Rob Hobart

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Becca’s third and final module (like the first one, she wrote the basic outline and I expanded it into a full scenario) traced its concept all the way back to the end of Year One, when we brainstormed the basic idea of a module in which a love-struck samurai would hire an assassin to murder his brother (in order to be able to marry the brother’s widow). Once we came up with the idea, I realized we’d need to “set up” the assassin in question as a major threat so the PCs would feel deeply intimidated when they learned he was involved. Hence Kagekaze’s famously memorable appearance in Corrupt Officials, followed by a year out of the spotlight while the players awaited his return.

The specific inspiration that convinced us it was time to do this module was the premier of Heated Discussion at CogCon (September 2008), where Miya Shikan forced a marriage agreement between a Crane PC (Becca’s character, Daidoji Miyui) and a Crab PC (Hida Junzo). Becca and I decided this awkward, doomed “peace marriage” was the perfect framing device for a module set in Musume Mura and featuring a samurai committing murder for the sake of love. (Fun side note: Miyui was Becca’s third primary character, her two previous ones having died. The second of these was Miyui’s bushi sister, Daidoji Eriko, who was one of only two PCs who perished at Shiro Usagi. Becca, the wife of the Campaign Admin, lost more characters than 95% of the campaign player-base...)

In order to broaden the module’s significance, I also included an element of the ongoing “rival theatre-troupes” theme, with the Scorpion Clan’s official troupe (Kyozou, “Pretense”) showing up to perform at the wedding… accompanied by Toturi Hisako, traveling incognito. This let me create a sub-plot about a couple of different noblemen trying to court Hisako, as well as letting me arrange for a Scorpion NPC to recognize Kagekaze (and get killed for his troubles), thus helping clue-in the PCs to the presence of the assassin in the city. Also, the presence of Hisako was designed to lead PCs into thinking she might be Kagekaze's target, giving them a stronger motivation to try to find and stop him.

I had a lot of fun creating a diversity of role-playing and atmospheric sight-seeing encounters around the city, including an elaborate dinner with the local Crane lord, a poetry game, a trip to the shrine of the Hantei’s first bride, and the play itself. Of course, all of these events also incorporated subtle clues designed to show the PCs the threat (Kagekaze) and its source (the lord’s brother Isamu). Ironically, I may have made some of the clues a bit too subtle, as some tables stalled out and were left floundering, wondering what the module's plot really was, and reacting without any knowledge or understanding to Kagekaze’s deadly arrow at the climax. Still, I don’t regret this, since I felt it was a good idea to occasionally mix in a story that was subtler and less easily-understood than others.

Since Kagekaze was such a lethal threat, I wrote the module in such a way that the PCs were not forced to fight him; they could also succeed by delaying or distracting him, negotiating with him, or simply intercepting his arrow-shot. Only a few tables chose to fight him and only a couple of those were able to kill him (by exploiting his vulnerability to spells), so the campaign outcome was that he stuck around. Naturally, this meant I had to start thinking about how his storyline would ultimately resolve...