The why is because of bandits. And our group was forced to improvise dealing with them and someone else called the Jackal. It went something like this...

      We travel to the village of the Fragrant 7 Villages, the group of Magistrates are joined by Shosuro Youma a Wasp Clan Bounty Hunter. They witness his shooting of a bandit in a town square, it was rather ugly. Anyway, on to the village where the villagers are all acting suspiciously. There is no lumber in the storage area and the headman is doing his best to assure us that everything is going fine, they don't know where the lumber went, but they will make it up. Case closed. Not quite, there, Pudgy. Something's not right.

      They spend a night or so at the village, during which the Unicorn,Moto Buti, disappears in the middle of the night. Tracks leading out of the village show he took his horse and headed out. He must have had a good reason, they figure, and don't worry about him. In the village they notice that there are no children women or old people in this village. After threatening the headman the Magistrates find out that the women and children are being held hostage and there are bandit infiltrators in the village itself to keep an eye on them incase the villagers decide to try anything funny. So now, how to deal with this situation and keep it from turning into a bloodbath?

      (Did I mention a bloodbath was NOT what we were trying for?)

      In an effort to be subtle, we have the Crab bushi, Hida Tagasuru, go with the headman and meet everyone in the village, and the headman would use the word "red" in his introduction of each of the bandits so as not to tip them off and let us know which were bandits and which were civilians. The rest of the Magistrates got themselves in front of each of the two exits at the front and back of the walled village to keep bandits from escaping if they caught onto they were up to. (The Crab proceeded to smash everyone that was introduced to him as a bandit with his tetsubo. That's subtle.)

      The ensuing fight was brief and graphic. After slaughtering all the bandits in their attempt to be subtle, the Magistrates now have a race with the devil to get to the castle where the families of the men in the village are being kept, before they are murdered in response to their actions. They head out on their ponies. They are almost crushed in an unusual avalanche. Then they are spoken to by a Wooly Maggot, that crawls out from under a rock, and it informs them that the Moto is in trouble an needs them. They race off to find the Moto being held in a castle.

      Getting into the castle was fairly easy: they surrendered. Captured and imprisoned, they plan a daring breakout (why'd they bother surrendering in the first place? Why not just smash everybody from the beginning and be done with it?). The Moto makes his escape at the same moment, lobbing gigantic heart of the inferno blasts thither and yon. Another, horrible bloody brawl ensues, ashigaru types being laid low left and right by our heroes.

      A final fight in the courtyard between the Moto and the Jackal (who is some disgraced unicorn guy). They duel, the Moto using his good looks and the Jackal with the Bloodsword Rage. The ever practical Wasp put two arrows in the Jackals sword hand. He dropped the blade and then they cut the Jackal apart (so much for fair play). They all stood staring at the Bloodsword for a minute then the Moto picked it up. (Yikes!!)

      Unfortunately, I didn't do the adventure justice in this write up, it was a while ago, my memory gets worse with my advancing years. George (a.k.a the Late Isawa Ahiro) did an awesome job, as always, of running. And I hope this pathetic write up doesn't insult him.