Hi folks this is an interested Asian like setting, but I wonder were are the Europeans like people in this world?, The people of this land have the Japanese hang up about eating Meat and cooking with Butter.
What is the timeframe of Legend of Five Rings currently?,
LW
There are quasi-Europeans in the L5R setting- Thrane and Merenae, somewhere across the sea, are rough parallels for C16-C17 Portuguese/Dutch adventurers. In the canon timeline, they showed up, caused significant damage (and prompted a social aversion to gunpowder), but were eventually driven off with heavy losses, then their homelands were hit by a devastating plague for no good reason other than to ensure they wouldn't interfere with the setting again. The vast majority of games of L5R will ignore them entirely, because they're a distraction from the main focus of the setting, but there are people who like that kind of thing. Either way, they do exist, though you should feel free to make up your own version if you want, as long as you can get your group to agree to it.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by asking about the timeline?
What is the timeframe of Legend of Five Rings currently?,
The story "ended" at the very end of the 12th century, around 1199-1200. The last major event was the crowning of Iweko II in 1200, though the Onyx Arc would have pushed the timeline to 1220.
It's also extremely easy to handwave some of the elements of the setting and unite the L5R and 7th sea universes. 7th sea is a pseudo-european setting during the exploration age of the Renaissance era, sprinkled with pirates and swashbuckling and the occasional alien/atlantean relic.
Thrane (aka Avalon) and Merenae (aka Castille) are simply farther away, the Yodotai are some sort of Oriental Thean Empire like the Byzantium Empire (with appropriate change to their religion) and other minor changes like this.
EDIT: And many parrallels can be made between 7th sea magic and L5R.
Edited by TetsuhikoOfficial Timeline of the L5R and what timeframe in our world does it match?,
I would like Officially create Europeans for L5R?,
I will give them a snootful of Gaijin Pepper,
LW
Official Timeline of the L5R and what timeframe in our world does it match?
14th/15th century.
Isn't there in the Burning Sands some Roman-like and Greek-Like Empire too?
And regarding the timeline, I think it is hard to say, since the ruling system somewhat resembles Japan in the Edo-Period (1603 to 1868) or China in the Periods of Qin, Jin, Sui or Yuan Dynasty.
But regarding the "tech-level" I'd say AtoMaki got it pretty right.
It would be deffinitly be somewhere before 1543, because at that time Japan started their first attempt to trade with Europeans and got their first arquebus guns and a year later they started to produce them on their own...and they had many of those guns and used them in war. Which would be contradictory to the way Rokugan thinks about gunpowder.
But on the other hand, Rokugan is a Fantasy-World with japanese, chinese, mongolian and Korean influences after all...
The Yodotai Empire in the Burning Sands is kind of Romanish, although possibly a bit more like Byzantium (the Eastern Roman Empire) except for their dread of the sea. (In the CCG, they had 2 'God' cards: Conquest, which they followed and The Mighty and Merciless Sea, which they feared).
Ok like I stated before I want to bring back Europeans into the game, the first recontact would be through a trade mission.
LW
You can do what you want in your own setting. Reintroducing quasi-Europeans into Rokugan proper would be difficult to impossible, though- Rokugani society in general is incredibly xenophobic, and that goes double for the people who introduced gunpowder and fought them at White Stag. Trade might be just about possible with the Mantis and/or Tortoise Clans, but it would have to be on a very small scale, and outside Rokugan proper. For quasi-Europeans to be an accepted part of the main setting, the society itself would have to change dramatically.
At least, that's the case in the canon setting. Again, you can do what you want with it in your own games!
I explore a lot of gaijins stuff in my latest homebrew (okuma's guide to gaijin part 1). The iron rokugan alternate setting is a good setting to reintroduce gaijins overalls, if you are interested in a bit more modern setting. It's in one of the Imperial Histories, the second one I think.
Not only were the Thrane and Merenrae hit with a plague, it's worth mentioning that Rokugan does't have a monopoly on "contrived excuses for no technological advancement"- the firearms used by Merenrae have legally been banned by their own king (centuries ago) from further development.
The Yodotai (semi-Byzantines) are the other major "European" power the setting has acknowledged, and they're supposedly such a huge empire and so tough and so great at everything that using them is going to either be an exercise in expectation management, or an excuse for some Grave of the Fireflies -style "watch us die" action on the park of the Rokugani.
The Ebonite Templars in Legend of the Burning Sand were a weird mix- while most of their plot and culture elements tied to the Ivory Kingdoms, they used pretty standard "Medieval European" equipment.
Almost every mention of gaijin in L5R has been "they're not really what this game is about," and the relatively sparse information and the ludicrously ironclad xenophobia (except when they wanted to give the Mantis some cool stuff) of the Rokugani are clearly engineered with keeping things that way.
You can do what you want in your own setting. Reintroducing quasi-Europeans into Rokugan proper would be difficult to impossible, though- Rokugani society in general is incredibly xenophobic, and that goes double for the people who introduced gunpowder and fought them at White Stag. Trade might be just about possible with the Mantis and/or Tortoise Clans, but it would have to be on a very small scale, and outside Rokugan proper. For quasi-Europeans to be an accepted part of the main setting, the society itself would have to change dramatically.
Well, this isn't true at all. While peaceful reintroduction would be difficult, the not!Europeans can pull a Commodore Perry vs Japan scenario just fine.
In regards to contact with gaijin also keep in mind the Ki-Rin/Unicorn Clan spent almost eight hundred years outside the Empire establishing contact, trading posts, settlements, and caravan routes to the foreign lands within, and beyond the Burning Sands. The Unicorn have a coastal settlement to the far west that does trade with Thrane, Merenae, and others of the western euro-style peoples. Our biggest diplomatic hurdle came when we returned and our own people refused to believe our claims. We have been treated as outsiders since our return nearly three hundred years ago. However we never really stopped trading with the gaijin. The main commodities we brought back from the west are the horses, crystal blades, and arrows, fur/leather armors, saddles and tack, horse barding, and the list goes on. We even purchased gaijin powder weapons, but left them in our western settlements outside the empire.
Edited by Shinjo Yosama
You can do what you want in your own setting. Reintroducing quasi-Europeans into Rokugan proper would be difficult to impossible, though- Rokugani society in general is incredibly xenophobic, and that goes double for the people who introduced gunpowder and fought them at White Stag. Trade might be just about possible with the Mantis and/or Tortoise Clans, but it would have to be on a very small scale, and outside Rokugan proper. For quasi-Europeans to be an accepted part of the main setting, the society itself would have to change dramatically.
Well, this isn't true at all. While peaceful reintroduction would be difficult, the not!Europeans can pull a Commodore Perry vs Japan scenario just fine.
... Are you saying that Japanese society did not change dramatically as a result of Commodore Perry and the black ships? I certainly agree with you that it could be done, and it could potentially be quite interesting (it isn't my thing, but I can see the attraction), but it would still count as changing the setting quite radically, I think.
You can do what you want in your own setting. Reintroducing quasi-Europeans into Rokugan proper would be difficult to impossible, though- Rokugani society in general is incredibly xenophobic, and that goes double for the people who introduced gunpowder and fought them at White Stag. Trade might be just about possible with the Mantis and/or Tortoise Clans, but it would have to be on a very small scale, and outside Rokugan proper. For quasi-Europeans to be an accepted part of the main setting, the society itself would have to change dramatically.
Well, this isn't true at all. While peaceful reintroduction would be difficult, the not!Europeans can pull a Commodore Perry vs Japan scenario just fine.
... Are you saying that Japanese society did not change dramatically as a result of Commodore Perry and the black ships?
I was not thinking about an exactly same scenario, but more about the not!Europeans being openly hostile and use "gunboat diplomacy" from the get-go. Obviously, if the not!Europeans are not from a much more advanced civilization (like Perry was) then their intervention might leave a much smaller impact.
Shinjo-san, don't forget that it was the Unicorn who brought Opium with them, when you came back to Rokugan and the Opium-Trade is the mainreason for the Unicorn trying to get a hold on Ryoko Owari.
Wouldn't the Second City-Setting allow something to bring in some Gaijin? I mean, founding Colonies and building Cities outside of Rokugani Land means you have to deal with the natives...and wasn't the decree for the Spider Clan to "go forth and conquer"?
I think, that if you take the latest timeline-canon-stuff introducing some Gaijin is sort of necessary, otherwise the whole Colonizing-Stuff doesn't really make sense...
That sickness was Hundred years ago for the Gaijin to from the Rokugani, now they must got there hands at least one Turtle Ship. This world version of Holy Roman Empire would cause them some trouble,
LW
LW, at the moment it's a little hard to tell what more you're looking for here. Folks have given you a synopsis of the state of the world outside Rokugan in the "current" game timeline (though now it's being rebooted, who knows!) and some places to start looking for mechanics and ideas if you want to use non-Rokugani in a home roleplaying campaign (Legend of the Burning Sands, the old 7th Sea game, Okuma's fan supplement).
If you're hoping to get people to comment on the odds of some kind of "Rokugan vs. Other Country" conflict, I don't think you should expect any sort of consensus--most of the "gaijin" countries are either pretty ill-defined, far away across a big desert, and/or explicitly written off as depopulated and leaderless in the latest timeline, so there's just not much to go on. The world of L5R =/= the real world, in either geography or historical chronology. There's nothing like a "Holy Roman Empire" in the official setting that I know of, for example.
If you're looking for some kind of official statement or commitment from FFG... well, I don't think their designers read these forums much, if at all. Not to mention that I can only imagine they're going to want to focus the L5R reboot on the core appeal of the property, i.e. samurai and the supernatural in Rokugan. It'll probably be quite a while before they need to reach for anything "outside" that.
Thankfully Ryoko Owari never held any appeal for me. I prefer wide open plains, or the sound of a babbling brook. There are way too many narrow passages, and closed in spaces in a place like Ryoko Owari. Nor do I care anything for opium. Once, by my own clan, I was called "The Purple Lion".
Now for the opium, we brought back medicine that uses opium as an ingredient. I think other clans utilized the plant in less honorable methods; although there are skeletons in every family closet as well.
Edited by Shinjo YosamaAbout the "opportunistic" Thrane/Merenae plague . . . I'm not saying that it wasn't a convenient way of keeping western thought out of the game, because it was. But, it can also be read as a perfectly rational occurrence in a medieval setting. Let's not forget that Western Europe began suffering "plagues" with Justinian in the 6th century, and major outbreaks of it occurred semi-regularly all the way through to the 1600s. (And re-emerged as a problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries in India and the Far East.)
As the plague arguably set in motion many of the characteristics that led to the "Renaissance/Modern World," you could set up a true cultural clash with the caste-bound Rokugani by bringing in westerners.
I understand why they did it for L5R setting they wanted Westerners not to interfere in there version of Japan, and if is officially 15th Century timeframe in L5R.
If the Turtle Clan is keeping an eye of the Westerners as traders and spies is possable in the West one of them has bin found out so to speak,
LW