THE STAR-CROSSED BLADES OF THE GREEN PEONY SESSION VI

This is the sixth 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). 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.

Map by Francesca Baerald 

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. 

TROUBLE AT THE TU ASSOCIATION

"This is a disaster Brother, I am very disappointed." Tu Wan, chief of the Tu Association looked gravely at the players and paced back and forth.

"Yes brother, I am as disappointed in myself as you are with me. I have failed in my task."

The players had returned to Lanyin to report the matter of Madame Wang's poisoning and the arrangements they made with Relentless Corpse Sect. Tu Wan was displeased with the news and about to say something else when Lu Li interjected. 

"If you have any enemies of the Tu Association you are holding captive, we can use this opportunity to trade them to Relentless Corpse Queen for the antidote," Lu Li knew it was potentially rude but thought it important to shift focus.

"Yes, I have someone I can send."

Tu Wan motioned to his men and they brought out a woman in a cangue. 

"This is Huo Ruomei," said Tu Wan, "An enemy of our association."

Huo Ruomei was gagged and could not speak, but they could hear muffled shouts and her ferocious eyes glared at her new captors. 

They set out for for Beishang Manor, heading first to Li An. 

THUNDER AT THE JADE GOURD 

At Li A they stayed once again at the Jade Gourd, where they had been attacked and Madame Wang poisoned. They tempted fate even further by opting to stay in the same room as before. 

As they entered the inn, Qi Yun observed four men at a nearby table taking notice of them. That night they took shifts in pairs guarding the door to their room. During Tu Jin Shi and Lu Li's shift, two of the men from the table walked up the stairs and onto the atrium and approached the two player characters. 

"Greetings heroes," Said one of them bowing. "We have an interest in your charge."

Discerning a threat in the words, Tu Jin Shi used his new Turtle Snaps its Jaws technique*, clamping his hands on both men's heads, deafening and unbalancing them. 

The ruffians withdrew two thunderbolt balls. They attempted to throw them a the feet of Tu Jin Shi and Lu Li, but fumbled and dropped them at their own feet. The wooden atrium floor blasted open, dropping the two men 20 feet to the ground. Tu Jin Shi also fell to the tavern floor as well, but Lu Li kept his footing. 

Seeing that the ruffian's two other companions were still at their table, Lu Li fired a hail of arrows at one of the seated men. His arrows struck their target, and bit deep into his flesh, but he was not killed. 

Tu Jin Shi struck the other man at the table with his burning palms, and he caught on fire. Luckily, the attack didn't explode the thunderbolt balls in his target's possession. 

Qi Yun and Xing Ge awakened at the noise, the former flying from the atrium into a Dove Taming Strike with his parasol, striking one of the men at the table in the temple, killing him, and nearly killing the other. 

Xing Ge clouded the inn room with Palm of the Dragon.

The men put up their hands and one of them said "Let's discuss this!"

Lu Li asked who they worked for. 

"Thundering Scorpion." Said the Man. 

The party nodded to one another and prepared to attack. Sensing their words fell on deaf ears, the men launched more thunderbolt balls. Tu Jin Shi attempted to deflect them with his robes**, but overexerted himself and fell to the ground, possessed by a Qi Spirit. One of the errant bombs hit an inn room on the first floor and person from within screamed with a gurgle. 

Lu Li launched another hail of arrows at the ruffian who threw the bomb. 

His body was filled with arrows and he fell cleanly to the ground. 

When only one man remained, Xing Ge rushed to the atrium and blasted him with an energy attack that hit with so much force, his necked snapped against the inn room wall. 

In the wake of the violence, the party looked around. The Jade Gourd was a burning wreck. The innkeeper ran from his room, and pulled at his own hair. Distraught, he cried "What have you done?"

This is where the session ended. 

*He was inspired by the Turtle Deity they had fought, and been working on a technique based on his bite, which he finally mastered this session 

**Deflecting Canopy