Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

The PCs have been working together for the common benefit of their Wū (or House), the Shen Hua. Some have been with the the Shen Hua for only a few months (Tavish), while others (Eiji and Izumi) have been with them for years claiming the sanctuary of the Wū while they grow strong enough to stand on their own.

Rudy’s Bar and Grill

Eiji, Houshan, Ky, Izumi, and Tavish
February, 5th, 2019, 4:00 pm
627 9th Ave, New York, NY 10036

The group starts off in Ray’s Bar and Grill in downtown. It’s a lovely place, decent ambiance, good chicken, and lots of nice time with Izumi and Eiji sitting together, Huoshan at the pool table, Ky sitting at the bar, and Tavish sitting off to some place. A small girl running through the door screaming for help that Ky seems towards to help before five men walk through the door.  Immaculately dressed in identical suits with red pocket squares. Eiji identifies them as respectable Chinese businessmen while Tavish and Ky Fan identify them as part of the Tong. Some discussion between Izumi and Eiji, and Eiji stands up to speak with the men.

Declining to give the girl away to them, the Tongs pull out some axes and Eiji seems to try to defuse the situation but they don’t seem to like that idea, approaching the group as Eiji drops into a combat stance and pulls out and flings a shuriken at the lead gangster, who knocks it aside with his axe easily. Izumi steps forwards, drawing her weapon as she moves. Tavish moves forwards, asking the group if it’s time to fight yet, drawing his expandable batons and moving in front of Ky Fan who jumps onto the bar and crouches, preparing to spring towards their opponents.

The lead gangster does an attack to Eiji’s neck which he sidesteps, several more charging forwards, missing in their attacks against Eiji and Tavish while the fifth jumps onto the bar against Ky. Eiji, back up, draws his blades and attacks two men at once, hitting only one and stabbing into the torso, nearly dropping the gangster. Izumi moves forwards and slashes at the man that Eiji stabbed, going through his hamstring and dropping him to the ground.  Tavish, seeing the man in front of him throws out a rapid strike, his first hit being a critical hit of 4 that causes a major wound regardless of damage, but Tavish breaks his left kneecap dropping him immediately and then follows up with the gangster’s right leg and left arm leaving him down to a single limb. Ky Fan springs forwards and spears the man on the bar in his leg.

Another axe coming for Eiji that he sidesteps and parries several times while the men on the ground attacks Izumi and Tavish, both easily parrying the blows while the last man attempts to steady himself on his remaining good leg. Huoshan leaps forwards and attempts to strike one of the men with a pool cut, but only lands close to the man. Eiji strikes forwards to cut the gangster’s legs, slicing them out from under him while Izumi steps up to rapid strike the man in the stomach, missing with the first strike but hitting the second one. Tavish, offended by the man trying to hit him with an axe even while on the ground, stamps down on the man’s remaining arm and crippling before falling to his bloodlust and slamming both batons into the gangster’s face knocking him out for a long, long time.

Ky, going for a bit less lethal approach, attempts to disarm the man but fails, moving to intercept the man hobbling away, but he gives a whistle and immediately more than a dozen men flood into the bar. Huoshan grabs the man in front of him. Tavish, feeling a bit ornery, does a dual-weapon attack on the man in front of him hitting him twice, once in the vital and once in the digestive system knocking him out of the fight and not yet done with his damage, he steps over the now prone body dealing a rapid strike to adjacent foes, rolling a critical on the first and crippling the gangster’s weapon hand while the second blow takes down the other man’s leg, disabling two more men.

Surrounded by gangsters, Ky deals a whirlwind attack with his spear dealing a lot of damage to two men, removing a leg and an arm. Returning the strike, the gangster rolls a critical attack that does only normal damage, but still 12 points of cutting is nothing to sneeze at and he’s quite wounded. One of the Gangsters manages to critically hit Tavish, but he spends 2 Impulse Points to change it to a normal success to defend against it along with another strike. Eiji is struck at by another Tong but is missed. Huoshan applies a lock to the axe wielder, trying to cause pain in the limb and snaps it with a maxed damage roll.

Eiji up now, stabs the man before him, his first being parried while the next, a critical hit, gets it nullified by the GM for 2 Villainous Points. Izumi, seeing men trying to flank the group, spends some chi to throw a lightning bolt to stun a man, though the man remains standing after a critical success on his HT roll.  Tavish, not having enough fun, deal more damage to a man’s digestive track on one side, takes out the other leg of the man in front of him, and follows through on his promise to remove the man’s face for attacking him, knocking him out entirely, but being the only white man in the middle of a large amount of Asian ninjas with bladed weapons and throwing lightning causes them not to feel intimidated by his display.

Ky deals a targeted attack to a man’s face, but the gangster barely manages to hang on to consciousness. Eiji has to spend destiny points to negate a critical success from one of the gangsters and parries the attack while Ky defends himself from the men coming for revenge, the gangster that took the staff to the face passing out only a second later. Huoshan waits for the men to round the false wall before heroically charging over to smash them in the face.

Eiji stabs his nemesis before him, spending destiny points to turn his attack in a critical hit that, unfortunately, only does normal damage. But the second stab finally takes him down. Izumi, now up, jumps from the bar and stabs the man in the back, killing him. Tavish, only seeing one unengaged man within striking distance, deals a dual-weapon strike with a karate kick to the leg and then a strike to the foot on the other leg taking him down and then disarming him by striking his arms while Ky strikes his opponent in the neck, crushing his windpipe. Huoshan’s wait goes off and he rushes the man dealing only one cutting damage. In return, Huoshan nearly gets killed by a critical hit that strikes the skull, forcing him to spend a Impulse Point to reduce it to flesh wounds.

His turn coming up, Huoshan casts a Flame Jet on the man in front of him to deal 14 burning damage. A lot more than just the 1 point of cutting damage. Eiji moves towards the men flanking and backing up Huoshan while Izumi moves, unleashing her lightning dealing 7 burning damage, though they’re still up from stun. Tavish, seeing the men, heroically charges forwards and deals a dual weapon attack that takes out a man and then splatters his brains across the wall. The remaining two men, one on fire, flee the bar.

They interrogate the men, saying that she’s important to the boss. Ying Tsi, the Kan Yuah Tongs. A group that specializes in human trafficking and gambling.  The girl is drawn to Eiji, and it’s rather obvious that she’s blind. The bartender shows them the back door and the group quickly makes their way out the back, speaking with the young girl. The boss wants her because she can speak to people, further pressing reveals that she speaks to people from the past. They climb into a subway and watch her hold a conversation with thin air, which Tavish wonders if they should just take her to a hospital.

Aftermath

Arriving at the Shen Hua sanctuary, they give Ling a meal, which she eats ravenously and answers a few questions. Her name is Ling and she was forced to talk to people and find out things and offers to let them stay with them while they have Huoshan and Ky to figure out the Gang’s safehouses, finding them in the Northern Chinatown where they’ve got a small group of around 100 members, a local gang with no real international ties. The group decides to go on the offensive and strike in tactical methods against their gambling operations and human trafficking.

After Action Report (GM)

The inaugural session of the B-Team and the first session of the new Middle Kingdom campaign was in my opinion a success. The players had a lot of fun despite it being mostly combat – something I don’t want to do more than once every one or two sessions. Yes, it’s a game about martial arts, but the campaign doesn’t have to be entirely defined that way and I think I can do more than tell a story about furious fists and feet.

The first session brought up some questions using the chambara fighting rules (which we were all new at), but that didn’t bog down combat and the PCs did pretty decently eating through BAD -3 thugs in about 4-5 turns of combat.

Other Notes

I added a level of the Concealment power to everyone so that weapon users could carry their weapons and make others not notice with the sheer power of their chi.

Soundtrack

“Believer (Cover)” by Yeji (Opening Song)
“The Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet (Fighting Scene)
“The Subway Song” by the Cure (Closing Song)