Legend of Perfectly Defensive Samurai: “Legendary Kneeling Lieutenant”

Posted on December 20, 2006 by Jenna

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Learning the secret of perfect defense, Tomo begins her career—here!

She impresses her master Kon.

She saves lovers Meg and Cho.

She establishes the standard special effects LIGHT and I’M IN UR FIGHT, BLOCKING UR ATTACKS!

She even reforms two night-grim thieves!

But she has drawn the eye of a terribly offensive shogun—

DAIIMON!

[LEGEND OF PERFECTLY DEFENSIVE SAMURAI]

—

Bats scream silently in the airy heights of Daiimon’s citadel.

The terribly offensive shogun taps his fingers on his throne.

“I am displeased,” he says.

Before him—the LEGENDARY KNEELING LIEUTENANT,

MAY!

May lowers her head.

“Why is that?” she asks.

“It is difficult to govern as a terribly offensive shogun if I am not feared,” he says.

“And you are not feared?”

“‘He cannot destroy the perfectly defensive samurai’—people say. ‘Lo, his grip on this land weakens’—people say. Fear runs out of them like rain out of a gutter. Soon the last of it will be gone.”

“Then send me,” May says.

Daiimon looks up. His eyes are bleak and set deep in his head.

“If you fail,” he says, “I will end you with the lightest breath of the TERRIBLY OFFENSIVE TECHNIQUE.”

“Ha!” agrees May.

Then she is gone.

Tomo sits under a pink and white umbrella. She eats a sticky hunk of rice and melon. She leans back and looks at the sun.

“Ur hot,” she tells the sun. “But u can’t burn me. I can feel the breath of blocking u.”

The sun, she thinks, is obligated to agree.

But suddenly—

AN EVIL FEELING!

Time slows.

Tomo breaks the umbrella into three pieces with the side of her hand. The top blows away in the wind. The bottom falls to the ground. The middle piece is a great thin sword.

She pushes off from the ground with one hand, dirt griming up her fingers. The other hand swings the sword forward to block.

LIGHT

May staggers backwards. She falls into a kneeling position. Her sword slips back into its sheath. A lock of hair falls over her eye.

“No less,” May says, “from the legendary defensive samurai.”

“PERFECTLY DEFENSIVE,” Tomo clarifies.

“We’ll see!” says May.

She is a blur. She outpaces the green and blue of her kimono so that the color bleeds off of her to stay behind her in the air and she moves forward as a sepia ghost. She moves in that other world of kung fu where great scars cut through the air and the wind blows hollow.

Her sword is out. It is inevitable. It is invincible. It cuts towards Tomo’s neck.

LIGHT

The umbrella sword explodes. Tomo lurches back and to the side, May’s sword passing right by her neck.

May twists her wrist in a fashion that causes the tendons to jangle with great pain. But Tomo’s foot has found the bottom piece of the umbrella and kicked it up

LIGHT

May’s sleeve sword falls into her second hand. It jabs.

Tomo smiles ethereally.

She exhales: haa.

Her hand comes around. There is nothing in it. Yet:

LIGHT

And May rolls at terrible speed along the ground in a snapped-to-color world and black rocks cut into her skin and shards of broken umbrella catch in her hair and she fetches up against a stone building wall, KLUN.

Her sword snaps back into its sheath.

Tomo is transcendent.

She stands there with her hair floating back and her leg back in stance and a thin mist of dirt falling away from her hand.

May kneels.

“You are my master,” she says. “What would you have of me?”

Tomo hesitates.

Tomo explains:

I’M IN UR FIGHT,
BLOCKING UR ATTACKS

“Your will!” May agrees, knocking her head.

And for three long weeks and three more days, where May fights, Tomo blocks, laughing. But a weed of guilt eats at the rice paddy of May’s heart. It grows to choke the ox.

Tomo’s spirit is too bright for May.

So May abandons Tomo and goes to the mountain, to a certain place she knows where Tomo cannot block Daiimon’s attacks, and she waits.

The fire of the TERRIBLY OFFENSIVE TECHNIQUE comes down from the sky and burns May’s shadow to the stone.

[LEGEND OF PERFECTLY DEFENSIVE SAMURAI]

—

Tomo walks along the road. She munches on a peach. She tosses the pit aside.

It hits a monkey.

“O noes,” Tomo says. She is horrified. Her face stretches in an expression of plaintive apology.

She is a perfectly defensive samurai!

She does not mean to attack!

But the monkey is not kind.

It chitters.

It shouts.

It jumps up and down.

It is an angry monkey, this monkey, and it does not forgive.

THIS IS THE SADNESS OF THE WORLD
PEOPLE LEAVE US
MONKEYS GET OFFENDED
PEACHES DO NOT REMAIN

Daiimon rises from his distant throne, and his eyes burn red.

Next time on Legend of Perfectly Defensive Samurai:
SHOGUN AND SAMURAI

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Categories: Legends, Hitherby, A Terrible Light, Legend of Perfectly Defensive Samurai, Under Construction - The Problem of Suffering

+ Show Comments

Penultimate Minion on December 20, 2006 at 5:45 am said:

It is an angry monkey, this monkey, and it does not forgive.

Nice.

*Yet more applauding*

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Kasumi on December 20, 2006 at 12:46 pm said:

I’M IN UR FIGHT, BLOCKING UR ATTACKS
Level 5 White Chi Formless Technique (Artful/Brutal)

Cost: 5 White Chi

This legendary technique imposes a standard of excellence upon a battle; if its wielder is skilled, only skilled attacks will succeed. If the practitioner is perfect, no attacks are possible.

– Upon activating this technique, make a normal block roll with your readied weapon. You may apply kung-fu and other bonuses to this roll normally. While this technique is active, any attack against any target within twice your Favoured Chi rating in yards of you whose total is less than this roll is considered blocked, even if the attack could not normally be blocked. Attacks blocked in this fashion are considered cancelled, and have no further mechanical effect.

IM IN UR FIGHT, BLOCKING UR ATTACKS is found on the Perfectly Defensive Samurai Lore.

– Duration: One Round.

– Channel: 2 Gold. Extend the duration of this technique by one round.

Heaven Weeps Upon the Battlefield
Level 12 White Chi Formless Technique (Artful/Brutal/Ranged)

Cost: 12 White Chi + 28 Any Chi

Certain obscure arrangements of the Million Style Manual hint at this supreme technique, though the configuration that reveals its splendour has yet to be discovered.

This technique allows its wielder to participate in every battle in the world. Its righteous use would be to be in all ur fights, blocking all ur attacks, but sages fear that its punishing chi requirements will ensure that its discoverer will be a corrupt warrior with terrifying quantities of Demon Chi.

Heaven Weeps Upon the Battlfields is not yet on any Loresheet; a Lore containing it must be created in play if it is to be used.

– While this technique is active, your combat actions target every character in the world who has or is considered to have rolled Initiatve for turn order this round. They are considered to be within the area of effect of your techniques.

– Duration: One Round

– Channel: 2 Silver. Extend the duration of this technique by one round.

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Rand Brittain on December 20, 2006 at 2:15 pm said:

It seems that Daiimon can use his TERRIBLY OFFENSIVE power even at a distance, while Tomo must be near an attack to be IN UR FIGHT BLOCKING it. Is this because she’s only PERFECTLY DEFENSIVE, and therefore has no flaws but also no guarantee of any exceptional power, while he is TERRIBLY OFFENSIVE, and imperfect but exceedingly puissant?

At least he doesn’t seem to be near-transcendent. Yet.

This is a fun little arc, but do you ever worry that encouraging poorly-spelled internet memes in this fashion will encourage some form of poorly-spelled karmic retribution?

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mneme on December 20, 2006 at 4:44 pm said:

The meme isn’t so much poorly spelled as ideosyncratically spelled — most of those perpetuating it are quite aware of how to spell the words in question.

Also, it seems to me that the proposed WoTG technique seems to try to wrap the entire Perfect Defense style into a single (formless) technique, whereas it should really be a Rare or Uncommon style, with the observed effect being that gained by having mastered (ie, perfected) the style. Also, I think it takes things a touch too literally — without superb kung fu, one should be unable to be Perfect (which is to say that the style should provide absurd strike bonuses, the ability to block not normally blockable attacks, and area-of-effect blocking, but not make blocking automatically successful — perfection should be proven, not assumed!).

Kinda like this Feng Shui kung fu path (which I just made up):

Soft Block Technique
Prereq: none
Path: No Shadow Block
Chi: 1
Shots: 0

Subtract 2 from all attacks made against you this shot. This technique may not be combined with Willow Step.

Hard Block Technique
Prereq: None
Path: ?
Chi: 1
Shots: 0

When making an active block; add an extra 2 to the DC needed to hit you.

No Shadow Block
Prereq: Soft Block Technique
Path: Light Bending Block
Chi: 3
Shots: 3
All attacks against you this sequence are considered to be actively blocked.

Blade Catching Block
Requires: Hard Block
Chi: 1
Shots: 1
One attack must successfully attack you as well as its intended target in order to hit. The attacker does not suffer a penalty for attacking multiple targets, but they are affected by any modifiers that involve attacking you as we’ll as any that involve attacking the target. If an attack defended against by this manuver hits, the attacker may chose to damage you rather than the original target. Use the smallest outcome available. This may be used as a defensive manuver.

Light-bending Block (LIGHT)
Requires: No Shadow Block
Chi: X
Shots: 1
Subtract the Chi you spend on this manuver from all attacks made against you for this sequence.

IM IN UR FIGHT, BLOCKING UR ATTACKS
Requires: Light-Bending Block, Blade Catching Block
Path: Perfectly Defensive Stance
Chi: 5
Shots: 5
For the remainder of the sequence, you may use Blade Catching Block on every attack, for free. You may not attack for the remainder of the sequence.

Perfectly Defensive Stance
Chi: 5
Shots: 0
An opponent you have just blocked must succeed on a Will check vs the amount which their attack fell short of the diffuculty, or fighting in the current battle, having been overawed by your kung fu. Also, if you know this technique, you ignore surprise and abilities that prevent you from blocking attacks. Lose all benefits from this technique for the remainder of the scene if you make an attack.

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mneme on December 20, 2006 at 5:39 pm said:

And…at last we have seen the weakness in Tomo’s technique. She has made herself into a Perfectly Defensive Samurai — but how can she be a Perfectly Defensive Samurai if she’s manuvered into attacking?

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Kasumi on December 20, 2006 at 7:40 pm said:

“Also, it seems to me that the proposed WoTG technique seems to try to wrap the entire Perfect Defense style into a single (formless) technique, whereas it should really be a Rare or Uncommon style, with the observed effect being that gained by having mastered (ie, perfected) the style.”

Actually, it makes a pretty poor WotG style at all; it’s clear that in WotG, the Typical Wuxia Lovers should die :)

The IIUFBUA technique is a minimal gesture to making a Perfectly Defensive Samurai work in the Wuxia Action System – it’s designed to be used in combination with existing defensive styles like Waves Like Water or Eight Diagram Fist (and be horribly broken in combo with Sublime Doctrine, hence it channels Gold to limit the abuse).

“Also, I think it takes things a touch too literally — without superb kung fu, one should be unable to be Perfect (which is to say that the style should provide absurd strike bonuses, the ability to block not normally blockable attacks, and area-of-effect blocking, but not make blocking automatically successful — perfection should be proven, not assumed!).”

You’re misreading the technique. In your defence, it is poorly written! It doesn’t automatically block attacks, it lets you erect a “your attack must be this high” sign at the battlefield :) It establishes a minimum standard of excellence. Which is why it’s so abusive in combination with Sublime Doctrine…

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Ninjacrat on December 21, 2006 at 3:51 am said:

I laughed out loud. The Island of the Centipede parody pushed it over the edge.

Er, that is:

omg lol 4tw!

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GoldenH on December 21, 2006 at 8:43 am said:

sometimes the best defense is a good offense!

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