The City of the Rich Frog is a powder keg! Blood has been spilled in the Lion Clan district, and the killer wears the flawless visage of the Crane samurai, Doji Kujaku. Outraged authorities demand immediate retribution, threatening an armed incursion into the Unicorn district where the real Kujaku currently shelters.

You must uncover the truth before the morning sun breaks the horizon. Your mission: prove that a shapeshifting Mischief Spirit from the realm of Sakkaku is the true culprit.
Will you be part of the courageous investigators?
Will you help uncover the truth?

Ground Rules for the Mission

The Golden Rule: Come prepared. Make sure you know exactly what your invocations, kata, and other techniques do, and that you understand the rules for them before the game begins. We won't have time to flip through scrolls while a shapeshifting spirit is on the loose!

1. Attendance & Sign-Ups

• The Grace Period: If you give advance warning that you're running late, you will be granted a 30-minute grace period. Failing to show up within those 30 minutes (or missing the event with no warning) means forfeiting your spot and taking a standard no-show penalty.

2. Pacing & Response Times

To maintain the thrilling momentum of a live event, players are expected to respond reasonably quickly.

• You have a 10-minute window to post your action.
• Exceeding 10 minutes without communication may lead to a forfeiture of your action.
• Need more time? Simply typing "I'm writing, give me a sec," asking a clarifying question, or communicating with the GM will instantly reset your timer.

The Clock is Ticking (5-Hour Real-Time Schedule)

This is a Momentum Challenge where every minute counts. We have a tight window to uncover the truth and find the Sakkaku Mischief Spirit before the Lion Clan insists on keeping Doji Kujaku imprisoned. The sun is rising, and the Lion's patience is razor-thin.

• Hour 1: The Bloody Wake. We set the scene, examine the aftermath of the murder, and pick up the trail.
• Hours 2 - 4: The Urban Chase. Track the entity's chaotic movements across the city districts. Survive the spirit's street-level ambushes and gather the necessary evidence to prove Doji Kujaku's innocence.
• Hour 5: The Fog of Blades. Corner the culprit in the misty alleyways.

In case we finish one part sooner than expected, we will move on to the next part sooner.

How We Play

To keep the pace electric, we’ll be using Initiative!

• Initiative: Roll Sentiment + Focus at the start to determine the turn order during the chase and the final confrontation.

Skills in Play

You’ll need to be versatile to navigate the city's tense political borders and uncover the truth. Expect to use:

• Medicine: To examine the fallen victims for supernatural traces, determine the exact cause of death, or patch up your fellow samurai during the frantic hunt.
• Theology: To commune with the city kami, track elusive spiritual scents, and understand the chaotic nature of the Mischief Spirit.
• Martial Arts (Melee/Unarmed/Ranged): To fend off the trickster's street-thug ambushes and strike true against its mocking mirror-illusions in the final showdown.
• Skulduggery: To navigate the seedy alleyways, bypass locked gates during the midnight chase, or anticipate the spirit's underhanded and deceptive tactics.
• Fitness: To sprint through crowded exotic markets, vault over district walls, and endure the grueling physical toll of hunting a tireless entity against a ticking clock.
• Tactics: To coordinate the cabal's movements, cut off the doppelgänger's escape routes, and outmaneuver it in the misty, narrow streets.
• Command: To direct local guards, organize your search grid efficiently, and keep the outraged Lion authorities from stepping out of line through sheer authoritative presence.
• Courtesy: To navigate the delicate jurisdictional standoff, placate the angry magistrates, and secure crucial cooperation without causing an inter-clan war.
• Culture: To identify the precise origin of the cursed porcelain mask fragment, or to understand the specific societal norms and laws the trickster is so blatantly mocking.

Choosing Your Approach

While every samurai must find their own path through the investigation, your primary success will hinge on how you apply the five elemental rings to the challenges ahead. Consider these approaches to navigate the night's chaos:

• Earth (Restore, Withstand, Recall, Reason, Produce): Bring grounding logic and unyielding resilience to a supernatural crisis. Use Earth to restore order to a panicked crowd, withstand the intense political pressure from the outraged Lion magistrates, recall specific historical lore about shapeshifting entities, reason through conflicting witness testimonies to find the truth, or produce a vital piece of physical evidence to delay the impending arrest.
• Water (Adapt, Shift, Survey, Charm, Exchange): Flow around obstacles and effortlessly read the shifting currents of the city. Use Water to adapt to the trickster's changing tactics during the midnight chase, shift your position to seamlessly cut off its escape routes, survey a chaotic crime scene for hidden traces of blood, charm nervous merchants into sharing what they saw, or subtly exchange favors with local guards to buy your cabal more time.
• Fire (Invent, Overwhelm, Theorize, Incite, Innovate): Bring the heat to both physical skirmishes and social standoffs. Use Fire to invent a makeshift trap for the entity on the fly, overwhelm the street thugs in a rapid and decisive clash, theorize where the spirit will strike next based on its twisted logic, incite a crowd to block the doppelgänger's path, or innovate a new application of your techniques to burn away the unnatural fog.
• Air (Refine, Feint, Analyze, Trick, Con): Move unseen, strike swiftly, and outsmart your otherworldly foe. Use Air to refine your diplomatic arguments to appease the Lion authorities, feint during combat to expose the vulnerabilities in the mirror-illusions, analyze the doppelgänger's fighting stance to separate the true Crane style from the imitation, trick the entity into a dead-end alleyway, or con a secretive artisan into giving up the mask's origin.
• Void (Attune, Sacrifice, Sense, Enlighten, Subsist): Connect with the unseen spiritual realm and endure the impossible. Use Void to attune to the local kami to track the entity's lingering scent, sacrifice your own social standing or physical safety to protect the innocent Doji Kujaku, sense the subtle wrongness hiding beneath the spirit's flawless disguise, enlighten your allies with a sudden, crucial epiphany, or subsist through the grueling, exhaustive toll of a desperate midnight hunt without faltering.