Dramatis Personae
- Big Chon (Played by Chris D.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”
Lin Shisheng (Played by Scott R.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”- Myaing (Played by Emily S.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”
- Yang Wen (Played by Will M.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”
- Zhao Liu (Played by Travis E.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”
Highlady Long Xing (NPC; Played by L. A.): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.”
Previously . . .
It’s been awhile since the wedding of the two families and the group has heard tale of a large amount of payroll that has been robbed by bandits a couple days ago. Zhao Liu has managed to scout out the terrain and led the group to a number of ravines and canyons where the bandits are holding the payroll and the escorts hostage. They come in during the nighttime with a good amount of moonlight and try to plan out the assault while also helping the prisoners, though Zhao seems to take a more pragmatic view.
Ambush at Black Canyon
Big Chon, Myaing, Yang Wen, Zhao Liu
Black Canyon
Sixth Month 27th day, 1017 Zao Dynasty, 20th hour
Nanchun Province
They try to start a distraction by launching spices into the bandit’s herd of horses causing them to freak out and break their ropes, charging into the main camp and distracting the bandits holding the prisoners. They’re shouting for people to come and stop the horses and a large amount of complaints. One of the horses trips and falls on the stakes, killing itself in its panic. The leader is calling them to put the horses back in the corral and making some horse stew later.
With them distracted, the group starts moving downwards into the small canyon where they keep the prisoners with Yang Wen taking up position and waiting for enemies to approach. Zhao fires a cutting crossbow bolt to the leader’s leg while one of the lieutenants charge at the waiting Yang and gets his feet cut off for his efforts before another lieutenant gets his attack parried. Myaing leaps down and strikes twice at the undefeeted lieutenant, with the first being dodged and the second causing severe injury to the lieutenant’s digestive tract. More bandits run forwards, one losing his weapon in the canyon wall during a failed attack. With Chon managing to slide down, he steps forwards and with a single powerful shot, he knocks one bandit’s block off and the bandit’s body straight into the man and then the canyon wall behind him.
Yang steps back from the lieutenant at his feet and slices through the elbow of the one that attack Myaing, disarming him. Zhao observes the situation and fires an arrow into a man’s gut. Bandits surge forwards, presenting themselves as open targets to Myaing and Big Chon. The disarmed lieutenant gets defeeted by Myaing along with another two bandits getting bisected by the continuing sword. In a target rich environment, Big Chon slams his hammer into several bandits in front of him, knocking several back into the wall, smashing the skull of another into the ground, and then destroying the legs of a third clearing a space between him and everyone else.
Yang, stepping back, attacks a bandit twice but misses both times. Zhao fires a vitals shot into another lieutenant, and the bandits are confused and retreating the best they can. Myaing strikes at the bandit that dodged Yang’s attacks, defeeting another. They’ve terrified the bandits enough to frighten the rest of the bandits into surrendering. Most of the group decides to bandage the bleeding bandits that haven’t died yet while Big Chon suggests they don’t need the bandits alive to get the bounty.
They unbind the prisoners and bind up the bandits before searching for the payroll and getting everyone ready to head back. The leader quite annoyed by the situation, though Big Chon tells him to either get on the wagon or he won’t have to worry about it again.
Aftermath
They get the bandits to the constable, who tries to low ball them into getting less payment again with a large amount of bull while Zhao manages to detect some bull. The constable and bandit leader seems to be rather familiar with each other. It seems that there was some, unproven, collusion between them. Leaving the area, Zhao sneaks into the constable’s home and finds correspondence between the bandit leader and the constable as well as plenty of rather expensive goods that are far beyond the pay of a small government agent.
The constable is a prominent member of a group called The Black Silk that wants to topple the monarchy and implement an oligarchy of powerful sorcerers. The correspondence is rather damning evidence, enough to allow them to cut the constable’s head off and present it with the letter. They’re rather unhappy about the dragon lady showing up the previous year. Majority of people decide to leave things to the Dragon Lady’s judgement. They agree that there’s a good idea to set the Dragon Lady up as bait for the Constable.
After Action Report (GM)
This game was almost purely combat until the end when it became sneaky and a little bit poltical – which was awesome. I finally got the PCs involved in one of the Silk Rebellions. They are aware that such forces are moving through Jiangjinshan and next game they’ve planned to create an ambush to try to draw out the constable’s allies – and that might work since they were able to snoop onto the constable without him snooping back. Overall, really fun session.
Other Notes
Scott had to call out today for personal reasons and L.A. was missing because of a downed ISP.
Soundtrack
None.