So, me and my group finally have enough going on the campaign that I think I'll share it.

Here is the cast:

Doji Hikoharu

Hikoharu was a senpai of Kuga and three years his senior at the Kakita Academy and a classmate of Doji Hotaru, his mother was a dear friend of Doji Oki's wife and she was killed on a bandit raid saving Hikoharu. His brother and father blame him for his mother's death and he is scorned by his family. Hikoharu loves painting and seems to be at ease as well put at ease the heimin that meet him. He was known at the Academy for being a perfectionist. He has some friends among the Asahina and he thrives to find the "perfect cut", be it with a blade, brush or pencil. He acts as tax collector for Doji Oki. He always tries to put people at ease and have a good time.

Doji Kaito

Kaito is a Doji Diplomat nephew of Doji Oki by his wife side. He acts as negotiator and emissary for Doji Oki and it is the oldest of the three. Kaito is quite fond of pillow books and dreams of writing some of them later in life. Of the three, he is the one that can clearly see Doji Oki's ambitions and shares some of his Lord ambition of leaving Seawatch Castle. He is extremely knowledgeable of sake and is acknowledged as quite the observant person, except by shugenja, who say that he is the most oblivious person they've ever met. He can be quite perfectionist sometimes which is one of the reasons he seems to be always tearing apart his initial works of his pillow books. He wishes to visit all the clans of the Empire and he is quite good at making new friends.

Kakita Kuga

A young samurai (16 years) fresh off his genpukku who swore fealty as an enforcer to Doji Oki, daimyo of Itoshii and Lord of Seawatch Castle. Kuga was considered a prodigy at Kakita Academy and it is quite (in)famous for almost killing a visiting Matsu student when his sensei Kakita Kurize (think Kreeze from Karate Kid) ordered him to give her a lesson she would never forget. He broke her katana during a duel that should have been to incapacitation but he kept going until held back thus gaining the enmity of Matsu Jun forever. He is known for his sharp reflexes and love of history as well as for his lack of compassion and hate of heimin and hinin. He dreams of being the greatest duelist of his generation. He believes there's no problem that can't be solved with a sword and respects people according to their martial skill.

The when and where

The year is 1120, spring. The Crane lands had been devastated by a tsunami just before new year and the Clan is trying to access the damage and recover. Itoshii Province is a rocky and rugged land,comprising both some portions of the Spine of the World and many foothills and outlying peaks from that mountain range, as well as rugged plateaus and dangerous shoreside bluffs. There is only a modest amount of arable land and very few villages. Its only notable holding is Seawatch Castle.

Doji Oki is the youngest brother of Doji Satsume and an extremely ambitious. He hates that he has such a poor province as his domain and he wishes to rectify that. He believes Hotaru is unfit as heir to the Crane Clan and thinks Kuwanan has the better personality for that, although, maybe not the experience and that's where he comes in.

OOC

So, the campaign starts almost the same as the official timeline but with some key differences.

• Hantei Satorii is older than in the original timeline, being 17 already in 1120.
• Shosuro Kachiko is way younger in the original timeline and betrothed to a Crab samurai and not yet Imperial Advisor.
• Doji Oki is the youngest of three children of Doji Chuai and brother to Satsume and uncle to Hotaru, Kuwanan and Shizue.

I'll try to update this daily with what we played so far and then weekly once the thread reaches where we are right now.

I actually have the whole story so far written as a diary on the point of view of Kuga but I add some notes on the interesting/funny stuff happening to the other players.

So I'll just try to remember how the game session actually played out then going with my PoV.

5th of the Month of the Horse 1120

The GM gave us the rundown of the scenario. Explaining about the tsunami and how pretty much the Crane lands got screwed. We are going through the last of the villages before returning to Seawatch Castle when you notice something different from the other villages.

This village was actually a inland so it wasn't totally devastated by the tsunami, but the nearby river flooded the rice paddies so the villagers also (according to Kuga) were giving poor excuses on why they couldn't provide rice for the tax season during Autumn. Kaito and Hikoharu were talking to the elder of the village while Kuga went looking for any misappropriated taxes. What Kuga noticed though, was that every house had an o-fuda attached to their door with a pray to Daikoku. Kuga inquired about that to the village elder but he was afraid of answering Kuga, which irritated him even more and Hikoharu intervened. They finally told us that a monk had passed by the village and told the peasants that the reason the Crane lands had been devastated was because the Crane weren't pious enough. Kaito ordered Kuga to stand down before he started executing peasants left and right and Hikoharu was fast enough to grab a kid before he ran away and ask politely where the monk went (that's Ebisu's Blessing for you).

While we went to the coast. We started discussing what to do with the monk. Kuga suggested sending the monk to another daimyo's land. He thought the best would be to kill the monk but he believes killing them brings bad luck. Hikoharu and Kaito wanted to talk to him to see if they could persuade him of stopping this dangerous talk among the peasantry.

We reached the coast just before sunset and found the monk bathing on the ocean. The monk, named Pa'kuan, went on with his speech how there weren't enough temples and shrines on Itoshii and that was a sign that the Fortunes were displeased with the Cranes. Kaito (who had status 36, just enough so he can be considered the superior officer of the group) decided that his arguments should be presented to Oki-dono, we made camp by the coast and parted to Seawatch Castle the next morning.

We reached it just before noon, asked for an audience that was granted right after Oki-dono's lunch. He wasn't pleased with spending the meager resources he had to construct a temple just to appease superstitious heimin, but Hikoharu and Kaito argued that a temple could provide another source of income with pilgrims travelling through the province. So, we spent the rest of the afternoon convincing Oki-dono.

• The GM decided that we would have until dinner for this intrigue conflict and that each roll would be about 1 hour and we would have 5 turns to convince the daimyo. Hikoharu and Kuga were awful with Courtesy (just 1 point each) while Kaito actually had Courtesy 2. So we decided to provide assistance to Kaito's rolls. His first roll was with Air and the TN was 3, he got just about the 3 successes but an oportunity to figure out our daimyo's demeanor (Ambitious) and then the next rolls were all with Water ring. We won the conflict by turn 3 and convinced Oki-dono.

He said the temple could be built and he would provide the permits for that but that it would be our responsibility to find the resources for that.

End of game 1.

The GM said we could have each 2 downtime actions.

Hikoharu spent it sending a letter to the main temple to Daikoku on the Unicorn lands and another to his Asahina acquaintances to ask for guidance on temple building.

Kaito spent it also writing letters but his letters were to the Scorpion (currently the richest clan) and the Yasuki to see if they were willing to trade with us.

Kuga spent it researching on the castle library for any possible tax relief or extra income that was provided by Imperial Edicts and somehow forgotten, but instead found out that a nearby village Haiaku Mura, actually paid its taxes to Itoshii until about 50 years ago when it started to pay its taxes to Umoeru Province to our south. Kuga then spent his second downtime action sending a polite letter to the daimyo of Umoeru pointing the clerical error and asking for any taxes paid the year before while the whole legal matters were completely solved. ( Of course, it didn't go as simple as I hoped )

17h of the Month of the Horse 1120

We were called before Doji Oki-dono so we could explain to him what was about this letter he just received where he was being accused by Doji Tomu, the daimyo of Umoeru, of trying to steal a village from him. That's when Kuga came forward saying that he was the one that had found this information and didn't inform him of anything because he was hoping to surprise him with the good news. And not that this was now a legal matter involving Doji Satsume-ue, who did not want infighting while he probably was going to deal with a border skirmish with the Lion during the summer.

Oki-dono was pleasantly surprised with this and congratulated Kuga for his diligency and quick thinking and that we would be all accompanying him to Ookami Toshi to present initial legal arguments to the Crane Magistrated stationed there, Doji Tadashi, older brother of Doji Hikoharu ( *DORAMA INTENSIFIES* ).

Meanwhile, Hikoharu and Kaito also showed responses to some of their letters. The main Daikoku Temple said they would be glad to help with builders and materials so the wealth of Daikoku could be spread around . And Kaito got a letter from one Shosuro Kachiko that the Scorpion would be glad to help in exchange for a favor. Which Kaito accepted, but didn't mention that part to Oki-dono, becoming himself indebted to the Scorpion.

The travel to Ookami Toshi was uneventful, the staying, not so much. The initial meeting with Doji Tadashi was tense enough with enough veiled threats and remarks between Tadashi and Hikoharu that Hikoharu actually became compromised and we kind of lost our social objective (which was to make him side with us on the matter). At least Hikoharu didn't unmask, which could have made things worse.

Doji Oki said that he would not drop the matter and he would wait for whatever investigation on the matter was going to happen and he wished to return home.

We asked permission to stay for additional days, which he granted and we split the party.

From this moment on, it was just 3 solo sessions that we played. Since I wasn't attending the ones for Hikoharu and Kaito players, I just have the account of them to me.

Kaito got an invitation from Shosuro Kachiko to meet him on Kyuden Kitsune, from Kuga's perspective all he knows was that Kaito made friends with Kitsune Gohei and that he left there with a promise of returning next year with a suitable Crane candidate to marry his daughter. The unofficial story was that Kaito was able to prevent getting married himself with Kitsune Ryosei, which was Kachiko's whole point of invitation, but she was so delighted with his political acumen that they became friends and she hoped they would meet during the next Winter Court.

Hikoharu went to the Crab lands, at request of Kaito, to deal with a letter he received from an Yasuki about a potential deal. Hikoharu met with Yasuki Yumi. She presented to him some geomantical studies that made her believe a big vein of Jade was hidden inside the mountains of Itoshii and that she would be glad to send some Kuni and Kaiu scholars to investigate the matter and help set up the mine, if they could have a guarantee of being the first ones to get jade from the mine. Hikoharu promised he would convince Doji Oki of such, but he could not give the answer immediately. Yumi accepted the answer and was eager to hear more.

I'll leave Kuga's solo session for tomorrow. It involved our first duel in the campaign and it was EPIC ( failure ).

4th of the Month of the Goat 1120

During Kuga's stay in Ookami Toshi, he received letters from one of the children of the daimyō of Umoeru, Doji Koi. Doji Tadashi was somewhat familiar with him and said that he wasn't very much familiar with him, but he was familiar with his younger sister, Doji Kimiko, who had just returned home from a Musha Shugyō.

Mechanically wise, Doji Koi was a Kakita Swordsmith and Doji Kimiko was a Wordly Rōnin.

The letters were attempts to goad Kuga into picking a fight with him, which Kuga (who always thinks nothing can't be solved with the proper use of a blade) accepted the taunt and taunted Koi back.

He bid farewell to Tadashi-sama, thanking him for the hospitality and announced that he was going back to Seawatch Castle which is located pretty much west of Ookami Toshi by going southwest in the direction of Umoeru Mura. One day before arriving at the city, he meets Koi and Kimiko at a way station where he was resting.

An intrigue conflict begins where Kuga's social objective is to Compromise Doji Koi and vice-versa and Kimiko is trying to assess my qualities. Kuga has some terrible Fire rolls with command 0 and Koi on the other hand gets some pretty good uses of Fire opportunity when inciting Kuga that he ends up compromised in 3 rounds.

Kuga unmasks by insulting the Kakita Academy (and taking a double honor hit for failing Courtesy).

In the creation of the character, we came up with the idea of Kuga being trained by the equivalent of the Cobra Kai dojō inside the Kakita Academy and thought that Kakita Toshimoko was an old fool.

That's enough for Kimiko to put her handle on the katana and a duel conflict begins.

Round 1:
Kuga wins the initiative, assumes Air Stance and Predicts Water.
Kimiko chooses Water and takes 4 strife, she changes to Air and draws her katana two-handed (she doesn't have any Iaijutsu kata).

Round 2:
Nobody bids strife and Kuga goes first.
Kuga: I ask if I can use some sort of special action to just taunt her and he allows a Fire/Command roll with TN equal to her vigilance (which was 2), I get 2 explosive successes and 2 strife (this was a Fire 2/ Command 0 roll) and later one opportunity that use to raise her strife by 2 and with the success by 1. Kimiko is now, 1 point away of becoming Compromised.
Kimiko hits but doesn't get a critical hit and Kuga just takes some fatigue.

Round 3:
Staredown Compromises Kimiko.
Kuga uses Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade in Fire Stance (because he hasn't changed stances yet) and hits a critical hit of Severity 13 (we totally forgot about using opportunity to increase the deadlines of a razor edged blade and the Kakita school ability, this would have made a lot of difference later). Luckly for Kimiko, she rolls 5 dice and gets 5 clean successes and ends up losing an eye with the Permanent Injury, instead of a Maiming Blow or Agonizing Death.
Kuga's actual turn: Kuga changes to Void Stance and strikes, hoping to finally finish the fight then and there. I roll FOUR opportunities with Void 2/ Martial Arts [Melee] 2 and the GM says that Kuga sees the web of connections that people make along their lives and that both Kuga and Kimiko are connected to Matsu Jun (Kuga's rival), Kuga sees how Kimiko is in love with Jun and that most of his connections with other people were full of fear and hatred. Thematically, the GM determines that Kuga actually hit Kimiko, his katana just decided not to kill her.
Kimiko unmasks, declaring her love for Jun and she will avenge her humilliation and strikes Kuga. She hits, not enough to make incapacitated but close enough.

Round 4:
Staredown Compromises Kuga.
Kimiko hits with severity 14 and Kuga fails the fitness roll. There's nothing else for Kuga to do and he just gives up.

*FADES TO BLACK*

OOC: we discussed a lot if I was going to get a new character, but the GM said that he was determined to give me some Deus Ex Machina to make Kuga live.

We decided that Doji Koi showed Compassion and saved my life. Because of that and the Void opportunities I just had, we decide to change my anxiety and adversity from Loathing for Peasants to Battle Trauma and Failure of Compassion to Life Debt to Doji Koi (we took blackmailed by and changed some aspects).

The outcome of this duel had some interesting character development for Kuga (trying to find a new Ninjō and a new path).

So, the next session is back with the three players. Kuga lived but is now forever changed and trying to let go of his past behavior. While in convalescence, Doji Tomu, daimy ō of Umoeru, went to Kuga to make sure he would send a message back to Doji Oki that the matter about control of Haiaku Mura was over. Kuga was put on a boat and sent to Seawatch Castle.

We are called in for an audience with Doji Oki. Hikoharu reports the suggestion of the crabs of surveying the land for the jade ore. And as a show of good faith, they send some Kaiu Engineers to help with the temple construction. He mentions that the Crab suggested that they could send Kaiu Steel in exchange for the Jade. Kaito tells how he became friends with Kitsune Gohei and that Gohei expects him to return again next year. He mentions that Gohei is trying to find a husband for his daughter and that along the way he got to meet some monks that he directed to help with the construction of the temple. Kuga reports his failure and asks permission to commit seppuku. Oki-donō denies. He then asks permission to shave his head, which is also denied and Oki-donō replies that he still has some stuff for Kuga to do and would be a waste, but if he ever failed again, he would grant the seppuku. When we were about to leave the room, it's announced the arrival of Doji Kuwanan. We are all surprised by the arrival of him and he delivers directly to his uncle's hands a letter with the personal chop of Doji Satsume-ue.

Oki-don ō opens the scroll and smiles while he reads it and tell us to finish the temple before harvest season is over, because next year the Crane are finally taking the fight back to the Lion. We spent the rest of the harvest season doing everything we can to find the resources to finish the temple and while Kuga was doing logistic works to make the supplies last as long as possible he had a prophetic vision of a statue of a headless steel crane sitting on an island in the middle of a lake while Amaterasu-no-Kami was descending from the top of a mountain dressed in a spring kimono (we still don't know what that means). We finish the temple just before harvest season but when the temple is finally finished reports reach the castle that some village had a late harvest boon and yelded way more grains than expected. Mechanically, Daikoku's blessing will give a white die in any roll of Commerce or Labor for a whole year to anyone in the province.

With this finished, now it's time for us to secure invitations to a Winter Court. The GM gave us the option of going to the Imperial Winter Court which would be hosted in Kyuden Bayushi, but it would be way harder to get the invitations, or go to the Crane Winter Court which would be hosted in Kyuden Doji and hosted by Doji Satsume (also, it would serve as preparations among the clan to prepare for war next year).

Kakita Kuga is hopeless in providing any help to get the invitations but Doji Hikoharu and Doji Kaito more than get enough successes and they even make some friends while getting them. Doji Oki-donō is going to the same Winter Court but he wasn't necessarily going to spen his political capital in getting invitations for us.

And so it begins the next big chapter of the campaign. Our first Winter Court.

Yes, it's like a mixed timeline of the original AEG and the new FFG with some changes made by our GM.

Kachiko hasn't married to Shoju yet and is engaged to a Crab (and this is going to have consequences on this Winter Court). Therefore, Dairu doesn't exist.

But yes, Satsume is both Crane Champion and Emerald Champion and there have been complaints about that already. He doesn't care.

And yes, there's a reason why Satsume decided to not go to Emperor's Winter Court this year.

I'll try to update it today with the opening of the Winter Court.

Crane Winter Court

Dramatis Personae

Crab Delegation

Hiruma Maruku: fiancé of Shosuro Kachiko, he is going to Kyuden Doji so he can finally meet his fiancée.

Crane Delegation

Asahina Akiko: childhood friend of Doji Hikoharu, she is aware of Satsume's plans of attacking the Lion during next summer but is afraid a war border skirmish might anger the kami even more. (She thinks the Tsunami happened because the kami are somehow displeased with the Crane and she has the Phoenix connections to confirm that 😂 )

Daidoji Takeo: a Crane Hatamoto, was sent to Kyuden Doji to act as liaison of Daidoji Uji to Doji Satsume.

Doji Chisato: Crane nakadõ, went to Kyuden Doji to see what inter-clan marriage potential she could find among the people visiting the Crane during the Winter. She is also really small. Think kawaii chibi.

Doji Hotaru: appointed as Host by her father, She wants to make sure the peace is kept during the Winter Court and no massive conflict happens during it.

Doji Kimiko: daughter of Doji Tomu, got an invitation to Kyuden Doji so she could meet Matsu Jun again.

Doji Kuwanan: plans to have meetings with Daidoji Takeo and Doji Oki on how prepare the Clan for the oncoming war border skirmish. He wishes to increase the Clan's territory at the expense of the Lion.

Doji Oki: plans to have meetings with Daidoji Takeo and Doji Kuwanan on how prepare the Clan for the oncoming war border skirmish. He wishes to be assigned to any new conquered land and leave Seawatch Castle behind.

Doji Satsume: decided to not go with the Emperor to Kyuden Bayushi and instead keep an eye on Hantei Sotorii away from his father and younger brother and try to better educate the Imperial Heir.

Doji Susume: Doji Oki's wife. She just wants to enjoy the Winter Court and get inspiration for the pillow books she writes under an alias.

Lion Delegation

Matsu Jun: Kakita Kuga's rival. She carries only a wakizashi because Kuga destroyed hers during their duel and she vowed to never carry a katana again until she defeats him. She was sent as yojimbõ of Ikoma Minoru. She requested this assignment in the hopes of having a duel with Kuga. She is huge, like over 2m tall (6'8" in imperial?)

Ikoma Minoru: Lion diplomat. He is trying to make sure, Akodo Arasou's interests are being taken care of. He is unable of lying.

Scorpion Delegation

Shosuro Kachiko: was obligated to go so she could meet her fiancé but just wants to "play". She will try her best to avoid meeting Maruku.

Unicorn Delegation

Shinjo Isamu: Unicorn diplomat. Wants to create deeper bonds between the Crane and the Unicorn. He also wants to marry a blue-eyed Crane (he believes it's good luck).

Ogami: ronin hired by Shinjo Isamu as his yojimbõ. Apparently he met Doji Kimiko in the past and they became nemesis ever since.

Imperial Delegation

Hantei Sotorii: Imperial Prince and Heir to the Jade Throne. Believes this Winter Court is going to be extremely boring and is looking to have some fun away from his father.

Of course there were many other people attending the Winter Court, but for the players, those would be the major characters we would be interacting with.

PS: I've just started a new job yesterday, so I've been unusually busy these last few days and will be for the rest of the week. I'll try to actually post the first day of the Winter Court tomorrow.

So, before the actual Winter Court began. The GM determined what would be our giri for the winter.

Doji Kaito: make new friends that could be useful for Doji Oki.

Doji Hikoharu: win glory so Doji Oki own glory could increase.

Kakita Kuga: humilliate enemies of the Crane Clan.

As for our ninjõ:

Kaito wants to make friends that could make him stand out in the Imperial Court and actually get allocated somewhere. He knows how much of an ******* Doji Oki is, and wants to move to somewhere else and not be Oki's troubleshooter/troublemaker.

Hikoharu wants to have a Winter romance. He believes a Winter romance could be a great source of inspiration finding the "perfect cut".

And poor Kuga is having an identity crisis and believes that the reason he didn't win the duel is because he is not worthy of his katana and he needs to find the famous Unmei no Daiken of his ancestor Kakita Araiguma (Triumph over the Lion Heritage roll) and he believes that the records on Kyuden Doji might have what he seeks.

1st of the Month of the Rat, Year 1120 of the Isawa Calendar

We finally arrive at Kyûden Doji. We are to present gifts to Hantei Sotorii and it's clear he is extremely bored during the whole thing. Kuga is shocked to see that Doji Kimiko is also at the castle while she stares back at him with her single eye. After the opening ceremony is over, they are enjoying some pleasantries and they get to meet Asahina Akiko and Shosuro Kachiko. Akiko is totally embarassed by Kachiko and how she is flirting with Kuga when Matsu Jun calls for Kuga's attention and declares to him that finally she will finally have her reckoning. And she is then called to attention by Ikoma Minoru reminding her that she was sent there to protect him, not settle personal accounts.

Kuga gets Compromised by the surprise of it and leaves hurriedly for the rest of the night. Kachiko makes fun of the whole situation with Kaito and says that she is calling in her favor in. She wants his help in making sure that she and Maruku will not meet in any circumstances. Meanwhile, Hikoharu and Akiko were reminiscing their childhood together and something was blossoming there.

The day after, Kaito invite us for a tea ceremony to help Kuga's nerves.

10th of the Month of the Rat, Year 1120 of the Isawa Calendar

We have one the first games of the Court, a poetry contest where the judge would be none other than the Imperial Prince Hantei Sotorii. Before the competition began, Kuga approached Matsu Jun and declared that while the past could not be unmade, he felt sorry for the humiliation he gave her when she had visited the Kakita Academy and as proof of that, he was returning the tsuka (handle) of her broken katana. That if she still wanted to duel him, he would need to ask permission first, but he would not say no. Jun was speechless and didn't even take the tsuka with her. He noticed that Kimiko stared at him and then followed Jun.

Hikoharu and Akiko were watching the whole scene and they congratulate Kuga for trying to become a more polite person. Kuga notices that there's a hint of something unspoken happening between them and they discuss Kuga's prophetic vision of Amaterasu but are interrupted by the arrival of the Imperial Prince.

Kuga's poem was considered too introspective and didn't catch the Imperial Prince's attention, while, on the other hand, Hikoharu's poem was quite risqué and made Akiko-san blush. The Prince really liked Hikoharu's poem and filed him as someone to take note for later.

Shinjo Isamu's poem was considered "too foreign" (duh) but the clear winner of the poem contest was Asahina Akiko. The Imperial Prince gave her his golden filigrée fan with the Imperial Chrysanthemum and invited her for dinner later that night. She accepted and was feeling awkward for getting all the attention but Hikoharu was proud. After, the Unicorn Diplomat, Isamu, invited us for dinner with him and the whole thing was fun (for the players) with all the cultural shock happening between Shinjo, Kuga and Hikoharu.

Meanwhile, Kaito was doing Kachiko's bidding and making sure that Maruku would be involved in enough bureaucratic events that he couldn't leave without causing a faux pas that Kachiko would be free of him for at least a month. In this, he caught the attention of Lady Kakita Ryoku and she was so proud of his tactics and realized what he was doing, that she decided to give him a hand on that, just so she could see what the consequences of this would be.

We get some downtime action where Kuga researches about his ancestor's sword. Hikoharu decides to help Akiko's desire of avoiding a war with the Lion and tries to see what are Minoru, Isamu and Takeo's endgame in all this. With the conclusion that Minoru and Takeo are clearly avoiding each other, and Minoru every chance he gets, reminds people that he is there doing Akodo Arasou's bidding and Shinjo is mostly enjoying the beautiful Crane women. And Kaito is trying to secure a Crane nakadõ to visit Kyuden Kitsune during the next spring.

2nd of the Month of the Ox, Year 1120 of the Isawa Calendar

The heavy snows finally arrive and we are all invited to a Kabuki presentation performed by the Scorpion Delegation depicting the conversation between Hantei I and Shinsei. Shosuro Kachiko would be playin the role of Shiba-no-Kami.

Asahina Akiko was seating beside Hantei Sotorii and Kuga and Kaito could notice Hikoharu's jealousy. Akiko looked briefly towards us and she looked torn apart. The Prince seemed to notice this and made sure to show some intimacy towards Akiko that inflamed Hikoharu (but not enough to Compromise him). Before the play, Kuga goes to Daidoji Takeo and Doji Kuwanan and using Cadence, swore his blade for the oncoming war, replying with Cadence, Takeo said, do not fail as you did in your duel with Doji Kimiko. Meanwhile, Doji Hotaru tried to recruit both Kaito and Hikoharu in helping her hinder the war preparations, because she believed the Clan was too weak to strike. Kaito was able to answer in a dubious manner, but Hikoharu pledged himself to help her.

The play began and it was going perfectly, until the doors are open with a bang, Hiruma Maruku storms in, loud and drunk and tries to get a sit to watch the play, some samurai ask him to leave and he starts yelling that he is there to see his fiancée perform (which is the only moment Kachiko actually breaks character) and only the intervention of Satsume makes sure things are defused quickly.

After the play, Kaito goes backstage to congratulate Kachiko, Kuga and Hikoharu talk about the Crab loudmouth and Hikoharu tells Kuga he was a "famous" Crab duelist, which Kuga takes as a joke ( "Crab duelist, Hikoharu-senpai? Now you are gonna tell me the story how Asahina Akiko is a shinobi" ), the mention of Akiko put a dark shadow in Hikoharu's eyes, to which Kuga said sorry. Meanwhile, backstage, Kachiko asks Kaito for help dealing with Maruku, the conversation goes with a lot of Cadence but she agrees to owe him a favor this time, if she can help him create a situation where Maruku finds her in a compromising situation with another man who would be good enough to take Maruku down. Kaito smiles and says that he has the right man for the job.

Back to the after party, Hotaru and Hikoharu approach Kuga to recruit him in Hotaru's efforts to prevent the not-a-war-totally-a-border-skirmish with the Lion, which Kuga takes offense for them going behind Doji-ue's back but he promises he won't rat Hikoharu out to Oki-donõ.

We get two downtime actions, where Kuga spends one of them researching about his ancestor's sword. Hikoharu tries to find a discreet tea house outside the palace walls and as second downtime action, he gets to arrange a meeting between Shinjo Isamu and Doji Chisato so she can help Isamu to find his bride. Kaito uses his first downtime action to make sure he will get approval to send a nakadõ to Kyuden Kitsune and he finishes the task, as his second downtime action, he spreads the rumor that Maruku says that no one but Doji Satsume is capable of defeating him in a duel, trying to bait Kuga, which he succeeds. So, as Kuga's second downtime action, he tries to arranje a kemari competition to see if Maruku decides to join so he can measure Maruku's capabilites, alas, he fails.

20th of the Month of the Ox, Year 1120 of the Isawa Calendar

The new gossip in the palace is how Hantei Sotorii and Asahina Akiko had carnal knowledge of each other. There's some conversation of how this breaks protocol of the Hantei marrying a Doji, but hey, it's still a Crane, so problem. Hikoharu is definitely hit by all this, as he was courting Akiko and Kuga invites him to drink his problems away. Instead, Hikoharu says he wants to craft some Ikebana, Kuga accepts, even though he is a total noob creating ikebana. We find Doji Kimiko at the "ikebana workshop" and Hikoharu performs poorly on his Fire/Aesthetics roll (4k2 with just one success) but Kuga surprises everyone (even myself) with a Fire/Aesthetics roll (2k2 with 4 successes and lots of strife). The whole thing kind of depressed/amazed Hikoharu how Kuga was performing better than him and Kuga this time invited him to run in the snow. Physical exhaustion is a good way of clearing someone's mind.

After one hour running, Doji Kimiko approaches them and asks to talk to Kuga. She invites them for tea and while serving tea she orders me to not fight Matsu Jun and not help foment the war skirmish between the Crane and Lion as compensation for her brother saving his life. Kuga feels offended that Hikoharu had to employ such a backhanded manner to make him help Hikoharu by recruiting someone with whom he had a Life Debt. Hikoharu instead, feels offended that Kuga would think poorly of him like this and that he was feeling they were actually having a good time but clearly not. Hikoharu storms out of the room, Kuga hastily agrees with Kimiko and tries to follow Hikoharu but Hikoharu uses his Blessed by Ebisu to make the palace servants hinder Kuga of following him.

While all of this was happening, Kaito, per Oki-donõ orders to create strife between Crane and Lion, was spreading the rumor that Ikoma Minoru was telling anyone who would hear it that the Imperial Prince could definitely find a better spouse than a samurai who refused to fight and made it in a such a way that the people at court believed that who started the rumor was actually Akiko.

Minoru confronted Akiko about the whole thing, asking her to take it back and she responded that she couldn't take back something she didn't say. The whole thing escalates further when Hikoharu arrives at the garden where all this is happening and he helped defuse the situation a little with Minoru and Jun leaving the garden. Hikoharu takes Akiko away and Kuga finally reaches the garden, hears about the whole situation through Kaito (who keeps a straight face the entire time).

We get each a downtime action. Hikoharu goes to an Ikebana competition where he wins and gains glory. Kaito befriends Doji Chisato, the nakadõ and Kuga finally finds some notes about his ancestor.

Unmei no Daiken was created in the Sixth Century by an Asahina Artisan (name unknown). In the Seventh Century, all notes about Unmei no Daiken or Kakita Araiguma were declared Emerald Magistrate matter and confiscated and sent to Kyuden Kitsune. You find out that the Emerald Magistrate who did this, Kitsuki Yõhei, latter married into the Fox Clan and requested that all documents be transferred there.

Next post, Doji Hikoharu and Matsu Jun fight.

25th of the Month of the Ox, Year 1120 of the Isawa Calendar

Having found out that the creator of Unmei no Daiken was created by an Asahina, Kuga decides to search for Akiko and talk to her about looking for information on Asahina artificers and their creations. Strangely, she wasn't in the part of the castle allocated to the Crane delegation, she was instead, being lodged inside the Imperial Guest House. Using of non-conventional means (skulduggery), Kuga reaches the Imperial Quarters by going through the tunnels used by the servants of the palace to carry stuff away from the samurai, and finds Akiko out in the cold, clearly there for a long time as if pondering something. Kuga finally presents himself and shows her what he has found about the sword and the mysterious Asahina artificer, she agrees with him that it is most unusual movement such a thing and that probably the sword if it still exists, as well as other information were all confiscated by this Emerald Magistrate. She then asks Kuga why is this sword so important to him and this conversation happens:

- Did you ever hear the tragedy of Kakita Araiguma the Great? - asks Kuga.
- No. Replies Akiko.
- I felt not, it's no story the Asahina would tell you. Admits Kuga.

It was a long time ago, in ancient Rokugan, our clan was at war and Kakita Araiguma commanded the strength of the 10,000 Hands of Justice. We were out numbered by the Second Lion Army, Toshi Ranbo surrounded, he kissed his wife, for the last time, unsheathed the Great Sword of Destiny and with it, slew a hundred thousand hundred warriors! Honorably! After the battle was won, he shattered the blade, so its great fury may never again be used on the earth. (kudos to anyone who gets the more obscure reference)

In all this, Kuga fails a Sentiment test (to notice that she was writing several Death poems), but thanks Akiko for all the help and says that she did him a favor, now it's time for him repay her. He asks her to stand up and follow him. She says she can't leave the Imperial Guest House without protection, to wich Kuga asks why would she need protection inside Kyuden Doji, and if that was the case, he was protection enough. Besides, he argues, Benten is one of the Great Fortunes and Kuga feels that he is just acting on His behalf today. She blushes but follows him. They go back through the tunnels and they reach Hikoharu's quarters unseen. Kuga opens Hikoharu's screen door to find Hikoharu's face change from anger to surprise to delight in few heartbeats as he notices Akiko just behind Kuga. Kuga then says he is going to leave the two of them alone and stays far enough to not eavesdrop but close enough to stand guard.

Hikoharu and Akiko begin conversation on how crafty Kuga is, then they talk about Minoru's accusation on her honor and he tells her that he is going to be her champion and they finally admit their feelings for each other and they passionately embrace. *Camera moves away*

Meanwhile, outside Hikoharu's quarters, Kuga notices a Seppun guard walking the corridor, as if looking for a particular room. Kuga goes to him before he can reach Hikoharu's bedrrom and asks politely what he is looking for. The Seppun guards replies that he is looking for Hikoharu's bedroom, to which Kuga answers that he is familiar with the man and is glad to take him to his bedroom. The Seppun is suspicious of Kuga and starts making an argument that he doesn't need Kuga's help, Hikoharu's bedroom is just there and Kuga is successful with a Command/Air roll where he barely touches his hilt as he makes the notion that he would suffer to be called a liar. The Seppun begrudgingly accepts Kuga's help and they go a long roundabout way turning back to the same place after walking for almost an hour to reach the same place. The Seppun is no idiot and notices what happens but says nothing. He opens Hikoharu's screen to find Hikoharu and Akiko properly far away from each other, sipping tea. The Seppun samurai tells her that His Imperial Prince wishes for her presence and that Akiko follow him back to the Imperial Guest House. Akiko thanks Hikoharu for the tea and Kuga for expediently bringing Seppun-san to her and leaves taking Hikoharu's fan with her and leaving hers behind.

Hikoharu tells Kuga that he regrets offending Kuga the week before, Kuga reminds him that Regret is a sin, besides, words are wind. And then Hikoharu asks Kuga to follow him. We reach Hotaru-sama. Hikoharu tells her that he intends to challenge Ikoma Minoru for insulting Asahina Akiko's honor and that he asks her permission as Hostess to allow the duel and act as judge. She is definitely surprised and tries to talk him out of it but Hikoharu convinces her. Then we go to the second part and Hikoharu formally challenges Minoru. Minoru accepts and tells him that Matsu Jun is going to act as his champion and all the while Jun is fuming that she won't fight Kuga, but instead one of his friends. Minoru warns him that he intends to make sure there will be a Lion army paying visit to Seawatch Castle and Kuga replies that this is actually compliment, if he believes bringing a Lion Army so far into Crane territory just because of a personal vendetta is worthy of the honorable Lion armies.

Kuga and Hikoharu then go look for Kaito and tell him what's going to happen. Kaito decides to perform a Tea Ceremony to help Hikoharu focus and Kuga shares some tips with Hikoharu about using Jun's size against her, by keeping close to her so she can't swing her sword properly.

Next post, Doji Hikoharu and Matsu Jun fight. (for real this time)

Edit: also, I can't, for the life of me, remember what Kaito was doing during this game. The duel was actually played in the same game as well, but I decided to split it and put with the rest of the winter court.

I asked the other players if they remembered but they don't remember either.

27th of the Month of the Ox, Year 1120 of the Isawa Calendar

It's the morning of Hikoharu and Jun duel. The duel was to be at noon at the Floating Tea House in the Fantastic Gardens of the Crane. Satsume-ue as Emerald Champion is appointed as judge for the duel, presenting what is at stake for each side.

Just before the duel began, Kuga and Hiruma Maruku finally meet and talk to each other. Maruku appears to know Kuga by name and argues that any duel you can walk from was a victory anyway. Kuga is largely surprised that although loud and unsophisticated, Maruku seems largely a nice person. Maruku even offers to train with Kuga sometime. Also, Doji Oki, our daimyõ, didn't even show up, pissing all the players. Anyway, back to the duel.

Round 1
Hikoharu wins and takes Air Stance, he strikes using Crossing Blade and causes a certain amount of fatigue.
Jun assumes Earth Stance and takes a predict action.

Round 2
Hikoharu takes Earth Stance and activates Jun's prediction. He changes to Air and also predicts.
Jun assumes Water Stance, activating Hikoharu's prediction. She changes to Earth Stance and draws her weapon.

Round 3
Finishing blow for both during the staredown. Hikoharu strikes first spends a Void Point to exploit Jun's Large Stature. It's only because of that that he is able to hit her. He uses the Kakita ability to reduce the severity to Permanent Injury and Jun is successful enough to reduce it to a Flesh Wound.
She also strikes but doesn't hit him.

Because we changed that First Blood is only to cause the Bleeding Condition, Hikoharu wins. Hikoharu and Ju bow to each other, Akiko runs to heal Jun and Minoru-sama begs Akiko's forgiveness for the insult he had caused. He leaves the Floating Tea House with Jun right behind him, but before she leaves, she gives Kuga a note. The note said "this wasn't a real fight. Hope I'll face you next summer" . Satsume-ue congratulates Hikoharu for the victory but admonishes him that he needed two strikes to finish the duel instead of just one. Kuga and Kaito take Hikoharu back to his quarters, he is still in shock that he won and only comes back when Kaito pours some sake and forces him to drink.

The rest of the days go out in a blur. Hikoharu is THE favorite subject of everyone's gossip. He and Akiko try to find as much time as they possibly can hidden from Sotorii. Kaito is befriending Shinjo Isamu and trying to get him a bride in exchange for a small Unicorn cavalry squad to "train" with the Crane next year. And Kuga unexpectedly is taken by Shosuro Kachiko as her new "fling". They spend almost two weeks having pleasant conversations, drinking tea, with Kachiko just almost offering for something more and then someone shows up and she is all proper again, teasing Kuga. She invites him for a private party in a sake house outside the castle, 2 weeks before the official end of the Winter Court. Kaito warns Kuga to be aware of Kachiko, but Kuga doesn't listen, thinking it's just all Benten's bidding. They go the party and they find there already in a private room, Doji Chisato, Shinjo Isamu and his rõnin yõjimbõ Ogami. They all start to drink until they notice the sudden silence coming from the rest of the sake house when the paper door slids to reveal His Imperial Prince Sotorii, accompanied by Asahina Akiko and His Seppun Guards. Everybody stops drinking and doesn't know how to react, until Kachiko thanks the Prince for accepting her invitation in such a short notice and that he blesses the party with his presence. Sotorii mostly just wants to tease Hikoharu, being all intimate with Akiko. Kaito is able to calm down Hikoharu and Kachiko invites Kuga for a private moment. Kuga doesn't notice, but Kachiko signals something to Kaito, that leaves the party but not before asking from a solemn vow from Hikoharu that he would not try anything stupid against the Prince.

Kuga finally finds himself alone with Kachiko and she gives him as gift a copy of Lies by Bayushi Tangen, Kuga tries to go through the two refusals and Kachiko cuts him off, saying they don't need to keep this façade in private. Kuga asks her about her fiancé to which Kachiko says " I do not see him in here, do you?" Kuga, finally makes a move for it but Kachiko teasingly escapes him until the screen dor is opened and then her face changes to one of fear and yells at Kuga to get away from her. Then Kuga feels a hand on his shoulder and Maruku's voice (who had been brought in by Kaito) "You heard my fiancée, Little Crane, leaver her alone" . The realization that he was a pawn in Kachiko's plans pisses Kuga off and he tells Maruku to back off, that if Kachiko really meant that, she would not have invited him for this private moment. Kachiko wins an Oscar with her performance of how Kuga is a liar and he is drunk and he was trying to take advantage of her. At this point, the whole party is watching this when someone just says "You should duel and get this over with" . We all turn around to see that the Imperial Prince Sotorii was the one who said that. Akiko tries to change his mind, he just dismiss her and continues. "As your Prince, I say you should duel to see who is right. The wrong one, of course, will have paid with his life."

With no other way, Maruku and Kuga step outside in the snow. Kachiko kisses* Maruku as a good luck charm. Kuga, on the other hand, is Intoxicated.

Round 1
Maruku wins the initiative. He takes a Fire Stance and strikes with Iai Cut: Crossing Blade, almost leaving Kuga Incapacitated, he takes a lot of Strife though and changes to Earth Stance.
Kuga changes to Air Stance and assumes a Guard position.

Round 2
Maruku goes first again and changes again to Fire Stance and strikes Kuga but misses. And changes back to Earth Stance. He is dangerously close of becoming Compromised.
Kuga keeps in Air Stance and takes a Calming Breath, otherwise he will become Compromised on the next staredown.

Round 3

Maruku goes first and strikes, he hits but becomes Compromised. Kuga interrupts his strike with a Finishing Blow and strikes Maruku with Iai Cut: Rising Blade. He gets a Severity 14 hit and also becomes Compromised. Maruku fails on his mitigation roll (because of the poison) and bleeds profusely (think Sanjuro) . He misses his Finishing Blow (again because of the poison) and notices that there's something wrong with him.

Just before he dies, he curses Kuga: "May all your efforts turn to ashes, Kakita." Akiko rushes to Maruku and confirms he is dead, then turns to Kuga who has Maruku's blood all over his face and orders him to go to a shrine and purify himself.

The following day, Kuga is awakened by Kaito and is told that Satsume-ue requests his presence. He finds Satsume, Hotaru and Oki waiting for him. Oki defends Kuga, and argues that if the Prince ordered them to fight, who were they to say no, to which Satsume replies that the Prince is still a boy to which Oki-donõ retorts back that, well, the boy is at least man enough to sire a child, if the rumours he heard are true. Kuga tries his best to keep his head held down at this. Hotaru claims that the Crab delegation wants an official censure against Kuga and that the duel was illegal and Kuga should commit seppuku. In the end, Satsume decides that Kuga will leave, **** the Crab and that all trade negotiations with the Crabe cease immediately. This, of course, pisses Oki off, who was hoping to acquire Kaiu Steel in exchange for jade.

During the last days of the Winter Court, Akiko confesses to Hikoharu that she is pregnant but that she does not know who is the father, the Prince, also thinks it would be interesting enough to declare him Winter Court Champion. Kachiko thanks Kaito for his help in getting rid of Maruku and gives him a black go stone, "I owe you a favor now, Kaito-san, thank you for being a friend". Kuga spends the last two weeks going over and over the duel and realizes that as drunk as he was, he should have died and that Maruku's bleeding was unnatural. He waits by the castle gate when the Scorpion delegation is leaving and Kachiko sees him and goes talk to him. She tries to convince him to accept a favor from her in the future, in exchange for the favor he did her, to which Kuga only gives her a note with a quote from Lies “The best way to defeat an opponent is to convince him he has already won.” and leaves. Kachiko just says to his back that it is a pity, they could have had fun together.

And that was it for the Winter Court. Next, Spring at Kyuden Kitsune.

* Unknown to us, Kachiko's lips had some kind of poison, rules-wise it forces the target to always pick dice with Strife whenever possible. The idea being, that it's a blood thinning poison, so, if the target starts bleeding, the bleeding won't stop anytime soon.

Ok, wow, I haven't updated this in over a month. Life happened A LOT these last few weeks, so, if there's anyone following this, sorry for that.

Anyway, the 3 samurai return from Shiro Doji along with their daimyō, Doji Oki, who is happy with how the Winter Court played out, even if there was the hiccup with the Crab about the trade of jade for Kaiu Steel being terminated. But Doji Oki is an ambitious man with a plan. So he summons Hikoharu, Kaito and Kuga for what he wishes them to do this spring. He wants us to go visit Kyuden Kitsune with 2 objectives. Get Kitsune Gohei to agree in acting as middleman with the Crab so Doji Oki can send the jade through their lands and the Crab do the same with the Kaiu steel. He also wishes that one of us (preferably Hikoharu) marry with Kitsune Ryosei, but that we made sure that Ryosei would take the Doji name, thus ensuring that Gohei would play along, knowing his daughter could be held as hostage if he didn't want to follow with the plan anymore.

For that, Kaito acquired the title of Esteemed Negotiator, and was sent as direct representative of Doji Oki and speaking with his voice. Oki-sama Hikoharu as security for Kaito, but he made clear to him that he should marry someone in the Fox Clan, preferably Ryosei. Kuga asked to go as well, in part to be a second alternative for marriage proposal and also, to follow the lead on the sword of his ancestor. Doji Oki approved and told them to go to Ookami Toshi where they would meet Doji Chisato (the matchmaker we had met during Winter Court) and from there, to Kyuden Kitsune.

The trip was without incidents, but we saw signs of conflict between Mantis raiders and Crane soldiers along the river.

At Kyuden Kitsune, Kitsune Gohei was happy to meet with Doji Kaito again, and impressed that the Winter Court Champion was there as well. Kaito noticed that Ryosei wasn't happy at all with seeing us and left the audience as soon as it was polite. We also met again with Shiba Enepêceru (the name is a running joke of ours with NPC), who said he had been there all Winter, trying to get access into the Forbidden Library by order of the Elemental Council, and also Yogo Kenshi, along with his wife, Shosuro Takako, who also wanted to get a trade agreement with the Kitsune to pass Scorpion sponsored traders along their lands (opium smugglers, really).

I'm kinda putting a really long story short, but in the following days, Hikoharu enjoyed the forest to work with painting, Kaito was negotiating with Ryosei to agree in act as middleman for Oki's plan and Kuga was looking for clues of the whereabouts of his family's sword.

These were the highlights:

• Kaito noticed that Ryosei didn't want to marry anyone that she didn't love. But she knew her father was going to force the issue, if it was politically expedient. Kaito convinced her to request a Musha shugyō and that would buy her at least one year. With that, the plan of Hikoharu or Kuga marrying her went downhill, but at this point Kaito could still show to Oki that he acquired the agreement despite the marriage and would keep Oki happy and allow Kaito to follow Ryosei in her Musha shugyō.
• Kuga and Enepêceru discussed why they both spent time at the library. Enepêceru told Kuga he was there by order of the Elemental Council to retrieve something the Kitsune kept in the Forbidden Library that the Isawa believed the Kitsune were not capable of handling while Kuga told his story. In the end Kuga was able to find out that Unmei no Daiken was actually there, in Kyuden Kitsune, hidden in a vault. During the conversation, Enepêceru also notices that Kuga is being haunted by some ghost (Maruku) that has unfinished business and tells him that he should see what the ghost wants so it can finally find peace.
• He requested an audience with Gohei-ue to have permission to enter the library. Gohei was adamantly against it, when Kuga said that he had come there with a mission to marry someone in the Fox Clan, so what if Kuga married INTO the Fox Clan, instead of the other way around. We are playing all this over discord, but I could actually hear the GM and the other players's jaws dropping when I said that. Gohei-ue promptly accepted and gave Kuga permission to go into the Forbidden Library.
• Kuga spent a week inside the library, trying to find the notes about the sword until he finally found this as the last note:
  "As ordered by the Emerald Champion, all the swords known to have been forged by Asahina Yajinden are to be seized and possibly destroyed immediately, I followed the news about the disgraced samurai, Kakita Araiguma and found him living in a rō nin camp in the outskirts of Shinomen Mori, thank the Heavens for bringing half a legion with me. The Rōnin were maho-tsukai and Araiguma fought like he possessed the strength of a hundred men. The sword could not be destroyed, no matter how much I tried, so I decided to hide it at Kyuden Kitsune.
  - Kitsuki Yōhei" .
• Kuga gave up then and there taking the sword, and the while, he was being successful in all his tests to resist the Taint inside that part of the library. When he finally leaves, Kaito and Hikoharu are pissed with what he has done, that Doji Oki would never allow such a thing and if it had been really worth it. To which Kuga answers, "I'm finally free of my past" .
• Hikoharu impresses Yogo Kenshi, who is considered one of the best go players of the Scorpion land by tying with him 3 times (at one point, Hikoharu's player actually got a 3 row of exploding successes). And Kenshi invites him to go to to Ryoko Owari Toshi during the Autumn for the largest go tournament outside the Lion lands.
• Chisato reveals during a banquet to celebrate Kuga's engagement to Gohei's niece, Kitsune Itsuki that to further strengthen the ties between the Crane Clan and the Fox Clan, Kitsune Kuzunobu would marry into the Crane Clan with Hotaru.
• Hikoharu asks Kaito's help in dealing with Doji Oki so he could request a marriage with Asahina Akiko.

When we finally return, Oki is pleased with Kaito's handling of the agreement and gets extremely pissed that Kuga subverted his orders of marrying with the Fox Clan to actually join the Fox Clan. Kuga says that he had agreed with Gohei to marry the following year but first he needed to spend a year at the Wall to pay a debt. Oki was considering asking Kuga's seppuku then and there, but when he heard about spending a year the Wall, he thought dying horribly at the Wall would be punishment enough for Kuga.

At this point, Oki was glad that Hikoharu would actually be his retainer and allowed his marriage to Asahina Akiko and also granted Kaito's wishes of going on a Musha shugyō.

With that, we went with a time skip of about a year where Kuga spent it at the Wall, Kaito went on a Musha shugyō to write his book about the customs of the other clans and Hikoharu married with Akiko and spent the summer with her at Unicorn lands.
During this period, Hotaru and Kuzunobu got married, as well as Kachiko and Shoju and by the end of the Spring, Kuga and Itsuki, and because we can't have 4 marriages without a funeral, we got the news that Doji Satsume, Emerald Champion and Crane Clan Champion passed away at Otosan Uchi.

I'll try to catch up to where we finally are and detail how Kuga, now being a Kitsune is still around the other two Doji characters.

OOC, the way we figured to keep the team together was quite simple. Because Kuga was now a Kitsune, it wouldn't make much sense to keep the character but we found a way. Basically, Kitsune Gohei requested that Kuga act as y ō jimb ō of his younger son, Kitsune Doji Kuzunobu, not that Gohei didn't trust the Crane to protect him, but just to make sure, there would be a Kitsune around him to remind him of home (the irony of us exchanging clans has not been lost to the players, nor characters). Also, because of the impression that Hikoharu and Kaito made on Kuzunobu, he also requested Doji Oki, to give them as new retainers to him, Oki-donō wasn't happy, but he knew how to obey.

The year before, while the players were away, the Crane conquered Toshi Ranbo. Doji Oki was made provincial daimy ō of the region and Doji Kuzunobu was sent there to learn about Crane politics with him. So, in a way, we are still close to Doji Oki, who now despises the entire group, but our new master is Kuzunobu.

So, we are now at the Spring of 1122, visiting Otosan Uchi as part of the Crane delegation for the funeral proceedings of Doji Satsume. As husband to the Crane Champion, Kuzunobu had to be there the entire time and because of us being his retainers (and specially Kuga, for being his y ō jimb ō), we as well. When the Scorpion Clan delegation came, Kachiko and Shoju expressed their sentiments but Kachiko lingered a little bit more to congratulate Hikoharu on his marriage and child (who we still don't know if it's his actual child or not, but we jokingly call him little Fu Leng), Kaito for his new political position and made fun of Kuga for not accepting her offer back 2 years ago. Kuga just answered " The Hiruma send their regards ", I rolled an amazing Fire/Courtesy with 4 successes and 3 opportunities that I gave her Strife, which made her hide her face behind her fan and leave. The players were ecstatic by the roll, but the characters were all like, dude, that's the wife of a Clan Champion, you crazy? Then, the Imperial entourage arrives, Sotorii actually recognizes Kuga and stops the funeral proceeding to start some small talk if he is going to kill someone whil in Otosan Uchi and that he would love to watch that. Then we notice a stunned Daisetsu reminding his older brother of where they are and what they are doing and that this is not the right time. Kaito notices that for a moment, Sotorii didn't snap and just left without acknowledging his faux pas and then we see the Emperor being brought on a litter and how old and frail he looks.

With the funeral proceedings over, we are stationed at Kyotei Toshi, near Toshi Ranbo, so Kuzunobu can be near Doji Oki but also have some starting role on managing a estate.

Hikoharu got sent to deal with the peasants and he made his base of operations on Chikuzen, a small farming village, north of Toshi Ranbo. There, he realized two things, first, there were lots of peasant refugees coming from the Dragon Lands fleeing the famine, happening there.
Second, again, the surrounding lands had no great shrines. Asking the help of his wife, Asahina Doji Akiko, he set up the fleeing peasants to help build a shrine to Hamari, Fortune of Governance, and if they helped build it before the end of summer, they would be now Crane peasants.

Kaito, who is a subtle observant, started noticing that Kuzunobu was drinking saké more than usual and it didn't help the fact that during Kuga's year at the wall, Kuga developed a passion for saké while off duty with the Crab soldiers and because Kuga was now Kuzunobu's y ō jimb ō it meant they started drinking together A LOT, specially because they became friends on how their lives changed in similar ways. So Kaito is now trying to babysit Kuzunobu while actually trying to make Kyotei Toshi grow. So the first thing Kaito does is talk to Kuga to ask him to start hiding the saké or drinking it all by himself. Kuga understands and says he will help. The second thing he does is talk to Kuzunobu to see if there's something Kaito could do to help and during their conversation, Kaito realizes Kuzunobu misses his home, so now, Kaito, as a good Crane, will take a piece of cultivated ground and put great effort into making it resemble a patch of wilderness to try and make Kuzunobu happy. For that, he needs koku, so he goes and gathers the merchants of Kyotei Toshi.

During the conversation with the several merchants, he hears some of the merchants complaining they are forbidden to sell opium and Kaito has the brilliant idea of allowing certain locations to pay for the right of a license to sell opium ONLY for those who have a medical authorization (yes, we pointed instantly the REAL LIFE (tm) connection), but that brought the complaints of the legitimate merchants but Kaito wants money fast and he will leave for Kaito of the future to deal with that.

Kuga received a message delivered by a REALLY frightened hinin to meet Shiba Enepêceru at an inn (in fact a really crappy and deplorable inn who also functions as gambling and opium den). Arriving at the inn, 3 r ō nin are gambling and one of them eyes Kuga before putting his hand on his katana's tsuka. Kuga tells him matter-of-factly that he is not there to pick a fight, but if the r ōnin wishes to, he can help the r ōnin learn how to fight left-handed from now on. There was an amazing roll of Command/Fire that put the rōnin to consider their options and make the owner of the inn come running and bring Kuga upstairs to meet with his friend. Before opening the screen, Kuga smells the stench of death from the inside, in there he finds Shiba Enepêceru covered in bandages, smoking opium and acting too slow to draw his blade if whoever did that to him found him now to finish the job.

Enepêceru tries to play the polite host but Kuga cuts him to chase, pointing that he appreciates the courtesy but it's a bigger matter of compassion to help him in whatever he needs now. Enepêceru tells him that after spending summer and fall at Kyuden Kitsune, he finally broke into the Forbidden Library and stole the thing the Isawa had ordered him to bring to Phoenix Land. He spent the winter running from Kitsune samurai and some Emerald Magistrates as well until he was ambushed near Ninkatoshi and barely escaped. Kuga asks him if he killed any Kitsune samurai to which Enepêceru answers that no, he asks Kuga 2 favors, to finish the job the Isawa gave him and give his diaries to his daughter, Shiba Tsukune.

Kuga asks why him, and Enepêceru answers that he felt Kuga owed him a favor for counseling him how to get rid of the ghost haunting him and now he asked Kuga's help to not become a ghost now.
OOC, there was a long debate between me and the GM on how to answer that, there would be honor losses and honor gains no matter which answer I gave. In the end, I know that might mean I will have to commit seppuku to expiate for helping someone who stole from my clan, but screw it, I won't kill a one-step-from-dying-anyway person. So Kuga asks him a favor in return for all this, that Kuga will be Enepêceru's kaishakunin. Enepêceru smiles and says he was expecting the offer already.

While Enepêceru is gathering his diaries and the thing he stole, Kuga goes out to arrange a cart and horse. He returns and helps Enepêceru climb the cart and they leave the town searching for a secluded spot. They find a hill near a grove. Enepêceru shows Kuga the box (which is long and wide enough to keep a sword) and his journals. Kuga helps him dress a white kimono and Enepêceru writes his jisei and commits seppuku. Kuga cuts off his head right away and gathers wood from the grove to start a pyre. He returns late night at the castle, hides the box (which he didn't open) and the journals and goes to sleep. The sleep is full of nightmares and in the morning, he notices that Kuzunobu was worse than he was.

At noon, Kuga, Kaito, Hikoharu and Kuzunobu are meeting. Kaito shows his initial plans for getting money to build a garden that would remind Kuzunobu of home, Hikoharu explains how he is going to use the influx of peasants to build a shrine and Kuga asks permission to leave for a week to go to Nikesake and back, which is 3 days away riding, so he can help a dear friend in need. Kuzunobu asks which friend is that, to which Kuga lies saying that he never met the person, he met him while at the Wall, but Kaito notices Kuga is lying but decides no to point out at the moment.

Kuzunobu allows Kuga to leave to attend personal business for a week and congratulates Hikoharu and Kaito on their jobs.

Sorry, I didn't keep notes of the last 3 sessions, this report covers the 2 before the last one, and I'll post shortly how the last game session went on and this thread would be up to date. Just hope I can keep it this way.

This is the summary of the last 2 sessions, the party was pretty much split, and everything here was pretty much happening in parallel, so let's go over them one by one:

Doji Hikoharu

• Hikoharu is having his breakfast with his wife and son (Goro, the snapper of toys) when his aide comes over saying that a magistrate of the Dragonfly Clan was seeking an audience with him. First thing that comes to Hikoharu's mind are the Dragon peasants fleeing their lands because of famine and their "alleged" curse. He asks Akiko to join him for the meeting, saying she might provide other perspective.
• They meet with Tonbo Kanon, younger twin brother of the Dragonfly daimy ō Tonbo Saga (I know, we laughed at the reference as well). Kanon-sama was accompanied by a young Mirumoto bushi who stayed silent until the end of the meeting. Kanon went to Chikuzen with two objectives. First, get a trade deal with the Crane for food for the Dragon and Dragonfly Clan and second, "dude, have you seen our peasants?" Hikoharu was capable of keeping a straight face to Kanon but Akiko was not pleased with him lying to a magistrate. During their conversation, Hikoharu finds out that Kanon is looking for a toy made by a Kakita artisan to present as a gift to his niece, Tonbo Saori.
• When the meeting is over, the Mirumoto Bushi approaches Hikoharu and says "show me your stance" . The Dragonfly magistrate immediately jumps between Hikoharu and the Mirumoto and starts chastising him. Canon asks forgiveness for the Mirumoto's behaviour and presents him as Mirumoto Mamoru. Mamoru says he is out on the Empire looking for the finest duels to improve his art and he heard how one of Winter Champions was living nearer the Dragon lands now and wanted to test his mettle. Hikoharu is not impressed and tells him go bother someone else. Kanon pretty much drags Mamoru out.
• Hikoharu and Akiko discuss the events, with her arguing that he should come clean with Tonbo Kanon about the peasants and Hikoharu replies that heinin are people and not property and even they wished to leave the Dragon/Dragonfly lands, who is he to send them back? Hikoharu's aide, Tsume no Doji Daisuke, on the other hand, asks Hikoharu's permission to duel Mirumoto Mamoru, saying that he wishes to bring him down a peg. Hikoharu says no, arguing that a true warrior should never duel for petty reasons.
• Hikoharu sends some letters to the greater Fortunist temples surrounding Toshi Ranbo arguing his plans for a Great Shrine at Chikuzen. He receives a positive answer a week later that a Fortunist Temple would send one of their monks, Daishi, to help with the construction.
• On the day before the party is finally joined. Mirumoto Mamoru shows up again at Hikoharu's house asking for a duel. Again, Hikoharu refuses, trying to dissuade the young bushi, but to no avail, so Mamoru tells him that he will go after everyone that he holds dear until they finally fight one another.

Doji Kaito

• Kaito was trying to improve the commerce in Kyotei Toshi (or at least improve the taxes income of the town). Again, the more legitimate merchants of the town asked to Kaito to forbid the opium trade but Kaito was adamant about it. He tried to charm the merchants about it but he wasn't successful. Then he had a meeting with two Emerald Magistrates, Kitsuki Chiaki, who is the Emerald Magistrate responsible for the area around Kyotei Toshi and Tsuruchi Tarou who was visiting the town as part of an investigation. Chiaki argued that crime would increase with Kaito's decision and asked for money to hire more dōshin. She asked for 50 koku to hire and train 50 dōshin for the season and Kaito argued that he could hire rōnin to act as yoriki for less than that and they would be more effective. Chiaki did her best to hide her dissatisfaction with Kaito's decision and then presented Tsuruchi Tarou who had asked for the audience as part of an investigation.
• Kaito also had a meeting with Akodo Kage, to allow the former Ikoma dojo to remain open for Lion students with the underlying agreement that if conflict broke again between Lion and Crane, the Lion would consider Kyotei Toshi neutral ground. Kaito accepted the agreement as long as he could have access to the dojo facilities anytime to make sure nothing sneaky was going on, Akodo Kage accepted grudgingly and also, the Ikoma dojo was for the Ikoma Shadows, so of course, sneaky stuff was bound to happen.
• Tarou told him that he was there looking for a samurai who had murdered and stolen some properties from Kyuden Kitsune and although he doesn't know much about the samurai's clan, he knows the samurai was fleeing to Nikesake and probably would show up around Kyotei Toshi or its surroundings. Kaito noticed that the Magistrate was hiding the identity of the samurai but promised whatever help he needed, the Crane Clan would provide.
• Later, Kaito made arrangements to meet with a rōnin group that had been hired for the Crane military campaign of last year to hire them as yoriki. And he met with the Ōkami Tsubasa group a few days later. Tsubasa, the leader of the group, started the meeting extremely aggressive towards Kaito and an intrigue conflict took place but Kaito eventually was able to show him that whatever rumors he had heard about him were false. He could not actually put the finger on it, but he was sure that this was Doji Oki working behind the scenes to foil their plans. The group was formed of 21 rōnin and they agreed on payment of 33 koku per season plus lodging.
• Satisfied with the agreement, Kaito went on to investigate about the samurai who Tsuruchi Tarou was looking for. All he could find out was that the samurai stole something from Kyuden Kitsune. Connecting the dots, he assumed the samurai must be from the Phoenix Clan, since he was going to Nikesake and he wondered if maybe the suspect was Shiba Enepêceru. He used some favors with the newly established opium trade in Kyotei Toshi and found out that a samurai matching Shiba Enepêceru's descriptions had purchased opium AND had met a week before with a samurai who matched Kuga's description. He found out that the two had left together but only one returned and the day of their meeting matched with the day Kuga asked permission to go to Nikesake.
• OOC, Kaito's player knew that I was actually helping Enepêceru's last wishes but IC Kaito summoned Hikoharu to present him what he had found out and they started to wonder if Kuga was visiting Nikesake to kill whoever ordered Shiba-sama of stealing whatever he stole from the Kitsune vault. He pulled some favors to get a Miya Herald to try and travel to Nikesake before Kuga did any more trouble (because a week was exactly how much time he needed to travel from Kyotei Toshi to Nikesake) and just waited for the bad news to arrive.

Kitsune Kuga

• Kuga was off to Nikesake. During the whole trip he was having nightmares of angry ghosts asking why he had abandoned them? The first night it was the visit of a huge Crab samurai wearing the Hida mon, asking for his father. The second night, it was a samurai-ko wearing Crane colors asking for her brother. At the third night it was a Lion samurai whose similarity to Matsu Jun was uncanny. All these nightmares were adding Strife. On the fourth day when climbing up a hill he noticed 6 samurai, no banner or identifying mon on them resting by the side of the road.
• Kuga was particularly paranoid that this was an ambush but trying to lose them in the woods could take more time to reach Nikesake and he thought speed was more important than caution on this matter. Approaching the samurai, he noticed they were rōnin. He even recognized the leader of them as a rōnin that had visited Kyuden Kitsune around the time of his marriage into the clan. The rōnin all stood up when he approached on his pony and they asked to talk with Kuga. They said they were looking for a Shiba samurai around 40 years old and asked where did he come from. Kuga told them he came from Kyotei Toshi to visit Nikesake and had not seen any Shiba samurai since he left town. Baygon, the leader, asked if he could see Kuga's possessions. Kuga tried to command them to back off, that they were acting as brigands and not proper samurai. That's when Baygon told the other rōnin "forget the Shiba, this is the one he is looking for" and they prepared their weapons. Kuga throws the horse on 3 of the samurai, trapping them before Baygon killed the pony with his zanbatō. But Kuga is able to prevent being trapped under the pony as well and a skirmish begins
• Kuga wins the initiative and uses Iaijutsu Cut: Crossing Blade on one of the rōnin minions. He takes Fire stance and cleanly cuts down the first one. The other rōnin minion and Baygon both strike him and put his Fatigue up to 5. The other 3 rōnin are still trying to remove the horse from them.
  Kuga changes to a Water Stance and takes a Warrior's Resolve reducing his fatigue to 2 and strikes the other minion. He causes 5 damage only and doesn't defeat the minion. Both the minion and Baygon strike again, with both hitting him and pushing his Fatigue to 7. The other 3 rōnin are still trying to remove the horse from them.
  Kuga changes to Air stance and with a feint takes down the second minion when he exposed himself. He also becomes Compromised. Baygon gets an unbelievable roll (which also Compromises him) and gets a critical strike on Kuga. Kuga faills his Fitness roll and gets a Maimed Visage, he is also bleeding.
  Kuga unmasks by screaming "why wouldn't you leave me alone you gutless dogs?" taking an honor hit and tries to overwhelm Baygon on Fire stance. He pulls a Mirumoto by drawing the wakizashi with his left hand using Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade on Baygon and gets the most amazing roll I ever did and decapitates Baygon with a single hit while also opening another wound on his face because of the bleeding.
• Bleeding, he reaches the 3 rōnin under the horse and kills them as they were asking for mercy taking HUGE honor hits. He performs some first aid on himself to stop the bleeding and goes on the investigate the rōnin possessions. The only noticeable thing he finds is a bounty on Shiba Enepêceru and any accomplices. Now on foot, he continues the march to Nikesake.
• On the second day he fails the Medicine roll and starts to take on a fever. He arrives on the mourning of the eighth day (of what should have been a seven days ride) at the gate of Nikesake and passes out.
• He wakes up with his wound taken care of, clean clothes and no signs of his possessions. He speaks out loud that he is thankful for the care but that he wishes to talk to the lord of the house. He hears footsteps outside and minutes later the screen opens to show an old man followed by 2 guards wearing Shiba mon and colors who looks at Kuga as if measuring his combat skills. He presents himself as Shiba Bakuren and pointedly asks why a Kitsune samurai was walking around carrying the daishō and journals of Shiba Enepêceru. Before answering, Kuga asks if there is an agent of the Elemental Council in town, and if there is one, he will gladly tell his story for the both of them, but he had received explicit instructions from Shiba Enepêceru to deliver his charges to an agent of the Elemental Council or one of the Elemental Masters themselves.
• Bakuren eyes Kuga for a moment and orders one of the guards to summon Isawa-sensei. A young woman wearing Isawa colors show up and presents herself as Isawa Itsuki, sensei of the small shugenja school of Nikesake. Kuga considers strange how a young woman has the title of sensei but leaves be. He charms the young sensei saying she shares his wife's name as well as training and that such a coincidence means he should trust her promptly. He tells them the whole story of how he met Enepêceru and what happened and how he had been attacked by rōnin and he finally arrived in Nikesake but the sword he had brought was not with him and he was hopeful that the sword was properly secured because it gave the worst nightmares and he suspected the sword contained maho. When saying that word, Isawa-sama tells Bakuren to bring promptly all the possessions found with Kuga, Bakuren asks why and Itsuki just answers "because an Isawa is reminding you of your Ancestor's oath" . Bakuren leaves immediately and brings back all that was found with Kuga.
• Itsuki asks all of them to leave the room and performs a small purification ritual before opening the case. Then she grabs Kuga's sword maintenance kit, disassembles the tsuka and inside Kuga sees that the wood was hollower than it should be and inside was filled with jade (now completely dark) and a scroll so black that sucked the light. Itsuki does a small prayer and the scroll briefly glows with some blood red kanji. Kuga can't read everything but he recognizes one of the words. Isawa. Not the Isawa Family, but THE Isawa, one of them Seven Thunders. Itsuki says that she owes him an explanation but that he must sweat then and now never to tell whatever she was going to tell him to another soul or the Elemental Council would make sure that him and his family would be eliminated from the history of the Empire. Kuga **** WELL wants some answers and swears so.
• Itsuki goes on to tell the true story of the Day of Thunder and how Isawa trapped Fu Leng's soul in twelve scrolls and that Shosuro, the only surviving Thunder brought them back and they were to be guarded by Scorpion and Phoenix but one of them went to the Kitsune's posession.
• She goes on to thank Kuga for doing Shiba Enepêceru's final mission and that the Phoenix are in eternal debt with him, and that any extreme support might bring questions from more curious eyes, Kuga can always expect hospitality in Phoenix lands. During all this, Kuga discovers that he was asleep for 3 days and that he is late to go back to Kyotei Toshi, he again thanks the hospitality but he needs to go back promptly. Bakuren arranges for him to have a small Shiba detail guarding him back, which Kuga finds too much but accepts.

Two and half weeks later of leaving Kyotei Toshi, Kuga returns with his security detail of Shiba bushi. They present themselves in front of Kuzunobu,the Shiba explaining that Kuga had helped return the possessions of a fallen Phoenix samurai and they felt their duty to return him safely after being ambushed by brigands on the road (not that it was the Crane's fault). Hikoharu and Kaito use Cadence with Kuga to tell him he is going to share his story with them later and that was it.

Today we are having another game session. I'll make sure to take notes this time and try to update this sooner.

So, we had a gaming session a month ago and nothing else yet. That's what happens when 3 of the 4 people playing are teachers in Brazil with no guidance or plan on how the next semester is going to be. Anyway, enough Real Life(TM).

Doji Kaito

• Kaito's player hasn't joined us for reasons of Real Life(TM). His character was caught up by a giant mirror and stuck in Gaki-do (a running joke we have about DC's Phantom Zone and where characters go when their players can't play)

Anyway, lots of drama happened in this game session anyway.

• For one, a new courtier showed up at Court. Doji Biaxi, sent by Doji Oki to help his " new nephew" with the administration of Kyuden Kyotei. Of course all the players got on edge with that and we started to assume she was a spy. Kuzunobu didn't get our hint, and accepted her with open arms and asked Kuga to show her the castle and surrounding village.
• During the tour, she noticed that Kuga's Ninjō was now to create a sword of legends and offered him to get acquainted with her father, who was a famous Kakita Artisan. Being trapped now with accepting the gift from a spy in exchange for something unknown in the future. Kuga begrudgingly accepted, took 3 Strife and hoped he would not help a spy get away with murder (literally or metaphorically) later.
• For second, Mirumoto Mamoru challenged and defeated Tsume no Doji Daisuke, Hikoharu's apprentice and took his left arm as trophy. Daisuke survived but that got Hikoharu really pissed. Hikoharu's backstory involves his mother (a Kakita Duelist) dying in a duel against bandits to save Hikoharu when he was a child. His mother defeated the bandit leader in a duel but was struck down by the other ones and Hikoharu took this time to escape, by her orders. Ever since then, Hikoharu believes that one should only duel to protect the ones you love and dueling for glory is anathema to him.
• After visiting Daisuke, he goes to talk to Kuga to ask him to duel Mamoru. This happens while Kuzunobu is holding court and Kuzunobu politely interjects himself asking if he can't just banish the troublesome samurai. Kuga, on the other hand, is all to eager to test his mettle against a Mirumoto Niten bushi and aceepts, telling Kuzunobu that such a small matter should not worry His Lord.
• As if on cue, Mirumoto Mamoru arrives at the court, panting, having run all the way from Chikuzen to Kyuden Kyotei when he heard Hikoharu had left town that he challenged Hikoharu again. Kuga interjected, saying that Hikoharu had more pressing matters to attend and instead, they would be fighting instead. Mamoru replies, never taking his eyes off Hikoharu "no matter how many boulders you throw at my path, I'll cut them all down" .
• They agree to duel the next day, at noon, but first, Kuga wanted to get acquainted with him, so they play a match of Shogi where Kuga uses Assess Strength to find out that to the surprise of no one, Mirumoto Mamoru was impatient.
• The duel was supposed to happen at noon, sharp. But Kuga arrived just late enough that wouldn't be considered a faux pas, but late enough to piss off Mamoru. Then he asked Akiko, Hikoharu's wife to bless the duelling ground THOROUGHLY, causing 3 Strife on Mamoru. Kuzunobu reminds everyone that the Duel should be to first blood only and begs for Amaterasu's guidance in the matter.
  
• The first round of the duel, Kuga won the initiative, took an Air Stance and predicted that Mamoru would take Fire Stance. Lo and behold, Mamoru indeed took Fire Stance (and 4 Strife), being locked out of Fire Stance, he chooses Earth Stance instead, strikes with Iaijutsu Cut: Crossing Blade, missing Kuga and drawing his wakizashi as well.
• The second round, Kuga takes Void Stance and Centers (honestly, I was doing this to get the feel of a true Kakita one cut duel but almost bit me in the ***). Mamoru, who by now has 10 Strife, changes to Fire Stance and goes with a Heartpiercing Strike. He luckily gets 4 successes and no Strife and hits me with a Severity 5 Critical Strike. Kuga rolls his amazing Void2/Fitness 1 (with a skilled assistance, thanks to Hikoharu's player reminding me of my bond) and I roll 5 successes, reducing the Critical Strike to 2, just slashing Kuga's kimono. (we have a house rule that duels to first blood just need to cause the Bleeding condition to trigger, not cause severity 5+ critical strike)
• Third round staredown causes Mamoru to become Compromised, Kuga Strikes with Iaijutsu Cut: Rising Blade. Mamoru triggers ward, making me reroll 3 dice, but I still hit with a Severity 9 Critical Strike. He rolls one success and I decide to cut his left hand ring and middle finger instead. As my action, I sheathe the blade. Mamoru unsmaks and prepares to attack me again, when Kuzunobu SCREAMS for him to lay down his weapon using an amazing Fire/Command roll.
• Mamoru apologizes for his outburst, refuses medical aid, bows to Kuga and Hikoharu, tells them that he needs to train more and leaves.
  
• With the duel being resolved. Hikoharu heads back to Chikuzen, on the way, he meets an ashigaru who came to report that the peasants that came from the Dragon land almost beat Daishi, the Fortunist Monk who came to oversee the shrine constuction. He bids Akiko to continue the travel while he goes to see what was going on. When approaching the settlement, he hears the peasants chanting Shoshi ni kie, he just gets enough successes on his Theology check to know it's a sutra and nothing else. He talks to the peasants, who are armed with farming tools, he ignores this audacity and tries to understand what happened. The peasants tell him that Daishi stroke one of them with his staff when the peasant refused to pray for the Fortunes and they beat him back and only the ashigaru's intervention prvented Daishi from being killed. Not grasping the size of the problem yet, he goes with a religious tolerance approach of live and let live and makes them swear they will finish the shrine's construction and not attack Daishi or the guards anymore.
• He goes back home and talks to Akiko about what happened. Akiko readily understands who they are, and to Hikoharu's surprise, he sees her for the first time having a burst of anger and saying that if the peasants refuse to obey the Celestial Order, she might as well haste them to go back to the cycle. What happens next, remains to be seen.
  
• Meanwhile, back in Kyuden Kyotei, Kitsuki Chiaki, Emerald Magistrate shows up to interrogate Kitsune Kuga about the whereabouts of Shiba Enepêceru. This gets Kuzunobu attention, as he was note aware that Shiba Enepêceru was the thief that Kitsuki Chiaki was looking for Enepêceru and asked Chiaki what was his crime. Chiaki presents the documents showing that Kitsune Gohei, his father, had accused Shiba Enepêceru of stealing the Kitsune Ancestral Sword. Kuzunobu then answers that this doesn't make any sense, since the sword had be lost for centuries.
• Kuga replies that indeed he had met Shiba Enepêceru the month before and that he stroke him down but not before promising to take his journals back to his daughter (a successful omission of truth) and that, indeed, he had the Kitsune Ancestral Sword with him. This shocks Kuzunobu to no end and he starts muttering how is that possible. Kuga offers to bring the sword, Chiaki appraises it and after confirming it is the real deal, asks Kuga why he didn't contact an Emerald Magistrate. Kuga politely answers that this was a Fox Clan business and didn't want to bother the Imperial Authorities with such a matter. Chiaki appears to accept the answer, thanks Kuga for bringing Shiba Enepêceru to justice and that she will now take the sword back to the Fox Clan.
• Kuzunobu finally finds his speech back and asks: "Kuga-san, why wasn't I made aware of this?" to which Kuga in the most meek way he can handle, answers: "As I had just said to Kitsuki-sama here, this was a Fox Clan matter, my Lord and you are a Crane." Kuzunobu unmasks then and there and tells Kuga that his services are no longer needed and that he may leave his presence for good. Biaxi, who was present during the entire event, tells Kuga that she will try to calm Kuzunobu down and that Kuga should leave them alone.
• Kuga uses this moment to go into Biaxi's room and see if he can find anything that might indicate what exactly she is spying for Doji Oki. He finds a small journal under her pillow and he is able to break the cypher to realized that she is basically writing Yaoi fan fic where there's a love triangle between 3 characters whose physical and mood aspects resemble a lot Kuga, Kuzunobu and Kaito, with Kuga and Kaito fighting for Kuzunobu's love. Kuga dismiss this as cheap pillow book and tries to find anything else but can't. He makes sure to leave the room the same way as it was before he entered and leaves.

And that's it. That was one month ago, still trying to get the group together again. The GM already declared that the next arc is going to be the final one, with another war border skirmish erupting between Crane and Lion.

We were rapidly approaching summer and we had to decide where Doji Kuzunobu and Doji Hotaru would spend the Chrysanthemum Festival.

• We had a "done by letters" intrigue conflict against Doji Oki to try and make Hotaru visit Shiro Kyotei during the festival. We were successful and even prepared some imported Agasha Fireworks to surprise Hotaru. And Hikoharu made sure that his Perfect Land Sect peasants would behave during the festival.
• On the first day of the festival (and Hotaru would arrive on the 5th), we receive two messengers. The first one, was a young Miya Herald called Miya Megumi, she presented herself as carrying an Edict from the Emperor and made her pronouncement. "By the grace of Amaterasu, the Hantei announces the position for the Emerald Champion empty and that during the harvest season a tournament shall be held in Otosan Uchi to find the new Champion". This announcement came as a happy surprise, with Kaito asking if Hikoharu and Kuga had any intentions on participating on the the Tournament, to which, Hikoharu answered no (because he figured he would have to bring Akiko to the Imperial Palace with him and Sotorii would become Emperor sooner than later) and Kuga thought that joining the Tournament could be a good way of meeting some of the finest duelists of the Empire but he didn't believe he would actually win.
• The second messenger though, was a Lion, by name of Matsu Toda. He came with a formal announcement that 3 days prior, the Lion Army took control of Shiro sano Kakita, Doji Kuwanan is now an esteemed Lion guest and that the Crane and Lion were at war. This shocked everyone in the room, Kuga accepted 3 Strife to not strike down the messenger then and there. Hikoharu was speechless and Kaito was the only one who kept his composure to ask how that happened and how the Imperial Court had authorized such act of violence.
  • Toda answered that the invasion happened during dawn and that the Gates were open, so the Crane Guards hadn't had the time to close them and that the Imperial Court had not declared any objections and therefore, if something is not forbidden, it is allowed. Given that we still had a week of festivals where NO ONE worked, it meant that the Lion would have a week to fortify the defenses of Shiro sano Kakita. Kuzunobu thanked the Matsu and said that after the festival, he had one day to return to his lands or be considered an enemy spy but before that, he was a guest in Shiro Kyotei.
• Then it was a matter of summoning an emergency meeting to discuss plans for the conflict. Given that we would have one week with no actual work (so no training, raising levies, procuring equipment, etc) we could only do war games. It was decided then, that Kuga would be sent south and cross the river towards Ninkatoshi and try to cut the supplies for the Lion Legions up North using the Rōnin that Kaito had hired to do road patrol around the area. Hikoharu would raise some Ashigaru on Chikuzen (that doesn't show up on the map below but is east of Shiro Kyotei) and send them to Toshi Ranbo.
• 
• During the festival, Matsu Toda approached Kuga, presented himself as brother to Matsu Jun and said that he had a letter from her to be delivered to him. The letter said that she was stationed at Nikatoshi with a Matsu Special Forces unit and that she had waited 3 years for another chance at fighting Kuga. She hoped he would meet her there so they could have their final duel. She also mentioned that he did not need to worry about his wife, that she would make sure she would have a nice, strong, honorable Lion suitor for her.
  • OOC the other players were joking that Kuga and Jun would finally have a date. Kuga passed the information to Kuzunobu and Hotaru (who had finally arrived at Shiro Kyotei) and that just reinforced the idea of sending Kuga south to deal with them.
  • Kaito also had a secret meeting with Akodo Kage where Kage offered him an invitation to a very select group of marvelous individuals who tried their best to guarantee their interests (and allegedly, also of the Emperor's) were guaranteed. He implied that the invitation had been given because Kachiko vouched for him and after much deliberation they decided to extend the invitation. Kaito accepted, to the surprise of the other players.
  • Kage then gave him instructions to make sure that Shiro Kyotei would fall to Lion Troops coming from the west by a bridge that they would build in lightning speed. They didn't much care about Kuzunobu, but Shiro Kyotei should fall to the Lions. Kaito assured him that he would make sure of that.
• Before the festival was over, Hotaru returned to Toshi Ranbo to pepare the defenses there. Once the festival was over, Kaito sent orders to regroup the ronins on Shiro Kyotei to follow Kuga's orders, Kuga organized the blacksmiths to adapt some Ashigaru Armor into Tatami Gusoku and Hikoharu went back to Chikuzen to train his ashigaru.
  • Hikoharu suddenly realized that the extra peasants fleeing the Dragon Lands were already trained, showing superb discipline indeed. This counted as having another unit ready and he filed away this information for later to figure out who trained them.
• With troops ready, Kuga started his march south to attack Ninkatoshi and found an advancing Lion Army marching north, he fought them quickly and routed them towards Phoenix Lands on the east, with Hikoharu sending some troops to dispatch of them. Meanwhile, Toshi Ranbo was being sieged and Kaito send some troops from Kyotei Toshi and Shiro Kyotei west to help alleviate the siege.
  • With Shiro Kyotei down to a skeleton crew, the castle was surprised when they found themselves under siege by Lion troops. Hikoharu was still southeast dealing with the remnants of the Lion army sent from the south and he decided to challenge the gunso in charge that if they won, the rest of his troops would be considered guests in Chikuzen until harvest time. The gunsō accepted and was defeated handily. Having defeated the Lions, he sent a small troop to guide his new guests to Chikuzen while he marched back to offer Shiro Kyotei relief.
• Kuga crossed the bridge and and burned it to the ground with the help of the Agasha fireworks he had stashed from the festival, to make sure that no troops could help the Lions from there. Of course, this would also mean he would also be behind enemy lines with no chance of reinforcements or help. He started the siege of Ninkatoshi calling Matsu Jun for a duel but she refused, claiming he dishonored his ancestors by marching to Ninkatoshi with an army of rōnin carrying no Crane banner. OOC, the other players joked that this was the equivalent of being invited to a nice date at an expensive restaurant and showing up in cargo shorts and t-shirt. By then, Kuga was unreachable by the other players as well, so he didn't know the situation at Shiro Kyotei.
• Kaito and Hikoharu reached Shiro Kyotei and were able to successfully remove Kuzunobu from the castle and moved him to Kyotei Toshi. Hikoharu then split his troops to defend Chikuzen and Kyotei Toshi while he waited for more troops (that would never come, because Kaito made sure of that) to retake Shiro Kyotei.
• After two weeks of siege, with an army on the brink of collapse, Kuga breached into Ninkatoshi. He met Jun atop one the battlements where he confessed his love to her and that he was glad that one of them was about to die in the arms of the other.
  • They duel for the second and last time. Jun is finally able to hit a critical hit on Kuga but becomes Compromised in the process, activating the Finishing Blow. It was considered we did a karmic strike, where Kuga dealth a Swift Death to Jun and Jun caused Kuga some Lost Memories (the GM decided the Lost Memories were of Kuga's time since he married into and joined the Fox Clan).
  • The next turn, Kuga drops his sword and embraces Jun, she tries to pierce him with her sword one last time but it just becomes a close call. She whispers to him her death poem and dies into his arms.

    Your eyes are fire.
    Their light burnt into my soul,
    Scarred by beauty.

• With Ninkatoshi secured, Kuga spends the next week getting supplies to take his army north and put Ninkatoshi to fire when leaving when one morning, Scorpion AND Imperial Banners show up on every place involved in the conflict. Toshi Ranbo, Chikuzen, Kyotei Toshi, Shiro Kyotei and Ninkatoshi. They come with and Edict from the Emperor declaring all conflict must stop at once and that Toshi Ranbo and surrouding lands will become an Imperial Holding under the temporary governorship of the Scorpions until a permanent governor is decided.

Epilogue

• Doji Oki and Doji Biaxi are both found dead in the outskirts north of Toshi Ranbo days after the Scorpions arrived. Nobody knows who murdered them.
• Doji Hotaru and Doji Kuzunobu seem to finally find something to appreciate in each other and they announce Hotaru's pregnancy during the following Winter Court.
• Bayushi Kachiko becomes Imperial Advisor and Bayushi Aramoro becomes Scorpion Champion after Shoju's death when his ship sunk while travelling to the Islands of Spice and Silk.
• Kaito is appointed permanent governor of Toshi Ranbo as an Imperial Governor, the Kolat is happy...
• Hikoharu and Akiko have another child the following year and they are sent as Crane Ambassadors to the Unicorn. He later becomes a famous pillow book writer under the not so subtle alias of Haru.
• Kuga refuses to give Ninkatoshi to the Scorpions, instead, he puts Ninkatoshi on fire, uses the chaos to escape with his new band of rōnins and vows to kill Bayushi Kachiko (who he blames for stopping the fight when the Crane had gotten the upper hand), Kuga is declared a criminal and his name lives on as a cautionary tale to young samurai everywhere.

And that's it. If someone else was reading this, I hope you enjoyed and I am sorry for not keeping as updated as I should have. Next I am planning on GMing an all Scorpion campaign set during the return of the Unicorn. Let's see how that one goes.

A great story, and a very dramatic ending!

Forgot to add that Hikoharu became a famous pillow book writer under the not so subtle Haru alias.

We had a post mortem as well after the campaign to discuss what we thought of the system.

Pros:

• Opportunities really add a lot of flavor to the rolls even when you don't pick a more mechanical choice. For instance, the 4 opportunities rolled on Kuga's first duel where he gained insight into the universe and saw glimpses of the future basically changed the character where he was an *****hole and liked to be one, into trying to be (and failing) a more compassionate samurai. In the end, opportunities are cool that, if you fail, at least you can fail forward.
• Approaches add a lot of flavor to the game, it's just a problem that a rookie GM might spend too much time comparing approaches to decide which one the player should use, or, the player might offer his input about the approach he wants to use and then the GM has to decide if the TN should change or not, but anyway, it's a point in favor with a minor caveat.
• Strife was a really nice addition. Adding "mental fatigue" is a way to make sure that players will have to roleplay their characters appropriately (or if not, the mechanics still hurt them a little).

Cons:

• Iaijutsu is really gimped in this edition, if you want to do the old Kakita one draw-one strike duels, you need to basically become a heckler (which is a double edged sword).
• The whole conflict chapter needs to be rewritten.
  • Intrigues need more examples and better explanation. For instance, can the whole group gang up on a single character to try convince him sharing the same momentum points? If so, this could be broken.
  • Duels definitely need more interesting choices besides strike. Center and Predict are useless except in very few situations. The fact that movement and range don't matter in a duel is downright idiotic.
  • We never actually used the mass battle rules in the game. I played days before with the GM to show him how long and boring the mass battle rules were and in the end we went with an army being just like a character with Fatigue and Strife and Rings that if the commander's ring were better, the commander's would be used and treated just like a skirmish but using command instead of martial arts to attack.
  • The only problem with skirmish is the range bands really, other than that, it works fine.
• A newly created character is extremely weak, compared to previous editions, even rolling for a skill that you began with rank 1, if the chosen approach is a Ring of 1, chances are, you won't pass even on a TN 2 (16% chance of success), on older editions, even a 3k2 roll with TN 15 had a 47% chance. Anyway, this might be more of a feature than a bug, depending on how you see this.
• Also, regarding character creation, the advantages and disadvantages system is really lacking. Basically you just worry about anxieties and passions and rarely you can actually use the distinctions and adversities on a roll.

Overall, we liked the system, but we still believe it's in desperate need of a revised edition. There are good ideas there, it just needs more polishing.

16 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

We had a post mortem as well after the campaign to discuss what we thought of the system.

Nice to see people's thoughts, and well articulated.

• I agree with a lot of what you've said - despite being a passionate fan of the system. I think the narrative play options and one-roll duels (i.e essentially bypassing conflict scenes as much as possible) are probably the best way to get the feel and playability right - the more you get into the weeds, the more you see the awkward sharp bits.
  • As an updated version of roll-and-keep, where you have to actually think about what you keep instead of just "I take highest dice", it's elegant and simple. Adding both strife and opportunities means it's not all about straight successes, opportunities and bonus successes substitute for raises in previous editions nicely, and explosive successes means any TN is - theoretically - achievable, especially with void points, distinctions and assistance.
  • Approaches....I agree it's a feature not a bug. 90% of systems nail a specific 'skill' to a specific 'stat'. I feel not doing that is the right call - especially since fire/water/earth/etc does not equate directly to strength/dexterity/charisma - but as you say, it takes a bit of adjusting. The beginners game is good at introducing approaches gently but its weird for someone thrown in at the deep end.
  • I don't mind intrigues so much, but I tend to restrict them to 'team A' versus 'team B' trying to win over neutral party C, rather than just a general attempt to persuade someone of something. As with any conflict scene, outnumbered characters tend to lose; unless TNs are really high, additional actions are king.
  • Duels - centre and predict do feel pretty pointless except in very niche situations (as above, actions are king and 'wasting' an action when you're on the clock in a duel means the action needs to provide a big payoff). I would very much like to see the SWRPG 'showdown' mechanics from Fly Casual adapted, as I think they have a nice mix of detail and speed of resolution.
  • My experiences with Mass Battles are limited but I am leery of the look of them. At the same time, I broadly approve of anything which keeps rules 'common' between different scales of conflict - sounds like a good idea and it'd be interesting to see a write-up in the house rules section.
  • I don't mind characters having trouble with a ring-rank-1; because in a narrative scene, using that ring implies you're doing something you're not comfortable with, and in a lot of cases there's a way to achieve the same effect with a different approach using a better ring (albeit sometimes also with a weaker skill). Lying your way past the sentry could have been achieved - potentially - with intimidation or charm, for example.
  • Surprised you don't see distinctions coming up on a roll. That may be a difference between tables - how often do you allow 'custom' distinctions, for example? One thing I like is that you don't have to balance different effects, just figure out how often it's going to trigger.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Nice to see people's thoughts, and well articulated.

• I agree with a lot of what you've said - despite being a passionate fan of the system. I think the narrative play options and one-roll duels (i.e essentially bypassing conflict scenes as much as possible) are probably the best way to get the feel and playability right - the more you get into the weeds, the more you see the awkward sharp bits.

I honestly hate the one-roll duel mechanic. We just used it once, when Hikoharu challenged the unnamed gunsō of the Lion army and basically because we were pretty sure he was going to win, but at this point, was it really necessary to roll? The sidebar for one-rolls should have way more examples of what the narrative input of the player should accomplish. Saying, " oh, using a Air approach I will try to put his back to the koi pond and trick him into falling into it" and the GM rewards the cleverness with, I don't know, 2 re rolls, or counting as an skilled assistance. The same thing could be done with a Fire approach, saying that you would use of force to push backwards, but because the opponent was using Earth, for instance, the GM decides it's not as effective and just gives one re roll.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• • My experiences with Mass Battles are limited but I am leery of the look of them. At the same time, I broadly approve of anything which keeps rules 'common' between different scales of conflict - sounds like a good idea and it'd be interesting to see a write-up in the house rules section.

Sure, I'll post it later on the house rules section a more detailed approach. Granted, it didn't have any proper documentation, we just "ad libbed" at the moment.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• • I don't mind characters having trouble with a ring-rank-1; because in a narrative scene, using that ring implies you're doing something you're not comfortable with, and in a lot of cases there's a way to achieve the same effect with a different approach using a better ring (albeit sometimes also with a weaker skill). Lying your way past the sentry could have been achieved - potentially - with intimidation or charm, for example.

I guess that goes back to the different approaches and the GM adjudicating what a different approach means for the TN. In the end, a 2k1 roll with TN 2 might be easier than a 3k2 roll with TN 3 (it isn't but the difference is just 3%). Granted, opportunities offer the opportunity (word play intended) to fail forward. honestly, this could be fixed by making sure that skilled dice don't have any blanks or just one, but that would mean people having to buy dice sets again and some people already feel like the custom dice was just a money grabbing move. Just for you to have an idea, even a skilled person (skill rank 5) with a Ring of 1, would have less than 50% chance of being successful on a TN 2 roll and I just feel this is wrong.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• • Surprised you don't see distinctions coming up on a roll. That may be a difference between tables - how often do you allow 'custom' distinctions, for example? One thing I like is that you don't have to balance different effects, just figure out how often it's going to trigger.

We just felt it was too much trouble creating custom distinctions because we are not really sure how powerful or under powered they would be (in the sense of how frequent), so in the end, it was mostly for flavor and narrative bonus, like telling Kaito's player he notice something no one else did because he was a Subtle Observer or that peasants were mostly comfortable around Hikoharu because he had Ebisu's blessing. Meanwhile, I as Kuga, picked Quick Reflexes because of its bonus in duels and it was just used 4 times in the whole campaign (granted, they were really helpful, specially in the last one against Mirumoto Mamoru) but overall, we felt distinctions were lacking and we only remembered our adversities and anxieties by ourselves if we wanted to actually fail so we could get a Void Point.

17 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I honestly hate the one-roll duel mechanic. We just used it once, when Hikoharu challenged the unnamed gunsō of the Lion army and basically because we were pretty sure he was going to win, but at this point, was it really necessary to roll? The sidebar for one-rolls should have way more examples of what the narrative input of the player should accomplish. Saying, " oh, using a Air approach I will try to put his back to the koi pond and trick him into falling into it" and the GM rewards the cleverness with, I don't know, 2 re rolls, or counting as an skilled assistance. The same thing could be done with a Fire approach, saying that you would use of force to push backwards, but because the opponent was using Earth, for instance, the GM decides it's not as effective and just gives one re roll.

Agreed - it needs a lot more examples and guidance to be a real substitute for the conflict scene. I don't think it can't be done, just that it hasn't been.

As said, I'm a big fan of the Fly Casual approach from the SWRPG - it has three checks - one an intimidate/scrutinise check, then a cool check for initiative, and then the opening strike (first by the winner, then - if they're not dead or otherwise defeated - by the loser).

Three checks - with only the last being a 'weapon skill' check - leaves a lot of space for other skills that should be useful in a tense narrative duel or shootout to play their part, and all the opportunities on the checks 'sum up' to be spent on the final strike - with a unique table of options specific to a showdown.

Some of which are, it must be said, pretty darn brutal - including (if you stack up enough between the checks) 'a free 'draw a weapon' action, a free 'aim' action, to automatically kill a minion-level opponent if you inflict any damage, and to be able to take a second free attack if your first kills an opponent. Getting all of those requires you to either be awesome or have an incredibly jammy roll, but the fact it's potentially all there is really characterful, and nothing about the system stops it being used with pistols, or swords, or lightsabers, or whatever.

It's an elegant system in that it doesn't take too long to resolve (compared to a 'full' duel), you can be really effective with stuff like a high coercion and cool even if you don't have that high a ranged (light) skill (or whatever), and it still allows space for a skilled character to draw their gun and shoot two bad guys dead before they can move in a fistful-of-dollars-esque moment-of-awesome scene without adding that to the 'normal' combat rules (which would be pretty unbalancing).

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

It's an elegant system in that it doesn't take too long to resolve (compared to a 'full' duel), you can be really effective with stuff like a high coercion and cool even if you don't have that high a ranged (light) skill (or whatever), and it still allows space for a skilled character to draw their gun and shoot two bad guys dead before they can move in a fistful-of-dollars-esque moment-of-awesome scene without adding that to the 'normal' combat rules (which would be pretty unbalancing).

So you are saying it is an elegant system for a more civilized age? 🥁