Intro to my canon L5R fiction
Dec. 2nd, 2010 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daidoji_giseiA number of my co-workers know that I moonlight writing for a game company, and a few of them have expressed interest in seeing my stories. I am compiling here links to a handful of my L5R fictions, with some notes on their context to help readers unfamiliar with the game make some sense out of them.
"L5R", by the way, is the community's shorthand for "Legend of the Five Rings", a game line that started (and remains) a collectible card game and also has a role-playing game based on it. I dabble in writing on the RPG side, but mostly I do fiction and card-related writing.
L5R is sometimes described as being based on Japan's samurai era, but it is much better described as being based on the samurai movie genre. It is a glorious (or horrifying, depending on how you feel about such things) mish-mash of Asian history and culture, containing Tokugawa-style samurai, Heian-style courtiers, Mongol-style horse warriors and the kitchen sink. Oh, and ninja. (That will be important later.)
These stories are all set in Rokugan, an imaginary land where the Great Clans (Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Mantis, Phoenix, Scorpion, Unicorn) make up the Emerald Empire. The Clans cooperate to keep the Empire running, but they also struggle for power among themselves. Individual members of the clans have their own struggles. As most of the adult men of the Empire and an appreciable fraction of the women are running around armed with 3' long razor blades this creates a certain amount of drama.
First, a story from the last Crab-Crane war. There are two minor characters, Hiruma Aya and Daidoji Kojima, who in a previous story were shown to have a "relationship".
The Flowers, The Snow
I think this story pretty much stands on its own, but it is helpful to know that in Rokugan there exists a supernatural disease called Taint. Taint is essentially uncurable (though not completely untreatable) and if left unchecked it devours both the body and soul of the infected and turns them into an enemy of everything they have ever valued. Seriously bad stuff.
Legacies
The following story concerns the conflict between Shosuro Jimen, the Emerald Champion, and Kakita Noritoshi, daimyo (lord) of the Kakita family and the Empire's greatest currently living duelist. Jimen became Emerald Champion (the Empire's chief law enforcement official) by hook and by crook, touching off a bitter feud with Noritoshi in the process. I have written at least 4 stories in this plotline, but I think this one stands alone the best of the group.
Consequences
"L5R", by the way, is the community's shorthand for "Legend of the Five Rings", a game line that started (and remains) a collectible card game and also has a role-playing game based on it. I dabble in writing on the RPG side, but mostly I do fiction and card-related writing.
L5R is sometimes described as being based on Japan's samurai era, but it is much better described as being based on the samurai movie genre. It is a glorious (or horrifying, depending on how you feel about such things) mish-mash of Asian history and culture, containing Tokugawa-style samurai, Heian-style courtiers, Mongol-style horse warriors and the kitchen sink. Oh, and ninja. (That will be important later.)
These stories are all set in Rokugan, an imaginary land where the Great Clans (Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Mantis, Phoenix, Scorpion, Unicorn) make up the Emerald Empire. The Clans cooperate to keep the Empire running, but they also struggle for power among themselves. Individual members of the clans have their own struggles. As most of the adult men of the Empire and an appreciable fraction of the women are running around armed with 3' long razor blades this creates a certain amount of drama.
First, a story from the last Crab-Crane war. There are two minor characters, Hiruma Aya and Daidoji Kojima, who in a previous story were shown to have a "relationship".
The Flowers, The Snow
I think this story pretty much stands on its own, but it is helpful to know that in Rokugan there exists a supernatural disease called Taint. Taint is essentially uncurable (though not completely untreatable) and if left unchecked it devours both the body and soul of the infected and turns them into an enemy of everything they have ever valued. Seriously bad stuff.
Legacies
The following story concerns the conflict between Shosuro Jimen, the Emerald Champion, and Kakita Noritoshi, daimyo (lord) of the Kakita family and the Empire's greatest currently living duelist. Jimen became Emerald Champion (the Empire's chief law enforcement official) by hook and by crook, touching off a bitter feud with Noritoshi in the process. I have written at least 4 stories in this plotline, but I think this one stands alone the best of the group.
Consequences
no subject
Date: 2010-12-04 03:12 am (UTC)