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Lady
Sun rises from the ocean, her gaze sweeping across the
deep blue-green waters and her light racing to the coast
to dance on the walls of Otosan Uchi, home to the Emperor
of this land. Sunlight plays across the Emperor's palace
and another day has begun in Rokugan.
The
sun moves on, for the Emerald Empire is vast and not
even the Emperor's supreme power may command the Mother
of the Kami to stand still. Morning shines on rich
lands of the proud and vigilant Lion clan, and of
the graceful, courtly Crane. The valleys of the Scorpion
clan are shrouded in mist this day, hiding their secrets
with a mask just the Scorpions themselves do - surely
a bad omen. In the north of the empire, the sun brushes
the towering peaks of Kyodai na Kabe sano Kita,
the Great Wall of the North. In its shadow are the
woodlands of the mystical Phoenix; on its distant
far side, the forbidden, near-legendary deserts of
the Burning Sands. Somewhere among the harsh mountains
in between are the strongholds of the secretive Dragon
clan, lands so mysterious and forbidding that it is
said even Lady Sun is slow to reach them.
| Whatever
is said of the Dragon, Lady Sun sees everything
that happens in Rokugan, from Otosan Uchi in the
east to the wide plains of the Unicorn clan in
the west. She sees war as families and clans struggle
for power. She sees intrigue as courtiers fight
the battles in their own way. Courageous bushi
practise with weapons of steel and wood, while
powerful shugenja study more arcane arts.
Hinin, heimin, and samurai
go about their daily business, be that the honest
duty of farming or honourable service in the name
of clan and daimyo. Where the shadowed
depths of Shinomen Mori, the vast Hidden
Forest, break, she sees the ancient serpent-people
of the Naga stirring for the first time in centuries.
There is no end to the things that Lady Sun sees
- by the time her light begins to fade and the
shadows of the Unicorn's tall, powerful horses
stretch long across the grass, she has travelled
very far. |
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Legend
of the Five Rings RPG, 1st ed.
|
Beyond
the shadow of the Unicorn's herds, Lady Sun will continue
her journey across distant lands, but those lands
are of no importance to the empire. Twilight fades
above Otosan Uchi and another day has ended in Rokugan
- in most of Rokugan, anyway. Far to the south of
the emperor's palace are the lands of the Crab, and
south of the lands of the Crab are the festering evils
of the Shadowlands, evils that even Lady Sun will
not gaze upon. The horrid oni of the Shadowlands do
not rest at night and so neither can the Crab. While
the other clans sleep, they alone will hold the darkness
back from Rokugan until Lady Sun rises above the ocean
once more...
Welcome
to the world of Legend of the Five Rings, a
world of honour and glory, of bushi and shugenja,
of spirits, monsters, magic, intrigue, and an epic
struggle for the survival of a empire. A world that
is, in short, one of the richest, best developed settings
in fantasy gaming today, and a setting that deserves
a closer look from every gamer (and every style of
gamer) looking for something that's just a little
bit different. In fact, Legend of the Five Rings
deserves a closer look from readers of fantasy fiction,
because it's a setting that may very well be poised
to breakout into the mainstream fantasy consciousness.
Legend
of the Five Rings had its start in 1995 with the
introduction of the first sets for the Legend of
the Five Rings collectible card game (aka the
L5R CCG). Published by Five Rings Publishing Group
- now a division of Wizards of the Coast - the L5R
CCG cast players as the leaders of armies based on
the seven clans of Rokugan, the Shadowlands horde,
or the legendary Naga. The vivid storyline of and
characterization in the CCG led rapidly to the Legend
of the Five Rings roleplaying game (the L5R RPG)
by Alderac Entertainment Group, allowing players to
experience an even greater degree of interaction with
Rokugan by telling their own stories. AEG also created
Clan War, a strategic miniatures war game that
brings the battles of L5R to the tabletop. Now, with
five years of development into the setting, Wizards
of the Coast is making the move that will take Legend
of the Five Rings beyond the gaming community
by launching a series of novels based on the events
of L5R.
I
envy the authors of those novels.
To
say that Legend of the Five Rings is loosely
based on a medieval Japanese setting simply does not
do it justice. Yes, the setting is very heavily influenced
by medieval Japanese culture and folklore, but as
the designers of the L5R RPG point out very early
on in the main game rulebook, Rokugan is not
Japan. It's a fantasy land. Rokugan is a huge setting,
both literally and figuratively. Geographically it
contains almost every kind of terrain (including the
twisted corruption of the Shadowlands). In some ways,
there is also a certain similarity to China: the Emerald
Empire occupies an area of the mainland of its world
rather than an island and isolated by hostile terrain
rather than just water, although an isolationist cultural
also prevails. There is a world outside Rokugan -
the Unicorn clan wandered there for eight hundred
years on a mission assigned by the first emperor,
encountering desert nomads, ancient cities of sorcerers,
and jungle kingdoms before returning to the Emerald
Empire - but it is of no concern to the Rokugani.
Although a separate card game, Legend of the Burning
Sands, was produced for a time, L5R hints at the
greater world without ever really defining it. I find
that this only adds to the mystique of the setting.
Frankly, there's enough to explore in Rokugan without
needing to go outside of it!
|
The
Way of the Unicorn
|
|
Rokugan
also encompasses a wide, rich range of cultural
variation, mostly between the seven clans.
Both the Crab and Lion clans, for example,
are concerned with battle, but there are few
similarities in their customs: the Lion clan
is painfully bound by pride and ancient honour,
while the Crab is far less concerned with
the niceties of life in the face of holding
back the monsters of the Shadowlands. These
variations can and do spill out of the main
L5R RPG rulebook into AEG's Way of the
Clans series. Most roleplaying game settings
these days provide background expansion books,
but few are as detailed or as integrated into
their setting as the Way of the Clans
books. Although their expansions on the game
rules and tips for roleplaying members of
a particular clan are very good (an essay
in Way of the Scorpion, "Treachery
101: Or, How To Be A Sneaky Git and Not Get
Killed By The Other Characters," should
be required reading in any game of intrigue),
they're also valuable for underlining another
facet of the appeal of L5R and Rokugan: this
is not the typical medieval Europe
setting. Society works a little differently
- maybe even a lot differently - and that's
integral to enjoying the setting. Honour is
very real. Sincerity is more important than
truth. Duty is harsh.
|
These
differences can really make a player in the L5R setting
sit up and take notice. I can't think of a better
example to illustrate this than a situation drawn
from Code of Bushido, one of AEG's published
adventures for the L5R roleplaying game: the characters,
guests in the home of a powerful daimyo, are woken
by a scream in the night and while they may or may
not be able to determine what has happened, they are
urged to stay in their rooms and go back to sleep.
In most games, players would no doubt resist and attempt
to make an investigation. In L5R, however, the proper
course of action is to obey and stay where they are
told. To do otherwise is an insult, suggesting that
their host is not able to deal with the situation
on his own.
Even bigger than the physical and cultural scale of
Rokugan, however, is the sense of myth and legend
that infuses every aspect of Legend of the Five
Rings in all of its incarnations. These are games
and novels that define the concept of epic, beginning
with the very well-developed history of Rokugan. In
the very broadest of strokes, Rokugan's history begins
about a thousand years before the Rokugani "present"
when the nine Kami, children of the Sun and the Moon,
fell from the sky. Seven of those Kami became the
progenitors of the Great Clans of Rokugan, submitting
(after a series of mythical contests) to the rule
of the eighth Kami, the progenitor of the Imperial
line.
The
ninth Kami, however, was separated from his brothers
and sisters as they fell, however. Instead of landing
gently, Fu Leng crashed into the earth, tearing a
pit into the Underworld. His pain and agony gave birth
to the tainted desolation of the Shadowlands and all
of the evil in the world. Eventually, he rose up against
the empire his siblings had established. Fortunately,
the other Kami had been prepared for this by a strange
little monk named Shinsei. With the aid of Shinsei
and a band of heroes, the Seven Thunders, Fu Leng
was defeated and bound back into the Underworld.
Such
a cursory explanation of the Rokugani origin story
doesn't do the work of the L5R designers justice.
The history of Rokugan is a cut above the history
claimed by other fantasy game settings and what sets
it apart is that sense of myth and legend. It resonates
with the myths and legends of our own world. The birth
of the Kami, for example, echoes the birth of the
Olympian gods, while tales of the Seven Thunder have
the feel of real legends. What's more, the legends
of Rokugan doesn't stop with the dim past. Sprinkled
through the books of the roleplaying game are stories
from all periods of Rokugan's history, often inserted
as bits of colour text when discussing ancestral spirits
or clan legends, short and simple bits of description
that go a long way toward bringing the setting to
life.
| Other
events provide a thread through history: famous
battles create a goodwill or ill between clans,
for instance, while the travels of the Unicorn
link that clan to the mysterious conspiracy known
as the Kolat and also provide a clue to a shadowy
force threatening the empire. This sense of depth
in the setting is also enhanced in descriptions
of the very recent past as characters detailed
in one game book are linked by events to characters
in another, while a character in a third book
is perhaps the only one who knows the truth of
what's going on. More than one RPG supplement
is, in fact, presented almost entirely as the
translation of a historical Rokugani work or works,
bringing the subject matter to life in a way that
I've seen in very few products for any game setting
(especially noteworthy are the eerie and mysterious
Way of the Shadow and the downright frightening
Bearers of Jade: The Second Book of the Shadowlands).
Snippets of fiction and short stories chronicle
the events that take place in the L5R CCG, tying
the individual cards together and telling the
story of the current (but certainly no less epic)
events taking place in Rokugan. |
|
Bearers
of Jade: The Second Book of the Shadowlands
|
Ultimately,
Legend of the Five Rings is all about storytelling.
From those magnificent legends of Rokugan's past to
the heroic deeds in which the players themselves vicariously
participate, story pervades the setting - more so,
perhaps, than most other game worlds because the direction
of the overall L5R story arc is determined by the
players of the L5R CCG themselves. In a process that
may well be unique in the gaming industry, the L5R
designers set an arc for a particular expansion of
the card game, but leave the details of certain events
open. Over a period of time after the release, players
participate in tournaments and contests, the results
of which sway the final details of those events. When
Mirumoto Hitomi commited seppuku and was reborn
as the moon in the Ambition's Debt expansion,
such a tournament decided who would stand with her
at the end of her earthly life.
The
result is a dynamic game atmosphere, one that breathes
a living quality into the story. In turn, the developing
story arc (or rather arcs - two great arcs have been
completed since the L5R CCG was first published) brings
a sense of being part of something bigger to the game.
Characters, many of them the same ones described in
the books of the roleplaying game, grow in power and
enmity, change, and even die. Fans of the various
factions in the CCG can sign up newsletters distributed
by Wizards of the Coast that keep them up to date
with teasing snippets of information. Digging up the
back story isn't, unfortunately, the easiest thing
for someone new to the L5R epic, but it is well worth
the effort. The new line of novels will go part of
the way toward making Rokugan's epic more accessible.
In the meantime (and for those who want a bigger chunk
of the story than the novels provide), a quick Internet
search can turn up a number of lively fan sites that
encapsulate the saga to varying degrees.
While
the rapid-fire nature of card game releases will ensure
that the L5R saga is continually moving forward, it
does unfortunately mean that the more detailed print
products will always lag behind. The L5R RPG, for
instance, does and always has operated in the past
of the L5R CCG. While the CCG is currently completing
a story arc known as the Hidden Emperor, the roleplaying
game is just now entering the preceding story arc,
the Great Clan War (the miniature game, named for
that same story arc, moves beyond it with a new edition
being released this year). Fortunately the lead up
to the events of the CCG is tremendous in itself and
if you really want to play in the thick of the Rokugani
present, the problem is not insurmountable. The storyline
is no great secret and the L5R RPG is nothing if not
versatile. With the aid of various supplements available
from AEG (most notably the excellent Winter Court
books that serve the dual role of moving time forward
and expanding on some of the more unusual aspects
of Rokugani culture), roleplaying gamers can keep
up with the CCG on their own.
Overall,
this is perhaps one of the best times to consider
getting into Legend of the Five Rings, no matter
which aspect of it you choose, with a fantastic spate
of new releases in the Fall 2000 season. As I mentioned,
the Legend of the Five Rings CCG is moving
into the climax of its most recent story arc and a
new starter scenario, Storms Over Matsu Palace,
has just been released for novice players. Clan
War: Daimyo Edition moves the miniatures game
into the restless time after the end of the Great
Clan War story arc. There's a new series of clan-based
supplements for more advanced players of the RPG on
the way, beginning with Secrets of the Scorpion
in September 2000, and Legend of the Five Rings
RPG, Second Edition leaps onto the scene in October
2000. While successive printings of the first edition
basic gamebook have taken care of many glitches in
the game mechanics, the second edition still promises
to be a major expansion. The single rule book will
be split in two, a player's guide that will contain
material drawn from the Way of the Clans and
Winter Court sourcebooks, and a gamemaster's
guide drawing on the sinister Books of the Shadowlands
and other useful gamemaster supplements.
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Clan
War Scroll One: The Scorpion
|
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Perhaps
most importantly, the second edition builds
on previous supplements and brings the roleplaying
setting forward into the turbulence of the
Great Clan War - perfect timing because that's
also the time period explored by the Legend
of the Five Rings novels. By October,
two of the seven novels should be available.
Clan War Scroll One: The Scorpion is
a tight novel of nasty intrigue that describes
the events of the Scorpion Clan Coup, the
well-intentioned but misguided strike that
touches off the Clan War. Clan War Scroll
Two: The Unicorn is the story of the infamous
Battle of Beiden Pass and the Unicorn's struggle
to prove their place among the Great Clans.
On the horizon are novels for the other clans
- Crane, Phoenix, Crab, Dragon, Lion - on
a rapid fire schedule that will keep fans
supplied with a new novel of the Clan War
every three months, with more novels planned
to round out the storyline beyond that.
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Choose
your poison. With a fantastic storyline, a history
of strong products behind it, and a full, promising
schedule ahead, Legend of the Five Rings looks
set to be a strong presence in gaming - and the fantasy
genre in general - for a long time to come.
The
Crab have stayed the darkness for another night. Is
that the chrysanthemum light of a new dawn returning
to Otosan Uchi? What wonders will Lady Sun see on
her journey across Rokugan this day?
Return
to Word - Black Gate #1 Reviews
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