Session 0: Arriving in Ashima Report

General Summary

Upon arrival at the capital city of Ashima, Seto explored the local market and found his way to a restaurant below an inn that was supposedly famous for its noodles and sake.
There he found a pixie named Mary busy looking over possible jobs that had been listed in town that week and discussing her plans with a warrior princess named Rei. Enthralled by the sword she had rested against the table, Seto snuck up and unsheathed the blade, much to the surprise of the Mary and Rei - who quickly confronted the panther. They soon learned that his intentions were merely those of appreciation for fine craftsmanship and invited him to join them.
Meanwhile, lurking in the shadows sat another figure by the name of Aien. He watched from his secluded corner table as the evening's events unfolded. Sitting at the bar with a group of geishas was a large battle-worn tortle, eating his tenth bowl of noodles that night. He paid the others no mind as the innkeep brought orders of sake and milk to the table where the pixie was now showing off her dwarven-made pistol.
Mistaking a shot of sake for her order of milk, Mary found her tiny pixie self suddenly witlessly drunk and making a scene in the tavern as a female satyr made her arrival, playing music strange to these lands on her pan flute. Astrea entered with just enough time to witness the pixie make a sudden winding flight towards what she thought was a restroom, but was rather the back of a very unamused tortle.
Vomiting down the back of his neck and into his shell, the pixie sobered up just as fast as she'd gotten drunk and tried her best to apologise to the creature standing before her. His response, however, was a swift sword hilt to the gut and a challenge to face him in the arena before heading towards the door.
Turns out he was known as Kameko the Immortal Tortle. The champion of the arena in Ashima. Unperturbed by this, Mary took cover underneath a table alongside Rei - who was trying her best not to break into a fit of laughter - as she fired her pistol into the tortle's shell, leaving only a scratch and enraging the creature even further. As he turned to face her, she sent a crossbow bolt into his chestplate, barely causing him to even flinch.
At this moment, when Kameko began marching towards the table, Seto stepped in to try and stop the fight. Appealing to Kameko's sense of honour and begging forgiveness for his new friend, the room stood silent before the tortle reached up, snapped the arrow from his chest and slammed his fist into a pillar holding up the building. The pillar splintered as the entire roof nearly collapsed before Kameko issued his final challenge to Mary, telling her to meet him in the arena when she was ready to face him. He would be waiting. And with that, he turned and left.
The innkeep was furious and began demanding payment for the repairs of his shop from everyone involved, which he claimed to be all the patrons still in the restaurant. While some tried to help and others claimed they had no involvement, a deal was eventually struck.
The party would take the job to escort the shogun's daughter to a shrine in the south. A job sure to pay handsomely. They would owe the shopkeep 250 gold and they would agree to use his tavern as their sponsor when competing in the great games. He may have phrased this in such a way that they thought they'd be getting free room and board for life, but you know how advertisers can be.
With that, he gave them each a room for the night and went back to his business. While most went to bed, Seto and Rei spent some time meditating on the rooftop, preparing for the adventures that lay ahead. The following morning as the group went about their morning rituals, Seto left to see what the blacksmith down the road was making. What he found outside were hundreds of townsfolk rushing towards the town centre in order to secure a good view of Lady Sumehime as she left for her annual visit to her mother's shrine.
Rushing back to the inn and waking Mary, reminding her how much coin was at stake to get the pixie to join him downstairs as the group quickly ate what they could and headed into the crowds. Following the pixie, the others pushed their way to the front of the crowd where they joined the queue of young warriors hoping to get the same job. Unluckily for them, the new arrivals drew the attention of the man doing the hiring, who promptly picked out the toughest and most versatile group he could.
And so the party was hired as not long after, a noble-looking woman adorned with ceremonial attire and a large horned headdress descended the temple stairs, climbing into the ox-drawn carriage. As the group began their journey out of town, through the crowds of people throwing offerings, rice and flower petals over their heads, Rei found herself convinced that they were escorting a demon.
Soon after leaving the town and entering the swampy marsh roads heading south, these concerns were shared amongst the group. After muffled sounds of frustration coming from inside the carriage, Mary decided to investigate. What she found was Lady Katsumi Kigako, who greeted the pixie by throwing several knives from a fan, narrowly missing Mary's head. As the pixie poked her head back inside and apologised for startling the girl, she suddenly found herself being invited in and asked to tell stories about her pixie life. Mary shared these stories passionately but soon found that she was telling them to a rather arrogant teenager who didn't seem to care at all. Instead, she decided to show her the pistol she carried. A decision she soon regretted as Lady Sumehime began waving it around through the carriage windows, asking how to make it work.
This alarmed the samurai outside who quickly opened the back doors of the carriage to find Mary snatching her gun back and explaining that it is not a toy. As Seto tried to apologise for the intrusion, Katsumi suddenly turned her attention to them, pouring over their strange new faces before letting them get back to their duties.
After admitting to Mary that she had some sort of secret love waiting for her in Taton and being brutally shamed for it, she kicked the pixie out and refused to speak with any of them further as they made their way into a Grung fishing village where they made camp for the night. During the night a few rumours were overheard about the spirits of dead samurai haunting the forests and the possible existence of swamp dragons. As morning broke, the party readied to journey into the Kawa rainforests.

Campaign

Kiga Shogunate

Protagonists

Seto

Level 9 Tabaxi Monk - Way of the Kensei

/ 66 HP

Astraea Karasu

Chaotic Neutral Thylean Satyr (Astraea) (Anhropologist)
Bard 13
Warlock 6

122 / 122 HP

STR
12

DEX
18

CON
14

INT
14

WIS
16

CHA
22

Aien

0 / HP

Player Journals

Escort of Princess Kitsumi by Astraea Karasu
Arriving in Ashima by Astraea Karasu

Report Date

17 Aug 2020