Hōrō Shōjo no Kōshinkyoku (Marching Songs for a Wandering Girl)

It is raining lightly, as a blue haired foxgirl sits on a train station platform holding a can of beer and a cigarette as a steam train approaches in the background. — Sgt. Iris Durrand waits at a train station in the rain. Illustration by Cola on Bksy.

Campaign High Concept

Hōrō Shōjo no Kōshinkyoku is a character-driven military fantasy campaign about what happens after the war. Set in an anime inspired world of fantastical magic and gritty machines, the campaign follows a group of young military women deployed as peacekeepers into occupied territory. While they are soldiers, this is not a story about triumphal victories and combat prowess. It is a campaign about healing, navigating a world that has fundamentally changed, and the uneasy question of whether people acting with good intentions can still become instruments of systems doing harm.

It is a story about people, the events that shaped their lives, and the compromised choices they make. The campaign explores themes of post-war trauma, imperialism, belonging, and identity against a backdrop of institutional power.

Gameplay Overview

The campaign utilizes the completely free Lite version of the Generic Universal Role Play System (GURPS) for the purpose of driving the story forward and introducing uncertainty. It is not a power fantasy campaign of min-maxing stats, gaining levels, and defeating monsters. Rather, gameplay centers on emotionally intense roleplay, using the setting as a space for players to explore parts of themselves through characters living in a fantastical, yet grounded world.

The first arch of the campaign has focused on the team coming together, establishing themselves within the team as they travel by sea and rail towards their ultimate destination. During this time, the relationships between each player character has evolved, some towards romance, others towards suspicion. The second arc will take place in the town as they navigate their own secrets and struggles, as well as the complex and messy political landscape of this occupied border town. Local prejudice, distrust, and the intersection of corporate, criminal, and organized labor will be the catalyst for the characters’ own conflicts.

Although combat remains a possibility, it exists as the worst of all possible solutions. Violence has lasting consequences, decisions are final, and even unnamed opponents are treated as people rather than obstacles. Despite the bleak setting, the ultimate goal of the campaign is to bring these characters’ stories to a close in a way that gives them a hopeful future – one which war and this world has tried to deny them.

Campaign Themes

Post-War Healing: Characters navigating the trauma, loss, and their future in a postbellum world. The campaign explores the questions: What is a soldier when there's no more fighting to be done? How do they move on?
Colonialism: Players are part of an occupying army on foreign shores. Even with the best intentions, what good can come of this? Do an individual's actions matter in the shadow of their ruler's machinations?
Found Family: The bonds which form among the team members offer respite from the horrors of the past, yet risk becoming liabilities to be exploited. When you've survived hell, what possibly could be worth risking everything?
Yuri (Girls' Love): While the setting itself is queernormative, Sapphic romance within the story is still opposed by structural forces of the military and politics. Will the characters be able to overcome these institutional barriers to their love?

Inspiration & Genre

Sound of the Sky: The primary inspiration for the campaign. A 2010 post-apocalyptic anime following the daily lives of an all-female military unit stationed at the edge of no-man's-land in the wake of a major conflict. Also known as Sora no Woto, the series is slice-of-life with flashbacks to the traumas of the war.
CGDCT: Cute Girls Do Cute Things. Slice-of-life stories focused on the lives of young women, usually as they explore a hobby or occupation together. Specifically the martial subgenre, which places its characters in military-themed situations, such as Girls und Panzer, The Magnificent Kotobuki, and Girls' Last Tour.
Dieselpunk: A retrofuturist setting where speculative early-to-mid 20th century technologies blend with fantastical elements; often drawing on an alternate interwar period. Anime such as Pumpkin Scissors, Full Metal Alchemist, and Yōjo Senki embody this genre.
Mechsploitation: A subgenre of ero-horror which examines gender, sexuality, and identity under coercion and fascism, through the lens of war machines and body horror. The genre emerged from online transfeminine creative circles, exemplified by works such as WARHOUND and GIRL FRAME.

Seven diverse fantasy military companions pose closely together outdoors with a large, blurred mechanical vehicle fills the misty background. The characters are a blue-haired fox woman at left raises a flask upside down with a single drop of brown alcohol dripping out. Beside her is a white-haired squirrel woman, a copper automaton, a gray-feathered woman in glasses, a tall black-haired cat woman with many scars, a dark-haired catgirl with a red-capped, goat-like woman holding a cup standing beside her. — A group picture of the main cast of characters. Illustration by Meadow on Bsky.

Dramatis Personae

A birdlike demihuman woman with grey-brown hair, wide golden eyes, and feathered wings, faces forward with a calm but tense expression. She wears a dark green military jacket and a simple collar and large, round eyeglasses.

Gabriëlle Endou

Senior Lieutenant

Qwarnari Federal Republic

The timid leader of the squad. An owl-like demihuman, she took command after returning from convalescence leave from serious injuries sustained at the end of the war. Reserved, but friendly; not keen on military formalities and will drop the uniform whenever practical. She is easily spooked by loud noises and occasionally may seem to space out. If she is sitting, she is either reading or plucking notes on her zither.

A young cat-eared demihuman woman with dark brown hair, soft hazel eyes, and a tense, guarded expression. She faces forward with a slight frown, her sharp ears rising above her head and her dark brown hair framing her face. She wears a tan dress shirt and a black tie.

Amelia Galinot

Leftenant, Junior Grade

Kingdom of Auberon

A neko-demihuman, bearing the name of one of the noble houses of her home country, she is the pilot of the secretive STRIDER scout walker program. While she plays the role of the pretentious rich girl, the façade quickly falls revealing a fundamentally broken girl who is treated as little more than a tool. Her burgeoning relationship with the squad’s medical officer is overshadowed by her corporate handler’s predation.

A young demihuman woman with long, floppy ears, dark brown hair, round glasses, and a deep red cap. She wears a dark military style coat.

Theresa Valier

Medical Cadet

Principality of Montecarmine

A seemingly meek and reserved goat-like demihuman who seems to hold more secrets than one would expect from a simple maid turned medic. Going by Tresl, she is ostensibly on her first deployment to the region. She alternates between the subservient behavior expected of her station, and shrewd, observant behavior that belies a different agenda. Her relationship with Amelia further complicates whatever designs she may hold.

Black-haired cat woman with large pointed ears and a long facial scar smiles while wearing a pale green shirt.

Bellaluna Santo

Chief Warrant Officer

Confederacy of Santori

Ancient by any standard, this nearly century old neko warrant has been fighting for decades on battlefields near and far and has the scars to prove it. Assigned by chance, and then as quickly removed from this deployment for unknown reasons, she remains on the roster of the squad. Whether she will move on to other purposes, or return in a moment of need, is yet to be seen.

A blue-haired fox woman wearing a reddish-brown shirt.

Iris Durrand

Sergeant

Confederation of the Coral Reaches

A carefree, perpetually inebriated communication technician would seem to be the consummate trickster kitsune, if not for the moments that reveal a woman from whom the war stripped everything. She’s a social butterfly, giving no difference to rank or station, nor to her own safety. Despite the substance abuse, she remains wholly capable of her role in the team, begging the question of what she was capable of before years on the frontlines wore her down.

White-haired squirrel woman in a dark blue military uniform with gold trim, shown from the chest up

Ivy Eklund

Sergeant

People's Federation of Korvasta

The risu member of the team with no deployment experience is the most strictly adherent to the rules, pomp and circumstance of military service. Yet, this is not born of her junior status, but rather her family’s years on the diplomatic circuit, presenting the home nation’s official party line as definitive, despite any evidence to the contrary. She is well aware that her position here is in the pursuit of her motherland’s geopolitical ambitions and any failure will be reflected first upon her loved ones back home.

A friendly looking brown copper automaton with large glowing orange eyes, a long rounded face, and a thin antenna rises from a cylindrical mechanical body.

AP 01.10

Automaton, Pilot

Union of the Zaglil Plain Republics

Magic to create true life and sentience is said to be impossible. Automated Persona Ver. 01.10 (AP01.10, or Apollo) exists only as an implement to provide an efficient interface between the ‘meatbags’ and the 35-ton mechanical combat apparatus it pilots. But, what are these pleasant tones those organics call “music”? And why do they insist on engaging in these complications they call “love”? Constructs ask ‘what?’ and ‘how?’, never ‘why?’. So... why?

Iris Durrand sits alone on a riverbank, leaning against a rock with a cigarette in hand and a calm, slightly worn expression. The wider scene is a quiet, overcast riverside with muted blue-gray tones. — Iris enjoys a cigarette along a river bank. Illustration by Cola on Bsky.

Antagonist

A fox-like demihuman woman with silver hair, narrow amber eyes, and a calm, calculating expression, wearing a dark suit and tie

Helena Lucroy

Project Manager, Handler

Blade & Hilt Industries

The field manager of the secretive Project STRIDER and Amelia's handler. A devilish kitsune, she exercises power over the walker's pilot and program to her own benefit with no deference to decorum or personal boundaries. She’s shown herself capable of any number of impositions, but any long-term aspirations remain obscured.

Sn older doglike demihuman man with white curly hair, round glasses, a neatly trimmed mustache, wearing a formal military cap and dark uniform.

Teodor Malair

Political Officer

People's Federation of Korvasta

Despite the fatherly airs, this inu-like “morale officer” from Ivy’s home nation is quick to drop the friendly façade to reveal his true purpose. The reason for her deployment here is to give the beleaguered nation insight into the machinations of their “allies” and he’d be remiss not to remind her that her party connected family is counting on her to do well.

The Story So Far

The party first met in the ruined port city of Anstoil before embarking on a freighter traveling north. While at sea, Iris's wagers over a fencing match devolved into fisticuffs with the ship's crew in the first test of loyalty and discipline. Disembarking at the port of Misquoth, they took a train to the city of Bel Lasaid, where they would take possession of their ZINNATINE-class walker. The vehicle itself was in a state of disrepair, and they would spend several days performing maintenance.

During this period, AP01.10 would begin to exhibit a developing personality and curiosity following its interfacing with the walker's magical core. The blossoming romance between the XO and medic would attract the attention of the former's corporate handler, Ms. Lucroy, who makes a show of physically accosting Tresl, leaving Amelia wracked with guilt for being unable to intervene. Crucially, however, Tresl is able to discern the trigger phrase used by Lucroy to compel Amelia's compliance.

The following day, Bellaluna is summoned away without explanation, leaving the walker crew without an experienced gunner. The live-fire drills go disastrously, as the main walker crew clashes with Amelia's aggressiveness on the range. Already behind schedule, they do not have a chance for further practice as they are shipped by rail toward their assigned post in the mountain village of Tunstead. Forced to move their vehicles over a mountain pass when the walkers prove too large to pass through a tunnel, the party becomes stranded overnight on a ridge during a flash flood. While extracting the XO from her secretive prototype scout walker, the others begin to observe the physical toll piloting the machine inflicts on her body and the strange magical mechanisms used to pilot it.

Arriving in Tunstead, the party takes possession of a dilapidated abbey outside town to use as their base of operations. Amelia begs Gabrëlle to keep her corporate overlords out of the abbey to provide her some respite. Meanwhile, Tresl, Iris, and Ivy enter a secret pact to protect Amelia from Lucroy and uncover the truth about the STRIDER program— by any means necessary. The situation is further complicated by the arrival of a Korvasti political officer with his own clandestine tasking for Ivy.

As the team begins to settle into Tunstead, additional threats emerge from the shadows, and Amelia's psychological wounds begin to physically manifest. Secrets are discovered and kept hidden, as a risky web of compartmentalization begins to form and threatens to tear apart the fragile team. As the intrigue deepens, so too does the fear that the greatest threat may come from within.

A silver-haired woman embraces and kisses a dark-haired woman who appears distressed while smoke surrounds them. A smaller cat-eared woman with dark hair stands in the background. Text across the image reads 'This is your fault. You did this.' — Ms. Lucroy forces a smokey kiss on Tresl as Amelia watches on, internally blaming herself for the situation. Illustration by Meadow on Bsky.