Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

Things begin several folks setting themselves up in town, Jiangjinshan, with Big Chon having been there for a few years. They have separately ended up in the local tavern together with Myaing serving as tavern wench in exchange for room and board. Zhao Liu has been trying to get the tavern owner to purchase his wares, convincing him to purchase a small crate of tea for a fairly good markup. Yang Wen spent a large amount of time fishing and working along the river, supplying them to the tavernkeeper, for a paltry sum. There’s plenty of comment on how horrible the food is around there.

The town itself is really rather fertile, everything is bigger in the west where the town is located in a rather lush valley between volcanos that occasionally spurt magma. The carp are huge, the cows are huge, the people are. . . average, but the lifespan is quite a bit longer. There’s multiple mines that have to be reworked whenever there’s a magma leak and a pool where it’s said to be able to heal any ailment short of death. Alchemists and magicians come from afar to study the properties and try to replicate them.

The Singing Hare

Big Chon, Myaing, Yang Wen, Zhao Liu
The Singing Hare Tavern
Sixth Month 10th day, 1017 Zao Dynasty, 9th hour
 Jiangjinshou, Nanchun Province

A man staggers into the tavern, bleeding from a head wound crying that his master’s son has been kidnapped. Myaing drops the cask that she’s been carrying and treats the man, getting what information that she can from the man, Ping Ho, a servant from the house of Bo.

His master’s son has run away with a harlot, Shi Hsaio, from another house and was captured by bandits while Ping was trying to retrieve them. He tries to offer to lead them to where he lost the trail while Zhao and Yang prod for more information. There were at least five men that he could count before he got away when someone shot him with an arrow, he ripped the arrow out and admits that he probably shouldn’t have done that. The Bo and Shi houses are rival miner houses with a, maybe not so, long history and the fact that their youngest children have attempted to elope has caused some issues.

The Bandit Lair

Big Chon, Myaing, Yang Wen, Zhao Liu
Nearby Wilderness
Sixth Month 10th day, 1017 Zao Dynasty, 11th hour
 Jiangjinshou, Nanchun Province

Leaving the coward, Ping, behind, they head towards the crossroads and find tracks leading the opposite direction with seven different footprints, which matches with what Ping told them. The tracks continue into the wilderness. It takes them several hours to track them down to a large ravine with multiple trees in it. They can smell the burning wood of campfires, the wind funneling it down to them. The ravine is the remains of a river, a slot canyon that had opened up and while the walls are climbable, they’re also crumbling and fragile.

Zhao spots several scouts with bows on the lookout about a hundred yards away and thirty feet up. Myaing does a flying leap up the side of the ravine while Zhao takes aim with his crossbow from a highly concealed position, hitting one of the bandits while Yang goes up a tree. As the man drops, they see movement in trees as bandits start to appear and a man rushes out yelling at everyone to get moving.

With Yang moving up the cliff face, Zhao reloads and fires an arrow at the leader’s neck who pulls a pair of swords out of seemingly nowhere and slaps the arrow out of the air. Myaing deals a flying leap jump onto one of the bandits, slicing him in half. Yang and Myaing get attacked by archers, the arrows whizzing by their heads. One of them having gotten too close to comfort for Chon’s preference and is sent flying with a blow from Chon’s hammer, getting sent back 7 yards and smacks into the cliff face getting stunned by the blow.

The leader slices straight at Myaing who defends with great skill and a large sword. Yang slices his horse cutter towards the leader only to get parried by the leader’s dao sword. Zhao, preparing his next shot into a bandit, killing it. Myaing, with a quick feint, slices through their leader with a single strike. The other bandits throw down their weapons and surrender with them, offering to release their prisoners. The young couple beg the group not to take them back and when Zhao points out that Ping will be executed if that happens they beg Zhao to convince their parents to let him wed, but is met with Zhao telling them to stop grabbing his robe.

Liang Lu, a hermit prisoner, introduces himself as bandits having taken over his home. A rather smelly person filled with lice that is a self-proclaimed alchemist that knows secret formulas and treasures. They force the surrendered bandits to follow them to town with all their ill-gotten gains.

A Tale of Two Clans

Big Chon, Myaing, Yang Wen, Zhao Liu
The Singing Hare
Sixth Month 10th day, 1017 Zao Dynasty, 13th hour
 Jiangjinshou, Nanchun Province

The constable, Tang Yul, questions what he’s supposed to do with all the bandits and secures them into the jail cell, promising that he’ll speak with the magistrate and get them whatever bounty is decided on. Big Chon insists on a receipt for the bodies that they’ve brought in while Zhao determines that the constable is lying. They sell out the loot that was gathered to local stores for a tidy profit before having to deal with the Bo and Shi houses.

They truly dislike each other, with the Bo clan’s mine having been stolen by the Shi clan as the story went. The original patriarchs came to the town as friends, the mine found by both having been a rather rich vein with minimal risk, with one stealing the other. A few rounds of carousing, they learn that Bo blames Shi for getting bureaucracy involved and having the local prefect that took the gold mine. Yang does a quick look through archives and gets the full history. Patriarch Shi did get the bureaucracy involved to legitimize their claim 50/50 with the prefect, but they took it when they realized that they could.

To further their cause, they find a signatory that was alive at that time, Chang Lu, that is quite pleased that he has company. He’s telling the group long boring stories while Zhao plies him with expertly made tea. They now can’t get him to stop talking about the tea while Zhao tries to steer the conversation to something more relevant. They speak about the mine and that it still belongs to the lord of the town, the Dragon Clan. They could either try to convince the Dragon Clan to give up the mine or show that the prefect did something illegal during the transfer.

Aftermath

After Action Report (GM)

The first session for C-Team was fun. This campaign was decided by the players to be more fantasy than wuxia (but both still apply) and the first session really pushed that. Their first combat resulted in it ending within a few rounds because Emily literally cut two guys in half before they could do anything. Morale is not something I’ve used often before, but I intend to use it for this campaign. Not all bad guys are going to fight to the death! And that is as it should be.

I really liked the PCs digging into the past of why the two families (Bo and Shi) were at each other’s throats. Finding out the constable might be corrupt was amusing as well. Setting up the PCs so they can talk with the Highlady of the Dragon Clan (the character my adversary and co-GM will be playing) for next week was also really good. Now I just have to hope she shows up to play (she’s feeling a bit under the weather). Overall, a good game.

Other Notes

None.

Soundtrack

None.