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This is the second session of our Star-Crossed Blades of the Green Peony campaign for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate (session I can be found HERE). It is set in Zhang Chang prefecture (which I hope to release a blog entry for). 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.
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| Very early and rough map of prefecture |
CHARACTERS
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: 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: A traveling physician who comes from a family of successful fishermen.
CHASING LEOPARDS
The party decided to head west to Li An after Tu Jin Shi had trained with Lady Jade, so that Xing Ge could search for The Well-Tempered Arhat and learn some of his skills. On their way they passed through Xi An and stayed at "The Fancy Inn", which was packed with low-lifes and served food that made two of their party sick the next morning.
On the road to Li An the next day, after drinking one of Lu Li's concoctions to cure food poisoning, they were able to track down the Well-Tempered Arhat as he was finishing off some bandits. He agreed to take on Xing Ge as a student and began telling teaching about Hen-Shi. Tu Jin Shi asked him many questions about ethics, but this seemed to cause him some irritation. The Well-Tempered Arhat asked them each about their background and seemed especially interested in Lu Li and his family.
He then told Xing Ge to address him as Endless Void, and explained that as his student he must not associate with bandits or thieves, and to be compassionate. This prompted further questions from Tu Jin Shi about his own master. He asked whether it was righteous for him to follow his master's instructions to only learn new techniques by stealing them from others. The Well-Tempered Arhat said it was not.
They also asked him about Thundering Scorpion. He said he could help them find and contend with him, once they had some practice on lesser bandits.
"Presently I am tracking a wicked duo called The Thousand Handed Gods. We will deal with them first."
The group tracked down the duo as they were assailing a caravan of merchants with clouds of arrows. The arrow volleys seemed to kill everyone, but the party was too far away to interfere. When they reached the caravan the two bandits were pilfering what they could.
Tu Jin Shi rushed forward and used his Kick of the Chaos Star technique to knock out the bandits*. At closer distance Lu Li recognized the two bandits were his parents. He was not aware they were involved in banditry, and believed they were simply wealthy fishers, but he said nothing about his connection with them to the party.
Searching the duo, the party found many golden taels, some celestial plume, a bag of powder and some poison. The Well-Tempered Arhat had them bind and blind them, then the group escorted the bandits, along with the stolen goods and caravan goods towards Li An so they could be brought to the magistrate**.
That night, during his watch, Lu Li untied his parents and helped them escape. When Xing Ge woke for his watch, Lu Li said he had fallen asleep.
Xing Ge followed through the woods, tracking the bandits. While he initially was misled, he eventually found the trail again. However after several hours of following they came upon the aftermath of a battle at a bridge crossing. Palm prints were all over the wooden bridge beams, and blood stained the wood as well. Imbedded in the rail, was a dart with a leopard figure.
"This is the calling card of the Black Leopard Villa," Said The Well-Tempered Arhat. "They are a sect entirely of women, who abduct men and use them as labor and to procreate. This group is extremely secretive, more of a legend really."
After some hesitancy, The Well-Tempered Arhat was able to convince Lu Li to tell the truth about his relationship with the duo. It was also revealed that the Arhat had allowed him to let them escape out of compassion (because he knew the penalty for them before the magistrate was death). However he did not foresee that Black Leopard Villa would become involved, so he felt responsible.
They debated what to do. The Arhat pointed out that going to the Villa was dangerous, that if they were detected, then the Black Leopards would kill them for sure as they kept knowledge of their headquarters protected. He suggested that Lu Li be the one to choose their next course of action.
This is where the session ended.
*He surprised them and the open damage was enough to incapacitate.
**They looked for survivors but determined everyone was dead and decided to have the magistrate send someone to retrieve the bodies.
