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
The campaign’s running concept of a bi-level storyline, one side of things seen by the higher-Rank primary characters and the other side experienced by the lower-Rank secondaries, reached its final and ultimate expression with this Low-Rank module and its High-Rank sequel/counterpart (Celestial Journey). However, this module also had another aspect: I had decided that everyone who played in the concluding special scenarios would have to have played either this module or Celestial Journey. Partly this was done for play-balancing purposes (I had long since decided that Celestial Journey was going to involve the PCs making “sacrifices” that would be expressed mechanically in the loss of special abilities and powers) but it was also because I wanted the finale to have full emotional impact on the players – and that impact would be muted (at best!) if they had not experienced the lead-in to it. Thus, I wrote both this adventure and Celestial Journey in the knowledge that they were also serving as preludes/lead-ins to the campaign finale.
(Fun side-note: A table of players showed up for BOTH of the finale events, the court and the battle, with brand-new characters and no prior experience with the campaign. When we explained that they could not play these events without the precursors, they threw fits and declared the events were “not as advertised” – they even went to AEG to gripe. Needless to say, that didn’t get them the results they wanted.)
The plot-purpose of this module, of course, was to depict the catastrophe of Akodo Gintaku murdering the Jade Dragon (and in the process, sacrificing an entire army of honorable Lion samurai). I felt that an event this spectacular and horrible really needed to happen “on screen”... but, it was an event that any PC witnesses would have a hard time surviving. Accordingly, I chose to make this the Low-Rank half of the story so that character deaths would not be devastating, with the High-Rank characters then dealing with the consequences in the next module.
This module drew very heavily on the influence of the anime series Berserk (the original TV version, of course, not the more recent movies), specifically the climax of the series in which horrific supernatural forces are unleashed and pretty much all the characters die in ghastly and hideous ways. Although viewers suspect throughout the series that bad things are coming, the absolute horror of the ending still comes as a tremendous shock, and I wanted to try to replicate some of that looming fear and visceral, emotionally overwhelming horror for HoR. I deliberately included return appearances by an assortment of sympathetic NPCs such as Hida Buso, Suzume Kizu, and Pep’chuk the Ratling, as well as Gintaku’s admirable son Akodo Soto. Since the Dragon Clan had made commitments at Interactives to send hundreds of tattooed men to support the Crab, I also had an excuse to include Hitomi Choujo in the NPC cast. Likewise, I wrote the march to the Crab lands to include a series of “comrades on the road to battle” role-play sequences – a draw-lot play, a session of “full contact kemari,” Kizu trying to sneak off to his family, a rowdy night at a gambling house, a potential eve-of-battle romance between Soto and a female PC, and so forth. All of this, of course, was to set up a heightened emotional impact for the finale in which all of these NPCs would cruelly and brutally perish.
And then…
"The figure which must be Akodo Mako seizes Akodo Soto and pins his arms behind him. A single shout of confusion, anger, and fear bursts from his lips. Then Akodo Gintaku slashes with the knife in his hand, and opens his son’s throat.
The ground shudders and lurches beneath your feet, throwing you to the ground. All across the battlefield men and monsters alike tumble and fall. A terrible roar fills the world and the soil erupts, unleashing vast black chains as thick as tree-trunks. The chains hurtle upward, lengthening infinitely, reaching toward the sun.
The sun seems to shrink and fade, and the sky grows dark, the blue of day draining out of it like water from a gourd. Something is being pulled from the sky, something vast and serpentine and glowing green, writhing in the grip of chains. The Jade Dragon falls to the earth with the force of an earthquake, smashing hundreds of mortals and beasts alike beneath its thrashing bulk.
Akodo Gintaku approaches the head of the trapped Dragon, and his voice echoes across the field with unnatural power. “I claim this power for myself, this sacrifice for the future I will build.” He raises the dagger once again, still wet with his son’s blood, and plunges it down into the Dragon’s throat. A vast gout of glowing green blood shoots forth, luminescent under the now utterly black sky. A terrible moan goes up from the mingled armies on the field – a moan of terror from the Lion ranks, of adulation from the Shadowlands creatures. Gintaku stands over the collapsing body of the great Dragon, and his body is wreathed in unnatural green fire. The earth trembles beneath your feet, and then rain begins to fall from a sky turned reddish-black. The thick, heavy liquid spatters across the suddenly darkened landscape, turning it crimson, for it is blood.
Flickers of eerie green lightning race across the plains, and in its light the blood covering everything is an unnatural glistening black. A cacophony of screams rise up around you. Hundreds of Lion samurai are rising into the air, caught in the terrible green energy, their bodies twisting and changing, huge butterfly-like wings erupting from their backs.
Gintaku’s voice rings like some terrible bell. “And you,” he says to the vast Shadowlands horde below, “you will serve me now, and not your dark master. In return, I offer you the flesh of these, my servants.” He gestures once, a wide sweep of his arm encompassing all of the blood-soaked samurai on the plain.
A great roar of gluttonous inhuman appetite rises up from the Shadowlands forces, mingled with cries of terror and impotent rage from the First Matsu Army."
I remember when I ran the slot-zero table, my Lion player Todd said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I feel physically sick.” :)
The conclusion of the module allowed the PCs to have a chance to get away, with various of the NPCs dying to help them along. I also worked in the idea that PCs could literally sacrifice a part of themselves (represented by Advantages, Trait Ranks, etc) to try to get away. In part, this was intended to create a Low-Rank counterpart of the “sacrifice” moment in the next module… but it was also, again, an influence from the finale of Berserk, where the protagonist Gutts chops off his own forearm in a desperate attempt to rescue his true love Casca.