Weekend in Rokugan 2020: After Action Report

Legend of the Five Rings is a game I discovered when it first came out around 1997. The card game did nothing for me. I tried it but meh. I just cannot bring myself to enjoy a CCG. Yeah... Still... that was during my "decade without D&D" (93-03). Over the years, I met some great friends around an L5R table. (Shout-out to Florent-F, Darryl-T, Tammy-T, Kristian-I, and Oliver-E to name a few)

I have been playing the Heroes of Rokugan organized play for about five years, ever since I reconnected with the game at Origins years ago.

Last year, I could not attend WiR because it fell on the same weekend as MidSouthCon. A difficult choice but seeing how I was a guest of MidSouthCon, I made the choice to go there (and did not regret it as a ActionMan and I had a blast! Check out last year's After Action Report).

I had only poked around a few adventures since last Gencon and caught up with the storyline in the weeks leading up to WiR. An interesting time for all involved. I really love to see other campaigns and what they do, see how I can use their methods for Legacies.

Onward

I woke up with everyone Friday morning and drove to the St Louis area but not in STL itself. Thankfully, the convention was in O'Fallon, a small town some 15 miles in Illinois. Closer for me!

I got to my hotel and realized I had a reservation for Germantown, TN - which is for MidSouthCon! Gah! After a little bit of scrolling, I realized I ALSO took a reservation there! The weekend and my wallet was saved! I cancelled the other reservation and headed to the con!

For the first slot on Friday, I played a game with Ken and Heather-W with who I played a lot of Arcanis, and Phil-C who is the unofficial-official photographer of every Heroes of Rokugan event. It was a fun time! The adventure was tough! The monsters used a variety of abilities they rarely used before to make a very interesting game. At the climax, I fell on my back in the throes of an epileptic fit! The team really needed me but hey... I took a major flaw!

The second slot was again with Phil-C and the 2 Brians. This adventure was very long and featured even more unpleasantness (from the plot perspective). In short, we got our butts kicked by a godlike figure. The party decided to tap out and I got to read one of Isawa's Black Scrolls. An object of legend!

Then sleep.

Saturday morning, I sat down to a table with three Phoenix characters all brother (the characters) for an adventure. Now the GM ask "This is Part 2 of Shadows of the Shinomen". None of us had played it, so I asked the GM if it would be possible to run Part 1 instead. After a bit of shuffling, a new GM appeared and we headed out to kill bandits in that cursed forest!

This adventure featured a large-scale battles rarely seen in HoR. Our group: three shugenja and a bushi (3 wizards and a fighter) turned out to be surprisingly well-organized for this. We did some good planning and our mixed spells did pretty good. I am an Asahina which is mostly defensive/protective in nature while the Phoenix had one utility caster and one fire-blaster. In all, we did pretty well and succeeded at our mission. Fun times!

For the Afternoon, I did Part 2! This time with the 2 Brians and Heather-W who completed the table. This one was investigative. Turns out there is a MASSIVE battle at the end. We only succeeded in part so we made the ending more difficult for us. Still, we managed a partial success and all lived which was good.

At some time during the adventure, I told Heather that I was thinking of joining the lion clan as my character would get married off. We laughed then she said "You should become a Matsu and have to boss people around". The Matsu women are some of the fiercest warriors in the empire. I was thinking of Ikoma (bards) or Kitsu (ancestor-priests).

I did not laugh as my character is reserved and quiet - as she tries to avoid epileptic fits. But the idea struck home. What a bit of character development! I tried to argue against it but I knew the decision was made.

The Saturday night slot was a LARP. I donned my Nashville Predators' jersey with its sabertooth tiger on the from and its bright gold color - perfect for the lion clan. Quite a few people jumped as "Matsu Haruhime" when they knew me as "Doji Haruhime". It was a fun challenge to "act Matsu".

Then sleep.

Sunday they ran a "for those who can" slot but it started at 10AM and was self-muster. Not wanting to drive the 5h in the dark, I chose to drive home early. I make it here before 1PM.

My head filled with exciting development for Haruhime and Gencon. Couldn't wait to play some more L5R!

So yes, I am planning on going back next year!