Timeline of Rokugan History

the Shadowlands . The nagas began their long sleep, planning to reawaken when they were needed once more . The kenkus simply withdrew into the deepest forests . The kitsus were hunted down and nearly exterminated, until Akodo saw their intelligence and compassion, and brought the survivors into his clan .

HANTEI, SHINSEI, AND FU LENG

When the kami fell to earth, they held a series of contests to determine who would rule them. Hantei won, and so his line was the line of emperors for a thousand years, until the crowning of Toturi. Fu Leng, alone in the Festering Pit, gathered his own hordes of oni and ogres, and soon made war upon his sisters and brothers and their clans. The other seven kami gathered great human heroes around them, forming the seven great clans of the empire . This young empire could not stand against the power of Fu Leng's Shadowlands horde, until a small man appeared from the West, calling himself Shinsei.

Shinsei spoke with Hantei for a long time, imparting his philosophy, which was recorded by Shiba and became the Tao of Shinsei . Then, Shinsei took one human from each clan-Hida Atarasi, Doji Konishiko, Lady Matsu, Lady Utaku, Lord Isawa, Lord Mirumoto, and Lady Shosuro-into the Shadowlands to fight Fu Leng . Shinsei and his Seven Thunders defeated Fu Leng, binding his power within twelve Black Scrolls that Shosuro-the only survivor of the Seven Thunders-brought back with her to the empire .

A THOUSAND YEARS OF PEACE

A thousand years passed-not peaceful, for the clans warred against each other virtually without ceasing, as they do to this day. Still, this time is called "A Thousand Years of Peace," because for a thousand years Fu Leng's power remained contained in the Black Scrolls . During this time, the Ki-Rin clan, led by the kami Shinjo, left Rokugan to explore the rest of the world . They wandered for eight hundred years, returning in 815 as the Unicorn clan .

The minions of Fu Leng did not rest for a thousand years, however. Not only did the creatures of the Shadowlands attack the empire from without, but the Taint of the Shadowlands began to spread within the empire as well . A Crab scholar named Kuni Nakanu discovered the Taint as early as the year 100, noticing its ability to animate corpses . Four centuries later, a sorcerer now called Iuchiban discovered Nakanu's works and used them to develop spells of maho . He animated an army of skeletons and zombies within a cemetery in the heart of Otosan Uchi (known as the Battle of Stolen Graves), but he was eventually caught and imprisoned within a tomb deep in Crab territory. His loyal followers, known as Bloodspeakers, continued to pass on his teachings despite their master's apparent defeat . Iuchiban's spirit has not lain quietly in his tomb, either. It escaped once, after two hundred years of imprisonment, and very nearly did so again in recent memory. No means has yet been discovered to destroy luchiban's spirit forever, and until that happens, the danger he and his Bloodspeakers represent continues to threaten the empire .

CLAN WARS

After a thousand years of relative peace, Fu Leng began to stir once more . Bayushi Shoju, champion of the Scorpion, discovered a scroll of prophecy that predicted the return of Fu Leng in the time of the last Hantei . Attempting to prevent the dreadful prophecy from being fulfilled, Shoju killed Hantei XXXVIII and tried to seize the throne . The Emperor's young son escaped the coup, however, and Akodo Toturi killed Shoju in the throne room . The Scorpion clan was obliterated by the other clans of the empire in retaliation for the coup . Instead of preventing the prophecy's fulfillment, Shoju made it possible, as the young Hantei XXXIX was easily overcome by Fu Leng.

Following the coup, Yogo Junzo opened the first of the twelve Black Scrolls, unleashing Fu Leng's power and beginning the evil course Shoju had hoped to prevent. With each additional scroll that was opened, Fu Leng's control over the Emperor grew more complete . Hida Kisada, champion of the Crab, began to move against the Emperor, perceiving his weakness and inability to rule effectively. Striking a bargain with the Shadowlands, Kisada fought his way to the Imperial Palace . When he finally strode into the throne room, he expected to cut down the feeble boyEmperor and claim the throne . What he found, however, was not a weak boy, but a dark deity . With eleven Black Scrolls now open, Fu Leng's possession of the young Hantei was complete, and he quickly cut down the Crab champion . The oni that had marched with the Crab joined their dark master, and the weakened remnant of the Crab army retreated .

In the end, a descendant of Shinsei known as the Hooded Ronin led seven descendants of the original Seven Thunders into Otosan Uchi to face Fu Leng once more : Kisada's son Yakamo, Utaku Kamoko, Doji Hoturi, Isawa Tadaka, Bayushi Kachiko, Mirumoto Hitomi, and Akodo Toturi . As they fought, Togashi Yokuni revealed himself to be the dragon Togashi, and explained that he had kept the twelfth Black Scroll hidden inside his heart for centuries . Hitomi opened his heart to remove the scroll, killing Togashi, and opened the scroll . With that, Fu Leng's power was fully restored-but he was also fully manifest and fully mortal . At last able to harm Fu Leng, the Seven Thunders renewed their efforts, and Touri and Hoturi struck the killing blows, destroying the dark deity forever. Toturi took the throne, establishing a new dynasty as Toturi I .

THE WAR AGAINST THE SHADOW

Only two years into his reign, Toturi was kidnapped by ninja and held in ruined Morikage Castle, in the Phoenix lands . The Scorpions once more took the blame, as their association with ninja was famous, but the Emerald Champion, Kakita Toshimoko, refused to exterminate the Scorpions again . Instead, they were sent into exile in the desert wastes to the west, the Burning Sands, while their children were fostered with Toshimoko's clan, the Crane .

When Toturi was at last found, he was changed : A shadow seemed to have fallen over his eyes, and his behavior went from erratic to completely insane by the end of the war. The ninja who kidnapped him were not Scorpions, but representatives of a more mysterious force: the Shadow, a nameless, formless being left over from creation . The Shadow sought to unmake the empire and all humanity by erasing names, memories, and even forms, re-creating the world in its formless image . Its ninja servants were fearsome representatives of this agenda : Literally faceless, they changed shape easily and walked through shadow .

The Scorpions were not completely blameless, for they had sheltered the Shadow in their schools and castles for a thousand years . When Shosuro returned from the Shadowlands after the first defeat of Fu Leng, she brought the Shadow with her . Faking her own death, Shosuro became Soshi and