Legend of the Five Rings RPG: Courts of Stone

Her yōjimbō scooped a handful of coins from his pouch without bothering to count them and placed them on the railing in a neat stack. The servant gasped, the paltry sum more money than she’d ever seen at once. It wasn’t payment, of course. That would be disgraceful. This was merely something Miyuki had chosen to leave behind.

This 144-page sourcebook is a comprehensive guide to Rokugan’s castles, keeps, and courts, where a key grain of information, a sharp wit, and a well-placed word can be deadlier than any sword. In this book, you will discover the secrets of the Empire’s seats of power, as well as new rules for integrating shinobi characters into your campaigns, and a wealth of information about the Crane Clan. Complete with a host of new schools, techniques, weapons, apparel, artifacts, and cultural information, Courts of Stone provides you with everything you need to build an immersive roleplaying experience that puts you in the heart of the Emerald Empire courts.

In the first section of this sourcebook, you are introduced to the varied Imperial strongholds that stand scattered across Rokugan. Here, you will find instructions for building your own architectural marvel, as well as sample castles that highlight the unique priorities of each clan. For example, the Dragon Clan’s Shiro Kitsuki guards the one easy path through the mountains with gatehouses filled with puzzles and traps to train Dragon cadets and confound attackers, while the Phoenix Clan’s Kyūden Asako is dedicated to healing and comfort, encompassing hot springs with an ancient, but lovingly restored castle where scholarship thrives.

The second section of Courts of Stone focuses on the new player options found in the sourcebook. Among these you will find new player schools and techniques, including rhetorical shūji, stealthy ninjutsu, and courtly rituals. It also introduces the warriors and courtiers of a new minor faction to the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game, the Deer Clan. 

The Deer Clan serves the Empire as a guardian of balance. Through divine vision, they uncover the threads of futures yet to come, and through artful stealth, they weave or sever these ties to ensure that order is maintained. They can tie alliances between the Great Clans or unravel them as soon as any one faction becomes too powerful. Through subtle manipulation, the Deer Clan seek to preserve power balances, and this means that at times, the weak must rise and the mighty must fall. With the rules included in Courts of Stone, you can create your own characters hailing from this clan, acting indirectly to tip the scales of Fate as you see fit. While to the rest of the world you may appear meek or placid, only a fool would underestimate the power of small suggestion planted in the right ear.

Game Masters find the tools to unite the settings and characters of Courts of Stone into their own Winter Court scenario, as well as invaluable advice for running games of political intrigue and espionage, in the third section of the sourcebook, Games of Discourse. This section details new ways to spend experience and engage players with courts filled with memorable characters in intrigue-driven campaigns. With new rules for governing and resolving bonds, your characters will be able to forge deeper relationships than ever before, creating the perfect environment for players to discover their own true natures as loyalties are forged, tested, and betrayed.