'Forget everything you have been told"
- Yasuki Taka
Legend Of the Five Rings, The Emerald Empire Of Rokugan and all other related marks TM, 8 & o 1999 Five Rings Publishing Group, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Alderac Entertainment Group, authorized user.
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............... Tntkductlon 4
THE BEGINNING ................. IO THE FIRST TENDRILS .............. 12 THE EYE OF THE ON1 ............ .I3 THE lNFlLTRATlON OF THE KI-RIN . . . I S THE CRANE-YASUKI WAR ........... 18 MOVES AND COUNTERMOVES ........ 19 THELION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE STRUCTURE OF THE LAW ........ 21 THE PRESENT DAY ............... 23
PHILOSOPHY AND GOALS ........... 26 ORGANIZATION . . . . . . . . . 29 THE HIDDEN TEMPLE . . . . . . . . 3 4
Mows OPERANDI ............. - 4 0 F O E S . ...................... .57
ffUNTING THE CONSPI
HERITAGE TABLE
THE TEN i
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Welcome to the Merchant’s Guide lo Rokugan, the definitive sourcebook on the money and economy of the Emerald Empire. Within these pages, you’ll find information on the rise of the peddler class, the nefarious Yasuki family, the secrets of the Unicorn caravans beyond the Burning Sands, and other useful tidbits on money and the way it changes hands. The merchant class has only recently become a powerful force in Rokugan, but its members have the potential to turn the Empire’s staid culture on its ear.
To understand how Rokugan’s economy works, we must understand the model of the feudal social system. Our modern society operates on a system of supply and demand, where consumer needs and wishes are met by an industrialized and competitive business arrangement. The Emerald Empire is a bit different. Its society is divided into distinct tiers and castes, each of which has a dictated relationship to the other. The Emperor owns all the land, which he parcels out to the samurai caste for governing. The peasants below them work the land in exchange for protection, and hand over what they produce in the form of taxes. The Emperor (through his appointed magistrates) then distributes the taxes as he sees fit. This follows the basic feudal paradigm set forth by Japanese culture during its comparable period, and by the European model most garners are familiar with.
That being said, the concepts of production and consumption figure more prominently in Rokugan’s economy than might otherwise be expected. Production specifically implies division of labor, and therefore necessitates that men exchange the goods they produce to acquire other goods which they did not produce, but may need.
The blacksmith cannot eat the katana he forges, nor can the rice farmer defend himself with his crop. Nominally, the noble caste - in the name of the Emperor - performs the task of exchange and distribution, while reserving certain products for itself (peasants may not use katana, for example).
Such a task is not without controversy, however. The nobility is divided between clans, which must sometimes exchange products with each other to ensure mutual prosperity and survival. They therefore require agents to conduct such an exchange - merchants - and a place to determine the details - a market. Further exchange occurs when a surplus of a given product - whether rice, silks or weapons - is created. With more product than they need, trade with others is necessary to capitalize on the resources a surplus provides. The market again becomes necessary, allowing product to pass through a narrow channel into the hands of others.
The peasantry, too, requires such entities, for they engage in trade amongst themselves for products their daimyo might be unable to provide. Survival might depend upon receiving a new type of tool, or an occasional cup of saki to relieve the tedium of life. They may wish to exchange things amongst themselves, or acquire items for tribute to their lord. Thus, the lower classes need merchants as well. While against the tenets of Rokugani feudalism, and not nearly as prominent as in a capitalist society like ours, it becomes a de facto necessity of life. As long as their commitments to their lords and Emperor are met, the nobility do not care if the peasants engage in the exchange of what few resources they have.
So the very existence of production, even in a stratified society like Rokugan, means that merchants and markets must exist. And the more they conduct their business, the larger and more important their roles grow.
The merchant’s purpose in Rokugan is to facilitate trade and ensure that the process of production and consumption continues smoothly. The market - be it a dusty stall in a tiny village or the opulent palaces of clan daimyo - is his dominion, where he creates connections between supplier and supplied that permits the economy to function. Markets are trading zones, areas where exchange is facilitated. They can be separated by great distances or as close together as the village square. Whatever the distance, the
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merchant had to traverse them in order for exchange to take place. He therefore needs to embrace a twofold model a journey to a market to exchange goods, and a return journey. In order to make the best use of the time and resources for such a trip, he must put both of them to use.
The appropriate model has two different phases, both dictated by supply and demand. As the merchant travels from point A to point B and back again, he must ensure that point A needs the products that point B has, and vice versa. Exchange by definition means reciprocity. The product must be given to those who need it, and reciprocal product - be it koku or some simpler bartering agreement - needs to be returned. Take a product to a market which desires it, sell it, purchase new product desired by the market at his starting point, return and sell that. Sale governs purchase and the more he sells, the more he is able to exchange. So a Crab merchant taking weapons to the Unicorn Clan to sell can purchase an amount of silk dictated by the number of weapons the Unicorn buy. But the trip won’t be worth it unless the Crab needs that silk, so he must ensure that demand on both sides remains high.
He will not know for sure if he has performed his duties successfully until the round-trip is complete. He will tabulate his liabilities against his assets, convert the time and cost into a common currency - in this case, koku - and compare that figure with the amount his daimyo required him to procure. If he has met it, then the mission was successful and he can report favorably to his lord. If not, then he has failed and must explain what happened, and commence reparations if possible. And, of course, any surplus koku can go directly into his pocket.
That’s the basic model; reality is rarely that simple, however. Supply and demand fluctuate as wars, crop returns and other contingencies affect the market. Then the merchant might add a third leg to his journey (say, to the Scorpion lands), and another branch of product exchange must be factored in to the final formula. Each successive layer adds new elements to the merchant’s calculations and requires a keen understanding of which products are demanded in which locations. As a simple shorthand, however, GMs can use the above model to determine how and why a given merchant may trade in the products he receives.
Getting back to the idea of surplus for a moment, we come upon the concept of net
capital. Supply and demand has its own paradigm, which by and large doesn’t include surplus - at least theoretically. Each year a society produces a certain amount of resources, called gross capital, part of which is consumed in the normal maintenance of a healthy economic system. Net capital is what remains, to wit gross capital minus the amount used in the process of production, consumption and exchange. In ancient societies such as Rokugan’s, the difference between gross capital formation and net capital formation was much greater than in modern ones like ours. The basic equipment of production in Rokugan has certain fundamental weaknesses, giving rise to shortcomings which much be met by a greater expenditure of labor. Fertile land (the fundamental form of capital in Rokugan) is very delicate and must be handled carefully so as not to reduce its fecundity. Hence the need for fertilizers, crop rotation and t1~2 necessity of the peasant to plough a given field many times. Hence the need for a large number of peasants to work the field in order for it to be productive.
Add to that the fact that the distribution of wealth in Rokugan is very lopsided. Samurai compose some ten percent of the population, yet receive a vast amount of the produced wealth (perhaps thirty or forty percent). The use of net capital, then, rarely reaches the peasant caste, who must labor far below their noble lords in terms of per capita income. Therefore the merchant, who in part must handle the precepts of net capital, must focus more upon the consumption of a daimyo than on the heimin working under him. All of this goes to show that surplus, when it arises, is not necessarily distributed according to the axioms of
Year during the reign of Hantei XXXVIII
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. ..Okay, that’ll be just enough of that. 1 think the conspiracy In addition, the structure of their we’ve laid down plenty of cover text to hide the operations, from the secretive Ten Masters down real purpose of this book For those of you to the lowliest informant is carefully detailed. expecting more on the tariff rates between Crane The third chapter discusses the modus and Unicorn lands, or the estimated opportunity operandi of the conspiracy, the means by which cost of another box of scroll sheets from the they move through Rokugan. No clan is safe from Phoenix, you’re going to be disappointed. There their tendrils and they move with the practiced won’t be any more of that here. We have no more ease of centuries of deception. They have interest in writing such material than you do in countless tools and techniques they use to fulfill reading it. Oh, we’ll still be talking about the their ends, many of which are detailed here. Yasuki family, the Unicorn journeys beyond the The fourth chapter covers ways to run a Kolat sands, and all of the rest of that, but not quite in campaign with your players. For all their power, the way you’d expect. This isn’t The Merchant’s the Kolat are not absolute rulers of Rokugan, not Guide to Rokugan, you see. by a long shot. This section provides ways of
It’s the Kolat book. balancing the conspiracy with other elements in For a thousand years, this sinister secret your campaign, with ways to keep your party on
organization has infiltrated Rokugani society, and the edge of their seats hunting them.. . and even they wouldn’t appreciate knowing that all of their with ways to play a Kolat yourself. secrets have been revealed. The Merchant’s Guide Finally, we’ve provided a list of the most to Rokugan tells you everything you need to prominent and powerful members of the know about this sinister conspiracy - their conspiracy, and a description of their schemes origins, their methodology and their membership within Rokugan’s power structure. It covers the for the last thousand years. The Kolat have been entirety of the Kolat leadership - the Ten Masters around for a long time, and their influence who pull the conspiracy‘s strings from their stretches across the length of the Emerald Empire. Hidden Temple. It includes the infamous Akodo They defend their secrets to the death, and few Kage, plus a few other faces you might find who know of them live long enough to tell familiar.
It goes without saying that players with Needless to say, a book about them requires characters in an L5R campaign should not read
subtlety. We can’t just trumpet KOLAT in 120 this book It contains secrets that could ruin any point letters on the cover; that runs against campaign containing the Kolat, and spoil the everything they stand for. Moreover, it might atmosphere that GMs work so hard to create. attract attention from certain quarters that we’d Players hoping to enjoy all the twists and turns rather not disturb. So a little deception was that the Kolat can provide should stop now and necessary, both to preserve the atmosphere of this save the surprises for the gaming table. But if book and the organization which it entails. The you’ve started, as you have, and mean to read it economics of Rokugan formed the perfect front to all, don’t hesitate. You’ve already seen too much hide it. We hope you’ll forgive us if we led you on as it is, but the more you know, the better chance
you’ll have of staying alive. Thousands have died The first chapter of the book details the history for the information between these covers. You
of the organization, from their earliest days in the might be next. shadow of the fallen Kami to their current plans for future of the Empire. It covers their insidious infiltration amid the squabbles of warring houses, and their acquisition of new and terrible types of
The second chapter covers the Kolat’s philosophy and organization. No Conspiracy exists without a plan, and the Kolat’s scheme reaches across the cosmos itself. Kolat are driven by an unwavering belief in their goals, and have the patience to see them through to the end. Understanding them is the key to understanding
Welcome through the looking glass.
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