Links and References

Sources

Legend of the Five Rings
Feng Shui
Setting, etc.
Humour
Movies
Books
Art and Images

Page last updated 25 February 2002
 

Legends of the Five Rings

• Alderac Entertainment Group: Legend of the Five Rings - Publishers of the Legends of the Five Rings (L5R) role-playing game, by John and Jennifer Wick, as well as the miniatures combat game based on the same setting, Clan War.
• Iuchi Datsuko's L5R Scriptorium - Useful links, pretty L5R Web graphics and themes.
• My Rokugan - Shinjo Yuriko's compendium of Rokugan etiquette and custom (for the Clan War era, of course). 

 

Feng Shui

In both cases, L5R and Feng Shui, I urge you to buy the books (as my husband and I did) rather than deprive the producers of great games from their well-deserved royalties.  I try to limit this Web page to the elements to which I have made modifications, not the standard material (except as a quick summary). 

 
• Atlas Games - Publishers of Feng Shui by Robin D. Laws.  (Deadalus Entertainment originally published it, but Atlas bought the rights after Deadalus went under.)
• Feng Shui / RPGs / Games / Flick Inc - A page which I cite in several instances, with good advice regarding useful fu powers combinations.
• Bryant Durrell's Feng Shui! page, particularly its Feng Shui Resources section.
• A cool one, Feng Shui: Amurgsval.
• Archives of FENGSHUI@MAILMAN.RICE.EDU - For the e-mail based Feng Shui mailing list.
• The Fortress of Shadow - Feng Shui section.
• The Genocide Lounge - Home of the unofficial Feng Shui FAQ.
• Starfox's Feng Shui page has a lot of unofficial schticks, etc. for his home-brew version of the game, T3.  Home of the Random Fu Competition.
• Evan Blewett's Feng Shui site.

 

Setting, etc.

• Jim Breen's Japanese Page - A very nice academic page containing an extensive collection of interesting links and resources, as well as collections of images.
• The Japanese-English Dictionary Interface (JEDI) at Notre-Dame University in Japan.
• Sengoku from Gold Rush Games - Another game, set in "real" (except for all the magic!) 16th century Japan and using the Fuzion system. Check out the game aids in their Game Support section.
• Another game, set in medieval China: Outlaws of The Water Margin - looks like a lot of fun.
• Internet Resources: Japan - lots of links on medieval Japan (and other eras.)
• Kate Monk's Onomastikon is back!  This wonderful dictionary of names (of all over the world) which had disappeared from its original server a while ago is now back.
• See also the picture links below - they may help you find a picture for your character (hint, hint.)

 

Humour

• Required reading/listening: Tae Kwan Leap -  The Frantics' classic skit.
• The Onion's article: Disgruntled Ninja Silently Kills 12 Co-Workers.
• And more ninja: You WILL experience the Ninja Burger difference!.
• Or read The Tick's ninja ("Ninjas?  Keen!") and Paul the Samurai ("Now, I BAKE!") episodes.
• Rikimaru's L5R Humour Page - More CCG jokes than "general" L5R jokes, but still funny.
• Shinjo Yuriko's collection of memorable L5R Quotes, from her first L5R game.

 

Movies

• Big Trouble in Little China (John Carpenter, featuring Kurt Russell)
• Chinese Ghost Story I, II, and III (Tsui Hark, featuring Joey Wang, Leslie Cheung, and Ma Wu)
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, featuring Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun-Fat, and Zhang Zi-Yi)
• Once Upon a Time in China (Tsui Hark, featuring Jet Li)
• All of Jackie Chan's movies, especially Supercop (also featuring Michelle Yeoh), Rumble in the Bronx (also featuring Anita Mui), and The Legend of Drunken Master (also featuring Anita Mui)
• The Replacement Killers (Antoine Fuqua, featuring Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino)
• Bruce Lee's movies, especially The Chinese Connection (Raymond Chow)
• Iron Monkey (Woo-ping Yuen, featuring Donnie Yen, Rongguang Yu, Jean Wang, and Sze-Man Tsang)
• Akira Kurosawa's classic movies, such as The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Throne of Blood, Ran, Zatoichi, etc.
  
• Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, especially The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (featuring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach), Fistful of Dollars (featuring Clint Eastwood), and For a Few Dollars More (featuring Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef).  Many of Leone's stories were actually based on Japanese classics, especially Akira Kurosawa's movies.
• The King of Masks (Tian-Ming Wu, featuring Zhigang Zhang, Renying Zhou, and Xu Zhu). No figthing, but great movie.
• Ramona Boersma's Toshiro Mifune fan page, with many pictures of the great actor in roles that fit our setting.
• The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). - A good starting point to learn about your favourite movies.
• Another film list and movie resource: Chambara - Site dedicated to martial arts movies from around the world.
• Crazy reviews and quite a bit of info on "our" kind of movies: Stomp Tokyo Video Reviews - Bad movies, b-movies, cult film, and more!
• Sengoku Filmography & Suggested Viewing List - Extensive list of samurai movies
• The House of Plumblossom gives summaries for several Hong-Kong movies
• Heroic Cinema: The Guide to Hong Kong Movies in Australia, well-designed site with helpful info.

 

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Books

• Tales from the Japanese Storytellers, by Post Wheeler.  A lovable collection of Japanese legends translated by a true writer with great delicacy of touch, published by Charles E. Tuttle Co.  If I ever find a more complete edition of Mr. Wheeler's collected tales, I'll snap it like a great white shark snaps a surfing starlet.
• Everyday Life in Imperial Japan, by Charles J. Dunn and Laurence Broderick.  Full of interesting details and illustrations, and a pleasure to read.  A previous version was also published as Everyday Life in Traditional Japan, by Charles J. Dunn.  Published by Charles E. Tuttle Co.
• Arms and Armor of the Samurai, by Ian Bottomley and A. P. Hopson.  Beautiful, comprehensive book illustrated with hundreds of photos, explaining the workings of Japanese weapons and armour.  Published by Crescent Books.
• Secrets of the Samurai, by Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook.  Contains abundant description and illustrations of weapons, armour, and more importantly armed and unarmed technique.  Published by Charles E. Tuttle Co., then reprinted by Castle Books.
• The Tale of Genji [Genji Monogatari], by Murasaki Shikibu.  The famous "pillow book" gives an account of court life in medieval Japan.  I have the translation by Edward G. Seidensticker, published by Random House.
• A Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi.  A classic on fencing that has been reused for very bad metaphors on business practices, but still worth reading.  The inspiration for the L5R name and setting.
• The Judge Dee mysteries, by Robert van Gulik.  A series of retellings in modern style of investigations by historical figure judge Ti Jen-Tsie, who lived in China from 630 to 700.
• The Natural History of China, by Zhao Ji (ed.)  Fabulous pictures and analyses of the Chinese ecoregions, their flora, and fauna.  Published by McGraw-Hill.  Detailing the setting adds to the story's flavour.
• The Nightingale, by Kara Dalkey.  A fanciful novel, retelling Hans Christian Andersen's classic story; part of Terri Windling's new fairytales series.
• Fantastic Tales of Liaozhai, by Pu Songling.  A Chinese fairytale classic from the 18th century.  The author is the same Pu Songling whose stories were used to make the Chinese Ghost Story movies.  Eight of the tales are translated and available online as Pu Songling's Liaozhai Zhiyi in Vol.1, Issue 4 of the Illuminated Lantern.
• Romance of Three Kingdoms, by Luo Guanzhong.  A Chinese classic dating from the 14th Century.  Available online, free!
• I'm also using a sourcebook from White Wolf's Kindred of the East and Vampire: The Dark Ages settings, called Blood and Silk, just for inspiration.

 

Art and Images

• Ukiyo-e art in general, even though it dates from the shogun era, because it shows such a richness of detail of daily life.  In particular:
• the landscapes of Hiroshige Ando and Hokusai Katsushika
• Utamaro Kitagawa's portraits
• Yoshitoshi Tsukioka's ghost prints and views of the moon
• Yoshida Hiroshi's landscapes and urban scenes (falls somewhat outside the ukiyo-e genre, but still lovely prints.)
• Natori Shunsen's portraits of actors.  Not quite ukiyo-e anymore, but make great character pictures.
• A lovely collection of ukiyo-e prints: Jim Breen's Ukiyo-E Gallery.
• The Ukiyo-e Museum Nagoya TV Server - A wonderful collection of prints from the Edo period.
• The Hanga Online Gallery has a remarkable choice of nicely scanned pictures.
• Artcyclopedia: Ukiyo-e - "Images from the Floating World"
• Stuart Jackson Gallery's Antique Japanese Woodblock Prints.
• Yet another commercial gallery: the Ronin Gallery.
• The Electric Samurai and particularly its subarea the Samurai Gallery, with gorgeous pictures of historical samurai.
• Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai.  The on-going adventures of the Hare bodyguard, illustrated in a deceptively simple style.  Great stories, great art.
• Dragons, Gods & Spirits from Chinese Mythology, by Tao Tao Liu Sanders, with illustrations by Johnny Pau.  A lovely collection of chinese legends illustrated by a master combining modern western watercolour techniques with traditional Chinese iconography.  Published by Eurobooks.
• Fantastic Tales of Liaozhai, by Pu Songling: the edition exquisitely illustrated by Wang Jusheng and published by Guoji Shudian is fabulous (mine is in French, but it exists in English too).
• Card and book art from Legends of the Five Rings: The art of Brian Snoddy who is, in my opinion, by far the best artist to have worked on the L5R books.  Unfortunately, his best stuff is not displayed (I mean his lovely ink drawings/paintings).  See also The William O'Connor Online Gallery and his links page to other L5R artists' online galleries.