samurai given his family - and the Lion gave them a brief outline of the issue.
    • A scroll had been stolen from the Kitsu family, and he had reason to believe it might now be in Usagi hands.
    • If that was the case, it was almost certainly now back in Shiro Usagi.
    • The scroll was in code but obviously codes can be broken, so there was an element of time pressure
    • The Hare were long-standing and honourable Lion allies, and public suspicion and accusations would cause a scandal - and potentially damage one of the Lion's most important alliances as the Hare are their strongest supporters south of Beiden Pass.
    • He gave a description of the scroll - vellum, with marbling on the borders and an Akodo family seal - and asked them to find it and discretely recover it. If they managed to do so, he said, they should return it (without drawing attention to its existance) to Kyuden Ikoma once they reached the Ikoma stronghold on their journey home.
    • Once again, he emphasised the need for subtlety, sensitivity, and discretion.
    • The PCs bowed, excused themselves, and returned to their rooms.
    • "Wow. He really hasn't met us, has he?" commented Goriate's player.

• The journey to Shiro Usagi went well enough. The magistrates each had a downtime scene.
  • Goriate spent it continuing to try and repair his relationship with Riku, and seems to have stabilised matters at being friends again.
  • Uiri tried to find out about events in Shiro Usagi; recent comings and goings. They already knew that Usagi Oda's daughter had been in Ryoko Owari Toshi recently, trying to secure a husband, and he was able to confirm that that was the only major expedition of Usagi samurai from their lands recently - if an Usagi had done the deed, it would be unlikely that it hadn't involved someone from Oda's daughter's party.
  • Horonigai tried to inquire about the Hare. She got a potted history - including their relationship to Iuchiban and the Bloodspeaker uprising, their relationship with the Lion and the fact that - as minor clans go - Shiro Usagi and the Hare army are about as good as it gets.
  • The PCs also got word of a murder in Ryoko Owari Toshi from a merchant's emissary who was headed there. Murder isn't that unusual, but the victim being a Scorpion Clan samurai was, and a shujenga (in this case a Soshi) being the murdered party was more unusual still. They immediately suspected this was somehow connected, but weren't sure how.

• Arriving at a river quay near Shiro Usagi, they disembarked and were passing up the road towards the castle when the sound of fighting grabbed their attention.
  • The combatants proved to be an ogre - wearing mismatched scraps of ashigaru armour and wielding a naginata - and a young bushi in Hare colours, who was clearly wounded, with one arm already broken and useless.
  • As they rushed to get involved, the Usagi darted forwards, rushing up the haft of the naginata, and delivered a nasty slash across the ogre's face. In return, the ogre delivered a vicious backswing, incapactiating the samurai.
  • Horonigai unslung her Daikyu whilst the three bushi (Uiri, Goriate, and Riku) rushed in, readying weapons - and in Goriate's case, uncomfortably aware he was just in travelling clothes and being hit by a naginata would hurt.
    • The ogre then hit him with a naginata. This hurt.
    • The Usagi used Warrior's Resolve to recover.
  • He stayed in the fight, and his tetsubo hammered the ogre, shortly before a critical strike from a willow-leaf arrow damaged the ogre's armour and Riku and Uiri incapacitated it.
    • The Usagi landed a killing blow.
  • The Usagi samurai introduced himself as Usagi Ozaki - Usagi Oda's son. He thanked them for saving him, welcomed them to Hare lands - and then asked if he could prevail on one of them to catch him as he was about to pass out from pain and blood loss....
    • Horonigai passed a medicine check, staunching the Bleeding and waking him up.
    • The samurai took the head of the ogre, and helped Ozaki to Shiro Usagi. Horonigai was surprised but slightly impressed he was insisting on carrying the trophy, despite its size and the fact he was forced to do so one-handed.
    • He was slightly dismissive of the trophy, seeing there was a crab samurai - and a magistrate, no less - among his rescuers, but he was clearly proud of his accomplishment.
• The PCs arrived in Shiro Usagi.
  • There was much hubbub around their arrival - primarily with the clan's heir turning up wounded.
    • Usagi Tomoe, his sister, practically tackled him to the ground in panic, and hovered over him as Riku and some of the Hare helped him to the shrine for healing.
    • The Clan Champion, Oda, was more or less polite to the minimum required but was mostly trying to get rid of them to concentrate on his wounded son; He was far less welcoming than Kitsune Gohei had been.
  • By that dinner time, matters were calmer.
    • The Usagis were more welcoming. The PCs were given a recitation of the story of Usagi Furiko
    • Ozaki gave a brief description of what had occured - a group of ogres under a leader named "Muhunomu" had moved into the near edge of the Shinomen been preying on Hare and nearby lands - this ogre was a scout of sorts. If the ogres were planning on raiding deeper into Usagi territory, Oda and the clan needed to know.
    • It was agreed Usagi Takeshi, Oda's commander, would assemble a scout force of a dozen picked samurai to hunt down Muhunomu's camp.
      • Goriate took the chance to join the conversation, and provide such advice as he could offer on hunting beasts and monsters. As a Hida samurai, his advice was taken well received, and drew attention off the rest of the PCs.
      • Uiri noticed one rather crude-looking samurai who was keeping a close eye on Ozaki.
        • He turned out to be called Seiki, and talking to him, he proved to be Ozaki's unofficial yojimbo. He was angry - both at Ozaki and himself - that the first time Ozaki had slipped out of his sight to patrol locally he'd managed to run into a full-grown ogre.
        • Seiki confirmed that Ozaki and Tomoe had returned unexpectedly early from their visit to Ryoko Owari Toshi, and that it was Ozaki's decision to do so
        • Some of the things he said left Uiri convinced he'd been an officer at some point but had been busted down to a common guardsman.
    • The PCs were surprised to hear Ozaki planned to lead the party - his arm was still in a sling - but he praised his sister's healing skills as a shujenga. Horonigai noticed how tired and drawn Usagi Tomoe looked; she had fixed his arm - or at least the worst of it - in a few hours, but clearly at a cost of great personal exhaustion.
      • Horonigai and Riku took time to talk to her - getting the lowdown on her unsuccessful attempts to find a husband; the best of a bad bunch of suitors being Yasuki Nokatsu, but whilst she had accepted marrying for love was unlikely (she was a Clan Champion's daughter) fortunately Usagi Oda was not so desperate for money or allies that he would order her to marry against her objections.
  • The following morning, Ozaki and his troops were ready to set off - Ozaki seemed mostly recovered, and he seemed eager to set off. Horonigai noticed Takeshi dictating some rules of engagement to the soldiers - presumably around " I know he's your nominal commander but do not let Ozaki-sama get himself killed ".
    • Everyone had a downtime activity.
      • Uiri looked discretely in the clan's records office. He doubted the missing scroll would be hidden in plain sight but it seemed like a sensible thing to eliminate. One thing he did happen across was the Usagi guard's disciplinary records - Seiki had apparently been demoted for opium addiction.
      • Horonigai visited the shrine. Half convinced Usagi Tomoe had been a bit too effective at healing her brother (the PCs have a half suspicion the 'missing kitsu scroll' is the scroll Kitsu Sokorii had found that had caused the wasting disease in her brother), she decided to search for any sign of " nefarious whommy stuff ", and was slightly irked to discover no signs of supernatural misdemeanours.
      • Goriate went to the armoury tower and with skilled assistance from Usagi Takeshi's armourer, restored the protection of his travelling clothes. At which point he found himself looking across the landscape northwards from the tower......
        • ....And saw the banners of a sizeable Scorpion Clan army, hundreds or even thousands strong, advancing south towards Shiro Usagi......

Huh. In Your Rokugan ™️ there still is that edict prohibiting war against Minor Clans, right?

So I'm very curious what the Scorpion are planning...

8 hours ago, Myrion said:

Huh. In Your Rokugan ™️ there still is that edict prohibiting war against Minor Clans, right?

So I'm very curious what the Scorpion are planning...

It is.

There are five real possibilities:

1. It's a bluff or intimidation: they're coming to talk but "walk softly and carry a big stick" and all that.
2. It's illegal but they don't care. The Scorpion are a dominant political force in the capital with Kachiko pretty much controlling what official reports ever reach the Emperor, the Hare's only ally is busy with the Crane. They may figure no-one really cares about minor clans at the moment and they can contain the political 'splash' if any occurs.
3. It's only illegal if you get caught. Political sanction would require evidence, evidence requires testimony and testimony requires living witnesses.
4. If it comes down to it, the Clan's position may be that it's not a 'war', it's a 'punitive expedition'. The edict forbids open war. Minor raids and skirmishes aren't strictly forbidden. Note that war between great clans is also forbidden, but the Lion and Crane have been involved in a 'border dispute' for the entire length of the current RPG which has seen a clan champion killed, a vassal family wiped out, at least one village massacred to the last child, thousands of clan soldiers and enough ronin involved to nearly bankrupt great clans, and the seizure of a great clan 'kyuden'-scale stronghold. This still apparently doesn't qualify as "war". Note that it's also a game of perception. The same independent report could be read as " They sent less than a thousand soldiers, raided the clan's smallest fortress, and have already returned to their own land's. That's pretty restrained ." or " They sent twice as many warriors as the entire clan can muster, stormed the clan's only castle and left behind a burned ruin. Overkill much ?" - both are true, but a Great Clan audience - the one that matters - will be predisposed to hear the former...
5. The army may not be a scorpion clan army. If their commander is sent by Bayushi Shoju and represent an official formation from the clan's standing army, that's one thing, but if he or she is acting as an aggrieved private individual that's the victim of a crime and is using only their own vassals* that's quite another.

* I can imagine the following conversation:

"Who's that?"

"My yojimbo."

"And the shujenga pointedly preparing fire invocations?"

"Spiritual advisor."

"The three black-clad shosuro?"

"I like to watch Kabuki plays whilst travelling."

"And those guys?"

"Also my yojimbo. High ranking samurai sometimes have more than one bodyguard..."

"And the other four hundred heavily armed soldiers?"

"....Also Yojimbo. I have self-confidence and insecurity issues, all right?"

I hadn't considered the possibility of it not being an official Scorpion detachment but the rest yes - I'm still very curious as to what it'll actually be 😁

We haven't seen the fallout of Kyuden Kakita being seized, though and we've seen suggestions that it might be a step too far for "border disputes". Isn't it already quite a topic in the courts whether the classification is still correct?

27 minutes ago, Myrion said:

We haven't seen the fallout of Kyuden Kakita being seized, though and we've seen suggestions that it might be a step too far for "border disputes". Isn't it already quite a topic in the courts whether the classification is still correct?

Well, Yoshi found out, and knows the Lion emerald champion isn't in residence and Agasha Sumiko, who's famously apolitical, is acting in the role, and STILL chose to suppress the message and go talk to the Unicorn privately rather than walk into court and press the 'Act of War' button.

If he thought that would've worked, we can assume he'd have done that, so whilst the gossip is no doubt in overdrive, someone who can be considered an expert on court politics doesn't think it's going to lead to any meaningful censure of the Lion...

That's fair. I suspect that has to do with the influence of the Scorpion at court - but that just plays into "they feel they can get away with it".

So -after a brief hiatus, not only did we continue but also (as you might have noticed on page 1) introduced a new character.

• Goriate's response on seeing the Scorpion army was to hustle back down to the guest quarters and start donning his lacquered armour.
• Seeing him push past them and start putting on heavy armour (and being unaware of the approaching army), Horonigai's immediate response was " what did you do now ?"
• On being informed of the Scorpion army, and hearing alarm bells start clanging across Shiro Usagi, they also grabbed their wargear and headed at speed to the great hall.
• Oda and Takeshi were already there, issuing orders to bring in nearby villagers and stores and distribute weapons to the militia and ashigaru reserve. The Scorpion looked a day or so away but they were determined the castle would be ready when they arrived. They professed surprise and claimed no idea of why the Scorpion would attack - other than a general willingness of a great clan to opportunistically size territory if presented with a half-defensible excuse. They had no idea what it might be, though.
• Goriate decided to ride out and ask, and the other two magistrates decided to follow. This time, he had enough sense to tell Kakita Riku the plan, and fortunately she was happy to stay behind (not being an Imperial Magistrate) and help Usagi Oda's forces - and Usagi Tomoe in particular - ready the castle for a siege. She also took the opportunity to request the loan of some armour. Given her history with the Scorpion, she will clearly not take much persuading to side with the Hare in any coming fight...
• Heading towards the army, the magistrates were intercepted halfway there by a quartet of riders. Three were grim-looking Bayushi cavalry in heavy armour, but the fourth was a flamboyantly-dressed Shosuro, who greeted them respectfully if somewhat over-dramatically* and asked what they were doing in Hare lands.
• They asked the same in return, and he responded that he was travelling to Shiro Usagi as Bayushi Tomoharu's representative, seeking recompense for the murder and robbery of one of the Taisa's vassals. He was travelling a day ahead in the hope of getting matters sorted 'before any ill will or misinterpretation occurs'.
• The Magistrates' NEVER TRUST THE SCORPION CLAN EVER radar was of course screaming at this point, but they agreed to accompany Suiren back to the castle -which, they pointed out, obviated the need for his bodyguards. Somewhat reluctantly, they turned back, leaving Suiren in the theoretically impartial care of the Emerald magistrates.
• Returning to the castle, they found the gates closed and Takeshi, with a cadre of Hare samurai, waiting outside. Takeshi took some convincing to allow Suiren to speak with Oda at all - and when he did, the Shosuro was all but frogmarched along a single corridor to and from Oda's reception hall, given no chance at all to see the layout of the castle.
• Tomoharu's accusations went down with Oda like a lead balloon, and horonigai - who'd accompanied them - could clearly see he wasn't faking and was genuinely surprised by them. The Hare Champion's repeated reference to "The Scorpion Army" didn't help, putting Suiren on the awkward position of trying to avoid either agreeing with the term or having to repeatedly contradict a clan champion in his own hall...
• Usagi Oda was seriously considering having Suiren decapitated and "sent back to Tomoharu to explain his position a head short", but Horonigai (fortunately) managed to talk him out of it, assisted (unexpectedly) by Usagi Tomoe. The two won a brief intrigue against Usagi Takeshi (who was all for shooting the messenger), mainly on the grounds that Suiren might be a Scorpion but he was a moderately famous actor and not one of Tomoharu's vassals - he'd been dragooned for the purpose of 'impartial spokesman' and killing him would give Tomoharu a casus beli even if the rest of his accusations were false.
• In the end, Usagi Oda agreed to allow the Magistrates to carry out an independent investigation "to disprove the Scorpion's slander" - Oda leaving the magistrates under no illusion what verdict they were to come to if they wanted to avoid trouble themselves. Suiren could remain and observe if he wished but if he did, and moved round Shiro Usagi beyond the gatehouse and reception hall would be denied permission to leave again: the Hare had no intention of allowing him to spy out the defenses.
• Suiren accepted the terms in principle, but stipulated he needed Tomoharu's agreement, and would need to speak to the Bayushi commander first. Once again, the Magistrates agreed to escort him.
• Having already ridden halfway and back, getting to Tomoharu and back as well would take the rest of the daylight. En route, Suiren more or less confirmed their suspicions (in a totally deniable way) that he'd been 'planted' in Tomoharu's army on someone else's behalf (They guessed- correctly- that it was Shosuro Rei, the Scorpion Emerald Magistrate who'd gotten them in this mess in the first place.) He also let them know that Tomoharu was short-tempered and very angry. He'd had comparatively little detail on what had happened, but was able to tell them that Tomoharu's vassal was Soshi Yukio, the shujenga whose murder they'd heard about.
• Their reception - even Suiren's - at Tomoharu's marching camp was frosty. Bayushi Sadako, one of Tomoharu's lieutenants, made it abundantly clear they were quietly hoping he'd be killed (and leaving the actor with a few nasty suspicions about the orders his Bayushi escorts had been given..)
• Tomoharu was really not pleased to see a trio of emerald magistrates watching his totally -not-an-invasion 'honour guard'. Hearing what Suiren had agreed with Oda, he was really irked. Suiren tried to angle for a week and a half for the investigation, but Tomoharu -after some courtesy checks- bluntly offered two days. Given that he was still a day's march away, that really only bought them a single day they wouldn't have had otherwise.
• Suiren tried to suggest the magistrates wouldn't be able to complete a search in that time, and Tomoharu responded that he was sure five hundred scorpion ashigaru could search the castle thoroughly in a single day... They got the hint.
• Horonigai asked for a description of the stolen property and no-one was at all surprised that the description of the stolen scroll lined up perfectly with the one given by Matsu Chukoku (less any mention of the Akodo family seal).
• As the PCs left hurriedly, Horonigai saw a tall, spindly figure in a white veil-mask watching her. The figure was another Soshi shujenga, and the Kaito was picking up a very nasty sense off him.
• They rode hard - passing a survival check, and their exhausted ponies returned to Shiro Usagi as night fell....

* if any of you have seen 'Upstart Crow', Shosuro Suiren's player is basically modelling his 'ACT-or' on Burbage. Complete with a lot of random emphasis and pauses when doing formal oratory.....

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• Their reception - even Suiren's - at Tomoharu's marching camp was frosty. Bayushi Sadako, one of Tomoharu's lieutenants, made it abundantly clear they were quietly hoping he'd be killed (and leaving the actor with a few nasty suspicions about the orders his Bayushi escorts had been given..)

The following lines come to mind:
"Aren't you suppose to be dead" -Kirk to Spock, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan
and
"Well, at lest we got our funny man back," -Boondock Saints.

• Shosuro Suiren was officially "welcomed" to Shiro Usagi as the Scorpion's representative. He agreed not to leave the castle, and was assigned a 'Yojimbo' for 'his protection'.
• This turned out to be the uncouth, malodourous Seiki. This wasn't the first time in the last few days he'd been accompanied by a bodyguard he suspected had been ordered to be ready to kill him, but at least the Bayushi cavalry (even their horses!) had smelled better.....
• He was more surprised to find, in addition to himself and the three magistrates, sharing the Hare's guest quarters with a high ranking Kakita samurai. Riku was polite (naturally) but very unimpressed to see a Scorpion inside the castle.
• The PCs characters got a good night's rest, before waking early the following morning to the sound of guards rushing to their posts. It appeared that Bayushi Tomoharu -or at least his men - had not had a good night's sleep, and instead had made a forced night march. Arriving to the north, cadres of ashigaru siege engineers were disembarking from carts, and breaking open pallets of prefabricated woven-wicker barricades. The main army was still most of a day away, but the Scorpion had decided to get a head start assembling their siege lines during the truce for the Magistrates' investigation...
• Hida Goriate went to see Usagi Takeshi. The Usagi general was fuming - the obvious response was a swift strike against the lightly guarded, exhausted siege engineers to prevent the Scorpion entrenchments encircling the castle. He wasn't allowed to, and he blamed the Magistrates for talking Usagi Oda into a truce the Scorpion clearly had no intention of honouring. Goriate did have one peace-offering which went some way to restoring his trust, though: during their visit to Tomoharu's headquarters, he'd seen the various maps and strategy table. Tomoharu would know this, and would change any detailed plan that might be compromised, but at the very least Goriate could fill the Hare in on the composition of the Scorpion army and the rough standing orders. He spent the morning consulting with the Usagi general, planning how best to meet any direct scorpion assault.
• Uiri decided to interview Seiki again as he stood guard outside Suiren's room. The PCs were confident that events in Ryoko Owari Toshi with Ozaki and Tomoe's party were connected with Soshi Yukio's death, even if they weren't sure how, and now they were investigating openly there was no need to be 'subtle' about it. Seiki gave few more details than before - he'd been in an inn (one with a nasty reputation) and young master Usagi had turned up to drag him out by his ear. He was pretty close-mouthed beyond that, with the look of a samurai who'd been ordered not to say anything. Uiri did notice a slight tic that hadn't been there before and theorized that Seiki was undergoing opium withdrawal - evidently he still used the narcotic, and between the unexpectedly abrupt departure from Ryoko Owari Toshi and the imminent siege he'd run out...
• Seiki might have been guarding Suiren's room, but the Shosuro wasn't in it. Whilst Seiki was distracted by Uiri, he had exited stage left through the window, sans mask and clad in common clothes, to investigate the castle. Most of what he found out was known to the Magistrates already, but having only arrived yesterday he did a good job 'catching up'. He did have an interesting encounter with Suki, the attendant in charge of the guest quarters. The Magistrates had of course met Suki, but hadn't really noticed. She, on the other hand, had.
• Suki was a young woman who was an obsessive reader of a certain kind of cheap pillow book where the poor or lonely heroine inevitably turns out to secretly be heir to the kingdom or soulmate of either the Lord of the land or the Lord's bravest samurai, falls in love (despite inevitably being kidnapped and dealing with heartbreak caused by misunderstanding) and ends the story with a wedding despite the relationship being deeply unlikely if not scandalous in the rokugani social order.
• Apparently the young, good looking and unattached northerner has caught her eye. Uiri had done nothing to encourage this, but Suki was someone not easily dissuaded by such irrelevant trivialities as "reality". It didn't help that - given a perception shaped by these stories - that she sees the prospect of being trapped with him in a castle under siege as " sooo romantic...."
• This wasn't terribly helpful with Suiren but he filed it away - for potential amusement if nothing else. Passing a fitness check with plenty of air opportunities, he was able to return in time to be back to be sat finishing his 'meditation' when Seiki checked on him.
• Horonigai, meanwhile, rose out of the castle's southern sally gate - as far as possible from the rapidly expanding siege lines - to investigate the family shrine on a nearby small hill. The shrine was some distance to the southwest, and was the site of a fortified watchtower that was the original 'Shiro Usagi' before the clan's alliance with the Lion. After the new, larger castle was built, it was replaced with a shrine to the Usagi's ancestors. She had a suspicion something might be hidden there - she was slightly irked to find that there appeared to be no mystical shenanigans afoot there either, and no sign of the scroll. With a lot of opportunities on her check, she did, however, find a concealed entrance to a paved tunnel leading off to the north-east, back toward the castle. Suspecting (correctly) that this was a secret entrance to the castle, she spent her second downtime action of the day to establish a Threshold Barrier that would both prevent most mortals crossing it and warn her if it was breached. Work done, she returned back to the sally gate - seeing Scorpion lines now lapping around the south of the castle.
• Uiri spent the afternoon talking to Usagi Tomoe. She had opened up a bit, in no small part due to Riku's assistance, which more or less balanced out his Bluntness . She admitted Usagi Ozaki had, when fetching Seiki, seen Matsu Akira -a close friend - be approached by, and pay money to a sinister hooded figure. He tried to follow and discovered the other man was Soshi Yukio, a Scorpion Matsu Akira was no friend to. Assuming the Lion was being blackmailed, Ozaki decided to help.
• A few days later, Ozaki and Seiki set out to shadow Matsu Akira. That night, they returned hurriedly, and the party immediately set out to return to Shiro Usagi. She claimed that was all she knew.
• Goriate and Suiren discussed a plan - they had talked to Uiri and decided to see if they could get opium for Seiki (accepting an honour loss for indulging the samurai's vice). Suiren revealed that the group of Shosuro 'scouts' in Tomoharu's army would take his orders if a message could be conveyed to them. He could order them to - discretely - delay the Scorpion siege-works and, with a bit of luck, smuggle a package of opium over the walls in the night. The former offer confirmed what the Magistrates had suspected: Suiren was principally working for someone other than Tomoharu.
• He had a vial of 'disappearing' ink concealed in a trick compartment of his wakizashi scabbard. If Goriate could persuade Usagi Oda to allow a bland progress report to be sent to the Scorpion, he could hide secret instructions on the same page.
• Goriate managed a decent courtesy roll and -on the Proviso the letter was read by Takeshi - allowed a single page to be sent to keep the Scorpion informed.
• Goriate asked to watch the Shosuro writing the note to make sure he kept to the agreed deal. Suiren pointed out that the hidden message would be both in code and in invisible ink. " Yes, but you'll tell me what you're writing, won't you? " Goriate said.
• "...... Yes. Obviously ..." Said Suiren. " Good. See? " Said Goriate
• Some time later, in the Scorpion camp, a Shosuro scout gently dusted a greyish powder onto Suiren's letter, watching as words faded gently into view:

<You are to carry out the following three orders:

First - report to Tomoharu-sama that the Emerald Magistrates are making a genuine attempt at the search for Yukio's murderer and the scroll. They have suspicions but no success yet. Report also that the defenses are well-readied a

Second - you are to - discretely - act to delay Tomoharu-sama's siegeworks. Act only if you can do so in complete secrecy.

Thirdly, invent a pretext for an incursion into the Hare castle tonight and convince Tomoharu-sama to order it. Bring with you a small packet of opium and a set of dice and deliver them to my rooms in the guest quarters.

The dice are especially crucial. The Crab samurai who delivered this to you is the most credulous goober I have ever met and if I can talk him into playing dice with me I may be able to fund the entire next season's production at the Poisoned Lilly .>

So. This was our first session done via the medium of the interwebz, because coronavirus and especially because high-risk individual.

We used Zoom to conference call, which seemed to work perfectly well: we only use fairly narrative combat, so a shared desktop .pptx seemed to do the job pretty well.

• The evening started out with everyone comparing notes. Horonigai noted they had only one more day, and - confident Tomoe was the key - planned to bluntly ask her "What is your plan?" Now the scorpion had arrived.
• Suiren withdrew to his room to meditate, with Seiki standing guard outside the door.
• Inside, a shinobi detached himself from the shadows, and stood in front of the Shosuro actor. He placed a set of dice and a vial of poppy juice on the floor.
• Suiren palmed them, expecting the Shinobi to leave. The Shinobi did not, explaining in a low whisper that there was only one mission they could get Tomoharu to authorise. He regretted the situation, but a command was a command.
• Suiren became pointedly aware the Shinobi was stood between him and his daisho stand.
• He did, however, have the bottle of poppy juice (which we decided would be basically Night Milk) and his Sekihitsu.
• One Deadly Sting later, with a critical strike, bonus deadliness from Path of the Shadows and a pair of bonus successes, and the Shinobi toppled over dead.
• "A Sekihitsu was a Rokugani pencil made of soapstone, graphite, or chalk. "

• The sound of the corpse hitting the floor alerted Seiki and the other PCs.
• Seiki may not be particularly alert in the grip of opium withdrawal but he is no idiot when confronted with a dead Shinobi. He was yelling for the guards in a moment.
• Suiren took a moment to confirm that there were at most four other Shinobi. If Tomoharu had ordered assassinations, the Usagi were the obvious targets.
• The Magistrates took off at a run.
• Goriate headed for Usagi Takeshi, the garrison commander. He passed a fitness check to get there in time, and smashed through the paper-and bamboo wall just as the Shinobi flung a shuriken at the sleeping general. " Takeshi-sama !" The Hida yelled, and the Hare woke and twisted aside instinctively. A tetsubo smashed the Shinobi in mid-air, pummeling them into the floor. " Uninvited guests ." He said.
• Oda's family quarters were closer, and Uiri and Horonigai (the latter backed up by Riku) were able to intercept the other shinobi short of their targets.
• Horonigai and Riku encountered a Shinobi in the corridor leading to Usagi Tomoe's room. The two samurai attacked - taking some fatigue from a shuriken - and nearly incapacitated him. Horonigai rushed on into Tomoe's room - asking as she did what her plan was, whilst unslinging her daily. Confronted with a Shinobi assassin in her quarters, and in shock, Tomoe's initial response was 'try not to die!'. Meanwhile, the Shinobi struck back, getting a ludicrous string of explosive successes that incapacitated Kakita Riku. Horonigai fortunately followed this with a ridiculously lethal shot of her own, getting a bonus success and a critical strike, essentially nailing the triumphant assassin to a nearby wooden beam.
• Uiri faced two shinobi going after Oda himself. One tried to delay him in the servants rooms adjoining the clan champion's chambers - he heard a scream and dived into the room, deflecting one strike with his wakizashi using Way of the Dragon before neatly opening the attacker with his katana. He barely broke stride, and didn't really register the servant strewn on the floor, who was moments from being murdered by the Shinobi when he burst into the room. Suki (because it was, inevitably, her) on the other hand, was fully aware of her rescuer and a longing sigh of " He saved me!" drifted unheard after the oblivious Mirumoto.
• The second Shinobi reached Oda's rooms at the same time as Uiri and a pair of Usagi samurai guarding the Clan Champion's chambers. Oda wasn't helpless and guarded the first attack successfully - and with the guards assisting, Uiri's Heartpiercing Strike meant there wasn't a second.
• As the chaos calmed down a touch, Horonigai turned to Usagi Tomoe, and told the shocked Hare Shujenga " we really need to talk... "

• The resulting conversation - reinforced by the reality of assassins coming for her personally - was enough to get through to Tomoe.
• She told Horonigai as much as she knew. She hadn't been present on the fateful night, and whilst Seiki had, Ozaki had ordered his silence. But she knew that following Matsu Akira had led to following Soshi Yukio, and - when the latter spotted them and attacked - with Yukio's own knife embedded in his chest after a struggle with Ozaki.
• What had really shocked Ozaki was that this time the two has slipped close enough to eavesdrop on Yukio and Akira's conversation - and it became clear the two known enemies were working together, and Akira was the one giving orders.
• Taking the scroll that had been exchanged, the siblings fled home. Tomoe didn't know how they'd been traced.
• The scroll was in Ozaki's rooms somewhere.
• Ozaki had gone to search for the ogre Muhunomu's camp, as advertised, but he'd been so desperate to lead the expedition (leading Tomoe to the point of exhaustion invoking the Kami to heal his arm overnight) that she suspected her brother planned to go off and 'do something' about this new threat, too.
• The Magistrates, accompanied by Tomoe, found the scroll after a brief search. In the process, they found quite a few of Ozaki's personal effects missing - more than a samurai only planning a week journey out and back would pack. Ozaki planned to be gone some time...
• Horonigai was ready to grab it and wrap it in wards, barriers, lead-lined boxes and every other protection she could think of. She was expecting it to be Mitsu Sokorii's maho scroll. She was slightly put out when it turned out to be completely mundane.
• On it being confirmed the content was in code, the magistrates and Tomoe took it to Suiren - who they let slip to Tomoe wasn't really working for Tomoharu (the attempted assassination went a long way to convince her of this) - who, despite a decent skulduggery roll, could make nothing of the code.
• The Magistrates hadn't really looked properly at the scroll up to this point. Slightly crestfallen, Horonigai did so - and realised she recognised both the code and the 'handwriting'. This didn't tell her what it said, but did mean that - assuming it wasn't a careful forgery - the scroll's author was Soji Satsume's mysterious 'friend and peer'....
• "...Oh, bugger." Was the general opinion of the group.
• Regardless, the PCs were in a bit of a pickle. Regardless of extenuating circumstances, it was a Hare who'd killed Soshi Yukio and stolen the scroll. And said Hare was Usagi Ozaki, who was not only Oda's son and heir (meaning there was no way the Hare Champion would turn him over to the Scorpion) but also not in the castle anyway.
• This left them in the awkward situation of trying to find an acceptable solution for both clans. Tomoharu wanted blood - there was no question of that- and was more interested in being seen to publicly avenge his vassal than in necessarily recovering the scroll (though whoever had directed him and his troops here and kept prodding his temper was probably Kolat) whilst Oda - if this 'crime' wasn't going away - needed a criminal he could disavow without the shame splashing on the Usagi family proper.
• This, ultimately, led back to Seiki.
• If he hadn't been in the opium den, none of this would have happened. If he'd restrained his young lord and been in the lead during the pursuit, it would have been him not Ozaki struggling over the knife with Yukio, and if Ozaki was guilty then as the Hare's honour guard that guilt splashed on him by association too. In short, whether Ozaki was guilty or the Scorpion stormed the castle, there was no version of events where Seiki survived.
• By comparison, Seiki was a known (if not publicly known there were old records to prove it) opium addict and had been seen at an opium den in Ryoko Owari Toshi. A drug-induced confused brawl near the opium den was a credible cause for Yukio's death without any suggestion of nefarious motives. He might well even have believed himself the defender...
• Convincing Seiki to take the blame was not easy. He was loyal, but the likely outcome was a dishonourable execution as a criminal. The Magistrates gritted their teeth for honour loss (except Horonigai, where the doubled minor righteousness award actually outweighed the halved minor sincerity breach... because Phoenix, apparently) and were able to convince him, with assistance from a slightly horrified Tomoe and the offer of the opium procured by Suiren, to play along as the distraught-but-repentant culprit.
• The next hurdle was Usagi Oda himself. On finding out Seiki was responsible for the siege, he was incandescently angry. Calming him enough to get him to agree to offer Seiki to the Scorpion took some doing, and it was even harder because - confusingly to Oda - his daughter was asking he be allowed to redeem his honour by seppuku rather than being tortured to death, and the Magistrates (who the Hare Champion expected to be arguing for harsh penalties) seemed to be going along with it, rather against Usagi Oda's instincts.
• This was, of course, because Seiki wasn't really guilty, and the PCs didn't want him tortured to a dishonourable death if they could avoid it, and really didn't want the Scorpion doing the torturing where they might get him to confess he wasn't really the killer. This fell under the heading of "stuff Usagi Oda really doesn't want to know", however, so no-one told him. With Tomoe's help, they talked him round.
• Finally, the three magistrates went out to speak to Bayushi Tomoharu. Suiren had prepared a copy of the scroll good enough for them to try and decode later, and the original, with seal bound up and looking as 'undisturbed' as possible, was handed over to the Scorpion daimyo. He barely looked at it, handing it off to a flunky (the magistrates kept a careful note of which one) before asking " and the murderer ?"
• This ended up as an intrigue - between Goriate and Uiri (Horonigai's player having gone to bed and Horonigai just doing support actions) arguing for 'a samurai's death' and Soshi Hisako - Tomoharu's shujenga and presumably a relative of Yukio, arguing for the nastiest death he could think of. Despite their numbers, with Tomoharu's vigilance 4 and Hisako (A scholarly shujenga with the warrior template) having a better social skills rank, he was actually winning before Uiri changed tactics. Hisako was generating lots of momentum with bonus successes due to fire stance. This meant he was loaded with a lot of strife. Uiri switched to fire stance and was able to compromise the Scorpion with a few cutting remarks about Imperial authority.
• This......did not go as planned.
• It won them the intrigue: unable to keep strife results, Hisako blustered angrily but generated no more momentum. Instead, however, he unmasked and challenged Uiri to a duel, claiming he was impugning the Scorpion's right and duty to pursue justice.
• Tomoharu - Hisako's Lord - was thoughtful for a moment, but indicated he would permit this. He also said Seiki would also get his 'Samurai's death' - in another duel against a champion of the Scorpion Daimyo's choosing. Both sides were fully aware this would be execution by duellist, but this was pretty much what the PCs and Tomoe were hoping for, so it was taken in stride.
• " And finally, so that there is no question that the honour of the Bayushi is marred ," he said, " in addition to this the defenders will send out one additional champion to fight an honour duel so that matters are left publicly resolved ." The PCs were hesitant about this but didn't really see a way around it.
• Bayushi Tomoharu finished by noting that - given the seriousness of matters and that - if not a battlefield, this had nearly and (He reminded them) could still become one, none of these duels would be to first blood - they would be to the death.
• The following day, Horonigai's player asked on facebook how the rest of the night had gone....

"YOU PROMISED THE SCORPION CLAN WHAT !?!?!?!"

That is actually a pretty good resolution. One duel for the crime, one for the clan (and a personal one, which isn't that great, but I believe in Uiri-san) is much better than an actual siege after all and they had nothing close to the access to and influence over the Scorpion needed to get anything better...

Also, that's a nasty pencil attack 😂

1 hour ago, Myrion said:

Also, that's a nasty pencil attack 😂

A Sekihitsu is surprisingly lethal with any technique based on critical strikes...

We'll have to wait and see how the duels go.

12 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

(except Horonigai, where the doubled minor righteousness award actually outweighed the halved minor sincerity breach... because Phoenix, apparently)

Ah yes, the secret Pheonix technique "Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right"

"Ah, samurai. I know matters appear on the surface to be as you claim, but you who do not deal with the spirit world do not fully appreciate the deeper truth..."

"Oh?"

"...Which is what I say it is."

"I see. Funny how the spirits are never invoked when you're winning an argument..."

[Insert appropriate organised-religion cynicism meme here.]

So....some recriminations later, the final session of this adventure.

• The party returned to Oda's reception hall and told the Hare what had been agreed with Tomoharu.
• Usagi Oda's pleasant surprise at the Scorpion's acceptance turned rather darker when he heard Tomoharu's extra 'conditions'.
• The PCs returned to the guest quarters, for Uiri to get ready for the duel, whilst presumably the Hare discussed who would be the third duellist.
• Since he's been running on about half composure, Horonigai decided to perform a tea ceremony for herself and Uiri to try and give him a void point and remove some strife. She failed, but snagged an opportunity which would reduce the TN of Uiri's next check.
• Shosuro Suiren, who was being a lot less discrete about supporting the magistrates (having your commanding officer order your assassination will do that), offered to share the insights of his scrutiny of Soshi Hisako during the time he'd spent with the army. The fact he was a very competent swordsman by shujenga standards (martial 2) was a useful warning, but the fact he was carrying a great deal of personal anger (a disadvantage picked out with an opportunity) was probably more important. Suiren didn't know if he was actually a direct relative of Soshi Yukio, but they were both Soshi Family shujenga, so either way it perhaps wasn't surprising he was taking it more personally than the rest of the Scorpion.
• Horonigai was also able to pass a theology check and fill in some of the blanks about the Soshi Shujenga school - namely their focus on 'trickster' air invocations and their ability to invoke the Kami secretly. The three samurai basically agreed that "attack quickly, hit him, and keep hitting him until he stops twitching" was the best plan - trying to play any kind of strife game would give Hisako a chance to use his abilities and Uiri didn't really have a way to deal with something like Vapour of Nightmares being dropped on him mid-duel.
• Goriate went to find Riku to try and get some insights - in the process, he heard the tail end of what sounded like an emotive shouting match between Oda and his daughter from an adjoining corridor. Obviously 'eavesdropping' would be dishonourable but he decided to investigate just to see the Usagi were all right. Oda was on a viewing platform overlooking Shiro Usagi's gardens, and the elderly widower looked about a century older than he had an hour before. Goriate hastily improvised a pretext to speak to him, and - after a courtesy check - found out Usagi Tomoe had accepted on behalf of the Hare. She was no bushi, so would have a Yojimbo fight for her, but she would still be expected to take her own life if her champion lost. Oda - who didn't know Seiki wasn't guilty - couldn't fully understand why Tomoe - who did know about the deception to protect her brother - was putting her life in danger for an opium addict she didn't particularly like, but she'd insisted Duty demanded it.
• Bowing to Oda and returning to the corridor, he asked a passing servant to help - this was, inevitably, Suki, who (with a combination of crossed wires and selective hearing) had found out that Mirumoto Uiri ' was fighting in a duel to the death for her clan's honour '. There was a degree of facepalming around the table. Suki confirmed that Kakita Riku was speaking to Usagi Tomoe. Goriate - with a horrible suspicion dawning - hurried rather more than normal decorum allows along the corridor....
• ....To find Tomoe helping Riku adjust a loaned set of Hare clan armour to fit over her robes.
• The players only realised when I pointed it out that every single time one of them had been to talk to Usagi Tomoe, whichever one had gone had taken Riku with them, and with her brother absent, Riku was arguably the closest thing she had to a friend in the castle. And she was a Kakita-trained duellist with none-too-deeply hidden issues with the Scorpion Clan. So of course Tomoe asked her to act for her and of course she accepted....

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The players only realised when I pointed it out that every single time one of them had been to talk to Usagi Tomoe, whichever one had gone had taken Riku with them, and with her brother absent, Riku was arguably the closest thing she had to a friend in the castle. And she was a Kakita-trained duellist with none-too-deeply hidden issues with the Scorpion Clan. So of course Tomoe asked her to act for her and of course she accepted....

As my gaming group likes to say DORAMA (DRAMA) INTENSIFIES!

Noooo Riku-chaaaaaannnn!

Drama intensified, indeed. Let's hope the Kakita pull through. I mean, the one true school is Mirumoto, obviously, but the Kakita aren't half bad either...

• Goriate (and the players) really wasn't too happy to see this, but there wasn't a lot that could be said: after his "I'd back you in any duel" speech on the boat, he could hardly try to talk her out of it.
• He settled for a half-bow, half-half-nod; " You look good ." - and left Tomoe's rooms to freak out from stress somewhere else.
• So, later, with a fair amount of ceremony, the three duellists - Seiki, Riku and Uiri - emerged from the main gate of Shiro Usagi. A duelling ground had been marked out with crimson and white ribbons halfway between the walls and the Scorpion lines.
• On the far side, stood their opponents: the massive form of Bayushi Tomi, the white-veiled Soshi Hisako, and Bayushi Tomoharu himself.
• The NPC-vs-NPC shells were resolved first as 'one-roll duels'.
• Seiki faced the Scorpion general himself....and it was every bit the execution-by-duellist the Hare were expecting. Apparently Tomoharu was making a point and chose to fight Soshi Yukio's 'murderer' personally. They were pretty sure his Katana was poisoned with something, and with a plate-armoured Daimyo versus an ashigaru-armoured bushi, the latter still recovering from opium withdrawal, Seiki never really had a chance, but Tomoharu took a lot of rage out on the former officer, landing several wounds, any of which would have been enough to kill him, before the first one actually did. (mechanically, Tomoharu's superior armour and poisoned weapon upped Seiki's check from TN1 to TN3, and as a Provincial Daimyo with the Warrior template he was rolling a slightly ridiculous 5 fire ring dice and 6 martial skill dice. Seiki didn't really have a chance....)
• Suiren, who wanted to irritate Tomoharu (again, assassination attempts will do that), chose to sit near the sidelines, pointedly not being dead, and produce a dramatic charcoal sketch of the Scorpion general and his opponent in the moments before the duel, using his Sekihitsu. He presented this to the victorious daimyo afterwards as a gift to honour the general's victory, with apologies that there was a slight bloodstain on the paper " which must have been an errant blood drop from your opponent, Tomoharu-sama " and totally wasn't where he'd wiped some blood off his Sekihitsu after John Wick shenanigans the previous night.....
• That left Kakita Riku against the massive, heavily armoured Bayushi Tomi. Tomi was wearing full lacquered armour to Riku's loaned ashigaru armour and had a serious advantage of reach. The Scorpion was quick despite his size and heavier armour and his sword cleared it's sheath first, snapping round in a crossing cut towards Kakita Riku's midriff....
• .....when it tumbled out of his hand and shuttered across the grass, the grip bouncing harmlessly off Riku's calf as the razor-sharp blade dug into the turf. Virtually no-one had actually registered Riku start moving: the Kakita somehow went from standing ready to holding her sword at full arm's reach without seeming passing through any intervening position - the tip of her sword having gone under the bottom edge of Bayushi Tomi's menpo, through his lower jaw and into the top of his throat in one single movement. He collapsed, coughing blood, and expired swiftly. (Mechanically, Tomi was a Loyal Bushi, whilst Riku had an additional point of air rank and martial rank for a 'duellist' template. Tomi's heavier wargear meant Riku needed TN2 whilst her Kakita skills - Iai techniques- upped her opponent's to 2 as well. Tomi's roll was good - two successes with strife and one explosive success with strife that generated an opportunity - but Riku's was ridiculous, pulling two success and two explosive successes, one of which generated a third explosive success and thence a deadliness-increasing opportunity, whilst the other produced 'only' a third normal success. Even with a good fitness check roll, Bayushi Tomi couldn't push the result below 'swift death')
• That left Uiri and Hisako, which was resolved 'fully
• Both had the same focus and got the same base initiative - Hisako rolled better but I let Uiri's bonus from the Tea Ceremony apply, so their effective roll was the same)
• Hisako got a crossing cut in first, burning a couple of points of strife on the staredown, putting Uiri on just over half Fatigue, but took a lot of strife in the process.
• Once again, the angry Shujengas temper was his downfall - Uiri's fire stance Iai couldn't hit the TN3 of the air stance shujenga, but it did yield an opportunity which put him on his composure.
• The following round, with neither side using strife in the staredown, Uiri went first (PC>NPC) but more importantly got a finishing blow as both parties took 2 strife. The blow caused severely wounded and bleeding but wasn't fatal. He switched to air stance and used his wakizashi for a second Iai strike (and having a 'spare' blade for parrying and Way of the Dragon), and landed a put the two samurai level for fatigue. Hisako switched to Water stance and took another small chunk of fatigue off Uiri.
• In the third round, Uiri became compromised and Hisako in turn took a finishing blow swing, which connected, but - thanks to Way of the Dragon and being unable to keep strife results Hisako had no bonus successes, whilst Uiri rolled well on his fitness check and drew on both a void point and his bond with Goriate ("I am not letting myself get killed in front of him because he'd have a shrine built specifically to mock me in....") to gain skilled 'assistance' and reduce the injury to a severely wounded fire ring. Switching to Water stance like his opponent, Uiri 'unmasked' with a torrent of angy Ujik swearwords (which will cost him a chunk of glory for the public setting) and managed to land another solid strike on Hisako, finally incapacitating him (albeit nearly incapacitating himself at the same time with blood loss).
• Since Hisako couldn't un-incapacitate himself before Uiri's next strike, we resolved it there, with Uiri finishing off his opponent, to a general sigh of relief and some subsequent medical assistance from Horonigai to staunch the bleeding.
• The denouement was a bit anticlimactic: Bayushi Tomoharu was surprised to see Bayushi Tomi brought down, but stuck to the terms of the agreement - which he had agreed to publically. He apologised to Usagi Tomoe and her father for any 'undue strife or miscommunication' resulting from 'his manner of seeking justice', whilst Oda was sensibly prepares to avoid using words like 'army' or 'invasion' as long as the Scorpion troops buggered off home....
• As @Myrion suggested, it was in many ways the best possible outcome. Tomoharu won his duel, and with the Scorpion daimyo personally - and pretty brutally - dismembering the person declared guilty of killing one of his vassals, no-one could really question his integrity, but with Tomoe/Riku winning on behalf of the Hare, clearly the Usagi family themselves were blameless.
• Seiki's remains were cremated outside the Usagi family Shrine.
• A day later, as the column of Scorpion infantry we need it's way north, Takeshi's scouts returned - without Usagi Ozaki. Muhunomu's camp was raided and the ogre leader slain, and the survivors were already squabbling amongst themselves as the Hare veterans scarpered. Afterwards, however, Usagi Ozaki declared he was intending to take up an offer by his father to undertake a musha shugyo. This surprised the Usagi samurai, but Oda had previously offered a warrior pilgrimage to his son - the Hare Champion had done the same in his own youth. A personal letter to Tomoe confirmed the now-ronin Ozaki was going to try and find Matsu Akira and 'get answers' (something he couldn't do as Usagi Ozaki without confessing what had happened) - but with no idea what had occurred in his absence!
• Finally, a lone rider approached the castle. A single Scorpion clan samurai was approaching - but her red armour was trimmed with jade green and her sashimono displayed a Shosuro family mon. It was, inevitably Shosuro Rei.
• " Well ," the Emerald Magistrate said, dismounting, " that didn't exactly go as originally planned. So, cousin ," she turned to Suiren, " did they get a copy of the scroll ?"

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• In the third round, Uiri became compromised and Hisako in turn took a finishing blow swing, which connected, but - thanks to Way of the Dragon and being unable to keep strife results Hisako had no bonus successes, whilst Uiri rolled well on his fitness check and drew on both a void point and his bond with Goriate ("I am not letting myself get killed in front of him because he'd have a shrine built specifically to mock me in....") to gain skilled 'assistance' and reduce the injury to a severely wounded fire ring. Switching to Water stance like his opponent, Uiri 'unmasked' with a torrent of angy Ujik swearwords (which will cost him a chunk of glory for the public setting) and managed to land another solid strike on Hisako, finally incapacitating him (albeit nearly incapacitating himself at the same time with blood loss).

Just a quick mention that unmasking also triggers finishing blows, so I think maybe Uiri should have been hit but Hisako would probably miss anyway, due to being compromised already.