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