A Gift of Earth
The Emperor’s prize would greatly enhance the reputation of your small clan. But others seek the honor. Minor clans, great clans, even bureaucrats. To whom will the Emperor’s favor go?

Opportunity and Danger are two sides of the same coin. The Emperor, the Great Hantei, has unvielded the presence of a new jade mine. Located in the Biwa Valley, this jade mine requires stewardship, most likely drawn from one of the minor clans with lands along the Valley. It would greatly enhance the prestige of your clan to win this stewardship, but others seek the honor. Minor clans, great clans, even bureaucrats. Who will gain the Emperor’s favor? (more…)

Unfortunately, we will not be offering our usual “Big Event” for the L5R setting this year at DDC. However, I will be offering two sessions of the brand new, soon to be released Dark Heresy: Warhammer 40,000 roleplay. The extended write-ups are as follows:

What Rots from Within?

“There is Purity of Purpose in the Faith of the Just”

An Acolyte in the service of the Inquisition, your duty is to root out the foul stench of heresy, hunt the vile alien, and purge the twisted influence of Chaos. You will tread where others fear, venturing to distant planets, ancient space hulks and the unsavory depths of the hive cities.

Newly pressed into the service of the Emperors’ Inquisition, you are charged to assist and protect a senior Inquisitorial agent in an investigation. You will travel by the ship the Brazen Sky to the barbarian world of Iocanthus, where you will meet Agent Nicodemus.

About this Game

Dark Heresy: Roleplaying in the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium. Newly released from Black Industries, Dark Heresy is the much awaited game set in the dark, gothic future of Warhammer 40,000. Similar in tone and system to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Dark Heresy features investigations, action, horror and combat in a dark future.

The game has theme and setting similarities to Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Mutant Chronicles.

About the GM

An experienced local GM and co-host of the gaming podcast 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction, Brian has produced several successful DDC events, such as A Gift of Earth, Test of Might, Lion at Autumn’s Gate, and The Eaters of Sin.

and

In the Wake of Malice

“The difference between heresy and treachery is ignorance”

An Acolyte in the service of the Inquisition, your duty is to root out the foul stench of heresy, hunt the vile alien, and purge the twisted influence of Chaos. You will tread where others fear, venturing to distant planets, ancient space hulks and the unsavory depths of the hive cities.

Pursuing leads about the Brotherhood of Malice has led you the mining world of Sepheris Secundus. Before you can truly investigate, you must secure the goodwill of the Commissar of the Imperial Guard detachment which oversees the world - the man called Zurial.

About this Game

Dark Heresy: Roleplaying in the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millennium. Newly released from Black Industries, Dark Heresy is the much awaited game set in the dark, gothic future of Warhammer 40,000. Similar in tone and system to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Dark Heresy features investigations, action, horror and combat in a dark future.

The game has theme and setting similarities to Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Mutant Chronicles.

About the GM

An experienced local GM and co-host of the gaming podcast 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction, Brian has produced several successful DDC events, such as A Gift of Earth, Test of Might, Lion at Autumn’s Gate, and The Eaters of Sin.

If you’re are DDC and enjoy the WH40k setting, I hope you’ll consider one of the above games.

Confirmed for KublaCon, May 26, 2007:

A Gift of Earth
The Emperor’s prize would greatly enhance the reputation of your small clan. But others seek the honor. Minor clans, great clans, even bureaucrats. To whom will the Emperor’s favor go?

Opportunity and Danger are two sides of the same coin. The Emperor, the Great Hantei, has unvielded the presence of a new silver mine. Located in the Biwa Valley, this silver mine requires stewardship, most likely drawn from one of the minor clans with lands along the Valley. It would greatly enhance the prestige of your clan to win this stewardship, but others seek the honor. Minor clans, great clans, even bureaucrats. Who will gain the Emperor’s favor? (more…)

DDC is next month, and once again, the Jade Lantern is co-hosting an event. The extended description follows:

Walls Crumble, Honor Endures

In the late summer of the 15th year of the 17th Hantei Emperor, Toma Sieko, daimyo of the Iron Cobra, pressed his clan’s advantage against Makira Toji, the aging daimyo of Raven Clan. With the siege of Kyuden Raven underway, Toji-sama comes to terms with the fate of his Clan.

What do loyal samurai do when surrounded without by a fierce enemy, and weighed down within by an incompetent lord? (more…)

The monk has been very impressed with the new Land of the Crane setting for True 20:

“The Land of the Crane setting can be found in the True20 Worlds of Adventure book published by Green Ronin Publishing. The Land of the Crane is a fantasy setting inspired by the folklore and mythology of feudal Japan.”

Land of the Crane is produced by Amalara. It was one of the Green Ronin setting contest winner for the True 20 rpg, and is one of the first licensed True 20 properties on the market. The 28 pages published in Green Ronin’s Worlds of Adventure are very accessible to players familiar with samurai-themed games as well as those new to the genre. Amalara has already released two free supplements: a glossary and a calendar.

Even more exciting (to this monk, at least) is the publication of our Castle of the Mountain Goblins article, and the announcement of the monk’s writing a samurai /code of bushido supplement for Land of the Crane.

The monks have been somewhat busy with the “Gift of Earth” Summer Tour. In this case, the production has been run twice. The first was a 24 person event at Dundracon this past Feburary. More recently was the (first) ConQuest - Sacramento, where we had 12 players.

“A Gift of Earth” is extremely open-ened in play, there is a good chance it will be the model for the 2007 Dundracon game. This assumes it does not appear sooner.

As always, a sincere domo arigato to all the generous players out there!

The Monk picked up Mountain Witch on an expedition recently. A game by Timothy Kleinert, Mountain Witch is a dark samurai fantasy about trust, betrayal, and confronting one’s fate. From timfire publishing’s website:

A group of ronin samurai are hired for a simple yet terrifying task—to assault and kill O-Yanma, the dreaded Mountain Witch of Mount Fuji. But regretful pasts and dark fate conspire against the mission, testing both the courage and loyalty of the samurai.

When every heart holds betrayal, who can you trust?

Mountain Witch is an interesting roleplaying game, and one that’s of interest to L5R players. (more…)

Dundracon is just a few short months away, and the Jade Lantern will once again be co-hosting another L5R event. Below is the draft extended description of the event.

A Gift of Earth

The Emperor’s prize would greatly enhance the reputation of your small clan. But others seek the honor. Minor clans, great clans, even bureaucrats. To whom will the Emperor’s favor go?

Opportunity and Danger are two sides of the same coin. The Emperor, the Great Hantei, has unvielded the presence of a new silver mine. Located in the Biwa Valley, this silver mine requires stewardship, most likely drawn from one of the minor clans with lands along the Valley. It would greatly enhance the prestige of your clan to win this stewardship, but others seek the honor. Minor clans, great clans, even bureaucrats. Who will gain the Emperor’s favor? (more…)

I recently found some time to retreat and read through the new L5R 3rd edition. I settled in for a nice long read and drank more than a few cups of tea while doing so. My reading of the book has only fully reinforced my initial impression: the 3rd edition is magnificent! The entire package is a significant upgrade of the production values of the earlier books, with full color throughout, an outstanding selection of artwork, and a sizable array of content. End to end this was an impressive package. Perhaps a bit light on some of the GM’s advice, and of course I saw a typo or two, but really, just an outstanding job and a very worthy book.

If you’re a fan of L5R or the genre, I recommend the Legends of the Five Rings: 3rd edition book without reservation.

A huge thank you to all twenty-three of the players who took part in this year’s Dundracon event, as well as my co-GM, of course. I had a wonderful time running the game, and already look forward to running next February’s game.

For those who did not have the chance to attend the event, the extended program description (from the GM notes) was:

“As winter turns to spring, the time for campaigning draws near. Armor is cleaned, weapons polished, and stores counted. The Crab Daimyo has declared a Shiken no Isei (”Test of Might”) to decide which of his Bushi-Ryu will have his favor and which of the bushi-students show the greatest promise for battles ahead.”

The end of the story has both less and more to do with the fall of Hiruma Castle than it does the Test of Might.

The Event

Thanks to the nice folks at DDC, we had a seminar room for our event, which was slated for 14 players. The seminar room is a nice sized private suite, and can handle the size of the groups we wind up running. It also has it’s own bathroom and quasi-kitchenette, two doors, and they have about five or six long tables and plenty of chairs. Luckily - we needed all of them. We ran through 23 player this year, taking on everyone who showed up, ad I recall. (more…)