Rokugan is a land where supernatural powers run rampant and, sometimes, provincial intrigues are truly not the greatest threat in a story. GMs and players who wish to explore stories about champions banding together to save cities, provinces, or even the world itself can certainly do so in the Emerald Empire, as the setting is rich with cosmological threats.


Assumptions of this Playstyle This playstyle assumes that the player characters are samurai who are tasked with dealing with a suitably epic problem—or series of problems—that threaten multiple
clans, and perhaps even the Empire itself. Dangers such as massive Shadowlands armies, bloodspeaker sects, lunar cultists, and other, more insidious threats create story opportunities for characters to undertake epic quests to protect their homes and loved ones. This playstyle mirrors more “classic” fantasy adventures of great deeds, mighty heroes, and dire foes to be vanquished.
There are numerous locations in Rokugan where this sort of campaign fits most naturally. The Shadowlands encompass a vast realm surrounding the Festering Pit of Fu Leng, and this region is the grave to countless heroes.

The Shinomen Forest is an untamed wildland within the Empire itself, to which no clan lays claim and in which primal beings still stir. Even within smaller patches of wilds, there are strange and dangerous beings. Not all spirits are friendly to humans, and some see the expansion of towns into the wild lands as an affront to nature. The PCs might need to find compromise between ancient forces and humanity so that both can survive and thrive.

Character Creation Alterations

Apply the following alterations to the Game of Twenty Questions (see page 41) for each character:

Question 5: What is your character’s appointed quest?

Instead of a giri, each PC has a quest: a task given them by their lord, by their own will, by supernatural forces, or perhaps by destiny itself. This task might be to set something right in the universe, recover or destroy a magical artifact, seal a particular evil entity again for another ten thousand years, or face a particular foe who threatens the entire realm. As with a giri, a character’s  quest should be able to conflict with their ninjō, and sets the means by which the character will strive for glory. At the discretion of the group and the GM, all characters might share a quest, or they might have different quests with overlapping objectives.

Extra Experience: After character creation, each character receives 30 XP to spend on advancements.

Nemuranai

Nemuranai, meaning “unsleeping” in reference to the object’s kami, are miraculous artifacts of spiritual power. They are items that, through centuries of use, miraculous origins, or other incredible events, have attained power and even a degree of awareness. While they can appear in any campaign, they are usually vanishingly rare, accessible to PCs only under exceptional circumstances. In this
campaign style, however, each PC chooses one nemuranai with an appropriate sealed invocation of their choice that they possess as their quest begins. They must also determine how the item relates to their quest:


Awakened Weapon

A weapon nemuranai has the standard profile, plus:

• Its deadliness is increased by +2, and it has the Durable and Sacred qualities.
• It has a distinguishing quirk with narrative effects.
• It has one Attack or Scheme action invocation of Rank 1–3 sealed within it. Once per game session as an action, the wielder may perform this invocation, substituting the skill used to wield the weapon for Theology.

Awakened Armor

An armor nemuranai has the standard profile, plus:

• It has physical and supernatural resistance +2, and it has the Durable and Sacred qualities.
• It has a distinguishing quirk with narrative effects.
• It has one Support or Movement action invocation of Rank 1–3 sealed within it. Once per game session as an action, the wearer may perform this invocation, substituting Fitness for Theology.

Awakened Item

An item nemuranai has the standard profile, plus:

• It has the Durable and Sacred qualities.
• It has a distinguishing quirk with narrative effects.
• It has one invocation of Rank 1–4 sealed within it. Once per game session as an action, the holder may perform this invocation, substituting Meditation (or other skill of the GM’s choice) for Theology. While wielding this item, the character adds a kept  set to an  result to their Theology checks using sealed invocation’s Element.