Despair and Wisdom: Imperial March

Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5lWY-OE89A


The press against the opposing army can only extend so far past the Wall. Other forces rally, and battle is rejoined…

PCs may each work to grind down the enemy force, taking one of three options to do so.

In the first, they may simply assault the enemy army, making a TN 3 Tactics check to inflict casualties equal to their ranks in Command plus their bonus successes. They do suffer counter-attack, however, repeating the roll and applying similar casualties to the Legion. The Legion earns Momentum equal to the amount by which the casualties the Legion inflicts exceed those it sustains (i.e., the number of successes by which the Legion exceeds the successes of the enemy).

For clarity, if you spend Void on this, the enemy does not. Just the same Ring and Skill, please.

In the second, a PC may make a targeted strike against a prominent member of the opposing force. This is mechanically equivalent to issuing a Challenge (Core 278); the challenge will be accepted by a goblin warrior:

Warrior Goblin

Earth 2 Water 1 Fire 3 Air 2 Void 1
Artisan 0 Marital 3 Scholar 0 Social 2 Trade 1
Endurance 10 Composure 6 Focus 5 Vigilance 2

Advantage: Fearsome Presence (Fire, Social, Interpersonal)
Disadvantage: Quick to Anger (Fire, Social, Interpersonal)

Gear:
Small yari: Range 1, Damage 5, Deadliness 3, Wargear
Small yumi: Range 2-3, Damage 4, Deadliness 3
Gear: Scavenged ashigaru Armor (Physical 3)

Clarification: If you win this challenge, you get to add momentum equal to your focus to the event.
If you lose this challenge, your character is killed and unable to further participate in the game.

In the third, a PC who can perform Invocations may attempt one against the advancing force. Perform the Invocation as normal; success generates Momentum, and inflicts EITHER Attrition OR Panic on the enemy army (as the player chooses), equal to the Rank of the Invocation.

Do note, however, that Spiritual Backlash carries particular dangers within the Shadowlands. In addition to the regular effects of Backlash (Core 190), characters receive a Shadowlands Taint Adversity related to the Ring used to perform the Invocation for every 3 Strife past the Backlash (i.e., 3 Strife causes Backlash, while 6 Strife awards a Shadowlands Taint Adversity). Failing to perform the Invocation also awards a Shadowlands Taint Adversity related to the Ring used with the Invocation.

The kansen do not play fair.

Jade Strike, Essence of Jade, and Tomb of Jade, for obvious reasons, do not incur the particular dangers, although they may still trigger Backlash as normal.

Please note that, due to this being an action of armies, the Invocation does not benefit from bonus successes.

Owing to Dangerous Terrain (Core 267), PCs take Fatigue equal to the Strife showing on their kept dice. Owing to Obscuring Terrain (Core 267), visibility is limited to Range 2 (TN adjustment is already factored into rolls for this event).

This Stage is successfully completed once the Legion earns 9 Momentum, not cumulative with earlier stages.

Yoshi goes to rally and finds...he's just got nothing left in him. "Guys let's-" He wheezes as he goes to steady himself. "You all did good. Fortify your position as best you can, the others can push from here."

He offers a beachhead, but can't push any further.

________
D8 Battle - Stage 3 - Tactics counterattack action - Void/Tactics - VP spent | TN: 3 | Success: 0 / Opportunity: 3 / Strife: 1


D8 Battle - Stage 3 - Tactics counterattack action - Void/Tactics - VP spent | TN: 3 | Success: 0 / Opportunity: 3 / Strife: 1


No change in Momentum
Trained Tactics Assist passed on
Yoshi designates Air ring by spending Void opportunity

Mukai charges into battle against one of their foes her bow at the ready.

D8, Stage 3: Initiative - Tactics/Fire | TN: 1 | Success: 4 / Opportunity: 0 / Strife: 2


Not a single opportunity, dang, but at least a good Initiative - Focus 5 + 1 + 3 Bonus Successes = 9

2 Strife (2/12) and thus 2 Fatigue soaked by armor (0/12)

Beginning at Range 2 if allowed.

The fight was on!

Kasuga Yoshi wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 02, 2024 2:51 am

Yoshi goes to rally and finds...he's just got nothing left in him. "Guys let's-" He wheezes as he goes to steady himself. "You all did good. Fortify your position as best you can, the others can push from here."

He offers a beachhead, but can't push any further.

And it is then that Hametsu's band of Matsu appears, slowly cutting its way across the battlefield to rest a moment behind Yoshi's shield. Hametsu, somehow still clean from the waist up, though he had waded through a sea of dead and dying goblins to get here, gave Yoshi a small smile as he leaned on his yari's shaft for a moment. Then, rejuvenated, he turned to his unit.

"Let us not let Kasuga-san's efforts go to waste. Let us wash our swords in the river."

And the Matsu grinned. And the battle was rejoined.


Session 6 Combat, Stage 3: Tactics/Water. Skilled assist from Kasuga Yoshi. Void spent | TN: 3 | Success: 6 / Opportunity: 1 / Strife: 5


Spending Water opportunity to reduce strife to 3. Hametsu's total strife: 4
Casualties inflicted: 6

Return strike incoming.

Session 6 Combat, Stage 3 backtalk from the gobboes | TN: 3 | Success: 4 / Opportunity: 0 / Strife: 2


It seemed that not all the Matsu would be returning with the Legion. But the determined crew did make it to the riverside, where, at Hametsu's quiet request, they covered each other while each man in turn made themselves look presentable.

+2 Legion momentum.

Edogawa had noticed something about the battlefield earlier, a narrow point where the goblins would be unable to assault the defenders easily. He directed those able to assault the enemy and draw them there.

Stage 3: Resist the Second Assault, Stage 3: Resist the Second Assault, Slippery Manuevers to Support, Command (Water) | TN: 2 | Success: 2 / Opportunity: 1 / Strife: 2

The next attempt to assault the enemy with Tactics may increase the Counter Attack TN to 4.

Opportunity used to reduce Strife by 2.

Mukai is victorious bringing the Legion to 7/9 momentum needed to advance!

Moving beyond the wall is so much worse than Mari expected. Bandit hunting looked organized and tidy next to this, and there's noplace to look that doesn't hold some sort of twisted horror. She'd expected to spend most of her time patching people up so they could fight just a bit longer, but finds herself instead calling on the protection of the earth kami, desperate to keep something between her and that three-tongued, three-eyed cross between snake and spider over there.

********************
Day 8, Stage 3: Jade Strike, Void used, Superstition activates, school technique to reduce TN | TN: 1 | Success: 3 / Opportunity: 0 / Strife: 0


+1 Momentum (running total 8/9)
Inflicting 1 panic on the enemy army

No strife on dice, so none from terrain, but +3 strife for Superstition

Strife: 3/10

Having just had a wonderful time killing a particularly inept goblin, Kaigen found himself in the company of other Second Kaisha infantry-

The Afterthoughts, when people were being blunt, the Foot Scouts, when they were being polite, and, in this precise moment...

"Come on you bastards, we didn't march all the way down here just to let these fuckers push us back! They're nearly broken! Try and hit that flank!"

Bastards, apparently.

The lightly-armored and mobile skrimishers of the Second Kaisha might not have had the iron-fisted punch of some of the other units, but they had a certain scrappy malice to them.

The Bastards of the Second Kaisha hit the wavering flank less like a hammer than like a dagger, slicing in, and then falling back with alarming speed- and leaving no man behind.


4/12 Endurance, Composure 6/12

Battle Stage 3, Lead an Assault- Water/Tactics, TN3, Seize the Moment | TN: 3 | Success: 5 / Opportunity: 1 / Strife: 5
-
+5 Strife, +5 Fatigue thanks to circumstances. Water opp to remove two strife...

Inflicts two casualties, 'cause somebody has no ranks in Command!

Kaigen is now at 9/12 Endurance, 8/12 Composure


The enemy gets to hit us back, how is that fair? Water plus Tactics TN 3 | TN: 3 | Success: 3 / Opportunity: 2 / Strife: 1


The Legion suffers... Zero casualties

+2 Momentum, stage cleared.

Stage indeed cleared!