• So....people who've read Path of Waves may be aware of the Kami of the Hot Spring.
  • Essentially the Twin Blessings Village hot spring is what it is because a lesser kami has taken up residence there. The spring does have healing properties, and removes all the strife of someone who bathes there, thanks to the kami's power. It's an interesting beastie - mostly, though not quite entirely, a water kami, and whilst not as powerful as a classic manifest kami, still stronger than the 'tiny kami'.
  • The villagers don't really know this - they revere the spirit of the spring (hence the shrine) but do so out of tradition. No-one in the village can commune with the kami (Daizo the priest is, after all, just a peasant) and no shujenga has visited the small open-air onsen for a generation or more.
  • The kami is, however, at heart, a water kami. Like most of its kind, it's a bit mercurial in nature and easily offended. The small sake bottles - as some of you might have guessed - were intended as offerings to the kami. Ichiro didn't actually tell them this - either assuming without thinking they would "just know" like everyone in the village, or else if he did think about it privately deciding that that they should . He doesn't like samurai much, after all.
  • As it happens, Goriate arrived at the Kami's hot spring drinking up the last of the 'Kami's' sake and then (since the hot spring is only big enough for one person at a time) proceeded to enter it to bathe without offering anything else.
  • Let's describe the following scene as featuring ' serious and deeply personal scalding ' and draw a veil over it there without needing to go into the details. Suffice to say that the Kami is a credible opponent to a samurai at the best of times and all the more so when it has surprise on its side and its victim of choice has neither weapon nor armour on their person, for pretty obvious reasons.
  • Mistakes were recognised, other offerings were made, and a discreet request for a burn salve was sent to Otoha at the waystation...

17 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• Let's describe the following scene as featuring ' serious and deeply personal scalding ' and draw a veil over it there without needing to go into the details.

Boiled Crab Sausage on the menu? Probably could have seen that coming. Where the **** is the Kaito Shrine Keeper when you need her?

11 hours ago, neilcell said:

Where the **** is the Kaito Shrine Keeper when you need her?

At the shrine - but unfortunately the other one (to the village founder, trying to spare Daizo from Michi's sarcastic needling). And totally not laughing her backside off out-of-character when this was described to her, obviously.

That would be discourteous.

(In reality, away at the time, and drawing a degree of satisfaction from watching the other three try to ineptly deal with the supernatural without being able to turn to her and say " whommy stuff is your department ")

Watching Suiren and Uiri try to find an offering and placate the Kami when between them they have a grand total of no theology ranks whatsoever was also rather amusing for me. Obviously less so for Goriate, who had to keep fending the Kami off until they passed.

• The PCs ultimately settled in to the empty house for the night: it had been quickly swept out and a quartet of clean tatami mats laid down.
• There was no fire set - Setsuo apologised that the hearth was damp from lack of use, and that wasn't something that the villagers could rectify in the couple of hours they'd known the building was going to be needed.
• The PCs were fine with this - it was by now a warm mid spring in southern Rokugan, so a fire wasn't needed for warmth and they had already eaten so didn't need to cook, either.
• They slept well to begin with, but in the middle of the night were woken by a disturbing bony tapping coming from the darkness in the corner of the house.
• Suiren went to investigate and found some cuts in the floor and some pieces of rope brushed to the wall with the dust before the door on the opposite wall slammed closed, plunging the house into darkness.
• By faint moonlight through the doorframe, the three PCs saw an insubstantial figure with long, lank hair obscuring it's face. It raised a hand and screamed at them.
• Uiri responded by demanding to know who the figure was, at which point it flickered out of view, appeared behind him, and lunged for his back - the Dragon fortunately twisting out of the way of the spectral hand.
• Goriate (with Horonigai's assistance) passed a theology check to realise what they were dealing with - an onryu; an unquiet ghost that had died in pain and wanted justice, or at least revenge.
• Suiren tried to light a fire in the hearth - it was damp, so it wouldn't take, but some kindling might last long enough to let them see what was going on. He failed (because the cultured scorpion has no ranks of survival) but was able to find flint and tinder in his travelling pack in the dark, which would assist Goriate, who indicated he'd take over the task.
• Uiri, hearing Goriate's description of the ghost, decided to grab the fragments of rope and throw them into the fire once it caught.
• Suiren (with Horonigai's assistance) tried to search the room for any more clues to what the ghost wanted or what it was bound to.
• Goriate managed to get the fire to catch - temporarily removing the Obscuring terrain inside the house.
• The Onryu rewarded him with four raking cuts across his cheek and the Afflicted condition. Many bad words were uttered.
• Uiri threw the fragments of rope into the fire....to no particular effect.
• Surien decided to try simply attacking the ghost. He voluntarily failed the strike action, though, since he would have done no damage, instead choosing to assist Goriate. The Onryu tried to strike him in response, but he evaded it relatively easily.
• Goriate had switched to water stance to get a free prepare action and proceeded to commence a traditional crab exorcism ceremony*. He was hampered by his Fear of Corruption anxiety given his new Afflicted state compromising him, but with assistance from the other three PCs (Suiren via opportunity from the failed check, Horonigai by an assist action and Uiri via You Taught Me This ), he was able to push the Onryu over half fatigue, at which point it disengaged and vanished.

• The following morning, the PCs packed round to Setsuo's house rather urgently to demand to know what was going on.
• Setsuo (who was shocked at the sight of the Hida samurai's injury) was at a loss to explain. The former Doshin - the previous resident of the house - had retired due to illness and moved in with her sister who was caring for her. There had never been violence, let alone violent death, in the house.
• Daizo and Michi also arrived at this point, drawn by the activity.
• When the PCs explained, Daizo suggested that regardless of the ghosts origin, the best plan was a purifying ceremony. He, Horonigai and Michi between them should be able to set the spirit to rest. Since the spirit was violent and seemed powerful, though, Michi suggested having one of the bushi stand guard whilst they did so would be a " welcome precaution ".
• Goriate, who'd already lost one point of endurance to Afflicted and wasn't letting the three characters in the vicinity who could remove the condition out of his sight, volunteered.
• Suiren and Uiri meanwhile headed to interview the former Doshin.

* i.e. " repeatedly thwack the offending spiritual entity very hard with a tetsubo until is stops twitching"

• At the former Doshin's house, the purification ceremony began.
• Things went well enough before there was a sudden gloom from unexpected dark clouds, and, as if on cue, the Onryu rematerialised, lunging for the priest, Daizo.
• Daizo was injured, and Michi turned to help him. Horonigai took over the ceremony, whilst Goriate swung his tetsubo - the club passed through the spirit as he swung back and forth, but it did appear to be affecting it. A bit.
• The Hida's wild swings were doing the fabric of the building no good at all, though.
• Michi joined him, taking up a loose fighting stance, at which point all the loose dust and gravel in the corners and floorboards flowed up into the air and compacted into rock knuckle-dusters.
• " Oh. One if that sort of monks " - Goriate has had only one experience of Kiho to date , but is under no illusions as to their capability after nearly becoming the first Rokugani in space. He shifted position so that he and Michi could fight the ghost without getting in each other's way.
• Between the two if them, the Onryu was forced to flee again, and the purification ceremony removed Afflicted from Goriate and Daizo (much to Goriate's relief).

• Uiri and Suiren were meanwhile talking to Miyoko, the former Doshin. Well - they were talking, and she was trying to talk between epic bouts of consumptive coughing. Otoha's medicine clearly wasn't working.
• She was staying at her sister's house and was clearly bed-ridden. She didn't know of any violence that had occurred in the house. When asked about the last crime she'd investigated, she said it was a theft of rice, which had led to the thief (a peasant called Jimba) fleeing the village.
• Uiri also spoke to Nayaka, the sister. She was, naturally, concerned about her sister. When asked about Jimba, she expressed surprise - he was a friend of hers and a close friend of her husband's, and news of the theft and his fleeing town was shocking.
• " He's dead, isn't he?" "Probably, yup." - Uiri and Goriate's players.

• The PCs met up again at Setsuo's home - each of them seeing evidence of the Onryu's curse as they walked through the village.
• They compared notes, but as they did so, they were interrupted by an angry mob led by Banji, Nayaka's husband, who was accusing them of disturbing the spirits which nearly killed Daizo and being responsible for bringing the curse which was consuming the village.
• Faced with an angry mob, though, we saw one of the first obvious differences in playing Sins of Regret adventure elements with non-ronin.
• Uiri and Goriate both have high command skill and Voice of Authority from their completed Emerald Magistrate titles, allowing them to affect over a dozen targets simultaneously. With a combination of that and You Taught Me This , Banji's wanabee lynch mob evaporated, muttering that the farmer hadn't told them the 'strangers' were magistrates...
• Banji nevertheless attacked - wielding a kama - a small crop scythe - with a murderous madness in his eyes. To his credit, the peasants did manage to land a successful strike action against Uiri, despite Way of the Dragon. Then the Dragon and Crab samurai smartly pummeled him unconscious.
• With Banji subdued, things came out fairly quickly. Miyoko had arrested Jimba on Banji's say-so, tying him up in her house - and then had told people he'd 'fled' based on her Brother-in-law's testimony. He was, of course, lying. He'd framed Jimba for the theft in the first place and then killed him in the night, dumping the body in the river. He'd suspected Jimba of seeing his wife behind his back, and used his sister-in-law as his unwitting accomplice...

• Banji was subsequently executed by Uiri, whilst Miyoko was pardoned at Setsuo's request (she didn't know what happened, however much she might have suspected, and the Onryu had been punishing her for weeks). Everyone in the village was suitably impressed with the PCs, and they headed on toward Hirosaka with a degree of optimism.

• Postscript: after the session, spending up XP, Uiri's player was told he - now a rank 3 Mirumoto - was encouraged to buy the ritual Commune with the Spirits .
• " No, thank you. I've had quite enough of that for now and frankly would rather they stop communing with me ...."

• So...The PCs have finally reached Hirosaka, their new 'home base'.
• Entry into the town was a pleasantly easy process- it's an Imperial holding, and they're Emerald magistrates with papers saying they're taking up residence here. The guards at the gate were a mix of professional-looking ronin and full Seppun bushi but even the Seppun weren't anything like the Miharu palace guard they were used to at the capital and were clearly concerned about the consequences of irritating the town's new magistrates...
• Passing through the north-east gate, they found the nearest inn and stopped for food and a chance to pick up some local gossip. They knew they were to report to Seppun Ishima, the incumbent magistrate, but they needed someone to show them the way to the magistrate's station regardless so figured they might as well eat at the same time.
• The inn proved to be mostly a merchant inn, serving the adjacent market - which meant there were few samurai customers but did mean it had good, fresh food that was welcome after the long ride from Twin Blessings Village and was cleaner than one catering to poorer heimin might have been.
• Whilst the magistrates ate, Suiren circulated and tried to get a lowdown on important local names.
• Seppun Sora, the daimyo and their new Lord, was an important imperial official...but one who had supposedly come down in the world. Hirosaka was locally important - a 'neutral' imperial holding in the middle of the Falcon, Fox, Hare and Sparrow territories made it a hub for trade and politics involving ronin and minor clans in the south, but it was a far cry from the capital.
• Otomo Kazuda, his combination Chancellor, Chamberlain and Lord-High-Everything-Else, was an ambitious woman who ran most non-ceremonial government functions on a day to day basis, and was big on trading favours.
• Seppun Ishima was her legal counterpart - the magistrate, now presumably 'chief' magistrate given their arrival - was " brusque, unpleasant and impossible to work with ". The PCs were concerned by this, given that she was their new boss, until Suiren pointed out that he'd been speaking to the richer merchants and what that actually meant was that Ishima tried to universally enforce the trading laws and duties as written, regardless of someone's wealth and influence, and seemed shockingly uninterested in discussing a perfectly reasonable bribe...
• Refreshed - and reassured - the PCs made their way to the magistrate's station. Their first sight of Seppun Ishima was of her physically dragging a protesting heimin merchant across the 'white sands of punishment' - the open square in front of the courthouse - and all but bodily throwing him at a particularly sharply dressed ronin Yoriki with orders to put him in the cells overnight and see him beaten before he was released in the morning, giving him " one lash for every counterfeit bu you find in his money pouch ". The merchant's whimpering as the Yoriki- presumably Hatsue, the former Miharu guard - led him off into the courthouse suggested that number would be 'quite a few'.
• " Did we come at a bad time?" - Goriate's player.
• Seppun Ishima then turned her attention - and irritation - on the magistrates. The introductions were courteous but swiftly boiled down to " why the **** are you here? " - Ishima had wanted a few spare pairs of hands, but that was why she'd been sent Hatsue, who was an efficient subordinate, and been given an increased stipend from Sora to hire some additional doshin. Three new magistrates represented a blatantly obvious degree of legal overkill for a rural town - her record, she said, spoke for itself so she hoped the Ruby Champion wasn't questioning her competence, and the PCs weren't rookies needing an initial placement but reasonably famous magistrates themselves.
• The PCs decided on a policy of honesty-with-omissions. They told her that they were investigating a criminal named 'Tamiko' in relation to investigation elsewhere in Rokugan. No mention was made of the Kolat, coded scrolls, or any other related matters. It was also hinted there had been some political unpleasantness and they'd been quickly shuffled out of the capital (Which was true).
• Ishima was...not precisely dismissive but exasperated. 'Tamiko' was at best a rumour, and she had never been able to nail down even if the name represented one person or several. If the PCs wanted to chase local stories, they could do so on their own time. She would still expect them to fulfil the duties she assigned them - probably dealing with surrounding villages, since their magistrate status would give them the authority to manage local village leaders and fish in without them having to distract her from the town's problems.
• Ishima apologised that the PCs would need to sort out their own accommodation - she had a guest house attached to the magistrate's station, but it and it's counterpart in the governor's mansion were both full - the new daimyo of Closed Shell Castle, Reju Jikai, along with his family and retainers, were in town to swear fealty to Seppun Sora. This also meant they wouldn't be able to get time with Sora to do the same themselves - Ishima was an emerald magistrate like them, but she (and now they) were also Seppun Sora's vassals - which is where they derived the 'local' authority to act as city authorities in the way a clan magistrate would do if Hirosaka hadn't been an Imperial holding.
• She gave them a quick outline of the problems in the town as she saw them - the main one, to her, being the number of ronin in the town. She made no secret of the fact that she saw all ronin - regardless of what origin story they claimed - as trouble waiting to happen. This wasn't particularly diplomatic, as Hatsue (a ronin herself) had returned, talking to a concerned-looking peasant.
• It turned out that he represented 'Three-Scar'- a former ashigaru who ran Dwindling Fortunes (a gambling den that Ishima clearly had a low opinion of). A brawl was kicking off, and for whatever reason Three-Scar's security wasn't able to handle it.
• Sighing, Ishima sent Hatsue to deal with it and - " since you might as well see what we have to deal with ", asked Horonigai, Uiri and Goriate to help her...

• En route to Dwindling Fortunes, Hatsue gave the magistrates a quick run down on the various factions in Hirosaka.
• The four local minor clans kept ambassadors in the town, as did several great clans. The Crab, Scorpion and Crane were close enough that they simply sent senior courtiers to the town as needed, and the Lion Clan's post was currently vacant, but the Unicorn, Dragon and Phoenix maintained local representatives.
• There were a large number of ronin in the town - many waiting for a twenty-goblin winter to head south into Crab lands, others looking for work because potential patrons will naturally go to a large cluster of ronin. Many were individuals, but there were three sizeable otokodate that called the town home.
• 'East Wind' was the most respected, and Joshu, the unit's commander, acted as a sort of informal spokesman for ronin in the town - she was even invited to Sora's court (albeit largely to be criticised for the actions of local ronin over whom she had little or no authority). A former unicorn, like most of her otokodate, East Wind formed something rare in southern Rokugan - a well trained cavalry unit.
• 'Serpents Teeth' was....more a 'franchise' than anything. Anyone skilled with a naginata could join and the group cared little who its members swore service to.
• 'Seven Waves' was the one that was most likely to cause trouble for the PCs - not because they were troublemakers themselves (they weren't) but because otokodate members swore never to fight each other. That meant that whilst they had many independent seven-strong units, they'd only ever provide fighters to one side in a conflict, and they'd yet to pick a side in the Lion/Crane 'border dispute' that the great clan's Hare and Fox proxies kept trying to hire ronin for, under the paper-thin justification of Yojimbo and caravan guards, all of whose patrons would coincidentally be passing through or heading to the Osari Plains....
• Supposedly the Usagi and Kitsune had kicked the problem of Seven Waves' instragence back up to their larger allies, and the smart money was on some serious full-contact diplomacy once the Crane and Lion representatives arrived.

On 9/20/2020 at 6:44 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

• Hirosaka was locally important - a 'neutral' imperial holding in the middle of the Falcon, Fox, Hare and Sparrow territories

I really don’t understand this map. Or did FFG moved the Hare and Falcon around?

Because I remember the Sparrow being between the Crab and Crane territory (south east away from the coast), the Fox being in a small forest between Scorpion and Crane territory but far away from the Sparrow and the Falcon and the Hare being actually close to each other but on the outskirts of the Shinomen Forest and to the west of the Crab territory (with the Falcon located at the south tip of the forest and the Hare at the southeast of it).

"In the middle of" =/= bordering all of them, but yes, they have moved a bit. Everyone but Falcon is on the golden river, to the east of the Shinomen. As you go north, Sparrow, then Fox, then finally Hare.

Well, and needs of the Game Moderator/Dungeon Master means that some things may be moved around for the sake of the narrative. Would not surprise me that Hirosaka's exact location in Magnus Grendel's game does not match up with either AEG nor FFG's location.

Hirosaka has definitely been moved - it's listed location in Path of Waves is just upriver of Otosan Uchi.

Thanks for the clarifications. And yes, I totally understand the whole “Rokugan your way” and all and hence my question about where exactly it was located, trying to figure out where everything is.

4 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Hirosaka has definitely been moved - it's listed location in Path of Waves is just upriver of Otosan Uchi.

Yeah, for some reason, I figured that was simply a suggestion in Path of Waves. For some reason, I figured a Ronin HQ city like Hirosaka was further away from the city for practical reasons, namely to maintain a certain distance from the throne. Yes it is an Imperial holding, but the distance being a moderating factor as to strong the top-down authority and micro-managing.

Much like you, Grendel, I figured it was close to Scorpion areas, but further north and west as opposed to south as you placed it. My initial speculation was somewhere between Castle of Organization and Gatherer of Wind Castle (near Iuchi/Plum Blossom Pass or Seikitsu/Shinomen Pass in AEG canon). The idea being that when Beiden Pass becomes contested, that alternate route becomes something of a wildcard, but one which the Imperials and Ronin hold the keys.

• On arrival at 'Dwindling Fortunes' - a disreputable looking place if ever there was one - it became clear the brawl had already kicked off.
• A group of six ronin were very drunk, and very angry. A heavily mutilated heimin - presumably 'Three-Scar' - was trying to talk them down, saying that they lost fairly and squarely because they were too drunk to play with any skill....which was likely true, but was making things worse. A single ronin wearing a ribbon around his arm matching the gambling house's colours was pinned to a pillar being pummelled by two of the ronin, whilst the remaining drunkards yelled at the heimin staff to return their money, smashing furniture aside.
• Hatsue yelled at the drunkards to stand down, to no appreciable effect other than alerting them to her presence. Sighing, she drew her sword - still inside an iron sheath, making it a satisfyingly effective nightstick - and waded into the crowd, easily dominating two of the six ronin.
  • Uiri grabbed two pieces of broken chair and followed her, facing off against two more of the novice ronin by virtue of Way of the Dragon and Chaotic Scattering - kicking over a table and sending a spray of dice and gambling chips into the faces of his assailants.
  • Goriate, never one to be outdone in the application of brute force, eyed up the table as Uiri moved on, and squared up to the last two. Thanks to the Improvised Assault kata, he was able to use it as an impromptu tetsubo, and rolled enough opportunities to strike with it immediately - one novice ronin exiting the premises immediately without making use of the doorway, or indeed the floor.
  • Uiri struck out again, knocking down the first of his two opponents, but taking a little fatigue defending against a wildly swinging broken sake bottle.
  • Goriate flattened his second opponent with a sweep of the table.
  • Uiri knocked his second foe back, dropping one chair leg. Goriate failed his strike action to finish him off, but assisted the Dragon, knocking the ronin straight into the path of Uiri's double-handed sweep of his remaining chair leg. The ronin hit the floor unconscious with a satisfying thud.
• If 'Three-Scar' was annoyed at the damage Uiri and Goriate had inflicted on his establishment, he was smart enough to keep it to himself; they had, after all, stopped him being robbed and potentially his staff killed. Hatsue berated him for having only one of his three guards on duty - " It should have been sufficient in the middle of the day, but those idiots came in off the road with a fresh bag of gold, a thirst for sake to wash off the dust, and very little idea how to win at fortune and winds ."
  • Apparently a merchant had hired the lot of them for double fees to escort a small caravan to the town in time for Reju Jikai's investiture. There were rumours of dangerous highwaymen lurking near the town, so even the less competent ronin could make a killing at the moment.
• Ultimately, it was a simple, satisfying bar brawl. It also underlined how far the PCs had come in a year since Tsuma, since, back to back with You Taught Me This , they went through two opponents each like they were nothing.

• Back at the magistrate's station, the PCs were waiting for the next problem. It didn't take long to arrive. This time it was a personal one - the Seppun official in charge of the Bureau of Properties, when asked about a town-house that could be leased to the magistrates, responded with the dreaded phrase " Please try tomorrow ", suggesting very politely that they were checking the records to see what might be made available, and that the PCs would need to spend at least one more night in an inn.
  • This...wasn't too bad on the face of it. The inns were clean, comfortable, and had a pleasant lack of en-suite maho shikigami or shinobi assassins, but (thanks to a Government check after they left), the PCs were suspicious.
  • Hirosaka was a town of maybe five thousand people. There weren't that many homes suitable for half-a-dozen samurai in the first place, and a competent supervisor should have been able to say which, if any, were vacant more or less of the top of his head. There shouldn't have been a need to check any more detailed records than could be found on the official's own desk.
  • Someone had clearly decided to make trouble for them. It didn't make sense for it to be the Bureau of Properties themselves, who'd just met them for the first time. Sora or Ishikama wouldn't need to stoop to petty annoyances when they could do pretty much anything up to and including ordering the PC's seppuku, and they didn't know anyone else in the town - certainly not anyone with the influence to persuade a Seppun official to risk irritating the new town magistrates.
    • Cue Shosuro Suiren doing what he does best. Talking to some of the Seppun's clerks and attendants, the Scorpion's investigations determined that the PCs had been unofficially 'blacklisted' as a favour to someone in Seppun Sora's court - who were, of course, all closeted in the Governor's mansion for the rest of the day, fussing over the new daimyo of Closed Shell Castle.
    • "But we don't know anyone there either!"
    • "Well...about that."
    • "What?"
    • "Seppun Sora-sama is an important Imperial Daimyo, but you know he wasn't at Winter Court. When you were working for the Miya, you pretty much met the entire Imperial delegation."
    • "...And?"
    • "That's because he holds his own Winter Court. Mostly minor clans and southern clan samurai, but it's pretty significant, even if it's not the same scale as the Winter Court. Quite a few clans sent samurai who didn't get on the list for Kyuden Doji here ."
    • "....So why...would...oh... oh no ."
    • "Oh yes. The current Dragon Clan Ambassador, and senior great clan representative to the court of Seppun Sora-sama, daimyo of Hirosaka, is Mirumoto Kazuya-sama. Your aunt ."

15 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• Hatsue yelled at the drunkards to stand down, to no appreciable effect other than alerting them to her presence. Sighing, she drew her sword - still inside an iron sheath, making it a satisfyingly effective nightstick - and waded into the crowd, easily dominating two of the six ronin.
  • Uiri grabbed two pieces of broken chair and followed her, facing off against two more of the novice ronin by virtue of Way of the Dragon and Chaotic Scattering - kicking over a table and sending a spray of dice and gambling chips into the faces of his assailants.
  • Goriate, never one to be outdone in the application of brute force, eyed up the table as Uiri moved on, and squared up to the last two. Thanks to the Improvised Assault kata, he was able to use it as an impromptu tetsubo, and rolled enough opportunities to strike with it immediately - one novice ronin exiting the premises immediately without making use of the doorway, or indeed the floor.
  • Uiri struck out again, knocking down the first of his two opponents, but taking a little fatigue defending against a wildly swinging broken sake bottle.
  • Goriate flattened his second opponent with a sweep of the table.
  • Uiri knocked his second foe back, dropping one chair leg. Goriate failed his strike action to finish him off, but assisted the Dragon, knocking the ronin straight into the path of Uiri's double-handed sweep of his remaining chair leg. The ronin hit the floor unconscious with a satisfying thud.
• If 'Three-Scar' was annoyed at the damage Uiri and Goriate had inflicted on his establishment, he was smart enough to keep it to himself; they had, after all, stopped him being robbed and potentially his staff killed. Hatsue berated him for having only one of his three guards on duty - " It should have been sufficient in the middle of the day, but those idiots came in off the road with a fresh bag of gold, a thirst for sake to wash off the dust, and very little idea how to win at fortune and winds ."
  • Apparently a merchant had hired the lot of them for double fees to escort a small caravan to the town in time for Reju Jikai's investiture. There were rumours of dangerous highwaymen lurking near the town, so even the less competent ronin could make a killing at the moment.
• Ultimately, it was a simple, satisfying bar brawl. It also underlined how far the PCs had come in a year since Tsuma, since, back to back with You Taught Me This , they went through two opponents each like they were nothing.

More and more Uiri and Goriate's relationship is looking more and more like a classic trope: Heterosexual Life-Partners. I love how the two players have very much capitalized on the bond mechanics. Hopefully that can translate into humorous narrative situations.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeterosexualLifePartners

7 minutes ago, neilcell said:

Hopefully that can translate into humorous narrative situations.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeterosexualLifePartners

Well, I am hoping something like J.D and Turk from Scrubs...

• So...faced with the great news that Mirumoto Uiri's aunt is in a position of influence in Seppun Sora's court, the PCs took the obvious course of action: they went to an inn.
• Obviously this was primarily to arrange rooms for their first night in Hirosaka. The presence of copious amounts of gyoza and sake was merely a happy coincidence.
• The PCs started listing out their options. Goriate's suggestion of " Uiri, sort your family out " was not well received and Horonigai made it quite clear she was not facing the Dragon in a duel again .
• Leasing somewhere privately, or just staying indefinitely in an inn, was certainly possible. But Seppun Ishima wouldn't be too impressed if her newest subordinates spent every evening in a drinking house, and, all samurai financial ethics aside, sooner or later someone would want someone else to pay. This was a problem as they were relatively short on funds - the lion's share having been given to Hatsuko by Suiren to purchase Ikue's contract. This was a good idea to defuse Bayushi Mei Lin's attempt at scandal-mongering aimed at Goriate (and hence Riku by proxy), but regardless of this, sending an urgent letter to the Ruby Champion saying " We spent most of the money you gave us on a geisha, please can we have some more " was sensibly dismissed as a non-starter!
• Seppun Ishima might or might not have enough influence to make the Bureau of Properties pull it's collective finger out, but relying on their boss on day one would give a pretty poor impression when they were supposed to be experienced magistrates who'd survived the political maelstrom of Imperial Winter Court.
• Anyone else who could overrule the Bureau would likely be one of Sora's court, but a request to Sora's court would inevitably be seen by Kazuya and derailed if possible. Given that she was of higher status and all the court were attending Jikai's celebration, that wouldn't be too hard.
• Then Uiri realised they did have access to a senior member of the court via an alternate route. Otomo Kazuda was Chancellor - a court official - but also Chamberlain - a household official - meaning a request to speak sent via the household attendants wouldn't be obvious to Mirumoto Kazuya, who despite her seniority wasn't part of Sora's family.
• Kazuda proved very approachable, and when matters were explained was happy to ensure a decent property in the samurai quarter was assigned to them. Understanding there was some 'family tensions' at play, she even suggested assigning the house in the name of Kakita Riku - the new Kakita sword instructor assigned to Sora's household, expected to arrive within the week - which should serve to avoid the Dragon ambassador figuring out what they'd done for a few days.
• This was a pretty good outcome, and all it cost them in the end was owing the Otomo Chancellor an ill-defined favour at some future date. (What could possibly go wrong?)

16 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• This was a pretty good outcome, and all it cost them in the end was owing the Otomo Chancellor an ill-defined favour at some future date. (What could possibly go wrong?)

After all this is just slightly better than owe the Scorpions a favor...

• We resolved Suiren's activities from the previous day (whilst the Magistrates were busy rearranging the furniture in Dwindling Fortunes).
  • He didn't need to present himself to Seppun Ishima, but instead he did need to find work for himself and a place for Ikue.
  • the latter was easy enough to find - he was able to locate a successful okiya whose okasan was interested in taking Ikue on.
    • The okasan was actually the senior geisha, a very attractive woman by the name of Chinoka. She had relocated to Hirosaka from Red Horn Village the previous year, buying the okiya from its previous owner.*
    • Chinoka was as charming as you'd expect a successful geisha to be, but once the conversation turned to business the 'party face' vanished and she became very pragmatic
    • Yes, she was interested in an Otosan Uchi trained maiko. Who wouldn't be? By Hirosaka's more relaxed standards, she was probably ready to register as a full geisha straight away. Suiren's insistence on keeping her off the books - at least off any books which might make their way to the capital - suggested there was trouble following her, though, which triggered a predictable ' what's in it for me ?' reflex.
    • Suiren....didn't have a huge amount to offer. He was famously wealthy, but he didn't want to involve the Shosuro family until they'd had time to cool off. Fortunately, Chinoka had a suggestion of her own - since he was Ikue's patron, it would seem appropriate for him to visit regularly (which wouldn't be cheap but would be affordable) in order to see her but also to share some tea and conversation with Chinoka herself. She was aware he was a close friend of the three new magistrates who'd been assigned to the town. It was always worth keeping informed about potential trouble on the horizon, and having a friendly ear amongst friends of the influential never hurt, especially when she lacked the status her customers - and indeed even most passing commoners - enjoyed.
      • Suiren, happy to be asked for something he saw as broadly 'free', agreed.
      • He and Chinoka debated a bit longer, but he did well at his courtesy check, and it was eventually agreed that Ikue would be entered into Chinoka's books - but only the local versions! - as a full geisha, registered under the name 'Sakura'.
  • He also made some inquiries about the theatre scene in Hirosaka. Whilst the various inns and richer families often hosted performances, there was only really one theatre which could be considered 'famous' in the same league as the Poisoned Lilly. The Warai Puppet Troupe was famous locally and even had devotees of the art from Otosan Uchi attending what was supposed to be one of the finest puppet theatre troupes in the Empire.
  • ....Bunraku puppetry was certainly not a branch of the theatre he had any experience in - which was why he'd never heard of the troupe before - but surely a competent writer and especially a skilled voice actor could find a temporary place there? The owner was a Crane samurai called Kakita Seichii, and Suiren resolved to speak with him as soon as he could.
• The following day, the PCs returned to the Magistrate's station.
• Hatsue was already there on the 'white sands' when they arrived, delivering a beating to the drunken ronin from the previous day. Apparently Ishima had decided not to demand a fine - on the grounds that ronin almost certainly couldn't pay, and failing to pay a fine levvied for a crime would result in a far worse punishment than for drunken brawling. It took a bit of mental gymnastics for Horonigai to get the idea that a beating with an iron sheath was somehow the 'merciful option', but it wasn't the PCs decision either way.
• Since he's going to be in the vicinity for a while, and is likely - as a PC - to be involved in the Magistrate's activities, it was suggested that assigning Suiren a title as a Retainer might be worthwhile. He was hardly going to be a Yojimbo (he was, after all, an Actor! ) but it made a certain degree of sense to commission him as an Advisor to one of the magistrates. That way he remained not-a-magistrate but Seppun Ishima and her Yoriki and Doshin would know that Suiren was supposed to be allowed into the magistrate's station, etc, if he happened to be on his own.
  • Since it didn't matter who nominally assigned him the title - all three other PCs are Emerald Magistrates and entitled to retainers - Horonigai volunteered, and it was officially recorded by Hatsue.
  • Some time later, Suiren pointed out that Kaito Horonigai having a Shosuro personal advisor would probably exacerbate the rumours floating around after Winter Court that she was secretly working for Bayushi Kachiko.
    • " Gaah! Why didn't you say something beforehand ?"
    • "I wasn't your advisor at the time."
    • "Don't make me hurt you."
  • It was also noted that a group of law enforcement officers have retained a wealthy actor and writer as an advisor. The Castle puns and quotes have started already.
• Now with Suiren 'sworn in', the four of them saw Seppun Ishima. She told them the single most important thing they needed to do was to be presented to Seppun Sora's court. Swearing fealty to the Daimyo of Hirosaka was what gave them their 'local' powers - to act in the role that would normally fall to a clan magistrate - and without those, Ishima had limited use for them.
• Once that was complete, she wanted them to look into a death - the body of a ronin, identified by the name Yoshi, had been found in the riverport district. Unsanctioned duels between ronin weren't exactly uncommon, and deaths weren't unheard of as a result, but apparently Yoshi had been forcibly strangled, which sounded far more like murder. Their instructions were to investigate and find out for certain.
• Also - since they'd be dealing with ronin - she passed on a part warning, part order. Apparently a ronin had declared a one-man-war against the opium trade up and down the golden river. There was no reason to expect his presence in Hirosaka, but he'd upset some very powerful people and had the death of at least one Lion Clan samurai to answer for. There was no name, yet , just a description of "young, thin, short dark hair, one eye lost and covered by a patch, very quick on his feet and extremely well trained with a sword" - anyone matching the description was to be detained for questioning.

*If you think you recognise her, then Yes. You do, and She is.

• The PCs then changed into their formal best and headed to the governor's mansion to be presented to Seppun Sora and his court.
• The event went well enough thanks to Horonigai's performance skill (I guess after being presented to the Imperial dais at Winter Court, some random provincial Daimyo, however exalted, is a lot less scary). Both she and Uiri could pretty much feel the daggers from Mirumoto Kazuya's glare the whole time.
• After the formalities, they had a little time to speak to members of Seppun Sora's court, and decided to keep Kazuya at arms length by politely ignoring the great clan ambassadors.
• Horonigai spoke to Joshu - the speaker-for-ronin and commander of the East Wind otokodate. Joshu came across as an honourable and competent but somewhat forlorn figure, who had the kind of presence Horonigai associated with the various senior clan commanders she'd met. When she spoke to Uiri (who knew the Unicorn pretty well from his childhood), he was able to confirm that - aside from the excised and painted-over clan heraldry - she was wearing the ceremonial armour of an Utaku Shiotome officer, Horonigai decided she could well believe it - though how someone like that ended up ronin was a puzzling question.
• Uiri spoke to the Fox representative. The Kitsune courtier was a cheerful and friendly young woman who was fully aware the clan's justifications for hiring ronin for the crane were fooling no-one whatsoever. She was determined to stick to the script, even if she was laughing at herself as she did so, and had taken, much to the court's amusement, to devising increasingly ridiculous missions to despatch ronin to the Osari Plains - the latest being hiring six Serpent' s Teeth veterans to guard a single ink block being couriered from Hirosaka to Daidoji Uji, as " it's a very nice shade of blue and Uji-dono takes his calligraphy seriously... "
• The Hare representative either took himself more seriously or lacked the confidence to make jokes at his own expense. Thanks to Goriate's Hero of Shiro Usagi fame advantage, the Usagi samurai was very open and welcoming, and may prove a useful ally.
• The main thing Goriate learned was the bad news that the Hare was the representative of " Usagi Takeshi-ue, the acting champion ". Usagi Oda had sadly passed away during the winter (so far as anyone knew, from ' being an elderly man in wintertime ' rather than anything sinister). With Ozaki on an extended Musha Shugyo and technically not currently an Usagi, and Tomoe married into a different family, Takeshi held the title until Ozaki returned.
• " Married to who? "
• The Hare flagged down a passing attendant for some strong Shochu.
• Apparently, as part of the diplomatic dealings after the siege, the Scorpion Clan (rumour said Shoju himself) had suggested a betrothal to underwrite the treaty: Usagi Tomoe and Bayushi Tomoharu!
• The courtship had - given Tomoe had both a shujenga's gifts and the Usagi family temper - been extremely cautious, but both parties had, to their surprise, found one another far more tolerable than expected. Both had been quietly impressed when the other risked their lives in a duel rather than sending a subordinate, and Tomoharu had abided by the results of the duels when he could instead have turned Shiro Usagi into a smoking crater. It wasn't exactly a love match, but Usagi Oda had been able to stand by his promise not to marry off Tomoe if she refused a suitor.
• Suiren spoke to the Sparrow representative- largely because the PCs have never encountered the Sparrow clan before and after not checking....assumptions....about the Deer clan had unintended consequences, they don't intend to repeat their mistakes.
• Their courtly duties done, the quartet headed to the riverport quarter to investigate the strangling.

• Questioning one of the Doshin in the riverport, the PCs established that the body had been found by two sailors in the night. The body had been identified provisionally by Joshu of the East Wind otokodate as a ronin called 'Yoshi', and the unfortunate had already been taken by the hinin to be cremated.
  • The PCs decided to split up and search for clues; Horonigai and Suiren would question Joshu and find out more about the deceased, whilst Goriate and Uiri went to find the peasants who actually found the body.
  • Joshu confirmed that she'd been called by one of Seppun Ishima's servants before they'd met her that day. She didn't know much about Yoshi - he wasn't East Wind, or, as far as she knew, a member of any Otokodate - but he was a tall, imposing ronin who formed part of the loose group of unaligned ronin who often ate at the 'Grinning Mujina', a sake house near the riverport that catered to commoners and down-on-their-luck ronin. 'Watchful', the proprietor, was also ronin and probably the most reliable source of information on their history.
  • The sailors were easy enough to find - the doshin had evidently told them not to leave the town and remain in their lodgings. They confirmed that they'd been returning to their homes - somewhat drunk - and taken a shortcut through the back alleyway where they'd found the body. Yoshi had been sprawled on the floor, surrounded by lots of bloodstains, with his sword in hand. The peasants had panicked and basically run screaming to find the nearest doshin. They didn't have a lot of other information to offer
  • The two bushi were thinking about going on to the heimin village and speaking to the undertaker, when Goriate suddenly realised "hang on....we're the city magistrates here. Can't we get them to come to us?"
    • They shanghaied a passing doshin to go ask the undertaker who'd dealt with the body to meet them at the magistrate's station (and to reassure them that they weren't in trouble), and asked to also see any of Yoshi's belongings, and went to join the other two back at base.
• The terrified hinin turned up after the magistrates and their advisor had eaten. Surprisingly, though, he wasn't alone. Instead, he was accompanied by Hinata, the abbot of the Temple of Shinsei, and the religious head of Hirosaka, a genial-looking old man who claimed he'd 'been in the area' and thought he'd tag along to ensure the hinin's wellbeing.
  • The undertaker confirmed that he'd received Yoshi's body, and washed and cremated it that morning. One of the magistrate's doshin had produced a bundle containing the late ronin's swords - good steel blades with a comparatively cheap and shoddy guard and handle, as you might expect from a poor but competent ronin. The swords had also been cleaned but it was confirmed that they'd had a little blood spatter on them, but not in any great quantity as might have been expected if they'd solidly cut flesh.
  • The undertaker also confirmed that the ronin had been strangled, but that he'd also been bitten several times - by something with a bite roughly human sized - in the throat, thigh, and collarbone - each time opening up an artery and causing the massive loss of blood he'd suffered.
  • Goriate looked distinctly green around the gills at this, but waved the other PCs down, saying he'd " explain later ".
• After this, the abbot asked if the hinin was free to go. The PCs were a bit taken aback at the directness of the question, but sent the undertaker on his way. Hinata thanked them, and apologised if he'd seemed rude. Hinin, he said, were naturally terrified around samurai and he'd met plenty of the latter in his life who'd swiftly find something to blame the former for the longer they were in contact.
  • More importantly, he said, he wanted a quiet word with the PCs without unnecessary witnesses. What, he asked them, were they going to do about the other stranglings?
  • " ...... what other stranglings? "

• It turned out Yoshi was not the first death. Or the second, or even the third. Deaths like this had occured, in small numbers, for " at least months and possibly years " but this was the first time a samurai had died so, Hinata said, of course this was the first time the law had noticed and it was being treated like a one-off, but it wasn't. After all, who cares if a peasant sailor gets strangled and robbed in a back alley?
  • The PCs were suddenly a lot more concerned. They asked Hinata if he knew how many deaths there had been, but the abbot responded that he didn't - or at least he wouldn't feel confident, if he gave a number, that it was correct. He suggested Yuuto - a heimin who was an unofficial 'headman' amongst the commoners - would either know or be able to reliably find out.
  • For some reason, the PCs completely forgot to do this.
    • This would cause issues due to their underestimating how long the deaths had been going on excluding a possible suspect.
    • (I'm assuming the revelation of 'vampire strangulation-squid monster' may have distracted them)
• After Hinata left, the PCs turned to Goriate and asked what the issue was. He told them that he'd heard of something very much like this, in one of the assorted psychological trauma sessions bed-time stories his Kuni aunt had told him as a child. He didn't remember much, but he explained an outline of what a pennangalan was; a disembodied head-and-internal organs that strangled people and and drank their blood, whilst hiding inside a 'person suit' in the day.
  • " You don't want me ever to sleep again, do you? " - Horonigai's player.

• The PCs decided they needed to do a bit of research to find out more about the monster they suspected.
  • Suiren would make inquiries around town to try and identify people who'd moved into the area over the last year or so
    • During his circulating round town he also called in at the Warai theatre. Kakita Seiichi was duly impressed by his skill as a voice actor (hardly surprising since he's just come from playing Hantei no Kami on the stage in front of the Emperor himself!) - and Shosuro Suiren was duly impressed by the puppet show (watching a scene from The Sins of Lord Bumikari he'd been asked to voice he freely admitted that he would struggle as a swordsman to match the speed and precision with which the stage crew made the puppets fight*. He now has an intermittent role as a guest voice actor for warai troupe productions which have a suitable role for him.
    • He was going to go and speak to Chinoka - since he'd promised to keep her up to date - but the other PCs persuaded him to check who was a recent arrival in the town first.
    • Several names that came up were quickly dismissed, like Seppun Ishima's ronin yoriki Hatsue, or Mirumoto Uiri's aunt Kazuya ( "So you don't think your aunt is a grotesque murderous monstrosity?" "Let's not go that far - but I'm pretty sure she doesn't go around strangling people with her intestines." ).
    • Chinoka - disturbingly - did fall almost exactly into the timeframe Suiren was asking about, having moved to Hirosaka around the same time as the Siege of Shiro Usagi.
      • Suiren decided to be very careful around the geisha.
    • Also in the timeframe were two ronin, Keinosuke and Himari, both of whom were also in the 'poor and solitary' group of ronin to be intermittently found at the Grinning Mujina.
    • Seppun Sora's guard commander, Seppun Abe, had arrived about a year and a half ago. He was some vague relative of the Daimyo's, and had been awarded the post based on his bloodline and the fact that the competence of the guard commander in a town which it was unthinkable for anyone to actually attack was largely irrelevant.
    • The Sake brewery was run by a Scorpion samurai called Bayushi Touma (" Oh, joy. Another Scorpion " - Horonigai's player) - he'd been a fixture for years, but i the last year he'd acquired an attendant by the name of Bayushi Tsubasa, who'd previously been assigned to the Kaiu Wall.
      • "....Wait, what?"
      • "We did say we'd give him some credit and he did more than anything want to get a long way from the wall."
      • At this point the magistrates were suspicious for two reasons - firstly, since he'd been serving at the wall, it wasn't impossible he'd been replaced by something nasty. Secondly, if he wasn't a murderous undead monster intent on strangling and exsanguinating them, he was a Scorpion clan samurai who'd probably now discovered that Uiri, Goriate and Horonigai were friends of Kakita Riku and were responsible (indirectly) for his original disgrace and banishment from the capital. It was a toss-up which possibility was worse.
      • Fortunately, there was - as yet - no specific reason he should know they were in the city.
  • Goriate would go and speak to the Sparrow (as famed storytellers) and Falcon (as ghost-hunters) clan representatives at Sora's court.
    • They weren't too useful but the Suzume family representative was able to recall a story where a Kakita samurai had discovered a pack of pennanggalan in a village, which had, of course, tried to kill him. He killed one, and had fled into the woods - eluding the others in the dark. Slipping back past them into the village, he had found their hollowed-out bodies kneeling in a circle in the village leader's house, and burned the building down. Come sunrise, his pursuers spontaneously shrivelled up and expired.
    • Assuming the story was true, that meant that (1) blades worked - you could 'just kill them', (2) they could apparently fly when disembodied ( "You really don't want me to sleep ever again, do you?" )
  • Horonigai would go try to access the best library in the area - that of Sora's household. Since she wanted to do so without causing a fuss or alerting anyone, she called on Otomo Kazuda in her capacity as Chamberlain, agreeing another favour (from her personally this time) for off-the-records access to the more obscure books in the Daimyo's collection.
  • Uiri went to investigate the Grinning Mujina. 'Watchful', the proprietor, was very helpful - and, mercifully, pointedly didn't offer him any of the revolting dried-fish-and-cabbage pickled in vinegar that was the 'house speciality' - i.e. the cheapest, longest-lasting meal he could offer to the various down-at-heels customers.
    • 'Watchful' was surprised and upset to hear that Yoshi was dead. He wasn't a friend - Yoshi wasn't a personable man and didn't really have any - but he was someone 'Watchful' knew fairly well. The ronin was a former crab - 'former' in circumstances 'Watchful' had never asked, because you just don't - in so far as there is any ettiquette with ronin, 'why did you get thrown out of your clan' is the most impolite subject imaginable. 'Watchful' had met him as a full Hida samurai a few years ago when he'd participated in a five-goblin winter.
      • "I thought it was a twenty-goblin winter?"
      • "And I thought there were only four goblins." He gestured to his ruined right hand, with only forefinger and thumb remaining. Watchful said that Yoshi's blunt advice - to sacrifice and cauterise most of his sword hand rather than let infection, taint, or both, set in ended his career as a warrior but probably saved his life.
    • Uiri didn't provide any details about the death, but did ask after Yoshi's recent business.
      • 'Watchful' said Yoshi didn't have any regular work - " if he did he wouldn't have to eat here " - but that his most reliable source of income was the Sake brewery - the Bayushi hiring him as needed as a caravan guard. There'd been at least a month since he'd been so lucky, though.
      • The last paying work he knew about was a night a week and a half or so spent as an extra guard for Chinoka - she'd had some hush-hush very-important guests and had hired Yoshi, along with Himari and Keinosuke, to provide some serious armed security and ensure 'private' and 'exclusive' meant just that.

* his happiness will probably be severely muted when/if he discovers the presence of the stagehands at this point was entirely optional.

The players were left with several suspects. The fact that the pennanglan had killed a samurai for the first time after preying on commoners for months suggested Yoshi had seen something and the penanggalan had silenced him.

• Suiren was to go and see Chinoka and Bayushi Tsubasa (it was agreed that they ought to question him but that it should be the one person he hadn't met).
• Tsubasa was his first port of call. The scorpion was fairly welcoming - a newly-arrived, wealthy, influential member of the clan a useful asset. Tsubasa confirmed his master, Touma, was the unofficial Scorpion ambassador to the town, and that the Shosuro's help would be appreciated in furthering the Scorpion Clan's goals, something Suiren was happy to agree to.
• " Where are you staying if I need to contact you?" "A townhouse in...you know what? The Warai Theatre. Definitely contact me through the Warai Puppet Troupe Theatre ." - Suiren remembering their townhouse is leased in Kakita Riku's name...
• After this, he called on Chinoka, taking tea and talking shop. He told her about the death of Yoshi (it wouldn't be hard for her to find out by other means and if she was the penanggalan, she'd obviously know about it and be suspicious if it wasn't mentioned). Chinoka claimed not to know Yoshi, but admitted he'd been one of three ronin the Okiya had hired two weeks ago: Yoshi hadn't been picked so much as being one of the first three to stick their hands up and say " I need the money " when her servant went to the Grinning Mujina looking for manpower.
• Suiren also - since it was the sort of political gossip Chinoka might want as an okasan - let her know what they'd heard about Lion and Crane ambassadors coming to the city to negotiate for the Seven Waves otokodate' s support. Chinoka sounded intrigued, clearly angling ways to spin a profit from such an event.
• Horonigai, thanks to Kazuda's favour would be doing research (" do you want to defeat undead blood-drinking strangle-monster? Yes? Then I must do reeeeesearch. ....." - Horonigai's player)
• Uiri - in plain travelling clothes this time and accompanied by Goriate - returned to the Grinning Mujina to tail Keinosuke and Himari. 'Watchful' recognised the Mirumoto but had enough sense to treat him like any other customer, presenting the two with a huge bowl of pickled fish and cabbage, which Uiri slid across the table to his Hida counterpart. " Go on then. It won't be convincing if we don't eat. "
• They watched the two ronin for much of the evening, in between 'Watchful' providing more portions of revolting pickled food. " Oh well, at least it's better than rations on the Wall " - Goriate " I've served on the Wall, Samurai-sama, and can assure you it isn't. " - 'Watchful'.
• One main concern was what to do when they left. Assuming they were going to two separate lodgings, the two bushi had no intention of splitting up to follow them.
• " Are there some people in the the sake house we could pay to follow them - preferably sneaky, poor and desperate? " - Goriate " You basically just described Watchful's entire customer base. " - Uiri.
• They picked a trio of commoners and slipped them a couple of silver, telling them to follow Keinosuke and to meet back near the Grinning Mujina in the early hours of the morning. Meanwhile the two samurai set off two follow Himari.

• Meanwhile, in Seppun Sora's library, Horonigai finally found a useful text. Most of the penanggalan's properties were things they knew from the Sparrows story - it was strong, it flew, it strangled people and drank their blood, and it couldn't survive the death of its body indefinitely. The fact that it was technically undead and tainted was sort-of-welcome news in that the Kaito now knew which 'flavour' of threshold barrier could keep it out (fire, for what it's worth), but far more important was the passage talking about the penanggalan's use of vinegar to soak it's viscera to fit back into its shell.
• " Ah....bugger, it's 'Watchful', isn't it? " - Horonigai's player.
• Leaving the library at speed, the Kaito ran toward the magistrates station to acquire a bow and find Suiren

• At the other end of the town, oblivious, Goriate and Uiri left the alley overlooking Himari's rooms and headed back towards the Grinning Mujina.

• One other note, which I forgot to say: since Chinoka (and her guests) were suspects at the time, as he was leaving the Okiya, Suiren took the opportunity to speak privately to Sakura, and convinced her to make some cautious enquiries about the okiya's VIP guests.
• I see no way this could possibly end badly for her or Suiren.

• So... Unaware of Horonigai's discovery, Uiri and Goriate headed back to their rendezvous- the Hida complaining about the aftertaste of the pickled fish.
• The two arrived back at the Grinning Mujina to find the front of the building deserted, with no sign of the heimin they'd sent to follow Keinosuke .
• Worryingly, Uiri smelled blood, and - investigating - they found the bodies of the heimin....here and there. Generally around the place.
• At this point, the investigation was interrupted by the Pennangalan suddenly appearing from behind a table and launching itself at Uiri, thick ropes of blood-soaked intestine reaching to strangle him.
• Despite this, Uiri went first and his katana snapped out in a perfect iai strike, inflicting quite a bit of fatigue.
• The monster's entrails then rapped around him, snaring him.
• Goriate initially went to help but instead spent his turn recovering fatigue via warrior's resolve as his guts locked into agonising cramps and he vomited no small amount of stomach acid and blood onto the Grinning Mujina's floor.
• " So....poison?" "Looks like ."
• Uiri managed to inflict more fatigue with a strike action but remained immobilized, with the Pennangalan taking the opportunity to strangle him for a sizeable amount of fatigue.
• Goriate managed to hold it together and deliver a strike himself, which was evidently enough for the monster - the following round, as Uiri tried and failed to untangle his arm for another strike, it disentangle and skittered off into the kitchen-slash-storeroom of the sake house.
• Horonigai and Suiren arrived at this point, and related what she'd discovered and what she'd deduced.
• The quarter moved cautiously into the back room, the room dimly lit by the embers from an open pit hearth. On one wall were wax-paper bundles of dried cabbage and fish, on the other sake barrels and packets of spices and herbs to try and disguise the awful taste of the cheap food - and on the back wall, next to a ladder up to a living space in the loft, were six large barrels of vinegar. There was no back entrance.
• Uiri and Goriate went to investigate the room - taking inspiration from the story they'd heard, smashing a nearby table and lighting wooden brands in the hearth. Horonigai prepared a Sacred Arrow whilst Suiren did his best to blend in with the shadows and look unappetizing and unthreatening.
• One barrel proved to have a loose lid and to contain a headless, disembowelled corpse floating in the vinegar. Uiri's first response was to throw his brand into the barrel until it was pointed out that he'd be trying to set fire to vinegar*. Realising (I.e. being slightly mocked by the other players) he went to get some sake to set the fire.
• Goriate started setting fires using the wax paper parcels on the left wall, but the poison was really getting to him now, leaving him incapacitated. Despite the Hida's impressive constitution, he had been fed a dose of poison 'Watchful' had intended for both him and Uiri, and it showed.
• Suiren (still lurking in the shadows) decided to use his medicine skill and check out 'Watchful's 'spice rack' to see if he could find the poison - and, with a lucky roll, found a discarded bottle that smelled of a drug he'd.....read about.....once....and had obviously never actually encountered. Clearly.
• Relaying this to Horonigai, the two were able to create a makeshift antidote and purgative. Granted, this left him vomiting even more and left him relying on Way of the Crab to mitigate a poison critical strike**.
• Uiri, meanwhile, had been a busy little arsonist, by the time Suiren and Horonigai helped the staggering Goriate out, the Grinning Mujina was burning merrily. Destroying the Pennangalan's body would kill it at sunrise, wherever it had fled to....
• ......Except - luckily! - Suiren noticed in an alley on the other side of the street a spindly figure stand up, in a jerky fashion reminiscent of the Warai's puppets. Shouting a warning to the other PCs, he rushed to investigate, discovering 'Watchful', back in his body. The corpse in the barrel wasn't 'Watchful's own body but a previous victim, decapitated and with its guts pulled out through the neck to create a broadly convincing decoy 'host body', in the hopes that pursuers would believe what the PCs had assumed. Fortunately, Suiren has an extremely high vigilance and a suspicious nature.
• Horonigai used her enhanced arrow, landing a critical strike, and rendering Watchful incapacitated and prone. Uiri rushed in and dispatched it.
• At this point, Horonigai - the only PC in her magistrates robes - took on the job of rallying the local fire fighters and containing the blaze whilst the other three blocked the alley containing the monster's remains. Fortunately, Horonigai did so very well (thanks in part to Voice of Authority ), and no one thought to ask how she was on the scene of the fire so fast.
• Now they just had to figure out what to tell Seppun Ishima....

* Before anyone says anything: Acetic Acid - the vinegar-ey bit of vinegar - is nicely flammable, but even strong sake vinegar is something like 90% water.

** reducing it by his school rank but obviously not his armour resistance in this case.

• The following day, the (slightly sooty) PCs reported to Seppun Ishima.
  • As is almost a tradition with L5R investigations, there was the 'official report' (" we believe Yoshi's murderer was a ronin called 'Watchful', who died last night at a fire at the Grinning Mujina which by the way we helped contain - Yay Us !") and the 'official official report' for Ishima's ears only (" the ronin called 'Watchful' was really an undead vampiric horror who'd been murdering commoners in your town for months without you noticing and we had to burn down the building to kill it also I'm never eating squid again ")
  • Ishima was somewhat shocked but thanked them for their efforts.
  • She then said she'd been asked to provide the PC's services as part-security, part-mediators for the Lion/Crane/Seven Waves negotiation that would be starting the following day.
• The PCs were pleased that Ryu has finally arrived, with a couple of hired hands and carts of their personal property. The heimin servant would begin turning the empty townhouse the PCs had been assigned into a functioning home.
• Horonigai also received an invitation to take tea with Otomo Kazuda. She was a little nervous, as she surmised (correctly) that Sora's chamberlain wanted to call in one of the favours they owed.
  • Kazuda seemed friendly enough but the other shoe soon dropped. Specifically, she had had enough of Seppun Abe - the head of Sora's guard. Kazuda was permanently run off her feet with the various roles she held, and - by a combination of hard work and a healthy trade in favours - kept all the plates spinning. Abe's post was basically a sinecure - no-one in their right mind would attack an Imperial holding, and law enforcement was delegated to Ishima - that he 'earned' only by virtue of being a distant cousin of Sora, and despite having few practical responsibilities he did nothing to help with the running of the household or the city. Kazuda liked everything organised and ordered, and Abe was high on her list of untidy individuals.
  • Initially, Horonigai thought Otomo Kazuda was asking her to assassinate the seppun captain - and was very reassured that that wasn't the case (" although...duly noted...that access to a few books and filing some paperwork with the Office of Properties is apparently enough inducement for you to think about that" Kazuda said) - she wanted Seppun Abe gone, but didn't specifically wish him ill. If Horonigai and her colleagues could use her influence with the Emerald Magistrature, or her widely rumoured secret alliance with Bayushi Kachiko (" OH FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!!!" - Horonigai's PC) to get him reassigned, or somehow arrange to have him embarrass or disgrace himself in a way that would justify Kazuda persuading Sora to get rid of him. Discrete stabbing should be considered at worst a distant backup plan.
  • She also told the Kaito that whilst the Lion and Crane representatives would be welcomed at Sora's court, speaking as the chancellor, she emphatically did not want the negotiations happening anywhere in the governor's mansion. Firstly, the ronin of the Seven Waves Otokodate were less scruffy and disreputable than most but that still didn't justify allowing them into Seppun Sora's property, and secondly if there was any political fallout (and the Otomo felt it was pretty likely) she didn't want any of it 'splashing' on the Seppun Daimyo or - worse - her. She'd be accommodating both in Sora's guest house but do her level best to keep the two parties separate at all times.
  • She did, however, have the identities of the clan representatives.
    • The Lion Clan were sending Akodo Kage, the old sensei who'd been made their roving 'ambassador to the minor clans' (whom the PCs met in Kyuden Kitsune the previous year). He would be arriving on his own - he no longer had his ronin yojimbo in tow - which made sense since he was travelling to an holding of an Imperial family rather than a minor clan traditionally allied to the Lion's enemies.
    • The Crane were sending a courtier by the name of Daidoji Unoku. She had a reputation as a very successful negotiator in legal and commercial disputes, although she was no soldier and didn't have any specific track record dealing with ronin. Unlike Kage, she did have a bodyguard - specifically Seppun Sora's new family sword instructor, Kakita Riku. Riku would be acting as Unoku's yojimbo " until the negotiations concluded ", at which point she would take up her post in Sora's household.
  • At this point, Kazuda politely ushered Horonigai out. Seppun Sora's family was also hosting a respected Kabuki troupe, and in her capacity as chamberlain she needed to organise everything for the performance at that evening's meal - meaning she had about four things she needed to be doing and sadly having a pleasant tea with the Kaito shrine keeper wasn't one of them.
• The PCs were pleased to hear Riku would be arriving soon - Goriate especially.
• They considered asking Seppun Ishima to host the negotiations, but decided that if Seven Waves were only 'slightly less disreputable' than the average ronin, they would probably find a magistrate's station a less than comfortable place. Instead, they decided to talk to Chinoka - or more specifically, they sent Shosuro Suiren to talk to her - and ask her to use her okiya to host the negotiations.
  • The okasan was broadly very happy with the idea of sensitive political negotiations being held inside her walls, especially since the PCs would be responsible for ensuring nothing got out of hand. A successful geisha herself, she offered to serve the delegates personally to minimise the number of people in the room (the potential to eavesdrop on the discussions first-hand was obviously not in any way her motivation).
  • Suiren also - looking to keep the close working relationship - decided to give Chinoka the 'official official report' about Yoshi's death - figuring that there was a good chance she'd eventually hear some version of it anyway and this way she would keep a better working relationship with the Scorpion samurai.
  • On his way out, he was able to briefly talk to Sakura. She'd talked to some of the servants and found out that the 'guests' at Chinoka's okiya at the event Yoshi had been hired to guard were not regulars, or even anyone the servants had met before. One - female - was a Crane, the other two - male - were a Lion (an Ikoma, they thought) and a member of the Imperial families (but not, they believed, a Seppun). Chinoka was the only geisha in the room, and according to the attendants who'd brought food, she had been sat with them at the table very much as if she was an equal rather than a geisha attending them. She also noted that Chinoka had been giving her 'odd looks' in the last day and she was worried her questions had gotten back to the okasan somehow.
• Suiren also decided to use a bit of time and money to have a new mask made up for the event. He rolled extremely well on his fire and air design checks, resulting in a very spending looking ( Resplendant ) mask with a fox's face, with shimmery looking 'fur' made with fine gold thread in the rich russet of the cloth.
  • "You're not wearing that around the Lion Clan, are you?"
  • "You think it might cause issues?"
  • "We're supposed to be impartial mediators, remember."
  • "You're supposed to be impartial. I'm not a magistrate , I'm just your advisor . Besides, I think it looks nice."

• In the end it was decided that the following morning Goriate and Uiri - as the two bushi - would meet and welcome Akodo Kage (along with Usagi Norinaga, the Hare clan representative, who announced he'd be there to welcome the Lion as well), whilst Horonigai and her 'advisor' (who she managed not to strangle that evening, largely due to being mollified by Ryu's gyoza being back on the menu) would welcome Daidoji Unoku and Kakita Riku (and Kitsune Amane, assuming she mirrored Norinaga and turned up to welcome her great clan ally).

• The meeting with the Lion and the Hare was very.....correct. Kage didn't give any indication he specifically knew Uiri and Goriate had been responsible for messing up his plans in Kyuden Kitsune, and Norinaga - being a Hare courtier - obviously knew and was well disposed to the Hero of Shiro Usagi Hida Goriate, but the overall air was one of everything being strictly business. Kage was not very forthcoming with information, but - passing a sentiment check - Uiri had a distinct impression the Lion was 'plotting something nefarious'.
• By comparison, Daidoji Unoku, the Crane representative was very friendly, and the presence of Riku - who was clearly struggling to suppress a massive smile behind a yojimbo's professional exterior at the sight of Kaito Horonigai - and the infectious humour of Kitsune Amane did produce a much friendlier atmosphere. Unoku was fairly open about how important the negotiations were to the Crane:
  • The Crane's recent losses at the battle of Three Trees had left Shiro Kyotei threatened. Whilst the bandits in the region had been brought to heel by Tsume Itsuyo and Hida Kyno, doing so had allowed the Lion to focus their efforts on the Crane without needing to detach large forces as garrisons and supply convoy security.
  • With Akodo Toturi acting as Emerald Champion far more than Lion Clan Champion, battlefield command had devolved on Matsu Tsuko, who seemed to have missed a memo on the whole " it's just a border dispute " concept and had launched large-scale assaults on most Crane outposts within the Osari plains and as Tsume Kotonoha had predicted, she seemed set on killing everything down to the chickens.
  • As a result, Unoku had been dispatched with an extremely large coin purse and broad authority to pursue opportunities as she saw fit.
  • Riku was very happy to see her friends, and told them she'd been told by Unoku she would be temporarily released from her duties in the evening (i.e. once Unoku was ensconced in Sora's guest-house and the Seppun Daimyo's guards were responsible for the delegate's security). She hoped the PC's would visit her. When Horonigai asked where, Riku answered that "well, apparently I have a townhouse in the city - which came as a surprise to me. Obviously you'd all be welcome as my guests ..." Hor onigai was part amused and part embarrassed - since the PCs were all currently living there and had instructed Ryu to decorate, furnish and staff it.

• Later that evening - after Sora had held a welcome meal for the two delegates, Riku arrived at 'her' house to have drinks and catch up with her friends - and her betrothed.
  • Kakita Riku is a court-educated member of the Crane clan, and has lived in the Imperial Palace in Otosan Uchi. Therefore her first words to Goriate were not and would never have been "W hat the actual **** happened to your face?", but she was clearly somewhat shocked by the nasty scar left by the Onryu of Twin Blessings Village (not to mention he was still rather pale as he was recovering from being rather heavily poisoned by "Watchful"). Goriate's response was that " We encountered a ghost that had forgotten it was dead, and I had to remind it. Twice ."
  • This led into a bit of a catching-up session. The events of Willow Forge village were skipped over - burglary on behalf of the Scorpion Clan not really a subject for polite conversation - but Riku was told an only slightly sanitised version of the potentially momentous events involving the Elemental Oracle of Fire.
  • Riku, in turn, let Goriate know how the ongoing negotiations between Kakita Ryoku (who had, rather surprisingly, decided to take over the matter personally) and Kuni Haruna were going. The Shika had been acting as go-betweens - Kakita Riku had finally met Shika Yuki but hadn't let the Deer Clan matchmaker know the whole shooting match wasn't intentional but a result of Hida Goriate's catastrophic inability to read or even detect the presence of subtext. Apparently Ryoku-sama and Yoshi-dono had both officially consented to the match (the latter largely a formality given Ryoku's involvement), and everything was now a matter of details.
    • The working suggestion was that the wedding should be before the next Winter Court.
    • It had been agreed that Goriate would officially become a member of the Kakita family of the Crane clan. Ryoku was insistent, as much to protect Riku's status as a Crane as anything. Apparently - according to Shika Yuki's unnamed colleague in Crab lands - Kuni Haruna had agreed to the suggested condition immediately, and then had proceeded to collapse on the floor of her rooms laughing for nearly five minutes in front of the courier before she could say anything else.
      • Frankly the response of the other players was pretty similar.
    • Kuni Haruna had somewhat gotten her own back by offering to host the wedding itself - which, especially given her quick acceptance of Ryoku's initial condition, the Crane declined to argue with. The reply did not that this made it unlikely that Kakita Yoshi would be able to attend, given his duties in Otosan Uchi.
      • " Oh, no. What a shame. Never mind ." - Uiri's player, who it's fair to say is not the Chancellor's biggest fan.
    • According to custom, since Goriate was the one joining the other clan, if any dowry was involved it would be from his family. Riku was not party to the details of what agreements were being made between the two clans as a part of the betrothal, although she did know that for some reason they involved the Mantis clan - she had caught the tail end of a letter being dictated by Kakita Ryoku. She suspected that the Crane might be using the letters discussing the important-but-not- that -important betrothal to hide some sensitive political dealings in plain sight.
  • At this point there was another arrival at 'Riku's' house (a point she took a certain amusement in repeating to Goriate). The PCs weren't expecting anyone, but Riku said she'd invited someone she'd met at Sora's court to join her and the PCs for their catch-up, as she hadn't seen them in months.
    • The other visitor turned out to be Ikoma Rumiko, who despite the tensions between the Lion and Crane had been good company at winter court and gotten on well with the magistrates, Riku, and especially with Shosuro Suiren. The Kabuki troupe that were Seppun Sora's guests was the one she was a part of.
      • Rumiko was a very friendly guest, and had brought with her a gift of good-quality sake, which is always a good start. She'd been in Hirosaka for a day, and - rehearsals aside - had been to see a performance at the Warai puppet theatre, which she'd found very impressive. She claimed she'd only realised the PCs and Riku were in Hirosaka when she spotted Riku bodyguarding one of Seppun Sora's dinner guests in the kabuki troupe's audience.
    • Suiren is a court-educated member of the Scorpion clan, and a famously gifted actor. He therefore had more discretion than to scream out loud " SHINOBI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! " and instantly draw his sword, but it's fair to say he was....a little guarded?...in his greetings. He (and Uiri) assumed that whatever nefarious plot Akodo Kage was hatching, Rumiko was part of it.
      • He therefore - since they'd gotten on so well at Kyuden Doji, with him arranging her the part of 'Otomo' and the two taking meals and drinks together a few times - took the drastic and potentially dangerous step of inviting her out to dine as soon as her rehearsals and performance were finished the following day. Scoring well on his courtesy check, he actually got her to suggest a private, verging on slightly romantic, venue for their meal herself.
      • Surien's player in fact announced his intention to spend time with Rumiko " as often as possible, for as long as possible, for as long as she's in town. Because I don't trust not having eyes on her at all times ......"
      • Goriate's may have made a crack about the Shosuro having 'a date'.
      • " He becomes a Crane and suddenly he thinks he's a comedian ..."