/l5rg/ Legend of the Five Rings General

>If you're trying to argue that gaijin don't have gods and brutal divine regimes, you're not doing it at all
Good thing I'm not trying to argue that. I am, however, trying to argue that gaijin without brutal divine regimes do indeed have culture and civilization.

Shitty culture and civilization that leaves them outside of the celestial wheel and forever cut off from the actually good afterlives.

This is why 7th Sea needs to be the "Gaijin" of L5R.

Because, as a setting, and a place with multiple well fleshed out unique cultures, it fits a helluva lot better then "those assholes with guns who killed the empress that one time"

Also the whole "only rokugan has gods, and only rokugan matters, everyone else is just evil and degenerate"

>leaves them outside of the celestial wheel
good. it's a shit system. "do what we tell you to do, or we're making you a gaki when you die"
Fuck that shit. The original 5 races knew what they were doing when they tried to separate ningen-do from Tengoku.

A real issue with this is just how far back in the past the battle of White Stag is. Modern Rokugan would be around the 20th AV Century for Theah.

How is L5R's focus on a single region any different from Forgotten Realms though? Every setting does it, why does it matter for L5R specifically?

because Forgotten Realms has a cosmology that fits with all the other unimportant regions. L5R doesn't.

Because L5R is written from the perspective that only Rokugan is important in the setting.

Thats not a huge issue. I actually synced up the timeline of white stag and 7th sea to about the time of the third prophet - white stag wasn't some dumb fucking trade dispute, it was an attempt by forces of the church to holy crusade rokugan and convert it by force from its heathen paganism

of course, third prophet was a fucking fraud, so its not like theah and the true church was really at fault.

Also, Syraneth fit well enough as "pre-human races" much like the kenku, kitsu, goblins, naga, etc. Theus is basically one of those high tier powerful gods like Amaterasu and Onnotangu, while Matushka is similar to an earthbound god, like Togashi. The Sidhe are just another one of those divinely powerful pre-human races, etc.

Really, 7th Sea and L5R line up a lot closer then anyone realizes. 7th Sea even has Shinsei's Secret as a part of its metaplot.

They don't worship the same ways, but there are connections. The Kami bear an uncanny resemblance to the Yodotai gods. Amaterasu favoured another place before Rokugan, only to give it a lasting name when it earned her ire - The Burning Sands.
etc etc.

>08/08/16(Mon)03:33:33
>03:33:33

>Really, 7th Sea and L5R line up a lot closer then anyone realizes
You're not the first to tread this ground. While there are similarities, others (writers included) have brought up the differences. That said, I've never played 7S to know.

Officially, the firearm gaijin country of l5r was wiped out by plague. Sorts that shit right out.

>amaterasu made the burning sands when she got angry
wait, really? Thank fuck that bitch got deposed.

I would almost agree with you, except she got replaced by the gigantic jock bully who thought it was cool to totally fuck the land over that his family swore to protect, with demons, and then somehow magically became an snake person messiah.

So no. I'll take the bitch over Hida Wackamo any day of the fucking week.

>That said, I've never played 7S to know

The biggest issue between the two game lines is mechanics. Despite both using roll&keep, they are as different as the sun and the moon.

You're not wrong.
No word yet on how bitch of an asshole the Jade Dragon is tho.

>not liking Lord Sun

>bitch of an asshole the Jade Dragon is tho

Dragons being assholes seems to be a recurring theme.

I miss the days when they weren't even a fleshed out concept, and the only dragons were Togashi, and his half-dragon son.

>Dragons being assholes seems to be a recurring theme
fug

In my current campaign, both Yakamo and Kisada get what they deserve for what they did. Not only is Yakamo going to die, but he won't even be the Crab Thunder. O-Ushi will take that place, and being as she turned against her family for what they did, shes able to keep the Crab from suffering the same fate as the Scorpion.

In my campaign, no AEG storyteam is going to rescue dumbasses from their deserved consequences.

Turns out I wasn't quite right. Lunacy, rather than anger.

>The Burning Sands were said to have once been a lush and fertile land, until the region was cursed by Shilah, the Lady Sun, during the Day of Wrath. In that cataclysmic event, only the Nahr'umar river survived. The sands of the region still surged with residual energies that originated on that day. Even part of the desert was previously an ocean.

>A horde of jinn invaded the night sky, dousing thousands of stars and capturing the rest, imprisoning the evening heavens. With the dawn, Shilah, the Sun, was trapped within a prison built of their awful face and quickly fell into madness. Within one cycle, Kaleel and his Legion had captured the world, and began the First Jinn War.

>Ashalan and human were forced to work together against the Jinn who had enslaved them. Eventually they stumbled upon a fabulous magic, a sigil made of light and smoke that formed a map of all known magic, the Hakhim's Seal, which allowed to contact with Shilah. The humans only sought a new ally in their fight against the Jinn, a way to end the awful cataclysm approaching. They never anticipated that their actions would urge it forward.

>Awakened from her lunacy, Shilah witnessed the Jinn through the veracity of the Seal, and calling upon all the power keeping her sane lashed out across the beautiful terrain she had brought into being. In one climactic moment, the world dissolved around the Jinn, Ashalan, and humans. Magic touched by her wrath was consumed to add to the destruction, ripped away from those who would use it for their own selfish desire.

>'The Day of Wrath, also called the First Burning of the Land'

Eh, I think Yakamo paid for his mistakes, grew from them and became a better character, but there's no crime against you being a faggot.

Will agree that O-ushi was a boss.

I'd rather he and Hitomi killed each other in a kharmic strike, and while they are both bleeding out, he says sorry, and she calls him a gigantic fuckhead, and he realizes he totally was.

And then he dies, and his soul can impart some wisdom to his sister. Maybe after crying his eyes out and begging forgiveness from Sukune, after letting Yori nail him to a fucking warbanner of Fu Leng.

Also, he didn't pay for his mistakes. He was onboard with everything until he realized that Yori betrayed him, and thats when he and Kisada tried to fight against Fu Leng in his new hantei suit. Kisada died, and Yakamo got a jade hand, got to be a thunder, and then got magically forgiven for all the vile shit he did during clan war.

Its ok that you like him, that doesn't make you a faggot. AEG are the faggots for shilling such a stupid character.

No.
No.
FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING NO.
The tropes of the genres are baked into the metaphysics of the fucking settings. Now, the fact that AEG and friends often completely fail to understand the tropes is a separate discussion, but that doesn't change the fact that 7th sea is, broadly, a swashbuckler, and L5R is, broadly, a samurai drama.
These are different stories with different expectations.
I'm sure it could be fun to cross the streams, but that's shit you can do on your own time. Making it the default dilutes both settings.

Reprint when

>but that's shit you can do on your own time

I already do, and I already have. Currently in my campaign, the player party thought it would be a great idea to assassinate a cousin to Giovanni Villanova and pin it on a Yasuki retainer family that the PC's are trying to get rid of.

The Villanova's are on their way to rokugan for some good ole' fashioned dagger-in-the-night bloodletting.

Never

7th Sea got kickstarted and rebooted. Its now just all swashbuckling with no ancient aliens.

Also, no roll&keep

Anyone have the TBS spoilers that got leaked a couple weeks back? Just saw traces of them being dumped but seems everywhere has dried up.

Well what's the fucking point, then?

Ask Wick, hes the guy whose doing it.

I had forgotten how 90's as fuck that comic book cover was.
>Samurai guy
>armor doesn't fit
>eyes closed
>holding the sword the wrong way
>his muscles have muscles in a way that makes him look vaguely deformed

Dude could only be more 90's if he was a cyborg or something.
Well, technically speaking the isolationist mindset of Rokugan had nothing to do with the Kami at all.
That was just a socio-political reaction from White Stag.

Eh, I think losing your brother and father, lots of your troops, having the to suffer the shame of your actions, and dying in the Shadowlands(he didn't know he'd be revived) counts as some form of payment. Whether it's enough or not is something you can argue.

And I don't see being a Thunder as any kind of reward. Two of them were killed because of it and another driven crazy. And that was generous seeing as how all of them died or worse the first time.

He could've been better written, sure, but he's far from the worst offender in that respect and his actions as the Sun were only ever good as far as I can remember.

Just put some pouches on him and he's ready for an Image Comics series.

Actually the Syrneth are still mentioned. Couple of times, in fact.
What there might not be is a METAPLOT, to be exact.

I mean, in theory.
Wick hasn't been able to control himself in the past and wasn't able to control himself in regards to the game mechanics so I'm not expecting him to control himself about a metaplot either.

>Samurai guy

Point of trivia, thats apparently Doji Satsume

>Just put some pouches on him and he's ready for an Image Comics series.

>BLOODSHIDO!

I guess even Doji can even lift sometimes.

What? Seriously?

>BLOODSHIDO!
Sounds like a Mortal Kombat character.

I almost agree. Except he stood by and watched as Yori nailed Sukune to that banner, and did nothing. His dad is still the one ultimately responsible, but at no time did Yakamo ever try and stop him. He even gave his name to an Oni.

My point is, you can be an awesome guy, and your intentions honorable, but Rokugan tends to punish actions harshly, unless the storyteam loves you. Shoju was trying to save Rokugan, and his clan got fucked for it. Kisada and Yakamo did far worse, and there was never a reprisal or punishment. You can chalk that up to neither of them killing the emperor in cold blood, or the fact that people like the crab considerably more then the scorpion - but the truth is, yakamo was a darling of the story team, and shoju was the fall guy for an entire story arc.

The armor, is apparently the armor of the emerald champion, the shade of green being very distinct.

For all that the books are maligned for more or less good reasons, the Crab Clan War book does a better job of giving Yakamo characterization and having him realizing how much of a stupid Chad he was. I might be drawing from that when it's not strictly canon.

>My point is, you can be an awesome guy, and your intentions honorable, but Rokugan tends to punish actions harshly, unless the storyteam loves you.
That's more than fair; I agree Shoju got a really raw deal. I think they were supposed to try to correct some of that--I remember the fiction where he watches Kwanchai go Kwanchai as a gaki--but I dropped out of following canon before it came to fruition.

>Rokugan tends to punish actions harshly, unless everyone has been killing everyone, and can't afford another damn wholesale war
FTFY.

>there was never a reprisal or punishment
Hida whatsisname the daimyo was ordered to commit seppuku to exonerate the entire Crab clan of Kisada's wrongdoings. It was somewhat late, but we were told/shown it fit with the political climate of Rokugan that other clans were considering not helping the Crab with their shit again. (which was where everyone was before the clan wars, albeit for different reasons) When Kisada/Yakamo were realising they done fucked up, the empire was too messed up to just flat refuse their aid.

>Shoju was trying to save Rokugan, and his clan got fucked for it
Shoju was eventually redeemed.

I know you'll just keep glossing over all the shit, but w/e. /l5rg/.

Shoju could have gone about it better. But thats what happens when you listen to a bloodsword.

In any case, I dsiagree'd the most with Yakamo becoming the Sun. Gods of a setting lose a lot of legitimacy when they become both vulnerable to death by mortals, and then replaced by mortals - especially incredibly flawed mortals, like Hitomi and Yakamo. The setting itself loses what verisimilitude that it has, and the prestige of godhood, and the reverence those gods have, kinda just turn into nothing.

Not to say that Amaterasu and Onnotangu aren't flawed themselves - they very much are - but they are also beings that exist above and apart from humanity in such a massive way, that having beings like that be killed and replaced by normal folk is just kind of bananas

A mortal king doesn't replace Zeus. A soldier doesn't replace Aries. It doesn't work like that, and it shouldn't.

But thats just my feelings on it. RYW and all that.

>Shoju was eventually redeemed

So were the scorpion, but they fucking worked at it, and eventually had to have a god vouch for them before they got let back in the house.

In comparison, the Crab got off light, and while Shoju was redeemed, he didn't become a god. Kisada did (eventually, after he killed Iuichiban). and so did Yakamo.

So that seems pretty disproportionate a "punishment" between two heinous acts. You can make an argument that killing the emperor is more awful, but I can just as easily say that the Crab betrayed their purpose and duty in the worst way, and not even for a good reason - Kisada wanted to be emperor, and he was willing to let the empire turn into the shadowlands just so he could rule.

But your right man, its ancient history anyway. My campaign works differently because I feel differently about how it should have gone. RYW and all that.

I liked that Hitomi and Yakamo became the moon and sun, but thought that Kisada becoming a fortune was a bit goofy, though I think it resulted from fanboys doing something to make it happen?

Then, he gets bored of being a god after a while and comes back to the mortal realm to putz about a bit before getting ganked by Scorpions and going back to godhood. That whole bit was incredibly 'What the fuck?' to me.

The reason Kisada got off light was Toturi not wanting to rock the boat.
If he had prosecuted the Crab, he'd have lost the support of one of the strongest military forces in the country, if not the strongest at the time.
By letting them get away with it and making Kisada a fortune, he cemented the Crab as a clan that supported the Toturi dynasty.
Also, nobody else wants to sit on that border. Exiling the Crab means moving another Clan to ineffectually fill their space, which is not going to happen given the general culture of avoidance for the shadowlands and the taint.

>after he killed Iuichiban
Stood in front of a wave of blood, before Sezaru finished the job.

That reminds me. Volturnum, the old troll gate to the spirit realms that Kisada returned through? The one they used to call upon the heroes they needed? The trolls had a very strict policy of sending them back ASAP. Apparently it just messed with fate too much otherwise.

Kisada might not have received the Rokugani rep he deserved, but there's a solid chance he made everything much worse by hanging around a second time.

A lot of spirits hung around after Volturnum, and you can't really blame any individual one for that. The fate thing actually got so bad that the celestial wheel spontaneously generated a new Realm (Maiga no Musha, I think) to shunt away everyone whose fate had been disrupted, since Emma-O can't actually judge them due to the interference. Forcing the spirits to seppuku their way home or become fully mortal (And therefore fully integrated into Fate) was a good plan.

I still want to make a character from a lost Minor Clan who came back through the gate.

Pretty damn metal Samurai.

>I can just as easily say that the Crab betrayed their purpose and duty in the worst way, and not even for a good reason - Kisada wanted to be emperor
There's a post-Kami tournament exchange between Hida and Hantei somewhere, where Hida confirms he'll follow his brother, and his children after him, but that if a day ever came where the line of Hantei was weaker than the line of Hida, he would not wait to take the throne.

There is also that whole thing where the Shadowlands was less active and the Crab wasn't being supported by the other clans nearly as much as they needed if a major offensive came.

Kisada didn't have good reasons, but I prefer emphasising anything that supports it wasn't just "lols gonna be emprah now".

>A lot of spirits hung around after Volturnum, and you can't really blame any individual one for that
Eh wot? Nah, mate.

>Oblivion's Gate had the power to resurrect the dead, to grant them flesh once more, along with a longevity and strength greater than mortal men. The Gate was used in times of dire need to bring back a dead hero of the Trolls, who would defeat the threat and then return once again to their afterlife through it.

>In 1134 more and more returned spirits made their way from Yomi into the land of the living before Oblivion's Gate was finally sealed by Isawa Hochiu.
Not talking about that.

>Rezan aided by a group of Crab led by Hiruma Todori managed to use the connection between the Realm of Thwarted Destiny and Ningen-do through the Gate, and Hida Kisada returned from the spirit world in 1166.
This one.

Considering how close to fucked the Crab were at the time, it was probably a net positive. The Hiruma had just lost their castle again and the wall was being assaulted constantly. Crab resources were stretched razor thin, not helped at all by the Yasuki problem (Thanks Otomo!) and the only potential backup (The Crane) being petulant.

No wait, that's an alt history.
Damn new metaplot.

Eh, I highly doubt Kisada was privy to the conversations between two people who had been gone for over a thousand years - and I also highly doubt Hida himself advocated, to his followers and descendants, this policy of "usurp the hantei if they become weak" because that doesn't sound like something he'd make a general guiding policy of the Clan as a whole.

Likely, it was a fate\destiny thing. The right collection of circumstances that led to each person and faction playing its part.

Almost like it was being written...

>all the kami were /d/eviants except for Shiba who was just a gu/y/

Shiba's wife was one of those monster-mermaids (ningyo?). Not only that, but he had monster mermaid adventures in Monster Mermaid City.

Also, it is at least implied that Hida's first wife was an orochi. And the kirin who fugged Shinjo might or might not be Fu Leng.

Well, looking at what actually happened, it was still probably a net positive. He came back specifically to beat Iuchiban, since nobody else could do it (Apparently).
And then he retired as a monk to Koten, which is as far from affecting modern or future events as a monk can be.

Hida's first wife was a pretty girl (Masiko) that he rescued from an Orochi (in a rather shameless ripoff of the Susano'o myth). However, both her, and her pretty castle, got overrun by the shadowlands during the first war, while Hida was fifty miles away and couldn't do anything.

After Atarasi became the first Akutenshi, Hida got lonely, and the Storm Dragon turned into a girl and they fucked. Osano-wo came from that union.

Also, Akodo had kids by some regular woman (although he really wanted Matsu)

Guy who's looking to get in to the lore of L5R here, how should I start?

Akodo was smart. He didn't fuck furries, he just made his daughters fuck furries.

...And probably taped it. Sly old bastard.

His first wife is very mysterious, but there's nothing to indicate she's anything other than a very pretty human.
Kyuden Masiko was a relatively strange place, but considering that Kaiu was alive and in that general area, it's not so strange that there could be an amazing palace hanging around before the Kami even got that afr.

The 4th ed books are pretty good.
Core book for basic grounding
Emerald Empire for a bunch of everything
Great Clans for a bit of focus
Strongholds of the Empire for some more of that focus
Secrets of the Empire for some focus on non-great clan factions and entities
The "Book of [Element]" series for lots of things related conceptually and literally to each element
and so on.
You can also dig back through older edition stuff. There's a loooooot of lore if you go looking for it. Ignore the novels. They're mostly trash.

Oh, and of course Imperial Histories 1 and 2. They've got details on different eras, along with some fairly decent alternate histories and what-ifs.

Thanks!

Remember, this is world in which you ancestors can still guide you directly. Hida doesn't have to write it down for his descendants.

>...And probably taped it. Sly old bastard.
That'd be Ikoma.

Nah, he was slipping into their beds after the lionmen fell asleep. There's a reason not every Kitsu has the spiritual connection.

>Hida's first wife was a pretty girl (Masiko) that he rescued from an Orochi (in a rather shameless ripoff of the Susano'o myth).

Supposedly, the untold story here is that Masiko was the daughter of the King Orochi and the orochi Hida killed was her (unwanted) suitor who chased her to that castle.

Also, there is this theory that Masiko didn't die just returned to the sea when her second child from Hida turned out to be an orochi and not a human. So she ran away in shame, and her hundred bodyguards dutifully followed her into the sea and drowned. The reason why the Mantis can ride some of the orochi is because those orochi are the descendants of Hida (and so are the Mantis).

Wow. That's the first time I've heard any of that. Sauce? I'm not questioning the truth of it, just want to check it out.

All I have is a handful of the Crane and Scorpion cards, unfortunately.

>And the kirin who fugged Shinjo might or might not be Fu Leng.

Wait, what?

Where's this hinted at?

>Sauce?

It was some AEG fic if I recall it correctly. Though my memory is slipping on this one, so don't hold your breath for finding it.

The description of the kirin and how Shinjo's children turned out are suspicious at best.

Ah. Thanks, bud.

The part where she suddenly disappeared is suspicious alright, but only one of her children was human, and he was pretty unremarkable goodguy, wasn't he?

>Officially, the firearm gaijin country of l5r was wiped out by plague. Sorts that shit right out.

Different user here, but I've always hated that whole plague deal - it makes it really fucking obvious that the entire existence of thrane and merenae within the world/plot of l5r boils down (aside from a few minor pieces of story stuff) to showing that rokugan isn't alone in the world (aside from their close neighbors)/that European-esq places exist, why firearms aren't used in Rokugan, and (when it comes to that plague shit) why these two foreign powers NEVER try to start shit with Rokugan after what happened at White Stag.

Sorry to vent, but I just needed to get that out of me

Shapeshifting (what her children had) was a Fu Leng thing, as well as disregarding humanity (what all her children did sans one). The human child was high on magic (very Fu Leng) and was a natural-born trickster who liked to dabble with all sorts of shit with Iuchi (very Fu Leng). Shinjo's returned daughter pretty much returned only to take the throne and rule the empire like a de-facto empress while Iweko was meditating and she was also full with supernatural fuggery like being a forever loli.

>Shinjo's returned daughter pretty much returned only to take the throne and rule the empire like a de-facto empress while Iweko was meditating and she was also full with supernatural fuggery like being a forever loli.
Wait, what? When did this happen?

l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Aranat

Oh, God. That's fucking awful. Did we at least get any good loli samurai art out of it?

...

you shut your fucking mouth about Hida Yakamo,
He gets a free pass for being older brother to the best champion the clan ever had. Also cut off his own demon claw BEFORE he found the jade hand if im not mistaken

White eyes always creep me the fuck out. They're probably supposed to, but... just sayin'.

...

why is this monk so spicy

It's one of the main Togashi monk things.

Ise zumi are tattooed with ink made from Togashi's Eleven Secret Herbs and Spices.

TOGASHI MITSU

>Togashi's Eleven Secret Herbs and Spices
Ten of them are blood. The last one is chilli flakes.

I bet Togashi monks on the road use the "my hands are on fire" tattoo to cook their rice all the time.

I mean, it's useful.
They probably rehearse all their pithy pseudo-Zen lines while at it.

Kakita bump

>The Empress putting a random horse on the throne so she could seclude herself from her people
>during a time period when the Shogun, who's job is to take that place is available
>Ignoring the shit out of the laws of the land

Goodness, with stupid shit like this its no wonder the Iweko line ended the empire...