The first element of their trek into the shadowlands incorporated the Knotted Tails.

• Following maps provided by Kaiu Riko, they were able to chart a route following a handful of terrain features which seemed to be more or less stable amongst the shifting landscape
• The howling, bitterly cold wind and poisoned sky was unpleasant for everyone, but especially so for Hida Goriate. With his Fear of Corruption anxiety, plus the increased strife gains for tests made in the shadowlands, his very first survival test compromised him and resulted in an outburst of paranoia that " it's probably a good thing Riku wasn't here to see ." Uiri and Horonigai weren't to impressed but were fully aware of his phobia, but Goriate knew Hiruma Kurumi would be likely to let word slip once (if!) he got back to the wall.
• The journey was a bit risky - more than once, loose shale gave way on a scree slope over razor-sharp rocks, and only some lucky checks avoided them falling to their deaths. One horse had to be put down after it broke a front leg, and Horonigai had some nasty bruises.
• Eventually reaching their planned campsite by a small spring, they set up camp - gathering up some dead wood, and managing finally to get the fire going after several tries, but it flared between ice cold and blazing so unexpectedly and so quickly that their food and water (taken from their packs, not the spring!) was cold. They decided to split the night-time watch between the four of them in two watches.
• "What do you mean, the four of you."
• "The four of us. Uiri, Goriate, Horonigai, and the Hiruma Scout."
• "The Hiruma Scout is gone."
  • They had all failed Survey/Survival checks to realise they'd lost sight of him whilst checking the area before setting up camp.
• Changing plans, they went for 'two awake, one asleep', and as a result no-one really got any decent sleep (they got the 'reset to half at end of scene' reduction of strife and fatigue but no more)
• The following morning, they packed up the camp and decided emphatically not to split up and search for their scout; they didn't have time and they had limited idea of how the shadowlands would warp around them. Sticking together, they headed on in what (they hoped) was the direction of Shiro Hiruma.
• It wasn't.
• After about an hour, Goriate noticed a shape flit between two rocks behind them. Horonigai and Uiri saw a second shape either side of them.
• "So, we're surrounded?"
• Moments later, from a copse of dead and twisted trees ahead, they started to hear a piteous moaning. They discussed going around (Horonigai taking a trivial loss of honour for compassion) but in the end they had unknown possible enemies shadowing them so it was hardly a case that turning back would avoid contact.
• Uiri and Goriate dismounted and advanced. It proved to be Hiruma Kurumi, badly beaten and clutching his stomach, twitching occasionally in agony. Suddenly, a trio of Lost burst out from concealment in the thicket.
  • Uiri and Goriate passed their check to not be ambushed (" no, I didn't see them, but it was somewhat blatantly a trap ").
  • At the same time, a trio of nezumi burst out from behind them, spears readied, charging forwards. Horonigai saw them, but the two bushi were understandably distracted.
  • Goriate readied the tetsubo that he'd pointedly taken with him when going to investigate, and hit one of the bandits forcefully. Uiri drew one jade-worked dao and struck at a second, his opponent defending but flinching back from the burning of the sacred inlay.
  • Horonigai was slightly freaking out at being charged by a trio of spear-wielding giant humanoid rats, until (fortunately passing a scrutiny/tactics check) she realised they were charging the Lost, not her. Confused but not about to question this, she shot the third lost with her daikyu, wounding him with a precious flesh-ripper arrow thanks to a 'saved' air opportunity on her initiative check.
  • The fight was quick but messy, with the unexpected assistance of the three nezumi tipping the balance. Goriate took a little fatigue, despite his O-yoroi, as two of the lost concentrated on him, though one of them did damage their blade. The other attacked Uiri, and - despite sacrificing one of his swords to damage on both the blade's edge and the precious jade inlay, he took a severe wound to the leg on the first blow, hobbling him for most of the fight. He switched to fire stance and incapacitated his opponent (whose head sprouted a daikyu arrow a moment later, killing him) but was swiftly incapacitated and compromised afterwards (the bleeding condition is not fun in the shadowlands). With the assistance of the three nezumi, they took down the Lost with no further injury.
• Kurumi was in a fair amount of agony. He'd lost sight of the magistrates as everyone was trying to set up camp, but somehow, despite not having gone far, he couldn't find the spring - or them - again. The three Lost samurai had ambushed him in the night and had forced him to swallow a flesh-eating parasite - before they'd heard the magistrate's horses, they'd been wagering on how long Kurumi would take to die, and where on his corpse the parasite would eventually chew its way out.
  • Having saved the magistrates, the nezumi bustled round Hiruma Kurumi, and - sniffing - their leader pronounced Kurumi might still be saveable 'if they got him to the Dreamer quickly'. This statement made little sense to the magistrates - even Goriate, who passed a recall check to let the others know a potted background of the Nezumi (including the fact that " they do not exist and we never ever saw them, right?" ) and outlined the fact that they had an honour code of their own, but it wasn't very similar to bushido so they might do things they would see as dishonourable (like sneak up on the lost and bushwhack them from ambush, for example, which is what probably would have happened if they hadn't had to save the magistrates). At this point he was corrected in angry squeaks by the nezumi, who insisted that the Knotted Tails were friends of the samurai and Lucky Silver, their chief was an honourable nezumi, and they were 'like samurai'.
  • The Nezumi insisted the samurai had to go and ask permission to cross their lands from their chief
  • With Uiri and Kurumi both wounded, Goriate chose to walk. Escorted by the trio of Nezumi, they made their way swiftly to the village.
• Horonigai's player was increasingly irked that the Nezumi sounded 'cute'. This was made infinitely worse a moment later as a tidal wave of nezumi pups rushed up on all fours, sat back on their haunches and stared curiously at her, eyes wide and noses twitching.
  • We have a mutual friend (not in the gaming group) who breeds pet rats. this reminds me I may have to show her the artwork for Knotted Tails.
• There was much bustling around the samurai, with the nezumi rushing off to get the 'dreamer's brew'.
  • Uiri realised (rather later than this) that his sake set went 'missing' at this point.
• They were going to take Kurumi into a burrow to treat him, but the magistrates persuaded them not to. Instead they used a tent where a nezumi called Shapes Metal had been hammering scrap into useful forms on a large 'anvil stone' that could serve as an 'operating table' - ejecting Shapes Metal over indignant squeaks of protest, the nezumi laid Hiruma Kurumi out and force-fed him a foul-smelling brew one of their number had returned from a burrow with. The parasite swiftly forced its way out of the scout's mouth, chittering, and tried to launch itself at one of the samurai. Goriate's tetsubo caught it mid-leap and reduced it to a stain on the floor.
• Explaining what had happened to the Hiruma Scout, and agreeing to leave him in the nezumi's care, the three samurai went to present themselves to Lucky Silver. They weren't sure wat to expect, but the twinned Crab/Knotted Tails banners were more impressive than they expected, and finding her sat waiting cross-legged with 'proper' (for a given value of 'proper') samurai armour and sword.
  • The horned helmet resulted in one or two "Great Horned Rat" puns out of character at this point.
  • They told her where they were going. She told them that the castle was not safe, and that the dead didn't stay dead. Ususally it was full of shadowlands monsters but recently goblins had been driven out, often passing the edges of Knotted Tails lands. She didn't know why. She also said that the tribe itself was under attack by something unknown - with scouts and sentries, and sometimes even individuals from the burrows going missing. She blamed 'Blood Painters' or 'Painted Samurai', and asked for their help.
    • They swiftly figured out from the context that Blood Painters were maho-tsukai. They told her (broadly) about Sokorii, and were assuming at this point that Sokorii was also behind the abductions.
    • When Painted Samurai were discussed, they assumed that they were Sokorii's minions, until Lucky Silver explained further. Goriate was not aware of the Kuni kidnapping nezumi for experiments - an idea which horrified Horonigai (who despite herself was continuing to find the nezumi cute) on pretty much every level - and I suspect that the subject may come up with his aunt on his return.
  • The samurai agreed - and also asked to stay overnight - the village was hardly somewhere appealing but it was better and a lot safer than being out in the wilds.
    • The party split up
      • Uiri went to have his wound treated. The bleeding was staunched and his wound reduced from severely wounded to merely wounded. He was also presented with "a good meal" to "restore his strength". On asking, he was told it was made of grubs, but as an honoured guest, the nezumi had prepared the food "in samurai fashion" as they did "for special meals ". The two 'cooks' looked on, tails twitching encouragingly, as he was presented with the plate.
        • " In samurai fashion", unfortunately, turned out to mean 'sashimi' - i.e. sliced thin and raw. To his credit, Uiri did his best to 'enjoy' them, passing a deceive/sentiment check to convince his hosts he had enjoyed his portion but - with the pain from his wound playing up - he couldn't face any more food. He received Afflicted (and a minor honour increase for courtesy) for his troubles.
      • Goriate and Horonigai went to speak to the Rememberer and the Dreamer. They both found the Rememberer first, telling the story of the fall of Shiro Hiruma to the pups, which Horonigai found rather moving. Afterwards, Goriate went to speak to him, and was invited to see the shrine of memory, whilst Horonigai went on to try and find the Dreamer.
        • Goriate was given a series of rambling stories by the rememberer, and was able to look at the items in the shrine of memory. One thing which caught his eye was a string of jade prayer beads that had belonged to a monk who had visited the tribe many years before. The monk and some samurai had been overrun and killed in the shadowlands, despite the Knotted Tails attempt to save them. Later, a scout had recovered the beads to remember him by. With a surprisingly effective courtesy roll, Goriate persuaded the rememberer to loan him the beads for the duration of the mission to Shiro Hiruma.
        • Horonigai ended up waylaid by the pups, and was talked into playing a game of Traps, winning a broken moth pendant. What she saw - but sadly didn't win back - was Uiri's sake set....
          • She was directed into the tunnels - and, making her way in - eventually found her way to the Dreamer's burrow.
            • She took some strife in the process, firstly for the dirt and secondly for being surprised by 'Mushy' - a 'pet' giant burrowing beast that shared the tribe's tunnels.
          • She entered the Dreamer's room and - having been told not to wake him - meditated next to him until he woke. One-eye was impressed, and they talked for a while.
          • Well...I say talked. Horonigai asked questions and the Dreamer gave answers but the two were only tangentially connected together at best. He knew the samurai in Shiro Hiruma were stuck in the Realm of Dreams but he clearly understand know why or how. He mentioned someone that Horonigai recognised as the shujenga supposedly responsible for locking away the souls of the surviving crab, and implied something was returning, and the magic responsible was steadily breaking down after centuries.
          • After a while, he became less coherent, but it eventually became clear he wasn't talking about Shiro Hiruma but the Knotted Tails village. That something horrible was happening right now.
        • Horonigai was dismissed, and hurried out. She met Goriate, and the still-somewhat-green-looking Uiri, and the Rememberer told them his apprentice was missing at the graveyard.
• Making their way to the graveyard, they found two dead guards and signs of where the apprentice had disappeared.
  • Lucky Silver turned up to investigate - in full armour with her not-quite-fitting helmet on at a slightly jaunty angle - shortly after.
  • Moments later, a tide of frenzied outcast nezumi poured into the graveyard.
  • Horonigai used her action to persuade Lucky Silver to fall back to a more protected position where only a few enemies could attack at once.
  • Uiri and Goriate incapacitated one snarling opponent each.
  • Lucky Silver - tearfully - drew her sword and incapacitated a third.
  • The fight continued for a couple of rounds before Frayed Whisker appeared. Realising what had happened, the samurai and Lucky Silver tried to press forward and reach the renegade dreamer.
  • Horonigai shot at him, and for her trouble was struck from behind by two of Lucky Silver's guards who Frayed Whisper had momentarily gotten into the head of.
  • Goriate cleared a way to the dreamer, tetsubo knocking nezumi left and right, and O-Yoroi holding against the worst the swarming rats could do.
  • Uiri managed to incapacitate Frayed Whisper, but he refused to surrender. Lucky Silver cut him down, freeing those he had cursed (quite a few were lying on the floor of the graveyard nursing cuts, bruises and broken bones).
• As she sheathed her sword, Goriate passed a scrutiny/smithing check and realised that the sword she was carrying was a twin to the one they had seen (briefly) in the Komori's cave - meaning the Knotted Tails had the missing Hiruma Wakizashi.

Man, I love the Nezumi. (Despite the Great Horned Rat 😄 )

Also, your campaign still sounds absolutely amazing.

Lucky Silver (a.k.a. The Great Horned Rat) got a great deal more out-of-character respect after the fight in the graveyard. The other players were very glad of the warning that the Nezumi had their own code that they took seriously once they saw what her rattiness was capable of in a fight.

She has fire ring 4, martial skills 3, decent armour, a knock-off iaijutsu technique (her sword has concealable, allowing it to be drawn as a free action), a vigilance that's actually higher than her focus (7 vs 6), and a once-per-scene reroll of any number of dice on top of her void point for adversary status, she's a pretty scary opponent, especially for someone who's nominally only conflict rank 4.

Had their usual 'Foot In Mouth Style' shuji resulted in a duel to first blood, she'd have kicked their tail-less backsides seven ways from sunday.

Her only real weak spot as an opponent is her below-average ability to inflict fatigue, since her sword is technically only a wakizashi (or 'nezumi-sized katana' as she sees it).

I love how you worked the Hiruma scout from the Knotted Tails adventure into the Oni's Mask plot. I didn't even realize it until you triggered the ambush scene. Nicely done!

And as usual, the party banter is thoroughly entertaining.

Technically he's a Hida in the 'as written' adventure, but I felt a Hiruma made more sense.

8 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Technically he's a Hida in the 'as written' adventure, but I felt a Hiruma made more sense.

That might be why I did not pick up on it so quickly. Either way, it is a credit to your skill as a DM.

So...a very short session, not least because Goriate's player was absent.

• Having played a part in defeating Frayed Whisper and saving Lucky Silver, they accompanied her back to the village.
• After the battle, as downtime, Uiri tried and failed to repair his damaged Dao (I made it TN2 instead of TN1, since [1] he was trying to restore Sacred as well as just remove Damaged and [2] he was working with Shapes Metal's rather basic workshop and scavenged tools). Horonigai also tried and failed to use purifying ritual to remove afflicted from him.
  • Since Nezumi don't suffer from and don't really understand the concept of 'afflicted' and hence 'purifying', her attempt to perform the ritual was slightly interrupted by a couple of older Nezumi pups sat a foot away, staring at her in a fascinated-but-bemused expressions and occasionally squeaking "what're you doing?"

They got as good a night's rest as you get anywhere in the shadowlands, and the following morning, before setting out, went to see Lucky Silver.

• They showed her the saya of Hiruma Daisuke's wakizashi, pointing out that it matched, and explained again what they were heading to the castle for.
• They said that they believed they would need the blade to save the spirits of the Hiruma trapped in Yume-do 'from a Blood-Painter'.
• Uiri didn't manage much with his courtesy check, but managed to get an opportunity, allowing him to assist Goriate.
• Goriate got three momentum- his status as an obvious Crab samurai helping in his interaction with Lucky Silver.
• Horonigai initially got two momentum - which wouldn't have been enough. She spent a void point to invert her Fear of Failure disadvantage, and offered a gift to replace the sword; her Omamori of Yasakune that she was given by Masayo in The Scroll and the Blade .
• This, plus the fact that they had helped save the tribe, was enough to tilt things the player's way. Lucky Silver sent them a guide to the edge of Knotted Tails territory.

• The border of the territory was a deep, slow-running river, spanned by a somewhat unstable-looking stone bridge carved with screaming faces.

Beyond was a mile or two of fetid-looking swampland leading away from the river's edge, before the ground firmed up into a - surprisingly beautiful - forest of maple trees, leaves autumn-red, growing from dry clay. The ornamental plants, according to their guide, had once formed the far extent of Shiro Hiruma's landscaped gardens, now grown wild.

• The players couldn't help but notice the bleached white of the odd bone between the trees.

"Was there anything else?" They asked their guide. "Yes." he replied, jabbing a claw downwards. Horonigai looked quizzically, as the nezumi scooped up something wriggling and chomped on its head. "Pop-pop bugs!" The Nezumi snaffled a few, stuffing them into a loose bag. Horonigai looked at the swarming bugs, and raised an eyebrow. "Don't even ask. Trust me." was Uiri's response.

Crossing the bridge wasn't too challenging. Horonigai used her bow and some rope to fire a line across the river in case the bridge proved less than stable, whilst Uiri made a labour check to identify the dangerous weak spots.

• The biggest challenge was then making a command check to persuade Goriate that to cross safely, he needed to remove the bulk of his ridiculously heavy O-Yoroi.
• Goriate didn't disagree with Uiri's assessment, but the idea of removing his armour whilst in the shadowlands was.....not well received.
• "Shed the plate," Uiri responded, "or try and swim in it." He pointed at the river, the surface of which occasionally rippled with something that - this being the shadowlands - was almost certainly predatory.
• In the end sanity prevailed, and Goriate's (carefully bundled) armour crossed the bridge suspended on the rope. The horses, increasingly diseased and exhausted, needed to be left at this point.
• Crossing the swamp took about half an hour of unpleasant squelching in ankle-high water, leaving everyone afflicted. Fending off finger- and fist-sized leeches didn't help people's mood, and sharp craggy spines of obsidian out of sight under the water inflicted some fatigue on Horonigai, though she was able to assist Uiri in avoiding them. (We've yet to make Goriate's roll, but since he re-armoured it's going to be a lot harder, plus his fear of corruption anxiety is likely to trigger at wading through shadowland-tainted water).
• Eventually they reached the edge of the woods, with the beautiful leaves rustling gently in the wind. There were indeed, bones - quite a lot of them, in fact - on the otherwise bare, cracked clay in which the trees grew.
• The samurai started to progress away from the swamp, hoping to get at least into direct sight of the castle before dark. After a few minutes passing through the trees, Horonigai realised a series of unpleasant facts.
  • The bones were picked completely clean. Skin, flesh, ligaments - and fabric from clothing - were all gone, leaving bare bone and the odd scrap of metal.
  • The trunks and branches of the trees themselves looked almost dead and petrified, despite the lush foliage.
  • One thing you normally see on the floor of a forest is dead leaves. There were none here.
  • There wasn't actually any wind to provoke the rustling noise coming from the branches.

• A few moments later, the leaves on the nearest tree went from rustling to fluttering. They unfolded themselves into a vast cloud of moth-like insects - but moths the size of a human hand, with two vicious-looking mandibles that had been gripping the branches as they slept. Beyond, she could see the 'leaves' of every other tree in the copse beginning to stir....

Another relatively short session, basically just covering the fight. We had all three players present, but were late starting because (being in the UK) we had to go out and 'democracy'. A bloody stupid process, given that it was pitch black, torrential rain, and I now have a stinking cold and the satisfaction of knowing that my vote and my wife's vote made no difference to the local result because we live in a 'safe' party seat and the incumbent can probably be returned by the electorate about six months after being declared medically dead.

So....yay?

• Anyway. The Blood Moths (Ketsueki Ga? If I'm doing translating right?) were intended to be the first real "oh heck, this is going to be bad, isn't it?" moment of the adventure, after Knotted Tails which - whilst cool - is not all that challenging for rank 2 players.
• I basically plagiarised the eel from the Mantis Clan DLC, with one slight change - given their unworldly nature and the fact that each 'foe' represented a swarming cloud of them that would find their way in through faceplates, attack hands, and so on, I changed both their 'bite' attack and the damage from their Swarming Hunter rule to supernatural damage. By comparison, their endurance was dropped to just 1 - so any source of 2+ damage would kill enough to destroy one 'foe' from the mass.
• The cloud of them - all the 'leaves' from a sizeable part of the forest I might add - represented 5 minion foes' worth each. Fortunately, as minions they stick at their low focus of 2, and even with the PCs compromised vigilance of 1, they were all able to go first (albeit at a cost of some strife)
• Uiri went first, and managed to use Spinning Blades style to take out two minion's worth. Normally Spinning Blades only allows you to land an extra hit on the same target, so even facing a normal minion squad it's not going to allow double kills*, but since the foes facing Uiri represented a fluttering cloud of several dozen rather than five distinct opponents, that seemed like a needlessly artificial distinction.
• Goriate flattened enough to get one 'kill' with his tetsubo, but also got an opportunity - whirling the heavy weapon to drive back the cloud for a second or so, he bought Horonigai's character a moment for a calming breath (recovering a point of strife).
• Horonigai - rather wishing she still had her omomori of Yasakune, used Tamon's Rebuke ** and succeeded in performing it, summoning a whirling wind that scattered the Blood Moths around her, providing a 'defendable' area. She spent an opportunity to keep the invocation 'going' for the rest of the scene.
• Then the moths struck. They didn't do too much damage on their attacks - especially Horonigai, ensconced in obscuring terrain in air stance, was nigh untouchable, and Uiri can now Way of the Dragon two dice instead of just one. Add in a lack of martial skills meaning that each cloud rolled only one ring die per member and in theory they shouldn't have been a threat. But Swarming Hunter was moderately terrifying whilst they had the numbers, each group attacking one character doing 2 damage to one or both of the others.
• Uiri killed another chunk of the moths, then fell back into the obscuring terrain caused by Tamon's Rebuke .
• Goriate was already inside it but had to fall back to get a clear 'swing' with his tetsubo against the range 0 attackers, also killing another group.
• Horonigai tried - and failed - to use Howl of Isora *** - since some of the targets were inside Tamon's Rebuke with her, that upped its difficulty to TN4. As it happens, even the normal TN3 would have been too much, since she only got two successes.
• The moths swarmed in closer, bites and cuts starting to add up to significant injury. Uiri and Horonigai were both incapacitated, and Uiri was forced to tear part of his own armour away to crush the moths clawing at his arms, leaving the armour with the Damaged quality.
• Uiri used Calming Breath and was able to kill a fourth 'opponent's worth , leaving just one attacking him.
• Goriate was able to help Horonigai, crushing one cloud attacking him and again driving the whole mass back for a moment, letting Horonigai recover enough to fight normally. Using Martial Arts Unarmed in earth stance, she crushed another cluster of moths but didn't get an opportunity to help Uiri recover fatigue that she was hoping for.
• The moths attacked again, incapacitating Uiri and Goriate this time. The limited spiritual protection from Horonigai's damaged robes kept her in the fight for a moment.
• Goriate used Water Stance and used Warrior's Resolve. Spending his void point to steel himself, he turned and struck down the cloud attacking Uiri.
• Uiri was able, once again, to use calming breath to remove incapacitated and in turn bring down two of the cloud attacking Horonigai before she crushed the third.
• Left with just two opponents and the protection of Tamon's Rebuke , neither managed to cause significant damage before they were crushed in turn.

• The players were left with a healthy respect for the dangers of such opponents, though; everyone being at least briefly incapacitated at some point and with Uiri left with his armour damaged. Fortunately, they 'reset' to half composure and half endurance at the end of the conflict scene, but they are now very aware that half their composure and endurance runs out fast in a serious fight.
• They ended, emerging bloodied and battered, from the forest, and rounding a craggy spire of rock to see Shiro Hiruma looming in front of them.....

* One reason minions are so deadly in Legend of the Five Rings compared to, say Wrath & Glory or Genesys is that very few attacks can take down more than one a turn. Aside from Thunderclap Strike, you're basically limited to AoE 'spells' from the Kiho and Invocation categories. I think that giving each elemental 'stance' some way to engage a minion squad with blades more effectively would be something worth looking at in one of the stabbier sourcebooks (I imagine the Lion sourcebook is likely to be kata-heavy...)

** Blessed Wind . Her character is a Kaito, though, and uses the Fortunist name. Even if the player refers to it as "Emergency Tutu of Wind!"

*** Tempest of Air .

So....we had a brief session last night.

• The players found a secure-feeling craggy valley near the looming shape of Shiro Hiruma to rest in.
  • They considered pressing on and trying to enter Shiro Hiruma during the night whilst heavily fatigued and suffering from afflicted.
  • Then they stopped, realised that was bloody stupid, and looked for somewhere safe-ish to camp. Horonigai used Threshold Barrier to protect the area from tainted beings, whilst Goriate and Uiri secured the area as best they could.
  • Overnight, during their respective watches, Uiri repaired his armour, re-tying the laces he'd ripped when trying to get at the Blood Moths inside. Goriate assisted Horonigai in performing Cleansing Rite, using some purifying herbs picked up from Kuni Takeko in Spear of Dawn Watchtower.
    • She hadn't done this, but a spare opportunity on her Threshold Barrier check meant that retroactively she had, counting for a temporary advantage on the Cleansing Rite check. Which was good, as this meant she actually passed.
  • With the players insisting on only one person sleeping at once, so two were awake, they got only limited sleep (I let them recover their water ring of fatigue, not the full 2 x water ring), and the imposing presence of Shiro Hiruma gave them very dark and disturbing dreams. Horonigai - with her high void ring - could almost feel a physical weight pressing on her from the imminent presence of whatever monster Kitsu Sokori was seeking (this was the spiritual bleed-over of Sokorii performing her Maho ritual to weaken the walls of Yume-do, and commune with Atsumari no Oni).
• The following day, they entered Shiro Hiruma. They found a breach in the walls and scrabbled over - Horonigai passing well enough to have an air opportunity to spend on being quiet, whilst Goriate and Uiri (probably given their armour) were - if not precisely noisy, not especially quiet either.
  • Passing through the courtyard, Horonigai's attention was drawn to the well. Liquid was dripping...out...of the well - every few seconds there was a drip sound and a single drop of blood-red liquid 'fell' upwards into the sky, disappearing into the distance and presumably joining the smoky red clouds drifting above them.
    • " That's....not at all disturbing " she said, and then announced she was going to look down into the well.
    • The stone walls were shot through with diseased-looking, raw and steadily bleeding flesh, but there was also stonework - including an archway and what looked like a concealed tunnel leading toward the castle. The magistrates decided to enter that way - rather concerned at the turn events were taking.
  • The tunnel was dark and cramped, and only Uiri's skulduggery skill prevented Goriate setting off a spear-trap that had remarkably remained sprung.
  • Eventually, it brought them out in the wreckage of some of the servant's quarters on the first floor - the floor littered with wreckage and bodies, some disconcertingly melded with the walls and floor.
• They found the staircase down to the ground floor of the building had collapsed - splintered by the thrashings of a huge serpent which had burst into the castle from below. The beast itself had been slain - its skull was shattered and several rusted ono blades were still embedded in it - but its skeleton was solid enough to allow the players to reach the ground inside the castle.
  • The floor below proved to contain the remnants of the armoury. Ruined weapons were strewn everywhere. Uiri inspected them - hoping to find a replacement for his damaged dao - but was disappointed, and the one intact blade he did find proved to host a malevolent kansen, stinging the hand he touched it with and leaving his whole arm numb and aching, and once again returning the Afflicted condition (he's getting sick of that).
  • As they explored, they saw a single candle-light approaching from elsewhere. They immediately tried to hide, to either go unnoticed or launch an ambush, depending on what it turned out to be.
  • The figure turned out to be the many-eyed form of The Watcher, who unlike most inhabitants of Shiro Hiruma is too closely tied to the castle to flee in advance of Atsumari no Oni's return. Unfortunately, it proved far too alert for the players to hide from it, and it rushed them, gaping eyes dilating into mouths and fangs uncoiling from under its eyelids.
  • The Watcher - with focus 7 - easily outpaced the players on initiative, and with a free manoeuvre action from water stance closed the gap swiftly, reaching range 0 of all three where they had tried to hide, and attacking Uiri.
  • Its first attack was pretty terrifying, causing a serious amount of fatigue and giving Uiri Severely Wounded (Water) - which he only achieved (rather than losing his eye!) by sacrificing his already damaged dao in a shattering parry, as the already-weakened blade cracked clean across under the attack of the Watcher's fangs. Worse - he became compromised by the fitness check, meaning he suffered another critical strike. This one he was able to mitigate down to a close call, staggering back and pulling off his helmet as he vomited blood from the internal sickness resulting from the kansen's touch.
  • Goriate fell back, seeking space to use his tetsubo - and (in part because it's a cumbersome weapon) failed. He was able to cause a point of fatigue from Rushing Avalanch, though, catching the Watcher with a jab from the haft of the tetsubo on the backswing.
  • Horonigai also fell back, but given how close it was was unable to use her Daikyu. Her second thought - Howl of Isora - also wouldn't work as if she created a magical tornado, the Watcher was so close it would already be in the eye of the storm with her. She responded with martial arts (unarmed) instead, delivering a nasty kick and a few points of fatigue.
  • Uiri became enraged by the injury and switched to fire stance, striking at the Watcher and causing a fair amount of fatigue and a critical strike - a close call which removed the resistance of the monster.
  • The Watcher lunged after Goriate, fangs scrabbling across the mempo of his O-Yorei, and inflicting a sizeable amount of fatigue, but no critical strike.
  • He backed off again, and again missed with his cumbersome tetsubo - though again rushing avalanche allowed him to inflict some damage - 2 fatigue now the Watcher's physical resistance had been reduced to 0.
  • Horonigai, meanwhile, was able to fall back again and get far enough away to use her mother's daikyu. Taking no chances, she used one of her four remaining flesh-cutter arrows, and the shot was viciously effective - wounding the Watcher's water ring and incapacitating it.
  • Uiri followed up with a strike with his jade-inlaid Dao, burying it in the Watcher's spine. All the eyes across its skin shivered and burst, then the creature simply shattered like a porcelain statue.
  • "Is it dead?" "Do you want to wait around and find out that it isn't?"
• They're getting the idea of just how terrifying the shadowlands can be. Incapacitation and critical strikes are happening a lot more often than when facing random hired thugs.....
• They made their way into the court chamber - finding the remnants of Sokorii's ritual - and then subsequently to the floor above.
  • Here they encountered the roots of the tainted mass. They were worried enough, and were expecting it to attack. I think they were more disturbed than anything when it tried to communicate.
  • They realised it was the tainted remains of some of the corpses, animated somehow. When they began to understand it wanted to know about the world beyond rather than to consume them, they had a bit of a crisis of conscience.
    • They knew talking to it would be bad. A major breach of honour for horonigai would cost her 14 honour in a single stroke (we can only be glad she's not Lion Clan, who'd have suffered a "just execute me now" 28 honour loss in the same circumstances)
    • This was their first chance to get any information about what was happening - and what had happened - in the castle.
    • Goriate and Horonigai decided to speak with it. They initially failed their performance check with Goriate rolling no successes at all. Horonigai granted him rerolls via a temporary advantage of "I touch it" - becoming instantly afflicted.
      • The tainted mass was able to tell them where the last conflict between the oni and the crab shujenga took place (the upper floor of the now-shattered tower).
      • It also told them about a 'cold, hideous, agonising place' - which they were worried about before looking at the map and seeing "that looks intact". It took a few minutes of stressing before Goriate figured out (impressively un-prompted) that this was the perspective of a tainted being, and that it was the shrine. They are very reassured there might be a safe (ish!) spot in the castle.
      • Finally, it told them about the hidden cache in the library. It didn't know what was in there but the cache was dug into the wall, and its roots were threaded through the stonework of the wall - it could feel the outline of the shape.
      • It couldn't tell them much about the oni, other than the floor(s) above it in this tower were tainted with the Oni's power.
      • It knew nothing about Kitsu Sokorii - who was, after all, carrying a sword that was a twin to the one Horonigai was carrying, which meant she couldn't easily be sensed by supernatural means.

We ended the session here.

Oooooooof.

That sounds like a seriously bad time.for the characters.

So... first session of the new year, with the part of Mirumoto Uiri played by our pet spaniel as one of our regular players is celebrating 2020 with a bout of the Festive Lurgy.

• The party - thoroughly laden with fatigue and strife - decided to beat a retreat to the shrine to rest and recuperate.
• On heading down into the court chambers, Goriate (who has the highest vigilance due to the others being afflicted) noticed that there were noticeably fewer corpses in the hall than there had been. He investigated, and saw drag marks heading off towards the ruined tower.
  • " Let's not investigate that yet ." was the unanimous opinion.
• As they passed the old kitchens on the way to the shrine, they were attacked by shapes in the mist which formed themselves into shrieking gaki, in the form of a pair of Crab ashigaru. Goriate took a couple of points of fatigue fending them off before they dissipated as swiftly as they materialised.
• On entering the shrine, they set a watch and Horonigai performed a cleansing rite ritual, un-afflicting herself and Uiri. She also got two opportunities, and received a - somewhat disjointed and confused - vision of a Hiruma Shujenga, who she (correctly) guessed was the instigator of the ritual.
  • She saw memories of the ritual, research in the library, and the Daimyo and his Hatamoto preparing a last stand in the centre of the keep to draw off the oni's forces and buy her time as the Hiruma's Nezumi allies led everyone they could out through the tunnels. She also saw the two swords of the Hiruma ancestral daisho (in their original wooden saya) and an ornate gunbai fan, which were used as keystones of the shujenga's ritual.
  • The party were beginning to understand just how confused and disoriented the Hiruma spirits were after being confined in Yume-do for centuries.
  • Goriate's "why do they keep attacking?" was settled with "because you're not dead, and not of Hiruma blood, and you're inside daylight castle. So as far as they can tell, you must be one of the lost. That's about as well as they can perceive reality in Ningen-do anymore."
    • "Yes, but why do they keep attacking me ?" "Because I'm carrying the wakizashi saya that probably stops them seeing me at all, remember?"
  • She also realised that one thing no-one mentioned in any of the memories in the vision was the shujenga's name. This prompted Horonigai's player to start flicking back through her notes for several minutes before realising that no-one had to date mentioned the shujenga's name.
• After a brief rest - it was hard to tell, with the sky so distorted, whether it was day or night and how long had passed - they decided their next course of action was to investigate the library, hoping to find genealogical records that might include the shujenga's name, and more details on her ritual.
  • Leaving the shrine, they almost blundered into a scavenging party of undead.
    • The group proved to be a quartet of zombie peasants, watched over by a single skeletal bushi. who had been dragging corpses towards the ruined tower from the main hall.
    • The fight was short and pretty one-sided. Horonigai was slightly irked that Does Not Bleed meant she was unable to land a critical strike on the skeletal bushi, but Goriate - despite the increased TN for moving and using a cumbersome weapon - charged into it and shattered one arm with a swing of his tetsubo. Uiri engaged two of the zombies, and the remaining undead all scrabbled ineffectually at Goriate's O-Yoroi armour. Horonigai took down the bushi with a second arrow, and Goriate swiftly dispatched the two zombies with his tetsubo, whilst Uiri had disposed of the other zombies.
  • Proceeding up to the library, they found the area a wreck. Uiri stood guard whilst Goriate searched the ruined shelves and strewn scrolls, whilst Horonigai searched for the hidden compartment the tainted mass had told them about.
    • Horonigai found it - and set off a ward protecting it (rather than it being specific to tainted beings I had it be a general-purpose trap ward) but her damaged ritual robes and theology skill reduced the damage to an inconvenient surprise rather than serious injury.
    • In the process, she also sensed something recent and spiritually unpleasant. Following her senses, Goriate located some torn fragments of scrolls, including one complete page, which had snagged on a protruding shelf support as its owner had - presumably - fled the room from the same horrific vision they'd encountered.
      • Thanks to a successful composition check (Goriate looking slightly smug that after his Haiku competition at Kyotei he'd bought the skill and it had actually mattered ), Goriate was able to identify it as Ikoma-made parchment, with notes written on it in a selection of different common inks from different parts of the empire - suggesting it was originally from Lion lands, from a bundle of scrolls that had been written over time
        • "Sokorii's 'maho revision notes'?" "Essentially. One page of them, anyway."
      • The page - once Horonigai and Goriate put their heads and theology skills together - proved to contain the tail end of one ritual and the start of a second. The latter was for communing with Atsumari no Oni, and talked about a 'scorched circle' - which they correctly identified as the ritual Sokorii had carried out in the court chamber. The former appeared to be the tail end of a ritual for undoing the wards holding the Hiruma in Yume-do and summoning Atsumari no Oni, and finished with the ominous statement "and then Atsumari no Oni will feast on the souls denied to it, and it will gain the strength to break what bonds remain on it, and I shall have my vengeance."
        • "Fun. Can we try to not let that happen?"
      • The scrolls in the hidden cache proved to be both things the players had been hoping for - a history of the last few weeks of Hiruma Castle, including Hiruma Masami's name, and a more detailed set of notes left by her explaining what she planned to do and why.
        • One thing worth noting is that the plan of confining the souls of the Hiruma slain in the defence of the castle to the Realm of Dreams was intended as a short-term plan, " to allow Hida-Ue time to rally the clan's armies and take back the castle " (Hida Goriate looked a bit sheepish on his family's behalf at that). It had been intended to last months or at most a few years, not centuries, but no-one who fully understood Masami's plan had made it out of the castle alive to tell the Crab that, and they had never been able to retake the fortress. After so long, Masami's work was beginning to degrade on its own, hence the intermittent breaches and attacks by insubstantial Hiruma ghosts.
        • Horonigai was saddened to find that the wards were a single entity; the wards which held the Hiruma ghosts in Yume-do were the same ones preventing the return of Atsumari no Oni, so breaching them to achieve one must inevitably lead to both. The one ray of hope was that the two wouldn't, from her best judgement, happen simultaneously - after the Hiruma returned to Ningen-do there would be a period of time before Atsumari no Oni could manifest.
          • "How long?" "Not sure. It's like cutting a knot and allowing the string to uncoil under its own weight. But you can bet the Maho-Tsukai will be busy pulling on the other end of it, so less than we'd like."
        • The ritual definitely used the Hiruma daisho and the gunbai fan she'd seen previously.
          • "We don't know where the fan is." "No, but unlike the swords there's no mention of it ever leaving the castle." "So?" "So the last person to have it was the Daimyo, who was leading a last stand in this part of the keep."
    • Proceeding upstairs into the Daimyo's quarters, they soon came across the wreckage of armour and weapons that looked like a Daimyo's hatamoto. They also encountered whispering that - wherever they looked - kept coming from over their shoulders.
      • Horonigai - to Goriate's horror - got annoyed with this and decided to Commune with the Spirits.
      • Aside from a metric tonne of strife and becoming afflicted again, she was able to discern a voice from the top of the staircase whispering "Help me."
      • The fact that the walls started bleeding and distorting into fanged maws at this point did nothing to reassure Goriate.
      • The quarters proved to contain the fan, and a stone cruciform with a wounded samurai chained and nailed to it, with the stone melded around and through parts of his limbs.
      • Horonigai went to get the fan whilst Goriate spoke to the man he - correctly- guessed was Hiruma Tomoharu, the Daimyo of the Hiruma at the fall of Shiro Hiruma.
        • The prisoner wasn't terribly coherent but was able to tell Goriate who he was, and that someone who matched Sokorii's appearance (so far as they'd only seen her from afar) had been here recently, demanding to know about 'the sword' (presumably the wakizashi to match the katana her henchmen had stolen for her from the Komori on the Mantis islands).
        • He also warned Goriate that the beast was watching through his eyes.
      • This prompted a bit of an ethical debate, and ended up with the players choosing to take a fair hit of honour.
        • The moment he understood the situation, thankful he'd spoken to the Daimyo not Horonigai, Goriate got Horonigai out of the room.
        • The problem was this:
          • The Daimyo could be released but doing so would inflict fatal injuries, and as tainted as he was, he wanted to take his own life anyway.
          • The easy way would be for Goriate to simply put him out of his misery with a single katana stroke. Horonigai did at one point suggest that.
          • The honourable way to do so would be for Hiruma Tomoharu to use the Hiruma wakizashi. Which the players had.
            • But Atsumari no Oni was watching everything through the Daimyo's eyes, and doing that would be showing the Oni not only was someone else in the castle to try and stop Sokorii, but that they had the other of the Hiruma ancestral swords, and tipping that surprise could well prevent them from stopping her.
            • "Can it tell Sokorii if it sees me carrying the sword?" "We're dealing with Maho-Cheaty-Bull**** here, it's safer to assume it can."
        • In the end, they accepted a major breach of sincerity (costing Goriate 8 honour and the Phoenix-born Horonigai 6) to lie to the daimyo, convincing him with some hard sentiment and courtesy checks that the Hiruma blade had been lost (which it had been, but neglecting to mention they'd found it!) and to accept the use of Goriate's sword and with an untainted Crab samurai to second him.
          • Goriate's wakizashi is now quite a badly tainted item. Cleansing this will take some time - which he's fully aware of and is added to the pile of unpleasant conversation topics to discuss with his aunt if the party survives.
    • The players were beginning to head back to the shrine - to scour Sokorii and Masami's scrolls to get as best an understanding of what was going to happen as they could - when Goriate and Horonigai both sensed something, and the phoenix looked out of an archery window towards the ruined tower.
      • "Oh." "What?" "You know the upper floors of the ruined tower, where the ritual happened?" "Yes......" " They're back ." "What?!?!"
      • A ghostly outline of the undamaged tower floated in the mists, overlaid on the ruins. Sickly-looking witchfires flickered back and forth over the ruins, whilst a sizable company of undead warriors - dozens strong at least - could be seen taking up formation around and inside the lowest level of the ruins.....

On ‎12‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 6:39 PM, Myrion said:

Oooooooof.

That sounds like a seriously bad time.for the characters.

Indeed. The Watcher is no mean opponent for even a trio of low-level characters.

So - we had, if not the final, at least a pretty dramatic session of Mask of the Oni.

• With the tower reappearing, Uiri and Goriate's players basically broke into a volley of questions at one another.
  • "How is the tower back?"
  • "What is she doing?"
  • "How is she starting the ritual with just the katana?"
  • "How does she have an entire undead army?"
  • " Why does she have an entire undead army?"
• Horonigai's player's response was pretty on-point...
  • "Can we assume the answer to any questions at this point is either 'We don't know' or 'Maho-Cheaty-Bull****'. She wouldn't be doing what she's done if she weren't ready. That means there is precisely no time to stand around."
• The players were aware they needed a plan. Goriate pointed out that the tunnels under the castle might let them outflank some of the undead forming outside the tower.
  • "There will be more inside."
  • "I still think 'not all of them' is an improvement."
• Goriate and Uiri started throwing ideas back and forth, but then Horonigai stopped them (apparently her player was in a suitably 'take charge in a crisis' mood)
  • "I have...what is probably a very bad plan."
  • She explained.
  • Uiri and Goriate looked at her.
  • "I said it was very bad. But it might work, and if it's going to, we need to go now ."
  • Uiri and Goriate looked at her some more.
  • "What are you waiting for?"
  • "Frankly? A better plan . But it'll do..."
  • The three samurai all took off at a run.

• "...Hida Goriate-san's instincts were sound." Horonigai acknowledged. "We saw well over a dozen undead guarding the bridge between the keep and the doorway into the tower, and several of them looked to be reanimated bushi, not simply ashigaru. We will not have time to fight our way through them, especially with them holding a defensible position...."
  • Goriate and Uiri picked their way carefully through the dark, dank tunnel.
  • Kaiu Riko and the Knotted Tails had given him a rough idea of the layout of the tunnels under the castle, and they followed what they were fairly confident was the quickest tunnel between the keep and the ruined tower.
  • Uiri led the way - with keener senses (better air and water rings) and not weighed down by O-Yorei armour, he had a chance of picking a safe and quiet route in the dark. Occasional patches of luminescent mould provided not quite enough light to see by, but neither samurai used a torch for fear of letting the enemy know they were coming.

• "...Sokorii is clever, but she is neither a bushi nor a member of the Hiruma. There is no reason she would know her way around Shiro Hiruma well enough know the tunnels are there, and has not been here long enough to find them..."
  • Uiri carefully glanced round the half-rotted wooden screen covering the entrance to the tunnel inside the ruined tower. The view was...odd; the shadows of the intact tower superimposed on the debris of the ruined one, it was hard to tell which was which with a cursory glance.
  • The centre of the tower was filled with more undead soldiers - at least as many as outside - formed up in serried, precise ranks circling the centre of the room.
  • In the centre of the room, black and red flames were swirling around and through one another, and a woman's voice was chanting words Uiri was very glad he couldn't understand.

• "...We were a week behind her when she escaped the Islands of Spice and Silk, but it is safe to assume Yoritomo-Ue's warship would be faster, and she landed somewhere on the east coast and crossed the Shadowlands whilst we came most of the way along the Kaiu highway." The shrine maiden reasoned. "She cannot have been many days ahead of us..."
  • Uiri and Goriate moved behind some ruined pillars halfway between the tunnel entrance and the doorway, as close as they could get without crossing open ground. Vigilance is not - unsurprisingly - the undead's strong point, and they weren't spotted.
  • The two samurai agreed that Goriate should do what the Hida do best - hold the line. If he could hold the doorway, then only two or three of the undead outside could attack him at once, and with his heavy plate they would be unlikely to be able to force him back. That left Uiri to protect Goriate's back in the way Mirumoto fight best - a sword in each hand and creating a wall made of blades.
  • There were an awful lot of undead, though.

• "...Creating so many undead servants must have taken most of her time and effort since she arrived..."
  • Goriate moved first, using water stance to cover the ground as fast as he could to reach the doorway before the undead could react. He tried to heave the rusted and cracked remnants of a weapons rack into the doorway to block it as much as possible but - somewhat embarrassingly for the Large Stature Crab - failed the fitness check to do so (Water is not his strong suite). Still, he was in position, hefting his tetsubo to swing.
  • Uiri moved up to take position between him and the Undead inside, swinging his jade-edged dao and slicing dead flesh, one of the undead falling back lifeless.
  • On both sides of them, the first rank of the undead ashigaru pivoted with mechanical precision, levelled their weapons and advanced. Uiri took a couple of points of fatigue from their attacks, though his ashigaru armour blocked the worst of it.

• "With the wakizashi scabbard hiding us, she cannot have seen us coming through scrying - she may well not have known we were here until Hiruma Tomoharu saw us..."
  • A couple of turns into the conflict, Horonigai emerged from the keep, on the far side of the bridge to the tower, unslinging her adopted mother's daikyu.
  • Goriate swung his Tetsubo, shattering one of the zombies with ease. The remaining undead swung at him with a frenzied aggression, and inflicted several points of fatigue despite his thick plate armour.
  • Uiri took up a guard in air stance, and between the two TN-increasing effects and Way of the Dragon 'knocking out' results, the four zombies attacking him did no damage.

• "...Most likely, her undead are there to fend off the ghosts of the Hiruma..."
  • Horonigai levelled an arrow with her Daikyu. Normally, shooting at such a range would be a more-or-less blind volley, but with to spend on Hawk's Precision , she was able to take a more precise shot, and killed one of the zombies attacking Goriate directly instead of simply firing into the mass.
  • The Hida samurai was relieved to have a second person trying to thin out the undead facing him, and was able to smash a second. Once again, the blades of the two who followed failed to find a gap in either his guard or his armour.
  • Uiri once again took up a guard, but this time supplemented it with spent on Crescent Moon Style , allowing him to wound one of the zombies.
  • Sokorii's chanting continued, beginning to echo strangely from the walls. A pale mist started to drift across the ruins.

• "...We have seen enough of them - been attacked often enough - whilst we have been here." said Horonigai, lighting a stick of incense. "They are confused, disoriented..."
  • Horonigai advanced, slowly, notching a second arrow, into range for a less challenging direct shot. A second zombie collapsed with a daikyu shaft through its skull.
  • Goriate continued to swing his tetsubo, shattering another zombie, but the next group crowding in on him included several armed with Yari - with a greater number of opponents able to reach him, he took another point of fatigue.
  • Uiri continued to guard and hacked at one zombie attacking him with a Crescent Moon Style backswing, but now a second group of undead was crowding round and pressing in and he also took two more fatigue.

• "...Even Hiruma Masami-sama cannot make herself understood. I cannot warn them what is being done. I have tried and failed. After so long in the Realm of Dreams it is like trying to commune with the most ancient kami; they can barely perceive mortals, and there are precious few they would trust even if they could..."
  • A third daikyu arrow brought down a zombie ashigaru.
  • Uiri continued to guard Goriate's back, but the rate at which he was accumulating left him exhausted and at the ragged edge of his composure.
  • As Sokorii continued to chant, Uiri was convinced he could hear a second - far less human - voice chanting at the same time. The mists began to thicken, and became ankle-deep.
  • Goritate brought down another zombie, but the undead, surprisingly, stepped back rather than attacking.
  • Shouldering its way through the zombies, a more imposing, armoured figure reached Hida Goriate - from the corroded armour and heavy tetsubo, it was obvious that this undead had, in life, not merely been a bushi but one of Hiruma Tomoharu's hatamoto.
    • The creature was a Skeletal Bushi with the warrior template and two kata; Crimson Leaves and Iron In The Mountains .

• "...Trapped in inescapable dreams for centuries, they are confused and disorganised at best, insane at worst - when returned to Ningen-do, they will be little more than a scattered mob, and Sokorii knows this..."
  • A gap appeared around Goriate and the undead hatamoto as they clashed. Competent undead - with composure ∞ - make for terrifying opponents in duels as they cannot loose a staredown and will never become compromised to allow a finishing blow. The hatamoto struck first, using Crimson Leaves Style and delivering a painful quantity of fatigue despite Goriate's armour and the high TN of the technique. Goriate was able to keep hold of his own tetsubo, despite the jarring impact to his hands, and delivered a massive fire-stance hammer-blow in return, leaving the bushi all but defeated in one hit.
  • Horonigai took advantage of the undead outside the tower 'standing to' whilst the duel was fought to run, closing the distance to the broken gap in the centre of the bridge.
  • Uiri continued to hold his ground - able to maintain his guard and bring down another opponents with Crescent Moon Style only through determination to protect Goriate (allowing him to ignore one result via their bond as Comrades).

• "...Sokorii would not have begun her ritual unless she was confident she had far greater forces than she needed. Undead may make poor fighters but they are disciplined and only have to hold the line until she can unbind the wards preventing Atsumari no Oni's return..."
  • Horonigai drew out another arrow, and this time began to pray, preparing the invocation Howl of Isora . She succeeded well thanks to her school's Sacred Arrows ability, and was able to use to increase the area effect of the ability.
  • Clearly getting a second wind, Uiri was able to bring down two opponents with Spinning Blades Style.
  • Kitsu Sokorii stood - vaguely visible for the first time through the wall of undead still guarding her - and unsheathed the ancestral Katana of the Hiruma.
  • The skeletal hatamoto struck first again, using Crimson Leaves Style but also spending to trigger Iron In The Mountains . Goriate was able to remain standing but this time his tetsubo was ripped from his hands and skittered along the walkway outside the tower, stopping well out of reach.
  • Whilst only a single point of fatigue was needed to incapacitate his opponent, Goriate's sword was unlikely to deliver it. He reached for it nevertheless, then remembered the string of prayer beads the Knotted Tails' rememberer had given him and reached for that instead. Looping the beads round his gauntlet several times, he delivered a haymaker punch - and with the purifying jade on his fist, the hatamoto's left arm was shattered clean off its body.

• "...If events proceed as Sokorii has planned, we are going to fail." Horonigai said, with a steady voice, moving the incense back and forth. "No samurai, however gifted, can hold at bay indefinitely an endless army which does not tire or flee. We are not enough, by ourselves, to make a difference..."
  • Without pausing for a moment, the undead hatamoto switched to water stance and drew its sword. This did little damage thanks to its scar disadvantage, but did inflict a critical strike. Fortunately the critical strike only damaged goriate's armour, thanks to Way of the Crab, and in return Goriate took a calming breath and then a second punch shattered the former hatamoto's skull and it collapsed back, defeated.
  • He stood triumphant for a moment before the other undead levelled their spears and began advancing again.
  • Uiri continued to fight the undead pressing in on him, using Crescent Moon Style leave yet another zombie wounded but still moving, as a fourth group pivoted towards him and began to advance...
  • Horonigai loosed her sacred arrow. Goriate was caught in the edge of the sudden tempest which burst from its impact point, knocking a dozen undead back and leaving them momentarily disoriented.
  • The chanting reached a triumphant climax. Snarling out the final syllables, Sokorii cut upwards with her sword, trails of mist coiling around it as if the air were being sliced in two.
  • The flames swirling around her guttered out suddenly, and with a noise like tearing silk, a series of vast misty archways ripped open around the floor of the tower.
  • They looked superficially similar to the coiling mists from which the Hiruma ghosts who had attacked the magistrates had emerged.
  • This time, though...nothing came out.

• "...The only way we will have a chance to break through is if something happens which she cannot have foreseen. Something neither she nor Atsumari no Oni are aware of..."
  • Goriate took the opportunity presented by the disoriented undead to move and grab his tetsubo from the floor.
  • With Goriate no longer blocking the doorway, Uiri backed up to place the solid wall behind him, and readied his swords to receive the undead once again.
  • Horonigai leapt over the gap in the bridge and ran towards the doorway, sidestepping a few disoriented zombies in the process.
  • Inside the tower Sokorii looked back and forth between the misty gates, waiting and seemingly irked that the tide of Hiruma ghosts she had been waiting for hadn't emerged immediately.
  • Suddenly, on the edge of hearing, as if from a great distance, the slow beat of a single taiko drum began.
  • The first Hiruma ghosts emerged from the largest portal - and only that portal - their translucent, misty forms moving in perfect lock-step ranks.
  • Three ranks emerged, and stopped, weapons readied. Sokorii stared, shocked.

• "...Which is why I beg your aid." Horonigai concluded, setting down the incense and bowing. "Hiruma Masami-Sama's notes show how to send the spirits of the dead into Yume-Do..."
  • Another figure emerged from the portal, but this clear and distinct unlike the ghosts it stood beside. The figure was clad in full armour wrought in an ancient style lacquered in green. Despite the armour, its footsteps made no sound as it took its place by the head of the Hiruma ghosts, whose faces shifted to look towards it, awaiting instructions.
  • The spirit of Doji Satsume, once Emerald Champion of the Empire of Rokugan, drew his sword and levelled it at the stunned Maho-Tsukai.
  • As one, the last defenders of Shiro Hiruma charged.

HOLY FORKING SHIRTBALLS

Did not see that coming. Well done, your players. Beautifully written up, Magnus. This was a joy to read.

On 1/17/2020 at 10:13 AM, Myrion said:

HOLY FORKING SHIRTBALLS

Did not see that coming. Well done, your players. Beautifully written up, Magnus. This was a joy to read.

Indeed. That was a GREAT plot twist.

Plot twists by the PCs are always the best!

• A flying wedge of Hiruma spirits hit the line of undead protecting Sokorii like a sledgehammer. With the undead spread out in a full circle to protect her from every direction, and no small number drawn off to fight - or already defeated by - the magistrates, the line was now only a couple of zombies thick. Half a dozen former ashigaru were pulled down in seconds, and for a moment it seemed like the ghosts would break through on their own.
• Recovering from her shock, though, Sokorii gestured with her own sword and snarled several commands, accompanied by a curt maho incantation of Unholy Fervor , strengthening the undead*. At the same time, obedient to her command, every single undead pivoted on the spot and started to converge on the Hiruma spirits.
• In doing so, Sokorii had - in surprise and near-panic - made a simple mistake of forgetting how literally undead servants take commands. As devious a schemer as she may have been, she was no battlefield commander, and responded to the unexpected by reaching for overwhelming brute force.
• Leaving no-one between her and the magistrates.
• Horonigai nocked a precious flesh-ripper arrow, and Uiri and Goriate charged.

• Uiri unmasked and bellowing with rage as for the first time he was able to attack the witch who'd been ultimately responsible for all the deaths, fear, injuries and general horror and upleasantness of the last several months. Despite everything, Sokorii was faster, and slashed out with the Hiruma katana, catching him in the arm and leaving him bleeding and with wounded (fire), on top of wounded (water) which still hadn't fully healed.
• Uiri slashed out with his jade-inlaid dao, accepting a crippling quantity of strife and fatigue to deliver a critical to the maho-tsukai.
• Goriate swung with his jade-covered fist - unwilling to accept a higher TN on his attack given the cumbersome nature of his tetsubo.
• Horonigai's arrow missed, but spending allowed her to assist the next attack on Sokorii as her target twisted aside from the lethal arrow.
• Sokorii twisted, katana slashing at Goriate's legs and delivering fatigue past the weakened armour of the O-Yorei, still chanting as she did so.
• Goriate allowed the blow, hefting his tetsubo in return and delivering a brutal blow, incapactitating Sokorii.
• Uiri killed the incapacitated maho-tsukai. She screamed as she collapsed, dessicating and blowing away as dust on the wind.

• Bereft of Sokorii's magical reinforcement and command, the remaining undead took a few minutes more to bring down but the outcome was never really in doubt.
• Bowing to both Doji Satsume and the Hiruma, the magistrates watched as the misty portals faded away and soon after the Hiruma started to fade too. They never actually noticed Satsume disappear, so remain uncertain whether he followed the Hiruma into Meido or is still lurking in the edges of the mortal world.
• Horonigai had moved to help Uiri staunch the bleeding from his wound when a noise like cracking terracotta and a vicious hiss startled the three of them.
• Snarling with rage, the hulking form of Atsumari no Oni clawed its way into reality.
• Goriate reacted first - using Lord Hida's Grip to pin the monster immobile. He tried to knock it prone but the monster passed its fitness check with trivial ease, and he took a hit of strife from Horror of Jigoku in the process. He could feel the jade beads around his fist and the finger of jade on his neck start to corrode, and his armour began to turn red-hot.
• Horonigai responded by using their other surprise - drawing the Hiruma wakizashi, whilst Uiri grabbed the Hiruma katana from the scattered dust and rags which was all that remained of Kitsu Sokorii.
• Horonigai's guess proved right - some element of Hiruma Masami's wards remained - a green-white fire shot along the blades of the two ancestral swords and the oni reared back, snarling in rage.
• It hammered a fist into the Hida samurai, who - thanks to way of the crab - only lost the remaining protection of his armour, and giving the bushi the afflicted and burning conditions.
• "Keep it pinned!" "I am trying. Given that I am literally on fire at this point, can you two please hurry up!"
• Goriate once again failed to knock the oni prone, but kept it immobilized and - critically - delivered skilled assistance to his comrades.
• Both of them struck the oni with their swords at the same moment, and - to their relief - the creature's shape folded up on itself and it disappeared, repelled by the last fragments of Masami's warding invocations.
• The banishment would not last long, compared to the centuries it had held, but it lasted long enough for the remaining Hiruma to depart, for Mirumoto Uiri to treat his wound, and for Isawa no Kaito Horonigai, with Hida Goriate's aid, to triumphantly carry out a purifying rite to remove afflicted from the three magistrates and - at least for the moment - the ruined tower (whose ghostly upper floors were already fading from view).

• Some time later, bruised, battered but triumphant, the three set out back towards the edge of Knotted Tails territory. Pointedly, as Goriate said, going the long way around the ornamental woodland this time...

* For the purposes of Unholy Fervor - which allows targets to " treat each of their Shadowlands Taint disadvantages as an advantage that apply to any checks using its ring " - I assume that a tainted being like an undead nominally has Shadowlands Taint (All).

So.... We had a quick session last night, which was rather light-hearted - once again with our spaniel making a cameo appearance, this time as Hida Goriate.

Amusingly, his first and only roll (well, licking the dice before they were rolled for him) came up triple .

(It has been observed that he's therefore more competent than Goriate's actual player).

• There were two meaningful scenes; after the climactic battle in Daylight Castle, I largely skipped over the shadowlands travel as it'd feel a bit cheap for them to be killed by a random goblin with a pointed stick (and at this point they pretty much could be). Besides which, now with both katana and wakizashi saya, supernatural shadowlands stuff is, generally speaking, not going to notice them.
  • The first scene was them arriving back in the Knotted Tails village, to much excited (and concerned) squeaking from the pups, firstly glad to see them back but worried at how battered they looked.
    • Aside from a brief narrative scene, and checking in on Hiruma Kurumi, who if not exactly 'better' was at least well enough to travel, they went to see The Great Horned Rat Lucky Silver, One-Eye and the Rememberer.
    • The key element here is that whilst she was glad to hear the evil in Daylight Castle had been driven off, and - on general principles - that the Blood Painter had been foiled, Lucky Silver had been under the impression the blade had been lent to Horonigai, rather than given .
    • Especially, since they'd apparently found a Human-sized version of it, why did they need to keep the Knotted Tails' Nezumi-sized one?
    • This played out as an intrigue - Lucky Silver on one side, the PCs on the other, with One-Eye arbitrating.
    • In the end it only took a single round - One-Eye is Focus 4, Vigilance 2, after all.
      • "Goriate" (i.e. the other PCs) began with a reason/courtesy check, to try and explain the concept of the Daisho and the fact that the Hiruma swords had been important to the memories and stories of the Hiruma since well before the wakizashi had come to the Knotted Tails. The Nezumi may be hazy on the concept of 'ownership'* but "sentimental value" and "important to a story" is something they can get.
        • Due to the aforementioned ridiculous role, this got them 2 momentum straight off.
      • Lucky Silver's Quick To Anger disadvantage stopped her passionate plea being as effective as it could have been.
      • Horonigai then, with Uiri's assistance, told the story - the real story - of the fall of Daylight Castle and what had happened since, with everything she'd learned from Hiruma Masumi's visions and notes, Sokorii's actions, Hiruma Tomoharu's words to Goriate, and the memories of the Tainted Mass. As a performance/enlighten check, it worked, winning the intrigue. With the extra kept die for assistance, she was able to keep , spending the two on a 'spiritual insight' and successfully convincing the Knotted Tails that, with protecting the sword, and saving of the Hiruma souls, they had repaid whatever debt they might feel they owed to the people who had died at Shiro Hiruma.
      • One Eye - rather slowly and painfully - chose to untie his tail at this.
    • As part-gift, part-tribute and part-replacement weapon (plus part-it-was-in-the-daimyo's-quarters-so-might-be-horribly-tainted-but-you're-immune-so-that-works-out-fine), they formally made a gift of Hiruma Tomoharu's Tessen to Lucky Silver instead. The PCs decided that they were returning the ancestral daisho, which should be a pretty big deal by itself, and no-one back in Crab Lands knew the Tessen had been retrieved to be concerned about its loss in the first place.
  • The second scene was at the foot of the wall, some days later, after they had reached Spear of Dawn Watchtower.
    • They essentially marched straight up to the foot of the wall and declared who they were, and that " they'd like to come in ." They showed the Hiruma daisho (as best it could be seen from the top of the wall!), and said they'd been to Daylight Castle and retrieved it from there.
    • A guntai of heavily armoured infantry poured out of a sally gate a few minutes later and surrounded them at naginata-point. They remembered at this point that they'd basically snuck into the Shadowlands behind Hida Hachiro's back and that Hiruma Kurumi was arguably a deserter.
    • They were taken to the cells under the tower - though the cells in question were at least warm, clean and safe (or at least as safe as anything within sight of the shadowlands gets), and being presented to the delightfully deranged Kuni Takeko for another stabbing-with-a-jade-pin-to-check-for-taint session.
    • The session ended with a cell door slamming closed on the PCs.
      • This was not how the triumphant end of the adventure was supposed to go in their heads.
      • The one bright spot was that Bayushi Tsubasa was 'unavailable' - which they initially thought meant the scorpion was hanging them out to dry - until the attendant clarified that he was " busy dealing with urgent dispatches to Shiro Kuni ", which - they hope - means Goriate's Aunt is getting word of their arrest.

* None of them have noticed due to some good rolls by the minion group of pups who met them at the village edge but they're going to find themselves unexpectedly short of "shiny round things" the next time they check their coin purses.

Also - the world's happiest RPG player. (Corner of natural Triple roll just visible on left of shot)

We had another brief session - this time with Uiri's player absent.

• So. The session began with the PCs locked in cells in the watchtower. They weren't threatened, or interrogated, or essentially interacted with in any way aside from heimin servants bringing food, for several days.
• Then, one morning, a servant said they had been asked to go to the Watchtower's Strategy Room to "dictate a formal report". They were left in a waiting area outside, which proved to be empty, aside from two letters, both open but unsigned, next to each other on the low table in the centre of the room.
• The first read as follows, and caused a noticeable widening of the eyes:

"Hida-Ue;
It is my honour to report that Hida Hachiro-san, commander of the Spear of Dawn watchtower, has recently arrested a trio of intruders who passed through our territories without permission from the Crab clan, and slipped across the wall into the shadowlands by deception, taking one of the Hiruma family’s samurai as a hostage. Their claim to be Emerald Magistrates is laughable since the Ruby Champion, Agasha Sumiko-sama, has sent us no notice of such individuals travelling here, and nor did they carry any document authorising the travel of Emerald Magistrates into Crab territory. I have been frustratingly unable to confirm their true identity.
The intruders were eventually surrounded and captured a week after crossing the wall, following the destruction of an army of shadowlands forces they may have been trying to join. I am saddened to report that though their hostage was rescued, he was badly wounded and his survival remains in doubt.
When arrested, the intruders were found to be in possession of ancestral relics of the Hiruma family it is suspected they stole before crossing the wall, and also in possession of an artefact I can confirm to have been deeply ingrained with the shadowlands taint. It is believed they may have been connected to a Maho-Tsukai suspected of several murders on the eastern coast, and that they may be Maho-Tsukai themselves. Accordingly, I have ordered their execution as common criminals and the immediate destruction of all potentially tainted objects and heretical documents found in their possession."

• The second read as follows:

"Hida-Ue;
It is my honour to report that Hida Hachiro-san has recently destroyed a large force of shadowlands goblins, who, forced northwards by some tribal migration or disaster within the shadowlands, assaulted the wall close to the Spear of Dawn watchtower.
Whilst the goblins were engaged in their satisfyingly futile assault on the wall, a party of Crab samurai launched a daring raid into the shadowlands; they were accompanied in this action by a group of Emerald Magistrates who were in the Clan’s lands to visit the family of one of their number. They succeeded in reaching Shiro Hiruma itself, and, though both the Crab samurai and the Emerald Magistrates suffered wounded, were able to retrieve priceless relics of the Hiruma family; namely the family’s ancestral daisho, long lost and the subject of various contradictory myths and legends, from the ruins of the castle.
I wish to draw your particular attention to the courage of the individual Emerald Magistrates who volunteered to support this action – I consider this a most excellent example of what can be achieved when the samurai of Rokugan at large willingly provide the Crab clan with the support our duties require, and recommend they be given an appropriate platform to share their experiences with the Empire at large."

• A few minutes later, the doors of the main strategy room slid open, and they found the room was occupied by Kuni Yori himself and a scribe, who - Yori said - would accurately transcribe their description of events. He apologised for not speaking to them beforehand, and for instructing Hida Hachiro that the guards of the watchtower not interact with them, but " it was important that no-one speak to you to ensure your public testimony has not been influenced in any way ."
• They got the hint, and dictated a report as detail-free as possible that mirrored the second of the two letters.
  • They may have glossed over the fact that the 'party of Crab Samurai' consisted of one guy, who'd been left behind before they ever got to Shiro Hiruma.
  • Also noticeably absent from the narrative was any mention of Maho-Tsukai, Hiruma Masami, Doji Satsume, Atsumari no Oni, or Nezumi.
  • They did noticeably credit - keeping their end of the 'deal' - Bayushi Tsubasa with planning the raid.
• Yori said nothing throughout the proceedings, until the scribe indicated that they had completed their task, then stamped it with his personal chop and dismissed the scribe, instructing tea to be brought in.
  • "And now the formalities are concluded," He said, as Horonigai - rather nervously - performed the tea ceremony, "What actually happened?"
  • For the most part they gave him the unedited truth. The one detail - agreed before they ever reached the wall - was omitting mention of Satsume's ghost.
  • This led to a Deceive (Air)/Courtesy check, which went....better than it could have done. Yori could clearly tell they were avoiding mentioning something about how they'd beaten Sokorii's undead, but after a Charm(water)/Courtesy check, decided he was prepared to accept them keeping their secret provided they were prepared to swear on their life, their honour and their families that whatever they weren't mentioning posed no threat to the Crab or the Empire.
    • They agreed, hinting they had surprised and distracted her at a critical moment, and that it involved the private business of another clan it would be inappropriate to reveal.
    • Which is technically true, even if Yori - incorrectly - assumed they were talking about whatever internal scandal within the Lion Clan had led to Sokorii turning Maho-Tsukai....
  • In return for not pressing the matter, the Kuni daimyo laid down a condition of his own. Their report to the Ruby champion would - obviously - feature the defeat of the Maho-Tsukai they had been hunting, and the Oni whom she was aiming to release, since this justified her presence in the shadowlands. He insisted that they swear their report otherwise be 'circumspect'.
    • They assumed - initially - that he did not want too many details about the Oni recorded anywhere, but after a minute they realised what he was trying to bury was any mention of the Hiruma Ghosts.
    • When they asked about this, he explained that "Hiruma Masami-san's innovative works were brilliant, especially given the circumstances under which she created it, and the fact that she did not represent one of the great shujenga bloodlines of the clan. But - whilst what she did represented the only way to salvation for the souls of many brave Hiruma samurai, what she created was a ritual which redirects a soul's path after death. To exile a soul to another plane, potentially indefinitely, rather than granting them their honourable rest in Meido." He shrugged - about the most human gesture they'd seen from the Kuni daimyo. "Such a technique is open to misuse, as with all invocations, and those who are more concerned with the abstract 'righteousness' of an act rather than its necessity or effectiveness," his glance flicked to the Phoenix-born Horonigai, "might consider such a technique to stray a little too close to the forbidden arts of Maho. I think it better to avoid unnecessary mention of it."
    • Horonigai - who had, remember, made use of Masami's technique herself in order to allow Doji Satsume's shade to intervene - hadn't thought of it that way and decided she would be very happy if it wasn't discussed any further. She did notice that Kuni Yori had a bundle of scrolls containing both Hiruma Masami and Kitsu Sokorii's notes that the PCs had recovered, and decided she would be very happy if both stayed in the possession of the Kuni daimyo.

• With matters settled, the party returned to Kyuden Hida. Hida Goriate returned to the guest quarters to find Kuni Haruna, his aunt, waiting for him.
  • "I believe Kakita Riku-san is practicing in the guest quarters' dojo. She has become very....focused....in her sword kata during your absence. I think we should and see her."
  • On route to the guest dojo, Kuni Haruna also stopped at Horonigai's quarters to invite her, too. Horonigai noticed she was carrying a very elegant-looking scroll.
  • Riku was indeed in the dojo, black-and-white hair braided up, bokken in hand, working through a complex series of kata. After the trio entered, she finished her drill, and, facing the far wall, slotted her bokken back into her obi, and stood upright, without turning around.
    • "So. You're back."

• This would have been the perfect time for tact, reconciliation and for genuinely talking about fears, friendship, and family.
  • However, this is Hida Goriate we're talking about.
  • The infamous Foot-In-Mouth-Style shuji came into play, and when told " Believe me, You have my Undivided Attention " it was pretty clear things were going to end badly.
  • Some failed checks, and very few exchanged words later, he ended up being asked " if he would like to take the opportunity to spar" by the Kakita, who was glaring daggers at him. She would " appreciate the opportunity ". She had, after all, been practicing weapon drills since " it was the best way to pass the time when confined to the guest quarters of another clan's castle for nearly a month ".
  • Goriate's player decided to go with it, and Goriate went to collect a bokken from the rack of practice weapons. He was surprised when Riku also walked up to the weapons rack next to him.
  • "No, no, Goriate-san," Riku said, hefting a tetsubo. "This is Crab territory, and it would be inappropriate not to respect your clan's customs."

• The duel was a sparring match, with both parties in travelling clothes and wielding Tetsubo.
  • Goriate is an earth-focused Hida, whilst Riku is a fire-focused Kakita so it's probably no great surprise to anyone reading that she swung first, dropping rather a lot of fatigue on the Hida samurai.
    • " Okay, so that....oh, wait, you said travelling clothes, didn't you.... ow ....."
  • He swung back, but only got a single , and received a second swipe with the Tetsubo, incapacitating him.
    • "Okay, then I use Warrior's....wait....I don't have any void points left....I guess that means that Riku wins? Sparring Matches are to incapacitation, after all..."
  • A third swing (the critical strike easily mitigated by Way of the Crab ) knocked him Unconscious .

• Riku bowed to Kuni Haruna and Horonigai, handing the latter the tetsubo.
  • "Perhaps you could take tea with Horonigai-san later?" Goriate's aunt suggested.
  • "That is an excellent suggestion, Haruna-san." Riku responded, bowing to the Kuni again. "I am feeling much better... I have always found exercise improves one's mood."
  • Riku left. Goriate groaned slightly from the middle of the dojo floor.
• " You know ," Haruna observed. " For all that she's a Crane I think she'll fit in perfectly."

• The Kuni samurai produced the ornate-looking scroll - it actually turned out to be a small sheaf of scrolls - Horonigai had seen earlier from her sleeve.
• "Invitations," she said, by way of explanation. " Hida-ue is taking Kuni Yori-dono's advice and making as much political capital out of your actions as he can. Since Hiruma Yoshino-dono is representing the clan at Winter Court this year, it gives an opportunity for you to formally return the family's ancestral daisho to her in front of people who matter in the Capital, as the people who went into the shadowlands to recover it. As such, invitations have been prepared for you, Kaito Horonigai-san, Mirumoto Uiri-san, Kakita Riku-san, and that stunned lummox over there."
• "Kakita Riku-san?"
• "Yes. I also suggested to Hida-ue it would be the perfect place to publicly announce the betrothal, now matters have been settled with the Kakita."
• "Oh. That's...Wait. Kaito Horonigai?"
• "Yes. I gather congratulations are in order to you and your family. The Phoenix have formally elevated the Kaito to a full clan family."
• This was, obviously, rather good news, and instantly gave Horonigai a boost up in Status - the core rulebook treats the Kaito as a full family from day one, but we'd agreed to create her as status 25 (now 40 as an Emerald Magistrate) rather than the 30 of the other samurai, and she'd now officially 'caught up'.

• Some time later, Kaito Horonigai arrived at Kakita Riku's quarters, with a couple of attendants in tow bringing sake and mochi along with the tea.
• Riku had swapped back into formal robes, and joined her for the tea ceremony. After the ceremony had been completed and the attendants vanished to wherever nameless NPC attendants vanish to when they're not needed for the plot, Horonigai was able to talk to Riku in private.
• "You all knew it was a matter of family honour." Riku said. "Hiroshige-sama was nearly killed by this witch, and I had promised to hunt her down. Then the Crab basically kept me here under house arrest, at Goriate's request, whilst the three of you left. I thought...hoped...we were friends. Why did you leave me behind?"
• "It...Hida Goriate wanted to make sure you were safe."
• "Why is my safety his concern?"
• Horonigai suddenly realised several things in quick succession.
  1. How distraught the Kakita samurai was. She may have worked the rage out of her system pummelling Goriate insensible, but she was still holding on to her on by her fingertips.
  2. Meaningless apologies and angry words aside Riku and Goriate hadn't actually said much before the Hida had taken a tetsubo to the side of the head.
  3. She was upset about being left behind when the PCs had left for the wall itself.
  4. Kuni Haruna had - as promised - told Riku it was Goriate's idea.
  5. If her main source of angst was being left behind at Kyuden Hida, it probably meant she didn't know about what Shika Yuki and the Kakita family had been agreeing on her behalf.
  6. Haruna pointedly hadn't promised to tell Riku about the betrothal.
  7. Haruna was a Kuni witch-hunter, and as such a devious and slightly paranoid individual, and was therefore probably fully aware Horonigai had been listening at the door when she was talking to her nephew, and the fact that Horonigai hadn't responded with surprise when it was mentioned was tantamount to admitting that.
  8. This tea ceremony was Kuni Haruna's idea, and the Kuni samurai would have been very happy to drop the awkward conversation in someone else's lap.
  9. There was no way to honestly answer her friend's question without telling her what was going on.
  10. "I've been set up..."

I love the levity in the dealings with Riku-kun. The comedy of errors is hilarious! Got to fee bad for the girl though. She has to endure this farce with a straight face.

OH MAN.

They are all being wonderfully manipulated. Poor Kakita-san, but I do suspect that she will fit in fine indeed
Also, Goriate did sorta deserve that. Only a little, though.

Lastly, where in the book is this Foot-in-Mouth shūji? I have a character or two who might want to take it. Or perhaps might have to . 😈

12 hours ago, Myrion said:

They are all being wonderfully manipulated.

When I first read Kuni Haruna's description in Emerald Empire , my mental picture was a Rokugani version of Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax. When Goriate decided during Twenty Questions he was going to be raised by a Kuni aunt, she just seemed like too good a character not to use.

12 hours ago, Myrion said:

Lastly, where in the book is this Foot-in-Mouth shūji? I have a character or two who might want to take it. Or perhaps might have to . 😈

Foot-In-Mouth Style? I assume it's hidden in a microdot somewhere in the Shuji section... My players seem able to find it without much trouble.

Based on it's observed use, it has the prerequisite of [1] the Bluntness disadvantage and [2] a player who doesn't think through the logical consequences of saying stuff in-character, and the following effect:

"Whenever you make a Courtesy check for something really important , change all rolled to blank results instantly. You may spend to add a detail to the scene that will make the inevitable argument or fight even more acrimonious."

12 hours ago, neilcell said:

Got to fee bad for the girl though. She has to endure this farce with a straight face.

She does get an invitation to Winter Court out of it, I guess.

At the same time, Winter's Embrace is going to be fun - having added the Islands of Spice & Silk section to the pursuit of Kitsu Sokorii, and not running it as a 'prequel', the 'big question' of who ends up betrothed to Hantei Sotorii is now of a lot more personal interest than you'd expect to the nominally Crab/Dragon/Phoenix group;

• Since they're there not just as guests but to present the Hiruma daisho to Hiruma Yoshino, and the Crab are doing their best to make it 'a big thing'. They're not going to get a personal face-to-face with the Emperor or anything, but having the audience include the Crown Princes is not unreasonable.
  • It shouldn't be too hard to give a character as fundamentally unlikeable as Hantei Sotorii the opportunity to underline what a massive **** he is.
  • They already know Satsume's opinion and that the guy stabbed their boss during a sparring match.
• Linmei - Yoritomo's wife and Magami's aunt - was the one they met in Kyuden Mantis and who was prepared to close the Empire's busiest port and provide them with soldiers on nothing more than their say-so, along with providing them with guides to chase Ayoi into the jungle. They also only reached the mainland in time to stop Kitsu Sokorii thanks to rescue by, and loan of, a Mantis warship. They (and the Lion and Crab, not that they know it) owe the Mantis clan generally, and the Komori people specifically, a fairly big favour.
  • Since he was their nominal reason for visiting and they never actually caught up with him, I will probably add Hitoshi to Yoritomo's entourage. I'm tempted to substitute Suzano-O no Izen out for him, as he sounds like the 'mini-Toshimoko' I could imagine the kid growing up into. Having him and Kakita Toshimoko in the same place again feels like it has the potential to cause 'fun'.
• After the better part of a year being dragged round the empire doing favours for "Ghost Dad" (Horonigai's player's nickname for Doji Satsume) he kind of paid them back big time in Shiro Hiruma. However, they've still built up a bit of ill-feeling toward some bits of the Crane clan, as various members of the clan have been directly or indirectly responsible for most of their least pleasant experiences.
  • However, however, publicly announcing Goriate and Riku's betrothal (assuming no more...."sparring accidents?") then trying to undermine Doji Chiyoe when she's trying to catch the season's most eligible batchelor seems unlikely to pass without incident.
  • It should also be noted that as a reasonably high-status Kakita, there's a pretty good chance Riku is directly related to Kakita Ryoku, who - if Kuni Haruna is the setting's equivalent of Granny Weatherwax, is the setting's equivalent of Olenna Tyrell. Meeting the in-laws is also going to be 'fun'.
    • Also, I just had a nasty thought when typing 'there's a pretty good chance Riku is directly related to Kakita Ryoku'.
    • Winter's Embrace has a boxout paragraph entitled " A Question of Lineage ".

Aside from the main storyline, there are a fair amount of potential story hooks for winter court:

I am so looking forward to how that whole affair turns out. Lots of plots and schemes within plots and schemes. I fully expect Goriate to be spinning in circles as the currents of the court drag him around and the undertow of the intrigues take the legs out from under him. Be interesting to see how the Dragons deal with wayward Uriri-Dono and the Phoenix interact with Horonigai-chan now that she is effectively on the same footing as an Asako, Isawa, or Shiba.