Lone Wolf

[Ogami Itto]

I have a question which might also be a request, if it captures some talented person's imagination.

Some of you will have deduced that I am a big fan of Koike and Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub manga. For those of you who have not been lucky enough to read it before, you can find out more about it here. Anyone with an interest in Shogun 2 will certainly enjoy it IMO.

To summarise, Ogami Itto serves as the Tokugawa Shogun's Kogi Kaishakunin (executioner). He assists those samurai ordered to commit seppuku by decapitating them. As part of an intrigue to secure power, Itto's wife and household are murdered by the Ura-Yagyu and Itto is set up as a traitor to the Shogun. Only his young son, Daigoro, survives the attack. Itto vows to avenge his wife's death and, now an outcast, wanders meifumado (the road to hell) with his son in tow, as an assassin for hire, bent on destroying the Yagyu clan. The story has epic scope with Itto undertaking numerous adventures as he battles the Yagyu 'grass' ninja and his nemesis, Yagyu Retsudo. I will leave the details of the story, and the outcome, for you to read about yourselves. The climax is, quite simply, amazing.

The manga was also made into a series of six films, all called a variation on the "Baby Cart" theme. The more widely known (in the West, I think) film "Shogun Assassin" saw the first two of the "Baby Cart' films edited together into a magnificent bloodbath. I believe it suffered after being labelled as a 'video nasty' back in the good old 80's.

I would love to see some of the characters in this series brought into S2. I lack the talent, know-how and imagination to do it myself, but hope that perhaps another, more talented fan, might be able to find a way to bring this to fruition.

Obviously, the main character and draw for this mod would Ogami Itto himself, a formidable and honourable warrior. I have so far thought of two ways in which he might be brought into the game:

1. As an agent - like a ninja or metsuke. Only one Itto would be available to the player in any single campaign. Once he's dead, he's dead. As those familiar with the manga will know, Itto is such a master of the dotanuki that he can decimate armies single-handedly. As an agent, he would fulfil some of the functions of the ninja - assassination and army subversion, but NOT sabotage. He would need to be an expensive agent to recruit, and actions should cost a premium - a very high one. But in return, he should be deadly, with a VERY high chance of wounding or killing his target and VERY high chance of escaping. Similarly, he should have a VERY high chance of subverting an army; however, an army subverted by Itto should suffer significant (50%+) losses, no matter it's size. He is, after all, a one man army.

2. As a single soldier battlefield unit - again only one per campaign. He should be like an uber-hero, virtually indestructible and deadly. I wouldn't envisage that he should be able to carve through entire stacks of ashigaru on his own, but he should be capable of standing his ground and fighting for the duration of a battle alone. He would not be a rout-able unit - he would stand or fall, but only to truly insurmountable odds. I haven't given any thought to how he might be recruited, but it could, for example, perhaps be a random event like the invitations to recruit a new general. The player would get a single chance to recruit him, for a massive fee (let's say, 10K koku) and would have to pay a significant upkeep cost. The payoff would be his deadliness and perseverance on the battlefield.

In addition to Itto, the Yagyu 'grass' ninja would be a great addition. Perhaps Yagyu Retsudo could be recruitable as a general (through a random event as per usual general recruitment). Once recruited, the player would then have access to Yagyu 'grass' ninja units - which could be modified kisho ninja units on the battlefield. Again, they would be superpowered, so like a hero-ninja unit. Limit of one at any given time. Likewise, recruiting Retsudo would unlock campaign map 'grass' ninja agents, who could be high level ninjas when recruited. They should also come at a significant premium, but pay their way by being extremely effective in all of the usual ninja skills. They would be a very dark and sinister agent and battlefield unit.

As agents or battlefield units, both Itto, Retsudo and 'grass' ninja units could have custom traits to gain and custom upgrade paths to reflect their characters and roles in the manga.

The idea needs much more thought and development, but I think this would be great way of bringing the fantastic characters and story of the LW&C manga to what is already a very enjoyable game. I hope that some of you might share my enthusiasm for the project.

So my question is: Could this be done?
And my request is: Can you do it?

Apologies for the wall of text.

[forcerecon569]

I might be able to do the uber soldier i am already working on one for my mod it will be optional