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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 6128140" data-attributes="member: 2">In four hours of play, here's how the adventure went:Scene 1: TimeWatch Citadel. The PCs feel a chronal shock pass through them, almost causing the drummer to fade away. The Spartan warrior is unaffected. As they look around, they realize that almost every non-Asian in the Citadel has disappeared from existence. Awkward. Picking up some anomalous readings from time-based sensors, they head on their time machines to western North America around the year 1400.Scene 2: Nothing unusual shows up. Speeding forward through time, they catch a glimpse of a huge ship out in the Pacific around 1427. They identity it as one of the Golden Fleet, the massive diplomatic treasure ships sent out by the Chinese emperor starting in 1405 and (supposedly) ending in 1425. Apparently in this timeline, not only did the fleet not rot at anchor, they discovered the Pacific gyre and encountered North America.Scene 3: The PCs skip forward in time a thousand years to learn that the Chinese have completely dominated North America, with a small remaining nation of indigenous population. There is no European influence whatsoever, and Aztec descendents dominate South America. Checking an encyclopedia ("what do you mean the internet isn't invented yet?"), they learn that a Chinese Empress took the treasure ships and fled mainland China with as many craftsmen as possible when Beijing was dismantled by the Mongols in the early 1400s. Apparently they had far more resources than the Mongols the PCs knew, and so were able to defeat China. The PCs pop back to 1427 to talk to someone.Scene 4: The Chinese have settled in the harbor where San Francisco once will be. Moving through the fledgling town they see a poster with their portraits on it, inviting anyone who sees them to invite them to the Empress's palace. They suspect a trap. One PC says "Later, I'm going to write on the back of that poster whether or not this is an ambush. If there's nothing written there, I'll know it is and we didn't survive." He pays a point of the appropriate Investigative Ability, checks, and his own handwriting says "It's totally safe." Mollified, they head to the palace. The GM congratulates the players on their cunning. Scene 5: The Empress greets them as old friends, and is extremely grateful, even though they've never met her before. Hedging a bit, they discover that years ago they delivered a scroll to her (the players note they should remember to do this). Now, she wants to give them a scroll before they depart. They sneak a peek at the scroll; it's a message from herself to herself, telling her younger self that she believes these messengers of the Gods fly through time. She tells herself to save the Chinese people by fleeing the mainland, or all will be lost, and she gives herself navigation instructions.The PCs bid her goodbye, slightly irked that apparently their interference somehow caused the Chinese to settle North America, and go back a few years to fulfill their part of the time loop. There's a paradox there, not unusual when larger disruptions occur.Scene 6. The PCs realize what happened. The western Mongol army did not turn back from the gates of Vienna, as they did in real history when they received word of genial, drunken Ogedai (Genghis's son) Khan's death through alcoholism. Instead, the mongols swept right through western Europe and dismantled it, leaving grassland and mountains of millions of skulls behind. With these additional resources and slaves, they were eventually able to successfully sweep east through China 200 years later. Bitchin'. They study historical records of Ogedai Khan's advisers and match one to Shen Jun, a 25th century Asian nationalist and terrorist who disappeared. Deciding to warn Ogedai Khan, they time travel to 1229 (right before Ogedai is made Khan) to poison the future Khan against Shen Jun.Scene 7: They are ambushed upon arrival by someone who told the mongols that demons would arrive at that time and place. They sneak away into the shadows, barely escaping with their lives. "Crap, how is Shen Jun already here? How did he know when we would arrive?" They flee to a point 5 years prior in 1224.Scene 8: Safe and healed up, camping on the Steppes, they realize that they can use this to their advantage. They don't KNOW that Shen Jun ambushed them; they only know that they got ambushed. Thus, they resolve to befriend the young Ogedai Khan, prove their oracular powers by *telling him where five demons will appear*, and thus proving their bona fides as reliable advisers.Yep. They have THEMSELVES ambushed to make sure their enemy doesn't do it instead.The GM rewards all the players for extreme cleverness.Scene 8: In order to impress young Ogedai, the Spartan warrior (in disguise) throws himself on a venomous snake, taking the bite so that Ogedai does not. Mind you, the PCs first time traveled, found a snake, milked the poison out, gave the PC a shot of anti-venom, and hid the snake in Ogedai's path. Convoluted but effective. Ogedai slaps the warrior and invites him to come drink, as he'll be painfully dead in hours. Heck, for saving the man's life Ogedai ceremonially makes him the commander of 10,000 mongol troops. Everyone but the PCs is surprised when the Spartan doesn't die in the morning, but by then he and Ogedai are fast friends.Scene 9: T-17 years until Shen Jun is fated to arrive, save Ogedai's life, and disrupt time. Most of the PCs skip forward, reappearing to learn about notable happenings and then predict the future for the new Khan. The Spartan, however, loves it here and chooses to live out the time the long way."Wait a minute. I've heard of long cons, but 17 YEARS LONG?"Scene 10: By the time Shen Jun arrives, sure that his plan will succeed, Ogedai has been warned of his false counsel and is ready for him. Shen Jun tries to ingratiate himself; Ogedai has him seized. Shen Jun tries to rat out the PCs as time travelers. Ogedai laughs in his face, pointing out that the Spartan has been by his side for almost two decades. Shen Jun is spirited away by the TimeWatch agents instead of being executed.Ogedai and the Spartan drink in celebration of the false prophet's destruction. Ogedai dies exactly at the right time of the night of debauchery, just as he did in the real timeline, and history snaps back into its normal path. All the future is saved.</blockquote>

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