Story Time

In absence of a sub-forum for it, I thought I'd make a story time thread. That is, a place to share ridiculous stories from RPGs we've been in. I'll start off with one.

The game was L5R, the weeaboo samurai RPG, played on IRC, and run by my best friend Liam. We were playing in an alternate 'Iron Empire' setting suggested in one of the books, in which rather than shunning firearms and gaijin, the empire retains a cordial but careful connection with the outside world, and the ramifications that come out of it.

In this timeline, the Empress wants to unite the empire with a railroad. The player characters are recruited by the head of the project (and my character's grandson) Kaiu Daigoro to help him on some management and administrative parts of it so he doesn't have to. The party is:

Me: The Crab. A Hida Bushi who plays with the stereotype. Rather than be loud, boisterous and rude, my character is quiet, well mannered and rude. Very strong ideas about bushido. Hates hypocrisy. That means most courtly samurai.

Rage: The Crane. A Doji trained in the Kakita Artisan school. Specializes in painting, poetry, and puppetry. Created a sophisticated woodcut technique that allows for reproduction of colored art, which was later adapted to create movable type (and accidentally public education). His work is popular with the peasantry due to his favorite subject matter: pornography.

Bennie: Another Crab. A Yasuki Merchant and a scoundrel if there ever was one. Despite being shamelessly money minded, she managed to greatly advance her status due to her performance at the marksman's gambit (a shooting competition created by the modernity-obsessed Empress). The reward for winning was dinner with the Empress and a boon. She ingratiated herself by being fluent in Merane, the language of the country where the Empress stayed as a child, and learned about foreign technology and ideas. Ended up creating a civil servant exam and many angry ex-civil servants.

Fact: The Phoenix. A Shiba Yojimbo of some breeding assigned to a Shugenja of little promise or note. Despite this raw deal, she served with quiet dignity, and made a name for herself due to her talents as an armor smith. While other great smiths have been able to create bulletproof armor, she managed to eventually create a process for mass producing bulletproof armor.


The story: So, a year after the beginning of the rail project, Daigoro sends the group to do a tour of the empire to evaluate the progress of the various clans. Most of this goes fairly smoothly, with a few hiccups here or there, but nothing out of bounds for a massive infrastructure project.

Then we get to Lion Clan lands, where it turns out that the rather that the project has been taken extremely seriously, with the Clan Champion being put in charge of the project. This is massive overkill. You just need a competent manager. The Lion see the military applications of a rail system, and have actually built twice the rail, so trains can be coming and going simultaneously.

The problem is, the Lion Clan Champion is a proud bastard and refuses to see what he sees as three uppity kids (and the Shiba, who is okay). He stonewalls for over a month, but the fact of the matter is, the survey that the party are doing is given by Daigoro, who is empowered with the authority of the Empress. So in the minds of the party, in particular my character, the Hida, their mission holds greater authority than the Clan Champion (Which the Champion knows on some level, but it makes him hate them all the more).

So after a month of stonewalling, the players hatch a plan. The Hida contacts the rail guard, a small army that was originally a core of bandits who were in the way of the project and were converted into the personal forces of Daigoro's project. Meanwhile, the Yasuki contacts her merchant friends. They are set to arrive in this small, well placed but not particularly important town on the periphery of Lion territory at the same time. Right before they arrive, the party goes to the estate where the Lion Champion is based at (when not on the field), and present the majordomo a flimsy pretext. The Lion Clan Champion has refused to meet an Imperial Delegation for a month. That cannot be the case, because he is Clearly An Honorable Man, and would never do such a thing. Ergo, he must be missing, and the majordomo is simply covering for it. They tell him not to worry, and that they will find the Champion for him.

Suddenly, the party have occupied a town in Lion Territory, with an army and a merchant infrastructure to support their presence for an indefinite period if time. While the Lion could easily dislodge them with their much larger army, that would involve the Champion admitting that he was personally outflanked strategically and militarily. FINE. The Champion goes un-missing and sits down with them, seething the whole time.

At the meeting, he is presented with a parade of indignities.

First, the Doji presents him with a beautiful scroll he has painted for him, depicting a mountain. At the top are Lord Moon and Lady Sun, then the kami who founded the clans, then the emperor/ess, then samurai, then peasants, then eta. It is basically an org chart. A reminder that YOU ARE HERE, and HERE is beneath imperial authority. Its a slap to the face. Also its extremely obvious that the mountain is a penis. So its a slap to the face with a dick.

Next, the Yasuki informed him that she had found a way for him to maintain face for having his town taken out from under his nose. Simply, the Lion Champion had most graciously ceded the use of the land back to the Empress, to be used and developed as a trade city, travel hub, and base of operations for the filthy bandits now known as the Rail Guard. In gratitude, the throne had agreed to reduce the Lion's taxes commensurately (specifically, commensurate to the value of the land's current assets, not the economic powerhouse that it would become as a result of this edict). While it would indeed save the Lion Champion face, it was still a raw deal. Unfortunately he could not renegotiate for better terms, because the Yasuki had already contacted the imperial bureaucracy she had helped restructure and arranged for the necessary documentation.

As an aside, the way she had done it was actually to have the throne acquire the land, but to then rent the land herself, using her own money and resources, for a 10 year period at a rate set at the same valuation as the Lion's taxes were being assessed. In essence, she was paying the taxes for a town but setting herself up to reap the income of a city.

Impotent and frustrated, the Champion now had to listen to what the Hida had to say.

The Hida, who was (thanks nepotism) the head of the delegation, reminded him that they were there to conduct a review of the Lion Clan's progress on the rail project. But, due to the unfortunate absence of the Champion, the delegation had conducted their own investigation and it was no longer necessary for the Champion to provide them a report. Instead, the Hida gave him a two word assessment:

'Well done.'

Which thanks to the Hida's polite but blunt delivery, sounded suspiciously like 'You did this to yourself.'

The party thanked him for his hospitality, and then left for the next clan's territory.

And thats' how the party (sans the Shiba) made an enemy for life.


As an aside, it turns out the Lion Clan Champion had not been an NPC, but rather was an IRL friend of myself and the GM who, after repeatedly turning down a spot in the game (because he doesn't like playing online), had agreed to do so in this capacity. I haven't seen or heard form him since. Oops.

 

Oh, man. So many stories. But my favorite short story was from when I realized that, in a Pathfinder game, "glibness" was super low-level as a bard spell compared to what it would have been as anything else, and the party's bard knew it, and I had a ring of spell storing.

Mouse: Hey, Summer, can you cast glibness into this ring for me?
Summer: Sure! [does so]
Mouse: [fidgets with ring]
Mouse: Hey, Summer, can you cast glibness into this ring for me?
Summer: Didn't I just do that?
Mouse: No. [rolling bluff at +50 or so]