Welcome to the Heart of the Shinomen Forest!

And we're live!

Now, the Naga have been asleep for centuries, and they're a little slow to knock off the dust and get back going again. So perhaps it's appropriate that this site took a little longer to get off the ground than originally intended. Indeed, it's not done: you'll find quite a few links on the navigation bar that don't go anywhere. Going forward, those missing links will get filled in. The rest of the Naga cards will appear in the card archive, along with flavor text, history links, and other historical information that will make the archive more than just an Oracle search for "Keyword: Naga".

But there's no reason to hold everything back for the bells and whistles. The news feed is live, the forums are live, and it's time to show the world that the serpentfolk of Rokugan aren't just a proud an ancient race... they're also one with a clan website!

9 October 2014

Siege: Heart of Darkness full release

If you haven't picked up your copy of Siege: Heart of Darkness, it is now in full release and available for sale wherever. Personally, I think this multiplayer variant of L5R is quite a lot of fun, either as one of several players banding together as the Second City's last defenders ... or as the maddened forces of the Shahismael. Here at the Heart of the Shinomen Forest, we support the Naga as strange allies of the Empire of Rokugan, rather than another Monster of the Arc race. But, hey, sometimes you just need to get some friends together and remind them how tasty mammals can be...

22 September 2014

The Naga awaken...

In the darkest depths of the forest, more than one hundred thousand serpentine souls heard, and awakened from their slumber.

At GenCon2014, a series of challenge booths pitted the forces of Rokugan against the Naga forces under the control of the Dark Naga, Shahismael. Publicly, the survival of the districts of the Second City, and the city itself, hung in the balance. But as GenCon came to a conclusion, it was revealed that something far greater than a single city had depended on the outcome. Had the Dark Naga won, and the Second City burned completely, the madness of the Shahismael would have torn the minds and souls of the Naga apart, and those few who survived would have committed a form of ritual suicide to contain the damage. But the Rokugani (aided by the remnant loyalist Naga in quite a few players' decks) held the line, and the Shahismael's corrupted essence was destroyed. The Naga did not die; instead, they awakened.

In 2016 (presumably in whatever base set follows Ivory 2), the Naga will be returning as a fully-featured playable faction.

Along with the entirety of the Naga race, a few of the Dark Naga's generals--Askett, the albino Abomination; The Sleepless One, a powerful Cobra jakla who was apparently never under the Dark Naga's control to begin with; and the corrupted Constrictor Riddiqesh--survived the conflict. What role they will have in future remains to be determined.

Read the entire fiction depicting the defeat of the Dark Naga here, at the L5R main site.

25 August 2014