Scattered Foes

These men never belonged together. Sky-Thunder Sect, the various Mandate camps, the Sect of the Scarlet Knife, Thread-Binding — their roads had nothing in common but the field they ended on.

Only two things unite them: all of them underwent Transcension, or were ruined by it. The rest they manage on their own.

• Powderkeg: a huge bomb on the back; it charges in to die with its target, and fire sets it off early.
• Poison Powderkeg: poison mixed into the powder turned on the men who used it, leaving green skin and running sores; the bomb now holds toxic gas and Sha-Chi.
• Featherbow Archer: an iron-blue mask over a hollowed face, seeing far by Transcension, holding high ground and loosing volleys together.
• Fire Archer: red robes and bronze scale, spinning and skirmishing like flame skimming the ground, a full draw falling as a rain of fire arrows.
• Heavy Crossbowman: heavy armor and a heavy crossbow, slow to move, whistling a warning at the first sight of an enemy and swinging the mechanism like a club when pressed.
• Butcher: a copper mask hanging crooked so it can keep eating, an iron hook that drags distant prey under the cleaver, and vomit that thickens into poisonous miasma.
• Heartless Healer: vines in place of arms, drawing Sha-Chi and life from female disciples to heal itself and Maskwalkers, and never the living.
• Scarlet Swordsman: Scarlet Knife techniques fused with Perfect Transcension, using blood as a catalyst to burst out red Sha-Chi that drives nearby Transcended into frenzy.
• Purple-Robed Twinblade Swordsman: twin swords rising and falling like a loong through cloud, whirling in the air like purple lightning splitting the sky.
• Purple-Robed Guard: a crescent blade whose sweeping cut drives several men back and whose charged fall splits metal and stone.
• Shadow Assassin: a killer of Thread-Binding who skims low along the ground or leaps in with twin blades, and once frenzied tears the long sword from its own skull to slash without care.

Archers hate being closed on and powderkegs hate flame; use each against the other and the loose line comes apart from both ends.

Butchers and healers live by draining, so a long fight only favors them. The two purple robes swing heavy — let the first cut pass, then step in.