Preparing for the End Game

This Friday we officially begin "the end" of the current generation in my L5R game. Winter court has just begun, one of the PCs has been promoted to a Shireikan of the Legion - despite the character's young age, and an army of Fu Leng's beasts and creatures is coming to rip the city apart brick by brick and person by person.

For me this is an interesting situation. The L5R game was started around the idea of a multi-generation game where the city was as much a character as the PCs. I feel, with the PCs help, it has succeeded at that. Some districts are more famous than others, but many have grown and changed because of the PC's interactions.

However, starting with this Friday it is very likely that the city will die. I don't mean that my PCs will lose, but the city is in a dire situation that has been building up over multiple generations. I hope to embrace that. I want to do what I can with words, set pieces, and opportunities to make the PCs feel like they're in a fight more epic than Helms' Deep from the Two Towers.

This means that the chance for being true heroes will arise. It also means that bad things will happen. Weapons will break, gates will fall, and people will die. Already I'm writing custom battle tables for the city and where the PCs are during the fighting. I'm trying to do it in such a way that the battle table is the fight itself instead of bogging down with heavy combat, at least until it comes time for that.

We'll see how it goes.