2nd Scroll - Bamboo and Butterfly

[jemmus]

Kentaro beheads him.

What armor and weapons does he have? We take them.

Heavy ashigaru armor (weight 30 lbs), yari, average wakizashi.

[Marullus]

The ashigaru steps back and slashes at Kentaro with the naginata, but the strike goes wide.
[1d20]=19 [2d6]=7
Primary action for this turn. The range is Long.

(You mean Hiroshi, right?)

[Marullus]

Heavy ashigaru armor (weight 30 lbs), yari, average wakizashi.

Kentaro strips him and puts his head and belongings in a bundle on the back of the horse.
(Armor: 30lbs, 17g. Yari: 10lbs, 12s. Wakizashi: 3lbs, 75s.)

[ffilz]

Hiroshi will step forward and attack again:



This time connecting for:



Pretty solid damage. And then secondary attacK



A miss.

[jemmus]

Hiroshi avoids the long naginata and immediately steps forward and delivers a katana strike to the ashigaru's shoulder. He drops.

BENC ended. Hiroshi can loot heavy ashigaru armor, the naginata, and an average wakizashi.

Hiroshi and Kentaro each get 0.5 budo for killing rabble.

Battle Turn 3 of Day 2
Taira, 5.6 TP. Minamoto, 2.756 TP. Taira 1d6 roll at +1 for senjo-jutsu and +1 for 2:1 TP ratio. Your PCs can be Courageous or Dutiful.

[ffilz]

Hmm if Hiroshi loots does he have to carry the stuff during any encounters? Should he have modified encumbrance for all the heads he’s collected?

Loot if it makes sense.

Hiroshi will continue to be courageous.

[Marullus]

Kentaro remains courageous as well.

[jemmus]

Since battles are kind of abstract, let's just assume that there's time to go back and forth after the battle to carry heads and loot. (If your side wins, that is). So we don't need to consider encumbrance. As per many RPG groups' tradition, loot sells at half the market price.

[ffilz]

Since battles are kind of abstract, let's just assume that there's time to go back and forth after the battle to carry heads and loot. (If your side wins, that is). So we don't need to consider encumbrance. As per many RPG groups' tradition, loot sells at half the market price.

Sounds good, so loot and heads are back in camp. Actually, the heads have probably even been tallied.

[jemmus]

Battle Turn 3
Both ronin Courageous. Taira, 5.6 TP. Minamoto, 2.756 TP. Taira +2 to the roll.
Minamoto [1d6]=2 Taira [1d6+2]=4+2=6 Minamoto lose 4 TP.
The Minamoto, Takeda, Matsumoto, and ronin corps bushi fought fiercely and valorously. But by mid-afternoon, their losses from the morning and the previous day began to tell. Outnumbered two to one, they began to fall more and more quickly. The war drums pounded the rhythm for Retreat, but it was too late. The many Taira were pressing too hard.
Wounded, exhausted and facing imminent defeat, they began to run toward the rear, to the sides, to the woods, to the streams. To wherever their seemed to be the least Taira.

The Taira infantry and horseman pursued, bushi racing each other for the prize of the head. The bushi of the Minamoto army were run down singly and in small groups. Cornered and bushi fought until they were cut down. Surrounded bushi committed seppuku, but it was not a trusted friend who gave the beheading coup de grace-- it was a Taira. The army became individual dry leaves blowing to the east, north, and south. It became not present, and was no more.

Please roll on the Defeated column, +2 for Courageous. Good luck!

[Marullus]

Defeated! [2d6+2]=5+2=7

ESC: The character escapes from the field of battle after his side
has lost. He has only what he carried onto the field with
him. Any property left in the camp becomes the loot of the
victors.
WND: The character takes 1D6 of lethal damage. If this damage
kills the character, he has been slain in battle.

Wounded [1d6]=5
HP: 18 / 26

His meager belongings are on his horse. He now also has:
(Armor: 30lbs, 17g. Yari: 10lbs, 12s. Wakizashi: 3lbs, 75s.)
Plus 8 heads.

[ffilz]

Surrounded...

Might as well play this out... Hiroshi will try to escape



Hiroshi escapes with a flesh wound!



He finishes at 15 of 19 points with just his armor and weapons. He gains 45 On for the escape plus whatever he earned from the encounter.

I'm not sure what the next steps are...

[ffilz]

Hiroshi will step forward to medium range and swing his katana:



Well that's a miss...

Oops, he actually has BCS 18... So that was a hit... But he still won the encounter...

[jemmus]

Kentaro and Hiroshi are among the few hundred refugees from the Battle of Okitsu. The Minamoto command structure has completely collapsed, and the survivors are left to trust to their own wits. Small groups of bushi make their eastward toward Kai. They are still in Suruga, which is Taira land. There is only one way back to the east-- through the Satta Pass again. Any other route would require following valley roads north through Suruga, into Shinano, then onto the Koshu-Kaido back south to Kai. Getting out of Suruga and into Shinano alive could be very difficult. Map viewtopic.php?p=542259#p542259

But taking the pass could be very dangerous also. The Taira would be well aware of the route. And that route would concentrate the refugees, making them an inviting target for attack. The pass is narrow, with cliff-like mountainsides on one side, and the Great Peaceful Ocean on the other. Many, many yards below. Nowhere to flee if the Taira were to attack, except forward-- with one's back to sharp Taira steel.

Kentaro wonders what happened to Hiroshi in the battle. The ronin cavalry and infantry units had been fighting beside each, but when the final Taira assault came, everything just became pandemonium. He rides with his wounds, thinking about how his first ever battle ended in defeat. And a rout. No pay, no reward for the heads he'd taken, no battle honors. But he had the weapons and armor he captured, and his life.

Hiroshi wonders what had happened to Kentaro. Did he survive that last crush of Taira bushi? The battle had been his first time to use his katana in mortal combat. He thought he did pretty well as an individual fighter. He had barely escaped with his life, but the story of his escape from the surrounding Taira would be a good story to tell. He had brought honor to his ancestors, he thought. But after a battle fought, he was still broke.

Great Peaceful Ocean (Taiheiyo) - the Pacific
Please say which route your PC takes back to Kofu (or wherever he's going).

[ffilz]

Hmm, shouldn't escape from the battle result in reasonable escape?

[jemmus]

We can do it that way if you guys want to just fast forward and get back to Kofu.

[ffilz]

We can do it that way if you guys want to just fast forward and get back to Kofu.

I'm not totally opposed to some role playing out the escape, I just want to make sure there isn't sort of a double whammy of the Defeated table and then having to role play out an escape.

As a ronin, Hiroshi is going to be both more invisible and more vulnerable. I assume he could melt into the mountains, but would be at risk of being labeled a bandit if spotted by any patrols (really either side).

[jemmus]

We wouldn't use the battle rules again. Just regular combat if there's an encounter. The risks of the long route is probably more chances of regular encounters. The short route risks less encounters, but with more NPCs on the other side. TBH I didn't plan this scene, just did it on the fly, I'm not too attached it to it. Initially it was just going to be for color, but I figured ending with options for the players is always good. If you guys want to just wrap the battle part up and skip back to the inn, we can do that.

[ffilz]

Could you refresh us with a map of the situation?

I don't think we need to wave our hands and be back on Kofu, some role play of getting back would be good, I was just raising the concern of a double whammy of rolling on the Defeated table and then still having to actually escape the situation. But there's a difference from "escaping the battle" and "getting where you want to be."

[Marullus]

I am fine with either.

Kentaro looks for the Minamoto general (check all the hollow trees!) and for Hiroshi before finding the road home.