Heroes of Rokugan I
- Plans and Storyline Development - A Discussion
- Satsume's Tournament
- Kitsuki Evidence
- A Chance Meeting
- Spiritual Presence
- Legacy of the Dark One
- Winter Court: Kyuden Asahina
- The Face of Fear
- Arrows From the Woods
- Evil Feeds Upon Itself
- A Mantis and His Rat
- The Falling Darkness, Soul of Iuchiban
- The Ties that Bind
- The People's Expense
- Occult Murders, Soul of Iuchiban
- Lies, Lies, Lies
- Drawing Out the Darkness, Soul of Iuchiban
- A Foreign Legacy
- A Magistrate's Duty, Soul of Iuchiban
- Fury of the Elements
- To Do What We Must
- Winter Court: Kanrinrin's Duty, Soul of Iuchiban
- The Fate of a Hantei, Soul of Iuchiban
- Smoke and Mirrors, The Lion and the Crane
- A Hidden Blade, The Lion and the Crane
- Treachery and Deceit
- Winter Court: Shiro Kyotei
- Ancestral Dictate, The Lion and the Crane
- A Heart of Vengeance, The Lion and the Crane
- Soul of Akodo, The Lion and the Crane
- Darkness Beyond Darkness, Shadow's Path
- The Chrysanthemum Festival, The Lion and the Crane
- Kuro's Fire
- Duty on the Wall
- Fist of the Earth, Shadow's Path
- Day and Night
- The Scorpion's Sting
- Flower's Kiss
- In Time of War
- Winter Court: Shiro no Kaiu
- Proposal of Peace
- Way of Deception
- A Walk Through the Mountains, Shadow's Path
- Narrow Ground
- Peasant Defense
- The Price of Loyalty
- Dark Eyes on the Wall
- Tao of the Naga
- The Cost of Duty
- Storm and Forest
- Stain Upon the Soul
- Command of the Kami
- The Jade Championship
- Twisted Forest
- Funeral Pyre
- Time to Pay the Price, Shadow's Path
- Damning Evidence, The Hidden Temple
- Test of Courage
- Winter Court: Kyuden Bayushi
- Corrupted Ground, Shadows of an Iron Citadel
- A Question of Honor, Shadows of an Iron Citadel
- A Last Wish, Shadows of an Iron Citadel
- Blood of Midnight, Shadow's Path
- Fires of Retribution, The Hidden Temple
- Faith in My Clan
- Along the Coast at Midnight
- Unmaker's Shadow, Shadow's Path
- The Dragon's Heart, The Hidden Temple
- Time of the Void
- The Day of Thunder
Heroes of Rokugan II
- Plans and Preparation
- The Topaz Championship
- Treacherous Terrain
- Writ of Justice
- Tears of a Fox's Heart
- Wrath of the Kami, Remorseful Seppuku
- Unrequited Love
- Devoured by the Sea
- Scholarship, Remorseful Seppuku
- Uncertainty
- Unquiet Graves, Remorseful Seppuku
- Way of Death
- The Sapphire Tournament
- Bloom of the White Orchid
- The City of Lies
- The Bon Festival
- Stolen Relics
- Forgotten Shrine, Remorseful Seppuku
- A Say's Sail, Shipping Lanes
- ➔ Charge of the Baraunghar
- The House of a Thousand Stories
- Winter Court: Shiro Hanagensai
- In Search of the Future
- Compassion, The Code of Bushido
- Bayushi Lineage: Fathers and Sons
- Unexpected Find
- Legacy of My Ancestors, Shipping Lanes
- Corrupt Officials
- Grave of Heroes, Ominous Portents
- Voice of the Emperor, Ominous Portents
- Imperial Funeral
- Test of Purity, Ominous Portents
- Essence of Yume-do
- Shadows on the Court
- Strength From Weakness, Twenty Goblin Winter
- City of the Lost, Twenty Goblin Winter
- Failure of Courage, Twenty Goblin Winter
- Kharmic Vengeance
- Sleepless Nights
- Honesty, The Code of Bushido
- Journey to the Burning Sands
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- Harsh Lessons
- A Champion's Heart
- Corrupted Region, Shipping Lanes
- Unexpected Betrayal
- Courage, The Code of Bushido
- City of Empty Dreams
- Campaign Fiction: Scenes from the Empire, Summer 1502
- Secluded Village
- Cursed Gift
- Touch of Obsidian
- The Siege of Shiro Usagi
- Campaign Fiction: The Seppuku of Bayushi Tenkai
- Retirement
- Shadows of Beiden
- Into the Darkness
- Heated Discussion, The Code of Bushido
- Campaign Fiction: Scenes from the Empire, Autumn 1502
- Broken Words
- Assigning Blame
- Winter Court: The High House of Light
- Winter Court: Shiro no Shosuro
- Duty and Honor, The Code of Bushido
- The Cherry Blossom Festival
- Campaign Fiction: Scenes from the Empire, Spring 1503
- Undignified Death
- Loyalty, The Code of Bushido
- Marriage Celebration
- Fall Before the Master
- Border Conflict
- Campaign Fiction: A Summer of War, Parts 1-4
- Nemesis of Justice
- Summoned to Justice
- Essence of Toshigoku
- Doom of the Crab
- The Hidden Heart
- A Long Journey, Shipping Lanes
- Allegiance to the Emperor
- Campaign Fiction: A Summer of War, Part 5 and 6
- Contest of Artistry
- Reverence for Chikushudo
- Masterpiece: Iron Crane Chef
- Mujina Tricks, Remorseful Seppuku
- Spider's Lair
- Words and Deeds
- The Final Interactive: Weekend in Rokugan 2010
- Campaign Fiction: Brother and Sisters
- A Fallen Friend
- Truth and Falsehood
- A Hard Rain Will Fall
- An Arranged Marriage
- Whispers of the Moon
- Fate of the Assassin
- March Unto Death
- Celestial Journey
- Words Cut Like Steel
- To the Last Breath
L5R Homebrew
- A Root Problem: Conflicting Themes
- Power Levels and Power-Creep
- Defense Versus Offense
- Raises
- Narrative Control Mechanics
- Wounds and Death Part 1
- Thugs Versus Characters
- Dueling
- Wounds and Death Part 2
- Schools, Techniques, and Kata Part 1
- Spells and Secrets
- Schools, Techniques, and Kata Part 2
- What's with these Shugenja, anyway? br>
- Unofficial 5th Edition
Right at the beginning of the campaign I had put out the idea that the Unicorn Khan held military maneuvers in the Burning Sands every winter, with the idea that I could eventually use this as the background for a module. What prompted me to actually write the module was the inspiration of having Miya Shikan become a khadi; logically, this would mean he would have to acquire the knowledge from a sorcerer in the Burning Sands, and what better opportunity to meet with such a sorcerer than accompanying the Unicorn for their wargames?
This module features one of only two appearances by the Seppun daimyo, already described on the HoR website as a shallow dimwit who spent his days re-designing the uniforms for the Imperial Legions. Someone like that was perfect to provide a plot-excuse for the PCs to be attending the Unicorn maneuvers, while staying out of the PCs’ way once the module got underway.
The mysterious Unicorn samurai Shinjo Akujin, who engages in a seduction sub-plot against various female PCs, was actually Moto Yoshi (the missing Dark Moto from Unquiet Graves) – there are a number of hints in the module to his true nature, most notably the Taint he bestows on his paramours. The specific device of having him seduce female PCs (with the potential for an illegitimate child to result) was another beat on my recurring effort to create long-term consequences – having saddled male PCs with such effects with Maeda Oroko, I now employed a similar device with female PCs. Probably the most interesting result from this was a Daidoji PC who arranged a marriage to cover-up her pregnancy and wrote a very cool end-of-campaign fiction about raising a son with some very dark urges…
Somewhat like Bloom of the White Orchid, this module put different PCs on different tracks – Unicorn PCs got to compete in the “Great Race” (a concept I borrowed from a never-used module outline in HoR1) while the rest of the PCs accompanied Miya Hanzu to his rendezvous with a gaijin sorcerer. (Ideally this made for a complete module in which the “camera” switched back and forth between the two groups; unfortunately, if there were no Unicorn -- or in the rare cases where they were all Unicorn -- the module tended to “run short.”)
The Great Race sub-plot featured a chance for the PCs to realize that the inept Shinjo family had been murdered and replaced (by the shape-shifting Yoshi, of course, though I never made that obvious). It also featured an appearance by an extremely unpleasant desert bandit named Jafar who the players disliked so much that I brought him back a year later so they could kill him. Humorously, Jafar shared a name with a villain from a Disney movie, which many players assumed was a deliberate choice on my part – in fact, though, I didn’t realize this at the time, since I disliked Disney’s films rather intensely and never watched them.
The Hanzu sub-plot was my favorite part of the module, both because it allowed me to work in some creative gaijin story-elements and because of the way it set the stage for the future Khadi storyline. In particular, I enjoyed the fact that the module put the PCs in the position of fighting “enemies” – the Doomseeker fanatics -- who would be revealed much later on as heroes. I also had fun working in subtle hints on both my interpretation of gaijin magic (epitomized here by the dust-storm that surrounds the oasis) and my explanation of why the quasi-Roman empire called Yodotai had not ended up attacking Rokugan (the depiction of Yodotai being kept as slaves by the gaijin sorcerer).
The Doomseekers
A side-note regarding the Doomseekers, who first show up here and then get a much bigger role in the later module Journey to the Burning Sands…
I based them on the very brief original discussion in 1st Edition, which showed them as a gaijin order dedicated to “bringing death to the deathless.” During the Gold/Diamond era, the L5R writers had published some fictions that created a weird pseudo-canon suggesting that the Doomseekers had never really existed, but were merely a concoction of a rakshasa who met the Unicorn shugenja Iuchi Karasu. Why they did this was never clear since it really didn’t lead to anything, and the hints were so subtle that the whole thing was more a matter of reader interpretation than anything else. At the time I wrote this module, I was barely cognizant that some sort of alternate concept of the Doomseekers had been created (I rather pointedly did not keep up with all the plot-shenanigans of the Gold/Diamond CCG era) so I simply went with my own extrapolation of the original concept.
Several years later, when I was working on the Second City box set for the 4th Edition line, I took the initiative to officially restore the Doomseekers to what they had originally been. The resident “continuity expert” in RPG Playtest complained about this, which finally led me to read the Gold/Diamond fictions that referenced the Doomseekers and see just how vague and open-to-interpretation they really were. It turned out that the whole “Doomseekers didn’t really exist” concept was basically a fan-created extrapolation from those vague references – a “Fanon” as TVTropes would call it. Shawn Carman agreed with me that the vague story-references were no obstacle to restoring the original canon version of the Doomseekers – another tiny victory in my 4th Edition campaign to restore the 1st Edition concepts.