TTJP - Season 1, session 3 - The Vampires that go Poof!

Note: I did not report on Session 2 because I was dealing with a death in the family and simply not up to it. Its been several weeks though and I'm coping better, so here is Session 3 of Ten Thousand Jade Petals!

Session 2 Recap

We had come across a town beset by plaque and mass deaths a month before that due to flooding.
An Rang adeptly handled healing the town from what was determined to be a negative Chi plaque while the rest of the group stayed just outside of town.
The next day we decided to follow the trail of the stranger who had brought the plaque.

Session 3 On the Trail!

We traveled with Shen Feng leading the way as he has the highest Sense Chi skill in the group. An Rang has a nice wagon and the rest of us ride horses. We travel a a decent clip, using grain to supplement forage for the horses so they need fewer breaks.

I think the mermaid is riding a horse too, but she might still be on An Rangs wagon. Oh, did I forget to mention we picked up a mermaid last time? Maybe catch up here...

Ok, so shes some kind of water spirit, not actually a mermaid. But she lives in the water, is pretty, and makes great music. Close enough. FYI her name is Yu Furen

Ambushed!

After a days travel we come across some old ruins that radiate really bad chi. As we look the place over and discuss ideas before getting on the grounds a cloaked stranger appears, tells us we will not survive the night (its evening now) and summons a bunch of chi vampires we later are informed (by the helpful mermaid) that they are called Hopping Vampires. These suckers are fast! They appear some distance away but quickly reach us using Super Leap (Move 20). He then flies away.

Xhai Kiyun charges forward on his horse to meet them halfway and Shen Fend comes up by his side. Before the rest of us can move the vampires easily close the distance and partially surround our two forward members with one each on the two still in the back.

They try to knock Xhai Kiyun off his mount using slams but with his huge size and horsemanship he stays mounted. Everyone else dismounts as soon as they can.

The vampires hit hard and parry very well, though some of that was the GM rolling really well.

Xhai Kiyun takes some hits but his armor stops most of it and he goes for his signature move of decapitating his foes.

Shen Feng hurts them pretty good but maybe half his attacks are parried and he takes a major wound, going negative HP but staying on his feet.

An Rang gets hit hard with an opening crit to the leg, crippling it and is taken out before he can do any real harm to them.

Gushou uses Stormcaller in smallsword mode so he can have the fencing parries because the group is outnumbered. It does less damage but slightly better with Rapid Strikes so the idea is to hit more often for less damage and with a better defense. He puts some energy into its lightning attack though to compensate and finds out that is extremely effective against the vampires.

He tries Feints combined with Deceptive Attack and Rapid Strike and though they manage to parry several of his attacks he does a very credible job. He tried to move up to Shen Feng after dispatching the vampire on An Rang but they move in between so he cant assist. Luckily Xhai Kiyun is more than up to the task and covers Shen Fengs back after he got hurt.

The Sorcerer (Thats what Gushou thinks he is for now) flew off after sending the vampires after us but we will see him again.

Another Town Besieged

The group bandaged up and rested before heading on and coming to a town on fire with dead bodies everywhere.

We quickly pull people out of burning buildings and Gushou summons rain to help with the fire. Xhai Kiyun was quite surprised by this (a personal high moment for me) and asks if he was responsible fir the previous storm. Gushou quickly says that wasnt him, though maybe Stormcaller attracted some of the lightning.

After rescuing the few survivors we could we find out the Stranger came here demanding they lead him to a nearby magical grotto. When they refused he kidnapped a child and unleashed the vampires.

The fires were from the villagers using fire to kill the vampires.

The group advises them to head to the town we left a few days ago which lost many of its people but is in far better shape than this one and decide to track the sorcerer and rescue the child if we can.

Aftermath

Despite this being a heavy combat game it went surprisingly fast. Everyone was paying attention, no significant technical problems, and everyone pretty much knew the rules so no looking things up.

We made one big tactical error in splitting the party but that was simply a matter of underestimating their speed. Its harsh when your surrounded and outnumbered in GURPS, as it should be.

We need to discuss tactics for the next fight but unless Gushou appears to be really outnumbered I think Ill go with chain whip over smallsword.  His magic one does not have the U for Parry so he can parry almost as well as with smallsword and do about double the damage. Also it has range 1 to 4 and is harder to parry,

We shall see.