So after slowly accumulating the various books for this game, I decided to bite the bullet and actually run the thing for my group. None of my group has any real experience with the system or setting (I have a couple brief PBP experiences and have read the 4e books as well as the more recent ones), so it'll be a bit of an adventure for sure. I've been watching Actual Plays that I can find and enjoying what I've seen so far.

The premise of the game will be that Hida Fujiki has recently become the young provincial daimyo of a province near the Wall when his father died suddenly. Fujiki's mother was politically ambitious and pulled every trick she could to arrange a marriage for him to an Imperial cousin, Akane. As part of this courtship, he spent several years away from Hida lands at the Winter Court and elsewhere currying favor, and picked up a number of un-Crablike habits. As such, he has made it known that he intends to make his Court a place of art and culture as opposed to the grim, practical style adopted by most of the Crab. The PCs are all specifically non-Crab samurai who are travelling to Castle Takeda to make connections and alliances, and to stand duty on the Wall and earn glory for their Clan should the need arise.

We finished chargen, the PCs are a Mirumoto Two Sword Adept, a Phoenix peasant adopted into the Kaito clan and went to the Isawa Elementalist School, a Bayushi Manipulator and an Iuchi Meiodo Master.

My plan is to open the session with the PCs meeting a Hiruma at a nearby town who will lead the characters to Castle Takeda. On the way, they will be struck by a terrible storm coming out of the Shadowlands - strange tinted lightning, water that seems almost viscous and oily. A group of goblins ambush the group and badly wound their escort, who will try to insist they leave him behind and either hunt down the goblins or warn the castle that there are goblins on the loose (given my knowledge of the players, I'm pretty sure they'll opt to stabilize him and take him with them to the Castle, but as a GM I know to expect to be surprised...).

When they get to Castle Takeda, they'll be met with a Court that seems functional on the surface, but has a variety of currents moving underneath. Fujiki, months into his power, is trying to enact changes in the Castle that are offensive to the old guard, including his seneschal and general, who look at his younger sister and see how much more of an ideal Hida she is. Akane, no fainting flower, is still suffering from homesickness and culture shock and may be making unwise decisions. An arrogant Kakita duelist has come with his niece to arrange a marriage for her, and enjoys taking every opportunity to needle at what he considers the barbarous Crab attempting to ape the customs of their betters. A Pheonix shugenja is studying the Kuni records and bearing a dark secret. A Dragon mystic spreads riddles and lessons supposedly intended to enlighten, but spread strife in their wake. What of the ronin Anzu and her young apprentice Hachiro, who is clearly lying about his past? Was the old daimyo's death truly an accident? The Kuni Purifier who arrived recently suspects not, and wonders why no Kuni was called to inspect his corpse before it was burned. And in the castle courtyard sits an oni statue made of jade, a trophy of a battle long gone, guarded by warding talismans to prevent it ever waking. But how well will the imprisonment hold if blood begins to spill in Castle Takeda, especially when a maho-tsukai may be walking the grounds?

I'm basically going to throw the PCs into the cauldron described above and see what they do. We're starting this Thursday, I'm very much looking forward to seeing how things play out.

So we played the first session tonight. Didn't get as far as I would have liked due in part to people putting the finishing touch on their characters. Had the first meeting of the group in a teahouse in a town a day and a half's journey by foot (only the Unicorn had a horse) where they would be met by their Hiruma escort. The characters introduced themselves to each other and I played a bit with their Advantages and Disadvantages: the character with Dangerous Allure and Irrepressible Flirtation made the peasant attending her blush and stammer, the ghost haunting our Scorpion caused an attendant to trip and spill tea forming the character for "murder" on the wall before dripping off and he responded by calmly drinking and criticizing the calligraphy.

Eventually the group was met by their escort, Hiruma Genki, who was clearly skeptical of the Scorpion (and the Phoenix with the Meek and Incurable Illness disadvantage who seemed hardly up to the rigors of travel), and decided to push on as far as they could before stopping that night. The Unicorn decided to use Ancestry Unearthed, who I hadn't meant to make a major character, but since he used his advantages to discover a family secret about him, I decided that he was the illegitimate son of the prior daimyo. They ran into a storm that seemed to have come from the Shadowlands - inky clouds, rain that seemed to leave an oily residue and sickly yellow lightning. The group sought shelter, and had the characters describe how they reacted and they spent time putting on brave faces before our Dragon spent a couple Opportunities to notice the group of goblins who were pushing a boulder onto their impromptu camp. A shouted warning saved the party but not one of the ashigaru.

Our first combat was a little messy: I split up the NPCS on one side of the hill they were under while the Phoenix cast Grasp of Earth and the Dragon decided to just run up the hill, barely making their Maneuver roll and getting in the goblins' faces before the Scorpion taunted them right down away from her as he hid in the trees. The goblins failed to score any attack successes that round, but instead got advantages, which I ruled they used to chant Fu Leng's name in eerie unison, causing strife to anyone who tried to attack them; a concern for our Dragon who was nearly compromised. The Scorpion used Command to disrupt their chant, the Phoenix used Path of Inner Peace to soothe the Dragon who ran down the hill and beheaded the third goblin. The Unicorn took out a fourth, and the goblins broke and ran.

By the time the fight was over, the group discovered that their escort had been stabbed and seriously wounded. They used Jirojin's Balm and Path of Inner Peace to keep him alive, but despite his protestations that he would slow them down and they needed to go on and either warn someone or hunt the goblins themselves. Refusing to listen, the Dragon unmasked and chewed him out for being foolish, losing Honor but gaining Glory for intimidating a higher ranked warrior. (Looking back, not sure it was appropriate to grant Glory for that, but I tend to play pretty fast and loose with such things. I also handled a few things "wrong" during the combat, but that's what first sessions are for).

The Unicorn took Hiruma Genki onward to the castle, while the rest of the PCs took shelter rather than stay out in the creepy storm. During the night, they were spied upon by a nezumi who was tracking the goblins as well (they saw a figure, but didn't investigate) and our Phoenix communed with the ghost haunting the Scorpion, who believed the Scorpion murdered him (he maintains he didn't even know the guy). She did have an unrelated vision, though, of an oni encased in jade breaking free.

Meanwhile, the Unicorn arrived at the town, having a bit of trouble convincing the suspicious guards that the semi-gaijin with an unpronouncable name carrying a wounded Crab was a samurai and not some Shadowlands creature. They did let him in, and into Castle Takeda, where he found, prominently displayed, a jade oni... he was interrogated a bit by the Crab, who sent out patrols to gather up the rest of the PCs and hunt down the goblins and the breach in the Wall, and that's where we ended it.

Next week we'll see about having the PCs get introduced to the daimyo's Court and see some of the NPCs and their various secrets and intrigues, and maybe hunt down some goblins... including revealing that someone on this side of the Wall let them in.

So our Dragon was finishing up her 20 Questions and decided that her character had had a fling with a kabuki actress in the past. My mind immediately went to "Shosuro", given the acting connections, and I'm considering planting said character in the daimyo's court, this time using an entirely different cover identity...

So in addition to the NPCs described, I had been going to add in an Ikoma shinobi there to conduct military espionage (even a provincial daimyo might have information on the greater Crab Clan military forces). Now I'm thinking I might include some potential ninja vs. ninja action, and given the Scorpion are low key allied with the Crab, she may be there to run interference. Which means the Ikoma should probably be there for something nastier than just general spying. Given the Ikoma aren't supposed to go in for assassination much, maybe something to sabotage Crab/Scorpion or inflame Crab/Crane tensions. Not sure how to work either of those into a nighttime rooftop chase but I'll think on it.

The way you have fit in the Dragon's old flame into the daimyo's court already shows you are up to the challenge. I look forward to hearing the results. Hopefully it is not a Shakespearian tragedy.

Thank you! My group and GMing style tends more towards "action adventure" and "talking through people's problems with them" than tragedy, so hopefully they'll find ways to make it work out.

So we had session 2 tonight. The Unicorn player was absent today, so we said he was out hunting down the remainder of the goblins.

The players were lead into Castle Takeda, passing a ronin training with some of the castle guard while her maybe-too-young apprentice looked on, and the Bayushi PC used Lord Bayushi's Whispers to make an informant out of a servant and get a lowdown on the Court's major players. Essentially:

• Daimyo Fujiki is young and spent several years in the Imperial City. Many consider him to be "not a true Crab" because he has brought Imperial customs back to Castle Takeda, along with his wife, Akane, formerly an Otomo and cousin to the Emperor (also related to one of the PCs who has the Blessed Lineage advantage).
• His general, seneschal and the commander of the Hiruma scouts represent an old guard, who are upset and worried about Fujiki's leadership, and in the shadows voice a preference for the daimyo's sister, who is an ideal Hida.
• He has a sister with a powerful connection to the kami who has not yet passed her gempukku. I originally framed there being a debate as to whether she should become a member of the Kuni Witch Hunters or be married to someone out-province; in retrospect I'm not sure there's not a reason she could do both, but suffice it to say there are elements of her future which are uncertain (it may be more appropriate to make it a question as to whether she should marry out and make a connection to a higher status family or marry in and preserve her talents for the Clan.
• Among the guests to the Court, there are:
  • A Kakita duelist and tea master, and his niece. His niece is hunting for excitement and he is escorting her here to scout for marriage prospects. Problem is he's pretty much an *** there to laugh at the Hida for trying to ape his betters. The PC Mirumoto has him as a Sworn Enemy from some unspecified event in their past.
  • An Isawa Shugenja and an Agasha Shugenja. The Isawa is here to study Kuni records and the Agasha is here to study Kaiu steel, and contribute their talents to the defense of the Wall when called on.
    • The Agasha is secretly a maho practitioner. The Isawa is a red herring; she is haunted by a kansen due to a blood curse laid on her by an ancestor, and she is here to study the Kuni records for ideas for how to break it. Of course, she could fall to maho in an attempt to use it to break her curse...
  • A Shosuro Infiltrator , here to act as a courtier for the moment and strengthen Crab/Scorpion relations. She is the old flame of the Mirumoto PC, who knew her as a simple kabuki actress.
  • An Ikoma Shadow masquerading as a bard, ostensibly here to entertain the Court with his storytelling and acting talents and advocate for Lion interests. Actually here to conduct military espionage, and to sabotage Crab/Scorpion relations.
  • A Kuni Purifier, recently arrived, hunting whispers of maho and darkness in the Court.

After getting the rundown, the PC's were taken to court, where the first thing they see the Hiruma commander accusing the Shosuro of being a shinobi, claiming to have found shinobi tools in her room. She coolly denied it, pointing out that the only way the Hiruma could have found them was to have searched a guest's rooms without evidence, a huge insult. Daimyo Fujiki asks if there is a formal accusation, and when the Hiruma says yes, he asks if any will vouch for the Scorpion's character. The Bayushi PC vouched for her, and the Mirumoto does so as well, recognizing the Shosuro's voice from her past, despite knowing none of the context. Absent a confession or corroboration of the accusations, and with other samurai backing her up, Fujiki found her innocent and proceeded to welcome the PCs, exchange gifts and continue with court

The Kaito PC overcame her Meekness to speak to the daimyo about the vision she had of the oni being loosed. He agreed this was concerning and asked her to inspect the wards on the oni along with the Kuni. Immediately, the Isawa stepped up and volunteered to help, and the Agasha followed suit. The Isawa triggered the Kaito's 6th sense, and she rolled and detected the kansen haunting the Isawa. She became compromised, and her unsmasking was to faint in shock after looking in the Isawa's direction and speaking something unintelligible.

The Mirumoto PC caught her as she fell, made excuses and took her somewhere quiet to recover, which happened to be the castle's shrine. They found the Kuni praying/lurking there, and she spoke about her own reasons to believe maho/Taint was afoot in the Castle, namely:

• The old daimyo died of an illness that could represent poison or maho, a sudden illness that took him in a single day. Fujiki did not call for a Kuni to inspect the body and it was burnt in short order, erasing any evidence.
• The goblins got past the Wall somehow. Did someone let them in?

The Kuni and Kaito go inspect the wards and find one had been smeared with blood, nearly undetectable over the black ink, and had been rendered unusable. The rest were fine... for now. (My plan here is that anytime certain negative events may happen, it'll cause one of the wards to lose power. Since these are beginning PCs an oni would be a bit much for them, so I'm not going to push on the oni actually being released; stopping the maho tsukai will probably be enough of a fight for them.

The last scene of tonight's session was the Mirumoto and the Bayushi PCs confronting the Shosuro, who led them back to her chambers and portrayed her situation as having been framed, most likely by the Ikoma, who she suspected of being a Shinobi himself. ("Were I a shinobi, would I have left my tools in my room for anyone to find?"). She apologized to the Mirumoto for deceiving her, portraying her previous false identity as being a task from her clan to gain skill, and that she'd always regretted deceiving her. I created a moment of tension when she served tea ("So you drink the tea? Served to you by a woman who may well be a shinobi? Who probably sees you as the greatest risk of exposure?") and the Mirumoto decided to trust her and drink... which was fine, it was only tea. She spoke with the Bayushi about her belief that one of the Ikoma's jobs was to sabotage the Crab/Scorpion friendship. The Mirumoto pointed out that this meant he would likely attempt something against the Bayushi next, which meant he would be bait (jumping right into the Scorpion's intrigues) The Bayushi replied that the Ikoma fish would find a Scorpion a dangerous meal, and the Shosuro ended the session with the Bayushi motto, "After all, we can swim".

It was a fun session for me, if a bit exposition-heavy, and I think for the players as well. Everyone got a moment to be involved in the various plots, and I got positive comments from the players about there being a lot of intrigue and finding it hard to know who to trust (pretty sure that's ideal for a Court-focused game).

Goals for next session:

• Figure out a way to make sure there are some clues as to the actual maho-tsukai. Certainly, as an actual maho-tsukai, she's trying to lay low, while the Isawa makes an excellent distraction for her, but I don't want the actual villain to come out of nowhere.
• Twist the knife with the battle between the Daimyo and the old guard faction in a believable but disastrous way. My plan is to have the Hiruma commander get drunk and say some really treasonous things in public that the Daimyo can't ignore, and put the Daimyo in a spot where he has little choice but to execute her, which is going to start the general and seneschal on the road towards a coup.
• Decide which of my unused subplots to drop/prune and which if any to try to bring into the mix. Mainly i have a subplot involving the young ronin but the players didn't express any real interest in investigating his situation when they ran into him so I may drop it. NPCs can have complex lives the PCs never uncover, after all.

On ‎9‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 6:27 AM, KreenMage said:

Since these are beginning PCs an oni would be a bit much for them, so I'm not going to push on the oni actually being released; stopping the maho tsukai will probably be enough of a fight for them.

If you've got access to Shadowlands there are some lesser oni statlines in there which would be more realistic. It needn't represent the oni at 'full power' but the 'just awakened' form - which if they do manage to wind up letting the thing out (don't push but it may feel appropriate nonetheless depending on what happens) then they can potentially beat it before it recovers. In fact having it 'escape', start out weak and flee, and then turn alien on your players as it recovers strength might be a nasty horror-style turn on matters.

Yeah that's an excellent alternative.

I'm thinking the Ikoma shinobi's next move is going to be faking a risque and sexually forward poem (peaches, cherry blossoms, etc) and have it delivered to the daimyo's wife in the Bayushi PC's name. He did dress specifically to impress her (aping the Imperial style) and speak with her during the greeting ceremony, so she might find it believable if it came from him. Of course, she's highly offended and will be giving him the cold shoulder next time they meet, without him knowing why.

Also probably next session, the Kakita is going to put on a tea ceremony, which will be interrupted at a critical point by a messenger bringing news of the rest of the goblins. Thr Kakita is going to strike down the servant for disrespecting him unkess the PCs roll well enough to interrupt his iajutsu, and if he kills a servant of the local daimyo, it will put Fujiki in a very awkward position as to what to do about it.

Had another session yesterday.

The PCs split up and did their own thing: the Kaito helped the Kuni convince the daimyo to guard the oni statue, while the Mirumoto started going through her "Stand guard on the Wall" training and the Bayushi tried to plant rumors in the Court (sadly failing his roll). The next day, they were informed they were invited to a tea ceremony in an outdoor gazebo, hosted by Kakita Rin, accompanied by his niece Utano and the daimyo's wife, Akane. It seems most of the other guests, already familiar with Rin's aggravating demeanor, were not interested in attending.

The Kaito demonstrated her knowledge (and Passion) of the tea ceremony by performing her part perfectly. The Bayushi noticed immediately that Akane was cold towards him, and coaxed out that she believed he had sent her an explicit poem, which she felt highly inappropriate. He was able to convince her that he hadn't been the one to send it (the PC's dice were on fire tonight in general), and things continued on. The Mirumoto and Kaito recited poems at appropriate parts of the ceremony, each giving little digs at the Kakita (who is the Mirumoto's Sworn Enemy, after all). The Bayushi managed to insinuate that it was the Ikoma who had put them up to coming to his tea ceremony and then upstage him, further inflaming Rin. The Kaito spent an advantage to sense something of the supernatural - in this case a woman she saw out of the corner of her eye, whose hair moved even though there was no wind.

About 3/4 of the way through the tea ceremony, a servant ran up to report that scouts had found the rest of the goblins that had made it through the Wall. This interrupted Rin, causing him to spill some hot water on Akane. In fury, he turned towards the servant, hand on this katana's hilt. I gave the characters some high difficulties to try to interrupt him before he killed the poor peasant, and the Mirumoto managed to get 5 successes on a Tactics roll (I called for this as the "Initiative" skill, though it probably would have made sense to use another skill) to stand up and start talking to the servant, placing herself in between him and the Kakita, who had nowhere to vent his anger. Akane and Utano definitely caught what had almost happened, however.

The party met up in the war room and were given the opportunity to volunteer to join the attack on the goblins, which they did. The scouts had found that the goblins had come in through a sabotaged tunnel, one of the ones normally guarded by traps. Given that they had ashigaru and Hida samurai with them, the outcome wasn't in doubt; I simply let them roll to see how well they did in the fight, which was well. The younger Kakita accompanied them, as did the two ronin; the older experienced Anzu and the painfully young Hachiro. They did twig to something being unusual about him being a young ronin, but I may have been too good at my deflections. (Hachiro's secret is that he was a Daidoji who cracked under the pressure and fled the night before his gempukku, and started claiming to be a ronin, and thankfully got picked up by the older Anzu, who is trying to guide him through a 20 Goblin Winter). The party twigged easily to the budding, awkward romance between Utano and Hachiro; Hachiro doesn't want to attract notice, and Utano is young enough to find a handsome ronin romantic and exciting. The Bayushi searched the goblin bodies and found a map which had been delivered to the goblins, showing which tunnel they should go through to bypass the Wall.

The group pressed on to enter the maze of tunnels under the Wall, and found that one tunnel had its portcullis and traps sabotaged. The shugenja determined by examination that it had been done with Earth magic, and the Mirumoto rolled high again and found a hand-print preserved in dust on the wall. The shugenja did Commune with the Elements, and although she realized the kami weren't able to tell her who had done the magic, she hit upon the idea of describing the parties' suspects to the kami, and was able to eliminate 2 of the three non-PC shugenja at the castle... including their main suspect, the kansen-haunted Isawa, to their consternation. They realized it was probably the Agasha shugenja, or someone who they hadn't run into yet.

Next session, the PCs return to the castle, and I decide what all has gone on in their absence.

So the strife/compromised/unmasking system has been a huge help to me in how I think about running NPCs, something I'm definitely going to try to carry forward in my GMing going forward. Something I've always struggled with in social conflicts in games is the tendency to make my NPCs overly reasonable, which means that the PCs are maybe too often able to talk things out and reach an outcome based on peace and mutual understanding. Which is fun on occasion, but can sometimes end in anticlimax and unrealistic outcomes. The strife and unmasking cycle has given me a whole different way to think about playing NPCs, explaining how someone can be reasonable one day and then crack, vent, or otherwise let loose. Rin is an *******, and OOC I know I was going to have him snap and strike at that peasant more or less regardless of how the tea ceremony went down, but as it played out, the PCs were egging him on throughout, making it that much more believable when he snapped (or almost snapped) at the end.

And as I said before, we have a loyal Hiruma, but one who was publicly humiliated by her daimyo in Court the day before. What will she do? What will Rin do, since he didn't actually get his unmasking earlier?

So it's been a few weeks since we managed to meet, but we had another session tonight.

The group returned from their goblin hunting late in the evening and found immediately that there was a tense atmosphere in the town. Some investigstion revealed that the commander of the Hiruma scouts in the area, Hiruma Yashima, had been imprisoned and would be likely to be "allowed" to commit seppuku the next morning, though no sentence had yet been officially issued. A little more digging revealed she had gotten drunk in a tavern and gone on a treasonous tirade against daimyo Fujiki, a public dishonor that could not be tolerated. They also learned that another of the wards on the oni had broken, and figured out this had to do with the events in Court, meaning that Yashima's dishonorable act was likely linked to the maho's plans.

Resolving to speak to Yashima, the players left their apartments to realize ashigaru had been posted outside their door. They encouraged the samurai to stay inside, claiming that there were suspicious figures such as shinobi about. The PCs talked their way into letting the ashigaru 'escort' them, citing concerns about Yashima's actions. The ashigaru reluctantly agreed, and escorted them to Yashima's apartment, where they confronted a sergeant with more guards standing outside her quarters. The sergeant was a bit more reluctant, but the Scorpion PC managed to convince him to let them in and visit her.

Interviewing Yashima, they found her still hungover and in deep despair. She seemed consigned to her fate, though not happy about it. An interview with her revealed she had stopped in the tavern for a quick drink during lunch, but had stayed longer than intended and ended up getting drunk, and the words seemed to spill forth before she could stop them. An examination by the Pheonix PC revealed she had been influenced by majo, and Yashima confirmed she had met with Agasha Masawa earlier in the day before her disastrous trip to the tavern. They also noticed that she had not been provided the implements to ritually cleanse herself before the seppuku was to occur, as would be customary.

Leaving the apartment, the party resolved to talk to the daimyo about their discoveries and the conspiracy they had uncovered. Upon mentioning that they needed to discuss a conspiracy with the daimyo to the sergeant, he panicked and ordered the samurai arrested. The PCs were confused by this and tried to defuse the situation (the Scorpion told the sergeant, "Oh no, not that, another conspiracy!", which was the line of the night for sure). They tried to explain their findings of a maho conspiracy and their intent to clear Yashima's name, but the sergeant still tried to demurr when the PCs mentioned bringing this to the daimyo's attention. The Dragon PC made a Government (Theorize) check and realized that, given the guards on all the guest's doors, the knowledge of Fujiki's unpopularity among the upper echelon of the castle, the actions and statements of said guards, especially the stonewalling when it came to bringing this to the daimyo's attention, that they were now in the middle of a coup to depose Fujiki by forcing him to abdicate and instate his sister Toshiko.

The Dragon PC unmasked and let loose an impassioned tirade/speech on the sergeant about how all of this was playing into the maho's plans and likely to release the imprisoned oni by committing acts of evil and dishonor, and the sergeant ended up cowering and begging for his life. He agreed to take the PCs to the general who was executing the coup, since he didn't actually know where Fujiki was except that he was probably already under arrest. They found the general in the midst of an argument with Toshiko, who wanted nothing to do with this plan, but he wasn't planning a choice in the matter.

Getting the facts through the general's head took some doing, but some skin-of-the-teeth rolling did it, and the general's note that Agasha Maswa had implied that Fujiki's insistence on overthrowing Crab tradition had lead to the weakening of the wards on the oni, thus encouraging the coup, finally clinched it for them that she was the maho-tsukai. The session ended there... there's a maho-tsukai on the loose, who thanks to the Scorpion's rumor-mongering earlier is already aware that she's been uncovered (it was a lie at the time he said it, but it's the truth now!). So the question is, what will she do now that her plans have been largely spoiled? Run, or try something even nastier? And besides that, there's obviously going to be fallout from the night's events... the PCs are aiming to try to fix this and try to get everyone to agree to pretend it didn't happen, but that's likely not going to be easy.

Most likely next session will be the finale, so I'll let you guys know how it goes!

We wrapped up session a few days ago.

The coup was eventually resolved by the PCs pointing out that everyone was playing into the maho-tsukai's hands by causing chaos, which got them all to agree to sit down and talk to each other. Essentially, the elder sister (the one the general and seneschal wanted to place as the new daimyo) agreed to forget the coup ever happened, and keep the coup as blackmail material to make sure they would be kept in line. Daimyo Fushigi would only be told of the events of the night in the vaguest terms (he had been moved to a 'safe location' but never formally told what happened), in exchange for agreeing to roll back some of his reforms and slow down his attempts to model the Crab Court after an Imperial Court. As we all delighted in pointing out, introducing this much treachery and blackmail effectively meant our Scorpion player had converted the Crab Court to a Scorpion Court.

The fight with the maho-tsukai was nasty... she had a lair in the city in an abandoned house with an attached ghost story, and had raised a bunch of zombies to defend it (she'd fled once she'd heard that the PCs had probably identified her). I had various Crab NPCs fight the zombies and the hario-nago she'd raised, while the PC's fought her... after the Phoenix shugenja set the house on fire to draw her out. I gave the maho-tsukai the direct damage spell that did damage equal to her Water ring +Tainted rings... I went kind of easy on the PCs here since their main combat monkey had had a really bad day, had taken some fatigue from staying up all night, and probably wouldn't have done well with being one-shotted, so I only had her have two tainted rings. It still ended up being a somewhat tense fight as she had a lot of endurance and the PCs had some bad rolls and struggled to put on damage; it was really the Courtier who managed to Daze her with a Shuji that prevented anyone from taking a crit at the least. They knocked her out after a few rounds and she was taken to be interrogated... her confession (presumably under the tender mercies of the Kuni) helped clear some of the nastiness of the earlier events and made it easier to justify everyone coming out of this without anyone having to commit seppuku.

The remaining plot thread was that the Lion shinobi had absconded with the Daimyo's wife, telling her there was a coup going on and he would keep her safe (mostly true). The PCs ended up eventually convincing Akane that it was safe to return (they got some good rolls and used her Demeanor, it wasn't a simple check). I gave a brief epilogue wrapping up a few of the unanswered mysteries... the young ronin that was hanging around was actually a Crane samurai who had run away from his gempukku, and the kansen-haunted Phoenix shugenja (not the NPC) was a red herring; she was laboring under a blood curse from a maho ancestor and was there to research the Kuni records to figure out how to clear her condition.