A samurai story.
Jun 22, 2017 12:57:02 GMT -8
Post by SirGuido on Jun 22, 2017 12:57:02 GMT -8
This is a little bit about the best character I ever played.
It was in 1st Edition L5R, roughly 1998-99. I was hooked on this game and bought every single supplement that came out then read it cover to cover. I especially liked the flavor text and short stories. In one of the splat books(not sure which one but I think it was either Lion or Dragon), there is a story of one of the most memorable losses by an Akodo general.
Basically the story reads like this: Akodo generals rarely ever lose a battle. They are renowned for this. But there are a few on record. One of the most embarrassing losses came at the hands of the Togashi of the Dragon Clan. Akodo Meikuko, a great general in her time before this battle, was under the influence of one of the very evil Bloodswords and took incredible offense to a minor faux pas of a Togashi at court and dueled him. He lost, and died. In protest all of the Dragon clan emissaries left the capital city. Meikuko took this as a grave insult. She then immediately marched her army of 20,000 to the base of Togashi mountain, and stood siege there. In the ensuing battle she lost 18,000 of her soldiers and lost the battle. The battle ended when Meikuko committed seppukku at the gates of the castle. Over the many years since her death, her name became another way to say mistake. What a meikuko that was. The name was basically stricken from the minds of all others for many generations.
I decided I wanted a character that was a descendant of Meikuko, who wanted to restore the name to prominence. So came Akodo Meikuko the second. At her gempukku she shocked the attendees by choosing that name. However, she excelled in her training and got assigned as the Imperial Magistrate in the most crime ridden city in all of Rokugan. Ryoko Owari, the city of lies. She did pretty well in her time there. Stopped lots of crime, arrested and tried many gang leaders and her biggest victory was destroying the opium trade in the city. Once she arrested a man who was caught dealing opium she questioned him and used an eta to torture him in order to get the information she so desperately wanted. He gave up his supplier, and she went on the warpath. Breaking up dens, dealer networks, and taking everything right back to the fields where the poppies were grown. Hidden by tall wheat fields, a poppy farm was tucked out of the way in a nearby village. She went there, her yoriki(the party) in tow and burned down the fields.
For the first time in years, Ryoko Owari seemed cleaned up, lawful even. People started saying the name Meikuko with less distaste and sometimes even pride. The feeling had her on a high and she felt she could do no wrong. The Scorpion heads of the city sent assassins after her on many occasions, her and her yoriki stopped them each time. She had many security measures installed in their home. Nightingale floors so she could hear anyone creeping through the house in the dead of night. Nails and spikes driven into the ceiling timbers to prevent anyone from climbing them in an attempt to ambush from above. Dogs to patrol the perimeter of the compound. Even going so far as to replace the traditional paper shoji screens with actual timber framed walls. Spending nearly all of her stipend on the compound meant that it was safe. Or so she thought.
What she did not know, is that many many months prior the local opium cartel had installed a mole inside their compound. One of her yoriki was not who he seemed to be. So it was that one night, as she lay sleeping, a gang of roughly 10 men entered the house and went about quietly dispatching all of her yoriki(just putting them to sleep with poisons and such). They had come prepared for all of the security features thanks to the information passed along to them by their mole. They bypassed the Nightingale floors with long boards that spanned their length and went straight to her door. With thin hardened steel wires they lifted the latch on her door. They crept inside and she was fast asleep. That's when they sprung. A very short scuffle ensued where Meikuko was quickly overpowered and tied up. One of the men then used a strange device to blow smoke into her face. Breathing it in she felt... good. Tired, but good. And so relaxed.
She was taken to another location where she was tied to a post and tortured. Her cries went unheard because she was drugged with opium and gagged. After they tortured her, one of them men revealed his face to her. It was her yoriki. He smiled before slicing open her belly and watching her entrails spill on the ground before her.
The next day the city goers found her tied to the post just outside the city gates. Around her lay a mound of poppies, and written on a sign hanging from her neck were the words "She made her final mistake."
****
At the time I was incredibly pissed at my GM. I didn't mind the character dying. She had it coming, I knew that. I just didn't like how it happened. She had no chance to stop them, no way to fight back. When I asked about trying to wriggle out of the binds he just said it wouldn't work. He did give me the chance to hear their approach but my rolls weren't good enough. Now, so many years later I look back on that character as not only my favorite character but also my favorite character death. She was my favorite mostly because of the concept. There was a fire in her that pushed her to change how her ancestor was portrayed. To lift that stain from her clan. In a way, she succeeded in doing it, for a time. Then her actions came back to bite her, and bite her they did.
It was in 1st Edition L5R, roughly 1998-99. I was hooked on this game and bought every single supplement that came out then read it cover to cover. I especially liked the flavor text and short stories. In one of the splat books(not sure which one but I think it was either Lion or Dragon), there is a story of one of the most memorable losses by an Akodo general.
Basically the story reads like this: Akodo generals rarely ever lose a battle. They are renowned for this. But there are a few on record. One of the most embarrassing losses came at the hands of the Togashi of the Dragon Clan. Akodo Meikuko, a great general in her time before this battle, was under the influence of one of the very evil Bloodswords and took incredible offense to a minor faux pas of a Togashi at court and dueled him. He lost, and died. In protest all of the Dragon clan emissaries left the capital city. Meikuko took this as a grave insult. She then immediately marched her army of 20,000 to the base of Togashi mountain, and stood siege there. In the ensuing battle she lost 18,000 of her soldiers and lost the battle. The battle ended when Meikuko committed seppukku at the gates of the castle. Over the many years since her death, her name became another way to say mistake. What a meikuko that was. The name was basically stricken from the minds of all others for many generations.
I decided I wanted a character that was a descendant of Meikuko, who wanted to restore the name to prominence. So came Akodo Meikuko the second. At her gempukku she shocked the attendees by choosing that name. However, she excelled in her training and got assigned as the Imperial Magistrate in the most crime ridden city in all of Rokugan. Ryoko Owari, the city of lies. She did pretty well in her time there. Stopped lots of crime, arrested and tried many gang leaders and her biggest victory was destroying the opium trade in the city. Once she arrested a man who was caught dealing opium she questioned him and used an eta to torture him in order to get the information she so desperately wanted. He gave up his supplier, and she went on the warpath. Breaking up dens, dealer networks, and taking everything right back to the fields where the poppies were grown. Hidden by tall wheat fields, a poppy farm was tucked out of the way in a nearby village. She went there, her yoriki(the party) in tow and burned down the fields.
For the first time in years, Ryoko Owari seemed cleaned up, lawful even. People started saying the name Meikuko with less distaste and sometimes even pride. The feeling had her on a high and she felt she could do no wrong. The Scorpion heads of the city sent assassins after her on many occasions, her and her yoriki stopped them each time. She had many security measures installed in their home. Nightingale floors so she could hear anyone creeping through the house in the dead of night. Nails and spikes driven into the ceiling timbers to prevent anyone from climbing them in an attempt to ambush from above. Dogs to patrol the perimeter of the compound. Even going so far as to replace the traditional paper shoji screens with actual timber framed walls. Spending nearly all of her stipend on the compound meant that it was safe. Or so she thought.
What she did not know, is that many many months prior the local opium cartel had installed a mole inside their compound. One of her yoriki was not who he seemed to be. So it was that one night, as she lay sleeping, a gang of roughly 10 men entered the house and went about quietly dispatching all of her yoriki(just putting them to sleep with poisons and such). They had come prepared for all of the security features thanks to the information passed along to them by their mole. They bypassed the Nightingale floors with long boards that spanned their length and went straight to her door. With thin hardened steel wires they lifted the latch on her door. They crept inside and she was fast asleep. That's when they sprung. A very short scuffle ensued where Meikuko was quickly overpowered and tied up. One of the men then used a strange device to blow smoke into her face. Breathing it in she felt... good. Tired, but good. And so relaxed.
She was taken to another location where she was tied to a post and tortured. Her cries went unheard because she was drugged with opium and gagged. After they tortured her, one of them men revealed his face to her. It was her yoriki. He smiled before slicing open her belly and watching her entrails spill on the ground before her.
The next day the city goers found her tied to the post just outside the city gates. Around her lay a mound of poppies, and written on a sign hanging from her neck were the words "She made her final mistake."
****
At the time I was incredibly pissed at my GM. I didn't mind the character dying. She had it coming, I knew that. I just didn't like how it happened. She had no chance to stop them, no way to fight back. When I asked about trying to wriggle out of the binds he just said it wouldn't work. He did give me the chance to hear their approach but my rolls weren't good enough. Now, so many years later I look back on that character as not only my favorite character but also my favorite character death. She was my favorite mostly because of the concept. There was a fire in her that pushed her to change how her ancestor was portrayed. To lift that stain from her clan. In a way, she succeeded in doing it, for a time. Then her actions came back to bite her, and bite her they did.