Hi all,

I am been trying to be a GM for our group and need a little feedback with a that i lined up as I don't know if it really makes sense or which direction to go. We are currently going on a adventure losely based on the plot hook : A Fortune scorned, from the Emerald empire source book.

A small summary of events so far : While heading the wedding our players all meet and stay the night in a way-station where they wake to discover discover a Maho artifact, a rather ominous candle. This Artifact is causing a small riot by enraging those inhaling its supernatural vapors . When they arrive at temple/town and find the storm, the Governor Daidoji Haranobu uses the fact they saved this way-station as a reason for them to look into whatever is causing the storm.

We have gotten up to a point where the players have figured out that Benten is causing a storm to prevent the marriage and the players believe that it most than likely it is to do with the groom loving another woman. They have all been fed various rumors so they are not fully confident yet that it is just because it is a loveless wedding.

I was originally planning on having the imperial bride to be a shape shifting trickster Oni, bent on trying to get into the temple of Benten and desecrating it, reason enough for Benten to cause the storm to prevent the wedding. I was hoping to have the players suspect something by either coming over the body of the original, or having the original show up late forcing a double take. None of the players are shugenjas and they haven't even spoken to her yet so I feel justified that wouldn't have "just been able to tell". I am just worried that I don't really have a good reason as to how it got to the middle of the crane lands other than "Its a shape shifting Oni". I am also a tad worried as only two of the group are Bushi, the rest falling into courtier schools, would this be to much of an encounter?

I was thinking of linking back into the Maho candle at way-station by having the Oni made of Wax, and he was trying to use his candles to candles to cause more havoc.

I just think I need a second opinion to make sure I am noting going to far.

As a side note: I was also toying with the idea of it being a Kitsune trickster, to take it more away from the combat side of things and possibly give it a lighter tone. However I don't know if i could justify Benten causing a storm to stop the wedding for just a Kitsune trying to marry a arrogant governors son.

Well, an Oni is certainly something that would makr sense for Benten to interfere as would certain other yokai. Granted, the Oni doesn’t need to be that strong, martially speaking, so once its true nature is found out it might try to escape rather than fight.

Do you have the Shadowlands book? It has some tools for designing Oni - including trickster Oni - that just might fit your needs.

On 8/27/2020 at 10:51 AM, Jamadman said:

I was thinking of linking back into the Maho candle at way-station by having the Oni made of Wax, and he was trying to use his candles to candles to cause more havoc.

A wax candle oni is a cool idea - and frankly plays into the 'shapeshifting' idea well - it's basically an animate waxwork statue, and maybe catching hints of it 'carving itself' to a new face might be disturbing as heck.

It also means it would be very resistant to blades but have a potentially exploitable weakness to fire. That means you can afford to make it a bit scarier in a conventional fight since a smart PC might be able to set it on fire.