kingtycoon | Gaming recap, maybe not for you.

We haven't played our games in a while - a week now! A solid week! Here's the thing, I don't like that at all. I need my maintenance dose. Since we didn't and haven't I'll do some recap.

We went ahead and started playing a new L5R game. I wanted to bring back Kakita Endo, my Crane Bushi and emerald tournament winner, but it was suggested that I try someone else since he's kind of married and titled now. I played around with different concepts for like, ever, but I kept coming back to the Crane and the Kakita. We don't have enough players in that game to allow for too many people to be bad at fighting - and the other players had already called Monk and Shugenja, so I felt like I had to go Bushi, so I went back to the Kakita school. I really, really didn't want to just recapitulate Endo though, so I went with someone I think I'll like better even, someone with a little more heart- Kakita Mishimia - he's an interesting sort, a little OCD and touched by the Crane's weird tendency for fits, he started out as an artist, in the Kakita arts school, but could never quite make the grade.

The Kakita Artisan school is my favorite - at the highest level of accomplishment in that school you can sometimes, only sometimes, paint a picture so great that it comes alive. Which is just nutso in a low-ish magic setting, and it's not even a magical school - you're just so good at art that sometimes a picture of a bird you painted comes alive and flies away. So I said that poor Mishima who's got a bunch of artsy merits was in this school and saw that shit happen, somebody's painting of a frog just jumped off the page, and started having fits, whenever he sees things that are beautiful. Too beautiful, so he kind of flunked out of art school because of that, even though he's super-duper good at art. Anyhow, a journey through the world didn't help him much, byronesque! And only later did people figure out that the crazy focused dueling technique of the other Kakita was what would snap him out of his problems, so he started up training on the sword and that's what he's good at now. Mainly, he's like, all about customizing his stuff and having elaborate clothes and tattoos.

Anyhow - in the little jungle at the edge of the Crane territory, in an area claimed by the Sparrow clan, some people had discovered an ancient temple or something, they'd been excavating it for a while but then it was starting to seem like a kind of important temple from ancient times so there was going to be a problem about who it would belong to. Mishima got sent with 9 other Cranes to go and duel for it before the 9th daughter of the Empress. Meanwhile a bunch of priests had also been summoned to rectify the place, so weirdo-mcgoo Phoenix shugenja came along with us on the road. He's... He straight up caused me to have fits and also interfered with my meditative calligraphy on the eve of a swordfight - just messing around in my pavillion, he's all - "I... I can help you to do it better." And then grabs the brush out of my hand, which is the kind of thing that would've gotten him dueled himself, if I didn't fail all my rolls and immediately have a 10 minute siezure. Poor Mishima!

Eventually we make friends, Phoenix-weirdo is on a secret mission to find out about what happened to his wife, who died archeologizing the ruins and we wander around trying to find out about this - ending up meeting Jubei - the properly deferential ronin/monk good-guy who helped us out of a scrape with some untouchables who tried ambushing us and poisoned Phoenix-Widower. Mishima had to cut them down, 30 at a time, they fought to the death, crazy dead-eyed men (not that Mishima looks untouchables in the eye! But he glanced and saw as his eyes crossed in rage) After that we learned a little about the temple which seems to be the famous/sacred Ruby Dojo. The sparrows had been living there a while and had an upper hand in the contest to tell a story about the place. Storytelling had been Kakita Endo's best skill so I did want to differentiate Mishima, he mainly tried to find out what the true facts of the place were and then to incorporate them into a story using heavy amounts of Sedane to just undermine and generally, tastefully, fuck with the various Sparrows present. Mostly people talked about Nagas a lot which confused Mishima "If a snake has a human body, well they'd just be all tiny, miniature people with snakes for legs?"

The Sedaning worked and he won the first round of storytelling and had an advantage in the swordfighting element of the contest, he chose to fight the Sparrow Lieutenant who'd spread a lot of gossip about snake-men just because it seemed like he was pretty stupid and also of high rank - and also had no appreciation for the sublime beauty of the Angkor Wat temple scenery, preferring to tell tales about snake people. So Mishima goes in to duel that guy, and looses bad in the assessment phase - this is where if your opponent wins enough they know all your weaknesses and study you. Mishima choked on assessment, badly misjudging the Sparrow, all of the Sparrows in fact - because next thing that comes up - Lieutenant sparrow uses his sword to flash light in my eyes and again my dice did not love me and again poor Mishima had a fit, a really embarassing one in front of the Empress' 9th daughter. But it was not to win at sword-fighting, but rather to draw attention from the Sparrow Captain (who I'd sedaned pretty hardcore) who straight up and mysteriously tried to murder the Empress' 9th daughter, saved at the last minute by her yojimbo, who almost died himself. After that the sparrows dispersed into the mangrove forest and I knew nothing because Mishima was too busy having Epilepsy to know about any of this.

Eventually his friends Jube and the Mourning Phoenix Widower come to help him and to get his help in pursuing the Sparrows into the marshes. Which we all set off to do.