The Trigram Chronicles #4

Layout of a typical siheyuan

Rescuing a kidnapped child brings the heroes into contact with the Sword Sisters Sect

Daring mission to the General's Residence to assassinate General Yen's right hand man

As the Qing forces begin to take over more and more of the lands south of the Yangtze, our heroes (see PC profiles here) are no closer to finding the last pair of scrolls that will allow them to defeat General Yen. Rather than to sit in despair, they decided to thwart the Qing's efforts at conquest.

Having learned that General Yen's right-hand man, General Yu Shou Ren, had set up his headquarters in the city of Tongling, our heroes traveled there. Here, they heard tales that several Qing commanders and officials had been assassinated, and now the city was in a state of curfew.

Despite that, our heroes plotted to find and sabotage a Qing base inside the city. On the night they were performing the reconnaissance, however, they chanced upon four men in black, one of whom carried a sack over one of his shoulders. Our heroes decided to follow the suspicious men, and when they were discovered, they attacked our heroes with throwing knives. Their attempts to parley being met with silence and more throwing knives, our heroes retaliated and defeated the men in black, to find that a child was inside the sack. As the last of the men in black attempted to flee, he was cut down by a swordswoman.

Soon more swordswomen arrived, and our heroes learned that they were of the Sword Sisters Sect, and that the child was the daughter of the leader of the chapter in Tongling. The Sect had been conducting assassinations of Qing commanders and officials, and in response General Yu had ordered his men to hunt down the Sword Sisters, who had to go into hiding. To force the Sword Sisters to emerge, General Yu's men resorted to kidnapping the daughter of their leader.

But even as the Sword Sisters thanked our heroes, they demanded to know how Wu had learned their kung fu, which was only taught to women. Wu replied that his late mother had taught him the kung fu. Now by their sect rules the punishment for teaching the kung fu to a man was death of both the teacher and the student, but as Wu had saved the life of one of their own, the Sword Sisters were now in a dilemma. Wu then volunteered to disable his own kung fu, but only after he had avenged his family on General Yen. The Sword Sisters agreed, on the condition that he assassinate General Yu too.

Our heroes agreed to the pact, and were given information about the General's residence in Tongling. Learning that General Yu had sequestered himself in his residence due to threats of assassination, only communicating with the troops in the frontlines via messengers, our heroes made their plans.

They waylaid one of the messengers outside the city one night, and donning his uniform and using his token of authority, Soong entered the residence to meet General Yu. At the same time, Zhang stole her way into the kitchen, where she prepared to start a fire to distract the guards. Wang and Wu laid in waiting on the roof of the reception hall, ready to burst through the roof and attack General Yu once Soong confirmed his presence.

But when Soong arrived inside the reception hall, he found that he had been met by a double for the general - General Yu had anticipated their move. Guards burst into the hall to arrest him. Wang and Wu leapt down from the roof into the rear courtyard. Zhang set the kitchen on fire and joined Wang and Wu, and together they made their way to the rear of the compound to try to kill the general in his quarters, but found the doors and windows barred. Simultaneously, nets were cast across the roofs of the courtyard, trapping our heroes. More guards emerged, and our heroes were now fighting to their front and their rear.

After a hard fight, Soong and Wang pushed the guards out of the reception hall, and returned to the rear courtyard to join Zhang and Wu, who had likewise defeated the guards there. Seeing our heroes wounded and trapped, General Yu emerged from his quarters, hoping to make an easy kill. But his hubris was his unmaking, as our heroes fought as one and quickly took him down. Then, taking his head as evidence of their success, our heroes cut through the net and made they way to safety, but not better leaving a message written in the blood of the dead man on the courtyard floor: we are coming for you next.

How will General Yen respond to our heroes' actions? To find out, dear reader, you must turn to the next chapter...

Prepping and Running the Game

The plot for the first half of the session once again came from a seed from this blog. During session zero one of the players had asked for a rooftop fight, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to incorporate one into the campaign.

I was impressed by Wu's player when he offered to disable his kung fu after his revenge mission is completed. This is a classic wuxia trope, and moments like this are the whole point of playing this campaign for us.

For the second half of the session I gave the players a free hand in plotting their mission, only giving them the picture of the compound as a planning aid. The twist is General Yu was already anticipating an attack, and I had the whole response more or less planned out, from the elite guards who would utilise the formation rules, and the use of nets across the courtyard to prevent them from escaping - once again a classic trope.

The PCs took some damage before the final fight with General Yu, but by now they had learned to fight as a team: three of them engaged in melee, with Wang using his Defender skill to protect the others, while Wu threw needles at the General. Once again this shows that  the 'action economy' of RPGs mean that a solo villain, no matter how powerful he is, is vulnerable to a whole group of PCs. I will have to make sure General Yen does not fall prey to this in our finale.