ESCORT MISSION TABLES

This is a concept that came up in my Thursday game session this week. The players decided to work as escorts*. These appear all the time in wuxia novels and movies, often serving as important plot elements or as an excuse for a big fight scene with a group of bandits. In this case the players were closely aligned with the Tu Association, as one of the members was of Tu Lineage, and they asked the chief, the PCs brother, if they could take some escort missions (the brother has been giving them association resources and in exchange he simply wanted occasional help from the party using their martial expertise). It became clear I needed a way to help me determine what types of escorts would be requested. I could just decide this myself, but I wanted the core components to be decided by a table. As GM I would still try to work these elements into something interesting. 

Bandit Encounters for Escorts: Before getting to the table, it also occurred to me that characters serving as escorts face greater risks, as thieves and bandits, or rival sects, may learn of what they are transporting. So I came up with three approaches to handle this: 1) Have there be a 20 percent chance each day of such an encounter. 2) Have there be a 50 percent flat chance of a bandit encounter at some point along the way. 3) Roll an additional Survival Roll each day to check for a bandit encounter. I opted for 2, though I think in future I will use 3. The math of all of these options is very different and produces very different results.

THE ESCORT MISSION TABLES

These are just the quick tables I put together in my notes as the session was starting and it was becoming clear the players were to go on escort missions. I put these in my campaign notes but they are exactly as they appeared in my written notepad (except the text of the complication section, which was just a note about percentage):

*In wuxia escorts guard and transport people, goods, etc traveling or being shipped from one location to another. 

THE STAR-CROSSED BLADES OF THE GREEN PEONY SESSION V

This is the fifth 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). 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. Note in this session I was play testing a specific scenario and the players were made aware prior to play.

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. 

THE ECORT MISSION 

The party took an escort mission for the Tu Association, hoping to grow their skills and reputation. They agreed to escort Madame Wang Peng to Yue Manor in Yue Town. Because they did not have someone with knowledge of the plains, they asked Chief Tu Wan for a guide. he assigned Tu Li to travel with them. 

They set out early and met Madame Wang Peng at the Fair Weather Inn in Lanyin, where she had a sedan chair and bearers waiting. She carried herself like a noble, with plum blossom makeup, expensive green robes and a valuable looking turquoise necklace. 

From there they made their way to Li An and stayed at the Jade Gourd. To protect their charge, they took watches in the street beneath the window to Madame Wang's room and had her bearers guard the doors. During Xing Ge's watch, he failed to see an intruder sneak Madame Wang Peng's room. But he soon heard a scream and saw a man crawling from her window. 

Without hesitation he used Blast of the Dragon to send the intruder into the air so he crashed down with a great splat on the pavement below. Xing Ge noticed a metal staff clutched in the man's hand, from which a hooded snake slithered into the shadows. He grabbed the snake and stabbed it through the brain. 

QI Yun and Tu Jin Shi awakened from the scream. Qi Yun rushed down to the street and inspected the body of the intruder, finding Madame Wang Peng's turquoise necklace clutched in his hand. Tu Jin Shi checked on Madame Wang, finding her ashen faced and poisoned by the snake. 

They sent a message to Lanyin asking Lu Li to join them (Lu Li had stayed behind). Then they summoned a physician. An old man named Gui Daniang came to the inn and examined Madame Wang, then looked at the snake. 

"This is a corpse snake...a very complicated case. The antidote is only known by the leader of Relentless Corpse Sect." He then explained to them that so long as she did not resist the venom, it would not be lethal, that it just made the person zombie-like and compliant.

Tu Jin Shi and Xing Ge searched the city for someone who was familiar with the sect. They found a vagrant name Chang Lei, a very serious man who claimed to have fought with the sect. 

He explained that the leader of the sect, Relentless Corpse Queen was very powerful and used the venom to create corpse disciples. He also told them that the sect headquarters was a place called The Palace of Divine Sabre. They asked if he would join them but the man refused, but handed them a pair of emei daggers and said "Use these to slit the queen's throat should the need arise". 

The party then deliberated on the best course of action. They decided that it would be wise to send a message to Relentless Corpse Sect offering to trade the staff and body of the intruder for the antidote (they had inspected the body of the man and noticed a section of skin flayed off, so assumed he was a member of the sect who had simply removed evidence of his membership). 

In Li An they found a place called Guan Chu's Messenger Services. Inside was an eccentric man, painting, surrounded by cages of pigeons. He explained that for his birds were fast, and would travel 600 miles a day, for a fee of 1,000 spades a day. They agreed and sent the following message: 

We were attacked by a person who identified as previously having identifying  markers of the Relentless Corpse Sect, which had been removed. He perished in this attempt, and we recovered a golden scepter, hollowed interior which contained a corpse snake. Someone important to us has been afflicted with this poison and we require an antidote. We hoped we could exchange the corpse of this person and his staff to yourselves for assistance with the antidote. We should meet halfway. 

A couple of days later, they received the following reply:

On behalf of Relentless Corpse Queen: We accept your offer with the caveat that the Queen's new corpse slave be replaced with someone suitable. We shall meet you at Beishang Manor. Be sure to bring the staff, the body, the snake, and the replacement. 

This is where the session ended. 

STAR-CROSSED BLADES OF THE GREEN PEONY SESSION IV

This is the fourth 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). 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. Note in this session I was play testing a specific scenario and the players were made aware prior to play.

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. 

ATTACK OF THE TURTLE DEITY 

Just as the party were finishing off the bandits, they felt a rumble beneath their feet. The shaking of the earth came in waves and Tu Jin Shi put his ear to the ground hoping to detect its source.

"He Shen..." the villagers began to mutter. "He Shen is angry."

Lu Li asked who He Shen was and Guan Mo, the village elder, replied.

"He is the river deity, and is angry because the bandits forbade us from making regular persimmon offerings." 

From beyond the steep banks of the river, they heard a terrible roar, and saw a massive soft shell turtle, the size of a small junk ship (50 meters), rise from the river. 

Tu Jin Shi scrambled for the river, sliding down the bluff towards the enormous creature. Its long neck stretched towards him, and it clamped down with its jaws but missed. Tu Jin Shi countered by climbing up the turtle's head and working his way towards it rear leg, which he grabbed and held onto. 

Lu Li rushed to the edge of the river and fired down a rain of arrows, filling the River Deity with arrows. 

He Shen crawled easily up the bluff and into the village, quickly snapping the heads off three villagers and and biting Lu Li, which left him with a vicious wound. 

Qi Yun began meditating to activate his Jade Rending Claws.

It continued its rampage and as it did so, Tu Jin Shi tried to observe its bite closely. 

Xing Ge Leapt forward and struck the turtle deity in the head with his Fragrant Fist of the Snake Technique. This caused the creature's mind to dull, and it fell into a kind of stupor. 

"Kill it!" Shouted Tu Jin Shi

Guan Mo stepped forward and pleaded "Please to not kill He Shen, he is the deity of this river, and we can quell his anger with an offering."

"But it has killed, and will kill again," Said Tu Jin Shi. The party silently nodded agreement with one another and Qi Yun impaled He Shen's brain with his jade claw. The deity's body trembled, then slumped to the ground. 

"You have committed a grave offense," Said Guan Mo. 

"As far as I am concerned, we acted righteously, against a threat to your village."

"You defy the order of the world," Said Guan Mo. 

Tu Jin Shi argued with the elder, explaining that he believed individuals must decide what is right and wrong in the moment, but Guan Mo disagreed, saying what they did was wrong, and would lead to bad outcomes. 

Lu Li, who had knowledge of the classic texts, cherry picked a quote from The Sayings of Kong Zhi, to justify Tu Jin Shi's position. Guan Mo could not form a response but huffed and turned to the villagers. 

The villagers gathered around in shock. Guan Mo's fury grew and he said "You saved us from the bandits, so we owe you for that, but from here on out, you are our enemies!"

The party tried to reason, but Guan Mo's will could not be moved. He asked them to leave the village and return no more. 

The party dragged the giant turtle carcass down river, realizing its parts would be useful components for medicine. Xing Ge used some meat to make a stew and the party ate it. Soon after eating the stew they each felt a profound hunger for persimmons, which they sated by gathering fruit from the nearby trees.*

Lu Li decided they should use the shell to make a boat, and gather as much meat as they could and preserve it. They realized they would need ship builders and a way of transporting the meat. Xing Ge began gathering the meat and curing it. 

Tu Jin Shi, Qi Yun and The Well-Tempered Arhat headed north to Lanyin to find shipbuilders. There they went to the Tu Association, a lineage society formed by Tu Jin Shi's siblings. They appeared before the chief, Tu Wan (Tu Jin Shi's brother). 

"I have heard rumors brother," said Chief Tu Wan. "That you have taken a new master, a mysterious swords woman."

Tu Jin Shi explained it was true, and added that his companion Xing Ge was studying under the Well-Tempered Arhat. Chief Tu Wan expressed concern about the Arhat's reputation for bursts of violent anger, but they dissuaded him of this notion. 

When Tu Jin Shi told Chief Tu Wan that he had ignored his master's instruction to learn the saber, his brother rebuked him, not understanding why he would do so. However he said the association could use strong martial artists to help with transport and that Tu Jin Shi was always welcome. 

Tu Jin Shi asked for some ship builders, and his brother gave him 6 of the best in town as the Tu Association controlled ship building in Lanyin. They also connected the party with a persimmon merchant named Liao Qiu, who could take them back towards the village as he made regular shipments there. They would return to the carcass by river and haul it back to Lanyin where the shipbuilders would form a hull from the shell. 

On the journey down river, Liao Qiu explained to the party how to cultivate persimmon trees (they realized they would need to do so to satisfy their hunger). He also agreed to sell them cases of persimmons at a good rate (once a month, with enough to last them the entire moon). Once they reached the carcass, they towed it on Liao Qiu's boat back towards Lanyin. 

On the way, they made a deal with Liao Qiu, explaining they had acquired divine turtle meat that imbues eaters with a deep hunger for persimmons. He did not believe them, but tried some of the cured turtle meat himself, and was convinced once he felt the hunger. They pointed out, whoever ate the meat, would be a ready customer for large quantities of his persimmons. 

They sold several tons of meat to him for 125,000 spades (and he agreed to give them monthly persimmon shipments free). The persimmon creates would be left at the Tu Association on the first of every month. The shipbuilders began work on the hull of the ship, and said it would take them about three months to complete the job. 

This is where the session ended. 

*This meat conferred a permanent hunger for persimmons but also a permanent +1d10 bonus to Survival and Swim in rivers. 

STAR-CROSSED BLADES OF THE GREEN PEONY SESSION III

Sorry for the delays on these session logs. I have been sick for the past few weeks and was just able to resume the campaign. This is the third 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). 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. Note in this session I was play testing a specific scenario and the players were made aware prior to play.

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. 

ABANDONING LEOPARDS 

After some deliberation, Lu Li decided it was unwise to continue their pursuit of Black Leopard Villa to rescue his parents. They now had some knowledge of the location of Black Leopard Villa and felt confronting them now would be too risky. 

They retraced their steps North to bring the matter of the robbed caravan to the attention of the local magistrate. As they were leaving the Yaoguai Forest, a woman came stumbling toward them and hailed before collapsing. Lu Li treated her and could see she had been subject to violence and exhaustion. 

When she awakened, she told them her name was Guan Ruo, and that she came from Gu Village along Gu Creek. She pleaded with them for help, explaining that she was the daughter of the elder, Guan Mo, and that the village had been taken over by bandits who forced the villagers to extract raw materials and operate a workshop to make counterfeit Xi Pottery*. They agreed to help her but decided to stop in Li An first. 

In Li A the magistrate held court and met with them, but indicated he wanted a bribe, so Lu Li gave him one of the golden taels they recovered from the robbery. He was pleased with this and dismissed the party. They decided not to give him the remainder of stolen goods as he seemed untrustworthy, instead they planned on returning them to the merchant company themselves. 

On their way across the Hongshi Grasslands, they crossed paths with a man eating persimmons (the fruit was abundant in the grasslands)**. He asked where they were headed but the party was reluctant to reveal. Tu Jin Shi tried to explain that he seemed trustworthy but their mission was important. He also pointed out the man was a strange to them. This caused him to take umbrage and he announced he was Long Mengwei of Fragrant Pine Villa***. 

There was a protracted back and forth, first with Long Mengwei taking exception to being untrusted, then Tu Jin Shi taking exception when the man would not tell them where he was going. Eventually he explained he was meeting someone at The Elephant Teahouse to discuss a manual he was seeking, and they explained the circumstances leading them to Gu Creek. Satisfied, Long Mengwei went on his way****.

Guan Ruo explained to the party that the village had been taken over by about 25 bandits, lead by three men: Cai Lieh, Jade Fist Ma and Yan Kun the Ox. They had a regular patrol of five men around the village, two groups of five men enforcing calcite and red clay extraction along the river, and five men assigned to guard the prison pen where the villagers were housed when not laboring. According to Guan Ruo, at night the three leaders feasted in a hall in her grandfather's courtyard house (which they used as an HQ), bandits not on patrol or guard duty would eat in the open courtyard, and the remaining bandits would be on patrol or guarding the pen. 

The party divided a plan to attack in two groups simultaneously in order to gain surprise. They would attack the courtyard of the elder's residence, and Tu Jin Shi would attack the guards at the pen. The Arhat explained to the party that he would let them handle the matter in the village and wait outside in case they needed help. 

They launched their attack and Lu Li took out the 15 bandits in the open courtyard with his Storming Arrows technique. Tu Jin kicked the guards at the pen unconscious and freed the prisoners. Xing Ge formed a stormcloud with his Blast of the Dragon Technique, which Lu Li, Xing Ge and Qi Yun used as cover. However they noticed a similar cloud form inside the hall the leaders were inside of. 

Lu Li decide to leave the cloud cover, and stormed the hall, filling Yan Kun with arrows till he collapsed. Jade Fist Ma, who it seemed had no hands, whistled and two black and red pit vipers leapt towards the cloud and one of them bit Qi Yun on the forehead. Qi Yun understood instantly that he had been envenomated and began feeling systemic effects (he estimated he had minutes to live). 

There was another exchange between the groups and Lu Li riddled Jade Fist Ma with arrows till he dropped dead. Cai Lieh dropped to his knees and pleaded "I don't want to die, I can give you anything you want, just don't kill me". 

Tu Jin Shi came flying in and knocked out Cai Lieh with a fire palm. 

This is where the session ended. 

*This is a highly valued ceramic ware from the Banyan Region

**This was a product of a failed Survival Roll 

***Everyone failed their Institutions (sects) roll to see if they knew the group, including The Well-Tempered Arhat. 

****This is something that could have turned into a grudge. Long Mengwei is a shady information broker, and something of a martial bully, despite training under one of the region's most benevolent masters. But the party managed to part of friendly terms, so he took them as friends instead of enemies