"Welcome to the shining star of the Colonies, the Second City, honorable samurai! May your stay here be as interesting and profitable as you desire! I strongly recommend that you do not venture outside the city until you have had an opportunity to receive some rudimentary training with the Second City Guardsmen, however." -Shinjo Hariken, Vassal of the Miya Twenty-five years ago, Rokugan fought a terrible battle against an invading gaijin army known as the Destroyers. Although the noble samurai of the Emerald Empire were victorious, the conflict was devastating beyond all others, and the lands of the Great Clans were left in ruins by the fighting. To spare her people the threat of further war, war which would surely lead to the death of an Empire, the Divine Empress sued for peace with the forces of darkness, and then dispatched her vassals to claim the empty lands left behind in the wake of the Destroyers. A generation later, the untimely death of a prominent magistrate in Rokugan suddenly elevates a group of simple samurai to a position of authority, but the magistrate's unfinished business sends them to the Second City to see it to completion. There, influential samurai from the Empire have almost limitless potential, but the distractions from duty are numerous. In the Second City, will honor prove stronger than steel?