Warning: If you find anything triggering, you're well advised to stop reading now.
The first session of the Wolf&Dragon campaign began with me playing Wang, a scholar-warrior. A brief
list of his accomplishments - actually what happened in earlier sessions
- would include the following (I'm summarizing in bullet form):
*He was found out by Wolf after his village got destroyed by demons.
Yes, that same Wolf, the head of the Jing family, The Wizard from Fu's
Adventures. In fact, if you're wondering, the whole game is named "Wolf
and Dragon" after him and his brother, White Dragon, also known as "the
BBEG of the setting"...
*He helped the Wolf to destroy the demon. His combat abilities are
negligible next to Wolf's and his children's, but he had one great
advantage he capitalized on: Everybody knows them, nobody knew him.
*Important: Wolf's daughter, Jing Xiaomei, used the demon's essence to
create a magic spell that existed in the rules already, but was unknown
in the setting: Transport. So, only the Jing family have Transport now,
which is a huge advantage!
*He infiltrated corrupt nobles' organisation, corrupt cult of the
Ming sorcerers, and destroyed the organisation that was feeding them
sacrificial victims and sextoys for their parties. Yes, it's that kind of parties.
*As a consequence, and to facilitate said infiltration, Wolf arranged for a really corrupt noble (hints were made that he was a serial killer, and that he would never have another scion because he murders all family, and that Wolf has "exiled" him as a last resort to stop the murders, with a "last warning") to adopt Wang!
*So now Wang is
actually carrying the family name Li, I think (I need to double-check
the name). And he actually has a noble lineage. That is going to be mightily important...
*In the process, Wang managed to borrow money from Wolf to create his
own establishment - actually a bordello - in a distant resort. He's also
got an entourage, consisting mostly of former victims of the
aforementioned organisation. Actually, the staff in his establishment
also consists of them, he's just offering them better pay, and what we'd
call health-and-retirement plans.
Mind you, Wolf gave them other
offers, too. Wang only took those that liked the idea. (He's not like
Hoi, let's leave it at this).
*The head of his establishment is a sorceress who used to help providing victims for the afforementioned villains. She has received mental orders (by Wolf) to reject her evil ways, and a
clear warning that if she ever breaks through, the delayed punishment
for her crimes would catch up to her, with interests.
Since she saw Wolf
punishing those that were seen as "beyond hope for redemption" by
turning them into fishes and throwing them in the sea, I think she's not
going to err from the mostly-righteous path of being a productive
member of society!
*Part of Wang's entourage are a hulking big guy who keeps teaching him
Spiraling Wind Storm, the style his late teacher had begun instructing
him in, and a nice middle-aged female bodyguard with a sense of duty. Wolf liked them both, after Wang hired them as part of his cover as "rich fratboy", and now the sorcerer used them as his envoys for a time.
I've offered
them work in my establishment, not sure whether they've taken me on it
(I haven't been there in a while, though).
*In the process, Wolf managed to save the young emperor. Then, in a
daring operation, we also half-kidnapped, half-evacuated his
half-brother, who actually looks so much like the emperor, it's hard to
tell them apart! The two look and behave like twins. The plot of the
Evil Eunuch Minister (mandatory for the genre, IMO) was to exchange them
and to rule through the half-brother.
*Now that this plan is foiled, the two are somewhere else. Wang doesn't know where, and actually insisted on not knowing.
He doesn't believe himself to be a hero that's able to resist torture, so he doesn't want to know something as important.
*After the demon got destroyed, Wang hooked up with Wolf's youngest daughter, called Young She-Wolf. Since Wolf is actually 200 yo at this stage (he rejuvenates with demon-extracted pills and special exercises, which are implied to be of a tantric nature), she's got a niece who's older than her. She is on the younger side, meaning "about the age when she is of age to start a family".
As far as Wang's concerned, she's sexy and nice. She's also no-nonsense, not caring about other people's opinion, and has been brought up mostly by her mother, a high-level military official on active duty, until the mother's death... and probably as a consequence of that, she's adventurous enough. Though he also knows that she hasn't had other adventures of a sexual nature before, meaning she can also exercise restraint!
Thus, he is interested in her, but doesn't make long-term plans. I mean, he's been told Wolf doesn't make plans about his daughters' marriages, and leaves them plenty of personal freedom even by today's standards (though he also expects them to be available to help him), but he's not sure either that she entertains such prospects about him - and doesn't want to be rejected! Besides, he's not sure that he wants to settle, either, at least not yet. There's so much of the world to see and he wants to see it!
Though it might be nice if he could see it with her at his side...
- Fun fact, they were actually introduced by Black Fox, who believed
Wang would be a good influence on his sister and "possibly prevent her
from much heavier mistakes", IIRC. So he mostly keeps on the good side
of her family: Jing the Elder believes him to be a competent young man
with good prospects, and Jing Xiaomei, her (much older and menacing)
sister came to consider him a competent young man who's mostly tempering
her 10-minutes-younger brother's natural propensity to get involved in
trouble!
Yes, shipping is part of this game, a lot - actually to an extent that I'm going to mostly omit (you can thank me later).
-Fun fact, Young She-Wolf (YSW, what kind of abbreviation is YSW?!?) is
actually a very skilled practitioner of Wang's style, Spiraling Wind's
Storm. That was the pretext Black Fox used to introduce them: he
literally invited her to give Wang a lesson. She was happy to oblige. So
he is actually learning from her the style her mother taught her.
-Importantly, Wang doesn't see himself as serving Wolf any more. He has
only gratitude for the man, but he kinda dreads the idea of becoming
Wolf's son-in-law, and he believes that his help is also payment for
Wolf and the Two Foxes destroying the demon and capturing its essence!
Amusingly, for all of said campaign that you can see - Fu and Hoi are the newer characters - Wang is very
nearly a starting character mechanically. No, I'm not joking. He got
almost no XP, and I probably wasted half of what he got by forgetting to
write it down. Hey, it still worked out!
But it also means he's worse-off in the fighting department than Fu.
Keep in mind, he's also much less likely to actually fight...
-Thus the adventure had already begun with Wang, YSW, her brother and Black Fox riding away to "see how the land fares and help
the common people". Actually, it was a mutual decision that we didn't
want to participate in organizing Wolf's (latest) wedding, and wanted a
holiday, dammit! See the above list of stuff? Wang honestly wanted some
rest and happy times with YSW!
White Fox (not Silver, she is actually cultivating an ominous image)
Jing Xiaomei suspected as much, but since she can't stop us, she let us
go, hoping we'd end up being good influence on him...
- We ended up finding a village where people were feeling really, really
unhappy from the district magistrates. And I do mean the "better to
tangle with a robber than with a magistrate's relative: both would rob
you, but the robber you're allowed to defend against" was a feeling that
was expressed!
Even worse, there were clans of those people. And they were
interconnected, and using both hired muscle and the local militia -
which is supposed to keep the order - to enforce their will and
interests.
Of course, we decided that this can't stand. Wang and Black Fox started a
campaign of Black PR where the better scholar (not Wang,
he was just a student - Black Fox had passed the exams with flying
colours decades ago) wrote a dirty song about the local magistrate
integrity. Comparisons with an eunuch-like virility, and mentions of his
marital fidelity and goats also went into the mix.
The goal was to make it catchy above all, and people were singing it in no time...
-Then, after investigating for inns where the people really dislike the
authorities, and going to drink in one of those, we also heard that
there was a group of criminals that visited the local officials at night
and delivered bodily punishments, along with warnings to stop bothering
the locals.
Wang and Black Fox (YSW had retired early to our chambers, deciding to
let them do some manly bonding) decided we need to do likewise, and if
possible, meet those guys who didn't label themselves freedom fighters,
but were this for all intents and purposes.
We also identified one local who seemed to know the most about the
secretive group. Almost suspiciously so, in fact, as Wang believed. So
of course, Wang asked that specific guy who the most vile official
was...and later told the two half-siblings that we should go visit that
specific official this very night!
We encountered the group (what a coincidence, almost as if they also
believed that's the nastiest official!), and told them we're here for
the same thing. We delivered the stern warning together and we expressed
interest in meeting them. They offered to take us to their leader, on
the condition that they bind our eyes. YSW isn't too worried, she knows
perfectly well how to fight without looking, and Wang isn't worried
either, he believes he's safer with these people than with the local
officials.
This is where the session actually begun.
But that's a different story and shall be told next time.
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