Brass Bricks

Time marches on. Here are the events of the past several months, from March 1550 to June 1550, covering things from a group perspective:

MARCH 1550 was relatively uneventful, fortunately. Harushige the Onmyoji was kept quite busy the first month, cleansing each building in turn of malign influences and marking the lines of the village boundary. He then established the “snake wards”, intended to keep the island’s many small vipers at bay. There were a few encounters with angry spirits, but none presented much danger to Harushige.

After Satoshi and Rinzan returned from Kyushu with the first group of laborers, improvements were immediately started on the palisade and the manor house. The first laborers were led by Satoshi’s “cousin” named Goemon. His crew of twenty was a mix of common laborers and a few unsavory looking fellows. Nevertheless, offered high pay and threatened only one time by Gentaro, they have been hard workers. Once the manor palisade was done, efforts were turned towards pulling down the old ruined houses and tidying the place up. Most of the rubble was burned or sorted into useful scraps, and the first worker’s barracks were built.

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APRIL 1550 was considerably more active. The first boat to arrive was from Yamaguchi, bearing the PC’s personal attendants, along with most of the PC’s belongings. With them came a Mori samurai named Gozen Masayuki, a bureaucrat carrying some additional funds. This man was sent directly by Mori Sadahiro to keep an eye on things and ensure that things proceeded smoothly. Needless to say, his arrival was neither expected nor particularly welcome, but he is a skilled paper-pusher. Some days later, a large group of workers arrived from Kyushu in three boats, this time led by another “cousin” named Zenbei. This was a mixed group of laborers and their families, roughly 50 in all.

The new arrivals reported being harassed by a pirate boat about a day out. The village immediately went on alert, and a patrol was sent out to the old pirate camp on the north of the island. It confirmed that a large group of pirates was indeed in the area. Within a week, a pirate band had massed on the island and marched directly to the village, numbering in the dozens. The pirates, expecting to find only a village of fishermen, were extremely surprised to encounter armored samurai and commoner spearmen. The majority of the pirates were slain in the short, bloody engagement, while a dozen or so fled into the wilderness. The Europeans acquitted themselves well in the battle, defending themselves from a group of pirates that had broken into the manor house. Two of them then joined in the larger fray outside. Don Estevam slew two men by himself, and Moritz Weitzel killed at least five men with his clumsy-looking broadsword. Both men are plainly formidable individuals. The PC’s made a followup raid on the “pirate camp” and found it hastily deserted. Most everyone suffered various minor wounds, and a few of the villagers were hurt pretty badly, but nobody was killed. After the battle, the laborers were much more deferential to the PC samurai, even the “gamblers” and yakuza among them. The dead pirates left behind a small pile of cheap but servicable weaponry, enough to outfit a small village militia when necessary.

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MAY 1550 saw no further issues with pirates. In early May, the latest flotilla arrived, this time consisting of several boats loaded with fisherman, laborers, a few skilled craftsmen, and Satoshi’s “Uncle” Takeo. Takeo claimed that the Ryuzoji Clan had persecuted him so badly, thanks in part due to Satoshi’s visit, that he had to flee with his family and followers in tow. Accepting whatever conditions the PC’s thought to require of him, the garrulous merchant quickly established an “Inn” in the center of town, complete with bar and brothel, as well as a small general store with over-priced luxury goods for the workers. This quickly became the social center of the village, which now numbered over a hundred laborers and their families. These additional hands were quickly put to work, and the village finally acquired it’s present layout, including the low berm surrounding it.

Tragedy struck when two drunken laborers wandered across the bridge one evening, and blundered into the home of the old woman called “Grandmother”. They eventually grew bored by her insane shrieks and cackles, and wandered back home. Before they could make it back across the bridge, both men were bitten by snakes. Both died within two days and were buried in the new cemetery. Akihiro and Gentaro went to the hut the next day and formally apologized for the intrusion. After they returned safely, an enchanted rope barrier was strung across the bridge by Harushige, and the villagers were forbidden to go beyond it. Seeing that even the mighty samurai were being respectful and wary of the old crone, the villagers have since heeded this command. They have gotten into the practice of leaving small offerings of food and sake on the bridge once a week - the next morning they are always gone, and no one has been bitten by snakes since then.

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JUNE 1550 With the village finally up and running, the Europeans produced their design for the new ship. It would use European lines, with East Asian styled rigging, and be equipped to carry nearly two dozen cannon. A lot of time was spent attempting to translate these plans into something the Japanese workers could manage - in fact, one attempt to lay the keel was aborted when it was discovered that irreparable errors in translation had occurred. A second attempt has been more successful. The keel and ribs of the ship have been completed to everyone’s satisfaction, and the construction of the hull is well underway. Don Joaquin assures you that it should be seaworthy by summer’s end.

It is now the middle of June 1550, nearing the full moon.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 4:33 pm and is filed under RPG - Role Playing Games, RPG - Warring States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.