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No Sides: A Game of Feudal Adventure

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Tadanori Oyama:
With land changing hands every few months at least somewhere in the nation the reserves for troops have been sorely taxed. Peasants, it turns out, make poor soldiers. Even worse, once all the peasants are dead there's no one left to grow food or pay taxes.

This has lead to a rising demand for professional soldiers. Mercenary bands, comprised mostly of ronin, foreigners, and criminals have become a much easier way for a lord to take military action. It's also lead to alot of warlords, mercenary leaders, with alot more gold than they used to have and a taste for authority. Things have kind of gone downhill since.

Open war has become the norm. Declarations and formalities fell by the wayside as warlords rather than feudal lords began to become the most common authority.

Our story begins in South Curve, a high turnover section of land along the south-eastern edge of the big island, across the bay from what, today, would be call Tokyo. South Curve serves as a gathering place for warlords seeking to replinish their numbers and for service jobs related to a war economy.

The ground here is slick and nearly black, the mud a streak of slime across hard packed clay earth. A wandering line makes up the town of South Curve, a path ten paces wide with tents it's whole length. At either end a single tent may line the road, with it's neighbor pitched a spear's thrust to their left or right and only the wilds or ocean to their back. In the center of town the line swells thick and smaller paths move between the "service" tents.

In the center, the Swell, there is noise. Humans talking and singing and shouting, the ring of metal against metal, and wet sound of metal against flesh. From the Swell of South Curve has come nearly every warlord of note in a generation. The town is a breeding ground for fighters and that reputation has served the warlords well.

Do you come to find membership in a warband? An excuse to ride and fight without cause? Or perhaps gold is your cause.

Or something higher. To raise your own band and earn fortune from the feudal lords? To gather the begins of your army, to become a lord yourself, perhaps?

Or just to make a living among the battlers. To sell your craft, your products, or yourself.

Whatever your reasons you now find the sounds of the Swell drawing closer as you move along the muddy road...

dragonshaos:
(I'll be posting in the first person cause it's more fun)

The smell that came off the town was in no way welcoming to me.  It lacked the fine scent of an impending death, the rot of dried blood, the stink of carrion birds flying around with flesh between their beaks.  This was a place of sin, desires and misunderstandings. 

After years of working my way into favor with the local lords and building up my reputation, building up my own small army, it was all for naught.  Men were simply too weak.  They fall by the dozens, hundreds, and they try to run, they scream, but it doesn't matter.  When everything turn white on the battlefield, all I can account on is myself, waking with blood on my hands, my feet, my face, dripping off me with it's crimson glow in the afternoon sun.  My blade is dull, my chain dirty, with nothing but the sound of the wind to my back and the warmth of a fading sun, only one day has passed by.

Which is why I'm here.  I need to earn favor with the lords again, to build up yet another army.  A stronger one without the weak, the squishy...  So I'm here to recruit I tell myself.  From the start I know I can't do this well.  I'm a fighter, a talker, a loyalist, but I'm no recruiter.  May have to start with some other company.  Could just kill the leader and claim his army as my own, killing anyone who tried to run  But as history shows I end up killing more of my own men than my enemy, whoever they may be.

The Toyotomi Clan hasn't had a need for me, the selfish bastards.  That's fine, if everything goes down the spiral I'll just go back to the Takeda, they always need me.  I just don't always need them.

So here I am.  Standing in the middle of the street, dust settling around me, poop people walking past, bandits and the such acting as them, no one knows.  It's only still noon, looking at the sun.  I've got plenty of time to find something to do...

Guess I'll get a drink.

Tadanori Oyama:
This may be a little confusing so allow me to explain.
Narrative background, things your characters might know, and extra descriptive text, will be written in smaller text. This is to emphasis the actions directly focused on your characters, which will be normal sized text. I will make an effort to place any non-essental information in smaller text, allowing players to quickly see what they need and giving them the option of learning more, should they want to.
Important names, of people and of places, will be placed in bold.


In a town well accustomed to the ways of warlords someone who is clearly of the aggressive persusion has little difficulty in passing through even the thicker crowds. Moving aside for a ronin or thug is second nature for the long time citizens of the Swell.

However, some of the seasonal folks haven't learned their lessons yet.

Ryu's pause to observe the sun has placed him in the way of another man. Ryu has never seen him before, hardly surprising, but this man's appearance is in keeping with Tagati Yun one of the warlords of Kanagawa, a province west and south, across the bay.

His cloths are frayed at their edges but once belonged to a samuari of the Igahta clan. A long slash is cut through the clan's three leaf symbol on the chest of the robe, revealing the section of chest over the wear's heart. The edges of the slash bear old blood stains. Not as tall as Ryu, the man's head is completely shaved and his skull is crossed at it's cross by ugly burn scars.

"You are in my way," says the man, his eyes half open with apparent disinterest, staring at Ryu's chest, as if looking through him rather than at him. If he is wearing a sword, it is not currently visible.

wrotenbe:
Jozu meandered along the muddy path in his straw hat and patchwork raincoat, muttering about the cold earth his sandals sunk into with each step. He tried to feel his way past the biggest sinkholes with his staff, poking it along the road in front of him, but it was never enough to keep every odd step from going ankle deep into the muck. In frustration, he reached down to his side and hoisted up his traveling jug of sake, drinking deeply and giving a hoarse cough as the strong spirits cleared away his road weariness. His vigor restored, Jozu began moving at a brisk pace down the road, eying the distant fires of the Swell. He imagined all those gruff soldiers half-drunk and bored, wanting any distraction to keep their minds off their bloodlust, and then here he was with his cup and dice, in desperate need of purses to squeeze dry; it was a perfect combination.

He had just made it into what passed for the town's center when he saw the two Bushi coming to one of the classic standoffs. He'd seen these kinds of altercations a million times in his travels, and he knew that even the most minor insult or challenge sent these warrior types into a fervor that only ended over one's dead body. With this travesty only beginning there was still time to do something, still time to make a difference, and Jozu knew in that moment what he must do.

"Who among you," He said to the peasants and other onlookers, "will place odds on the tall one? And who the short? Come to me with your bets!"

dragonshaos:
I Looked down on the man.  The sun shined off his bald head, making me squint.

"Ah, my pardons sir," I reply, taking a step back, gesturing for him to move on, "I was unaware I was in your way."

However, as he moves forward I lightly stick my leg out to trip him, trying to amuse myself with people who obviously don't know when they are in the presence of a predator.  I give a smirk as he begins to walk in front of me.

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