Qin - Tianxia

On Saturday, June 16, 2007, eleven and a half years ago, we ran the sixth session of our Tianxia campaign for Qin, les royaumes combattants. On November 23, 2015, more than three years ago, I claimed I would start dusting off our old adventures for the now venerable ancient China role-playing game's anniversary. On September 16, 2016, two and a half years ago, I posted the summary of our campaign's fifth session. This one was only truly finalized today. God, that is long! On the heels of it, I finally offer you the summary of our sixth session, the one where Snowflake and Sun Keng Wai finally make their entrance!

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Characters present

• Cheng Minh, the Snake
• Liu Mei Shan
• Tian Zaisheng
• Sun Keng Wai
• Zhang Wulin, Snowflake

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Preamble

Following a chase through the desert, Tian Zaisheng, the Snake and Liu Mei Shan reach the renegade soldiers' camp; the latter are holed up in a disused fort. Cheng Minh is getting ready to enter the fort to save the princess held prisoner, despite his usual reluctance to sacrifice himself for the common good.

Under the orders of the head of Yanshan's garrison, a soldier of the Zhao was following them closely. This Soldier is Sun Keng Wai, a young novice who hardly enjoys his current post in the army. He discovers that a resident of Yanshan had secretly followed him; "Snowflake", worried about her hometown, had taken it upon herself to meddle in the affairs of grown-ups. On the way, they run into Guo Ts'ai-Ja, who is looking for reinforcements.

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The session

The time for deliberation is over. Cheng Minh warns his teammates that in case of a problem, he will shoot one or two arrows into the sky to warn them. However, the group was neglecting one detail: Minh does not know how to shoot a bow...

Nimble as usual, the Snake infiltrates the base. He climbs the walls, takes good care not to be spotted by the sentinel and reaches the top of the "keep" overlooking the fort. There, he assassinates a soldier, then goes down the stairs to discover that the room below is far too guarded to attempt anything: four guards and their commander watch over a bamboo cage, in which sits a young (and beautiful, needless to say) maiden. Cheng Minh then decides to feint: he backtracks to the wall and reaches the roof of a small warehouse. There, he starts a fire, hoping that part of the guards will leave the room where the one he identifies as Xoa is locked up. The operation is a success; two guards leave the keep and help their comrades control the flames. The minutes are counted, so the Snake enters the keep, discreetly climbs the cage under the soldiers' noses and beards and frees the beautiful damsel in distress... until he suffers a flying guillotine blow from the commander, who was feigning not to see him.

The problems begin. Cheng Minh climbs the keep's steps with Xoa on his shoulders. At the top, he prepares to descend the eight meters separating him from freedom with a sturdy rope. For their part, Liu Mei Shan and Tian Zaisheng, worried about their friend, have moved closer to the fort with their mounts. Quick as the wind, they catch Cheng Minh and the princess on the fly before returning to hide in the woods.

Arriving on the scene, Sun Keng Wai, Snowflake and Guo Ts'ai-Ja feel a bit lost; they only see a band of Xiongnus setting fire to a distant fort, volley after volley of flaming arrows. Candidly, the young girl questions them; it would seem her "friends" are in the fort. Fearless, Snowflake carves a long piece of bamboo and charges towards the fort. The Xiongnus accompany her, while soldier Sun posts himself in ambush in the forest, ready to loose an arrow, and Guo Ts'ai-Ja tries to spot signs of his employers around the fort.

With her piercing eyes, Liu Mei Shan understands that her allies are about to attack. She yells "retreat" as loud as she can to spare them a futile assault, since the princess is already in their hands. Disciplined, the Xiongnus fall back, but Snowflake keeps advancing and tries to take cover near the fort's walls. Without hesitation, the soldiers shoot in her direction: the first crossbowman hits his target perfectly, while the second, hesitant and not clear-headed, tries to set his bolt on fire... and sets fire to the fortification's gate in the process. It is a rout: the soldiers go back down into the enclosure, Snowflake takes shelter against the walls, and master Tian, chivalrous, comes to her aid on horseback. Through an unfortunate twist of fate the Mohist knows all too well, he loses control of his mount, which, in a panic, gallops towards the burning gate. At the last moment, it balks, overthrows its rider and runs away. Another horse lost for Zaisheng! Taking advantage of the soldiers being busy extinguishing the flames, Snowflake and he return to their allies.

With this rescue mission crowned with success, the Xiongnu chief wishes to return to his tribe - the Desert Falcons - and invites our heroes to join the group. An invitation one does not refuse. The journey gives Xoa the opportunity to tell them that the kidnappers are in fact tied to Qin: this whole affair is nothing but a plot by the western kingdom to sow trouble between the Zhao and the Xiongnu, in order to facilitate a possible attack.

At the tribe's camp, the group takes the measure of the Desert Falcons: yurts as far as the eye can see shelter hundreds, maybe thousands of souls. The young Xiongnu chief who led them here introduces the adventurers to the clan's Chanyu, his own father. Chagork, his personal name, embodies the very cliché of the Xiongnu chief. Rough, intractable, but fair and magnanimous, he thanks the strangers for taking part in his daughter's rescue, but quickly declares he will not accept that such an affront go unpunished. He demands that the traitor who ordered this kidnapping be put to death, as proof of the Zhao's good faith. Unable to refuse, our heroes are however invited to take the necessary rest before leaving to accomplish this new mission. Cheng Minh and Snowflake are healed; soldier Sun tries to seduce a few young women: Tian Zaisheng learns more about the Xiongnu art of war and offers a few Go games to Chagork; Liu Mei Shan, for her part, learns that the young chief is called Sargaï and that he has received his father's grace to accompany them on their mission.

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Quite ready to head back towards Yanshan, the heroes, led by Sargaï, quickly cross the desert and find their "city". On location, Wan Yei, the garrison's head, tells them that fighting broke out in the south; Qin has attacked. The bulk of Yanshan's soldiers has been mobilized, and soldier Sun is part of the next wave to leave. The other group members fully intend to accompany him; they spend one last night there before traveling to the border between Qin and the Zhao. When, after a few days of travel, they reach the Zhao's General Staff, the conflict's scale proves superior to their expectations: the front stretches over a hundred kilometers. Qin's army has pulled out all the stops to secure victory. Commanded by general Fan Yuqi, it is based in Quzhi, a border city. Soldier Sun's superiors wish to integrate him into the scouts, but Tian Zaisheng interferes and convinces the General Staff to send him as a spy with the rest of the group; he will be able to provide the army with valuable information from inside Quzhi itself.

The heroes manage to reach the enemy stronghold without a hitch by going around the front, although the detour costs them a few extra days of travel. The city is a masterpiece of organization, as one only finds in Qin: ten-meter walls, fortified districts, easy to lock down in case of invasion, well-trained troops and legislation applied to the letter. Tian Zaisheng is breathless. Redirected to a scribe by the guards at the city's entrance, the Wuxia suffer the intransigence of Qin's laws when their weapons are seized - no citizen has the right to any within Quzhi. A waiver valid for one day however gives them the possibility to keep a single weapon in their luggage until they find a place to lodge. In this case, their choice settles on "the Hospitality of the Steppes", an inn run by a Xiongnu matron who gives them good prices when she realizes a compatriot is among them. There, our daring heroes blend into the crowd and try to learn more about the events.

• Sun Keng Wai tries to seduce the city's women to obtain confidences from them on the pillow. Unfortunately, his a bit too direct attitude tends to make his plans fail - indeed, the overwhelming majority of the city's fair sex is already married, which makes the "in-your-face" approach a bit less effective than with singles.
• Along the same lines, Liu Mei Shan performs her seduction number on a city official, on a break in an inn. She manages to draw her target's interest and gleans that the city's magistrate would not be very satisfied with his situation.
• The Snake disguises himself as a merchant and tries to pass unnoticed in the trade district. Where merchants usually teach him little, a scribe by the name of Perceptive-Brush gives him a few revealing hints: one of the king's half-brothers, prince Cheng Jiao, recently took command of the city. Some murmur that he is in charge of the operation aimed at conquering the Zhao. Unfortunately, this famous prince is hard to reach following a recent assassination attempt. When Perceptive-Brush asks to know his interlocutor's lodging before the conversation ends, Cheng Minh gives him the address of an inn neighboring the Hospitality of the Steppes. He then takes a room there to make sure he can be reached, should the need arise.
• Tian Zaisheng and Snowflake bet on the soldiers. They head to an inn reputed to be frequented by that ilk, but are hailed on the way by a most strange spectacle: in the middle of an alley, a trembling young disciple, apparently having been roughed up, scrutinizes the passers-by with a funny look. Master Tian also spots an old man, visibly a master, sitting on a public bench not far away; he attentively observes his disciple. Suddenly, the latter hails Zaisheng without conviction, insulting him with his all-relative creativity. Placid, the Mohist takes it without flinching. After a few streams of clumsy insults from the disciple, the old man rises and puts an end to the masquerade: he apologizes to Tian Zaisheng and reveals that this was a test. Indeed, a foreigner from a distant land insults Qin's culture, or even that of the whole Zhongguo. Failing to know whether the impudent one is of any value to his own people, the magistrates refrain from imprisoning him, all the more so as his attacks do not constitute, in themselves, an offense punishable by Law. Be that as it may, nobody has yet managed to keep their cool before such nerve, while an impartial and honorable philosophical duel is supposed to be held tomorrow to verify the merits of these reproaches. By virtue of his imperturbable calm, Tian Zaisheng is cordially summoned to defend the Zhongguo's culture in this merciless confrontation from which will flow the honor - or the shame - of Qin. Our hero takes up the challenge, is thanked, and then continues on his way towards the inn. There, the two Wuxia learn that a lieutenant was recently demoted for having failed a reconnaissance mission in the Zhao. Making the connection with the individual confronted in the fort, they fully intend to question him to trace the kidnapping's mastermind.

At night, the adventurers gather at the inn. Much information, little time to digest it: odds are their reconnaissance is far from over.

What will the demoted lieutenant teach them? How to reach Prince Cheng Jiao? Will they really have to kill him to settle this affair? Will Tian Zaisheng be up to his adversary? The players will try to answer all these questions during the next session of Qin.

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