Peelee's Chicken Fried Random Banter Thread #220

[Florian]

A short summary of our very first session.

Our protagonists are all Yoriki (Detectives) in the local Emerald Magistracy of the City in the Shadow of the Mountain Castle, an Imperial holding, ruled by the Otomo family, with the Court being in the firm hands of the Crane and the Bakufu (Secret Service) being in the firm hands of the Scorpion.

On a rather unremarkable spring morning, some Doshin report something at the dock, the finding of at two corpses in a half-drowned boat, tied together with heavy ropes. It looks like a Shinju, a lovers suicide, so they write it off as unimportant.

Our heroes are new to their job, very enthusiastic and willing to prove themselves, so they opt to investigate the whole matter.

Long story short, they made enemies of the other Yoriki in their district, saved the governor and p´d of the Chamberlain by doing so.

Gist of the whole scenario is that a group of teenage Samurai couldn't handle the period of peace and formed up something like their own private militia. The grew up with the tales of battle, glory and honor of their ancestors, but could only look forward to a life as bureaucrats, so they saw it as a fitting solution to try and assassinate the governor to get at least a regional war going, so they can prove how "manly" they are.
The leader of that group is actually a cripple who was contacted and indoctrinated into the Lotus Sect, which showed him how to use Maho (Blood Magic) to overcome his handicap. In this case, the ritual was sex-based and non-lethal, unethical to the core nonetheless. The initial victims were no Shinjo, the male was a Ronin Bard who provided the victims and tried his hand at blackmail, the female was a honorable Samurai-Ko from a vassal family that witnessed on of the "business transactions" and what happened with the boy after that.

Edit: All in all, that was one hell of a glorious mess and a good start for the entire campaign. For me, one of the highlights was when the player of the Crab Bushi lost it: had to deal with a wealthy, but common, trader who looked a bit down on the Samurai caste and he simple executed him on the spot. "Florian, you're an ass, you made me kill our only lead we have at that moment".