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This is the seventeenth session of our Star-Crossed Blades of the Green Peony campaign for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate (session I can be found HERE, session II can be found HERE, session III can be found HERE, session IV can be found HERE, Session V can be found HERE, session VI can be found HERE, Session VII can be found HERE, Session VIII can be found HERE, Session IX can be found HERE, Session X can be found HERE, Session XI can be found HERE). Session XII can be found HERE. Session XIII can be found HERE. It is set in Zhang Chang prefecture (which I hope to release a blog entry for). Session XIV can be found HERE. You can find session XV HERE. You can see session XVI HERE. In this campaign, every player rolled randomly to determine who their family are, how many siblings they have and whether individual family members are still alive. The players also gave very rough sketches of their background (no more than a few sentences) and I secretly added a "20-year" backstory to each one. I have implemented a special rule in this campaign that every encounter has a 3 in 10 chance of being connected to their secret backstory in some way. Note in this session I was play testing a specific scenario and the players were made aware prior to play.
CHARACTERS
QI YUN (MASTER POET QI YUN): A roaming martial expert who has secretly learned his martial arts from two different masters (and the masters have no knowledge of one another).
XING GE: A traveling pipa player and the son of Lu Guiying the Iron Flower. His father died when he was five, and his mother married Gongsun Yuan, the chief of Black Parrot Society. Gongsun Yuan despises Xing Ge.
TU JIN SHI (THUNDER LEGS): A wandering fighter seeking to be the strongest and most upright hero in the region. His father, Tu Haitao sent his mother away when he was young, after being consumed by grief over the passing of Jin Shi's brother, Tian. Shortly after his father died consuming a lethal concoction in a misguided effort to become immortal.
LU LI (THE UNFILIAL ARCHER): A traveling physician who comes from a family of successful fishermen.
A DUEL AND A RESCUE
The party traveled by boat to the Yaoguai Forest to make their way to Black Leopard Villa. When they were about five miles from their destination, the trees and foliage turned dense and maze like, making it a two hour trek through the perimeter of the villa. In the first hour, they were attacked by two leopards. Lin Li, Lu Li's younger brother, killed one with a hail of arrows. The other Xing Ge dazed with a potent fist technique as it leapt in to attack. Tu Jin Shi took the creature and tied it to a post so they could bring it to Black Leopard Villa.
The next hour was also no uneventful. As they made their way, a strange lady appeared before them, leaping into view from the surrounding woods. Her robes were a scintillating golden hue, but her features looked wretched and rotting. With hair flaring like lightning and a bizarre blue glow about her, she hissed.
Xing Ge noticed something familiar about her features, which reminded me of his Jade Master Tu Yu, he and Qi Yun's new sifu.
Approaching with a bow he said "My apologies Ma'am. I am Xing Ge. We are from Jade Moon Sabre sect and simply seeking passage here."
"I won't harm anyone from there," She said a strange expression on her face.
"Who are you Ma'am?"
"My name is Golden Leopard," She said, then leapt like an animal into the dense forest and disappeared.
Soon a rising hill with a small stream and waterfall revealed itself. Upon the hill was a sprawling courtyard villa, terraced wheat and millet fields and a mine at the base of the hill's cliffs. Near the mine were stairs leading up the steep hillside. They saw men working the mines under threat of a whip, as the clan of amazons forced them to extract some kind of black substance. The fields were worked by women, but they too were working under the threat of whip.
Qi Yun, XIng Ge, Lu Li and Lin Li, along with their servants, went towards the fields to stage a plan, while Tu Jin Shi approached the gates to create a distraction.
*
"I am here to put an end to this wickedness!" Said Tu Jin Shi as he approached the villa gates, throwing down the leopard he had bound to a post.
The female guard looked at him strangely. "You should not be here!"
"I have come to return your leopard and demand you free these enslaved people, for it is not righteous that you make them toil against their will!"
"I must detain you," Said the guard.
"I demand a challenge, a duel!"
The woman laughed heartily. Then whistled and called to someone at the stairs. A woman in white robes and a leopard skin cape walked down.
"I challenge you!" Said Tu Jin Shi. "This whole place is unrighteous. You must free these people! One person for every one of you I beat!"
The woman bowed and struck at him with her palm, but he slipped to the side and used his Guiding the Crashing Wave technique* to hurl her to the ground with a thud. The woman seemed confused and concerned.
"No further need," She stood and put her hand up. "I will take you to our master."
"Oh, you will? Good then, take me to your Master now."
The woman gestured for him to go up the stairs. As soon as he did she struck him in the back with both of her palms. Tu Jin Shi could sense a lethal and unusual energy emanating from her hands as she did so, however, while the attack struck, it didn't do him any harm**.
*
Back at the hillside, the party launched a series of arrow volleys at the guards in the fields, bringing down three of them and injuring four others. Xing Ge then launched a Harmonizing Strike by playing his pipa that enervated their bodies.
*
As this was going on, the Tu Jin Shi was lead into the rear courtyard and brought before a woman wearing black robes and a black leopard cape.
This was Jade Leopard.
"You dare enter Black Leopard Villa and ask me for a duel?" Tu Jin Shi could see her eyes held no mercy, and her body radiated a power he had never seen before***. "It is forbidden for you to be here. We should send you to the mines!"
"I challenge you to a fair fight!"
"I will not show restraint!"
"Very well, I shall show you restraint, should I win, but you will free all your slaves if I defeat you."
There was a murmur in the chamber and she scoffed. "Agreed! But you will only die!"
*
In the fields, Xing Ge sent sent ribbons of blue energy with his cascading phoenix attack at the fleeing guards. Qi Yun ushered the workers from the fields, guiding them to their retinue stationed at the bottom of the hill.
Lu Li and Lin Li spotted their mother int he fields and went to her to ask where their father was.
"Son," she said. "We must flee at once, forget your father. They are too powerful!"
*
In the hall of Jade Leopard, Tu Jin Shi received one of her lethal palm attacks, but was able to redirect it as he had her senior disciple, with his guiding the crashing wave technique. She kept attacking with her palms, at one point using a furious attack that felt like it contained the power of the heavens, but he relied steadily upon this tactic, always redirecting her towards the ground. These counters were only enough to harm her slightly, but over time they wore her down.
However, with every counter against the more powerful master, Tu Jin Shi's meridians became less and less stable. The flow of Qi was taxing his body and mind, and he felt a spirit intruding upon him.
Tu Jin Shi taunted her to spark her rage, and with each failed attack, the women in the courtyard shifted uneasily.
"I am Tu Jin Shi!" He screamed. "I will not stop, I will not yield."
This continued for several exchanges until he threw her on the ground one last time, but was engulfed in a terrifying power from outside his body.
*
The party waited at the base of the hill, in the distant woods where the sect could not see them. They saw a flash of blue light from the villa, then everything stilled with a dreadful silence.
*This will become pivotal through this exchange
**The attack landed on the attack roll but not the damage roll, and he made an Endurance roll for a 10 result that warded off any other ill-effects.
***She was Qi Rank 8
