Scenario: As the city's bravest samurai stand ready on the walls to meet the enemy forces, the air above Friendship Street rips open, releasing a sinister crimson mist that spreads out to fill the streets below despite the falling rain. Two large, inhuman shapes drop from the portal, landing in the muddy streets below and shaking the ground from the impact.
They resemble nothing so much as large, bipedal lions, each wrapped in chitinous plates and with horns protruding from their heads. They each wield massive, wickedly jagged blades that glow with unnatural energy, and as they stand, their leathery lips pull back to reveal jagged fangs.
"Weaklings of Ningen-do!" one of them shouts, sweeping his sword and cutting down two heimin that were too terrified to flee. "Death has found you this day!"
Participants: Four characters, none of whom can have Glory higher than 3.0 (as those samurai are all preparing for the battle elsewhere).
Imperialist Victory: Defeat 2 Tsuno. Victorious characters at Crippled wound rank or above when the bulls are slain gain +1.0 Glory.
Imperialist Bonus: If both Tsuno are defeated before the end of the 8th round, the refugees watching the event rally to the defense of the city. Every character in this thread at Crippled wound rank or above can immediately make an Influence Roll, ignoring Wound Penalties, that results in triple the normal points.
Traditionalist Victory: All characters have fled or are at Down, Out, or dead wound ranks. The remaining Tsuno rampage through the city, indiscriminately slaughtering all they come across as they send the refugees into a panicked riot right at the city's heart. The Empire gains +30 Traditionalist Points.
Traditionalist Bonus: If both Tsuno are still alive when this event ends, the slaughter portal stabilizes above Nikesake. While too small to allow the Steel Chrysanthemum to call forth reinforcements from Toshigoku in any great numbers, the raw influence of the realm ends up suffusing the city, turning it into the City of Slaughter. The Empire gains +30 Traditionalist Points. Every character in the game gains the Brash disadvantage for as long as they remain within the city.
Rules: This is a combat thread. Characters should include their Initiative, Stance, and Armor TN in their first post; a character may not change their Stance on the first round of combat. If 30 minutes have passed since the last post and you do not show up as being online on the forum (and you have not contact the GM to let them know you are posting), your character’s actions will be ghosted by the GM to keep the event moving at a steady pace. Please do not join the thread if you cannot commit the time to finish it.
Every character has two rounds of prep time that they can use in their first post to cast spells that do not affect the enemy, activate kata, or so on.
All characters begin the battle 30 feet from the enemy. For the purposes of this event, every participating character is assumed to be in melee.
Characters may flee from the battle as a Complex Action, provided that they are physically capable of movement. Doing so removes them from the combat (and the thread) at the end of the current combat round. Fleeing characters lose Honor as appropriate. Characters with the Overconfident Disadvantage must pass a Perception Trait Roll (TN 20) before taking this action; if they fail, they must choose a different action and cannot further attempt to flee combat for any reason.
Fear 2: At the beginning of combat, each character must test against Fear 2 (Willpower TN 15, character may add their Honor Rank to the total; those who fail suffer -2k0 on their rolls, and those that fail by 15 or more flee from the encounter).
Screaming Mob: Every time a character in this thread misses an attack roll, their attack hits and kills one of the nearby refugees that is trying to escape from the Tsuno. This loss of life triggers the Soft-Hearted disadvantage.