Helgacon 12 - The Peach Orchard

Friday night brought the opening of Helgacon proper, and I ran the first of my full scale games, the second set in my new feudal Japanese Labyrinth Lord/Oriental Adventures milieu.

Here's the whole razzle dazzle. I like to really put on a grand show for convention games.

Every thousand years, in the remote, fortified mountain monastery known as Momotakara, a certain blessed peach tree brings forth a single, magically supercharged fruit that is capable of working great wonders in the lives of those who partake of it. If only it had appeared a year ago, when the conquering forces of the Akai clan laid siege to the monastery and defeated the rebellious warrior monks who dwelt within, putting those who failed to escape to the sword. Shortly after their victory, the Akai army themselves fled the mountaintop fortress, sealing the heavy doors behind them in fear of the ingenious and deadly traps laid within' by the wily abbot, as well as the supernatural creatures said to dwell in the caves below. The players took on the roles of a ragtag band of outcasts and wanderers who'd joined together to find the Thousand Year Peach and transform their lives.

  I had twelve pre-generated player characters to choose from, ranging from samurai to kensai to wily spellcasters and ninja, with several hengeyokai shapeshifters as well as strange creatures such as tengu or kamejin. I had five excellent players, who chose the following heroes to make up their band of nakama.

L to R: Takenoko the kitsune hengeyokai kensai, Genzo the human shugenja, Shirokaze the human mahotsukai, Zenimon the human yakuza, and Hotaro the human kensai. 

My setting was based on two of Dyson Logos' wonderful maps: The Monastery of Electrum Flowers for the upper structure and The Travellers Caves for the underground caverns beneath. I keyed these up with lots of twists, traps, and encounters, and gave the players these two simplified maps as handouts. (I've learned from years of doing convention games that the sooner you get the players some basic knowledge of the stakes, setting, and layout, the easier it is to have a satisfying adventure in the allotted 4 hour timeslot. You don't have to spell everything out, just give 'em enough info to go on.)

(Actually, I didn't initially give them the cave map. I'd hidden it on the back of one of the paintings in the hall of paintings, but it was running toward the end of the session and once they got down into the caves it was easier to just hand them this than try to get them to map it. Caves are too non-euclidian for graph paper mapping, I've often found.)

I gave all the players a roll on a specially prepared rumor table. They gleaned these bits of info: 

Beware the wrath of the thunder god when invading the Monastery’s precincts, for he defends the sohei’s path. Bid him be still if you would pass safely. (This one didn't really figure in their explorations. It referred to a trapped hallway where a statue of Raijin would shoot a lightning bolt if they didn't say a password to deactivate it.)

A sacred scroll dedicated to the Goddess of War hangs among the Monastery’s collection of sumi-e. If a holy man or warrior reads what is inscribed on the back they can invoke the Goddess’ aid. 

There is a waterfall to the North of the Monastery. In a hollow behind it there is a secret door leading inside.  

Four sacred tablets, enchanted to summon and control mighty elemental forces, are hidden throughout the monastery. They are concealed among their elements.  

While the Akai claim to have sealed the doors of the Monastery, in truth they have converted it into a secret stronghold for their ninja assassins.  (This one was a false rumor, but they didn't know that.)

I gave the players a similar speech to the one I gave to my players for Red Petals on the Road, about what my expectations were for this game. I had laid out a setting and given them resources, and now it was up to them to decide what to do. Armed with their information from the rumor table, the players made their plan and set forth to infiltrate the monastery and retrieve the legendary peach. 

Acting on the rumor about a secret entry, they made their way around the north side of the monastery, where they found the waterfall as promised cascading down from a high cliff into a mountain stream. There was a hollow behind it that contained a stone lantern with a lock mechanism cleverly hidden inside. They opened the latch and discovered the secret door, which led them to the shaft of the monastery's well. There were cleverly hidden handholds leading up to the wellhead, and the shaft disappeared down into the darkness 50' below. (A fact the party rather stubbornly ignored later on when they figured out that to find the Peach they'd have to get into the caves below the monastery. But I'm getting ahead of myself. :-\) From above the tunnel was concealed by a trompe d'oiel that made it impossible to spot. 

Finding themselves in a well room where stacks of rotting firewood was stowed, they crept into the next room, which turned out to be the monastery's kitchen. Prodding among the kamado stoves and the rotting bales of rice hidden in the corner, the party disturbed a nest of hideous 5' long centipedes, which sprang forth to attack them. 

Hotaro chopped one to pieces while Shirokaze pinned one to the floor with one of his arrows. Takenoko rolled a critical fail and fell to the ground with a twisted ankle, with a vicious centipede bearing down on her with mandibles clacking. Thinking quickly, she opened her magic purse that could swallow up to 500 lbs. and sucked the horrible thing inside. The final one was slain and the party took stock, hoping that they'd not alerted any Akai ninja who might be lurking about. 

Taking a tentative foray down the hallway outside, they heard a commotion in the direction where their map said the monastery's famed peach orchard was. There was the sound of thrashing branches and a large booming voice lording over a gaggle of smaller, sniveling voices, all speaking in obake, the language of bakemono and oni. From what they could glean from Shirokaze's translations as the only one among them who could speak the language, it was a band of marauding yokai searching for the Thousand Year Peach. 

Seized by strategic inspiration, the wizard called out "We've found the peach!" in obake, hoping to lure the rival invaders into range so that they might be defeated in piecemeal, and it worked splendidly for them. A hush fell over the monstrous brigands in the orchard, and the booming voice commanded some scouts to go see who'd said they'd found the sought after treasure.The party braced themselves in the adjacent archways of the kitchen as a pair of obakenezu, horrible goblin rats, came loping down the corridor. A cowardly bunch of bakemono peeked out the window, waiting to see how their beastly comrades did. Takenoko held fast but got a sprained wrist for her troubles, as Hotaro was bowled over by the slavering spirit beast despite his magical Sandals of Steadiness. 

With a furious exchange of slashing blades and slavering bites, the obakenezu were slain, but the party had barely any time to catch their breath before the bakemono attacked. These too were dispatched with the two kensai's whirling katana and naginata. 

Hearing the death shreiks of his minions, the horrible oni Gongoro finally decided to see what was going on with his own three eyes, and so he came stomping around the corner at the far east end of the corridor with a crew of bakemono archers in tow. He bellowed threats and taunts as he came, but was knocked ingloriously on his behind when Shirokaze cast an Elemental Burst spell that hit the lumbering yokai right between the horns with an explosion of air. He fell back, smashing his smaller minions beneath him.

Seizing their opportunity, the party leaped to the attack. Zenimon slew several of the bakemono with a barrage of shuriken, while Takenoko and Hotaro strode forth and put an end to the oni with their flashing blades. In the melee Hotaro had slashed off one of the ogre's horns, which he kept as a trophy. The surviving bakemono of Gongoro's entourage, peering fearfully out the windows to the orchard, realized that their master was slain and fled screaming and scattered to the winds. 

Searching the bodies, they retrieved a gourd full of magic potion hanging from the oni's belt, and Shirokaze discovered a beautiful child's plaything, a silken temari ball doubtless stolen from a nursery tucked into one of the sleeves of the bakemono's filthy, ragged kimonos. 

 

The party then proceeded to search the orchard, finding the mess that the yokai had made knocking down branches, leaves, and fruit with long sticks. They'd piled the fallen peaches on moldering straw mats next to a stone bench beneath a particularly profound looking old tree, where the oni had been appraising the fruits and sorting out the ones that seemed magical. The Momotakara orchard had been reknowned for other sorts of magical peaches besides the legendary Thousand Year Peach. In a cracked porcelain bowl was a pile of rosy blushing peaches that were enchanted with healing magic, making them equal to a Potion of Healing if you ate one. The party divided these up among themselves. There was also a tree bearing fruit that would instantly destroy bakemono if it touched them, as evidenced by an exploded wretch whose remains lay at the tree's foot. (The players gave this one a wide berth, not knowing how specific its effects were.) 

Finally, there was a tree that at first glance seemed dead, with bare branches surrounded by a tenuous fog. Upon closer examination, led by the rotting straw ropes and sacred charms that hung around its trunk, they realized that what seemed like dead branches was in fact an upside down root system, and that this strange tree was quite alive. Surely its leaves, and its fruit, were below in the underground caves. They were getting closer to their main objective. 

Exploring further, they investigated the overgrown rock garden to the south end of the orchard. They discovered a couple of the large stones, laid out in the spiral patterns of carefully raked gravel, had been uprooted and taken. They reasoned that perhaps this was where one of the four elemental tablets they'd heard rumors about was hidden, and were proved right as they discovered a stone chest under one of the large boulders, which contained the tablet. 

Deciding to search for the abbot's quarters, they went back down the hall toward the kitchen. Beyond to the west they found the monastery's dining hall, where Zenimon accidentally knocked over long tabletops and trestles stacked against the back wall. The party held their breath, hoping no ninja had been alerted, then continued their search. 

They discovered rot and water damage coming from a swollen shut sliding door to the north that felt hot to the touch. Carefully shoving it open with the butt of Takenoko's naginata and Genzo's staff, they avoided a gout of scalding steam that billowed forth. 

Inside, they discovered a sweltering bath chamber. Everything inside was warped and melted by the heat and moisture. There were two pools to the east end of the room, one empty, and one occupied by a pool of water in which a bronze Daruma figure sat, glowing red with internally generated heat and boiling the water around it.

The figure was scalding hot, and damaged the party if they approached it. In one eye, the kanji for "heaven" had been painted. The other was blank. 

What proceeded here, if I may drop out of narrative into DM analysis, was one of those points where you present a puzzle to the players and they proceed to spiral into ever more elaborate blind alleys to solve it, completely mis-interpreting or ignoring the clues to the solution.

I'll bear more than a little responsibility for this, because they latched on to certain parts of my explanation of what a Daruma signified in Japanese culture and ran with it. I'd informed them that Daruma dolls were often used as good luck charms by people who wanted to complete a task. The person would paint in one of the figure's blank eyes at the start of their task, and then paint in the other when they'd finished it. This is what the party grabbed onto, convinced that they had to complete a task to solve the puzzle. I probably should have left all that "complete a task" stuff out, 'cos honestly all they had to do is write something in the other eye.

So they proceeded to laboriously fill up the other bath tub by drawing bucket after bucket of water from the well over a span of a couple in game hours. Hotaro stripped down and took a bath, which didn't really help, and he got kinda scalded while he was doing it due to being so close to the boiling daruma. 

What I'd failed to make clear to them was that the bronze Daruma's task was to heat the bathwater, and that since it had done that all they needed to do is write something to match "heaven". Since he was scalding hot, I was hoping that they'd take the hint and write "hell" in the other blank eye. Or they could wipe out the writing in the first eye, that would have shut him down too. (This was doubly frustrating as Genzo's player had blurted out that they should write "hell" in the other eye at the start of it all and nobody twigged to it. :-\)

Anyway, they eventually figured it out after eating up several minutes of game time. Happily, they were rewarded with the Fire Elemental tablet, which they discovered in a hidden compartment in the bronze figure's base. So all's well that eventually ends well.

Continuing their search, they decided to head southward toward the monks quarters on the west side of the monastery. They were nearly trapped by an insidious spell that caused the hallway to seem endless, forever extending ahead and behind them no matter how long or fast they walked. Shirokaze's player figured out the way to foil this spell, by not depending on vision. He backed toward the tablet inscribed with the spell and removed it without looking, freeing his comrades from its effects. They found the stricken corpses of some Akai ashigaru who'd failed to escape this trap. One had starved to death in one of the monks' cells. The other, who's hair had gone stark white, had been run thru by a blade of some sort as he cowered by a wall. The hole the blade had left was uncannily cold to the touch.

Ominous...

Proceeding further, they came to a darkened room that had been the monastery's meditation chamber. Inside, they were confronted with the terrifying specter of the Akai general who'd led the assault on the monastery, condemned in death to drive off any other interlopers. 

Hotaro rose to the challenge and drew his woodcutter's blade, the Mokuzaiken, and stood in combat against the vengeful spirit, slashing its naginata's shaft in two. The yurei cast its bisected polearm aside and prepared to draw its sword. Knowing that there was no honor in a restless ghost, Shirokaze read the chant on the back of the Fire Elemental tablet, and summoned a mighty spirit of flames, which burned the Akai general's ghost away in its purifying fire and banished it from this world.

Searching the room after releasing the Flame Spirit and stamping out some of the fires it had left, they found two large, ornate gold incense burners on the meditation leader's platform. After a bit of fox mischief where Takenoko released the giant centipede at Zenimon, causing a bit of minor panic as they slew it before it poisoned him, they sucked the two censers into the purse where they could easily carry it off. 

Working from the map, they found their way to the hall where the monastery kept its trove of sumi-e paintings, seeking to find the scroll of the War Goddess. They found a hall that had been long ago drenched in blood, with a victim slashed to ribbons and dragged away, and the two stones missing from the rock garden laid against the door. The only painting not marred with old dried blood was a magnificent painting of a tiger. This they decided to give a wide berth, especially after figuring out that its eyes seemed to follow them. They found an separate alcove where the goddess scroll was hanging, and reverently plucked it from the wall and rolled it up, another trophy from their sortie, and then slipped out again. 

Remembering that their goal was to find the Thousand Year Peach, they did some figuring and some divining. Among Zenimon's many trademark coins, he had one that he could flip for a truthful yes/no answer 3 times a day. This they used to ascertain where the entrance to the underground caverns, which turned out to be a set of bronze doors decorated by carvings of tortoises in the northeast corner of the fortress. After failing to pick the bronze padlock, Hotaro chopped it off the door with his Kikorido woodcutter technique.

They proceeded past the door and were confronted with two animated wooden guardian figures that blocked their way. After a brief combat, and a haphazard stumble down the mossy stairs beyond, they were down in the deep mountain caves.

In the depths they discovered a stone turtle hung with sacred ropes and charms, with a flat spot atop its dome-like shell. Meditating atop it, Shirokaze heard whispering voices from the deep earth asking what offering he would leave. He carefully placed the temari ball and climbed down.

The group came to a crossroads, and here, the mahotsukai decided to cast his Smoky Form spell, turning himself into a figure of smoke so that he could safely scout ahead. He went down a tunnel to the southwest, where the party could faintly hear the sound of a woman singing and weeping. It was hung with large cobwebs and bones, and eventually he came to the lair of a huge spider who had been the source of the singing, which told him to go away, as it was seeking to lure something with warm blood to it.

The party instead decided to head to the tunnel to the south, which was full of fog that was suffused with a golden glow. There, they found a lush, pristine peach tree growing from the ceiling, its bright leaves floating on the calm surface of a shallow subterranean pool. Hanging about a man's height from the floor of the cave, perfect and jewel like, was the Thousand Year Peach.

Hotaro reverently stepped forward and grasped it, but no amount of pulling or twisting could get it loose. The party turned as a creature that seemed as if it had been worn into shape from the stone of the mountain stepped forth from one of the side caverns. It had the shell of a tortoise, and held the bright silken temari ball in its large, clawed hands. It smiled, and said "You must ask before you can pluck the sacred peach, mortals." With that it turned, and withdrew back into the deep caverns.

After a deep bow and a humble request, the fruit dropped effortlessly into the kensai's hands. And thus the brave nakama acquired the Thousand Year Peach, whose every morsel if eaten could bestow a Wish, and at whose center in place of a pit was a priceless emerald of wondrous size and clarity.

They had succeeded!

ANALYSIS:

This was definitely a successful session all the way around. The players played smart and very in character. (The player who played Shirokaze spent the whole session with a plastic bowl on his head.☺) Aside from getting a little hung up on the bronze Daruma puzzle they made good tactical decisions and worked out things for themselves really well. 

I think the biggest tactical win was changing the context of the confrontation with the oni and his minions in the actual peach orchard. I'd intended it to be a big battleground, but by their subterfuge they siphoned off the bakemono and obakenezu so that they could be dealt with in piecemeal, and left the oni open to attack without his henchlings covering for him. 

So well done, players. I'm definitely looking forward to more adventures in this setting. 

Omedetou! Kampai!

Helgacon 12 - Red Petals on the Road

The first game I ran was on Thursday evening. It was a spinoff from one of my other offerings, using a subset of the characters I'd prepared for it.

I've been running an Arabian Nights themed game for several years, which I decided to put on the shelf for a while last year. So this year I embarked on a journey to the Far East, exploring adventures in a setting influenced by the sengoku period of feudal Japan, with a strong fantasy element of yokai and magic. The system I was using was my usual Labyrinth Lord, with a hearty injection from 1985's classic D&D supplement Oriental Adventures, which I've owned since it came out, and was one of the first game settings I'd ever run D&D in, back in my college days in the early 90's.

I had four excellent players, who chose the following characters:

L to R: Mikei the neko hengeyokai ninja, Takenoko the kitsune hengeyokai kensai, Genzo the human Shugenja, and Hoshi the young, idealistic human samurai.

The armies of the aggressive Akai clan were massing on the borders of the province ruled by the Kobai clan. In the interest of forming a defensive alliance with the neighboring Murasaki clan, who had heretofore remained carefully neutral, the daimyo of the Kobai dispatched his daughter Lady Sakura as an envoy to negotiate. To safeguard her travel, she went disguised as a merchant's daughter on a pilgrimage, with only two servants to assist her. The characters were recruited by the loyal Kon ninja clan to give her extra protection when passing through a village on the border between Kobai and Murasaki territory known to be crawling with vicious Akai ninja bent on kidnapping her to use as a hostage against her father.

Here is the village I mapped out. I printed out an 11X17 map and placed it on the table as the main game map. Behind the screen I had my own key showing where various ninja ambushes and other dangers awaited our travellers. Some of the houses and shops were loyal to Lord Kobai, others traitors and turncoats in league with the Akai. There were also places where they would be able to get resources or allies that would aid them on their journey.

I prepared this map as a handout to the players, to give them some idea of the features of the village. I started the session with a simple outline of what I was expecting from this game. (Which is an idea I got from a Wandering DMs' video on the subject of convention games from a couple weeks ago.)

Long story short, I gave them a goal, made them aware of their resources, and laid out a setting. It was up to them to figure out how to get Lady Sakura safely from their secret meeting place in the hills above the village to the potter's house on the other side of the river. So the group put their heads together and started building a plan.

The party decided to keep a relatively low profile, and so decided to take the less travelled road past the woods and rice fields to the south rather than traverse the commercial street with its inns and shops. The two shapeshifting hengeyokai took on their animal forms and scouted a little ways ahead, with the agreed upon signal of rolling on their backs as if taking a dust bath if they spotted trouble. Young Hoshi trailed behind Lady Sakura and her servants and priest Genzo, acting as if he were merely traveling in the same direction as the others.

Trotting along the treeline our sly shapeshifters caught sight of someone lurking in the trees by the road across from a ruined, abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town. Sunlight glinted on blades, alerting Takenoko's keen vixen eyes to the presence of the enemy. She flopped on her back and started rolling around, giving the rest of the group enough warning that they were ready when a barrage of shuriken erupted from the trees and the battle was joined.

One luckless ninja rolled a 1, and was compelled to suffer the effects of my Dodecahedrons of Doom critical tables, falling indecorously out of the tree he'd been hiding in. Another unfortunate shinobi suddenly found himself with a bobtailed cat trying to claw his eyes out as Mikei attacked without bothering to shift forms. She was soon joined by Takenoko, who clamped on to the hapless ninja's ankle and started worrying it fiercely.

Hoshi charged forward, wielding his ancestral family blade, the Satori Ken. Every time he struck, a ninja fell dead. Priest Genzo held back and shielded the Lady, having received a slash across his forehead from a shuriken that had pierced his straw hat.

The surviving ninjas quickly fled, having been called to withdraw by a shadowy entity lurking within' the abandoned manor house across the road. As quickly as they'd appeared, they were gone.

After dusting themselves off and tending to the few light wounds they'd taken, the group moved on, making their way between the granary sheds where the local farmers counted and baled their koku of rice. Takenoko took on her hybrid form, allowing her to wield her magical naginata Koeda, and loped along a bit ahead of the party to scout the way.

Passing by the final granary shed, she was suddenly attacked by a large pack of rats that leaped upon her from the tall grass and bore her to the ground, scratching and biting. Overwhelmed, she didn't see a skulking obakenezu, a goblin rat in the uniform of an Akai ninja, scuttling forth to slay her with its bladed claws.

Fortunately, Mikei and Hoshi rushed to her aid, with the youthful samurai beheading the foul creature with his magic blade as the neko pounced upon one of the rats and killed it as cats have done to its kind since time immemorial. Without the evil will of the obakenezu to focus their frenzy, the remaining rats scattered as fox and cat snapped and clawed, and another vile ambush was defeated.

A bit more worse for wear this time, the party regrouped and prepared to move onward, when their collective ears perked up at the sound of a little boy calling to them from up the road.

The boy said that he was the grandson of the village elder, and that his grandpa would help them and tend their wounds if they followed him. The party agreed to follow him.

Once again, it was thanks to Takenoko's sharp eyes that they discovered something was amiss. She noticed the tip of a fox's tail peeking out from under the hem of the boy's kimono. Just as they reached the secluded grove of cherry trees between the elder's house and the local tea house, she leapt upon him and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, demanding that he reveal his true form.

This he did, transforming first into a male fox, and then into the richly robed kitsune sorceror Kuwadono, a notorious trickster and mercenary ally to the Akai.

A band of ninja emerged from the blossoming trees with their swords drawn, interposing themselves between the heroes and the hengeyokai wizard to protect him as he snatched up some dead leaves to set alight and use to cast a spell. The village elder, his daughter, and grandchild were shoved onto the back porch under the threatening blades of two more ninjas, demonstrating that they were hostages.

Without a second thought the group attacked, with Hoshi leaping bravely up to rescue the village elder and his family. Takenoko charged Kuwadono with her mystic naginata, while Genzo chanted a sutra of protection for his allies and shielded the Lady Sakura. Mikei crept through the brush, taking a moment to assume her hybrid form and crouching to spring when the moment was right. Hoshi felled one of the ninjas who held the elder's daughter at blade point, and prepared to fight the other.

Deciding that his Flaming Eyes spell was taking too long, Kuwadono instead conjured a pair of Flame Shuriken, hurling one at Genzo and blinding him whilst throwing the other behind him at Hoshi. As the magical missiles burst into clouds of noxious smoke, Mikei seized her moment and attacked, slashing at the kitsune sorceror from behind with a critical hit.

Her player rolled a 5 on the Critical Hit Success table. Humiliated! Kuwadono's ostentatious robes were slashed away from his scrawny fox body, leaving him ridiculously exposed as the jumped up varmint he was.

Demoralized, shamed, and in disarray, a gekkering Kuwadono ordered a retreat as he scampered away vowing vicious revenge on the heroes. The surviving ninjas cast their smoke grenades and vanished.

Profoundly grateful, the village elder invited the group inside, binding their wounds and bringing out a healing potion to cure their ailments. As his daughter served them tea, the venerable old man informed them of many interesting things.

He told them that if they went to his dear friend the sake brewer and told them of what they'd done for him, the brewer would give them a jug of his finest sake. This, he went on to say, could be traded to the boat builder by the river, so that they might secure a boat to make the crossing. (The party had decided that taking the bridge was just asking for another ninja ambush.) He also informed the group that if they wished to bolster their numbers, that there was a trustworthy ronin at the tea house next door who might be persuaded to join them if they bought him a meal.

Thanking the elder profusely, they set out to act on all of this valuable information. First, they went to the inn, and recruited the ronin Daisuke to their cause. Since he had been made a ronin by the Akai overthrowing his lord, he readily agreed to join them.

Their numbers bolstered, the party made their way to the sake brewer's, where the met the jovial proprietor seated on his porch sampling some of his wares.

As they were telling him the tale of their recent battles and the rescue of the village elder and his family, a furious Kuwadono reappeared, covering his shame with cloths disrepectfully stolen from a nearby Inari shrine and brandishing a magical jewel that summoned flame spirits to attack.

The sake brewer cried out in alarm that the bounding spheres of flame would set his whole establishment alight, so the heroes leapt to the attack. Takenoko slashed one into scattering flickers as Hoshi and Daisuke rushed around the back of the building to attack the enraged sorcerer from his flank. Mikei darted under the raised storage huts where the brewer kept his stock of rice and the jars of fermenting rice wine.

Kuwadono stopped half of the party with a Hypnotic Pattern spell, causing those who failed their save to stand transfixed by the swirling sparks he conjured in the air. Unfortunately for him, he had failed to ensnare his nemesis Mikei, who leapt from the shadows of the sheds and slid one of her tanto blades between his ribs, piercing his black heart. With a ragged shriek he dropped the magical jewel and his improvised coverings and staggered into the road, where he fell and lay still, just another dead animal by the roadside.

Takenoko the vixen finished off the last of his flame spirits, dispersing them with the blade of her naginata. They recovered the recently roadkilled sorceror's magic jewel, an extra bonus prize for their troubles.

The grateful brewer bestowed two jugs of sake on the party, as well as another healing potion and a Potion of Heroism. Thanking him, the group made their way to the boat builder's shed. As they approached, a final ambuscade of ninja leapt out from hidey holes concealed beneath straw mats covered in riverbank sand. Genzo cast a Hold Person spell, freezing many in their tracks, while his companions slew the rest with their deft bladework.

They proceeded to greet the boat maker, who had hidden inside the hull of one of his latest creations as the battle raged among the fishing boats beached beside his hut. He gladly traded them a vessel to cross the river for some of the sake brewer's fine sake.

And thus they got across the river, and made their way safely to the potter's house, where a palanquin from the Murasaki clan arrived to spirit a grateful Lady Sakura away as night fell. As the party stood out front of the potters, thinking upon the day's events, the shadowy figure that had called off the ninja in their first encounter appeared, a dark outline with gleaming eyes. It commended them on their bravery and skill, and acknowledged that they had won this battle. As it melted away into the darkness, its eyes flared. There would be another time, and they would be made to regret their interference. This was a promise from Yurei No Kage, the mistress of shadows.

Chalk one up for the good guys. Better luck next time, bad guys. :P

ANALYSIS:
I'm totally thrilled with how well this session went, and as we wrapped up one of my players complimented me on the pacing, which was a HUGE relief because that was probably what I was most afraid of messing up. The village isn't huge, it's only 650' X 420', and a party moving at a good jog could cross it in a couple rounds, if nothing gets in their way. 

Therefore it was up to me to throw as many impediments in the party's way as I could. This I did, both working off the key but also moving things in their way, like Kuwadono disguising himself as the elder's grandson. This may seem obvious, but one of the bad DM impulses I usually have to fight to overcome is the urge to keep everything as written, rather than making my setting elements flexible. So I'm glad that I ignored that impulse and put ninjas wherever they suited the emerging narrative.

On the other side of that same coin, I'm particularly pleased with how free I was with the information the grateful village elder shared with the party. Another bad DM impulse I have is to be stingy with info. If I'd have held back on all the stuff the old man shared, then the adventure would have probably ground to a halt as the players lost momentum trying to figure out what they'd do next.

It might be okay to tease out info in a campaign game, but with a convention game, it's better to give the players as many actionable items they can sink their teeth into as possible. The village elder's house encounter was like the second stage of the session's plot rocket firing, carrying us to a satisfying conclusion.

So yeah, all told a great session and a wonderful kick off for Helgacon XII for yours truly.

Konbanwa! Kampai!