Art of War is trickier than that, actually. Quotes from it got transplanted into multiple "rokugani sources", including Tao of Shinsei, Leadership, Sun Tao's writings, and Little Truths, and possibly more. It's the go-to book for "I want to quote something for a fictional rokugani source".

8 hours ago, Mirith said:

I may have missed a bit of details since I mostly played the RPG, but most of the life of L5R has felt mostly Japanese. You comment on some of the foreign invaders, but I don't know that they count, since they were from more recent storylines. I'm not saying they didn't take other influences, but the core has always been strongly Japanese.

Very true. But it also had other asian influences and I was wondering if FFG wasn't trying to make it to japanese.

And I only mentioned the gaijin, because those roman lookin' dudes almost broke my mind when I first saw them.

If I had to give someone one book aside of Art of War to enrich their L5R experience, I would probably suggest The Analects of Confucius. In our own games, we attributed a lot of Confucian thought to Lady Doji.

http://www.confucius-1.com/analects/analects-1.html

Here is some of it to be found online.

In addition to all the material previously discussed, I have to agree that the culture really is an amalgamation of many Asian cultures. For instance, the popular game of Go is distinctly Chinese in origin and dates back thousands of years.

I, for one, would love to see this as an honor event at the various tournaments.

On 4/21/2017 at 8:53 AM, Tonbo Karasu said:

The Mandate of Heaven is the English translation of the Chinese equivalent of The Divine Right of Kings. While both of these, and the Japanese belief, appeal to gods, the specific phrase "The Mandate of Heaven" just sounds very Chinese to me, like something out or Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Absolutely. The Japanese drew heavily from China over the centuries but never imported the concept of the Mandate of Heaven.

7 minutes ago, Yoritomo Reiu said:

Absolutely. The Japanese drew heavily from China over the centuries but never imported the concept of the Mandate of Heaven.

Ignore me I was a silly post

Just now, Schmoozies said:

Although in fairness the game of Go became extremely popular after it arrived in Japan in the 8th Century it quickly spread to the entire country and at one point during the Tokugawa Shogunate there was an official position for the Minister of Go in his court.

I think you may have quoted the wrong post there

Just now, Yoritomo Reiu said:

I think you may have quoted the wrong post there

Yeah that was meant to be the comment before yours about the role of Go not being as big in Japan

1 hour ago, Doji Hana said:

In addition to all the material previously discussed, I have to agree that the culture really is an amalgamation of many Asian cultures. For instance, the popular game of Go is distinctly Chinese in origin and dates back thousands of years.

I, for one, would love to see this as an honor event at the various tournaments.

I'm going to expand a bit on what Kinzen wrote.

Almost everything to do with the Imperial court and the culture that surrounds it is drawn from the Heian period (794-1185). This was the last period when the Imperial court and nobility rather than the samurai were the dominant class in the country (setting aside the brief Kenmu Restoration in the 14th century). A number of works dating from this period have been translated into English (such as the Tale of Genji and various court diaries) but these aren't always the most accessible. Instead, I'd recommend Ivan Morris' The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. It's quite old at this point but its still worth reading.

While the Sengoku period (1467-1603) would seem to be the closest to the world of L5R as it was the time when great samurai clans clashed over national dominance, there's actually very little of the Sengoku period in L5R beyond superficial similarities, IMHO. The Great Clans don't bear much resemblance to Sengoku clans and Rokugani samurai don't much resemble Sengoku samurai. Despite the popularity of the samurai in the West, there's not really much I can recommend in terms of non-dense reading material. Stephen Turnbull is very prolific, but he tends to lean heavily towards the pop history genre. Samuel Hawley's The Imjin War is quite good, although it's about the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s rather than the interclan warfare of the Sengoku period.

By far the strongest influences come from the Edo period (1603-1868). The food, culture, architecture, dress... so much. This is the period most often depicted in modern Japanese popular culture. It's also the period in which the mythmaking about earlier Japanese history happened. When we (or modern day Japanese) picture a ninja, what we're picturing is a fabrication of the Edo period. The book I'm going to recommend for this period is Eiko Ikegami's The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan. The book's goal is essentially to explain how the Edo state managed to change the samurai from warriors to bureaucrats. It covers a lot of topics of interest such as the 47 ronin, seppuku, junshi, kirisute gomen (the right of samurai to kill disrespectful commoners), Hagakure, and most importantly how the concept of samurai honor changed from one age to another. It can get a little jargony at times, but I highly recommend it.

Yeah, one part of the Morris book reads like a manual for Imperial Winter Court. It's pretty obvious that someone at AEG read it and yoinked things like the Winding Water Banquet wholesale.

The Sengoku-ness for me inheres less in specifics and more just in the general sense of warfare being a dominant concern. Compared to the Heian and Tokugawa/Edo periods, it was pretty heavily militarized.

I know i simplify a lot L5R (and I tend to overestimate bushi over Shugenja...) and what I suggest is not history at all but watch all Kurosawa's jidaeki movies and maybe all the other good old chambara films by Kobayashi or Hideo Gosha: it will give you tons of inspiration!

On 4/20/2017 at 9:25 PM, BuzzsawMF said:

I know there has to be a dedicated L5R veteran who is also knowledgeable on history that can list out the references to our actual history from L5R? For instance, Unicorn is clearly based on the Mongol horde. Are there any other historical references I can sink my teeth into? I know the history of L5R is being revamped, but I would still like to check look into this.

Because you explicitly asked about the mongol and unicorn collection here is something you might find interesting

There are cards that nod to genghis khan's lineage directly throughout the game.

Moto Chagatai

Moto Ogedei

Moto Yesugai

Moto Kubulai

Rather Speculatively, for Jochi I've seen it spelled phonetically yo-chi which could be seen as Iuchi. Might be grasping at straws but it's possible!

I will throw this out there. I'm not sure if FFG even knows he exists, but Zen monk Ikkyu is a very interesting source to explore. He was an amazing poet, an iconoclast, a rock star, and reviled by many. A monk who hated temples, refused to be celibate, enjoyed getting drunk, and achieved enlightenment. Any of his poetry books are good. His open disdain for much of Japanese society provides an excellent insight into how it all functioned. Here is the wiki page outlining his incredibly interesting life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikkyū