Adventure Seed Vault/Competition

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

I mentioned this thought a few weeks back or so ago:

On ‎8‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 11:49 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

I was saying something about this in another thread - the old RPG adventure competitions FFG used to run for the 40k RPGs:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2009/10/13/dark-heresy-2009-adventure-contest/

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2010/11/1/2010-rogue-trader-adventure-contest-finalists/

Doing something similar for L5R seems quite a cool idea - either officially or unofficially.

I'm currently playing through an older L5R adventure (Honour's Veil) from an older L5R edition (I'm guessing quite a bit older) - if you've not encountered it, it also contains the original Murder At Kyotei Castle adventure, which makes for an interesting read if your players have played Wedding At....

I was wondering if people wanted to try and throw together a few contributions for adventure ideas that people can use in their campaigns.

We could run it as an unofficial competition if you'd like - people register their interest, get a while to produce something, then everyone gets access to the results (putting stuff in a .pdf that's easily 'portable' would be nice) and there's some sort of public vote for the winner, plus the entries sit here as potential one-shots for any player to throw into their campaign, then, if it seems popular, rinse and repeat after a suitable interval.

Would people be interested?

[neilcell 252]

17 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I mentioned this thought a few weeks back or so ago:

I'm currently playing through an older L5R adventure (Honour's Veil) from an older L5R edition (I'm guessing quite a bit older) - if you've not encountered it, it also contains the original Murder At Kyotei Castle adventure, which makes for an interesting read if your players have played Wedding At....

I was curious how some of the very old L5R products port over to FFG.  Many did use rings.  Are the stats comparable or do they need serious adjusting.  I recognize the D20 "Secrets" and later "Way of the XXXX" are not very compatible, but I was thinking about some of the others both before and after those.

[Avatar111 553]

If I ever try to do something, it will be along the vein of Winter's Embrace, which I think is the only adventure released that understand the game it is meant to be played for (Wedding at Kyotei also, but was not focused enough, especially with the amount of characters to be digested by the players).
Winter's Embrace plays to what L5R "core design" should have been before some random dude decided to put all kinds of bloated rules everywhere.

#L5R should have embraced its philosophy of being a flexible storytelling/drama game, fully.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Avatar111

[Suzume Chikahisa 313]

1st Edition adventures shouldn't be too hard to convert. The major problem I see is adding strife gains in stressful events. Both the timeline and the orignal rules are close enough that a interpretation is feasible.

 

Later products probably need a bit more care and will be harder to combine with current products.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

We've got a generic dungeon crawl (Mask of the Oni), a political drama (Winter's Embrace) and investigations (Dark Tides/In The Palace Of The Emerald Champion).

I'd be tempted to try and create a 'heist' - part of the trick being that actually pulling off a 'proper' heist whilst sticking within* the principles of bushido is possible but very, very challenging, and the motivation is probably the most important thing; if it's a lower status 'mark', then you say "I want that" and they say "yes, my lord". If not, bushido says an honourable individual shouldn't be considering taking it in the first place.

Situational exceptions will apply, of course, and that's part of where the motivation comes in.

 

* For a given value of 'within'...

 

[neilcell 252]

What if the "heist" is more of a rescue operation?  Some of the same skills and gambits are involved, but rather than stealing an item, you are stealing away a person of value.

[Avatar111 553]

It can be interesting to have a meta plot going on, to make it a multilayered adventure, instead of just focusing on one direct goal for the PCs which might make it too thin to roleplay ninjo/giri/allegiances.
In the case of Winter's Embrace, the first layer is just the investigation into the Mantis, the second layer is that different characters are interested on seeing a different person proposed to be bethroted. This decision is basically the most impactful of the adventure.

So a "heist" should have a metaplot.
If that is a person you are trying to rescue, you obviously need to give the PC the option to end the mission on different, impactful, paths:
Maybe give them more than one choice of faction to deliever the resuced person to? As the PC go deeper into their rescue mission, they learn different facts than could alter their decision of what to do with the "target". Each option with their political impact? The initial plan doesn't need to be the final plan.

To make it even more crazy... you could maybe design the mission in a way that the GM can "decide" who the rescued person is and who requested the rescue mission, so that it fits more with the PCs ninjo/giri.
Obviously, the faction the person is being held by would be set in stone in the adventure, as well as the possible metaplot involving that target and some of the factions you can decide to hand the target to, but some details could be made flexible to allow better integration.
 

Edited August 27, 2019 by Avatar111

[Nheko 205]

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[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

17 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

So a "heist" should have a metaplot.

The 'satisfying' bits of watching a heist tend to be the 'big reveal' or flashback which makes 'the plan' make sense. Now obviously that doesn't really work during an RPG where the players are responsible for everything since they know everything, and a 'big unexpected reveal' therefore tends to mean failure. A good trick, therefore, is to make them the key players but have a mastermind whose plan they are enacting but don't know, such that some things they do themselves can subsequently turn out to provide the "oh....that was for this!" moment.

That shouldn't remove the element of planning themselves, since creating 'the plan' and acquiring the resources needed to carry it out is a big part of the fun of a heist story. So that feels like the best balance is to have them completely responsible for a subset of the objectives within a larger plan.

18 hours ago, neilcell said:

What if the "heist" is more of a rescue operation?  Some of the same skills and gambits are involved, but rather than stealing an item, you are stealing away a person of value.

For that matter storylines like 13 assassins/47 ronin can be seen as a 'heist' where the macguffin being heist-ed is the head of the main 'bad guy'. But for the sake of playing as much as possible to classic tropes I was thinking of sticking to an inert lump of metal*.

17 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

Maybe give them more than one choice of faction to deliever the resuced person to? As the PC go deeper into their rescue mission, they learn different facts than could alter their decision of what to do with the "target". Each option with their political impact?

That's a given. No heist storyline should avoid at least one party out of the 'mark', the 'guards' and the 'customer' turning out not to be who or what you thought they were! (which also ties in well to the first point about still having a 'big reveal')

A simple template for any L5R adventure is to pick two or more bushido virtues to be in conflict, with a third one thrown into the mix unexpectedly halfway through.

 

 

 

* No, not a Hida bushi, before someone makes a sarcastic joke.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

Well, with Courts of Stone now out, one thing which jumped out at me was the Mempo. I don't know why but the idea of a demon mempo that's actually a tainted artefact (now given actual rules) seems cool. I can see all sorts of reasons why you could have ownership disputes, varying from inquisitors, witchhunters and magistrates arguing "we can't afford it falling into the wrong* hands" to loyal samurai genuinely not knowing its provenance and being proud to own and display it, to someone 'gifting' it to bring ruin, chaos and doom on the recipient.

The fact that its nature might well require it to be guarded in part by shujenga or wards gives you a nice analogue to the 'technological' security measures a more contemporary heist story might require you to bypass, and whilst not 'human' it's also not a neutral artefact, but may have an agenda of its own**.

Plus, because one should never overlook options for cringe-inducing puns, I note that the Empire's foremost craftsmen of mempo are the Itagawa no Akodo family.

"The Itagawan Job", anyone?

 

* i.e. any that aren't mine. Obviously.

** Willingly you picked me up, etc. etc.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

Coming back to this idea after a bit of mulling over; I think I have a basic outline but would appreciate help beating it into shape.

First outlines are below - any insulting comments are welcome*

 

"The Itagawan Job"

• The Summary
  • The Player Characters are asked to steal a cursed mempo from the collection of a bushi of the Itagawa no Akodo family
• The Location
  • Willow Forge Village, a Lion Clan town near Last Breath Castle.
• The Background
  • Soshi Giichi is an influential Scorpion Clan samurai and a gifted shujenga, who has asked for help from the Player Characters.
    • Secretly he is also a member of the Kuroiban - a group of Scorpion Clan shujenga tasked with hunting and destroying maho inside and outside the clan, in a similar fashion to the Kuni Witch-Hunters and Asako Inquisitors.
  • Recently, Giichi hunted down and killed a powerful maho-tsukai who had established a stronghold high in the Spine of the World Mountains.
    • Giichi was aided in this task by Itagawa no Akodo Yua, a Lion Clan bushi, whose ashigaru patrol Giichi stumbled across after he was defeated and wounded in his first clash with the maho-tsukai.
    • Reinforced by Itagawa Yua's soldiers, Soshi Giichi returned and stormed the maho-tsukai's stronghold. The Lion Clan soldiers fought off the maho-tsukai's guards, whilst Giichi defeated the maho-tsukai herself.
    • As a token of thanks, the Scorpion presented his katana and the menpo mask of the maho-tsukai's ronin yojimbo - a brutal giant of a man slain in single combat by Itagawa Yua - as a gift and a trophy. After Yua returned home, these now occupy a place of honour in their family's substantial and reknowned collection of weapons and armour.
    • Giichi subsequently sanitised the maho-tsukai's fortress of dangerous artefacts and forbidden lore, taking them to a hidden Kuroiban fortress where they could be stored safely.
• The Problem
  • In the process, Soshi Giichi found reference in the maho-tsukai's notes to the menpo and realised it was a maho artefact itself, supposedly forged from the flayed face of a lesser oni cast into steel, and responsible in part for the yojimbo's prodigious strength.
    • The artefact could hardly be left in the hands of the unsuspecting Lion samurai, who has no idea of the danger it represents.
    • Asking for the return of a gift - and particularly asking a Lion Clan samurai to return an honourably won trophy - is unthinkable.
    • Explaining that a gift presented by a Scorpion Clan is secretly cursed is equally unthinkable. Aside from the scandal, given the current tension between the clans it's almost guaranteed the Lion Clan would assume the Scorpion did this knowingly and with malicious intent.
    • To make matters worse, he has become aware that a member of the Seppun family is shortly to visit Itagawa Yua's estate, and under no circumstances can Giichi risk such a high-ranking samurai be exposed to the menpo's curse - especially since they are an officer of the Seppun Honour Guard and could potentially find themselves in the presence of the Imperial family themselves afterwards.
• The Plan
  • Soshi Giichi has visited Willow Forge Village himself under the pretext of paying respects to one of his family's blades, and in the process was able to place a discrete protective charm on the menpo, but that is a short term measure more intended to allow a shujenga to tell if the menpo has been touched than to provide a serious protective ward against the curse.
  • The only long-term solution Giichi can conceive of is to arrange to have the menpo 'stolen' - so it can be safely locked away by the Kuroiban.
  • He has decided to recruit the Player Characters for the task
  • In each case Giichi has some reason to believe the Player Characters are an appropriate choice (choose as appropriate to the character)
    • If they are honourable enough to understand the dilemma and to keep the secret to prevent the scandal and the risk to the Empire
    • If they are shujenga themselves (especially from a school such as the Kuni Purifiers) and understand the risk the artefact represents if not contained
    • If they are Scorpion samurai who Shosuro Giichi can claim some level of direct authority over
    • If Giichi is able to find some sort of blackmail leverage to keep them in line and quiet - either over the Player Characters themselves or over their Lords (or someone else with the authority to issue them orders)
  • Giichi will try to avoid telling the Player Characters more than he thinks they need to know (he is a Scorpion, after all), and would rather not tell them the menpo's origin and nature if he can get away with it, but he would rather provide information than have them fail or refuse to help. Regardless, he is emphatic that the menpo not be touched with bare hands. He will also explain how to read the subtle signs of his charm having been triggered.
• The Setting
  • The Festival of Steel is a yearly festival is held in Willow Forge Village, celebrating the skill of the Lion Clan's Juhin-Kenzoku and the climax of the three-day celebration is a competition between the most skilled smiths of the Itagawa no Akodo family, including Itagawa no Akodo Isao, Itagawa Yua's husband. Samurai passionate about the armourer's art attend from all over the Empire, and the presence of samurai from other clans will not be thought unusual.
  • The town will be crowded for the celebrations, and during the period it is commonplace for visitors to be invited to view the collected armouries of notable Itagawa samurai. Both might be useful for those with devious intentions.
  • It is supposedly on the third day of the festival that Seppun Kosuke is expected to call on Itagawa Yua's family, who are personal friends. As a samurai of the Imperial Families, his expected movements are the subject of much public gossip and not hard to find out.
• The Twist
  • Depends on when during the festival the Player Characters first visit Yua and Isao's collection.
    • If the Player Characters see the menpo before sunset on the first day, the charm around the menpo will indicate it has been touched by bare skin.
    • If they see it after midnight, the not only is the charm broken, but the menpo has been replaced by a well-crafted fake. If the Player Characters have seen it on the first day, an alert or knowledgeable smith amonst the Player Characters might detect the switch, whilst a Player Character sensitive to the spirit world might realise that the item in front of them is completely mundane steel with no sign of any curse.
  • Yua and Isao have two young daughters, both a few years short of their respective Gempukku.
    • Itagawa Eiko is the elder, and being taught as a smith by her father. Anyone close to the family will know she has always been protective of her younger sister but during the festival she will seem distant and distracted
    • Itagawa Chinami is the younger, and wants to be a bushi like her mother. Normally irrepressibly enthusiastic, she will seem withdrawn and slightly scared.  
    • Chinami talked (pestered, in practice) her older sister to spar with her with bokken in the family's dojo a few weeks previously. Wanting to recreate one of her mother's heroic triumphs, she talked Eiko into wearing the menpo (large for a grown man and ridiculously oversized on a young girl) and playing the part of the ronin giant her mother had defeated in the mountains for a sparring match whilst their parents were out of the house. Older, taller and more experienced, Eiko won the subsequent bout, battering her sister to the floor with brutal swings of the bokken - and Chinami has a handful of impressive bruises under her kimono (and one on her forearm that an observant Player might spot).
  • The curse in the mempo has ensnared Itagawa Eiko, and over the intervening nights she has secretly crafted a convincing duplicate in her father's forge, and has been waiting for an opportunity to swap it for the one in the family armoury.
    • If the theft is detected, she plans to see one of the (many) guests Itagawa Yua will entertain during the festival blamed as the thief. One of the Player Characters would be a first choice if she becomes aware they are asking awkward questions (which, since they really are there to steal the menpo, should lead to a rather uncomfortable situation).
    • If she succeeds, the real menpo will be secreted in her rooms, and she will begin practicing sword kata wearing it every day. Over time, it will magically shrink to fit her perfectly, and at the same time she will become ever more adept in using its darker abilities.
    • She will also try to convince her parents to allow her and her sister to visit relatives in the capital, escorted on the journey by Seppun Kosuke...

 

 

* If said insulting comments are relevant to the content above, so much the better, but frankly I'll take whatever I can get.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Magnus Grendel

[Kiso 61]

Magnus Grendel, that is a brilliant set up, especially how you "forced" the PCs into this heist. I'm will be thinking about it the coming days, but here is one of my initial thoughts.

10 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The curse in the mempo has ensnared Itagawa Eiko, and over the intervening nights she has secretly crafted a convincing duplicate in her father's forge, and has been waiting for an opportunity to swap it for the one in the family armoury.

That begs the question though, is the duplicate that good that it will fool their father who is a professional? If it will only fool the PCs, why would she switch the real with the duplicate, couldn't she just keep the duplicate and avoid getting into trouble with their parents? They are only using the mempo for their "reenactments". Or is the curse "telling" her to keep the original as it likes the new host and to place the duplicate to avoid any suspicion?

If Itagawa Eiko is able to use the forge unseen, it seems there is ample opportunity to swap the mempo's, so lets say that she has just finished the duplicate. This would give the PCs an option of finding out that the forge has been used recently, not so strange perhaps. But what if the forge needed maintenance and thus all the usual people working at this forges have been given some other task and Itagawa Isao could be the type of person that thinks that only he is able to do the job properly. But because of the festival he didn't have any time to do the maintenance. That would give the PCs a hint that something might be up.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Kiso
Extra thoughts

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

Thanks!

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 11:29 PM, Kiso said:

That begs the question though, is the duplicate that good that it will fool their father who is a professional?

• That depends very much on the circumstances in question.
  • Itagawa Eiko is presumably a pretty good smith, and she has the advantage of jigoku-knows-what whispering in her ear and potentially helping her get her fake menpo 'just right'.
  • Could Itagawa Eiko produce a duplicate able to fool her father if his attention was told to inspect the menpo and asked "is this the same one"? Not a chance.
  • For that matter, Itagawa Yua may not be a smith, but the last person to wear the menpo was someone she fought in single combat to the death, so I doubt it'd fool her either.
  • Something which won't fool a scrutiny check after attention is drawn to it, however is not the same as something which yells from across the room, or even when giving it a cursory glance "I'm a fake".
  • If Isao or Yua don't have their attention specifically drawn to it, then there's a good chance it'd take them a while to realise.
  • They'd probably realise when viewing their collection with Seppun Kosuke, since there's even odds they'd look reasonably closely at that point; it is a honour trophy earned by Itagawa Yua in a recent battle, so she'd probably be expected to tell the story.
• Remember that Eiko doesn't really care, long-term, if the theft is detected. Because she's going to steal the menpo in the night of the first day, everyone will assume that the thief was either one of the guests on the first day or an outsider in town for the festival.
  • Eiko won't go out of her way to make such a claim since she can probably rely on Isao and Yua reaching it on their own and won't want to draw attention to herself, but if the Player Characters are being inconvenient, she might just see if she can direct suspicion their way....
  • The mask may be finely crafted but it's not that valuable, after all, and there's no logical reason (so far as the Itagawa are aware) for Eiko to want to steal it - after all, she lives in the house and can freely walk through a connecting door to the armoury exhibition whenever she likes, so from the perspective of anyone who thinks it's just a pretty/sentimentally valuable thing to look at, she already 'has' it - and making sure the Lion Clan never realise it's anything more than that is why the players are planning the heist in the first place!

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 11:29 PM, Kiso said:

why would she switch the real with the duplicate, couldn't she just keep the duplicate and avoid getting into trouble with their parents?

• Because -as you suggested - the thing in the 'real' menpo has found someone easily influenced it wants to keep.
  • There was only one re-enactment. Chinami wouldn't ask for another sparring match because - whilst she wouldn't admit it without good reason - she's terrified of her formerly over-protective sister after the near-frenzied beating Eiko gave her.
  • Obviously she hasn't connected the dots and has no idea the menpo is the reason for the change in her sister's character. For that matter she's avoiding her older sister as much as humanly possible.
• She wants - needs - the original.
  • She may have only sparred with Chinami the once, but she wore it in 'combat', touching her bare skin and it's gotten its hooks into her good as a result.
• Going into the hall where it's kept is easy. Removing it and wearing it is not - the girls only did so the first time because their parents were away.
• To make matters worse, as time goes on, the menpo is going to deform to fit her, making it visually "wrong" (And she's eventually going to start to deform to fit it, not that she knows that yet!)

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 11:29 PM, Kiso said:

This would give the PCs an option of finding out that the forge has been used recently, not so strange perhaps. But what if the forge needed maintenance and thus all the usual people working at this forges have been given some other task and Itagawa Isao could be the type of person that thinks that only he is able to do the job properly. But because of the festival he didn't have any time to do the maintenance.

• I imagine the forge would be in regular use - especially leading up to Itagawa Isao being involved in a major competition. But the idea of maintenance being lacking, or raw materials being short in some way ("Idiot! Didn't I tell you we needed more kindling!" "I'm so sorry Itagawa-sama! I'm sure I brought some in from the storehouse yesterday! I'll go fetch some immediately!") might as you say be an interesting way the Player Characters might catch hints to Eiko's plan.

[Kiso 61]

On 11/7/2019 at 4:10 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

They'd probably realise when viewing their collection with Seppun Kosuke, since there's even odds they'd look reasonably closely at that point; it is a honour trophy earned by Itagawa Yua in a recent battle, so she'd probably be expected to tell the story.

Would be an interesting situation if the mempo was swapped and Yua has noticed this, but to keep up appearance she tries to hide this realization in frond of her guest.

On 11/7/2019 at 4:10 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

To make matters worse, as time goes on, the menpo is going to deform to fit her, making it visually "wrong" (And she's eventually going to start to deform to fit it, not that she knows that yet!)

Now I get it, this gives her the urgency to swap the real with the duplicate to cover for what see already has noticed, the deformation. If she has also notices some very small changes in her face (maybe suspecting that it has something to do with the mempo or that it has been caused by to using the forge late at night), that would give her indeed the motivation to join Seppun Kosuke to the capital.

 

It seems to me that you have sufficiently constructed the setting and motivations for the NPCs. Maybe to add some difficulty to the PC during the heist; during the festival the servants of Yua and Isao might still be working at their home. If I remember my samurai drama's right (such as Ryomaden), the household could also contain grandparents or unmarried siblings from either Yua or Isao, making the heist a little bit harder to pull of. On that note what do you think of the following suggestion. A day or couple of days before the festival the PCs could arrive at Willow Forge Village, there are two inns, lets nickname them Very Close Inn and Center Inn. The Very Close Inn is next to Yua and Isao's home, maybe the rooftops are connected by a rope with some lantern on it for the festival, the rooftop might give them easy access to jump over the wall surrounding the home or only gives a quick access in and out the building. The Center Inn on the other hand is next to the center of the festival location, given the PC an opportunity to cause a distraction during the festival or even sabotage it. So when the PC arrive in the village, they could make a strategic choice which inn to sleep at and use to their advantage, before they are able to collect all the necessary information. As GM we could say "There aren't much room left in both inns due to the festival, at this moment you probably can only book one (+more depending on the amount of PCs) rooms". If they wait to long to decide, it might be that all the rooms are taking and when they check their second inn and have been told that it is also full, they may be introduced to the peasant Bunko (male) who has a spare room, but it will removing the previous mentioned location advantages. He is willing to lend them a room for a higher price than the inns if there isn't any Lion PC in the group.

Edited November 14, 2019 by Kiso
Introducing Bunko

[Kiso 61]

I have been thinking how to create another heist possible situation and the idea that I have come up with I will illustrate with the Firefly clan, but the structure could also be used with another minor clan or vassal family. I use the Firefly clan because I like their origin and they are next to the Phoenix territory. The clan was only an example in the instruction how to create a minor clan in the old book Way of the daimyo and we need to change their date of origin to around 1050, granted minor clan status by Hantei XXV or something.

• The Firefly champion, lets call him Hotaru Kenta, used to love a female named Kayo and she was a peasant/geisha/oiran and they had a child before Kenta married. When the child was born he gave Kayo a fan with written kanji which in a subtle way proves that the child is the child of Kenta. Lets make the child a son with the name Kyo. After Kenta was married he didn't saw Kayo anymore and they have lost contact such that Kenta doesn't know about the whereabouts of Kyo anymore.
• Shortly after his marriage there was an accident and he is no longer able to give his new wife any children, the Firefly clan champion doesn't have any heirs.
• The champions vassal (lord) Hotaru Hisoka has recently learned that the boy is still alive and has almost certainly joined the Perfect Land Sect. He knows that if the Perfect Land Sect knows about the boys origin they will try to make him the heir of the Firefly clan or at the very least demanding a portion of land in the clans territory. They can then use this piece of land as the Sects basis, which will certainly stop the clans support from Phoenix clan with their ban of the Sects teachings and might dishonour the clans champion.
• Hisoka is a very small lord with a very small castle and castle town. He is afraid to do anything about it, reporting the existence of the boy might anger Kenta's wife and potentially put Kyo in the line of succession. He isn't able to use the clans resources, clans man might be recognized by the Sect, start believing in the Sects teachings or advocating for Kyo's position as heir. He has been in this panic for weeks and normally visits a geisha named Arisu to relax, but the past weeks he only has been moaning about his situation to her.
• Arisu has even started worrying about the situation.

So that is the setup for the heist. The PCs might be invited by Hisoka to enjoy a meal in his castle, he wouldn't talk about his worries to them as it doesn't concern them for they are not part of his clan. Arisu sees in the PC an opportunity to change the situation, she will either send them an anonymous letter or maybe speak in person about the situation and asks them to steal the fan. As long as the fan isn't in Kyo's possession, everything should be alright. Maybe Arisu wants to have this fan as she could use this as leverage to increase her status in some way.

It will not be easy for the PCs, they might need to convince the Sect members that they also want to join them. Then there is also a female named Sakiko, she was a Kolat member when she learned the Sects teachings and now she has harmonized the Kolats teaching with the Sects. She is the manipulating type, so if she finds the writing on the fan she knows how to maximize the Sects leverage.

Any feedback is welcome, thanks in advance.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

14 hours ago, Kiso said:

The clan was only an example in the instruction how to create a minor clan in the old book Way of the daimyo and we need to change their date of origin to around 1050, granted minor clan status by Hantei XXV or something

Fair enough. It's a nice enough origin story, and the 'coastal watch' is an interesting enough role. I could see a 'firefly clan PC's' section looking quite interesting, too.

14 hours ago, Kiso said:

The Firefly champion, lets call him Hotaru Kenta, used to love a female named Kayo and she was a peasant/geisha/oiran and they had a child before Kenta married. When the child was born he gave Kayo a fan with written kanji which in a subtle way proves that the child is the child of Kenta. Lets make the child a son with the name Kyo. After Kenta was married he didn't saw Kayo anymore and they have lost contact such that Kenta doesn't know about the whereabouts of Kyo anymore.

Also cool. I might suggest a well-off heimin merchant family for Kayo's origin - Kenta not seeing them anymore is honourable enough if he's got married but 'losing track of them' implies she's moving around - a generic peasant, even a well-off one like a craftsman or servant, isn't going to do that.

A suitably successful geisha might (and a geisha would certainly be someone capable of catching a young samurai's eye), but "and the geisha secretly had a child with the samurai" is a bit of a tired trope, and when it gets overused it kind of undermines the whole geisha-don't-do-that thing.

A merchant will move around, since moving stuff from place to place is kind of their job, and a successful one and their immediate family might well interact with samurai - not as social equals but certainly in a close enough setting that she might 'get noticed'.

The Firefly aren't so wealthy a clan (their holdings being basically a series of fortified watchtowers attached to coastal villages) that it would be as intimidating as dealing with other clan champions, and if they interact with the Katsuga a lot, then being less fussy about the distinction between samurai  and hiemin than most clans makes sense.

 With the Firefly clan basically being a coastal watch, someone who dealt with shipping arriving along the coast makes a degree of sense. There's no obvious ports between the Tortoise at Slow Tide Harbour and the Centipede at Shiro Moshi, and with the mouth of a river running straight up to Toshi Ranbo in the area, you'd think a fair amount of merchant traffic would go that way.

14 hours ago, Kiso said:

Shortly after his marriage there was an accident and he is no longer able to give his new wife any children, the Firefly clan champion doesn't have any heirs.

To point something out; if this is 'recent', then an obvious cause which is more than just 'there was an accident' - the entire Firefly clan could be facing borderline disaster; in 1120 you had the Tsunami which devastated crane holdings; the Firefly are a coastal minor clan; they might not have been hit head-on by the tsunami but what would be minor damage to major clans would be devastating to them. Leaving Kenta crippled and unable to father children is quite feasible, and if you want to you could tie that into a way of making him seem like a 'good' samurai whose legacy the PCs might care about - if he was crippled saving people in Hotaru Torid-e, (getting the villagers inside the fortified tower, or something) for example.

14 hours ago, Kiso said:

The champions vassal (lord) Hotaru Hisoka has recently learned that the boy is still alive and has almost certainly joined the Perfect Land Sect. He knows that if the Perfect Land Sect knows about the boys origin they will try to make him the heir of the Firefly clan or at the very least demanding a portion of land in the clans territory. They can then use this piece of land as the Sects basis, which will certainly stop the clans support from Phoenix clan with their ban of the Sects teachings and might dishonour the clans champion.

Fair enough. I assume (possibly wrongly) from the context that Kyo doesn't know his own parentage, and that Kayo isn't a sect member?

A clan champion who is an open Perfect Land member would certainly burn some serious bridges with the Phoenix, you're right about that.

An obvious question is how he knows - there can't be so many vassal lords within a small clan like the Firefly that they wouldn't know Hotaru Kenta well - so I guess he might recognise Kayo if she moved to 'his' town (and hence figure out Kyo's parentage 'old flame of the clan champion....unmarried....with a small boy....of about the age when they stopped seeing each other.....oh, bugger!'), and thus keep an unofficial eye on the boy, hence discovering that [1] the Perfect Land Sect is active in his territory (probably an unwelcome discovery to start with!) and [2] his clan champion's bastard child is a member.

14 hours ago, Kiso said:

Hisoka is a very small lord with a very small castle and castle town. He is afraid to do anything about it, reporting the existence of the boy might anger Kenta's wife and potentially put Kyo in the line of succession. He isn't able to use the clans resources, clans man might be recognized by the Sect, start believing in the Sects teachings or advocating for Kyo's position as heir. He has been in this panic for weeks and normally visits a geisha named Arisu to relax, but the past weeks he only has been moaning about his situation to her.

I'm assuming - rather than a castle per se - that it would be another coastal Firefly Clan watchtower-and-village.  The fact that the Firefly is a small clan feeds in again here - if the clan doesn't have many samurai, then they're going to be known faces in all the Firefly towns; which is why trying to get a Hotaru samuri to infiltrate the sect is a non-starter. If you want to double down on the risks of them backing Kyo here, you could always hint that Kenta's current wife is a political match and not popular (as well as childless).

14 hours ago, Kiso said:

So that is the setup for the heist. The PCs might be invited by Hisoka to enjoy a meal in his castle, he wouldn't talk about his worries to them as it doesn't concern them for they are not part of his clan. Arisu sees in the PC an opportunity to change the situation, she will either send them an anonymous letter or maybe speak in person about the situation and asks them to steal the fan. As long as the fan isn't in Kyo's possession, everything should be alright. Maybe Arisu wants to have this fan as she could use this as leverage to increase her status in some way.

Hotaru Hisoka meets them for whatever reason (you can easily start with a boxout of "why are the PCs dining with Hisoka" but if they're on a ship going north or south on the coast, or going to or from Toshi Ranbo on the river, his town might be a sensible place to moor overnight and as local lord he'd be expected to host.) and then Arisu sees an opportunity, sounds good. 

Removing the fan takes away the opportunity for effective proof, but there are two or three things I'd think through:

1. Since Kenta's current wife is childless, if Kyo isn't the heir, who is?
2. Arisu is a geisha and doesn't have the authority to order samurai around, so she needs a way to get the samurai PCs to want to do this.
   • You could argue Kyo is the 'correct' heir (by dint of there being no-one else), and some samurai might - and that the connection to the Perfect Land Sect is something that needs to be dealt with.
   • Other PCs could also argue that since he's 'currently' a peasant, just execute Kyo; potential succession problem dealt with, fan or no fan.
3. Kenta hasn't seen Kyo in years, so without the fan it's credible he won't recognise the boy. But there is zero chance of him not recognising his childhood sweetheart, Kayo, and if she turned up and said 'yes, this is your son', it's highly unlikely she wouldn't be believed, if she's still alive.
4. If she is, it's quite possible that (Kayo's not a sect member), Kayo and Kyo have had a falling out. If he's just discovered he's the clan champion's heir ( "son." "heir." "son." "HEIR!" <slam>) - told by Sakiko, I guess, then it might well be Kayo who wants to stop her son doing something stupid, with Arisu and the PC's help.

15 hours ago, Kiso said:

It will not be easy for the PCs, they might need to convince the Sect members that they also want to join them. Then there is also a female named Sakiko, she was a Kolat member when she learned the Sects teachings and now she has harmonized the Kolats teaching with the Sects. She is the manipulating type, so if she finds the writing on the fan she knows how to maximize the Sects leverage.

I'd be tempted (see above) to make this something that's already happened. There has to be a 'why now?' facet to the story - Kyo/Kayo have been holding on to that fan for his whole childhood, and it's not been a problem before.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

One thing that I mentioned a while ago in this thread was that a good starting point for an adventure was to pick two bushido tenets and put them in conflict. Following bushido when it's a choice between 'honourable' and 'not honourable' is easy decision-making ("do you bludgeon the innocent peasant to death to amuse yourself...or not?"). Things become interesting when in a given situation two tenets drive you in mutually exclusive directions and you either have to break one or the other, or come up with a spectacularly clever plan.

 

I was wondering if it might be worth creating a quick list of very generic ideas a GM could use?

Essentially, picking the two tenets is best driven by looking at your player group; certain tenets will matter more to individuals on a personal level, and certain clan choices for PCs will drive them to care about others.

What I mean about the ideas is that, for example, some conflicts between Sincerity (keep your word, don't keep secrets) and Courtesy (don't cause offence, especially to those of higher status, don't allow insults to pass unchallenged, and allow your foes the opportunity to surrender honourably) are added below

 

You could come up with several for each pairing that people could use as the initial starting point of an adventure - any suggestions are welcome, and I'll drop them in the table as people suggest them!

 

 

• Compassion
  • Important to the Unicorn Clan
  • Do not allow preventable suffering, whether through action or inaction
  • Conflicts between Compassion and Courage
  • Conflicts between Compassion and Courtesy
  • Conflicts between Compassion and Duty
  • Conflicts between Compassion and Honour
    • Do you 'forcibly' spare an enemy who has no chance of victory when they actively want to die fighting you?
  • Conflicts between Compassion and Righteousness
    • Discovering a group of bandits are heimin who have turned to theft because their families are starving to death
  • Conflicts between Compassion and Sincerity
    • Promising to do something only to discover it will cause someone to suffer
• Courage
  • Important to the Crab Clan and Mantis Clan
  • Do not allow social or physical risk to yourself to dictate your actions
  • Conflicts between Courage and Courtesy
  • Conflicts between Courage and Duty
    • Do you flee from battle when the forces saved might make the difference to victory elsewhere?
  • Conflicts between Courage and Honour
  • Conflicts between Courage and Righteousness
  • Conflicts between Courage and Sincerity
    • Risking shame and loss of face to say something that needs to be said.
• Courtesy
  • Important to the Crane Clan
  • Brook no insult and cause no offence
  • Conflicts between Courtesy and Duty
  • Conflicts between Courtesy and Honour
    • An cutting insult made in court about your family's lands is publicly unacceptable but, you know secretly, is actually true and might shame others into doing something about it.
  • Conflicts between Courtesy and Righteousness
  • Conflicts between Courtesy and Sincerity
    • You have the chance to cover up something to prevent a scandal surrounding a high-status guest.
    • The only way to secure aid for someone else is to swallow their rival's insolence at court unchallenged.
    • A friend wants you to promise to kill their enemies to satisfy a desire for revenge when you know they'll try to surrender without a fight.
• Duty
  • Important to the Scorpion Clan, Deer Clan and the Imperial Families
  • Heed only your lord's orders and the requirements of your post
  • Conflicts between Duty and Honour
    • When the accused is a disreputable individual probably guilty of many crimes but you know for a fact they are not guilty of the crime your lord is accusing them of.
  • Conflicts between Duty and Righteousness
    • Your lord's orders - out of necessity and responsibility to the clan - would be deemed illegal by others.
  • Conflicts between Duty and Sincerity
    • The needs of those your post makes you responsible for and the needs of a sworn ally are in direct conflict.
• Honour
  • Important to the Lion Clan and Falcon Clan
  • Be truthful with yourself, and do nothing to taint your spirit
  • Conflicts between Honour and Righteousness
    • The law as written is clearly wrong - because circumstances have changed since it was written - but it remains the law.
  • Conflicts between Honour and Sincerity
    • A former sworn ally has fallen to the Shadowlands taint, making it your place to hunt them down and release them from their corruption whatever the cost to your own soul.
• Righteousness
  • Important to the Phoenix Clan
  • Follow the law and act in your lord's interests, not your own
  • Conflicts between Righteousness and Sincerity
    • When you could give important testimony in an investigation but have promised to say nothing.
• Sincerity
  • Important to the Dragon Clan
  • Keep oaths rather than secrets

 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Magnus Grendel

[Myrion 528]

Sincerity can also be described as following through on your word.

 

A possible conflict between Compassion and Sincerity is that you boasted that you would stop a bandit menace, but then discover that said bandits keep a forgotten village protected against a goblin infestation in the mountains. You can defeat the bandits, but until you come back with reinforcements, the village will undefended. 

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

One thing that might be worth pointing people to is the roster of 'old' adventures: this is, after all, '5th edition', and whilst the stats of characters don't translate directly, the storylines do and subbing in 'Loyal Bushi' and 'Venerable Provincial Daimyo' isn't difficult*.

Feel free to add a shoutout to edition 1-4 adventures you think are worth GM's knowing about - if possible, let them know what book they're in (most older stuff can be found in DrivethruRPG), and any advice on adapting them to the current timeline - a lot of stuff, for example, was written post-scorpion-clan-coup, so there were fundamental changes in the social structure, especially those involving the scorpion. Equally, whilst the guys who Kind Of Like Asking That are still around, their membership roster should not be assumed.

 

• Honour's Veil (Intrigue 1)
  • Contains the titular adventure (works perfectly well anywhere, any time that there isn't unrestricted clan warfare going on. The Crane/Lion pairing could be swapped for any other tense and unstable border, but Bayushi Yojiro is such an awesome character it feels a waste not to keep his cameo in)
  • Murder at Kyotei Castle (very good, and a direct prequel to Wedding at Kyotei Castle. Playing both....would probably be weird, or at least leave the players with far less social agency in the latter adventure as they'd probably already know most people's 'big secrets' and start with a very clear idea what side they were on).
• The Hare Clan Trilogy - 2nd edition GM's Kit, GM's Guide, and Intrigue adventure 2 (Bells of the Dead)
  • Buts up on the scorpion clan coup and aftermath, so needs a bit of rewriting in a setting where it doesn't happen (but does actually include some guidance on it).
  • Talks about certain individuals being Kolat, but the game doesn't proceed that differently if they aren't. Does assume the players are capable of recognising the phrase 'kolat', so would work well as a deep-buried sequel to In The Palace Of....
  • Sees a minor clan destroyed and resurrected, which is quite cool. Theoretically could be a good lead-in to the PCs being handed a chump-lot of titles like Advisor, Gunso, and Clan Magistrate if they all get adopted into the newly-re-founded clan.
  • Sees the Kolat 'destroyed'. Sort of.  Since a lot more people know about it in this version of the setting, 'we destroyed a kolat cell' is far more sensible.

 

Anyone else have personal favourites?

 

 

* heck, it's what the FFG authors did in Courts of Stone.....

[Kiso 61]

On the note of premade advantures, I couldn't find a list that contained the starting location for most premade adventures. So I made one myself:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CCom5Yvf24nr6ICnyuNFZxxOXCg2OGDvvOHnls-ErFU/edit?usp=sharing

I was looking for such a list to throw a premade adventure at the group if they would be travelling close to one of the locations. Or combining different premades if you know were they can be found, such as the different iterations of the Tsuma tournament. It contains the starting location, organizations, possible sequences and obviously the name of the adventure. The list is far from perfect, it only contains the location from the premades I could get my hands on. I indicated the minor clan location with one of the great clans is close to it and indicate if the location can be found on one of the 5e maps (as of this moment).  Further more certain imperial lands have been mislabeled as clan terrarium,  I'm not sure were imperial begins and were it ends. The abbreviation HoR = heroes of rokugan, and fan is used as a "doesn't belong in the other organizations and if probably made by fans of the game".

I have only run a hand full of adventures, but a older adventure I liked was named Descent into Darkness from the GM screen of the 4e. The only adjusted I really needed to make was changing the location of the nage ruins, they aren't crucial to the story and in this edition they may not be appropriate. At the end of this short adventure a village is quite empty and the adventure recommends that the PCs can use this village as their base.

Edited December 6, 2019 by Kiso

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

On ‎12‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 5:41 PM, Kiso said:

  Further more certain imperial lands have been mislabeled as clan terrarium,  I'm not sure were imperial begins and were it ends.

Remember clan and imperial lands shift quite a bit over the 'history' of rokugan, given that the RPGs usually reference the L5R CCG state at the time. Anything to do with the Scorpion Clan is a case in point, with more than one adventure having a sidebar along the lines of "If the Scorpion Clan doesn't officially exist at this point in your games..."

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

Just in case you don't know about this - Heroes of Rokugan was an (extensive) living campaign.

Rob Hobart managed it and most of the HoR1 adventures are on his page. Older editions, obviously, but improvise, adapt and overcome...

http://www.robhobart.com/l5r.html

 

 

Also - random idea (after reading The Sword And The Spirits): The Phoenix Clan are very concerned because a shinseist novice was kidnapped from a monastery in their lands.

Obviously that's a bad thing, but they seem really, really freaked out, out of proportion to the event, but no-one shy of the elemental council seems to know why.

Investigation - discrete investigation, if you want to avoid 'consequences' identifies that said novice was a retired Isawa samurai by the name of Isawa Kaiyoko. Further investigation will determine she was a shujenga and that she was an apprentice to the elemental master of water, Asako Azunami.

The identity of the kidnapper is unknown, though for some reason their trail is heading toward the lands of the Phoenix's Crane allies...

 

From the sword and the spirits:

“Haste is not wise,” Rujo spoke. “We still remember what happened when Kaiyoko-sama attempted to correct the balance by herself. She was the strongest among us, her connection to the water kami unparalleled! Yet even with her insights, her ceremony had no effect.”

“I would not say there was no effect,” Tsuke remarked. “The Crane lands weathered a tsunami, after all.”

The Masters paused, then collectively looked at Tsukune. Her face had gone white, and her brush slipped from limp fingers. “Perhaps refrain from writing that part down,” Azunami advised.

Edited April 29 by Magnus Grendel

[neilcell 252]

12 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Obviously that's a bad thing, but they seem really, really freaked out, out of proportion to the event, but no-one shy of the elemental council seems to know why.

Investigation - discrete investigation, if you want to avoid 'consequences' identifies that said novice was a retired Isawa samurai by the name of Isawa Kaiyoko. Further investigation will determine she was a shujenga and that she was an apprentice to the elemental master of water, Asako Azunami.

The identity of the kidnapper is unknown, though for some reason their trail is heading toward the lands of the Phoenix's Crane allies...

  Reveal hidden contents

From the sword and the spirits:

“Haste is not wise,” Rujo spoke. “We still remember what happened when Kaiyoko-sama attempted to correct the balance by herself. She was the strongest among us, her connection to the water kami unparalleled! Yet even with her insights, her ceremony had no effect.”

“I would not say there was no effect,” Tsuke remarked. “The Crane lands weathered a tsunami, after all.”

The Masters paused, then collectively looked at Tsukune. Her face had gone white, and her brush slipped from limp fingers. “Perhaps refrain from writing that part down,” Azunami advised.

Without spoiling the hidden  comments, I will advise that Gandalf's comments to Frodo about getting another wizard to change the weather comes to mind. 

[Kiso 61]

Seth Skorkowsky has recently uploaded a great video how to run a heist in a rpg. The Link
But this got my wondering, Magnus were you able to finish that heist adventure you were making. And if so, might I see it if you are willing to share. Because I like the whole set-up and the story sounded interesting.

Edited May 13 by Kiso

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

15 hours ago, Kiso said:

Seth Skorkowsky has recently uploaded a great video how to run a heist in a rpg. The Link
But this got my wondering, Magnus were you able to finish that heist adventure you were making. And if so, might I see it if you are willing to share. Because I like the whole set-up and the story sounded interesting.

Not yet. Planning to drop it on my PCs soon so will get it formatted up for then!