Palace of the Emerald Champion - Part I

Last session they killed this guy

Time for a quick campaign update. My group just started the next DLC adventure. We started with distributing the various Gempuku rewards and then finding out what each character had been doing in the down time. This will only be a speed update with key things that occurred.

Yoshi had spent his time between meditating and the stables matching his new found love of horses.  This was probably sensible after the horrific faux pas where he basically shamed the entire Crane clan just to stop a non-lethal duel. 'Nuance' and 'delicacy' are not words in the standard monk vocabulary. 'nice hairy horse pony thing' is a new addition.

Sakura decided to go and train at the Kakita Dojo which would have gone better if she had not insisted on 'trying' to teach the other students there her two sword technique. This would have been as appreciated as a bucket if cold sick for dinner.

Finally Masako (or to use her new adult name Mmasako. Not quite sure what the aim is there unless the targeted pronunciation is Mmmmmmasako though that sounds more like an advert for delicious food) swallowed her own dislike of the Crane to train as well.

That done we swept into the adventure. Expect further spoilers so stop here if you want to play the DLC fresh.

Our valiant trio were happy to join Ryu and soon were set upon by bandits. Apparently Mmasako had irritated the others as she was either 'scouting' or the others had all deliberately slowed down to let her draw ahead. Very, very far ahead. Either way she ended up taking on the Bandit leader alone  and absolutely sucking (a magnificent first roll of five dice resulted in four blank and one opportunity. I am not quite certain what level of suck that represents though Masako declared she had sprained her knee and needed a second). Goro (the Bandit leader) on the other hand proved remarkably competent managing to cause TN weaknesses on Masako in both Water and Earth.

Elsewhere the fight was a bit slow to get going. Yoshi, whilst holding his newly acquired spear, decided it would be better to punch his opponent (to give Yoshi credit this allowed an instant attack without readying) and missed as he wasn't using his stronger hand. He then switched over to the sharp pointy object and quickly finished off his opponent. Sakura likewise soon knocked out a Ronin whilst protecting Ryu. Luckily for Masako this caused the other two to run.

Masako seemed non-plussed by this and promptly executed one of the incapacitated bandits. This had the considerable advantage of making the other one talk. Yoshi speculating that it was probably the new Emerald Champion (the Crane duellist) who was obviously irritated by Yoshi shaming the clan. Not sure about the logic there but still max points for interpretive value.

Our valiant trio then carried on to encounter a little old lady practising sword forms. This groups never 'ignores' anything so they all had a go at impressing her. Masako tried to show off impressive sword form and to give her credit very nearly succeeded with four success on the TN5. Not bad.

Yoshi then decided to try for a duel to first strike and actually succeeded in hitting the little old granny.

Finally Sakura also tried a duel but sucked so badly at initiative that she bowed out before any blows were actually struck.


The next event was the encounter with the ghost of Satsume. The group were strangely disrespectful this time round. Well less the group than Yoshi who tried three hundred questions on , what were you doing' etc. On the spirit being less than impressed by Yoshi's shaming the Crane he countered with the brilliant riposte of, 'we were trying to save your son' - causing instant confusion from everyone else present as Doji Kuwanan was not present at the event or even known to the group.

Yoshi did try almost everything but he is a very cheerful character so rarely uses the more forceful methods of persuasion

They all decided to agree to the spirits request with Sakure asking some useful questions of Ryu post spirit to get some idea of what, where and when.

This session is a bit of a dice road trip with lots of combat refreshers so it was with some trepidation that the goblin encounter occurred. Though it can be avoided most groups, I suspect, don't and this can be a quite lengthy and onerous encounter to win.  I needn't have worried as the group proved competent slowly finishing of Goblins and the Ogre. Masako admittedly was incapacitated twice but that's been a practical feature of the fights so far - at some point you can guarantee she would drop her sword arm and gaze bemusedly at something. Usefully once complete Yoshi (with Sakura's assistance, Masako wanted too but had no Theology so couldn't) attempted to cleanse the ground from the taint of the goblins. Since he did not have the ability I decided this would be allowed (as both had Theology) but would be extremely difficult so I set a TN5 Theology check. He actually succeeded so both gained some glory.

Finally both Yoshi and Sakura had destroyed armour in the combat. Yoshi could re-thread his sash but Sakura had to be gifted a Goblin soiled silk robe in pink with a floral pattern. Lovely.

Post Session

Sakura and Masako both obtained four experience (Masako had spent nothing so far including the last adventure and increased her water ring to four!). Yoshi gained five and both the others will be choosing what to upgrade. I'll have to start checking up on advancement myself as I am not entirely sure what is going on.

GM Notes

I was using my new npc character sheets for this as I found that when ftf GMing the application on the laptop took me away from the game. These are printed with the various npc abilities and points with dice being placed on the relevant squares to indicate what is going on. Wounds on rings are indicating by placing a dice on the ring with the relevant TN showing (so one of three basically)

It worked quite well I think so I might make up some blanks that I can laminate and fill in as required or just print of specific versions as needed.

It is a relief to get past this day. I like combat but the players need a lot of experience to understand how the combat system works properly and to fully enjoy it and in early days it can get wearing having a lot of it (and the related dice rolling) in one session.  There is a big risk of 'losing' players on this day who just get bored as they don't understand what is going on and get distracted. Plus there is less true role playing as there is so much fighting the chances of even blow by blow role play is limited. Therefore if you have a new play group then less players is better as there is less downtime before people get a chance to do something. Either that or allow players who dont want to 'fight' to perhaps protect Ryu or try and creep around to rescue the merchants. That way you reduce the downtime and overhead.

Anyway that's it for the brief update I am looking forward to the next session which are far looser role play wise so it will be nice to see how the group copes.