The Topaz Championship -Part One 'Have stick will hit'

So my campaign finally kicked off and once my valiant five (five what was I thinking) heroes had arrived and actually managed to connect to the chat client then we started to gallop through the campaign. I shall describe each scene somewhat thematically and then in italics after reference more GMy less roleplay side bars. WARNING SPOILRS - Do not read if you intend to do the beginner campaign..

Scene 1 - The broken cart

On encountering the stuck cart none of the heroes showed any consideration for social standing and three of them (Sugi, Heiei and Masako) went to move the cart. Sugi doing so one handed just to show the wusses around her that she could. Sugi had described herself earlier as, 'comically large' which showed either a wise appreciation of how she might be viewed or a good sense of humour.

Ren and Aki decided to quiz the poor peasant mercilessly by showing unbounded interest in what the lower classes do. Someone (I remember not who) wanted to accompany the poor peasant to the village but as it was twenty metres away this was regarded as a cruel and unusual punishment to the peasant in question who was getting more and more alarmed at the attention. 

[So Sugi is now Brienne of Tarth - without the weird Jamie Lannister attraction, I had hoped Aki would attempt to use the fire kami to move the cart as I could then provide a good opportunity to burn the cart and all its contents - cue much later hilarity with the local Emerald Magistrates... But as their character sheets aren't that advanced yet that was obviously wishful thinking]

Scene Two - No room in the inn? A not so Christmassy tale

The heroes were much keener to interrogate Hitoshi as to room organization and rapidly decided to get the innkeeper to check her list. This worked well diffusing the tension nicely which was fortunate as one of the heroes had announced that because Hitoshi was a minor clan Samurai then he should probably not be sleeping at the same inn as a great clan Samurai - like them. Ren then offered his own room to share solving this particular problem.

[The hero who did the check had no courtesy and bugger all ring values for the ring in question yet succeeded with explosive successes anyway.  Thankfully none of the unmarried under age female heroes had offered to share their rooms with the handsome minor clan member as that would have introduced early honour/glory complications.]

Scene Three - A visitation

With Hitoshi and all the other candidates bar our heroes fast asleep our gallant gang were woken by the ghost of Satsume and proved to be remarkably competent. Aki decided to carry out the tea ceremony and did a very good job of it. They then laid into the poor ghost with a thousand questions which he had to go 'full cryptic' on to avoid answering clearly. Thankfully Sugi had tried to use her Shadowlands experience to glean something so a description of a ghost was made explaining their cryptic tendencies. None of the heroes were suspicious of said ghostly apparition with all eagerly promising to assist someone they don’t really know succeed at something they might be supposed to fail in a possibly unjust cause.

[Gives opportunities for other ghosts to provide more amusing instructions , 'murder the Emperor', 'steal Kachiko's clothes and then wear them in front of Hotaru'. It reminds me a bit of a visit my wife and I made to a joust. We decided to cheer the evil Black Rider whatever they did and so did so very loudly - 'ooo he just kicked the hero in the backside and tripped up his girl  hurrah for the valiant black Knight!'. When the Black riders minions stalked the crowds jeering at the crowd for booing their faces were most amusing when they came across 'willing evil cheerleaders' and could not work out what to do. ahem.

Scene Four - Day one of the competition

The competition started and the heroes proved startlingly proficient at carrying out the challenges. Well most of them. Highlights included Aki spectacularly failing the assault cause with no successes at all and Masako who managed nine points on the first day…nine! Including my personal favourite 'win' inside the horse riding where she announced as part of her approach that as she wasn’t very good with horses - especially with a Unicorn clan member present) she was going to take a steady approach and slowly mount the horse and take things easily (earth) and then managed 4 successes with 3 strife outriding everyone everywhere. 

Ren had some amusing moments doing very well at both horseback riding (unexpected) and Conduct (less so). In both cases as different heroes had done exceptionally well earlier (Masako and Heiei) so decided to not bother doing well and just to pass instead to avoid getting too hot and bothered about things after all style is an important factor in life.

Sugi was the least efficient of the gang failing most amusingly at wresting which must have been embarrassing. But as no strife was collected either was apparently not. Also amusingly Sugi's strongest two events were Athletics and horseback riding. As I pity the poor horse who had to carry her.

I am not quite sure how Eihei aced the Conduct exam either as she declared she knew nothing and was winging it - this seems the same as every clever kid just before their exams as she finished in the lead.

End Points	Sumai	Heraldry	Athletics	Horseback Riding	Conduct	TOTAL
Ren	0	3 (leader)	1	2	1	7
Masako	2	0	3 (leader)	2 (leader)	2	9!!
Eihei	2 (leader)	1	1	2	2(leader)	8!
Aki	1	1	0	2	2	6
Sugi	0	0	2	2	1	5

[I decided the Unicorn candidate took an instant and unreserved dislike of Masako at that horse racing and picture Masako mounting the horse and then as it bolts being thrown onto its back and riding the course backwards hitting every target on the way while the poor Unicorn looks on in horror.

I also picture Sugi picking up the horse and carrying it around the course in preference to trying to ride the poor thing.

GM wise the Sumai competition actually had a three way split with Masako, Eihei and Aki all with 3 bonus successes, we held a simple 'ring off' and the winner of that was declared the actual winner…

I found this difficult to track and in retrospect would have generated a more easily fillinable form than the one I did use. Our use of opportunity and dealing with strife was also below par but to be expected in a beginner game. Aki for one went over her strife total but this was only noticed at the end]

Scene Five - The Sake House

Our valiant five  arrived at the Sake house where all except Heiei drunk sensibly and bar Ren, trying to chat up the Unicorn representative, the arrival of the Ronin soon shook things up. The heroes were remarkably keen to sit there and ignore the Ronin especially Masako who was quite masterful in her 'ignore them drain the cup in one and put it down staring into the distance'. Some of the others attempted counter quips but as everyone knows you never think up the devastating put down until after you have left the area five hours later. When all you can attempt  at the time is 'oh yeah! Well so is your neighbour. You suck and so does your erm dog'

This went on for a while with Heiei considering a duel then deciding against it and also considered revealing his hidden sword and decided against it - so eventually Hitoshi snapped at being called a boatman who couldn’t control a skiff and punched a Ronin starting the brawl off.

Now the gang were very fast in reacting - especially Sugi who had some traits in common with 'the flash' but every one of them basically moved before the Ronin started moving. Things went downhill for the Ronin very fast. Aki was the standout. She hit her first Ronin with her staff and managed 6 bonus successes which was enough to knock him out in one. This also cleared her strife from the hit as in the heat of things I couldn't work out what to do so just gave her the good benefit of the doubt. Sugi went to help Hitoshi , really really quickly, then failed to hit anyone. Heiei ,like Aki, knocked his opponent out in one. Ren decided to take a tactical retreat and tried to move away from his Ronin. It didn’t work. With Masako not bothering with her bokken and hitting her Ronin with her fists instead causing  3 fatigue.

The Ronin in return were weak. All in void stance and with one skill dice they had little chance of doing much damage and as it turned out not much accuracy as they all missed. Perhaps they were scared by Aki and Heieis 'explosive' attacks.. I also picture Sugi getting hit but not actually noticing.

The next round things cleared up with Aki AGAIN doing around eight gazillion  damage to the Ronin on Sugi. Ren hit his for four (not bad for a courtier) before Heiei dealt the knockout blow. Another punch from Masako who was still not arsed to draw her wooden sword and used her fists again and the fight was over.

[ This was hectic and I did miss several things.  I think I mucked the initiative up. The guide said if the Ronin throw the first punch then use one type and if the players then use the other. Since an npc threw it I just picked the one I felt was appropriate and I should perhaps have used the other. The fight might have proved more challenging then. I also forgot to read the hints the stances provided if successful. There is a lot to track and I will have to think up a better way to organise moving on. What I expect I will do is either write an app to do it or simply use Excel or roll20  ]

Character Notes

After a session we now have a slightly better idea of the characters and who they are. So here are my entirely unbiased opinions with regard to this group

Masako - Proved highly competent and remarkably self controlled. Her Akodo command school training showed well in her Stoic refusal to allow the ronin's insults to affect her actions.

Heiei - our angry Dragon. Heiei took every challenge in the same fashion (and that fashion was 'fire') so basically attacked everything with passion. Here is a shot of how I picture Heiei using his 'two knife' technique in a fight.

This has useful possibilities as the character amusingly has as its Giri 'fostering peace through enlightenment' and Ninjo as 'likes fighting' so the end result will be amusing as this will be hard (re-look at the above picture of Heiei 'fostering peace'. This reminds me of an old d&d campaign when after my valiant ranger finished torturing some evil orks (they were evil and green!) the gods removed all my ranger powers. Git.

Sugi - Steady and uncompromising as a Crab should be.

Aki - The mild mannered Shugenja who is unusually proficient at whacking people with her staff. Proficient might not be the word perhaps, ' has a furious temper' when challenged which puts an interesting spin on the accidental death of her tutor (or was it at accident dun dun daaaahhhhh)

Ren - As the others are all basically combat orientated (Aki possibly excepted though those two Ronin probably disagreed) Ren is the strongest courtier and has been useful in this regard. In the combat was right (read good role play) to try to get out of the way but was unfortunate that the room was so small so there was no realistic prospect of this to actually occur)

GM Operational notes

We stop here for two weeks. This will help me plan out the next session and investigate some other tools to assist. I will be looking at roll20 as a potential sharing platform and we will use the discord chat client next time - I just have to get OBS working to record that which will require a small amount of effort. This session was recorded but I would have to pay £40 for an app to strip the sound file from the video file (which shows nothing as bar me and Heiei no one had a working web cam. And Heiei's was on a smart phone so kept dropping and appearing anyway.)

Thanks for reading.