GM and Player Resources

By TheWanderingJewels, in Legend of the Five Rings: The Roleplaying Game

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http://yokai.com/ is a site dedicated to all forms of supernatural spirits from Japanese mythology and is a wealth of ideas for something new to throw at your players. I use it a lot myself as I find the old L5R everything malignant = Shadowlands is rather boring and I've used it to throw a curve ball more than once.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_from_Japan

http://www.samurai-archives.com/ a good wiki/clearing house with a lot of information on samurai culture throughout history from banners, to mon, to house codes. Pretty much anything a GM needs :)

an Index of Kamon (house crests) that might inspire designs for Minor clans: https://doyouknowjapan.com/symbols/

Authors: Stephen Turnbull is a historian who has done a massive amount of work on samurai culture in various areas and has a rather large archive of books one can go look for further inspiration ( I have a large part of his writings, which I use). his bibliography is listed in the following article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Turnbull_(historian)

Edited by TheWanderingJewels
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Figured people would like this. Feel free to add. Also doing more resource research ATM

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I wonder if Battle for Rokugan has any goodies we can mine for the game. I like those table tents, might have to look at adapting something

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While this website is incomplete , Different Worlds has online lots of the information that went on their samurai books, including bibliographies and resources. Their sources were mostly Public Domain so you can actually find lots of them online as well.

Both their books on samurai were meant as a aid for gamers and Daimyo of 1867 can be found on Drivetrhrurpg.

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On the subject of art resources, Rhiannon McCullough ( https://rmccullough.com/ ) has a bunch of L5R inspired artwork. Her DeviantArt gallery has tradition illustration ( https://www.deviantart.com/doppelgangergeisha/gallery/55456329/Legend-of-the-Five-Rings ) and L5R chibis ( https://www.deviantart.com/doppelgangergeisha/gallery/53350987/L5R-Avatars ) which are very useful. Her traditional illustration has a set of family and clan mon inspired by traditional and historical Japanese heraldry, as well.

She also takes commissions.

Edited by sndwurks
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As ever with a non-1st-edition game, you can do worse than poke around on DrivethruRPG - FFG have gained ownership of all the back catalogue of previous editions, and whilst the rulebooks can get knotted, and many specific campaigns depend on history that now didn't have will been going to happen yet (consult Dr. Dan Streetmentioner for more details), there are more mapped territories, clan backgrounds, and adventure concepts than you can shake a pointy stick at.

Personal favourite found over the last few days: Winter Court: Kyuden Asako - including such gems as "the Fine Art of Being Properly Offensive" - including the comment "for the sake of example, the Crane Clan and Dragon Clan champions are the targets of these insults; actually insulting these individuals is not recommended."

Edited by Magnus Grendel
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From another thread:

24 minutes ago, Hida Jitenno said:

Character sheet (posted yesterday): https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/fb/48/fb48f5e1-e975-478e-9735-d15c07a31d35/l5r02_charactersheet.pdf

20 Questions: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/5c/b2/5cb27d0f-dec9-451c-85c1-d917f4e9baed/the_game_of_twenty_questions.pdf

Mantis Clan: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/0a/47/0a47cdac-9343-4626-8d2b-1dedb27ebafe/mantis_clan_dlc.pdf

Campaign tracking sheet: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/78/75/7875d402-bd1a-451e-b7df-0235feaa0abe/l5r02_campaigntrackingsheet.pdf

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Here's a question for someone who has the book: Is there still the option during character gen to get a skill point by defying the Clan's archetype? If there is, we need to ask FFG to give us one for the Mantis...

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Can you really defy the Mantis clan archetype though? They are pretty fast and loose with traditions and formalities.

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Don't know if this is what you're referring to, but question #7 is "what is your character's relationship with their clan?" The answer is a binary paragon (+5 glory)/black sheep (+1 Skill rank). This is clan neutral so it wouldn't be necessary to make one just for the Mantis.

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1 minute ago, Kyasanur said:

Don't know if this is what you're referring to, but question #7 is "what is your character's relationship with their clan?" The answer is a binary paragon (+5 glory)/black sheep (+1 Skill rank). This is clan neutral so it wouldn't be necessary to make one just for the Mantis.

Ah, that's a change then. In the beta version I read, the Skill rank was specific to each Clan, being something completely at odds with their nature, eg Dragon got Seafaring and Lion got Skulduggery.

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1 minute ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Ah, that's a change then. In the beta version I read, the Skill rank was specific to each Clan, being something completely at odds with their nature, eg Dragon got Seafaring and Lion got Skulduggery.

Nah, it's +1 to any rank 0 skill. There is a narrative prompt, though.

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5 minutes ago, Kyasanur said:

Nah, it's +1 to any rank 0 skill. There is a narrative prompt, though.

This makes more sense. If I am a Dragon bushi that is opposed to the Niten style and believe Archery is superior, I should be able to put that point in Ranged vs seafaring.

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The 20qs seem a bit better than update 4. Overall pretty pleased with them.

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1 hour ago, General Zod said:

Can you really defy the Mantis clan archetype though? They are pretty fast and loose with traditions and formalities.

Sure you can. Be an honest landlubber who constantly gives away his/her worldly belongings. :)

I did make a Dragon with Seafaring in the Beta, using that "disagrees with Clan" bonus. She traveled and found other interesting philosophies.

Edited by Hida Jitenno
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From the Beta Thread, my compilation of of Ninja Tools

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And My List of Ritual Elements

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As a note, at the back of Whispers of Shadow and Steel have a long explanation about the history, tactics, and methodology of Shinobi in the history of Rokugan.

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For those so interested, I'll throw my own L5R (mainly) oriented blog into the mix: The House of the Jade Lantern at www.jadelantern.com.

It's a series of articles, campaign / session notes, GM advice / experience, and related. The earliest post goes back to 1998 - Gempukku Ceremony; I launched the first iteration of the site shortly after L5R 1st edition launched.

I'm hoping to generate new content as I read and hopefully run the new edition.

There's a variety of NPCs and some notes on music and handouts that might be of interest to GMs.

Thanks!

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Most of the downloads for the new Core Rulebook were updated today. They are now printer friendly though. If you liked the older versions better you can still download them from the links that are listed earlier in this thread. At least for now.

The last page of the new Campaign Tracking Sheet has an updated look.

However they seem to have to mixed up one of the pages of the new Campaign Tracking Sheet and one of pages of the new Expanded Character Sheet. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

They have also added a Blank Folio for the Beginner Game.

I haven't seen this mentioned before, but for those that downloaded all the Beginner Game Clan Folios right after they were released, the Unicorn Clan folio was updated a day or two after they were released. The only changed I found then was that one of the Ring values were changed.

For those who don't know where to find the latest downloads for Legend of the Five Rings, they can be found here: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-roleplaying-game/
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Player Resources, under Support.

Edited by R5D4