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
Download The Adventure
Download the Cert
Ah yes, Grave of Heroes… one of the very few mods in HoR2 that was designed and intended to be lethally dangerous to play. You’ll note that this time around I waited two years to do a module like that, instead of releasing it within the first half-dozen like I had in HoR1.
I actually came up with the basic idea for this module over a year earlier (around the time I was realizing Shikan’s storyline was going to take longer than originally planned), and posted the module title as a “teaser” on the HoR website immediately after GenCon 2006. I knew from the start of the campaign that I would need to dispose of most (if not all) of the Emperor’s nine children, both as part of the “bait-and-switch” of tricking the players into expecting a conventional succession crisis, and to open the door for the Big Bad to make his own play for power. I’d had no plans for _how_ I would do this, and the story for Grave of Heroes was the first specific idea I got. It was essentially an indirect sequel to Uncertainty, with Miya Hanzu/Kageko once again using a third party (in this case a rogue group of Tsuno) as his stalking-horse to take out prominent NPCs who Miya Shikan wanted assassinated. I decided to use Tsuno because (a) they hated the Toturi bloodline, making it credible that Kageko could recruit them, and (b) they were villains I had not used before, so they’d be “fresh” for both me and for the players.
I had used the “gossip sections” in earlier modules to set up the information that the Toturi twins and their little sister Chisa were touring the Empire, so when the PCs encounter them at the beginning of this module it is not an arbitrary event. I chose the location of the ambush (in the Seikitsu Pass next to the Great Crater created by Yakamo in the twelfth century) because of the connection between that location and the original appearance of the Tsuno in Gold Edition. This choice in turn dictated where the PCs would encounter the Imperial travel party (in southern Unicorn lands). As with a number of other modules, I wanted to emphasize how much time had passed since the current twelfth-century CCG era, so I depicted the Great Crater as having filled in and become a lake, with a thriving trade village located on the shore.
A side-story element in the module was a scene in which a peasant boy touches a samurai’s sword and is thus condemned to death… unless the PCs can save him by convincing his father (a wandering Sparrow bushi) to admit to fathering an illegitimate ronin son. This had actually been submitted to me by a couple of players as a potential module idea, but they were unable to come up with a full module to construct around the story, so I persuaded them to let me use it as a side-story in one of my own mods. For the role of the merciless samurai who demands the child’s death, I chose Kakita Amika, who had been a contestant in the Topaz Championship. A prominent Crane PC had adopted a policy of permanently scarring his opponents in duels to first blood, and Amika had been one of his victims (this behavior earned him the nickname of “the Merciful” – he would eventually appear in the module Assigning Blame). I liked the idea of Amika (who was carrying a torch for her sensei, the Kakita daimyo) becoming a scarred and tormented figure, and made this outcome canonical for the campaign as a whole. In this module, PCs who couldn’t “solve” the situation with the boy could opt instead to accept an Obligation to duel Amika in the future – a nerve-wracking long-term consequence, since she was already established as a lethally skilled duelist.
I deliberately made Toturi Chisa (who had gotten a very brief cameo in Topaz Championship) as cute and appealing as possible so the players would be highly motivated to rescue her once Hanzu/Kageko’s plot went into motion. I also allowed a very, very difficult roll for snoopy PCs to realize that Hanzu was the one who had kidnapped Chisa; of course, since he outranked them in Status they could not make any accusation stick, but they would have an early clue-in on his sinister true nature. (To the best of my knowledge, only one player ever made this roll, and he became obsessed with investigating Hanzu and trying desperately to prove something against him, even writing up lengthy fictions about these futile efforts.)
The climactic battle in this module was specifically designed to evoke an emotionally intense “cinematic” experience, heavily influenced by the scenes of heroic tragedy in some of my favorite movies. The princes’ fates are “programmed” but the PCs still have to fight to save Chisa (and themselves), and then – assuming they’ve survived that initial fight – they face the choice of whether to flee with Chisa or to stand and die alongside the princes. PCs who chose to stay were automatically killed, but the players were rewarded for this true-samurai act with a powerful “Kharma cert” that granted the right for their next character to buy the otherwise unavailable Great Destiny advantage.