While “Call
of Cthulhu” is the game I hold most dear, I do strike out into other genres
occasionally. Given that I am a bit of a ‘samurai
tragic’ I have dabbled quite a bit with the Alderac product “Legend of the Five Rings”, and have
even made contributions, both artistically and in terms of content, with some
of their game releases. I quite like the game world of Rokugan but I’ve never
liked the game system: systems should support the genre for which they are the
engine, in my view, and whether I play a game or not depends strongly upon this
issue. “Call of Cthulhu”, “Feng Shui”,
“Pendragon”, and “Cyberpunk” are
my games of choice, simply because the mechanics that run them support the
nature of the stories that they tell; when I run “L5R”, I replace the rule system with my own home brew system of “Pendragon” rules, simply because it
makes more sense.
Most things about Rokugan and the
Rokugani I’m quite comfortable with; however, there are a few times when the
writers go off the rails and do things which – to my mind anyway – don’t do the
genre justice. Mostly it’s just the fact that they don’t take things far enough
in recreating a fantasy Feudal Japan equivalent: compare Rokugan with Lian
Hearn’s Tales of the Otori or Ruth
Manley’s Plum Rain Scroll and the
presence of mainly surface detail – facts that don’t really cut to the meat of
what this kind of fantasy can be like – is all too apparent. I’ve reached a
point with Alderac’s offerings where I only absorb a source book after I’ve checked
who wrote it: I’ll take anything by Ree Soesbee; John Wick’s contributions I
can take or leave.
One of the things I do with my L5R games, in order to give the world
some gravitas and depth, is to drop
literature into the environment (and obviously, since this is me, that should
come as no surprise to anyone!). Feudal Japanese environments are incredibly
literate, compared to their equivalents in a more European setting. People read
– a lot. Written transmission of ideas and information is highly prevalent in
these settings and, especially when it comes to the way warfare was conducted,
was crucial to forging the paths of progress. Accordingly, I provide my players
with a library of worthy tomes which they can carry with them and discuss with
the non-player characters and each other.
Rokugan – as detailed by the Alderac
crowd – certainly isn’t text-free. There are books mentioned in the rules and I
have included them faithfully here. Alongside these, I have taken real-world,
important texts which were crucial to the development of Feudal Japan and have
modified them to suit the Rokugan environment. There are notes at the end of
this list which discuss the historical derivation of these works.
Interestingly, and this is a testament to the designers’ efforts in outlining
their game world, not too much modifying had to take place.
*****
Bansen
Shukai by Yasuki Fujibayashi
A tract with surreptitious circulation.
It outlines the usefulness of ninja
in battle, the ways that they can be employed and also their more notorious
strategies, so that they can be recognised and avoided. Amongst many other
standard ninja tricks is detailed the
insidious tactic of kyojutsu ten-kan-ho.
Essentially this plan involves dressing up your ninja troops in your enemy’s colours, firing upon a guarded section
of wall at night during rain or fog and waiting for the dismayed defenders to
extinguish their lights. In the resulting dark, ninja scale the walls despatching the defenders while siege engines
move in, uncontested, to occupy positions for attack1.
Kyujitai
Shinjitai (“In the Shadow of Leaves”) by Togashi
Tsuramoto
This
is a practical and spiritual guide for a warrior, drawn from a collection of
commentaries by the samurai Mirumoto Tsunetomo the third daimyo
of the Mirumoto family. Tsuramoto compiled these commentaries from his
conversations with Tsunetomo, but they were not published until many years afterwards (and it’s highly
possible they were never meant to be). Known as the Book of the Samurai
or the Tsunetomo Analects, this is possibly the best known and most
widely read work in Rokugan2.
The
book records Tsunetomo's views on bushido,
the warrior code of the samurai. In The Shadow Of Leaves is sometimes said to assert
that bushido is really the "Way of Dying",
or of living as though one was already dead, and that a samurai must be willing to die at any moment in order to be true to
his lord; his saying "the way of the warrior is death" was a
summation of the willingness to sacrifice that bushido codified.
Leadership
by the Kami Akodo
"Without
honour, there is no victory. Without fear, there is no defeat."
Leadership is a treatise on
military discipline written by the Kami Akodo in the 1st century. It is one of
the most widely read books on the military arts, and can be found in most dojos throughout Rokugan.
Lies by Bayushi Tangen
"A
living enemy is dangerous; a dead enemy is dead. Better to have a graveyard of
dead enemies than a single angry one."
Lies is a treatise on politics written
by Bayushi Tangen, and it was presented to the Emperor. It was published
shortly after Akodo’s Leadership and
attacks it directly, and it also provides examples of Scorpion
"sincerity". Along with Mirumoto Hojatsu's Niten, Kakita's The Sword
and Leadership, it is considered one
of the major literary works written during the foundation of the Empire.
Tangen
also wrote another treatise, Little
Truths, but apparently - and that’s a dangerous word to use in the context
of the Scorpion Clan - it was never published.
Makura
no Shōshi by Ida
Shōnagon
A
revolutionary work comprising the random thoughts and scattered journal notes
of a Unicorn courtier written between the years 798 and 802, during which the
Unicorn clan returned to Rokugan from its wanderings abroad.
Shōnagon's
idle notes are praised for their subtle poetry and adeptness of description.
They also capture the spirit of the time and the concerns of the Unicorn clan,
especially the uncertainty of their reception back to their homeland.
More
than this, the form in which the book is composed – comprising as it does many
off-the–cuff observations and unstructured thoughts – inspired others to write
in a similar fashion and gave rise to the fude
ni shitagau (“following the
brush”) form of writing: collections of poetry interspersed with rambling,
personal essays, criticisms and observations. Chief among these are Moto
Norinaga’s Aiko-ka and Soshuro
Sadanobu’s Makura no Seppuku, written
in the weeks whilst awaiting the order to commit suicide.
The
writing style has become a hallmark of an extreme cultural movement within the
Crane clan which espouses ascetic values and an appreciation of art for its own
sake, blended with a hardline reading of Shinsei’s ethical teachings. Typically,
these wandering epistles cavil against cultural philistinism, the trials of
aristocracy, and the general “unpleasantness” of the world and its peoples.
Such cultural elitism has its opponents: “The
Dog Pillow” is an anonymous parody of Ida Shōnagon's original work which
ruthlessly targets the Crane clan and the more effete members within its ranks3.
The
Mortar Sutras compiled by Daidoji Akihito
“The
Kaiu Wall was built with Crab hands and Crab hearts: it will never fail. This
is all that you need to know.
If all
the Gods and all our ancestors turn their faces from us and the Wall fails, we
have our castles and fortresses to fall back to.
If, by
treachery, these strongholds are breached and so fall, we have armour on our
backs and weapons in our fists.
If
these fail, we have hands; and teeth; and hearts.
These
will not fail.”
This
is a collection of inspirational chants used by troops along the Kaiu Wall.
Akihito was stationed on the Wall for a period of ten years during which he
collected these pieces of doggerel and re-worked them into uplifting pieces of
rambling verse that are often used throughout Rokugan as a positive character
sketch of the Crab Clan.
Niten by Mirumoto Hojatsu
“The samurai in the
watchtower who says ‘at least that distant war isn’t happening in our
territory’ is the one who will open the gate for an invading army…”
Niten (literally, "two skies")
is the swordsmanship discipline devised by the first Dragon Clan Thunder,
Mirumoto, and used almost exclusively by the Dragon Clan samurai, particularly those from the Mirumoto family. Unlike the
Kakita school of thought, niten-ryu
believes that it is dishonourable for a samurai
to die in the defense of his lord while there is still another blade by his
side. Because of this, practitioners of the style fight with both wakizashi and katana.
Although
Kakita's iaijutsu technique is more
widely accepted for use in duelling, niten
maintains its applicability and contends admirably in both duels and combat.
“Seijutsu na Ansatsusha” a play by
Akodo Jimomen
A play
that was famously banned during the reign of Hantei XII. It tells the romantic
story of Bayushi Aramoro, the brother of the Scorpion daimyo Bayushi
Hajioki, who was a ninja jonin. At the command of Hantei X, all the
Scorpion ninja are ordered to surrender themselves to the Emerald
Champion to answer charges of the use of black magic: after a travesty of a trial,
the noble ninja are all boiled alive in oil. Amid declarations of
honourable purpose and tearful farewells to loved ones, the play offers the
message that the individual exists at the whim of Heaven, regardless of rank,
reputation, or ability. Despite its proscribed status, it is still a favourite
among the lower classes.
Shonshi Nihongi (“On the Conduct of War”)
by Akodo Shonshi
A very
early work which is well thumbed by any samurai, especially those with
direct experience of massed combat. The essence of the work is that any and all
strategies are expedient if they deflect the possibility of open warfare,
including “dishonourable acts” such as the employment of ninja troops. Consequently the work is considered unsettling and
controversial4.
The
Sword by Kakita-sama
"The
secret of swordplay is not the swift defeat, not the prolonged strike and
block. A pure stroke will defeat technique."
The Sword is the record of the philosophy
regarding swordsmanship and discipline written by Kakita-sama, the founder of
the Kakita family and one of the earliest and strongest proponents of iaijutsu. This treatise also served as
the foundation for duelling in Rokugan and included Kakita's thoughts on the
theory and technique of kenjutsu.
The
essence of Kakita's technique is that an enemy could be defeated with a single
strike and that it takes only that single strike to end any conflict. The key
to the technique is that of perfection: the strike must be of perfect form,
with perfect speed, and perfect accuracy. Kakita summarized this philosophy
with the following: "One man, one
sword, one strike."
The
final manuscript of this great work is held in Kakita's dojo in the Crane lands.
The
main religious text of Rokugan which outlines the order of the Universe, the
effects of karma and which codifies “correct behaviour” during one’s
existence. Most Rokugani know at least one verse or parable from this work and
many of the stories have been re-worked into derivative local legends5.
*****
Notes:
1 This
is a real world text. Fujibayashi Yasutake’s Bansen Shukai is a real-world ninja
tract, one of only very few ever written. Rather than make up a new name for
him, I dropped a few letters from his real-world name to make him a Rokugani
Crab.
2 The
closest real-world equivalent of this work is the samurai handbook called Hagakure.
Many samurai leaders often posted
notices around their troops’ barracks, either regulations to be observed (with
detailed punishments if these were ignored) or words of wisdom to ensure good
conduct. These were often gathered together by the samurai and published in limited editions so that they could be
read and pondered over during rest periods or tedious watch duties.
3 This
of course is a re-working of The Pillow
Book of Sei Shōnagon. All of the non-Rokugani details here accord directly
with the impact which this memoir had upon real-world historical Japanese literature.
The Moto and Shosuro works are my own inventions, but “The Dog Pillow” is an actual work too, a parody of the original Makura no Sōshi.
4 “Shonshi”
is the Japanese transliteration of the Chinese Sun Tzu; it’s close enough to
Shinsei, I feel, to make him the flipside of Wick’s peaceful neo-Buddhist. It
also makes sense to me that he be a Lion Clan theorist. The Shonshi Nihongi was the first Japanese
book to espouse Sun Tzu’s philosophies – there was never a contemporary
translation of The Art of War, but
many Japanese books made reference to the original.
5 This
text seems like a combination of the Tao
Te Ching of Lao Tze and the Tripitaka
of Buddhist faith. Wick seems to like his fantasy Buddhism to err on the side
of Zen but, to my mind, there is so much more versatility to be gained from
underscoring the different mystical schools of thought that Buddhism (and even
Taoism) offers, that a great opportunity to broaden an L5R campaign is being missed.
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