In the world of metaplot, Legend of the Five Rings is the king. Since the game’s inception, they’ve been steadily building on the pseudo-Japanese world of Rokugan, detailing its inhabitants, its clans, and the various forces that threaten it at regular intervals; it got to the point where Salon did an article on L5R as a new form of oral storytelling. Time of the Void is about the first part of the metaplot, which took place over the space of about five or six different card sets, and which described the great Clan Wars of Rokugan.

            Of course, the difficulty of telling any story at all in the Legend of the Five Rings is that so much of one story is tied up in another. At my old gaming club, asking any question about any part of the L5R story was inviting a kick in the balls, plain and simple; there was no way to get a straight answer without about fifteen minutes of backstory and two or three other people jumping in to correct mistakes, or just for the sheer fun of jumping in on somebody else’s answer. There was much frustration on both sides, probably due to my own impatience to get a straight answer.

            Thanks to the Internet, there’s some excellent pages that collect a history of Rokugan – but they’re split up across a hundred different stories, and it’s necessary to piece them together before you can properly understand what’s going on. Even now, I’ve found myself looking at some of the stories and thinking “What the hell? Who is that? What’s going on? Who is that?” Time of the Void’s purpose is, largely, to dispel most of that confusion, as well as to provide GMs the resources required to run the players through it – each event of the Clan War is laid out here, with the exception of the Scorpion Clan Coup (covered in the boxed set Otosan Uchi, which goes into more detail than Time of the Void could). For players of the collectible card game, this information comes perhaps a bit too late; on the other hand, for the players of the RPG, it’s right on time.

            One of the things that I absolutely love about AEG is that, when they’re making a supplement, they’re never afraid to simply back up the truck and dump whatever they have handy into it; like Delta Green: Countdown, but on a smaller scale. In Time of the Void, for example, there’s new Dark Kiho, a new ronin technique for Toturi’s Army, new spells, details for the Jade Hand that Hida Yakamo wears, new skills – including gaijin gunpowder – rules for engines of war, maho spells, elemental vortices (I call ‘em vortexes, but what I do know?), about fifty different adventure hooks, and a new ability for samurai – the ability to do kata, which are sort of like bonus school abilities that can be acquired with experience. Throw on a five-part adventure and a complete summary of the events of the Clan War, and you’ve got your $20 worth and more.

            Of course, this extra stuff comes at a bit of a price – specifically, you’re going to need Way of the Shinsei to fully use the Dark Kiho, Way of the Wolf for the new ronin technique, Way of the Dragon for the new Hawk tattoo and so. Actually, that’s not quite true: it’s not so much making you buy new supplements as it is giving you gumballs for supplements that you already own. I like it a lot, although it’d be unbelievably cool if they stuck a few of them online as teasers.

            The actual metaplot goes something like this, for those who are unfamiliar with L5R: A thousand years ago, seven great samurai – the Seven Thunders – bound the evil god Fu Leng into a dozen Black Scrolls, which were then hidden around the empire. The Scorpion clan popped one of them open, found out that the Emperor of Rokugan would be corrupted by Fu Leng, and launched a coup against him. They managed to kill Hantei the 38^th, but missed Hantei the 39^th, who then banished the Scorpion and became Emperor himself. The coup sparked a major war between all of the clans shortly thereafter, with an accompanying plague and other forms of weird stuff. While the Crab were able to win their way into the Imperial Palace, where they could take the empire for themselves, they found out a little too late that Fu Leng had occupied the body of Hantei the 39^th,  who wasn’t in the mood for uninvited houseguests. After a huge series of fights, duels, personal conflicts and various samurai hoo-hah, the reincarnated Seven Thunders killed Fu Leng in the body of Hantei the 39^th, and Toturi the Black – an ex-Lion ronin whose heroism was noted by many – took the throne as Toturi the 1^st.

            Of course, that’s just the Cliff Notes version of the war. The actual storyline itself incorporates four or five characters from each clan, including the minor ones, and winds up being a minor epic in its own right. Thankfully, the book lays out the entire war, and the events therein, in an encyclopedic style – there’s no Rashomon-style “What really happened?” description, just straight text. The chapters themselves are split up according to each release from the L5R card game – Crimson and Jade, Anvil of Despair, and so forth, so that you can finally cross-reference your cards to the events being described within the book. (I guess. I just thought that it was kind of neat.) Interspersed with most of the major events are story hooks and battle opportunities for characters who are present, mostly split up by clan – so if you want your adventuring group fighting with the Crab to take Otosan Uchi, then it’s no problem to do so.

            In case you’re not feeling ambitious, then there’s a five-part adventure that intertwines itself throughout the entire Clan War storyline; it’s a great example of how to get characters involved with a metaplot that they’re not the stars of. The basic thrust of the adventure is a McGuffin hunt for a cursed helmet; it takes them from the Scorpion Forest of Traitors to Otosan Uchi during the Crab invasion to Kyuden Seppun to the City of Remembrance. I have to say that I’m very impressed with how freeform L5R adventures are; the authors are more interested in explaining alternate paths of action and letting the GM fill in the particulars, rather than railroading them along a specific path. It’s also chock full of the damned if you do, damned if you don’t moral questioning that goes along with any L5R adventure – a choice between destroying great evil, but becoming physically tainted, or temporarily destroying a great evil and remaining pure.

            Just in case you’re not already full, the back of the book details the Twelve Black Scrolls of Fu Leng and their physical effects, all of which are deleterious to your health and sanity. There’s also an updated character list, so that you can see what’s happened to metaplot characters post-Day of Thunder.

            What can I say? I’m a sucker for products that keep throwing stuff on after anybody else would be satisfied, and Time of the Void is exactly that. If you’re at all interested in the Clan War, or in a grab-bag of story hooks and material, then Time of the Void is easily worth what you’ll pay for it.

-Darren MacLennan