Welcome to the Shadowlands Refuge of the Lion Clan! "Its lips are torn and bloodied, its flesh lies rotting at the bottom of the sea. Yet he is still my Emperor, and I hear his voice foaming up from the depths of the Pit, echoed in this eternal cup of bone...Where he commands, I have no choice but to follow." From "Fu Leng's Skull" FRPG Home Phoenix Clan Library Lion Clan JE by card type JE by rarity JE changes HE1 spoilers   Origins Tournament Bounties! It looks like a lot of people are manuevering behind the scenes to encourge their clans to take the vacated Scorpion lands! Here are the current "unofficial" rewards offered to winners of the Origins story tournament: Scorpion: Ree Soesbee will present 10,000 koku to the winner if they are using a Scorpion stronghold! Dragon: Joe Fulgham has offered a complete set of IE Ancestral Swords to a Dragon player who wins with an honorable deck (only Shadowlands card allowed is Hitomi Kokujin) by duels and/or battles. Lion/Shadowlands: I am also offering a complete set of IE Ancestral Swords to any corrupted Lion player who wins and has included the Skull of Fu Leng in his deck and has half his personalities with the Shadowlands taint. 6:13PM EST, I.Andy   True Origins of the Kolat Revealed! Ryan has revealed the (out of game) true origins of the kolat! Here's what he said on IRC Sunday: '<RyanD> They are from John Zinser's old AD&D game world campaign. The original acronym was "Key: Opression, lawlessness and terrorism". Wick probably has other ideas at this point.' 10:34 PM EST, I.Andy   Storyline Tournaments I've got the storyline affects of the tournaments at Origins and GenCon: Origins: "Claiming the Bayushi Provinces" The titanic, historic battle to determine who controls the empty Bayushi lands now that the Scorpion have been exiled. will Yoritomo make good on his threat to claim the Scorpion lands as 'unaligned lands,' as his charter states he has the right to do? Or will another clan wrest the prize from his fingertips? GenCon: "The Jade Champion" Hidden far beneath Otosan Uchi, ancient texts lie in a secret library. Uncovered by the Cancellor's Guard, a document gives precedence to an Imperial Appointment-- the Jade Champion! Takuan, seizing the opportunity to renew magic lost during the Clan Wars, holds the first Jade Champion tournament in three hundred years-- and a new Shugenja Champion of the Empire rises to claim the title! 7:54 PM EST, I.Andy   Hidden Emperor Information! Ryan has posted his Hidden Emperor episode 1 announcement with the story so far. It's here! 10:40 AM EST, I.Andy   Hidden Emperor Realeased! Today is the official retail release date of Hidden Emperor! Rush out and buy some, it's great!! 9:49 AM EST, I.Andy   HE Reprint Spoilers Special thanks to David Vance for creating a spoiler list for the reprinted cards in the starters and their flavor texts. Check out the flavor text for Medium Cavalry folks. It's all here. 11:59 PM EST, I.Andy   Tournament Listings Mindy has made the latest tournament listings available here. 10:59 PM EST, I.Andy   5 Rings Search Engine Available Click the Search Web button to the left to check out my new L5R search engine. Let me know what you think, or if you need your site added. 4:40 AM EST, I.Andy   Complete HE1 Spoilers Okay, I've got what I believe to be a complete list of HE1 spoilers here (thanks to ragnarok@interlog.com (Kyle Jewell) for majority of list). Let me know of any corrections or completions. Here's my pack opening experience: Packs are 5/2/1, but there is no set position for the rare card. Thus, you'll see non-commons in the spoiler list marked U/R, since I can't really tell the difference. It took me 29 packs to get a full set out of just packs. That left me about 6 short of a second set. I have to say, I'm very pleased with the cards! The border is much less distinctive than recent editions, but they all have the Jade bug, like Jade Edition. 11:06 PM EST, I.Andy   Near complete HE1 Spoilers Hot off the newsgroups, folks; check it out here! 8:34 PM EST, I.Andy   Official Tournament Formats Ryan has published an official listing of summer tournament formats. This includes Origins, GenCon and DragonCon. Check it out here! 8:15 PM EST, I.Andy   More Hidden Emperor 1 Spoilers More HE1 spoilers may be found here! 11:01 PM EST, I.Andy   Hidden Emperor 1 Spoilers Read all about it here! BTW, the unlimited ranged attack card is apparently Blackened Sky. 12:35 PM EST, I.Andy   Complete HE Naga Stronghold Stats The Crab Clan spymaster comes through for Ikoma Andy! Here is the new Naga Stronghold: Heart of the Shinomen Forest 5 Province Strength (I double checked, he says it's 5) 3 Gold Production 3 Honor Paraphrased: Nagas are immune to fear, ignore honor requirements if they have no shadowlands cards in play, may include 4 of each non-unique Naga personality, and may put forests into play for 3 less gold Read to me off the box, folks, so this should be fairly accurate. I hate dealing with spies. ;) Somebody put the cards in my hands! 1:42 PM EST, I.Andy   HE Naga Stronghold Stats It cost me a little koku, but a Kolat infiltrator has brought me the stats for the 1st stronghold in Hidden Emporer! Indeed, you may now have 4 (not 6) of each non-unique Naga personality in your deck. Province strength is 4, and starting honor is 3. I was so intimidated to be speaking to a kolat, I forgot to ask gold production. :( 1:32 PM EST, I.Andy   Very Cool Announcements First, on the Clan War miniatures game front, Dave is looking for folks to paint up demo miniatures for AEG. Read the specifics here. On the RPG front, Ree has noted that three of the characters that participate in the GenCon LARP will be selected for the Unexpected Allies book. Read all about it here. 10:32 PM EST, I.Andy   Hidden Emperor NOT Available Friday! Okay, there has apparently been some miscommunication. The release date for Hidden Emperor is not this Friday, as I previously reported, but next Friday, June 26. This is confirmed as accurate from Ryan here. The latest accurate release schedule that I am aware of can be found here. 5:56 PM EST, I.Andy   Hidden Emperor Available Friday! Just a few days more! Hidden emperor will be out on Friday. Here's an overview of the info available at this time: Will be a 50 card Rolling Thunder monthly release set Will be packaged in combo boxes of starters and boosters Boosters will be $1.99, and will contain 1 rare, 2 uncommons and 5 commons. Stronghold will apparently be a new Naga one. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm really excited! 2:43 PM EST, I.Andy   L5R Miniatures If you haven't heard, Clan Wars, the L5R Miniatures game, is in the works. Read the latest from game designer Ken Carpenter here. 10:42 AM EST, I.Andy   Tournament Guidelines Mindy has released a set of tournament formats here and tournament styles here. Check them out if you're interested in running a tournament. Remember: FRPG will sanction most tournaments and provide free prize support. 7:13 PM EST, I.Andy   Tournament List The latest tournament list from Mindy can be found here. 9:26 PM EST, I.Andy   Putting the Brakes on LSD Another mysterious tidbit from Ryan. It looks to me like he's leaking some HE spoilers, but he hasn't said anything for sure. The latest morsel seems geared to slow down the mighty LSD. Check it out here. 9:22 PM EST, I.Andy   AutoCrane Just Hit a Tree Ryan has posted a possible counter to the recent AutoCrane blight. Will we see it in Hidden Emperor? He doesn't say. Read all about it here. 5:11 PM EST, I.Andy   Number Crunching Attempting to determine if there was a better choice than Hida Amoro to use with Test of Might for the Ring of Fire (I don't think so, despite his drawbacks), I wrote a little script to calculate some ratios on personalities. (These do not include any Jade Edition changes yet) Force to Chi Force to Gold Chi to Gold Yes, I am a geek. :) I'm attempting to make a Lion Enlightenment deck, feel free to send me suggestions. 11:22 AM EST, I.Andy   Trivia Answers Now, what kind of jerk goes and announces the winner, but doesn't post the solution!? :) Sorry, by popular demand, the answers are as follows, with a guage of difficulty based on the number of wrong answers I received: Exp. Kuni Yori, header, top right (easy) Exp. Ikoma Ujiaki, header, middle (easy) A Terrible Oath, header, top left (easy) Desperate Measures, header, background (hard) The Darkest Day, header, bottom left (hard) There is No Hope (not Iris Festival, jeez; thanks John), buttons on left (medium) Night Battle, date headers (medium) Thanks for participating! I'll try to have other (easier) contests in the future. As an aside, I chose these cards not just based on the art, but on how they fit in with the theme of the site. I think they almost tell the story in themselves. 4:11 PM EST, I.Andy   Trivia Winner! Congratulations to Douglas K. McLemore, our randomly selected winner of a free Time of the Void exp 2 Kage. 2:37 PM EST, I.Andy   Last Day to Win Free TotV Exp2 Kage Today is the last day for trivia submissions in the contest to win the free TotV exp2 Kage. Guess all seven cards used to make the graphics on this page, and your name will be placed in the pool from which a randomly selected winner will be chosen. 11:31 AM EST, I.Andy   Deck Archive Available! The deck archive is up and running! Feel free to add your favorite decks and see what others have entered. You can take a look here. 12:01 AM EST, I.Andy   Hidden Emporer Countdown Two more weeks until June 19, the release date for Hidden Emporer. Ryan has recently confirmed that each of the nine monthly episodes will consist of about fifty new cards in eight card boosters with three rarity levels. Read the latest info here. 8:45 PM EST, I.Andy   Dark Victory Variant in Inquest Inquest magazine #39 contains a Dark Victory game variant based on the premise that Fu Leng vas victorious at the Day of Thunder. It involves "noble" and "fallen" clans, the Dark Lord's Favor, and new strongholds. It's interesting, check it out. 8:37 PM EST, I.Andy   Tournament Listing Mindy just released the latest tournament list. Check it out here. 11:03 AM EST, I.Andy   Duelist Author Speaks on HE Strongholds The author of the controversial Duelist article (see below), Wolfgang Baur, describes his sources. You can read the e-mail here. 2:35 PM EST, I.Andy   List of Changes in Jade Dave Williams has posted a list of card changes in Jade Edititon. You can take a look here. 8:22 AM EST, I.Andy   Trivia Stil Unsolved, Offering a Prize! Well, I thought it would be too easy, but the best so far has been six out of the seven images that make up this page. There is one card no one has guessed yet! I'll tell you what: I'll take all the correct answers submitted by midnight, Sunday night, and award a NM+ Time of the Void exp 2 Kage to a randomly selected one of them. 10:37 PM EST, I.Andy   The website so far I've received a lot of positive feedback the last two days, and accesses have gone through the roof. I'm glad to know that I'm providing a useful service to the L5R community. Here are some things coming up: The Deck Archive: coming soon! I've gotten the database working, and the script to automatically load your own decks, so it should just be a few days until that's operational. Strategies: I'd like to recruit some volunteers to write occaisional strategy articles. I'll have a chat area to go along with the article for people to discuss it. If you're interested, send me some feedback. Keep checking back for the latest info. 10:24 PM EST, I.Andy   War and rumors of war The following are Hidden Emporer spoilers listed in Duelist #27. The accuracy of these claims have been _widely_ debated, especially the Stronghold information. Remember that I do not have any inside information, and am just printing them for your information only. Some Ise Zumi (Mitsu, Hoshi, Yoshi) are leaving clan Dragon for the Brotherhood (confirmed by Jade Edition). Hitomi and Hoshi are both making new, equally matched Ise Zumi. There is a piece of art in the article of Hoshi cutting his hand open in front of Yokuni's armor. The Crab clan retake Hiruma castle, but losses are too high to purge the Shadowlands taint surrounding it. Kuni Yori may join the Shadowlands against the Crab (apparently confirmed by the Jade Edition Shadowlands Horde starter, with flavor text from Yori). The Naga prepare to purge the taint of Hitomi from the Dragon lands, but Toturi and the Unicorn prevent this battle. Emporer Toturi vanishes. Everyone suspects Scorpion. Kakita Toshimoko believes the Scorpion are innocent. KT bucks the conventional wisdom (execution for all) and exiles the Scorpion to the Burning Sands. He himself fakes his own seppuku. New stronghold: Hitomi castle lets you keep a 5 card sideboard to add to either Fate or Dynasty decks before the game. New stronghold: Brotherhood starts with one ring in play. New stronghold: Naga gets up to 6 of each non-unique personality in their deck. Looks like they went back to bed, but they ain't sleepin' this time! :) New card, Not While I Breathe: sacrifice guards to save province. New card, Fu Leng's Skull: bow to straighten a Shadowlands card. New card, Norikazu's Ravings: Event, all spells destroyed after use until end of game. Cards the Duelist claims didn't make the cut: Hold This Ground (prevents terrain destruction), Bayushi Aramoro exp., and Shiryo no Doji Hoturi. Remember, folks, I don't make this stuff up, and I don't vouch for it's accuracy, either. The issue also includes a two page article overviewing multiplayer L5R. 12:53 AM EST, I.Andy   Minor changes missed in Jade Edition Dave Williams mentioned a few neat changes intended for JE that didn't make it: Toku had trait "Captain of Imperial Guard" Daini had a Naga background Naka Kura had a Phoenix background Too bad, those would have been really neat. Read Dave's message here. 12:27 AM EST, I.Andy   Extended Jade Storyline tournament guidelines The Extended Jade Storyline tournament guidelines have been released by Ryan Dancey. They will be in effect for the big tournament at GenCon. The following cards may be used in this particular format: All Jade Edition and Hidden Emperor Any previous release card that appears in JE or HE Any less experienced version of personalities in JE or HE All items All followers (probably includes ancestors, but nothing official yet) All kihos All actions All regions addition: All holdings Ryan notes that this particular format is optional, and will not necessarily be used at every FRPG sponsored event. More information about upcoming tournaments will be available in the next 7-10 days. You can read the posts here, here and here. 9:45 PM EST, I.Andy   Grand Reopening! Welcome to the new, completely redesigned Shadowlands Stronghold of the Lion Clan. I hope to continue adding features to this site to make it a valuable resource for the Legend of the Five Rings community. 12:01 AM EST, I.Andy   Trivia Can you name the cards used to make the index page graphics? Use the feedback link to send your guesses. Hint: there are seven of them. 12:01 AM EST, I.Andy