Etiqueta: L5R

The Cards Tell the Tale (III): Borrowed advisor trio?

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 23/10/2024. Publicado en artwork.

In the HONOR’S VEIL set, we get a trio of personalities, plus a follower card, by Carl Frank. Frank is one of the original artists for L5R. starting from the very first set and kept on contributing art for quite a long time. Utaku Keiko (left), Kaiu Genji (center), and Mirumoto Satobe (right) Borrowed Advisors At a guess, I’d say this art piece wasn’t originally designed for the card game, but as the cover for a rulebook or box for the Clan War miniatures game. I’m really not sure if this was actually used for a published product (in which case, I don’t know...

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Oracular Spectacular! Part 1

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 13/10/2024. Publicado en story.

The Elemental Oracles have been a thing in L5R since the very beginning, starting with Imperial Edition (also reprinted on Emerald and Obsidian Editions). artwork (c) and by Randy Elliott (earth), Ken Meyer Jr. (fire), April Lee (water), and Quinton Hoover (wind) Noticeably, The Oracle of Air was named «of Wind», instead; probably an editing mistake which was later kept to minimize confusion on the playing table. Also, the Void version was noticeably missing at this time. The role of the Oracles was then unknown to us, players of L5R… and probably to the writers, too: something...

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DECK ANATOMY: Khan’s Defiance

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 27/08/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

Release date: January 22nd, 2007. General description: Regular-size expansion for Lotus Edition; the first to include dual Lotus/Samurai legality bugs. Sets size: 156 numbered cards (50 common, 50 uncommon, 50 rare, 6 fixed). Extra cards: 50 rare foils, plus 59 fixed deck reprints. Total size: 265 cards. CRAB DECK (fixed portion) Stronghold: Kaiu Shiro Events (1) Birth of the Blood Heir Holdings (11) A Favor Returned Gifts and Favors Crystal Mine Iron Mine x2 Personal Librarian Rich Coffers Secluded Village x2 Secluded Waystation x2 Personalities (12) Hida Daizu x2 Hida Dayu...

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The Cards Tell the Tale (II): The Training Grounds, by Ben Peck

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 12/07/2024. Publicado en story.

The original TRAINING GROUNDS set was released along the Diamond Edition base set, and was the LTP product for the Reign of Blood era, and depicted a battle between the Lion Clan and the Shadowlands forces. The product packaging (a sturdy two row box designed to hold around 800 cards) had a wraparound battle scene which was also used to illustrate several cards in the set. Sadly it seems the full widescreen picture is nowhere to be found, except for the featured central part, with the two enemy leaders facing off, so well need to use our imagination to picture the full scene, as depicted...

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The Cards Tell the Tale (I): Training Grounds II, by Miguel Coimbra

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 11/07/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

Repeating the trick used for their previous LTP product, the art department decided to use this wraparound image for the product packaging of Training Grounds II. LTP (that Learn to Play) products usually appeared once for each legality arc, near the release of the basic set for a given story arc (in this case, Lotus Edition, or The Age of Enlightenment). Again they usually featured a more discrete conflict, limited to two factions. In this case, they were the Crane and Dragon Clans, and the conflict was called the War of Silk and steel. This widescreen artwork, by newcomer to L5R Miguel Coimbra,...

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An alternate Gold Edition

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 11/05/2023. Publicado en Novedades.

Once upon a time, when Wizards of the Coast was publishing L5R, Shokansuru (not Daigotsu) was going to be the main bad in the original plotline for Gold Edition/The Four Winds Era. Howevever WotC dropped the game, plans changed and this storyline was dropped. Who was Shokansuru in this version of the story? We had first meet him during Fire and Shadow (Hidden Emperor era). It seems like Feydn Rafiq (an assassin from the Ivory Kingdoms, in the Honor Bound set) came to Rokugan looking for him. From context, Shokansuru should be the «chanting ruhmal» mentioned in the card, and he is shown summoning...

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UNRELEASED TALES (I): The sad -and somewhat stupid- story of Hatsue and Yozo

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 06/03/2023. Publicado en Novedades.

It has been almost 20 years, so I apologize if some details are fuzzy, or I get some of them wrong. This went down during 2004, at Gen Con Barcelona. I think this was the last event to carry the Gen Con brand in Spain. Barcelona, along with Madrid, was one of the oldest hubs of OP activity for L5R, with a very active community, and an experienced team of TO’s. The official Spanish distributor at the time was Millennium and they got a storyline tournament for us to run. It was a huge thing for us! By now, I really don’t remember if this was a single day thing, or a 2 or more day event, with qualifiers...

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Scorpion Clan Coup

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 20/12/2022. Publicado en Novedades.

Check our SCC stock here. THE END AND THE BEGINNING!! With Scorpion Clan Coup we arrive at the end of the Clan War era of the game, the original story arc; and also to the beginning, as it was a prequel set in the past. In this set we get the Scorpion Clan before it was forced to go into hiding after their coup against throne, and the Akodo family before it was disbanded because of the failure of their Lord to protect the Emperor. Also we get cards of younger (with the Inexperienced trait) versions of the heroes and villains, as well as information of the event that led to the fall of the Hantei...

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A Lost Hero from the Four Winds Era?

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 13/11/2022. Publicado en Novedades.

This big guy was an unused piece by Heather Bruton. The only name we had was Matsu Guy, and a production number: #25449515. Now it seems we can recover a forgotten hero from the Four Winds Era, and give him back his name, back from the claws of the Lying Darkness! The game is afoot. As mentioned, this character never got a Personality card, AFAIK, but he did show up in at least a couple other cards: Lion Warcats (AOF, follower) and Now Face Me (FOU, action). And the follower has a quote by a Matsu Kikuno, who was never mentioned again (in the card game, at least. Maybe he showed at some...

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The Spirit Wars

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 11/11/2022. Publicado en Novedades.

Check our stock of The Spirit Wars HERE. The Spirit Wars was a large set. 199 new cards, plus 35 starter reprints. Two cards had variants, a misprint in fact, when the fate and dynasty backs reversed: «Doji Meihu» and «Sanctified Temple«. Lots of things go dangerously wrong, in Rokugan AND the real world! A small video game publisher had a game with a very similar title, and threatened Wizards of the Coast with a lawsuit. This was just barely a nuisance lawsuit, destined to squeeze a little easy money out of the big company. As these things go, Wizards did the maths and decided to pay...

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L5R Emerald Edition

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 30/08/2022. Publicado en Novedades.

Check our Emerald Edition stock HERE. Emerald Edition is almost a reprint of Imperial Edition, the original core set (which would be repeated with Obsidian Edition, later on); however some changes were introduced. First of all, a few cards were added to the set: «Kitsu Motso» and «Shosuro Hametsu» (originally from Shadowlands) and «Naga Abomination» (a pre-Imperial promo card). The Ancestral Swords, which came fixed in every Imperial clan deck, were replaced with their corresponding Ancestral Armor. Some cards were also modified; «Hisa» became «Bayushi Hisa» and «The Terrible Standard of Fu...

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L5R Shadowlands

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 23/08/2022. Publicado en Novedades.

Check our stock of Shadowlands HERE. The first L5R expansion was published by FRPG in May, 1996. It further developed 2 factions (Scorpion Clan and Naga), and added new cards to the core set factions (Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, and Unicorn Clans). Includes 153 unique cards. Two of them were updates to cards that had already appeared in Imperial Edition: “The Terrible Standard of Fu Leng”, which added a new ability, reflecting a macabre plot twist to the story, and “Bayushi Hisa”, which was technically not the same. same card as “Hisa”. Additionally, it was the first time the Experienced...

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