Awesome / Legend of the Five Rings

The story of Rokugan has been going on for almost 20 years. You bet there have been more than a few awesome moments in all that time.

The Crab Clan

• An often-overlooked one: Hida Kisada's youngest and least favorite child, Hida Sukune, was the only one who opposed the Crab Clan's near-literal Deal with the Devil. When given as a blood sacrifice to Fu Leng, his soul was damned to the hellish dimension of Jigoku for eternity... only for his soul to overpower Jigoku due to his raw virtue, and leave of its own accord.
• An oni and its army were about to attack Rokugan, having destroyed the wall that had stood up for more than two centuries against the creatures of the Shadowlands. But then Kuni Osaku stood and started a spell that allowed her to control the Seigo no Kamae river and use it to impede the army's passage, at the cost of one year of her life for every day the ritual continued - which was not expected to be long. Osaku held the spell for 73 days, only releasing it when she died - enough time for the Crab Clan to build the Kaiu Wall, which has stood against the Shadowlands ever since. As extra irony, she was able to use the spell because of information she had gained from an oni - the same one that she would later stop with the spell.
• From Bearers of Jade, the second Shadowlands sourcebook. A group of high ranking visitors are in a Crab castle and see a single guard looking south. The visitors offer a test: Each has three of their guards take watch on other walls, with great prizes being offered to the samurai who strikes the mightiest blow against an oni. The lone guard warns them that they will not be fast enough, but they laugh and go back inside. In the middle of the night there is a blood curdling scream and an oni breaks into the room, nearly killing them before the crab champion charges in and kills the monster. The others mention the test and visit the guards on the walls, finding their guards killed in truly horrific fashion, only to be lead to the lone guard who is also dead. One of the visitors announces that there is no winner, and that the crab watcher fought no better or longer than her own guards. At that the Crab champion fixes her with a glare, "Scorpion, that man's job was to scream."

That scream was their only warning and the only reason any of them survived long enough for the crab champion to reach them.

• Kaiu, the progenitor and namesake of the Kaiu family, was so renowned for his skills that Lady Doji paid the Crab half of her entire rice harvest to enlist his services for one winter. His student, Yasurugi, son of the man who invented the katana, would later use the skills Kaiu taught him to craft the five sacred swords of the Crane Clan. In addition, he designed the labyrinthine maze beneath Kyuden Bayushi, and out of respect, Bayushi himself picked out a bride from the finest women in Scorpion lands to give to Kaiu's son as thanks. He was so brilliant that after he passed, the Kaiu family spent centuries reviewing his work just to be able to replicate the extent of his genius.

The Dragon Clan

• Hitomi challenged Onnotangu, the moon himself and one of the gods who created the world, to a duel, slew him and took his place.

The Scorpion Clan

• "I can swim."
• After being framed for an assassination attempt on the Emperor, the Scorpion were declared traitors to the empire, exiled on pain of death, and their children kept as hostages. At a tournament to win a favor from the Emperor, the Scorpion began by brazenly bribing another clan into helping them (using the sword that created the Burning Sands, no less), and winning the tournament with their candidate pretending to be a ronin just long enough to secure the prize. As the Emperor was honor bound to fulfill the wish of the victor, they then openly used this to blackmail the Emperor into restoring their holdings and station, while pointedly not needing to swear fealty in so doing.
• The tale of the Scorpion Daimyo Bayushi Ujiro as recorded in the in-universe novel "Winter" defines the Scorpion. The author, hosting a party for the most powerful people in Rokugan at her winter court, asked the assembled guests what must be the most important virtue a samurai can possess. Four clan champions take their turn to answer, each expounding on their clan's primary philosophy with a single line:
  Hida Junuro: Strength! For a weak man is not a man at all.
  Akodo Kyuinjin: Courage. For even if a man is strong, should he be a coward, his strength will serve nothing but his flight.
  Shinjo Yuni: Resourcefulness, I think. Strength and courage are good and well, but if a man cannot think, he cannot make use of any of his virtues.
  Bayushi Ujiro: Loyalty. For if a man is not loyal, all of his virtues serve your enemy.
  • It gets better. The Scorpion having won the debate hands-down, the Crab provokes him by asking "What does a Scorpion know of loyalty?" Ujiro smiles and challenges him and the other assembled daimyos to a test of loyalty to see which clan's samurai best embody the virtue. Each would call their yojimbo into the room one after another and give him a command, the same order for each man. If any man hesitated or questioned the command, he would be disqualified. To demonstrate, Ujiro went first and had his own bodyguard Shunsen called in.
    Bayushi Ujiro: Shunsen.
    Shunsen: My lord?
    Bayushi Ujiro: Kill me.
    Shunsen: Yes, my lord.
    Shunsen instantly draws his katana, cuts Ujiro down, drops his katana, draws his wakizashi and commits seppuku.
    • It is not recorded whether any of the other lords continue with the test, or whether they just judge the Scorpion the winner on the spot.

Others

• At the close of the Second Day Of Thunder. One sentence capped off a thousand years of planning.
  "That's right, Fu Leng. You are mortal."
• Just as Daigotsu is ready to conquer all of Rokugan while Fu Leng simultaneously leads an attack on Heaven itself, and all those who could hope to stop them have already been defeated, Naseru, the courtier among Toturi's children, steps up to the plate and mindscrews the God of Evil himself with a few well-chosen words, leading Fu Leng to ruin his own plan in its very moment of triumph by doubting the loyalty of his servants, and thus cutting himself off from the power that their faith granted him.
  Daigotsu: You should have remained in Ryoko Owari. Your battle is already lost. Even should I die here, I will become a martyr to the Lost. Their faith in Fu Leng will increase a thousand fold, and his conquest of Tengoku will be assured.
  Naseru: Their faith in Fu Leng? I see no such thing. Your people do not believe in Fu Leng. They believe in you. You, in turn, believe in him. You are the focus of Fu Leng's power. I wonder what will become of you once Fu Leng realizes that he relies so heavily upon you. I hope he is a trusting god.
• The original Seven Thunders marched into the Shadowlands and fought an immortal God of Evil on his home ground. Fu Leng can demonstrably defeat another kami one on one but seven mortals triumphed where seven kami could not.
• A ronin named Toku fought admirably during the Second Day of Thunder. When the fighting was over, Toturi I offered to make him captain of the Imperial Guard... only for Toku to refuse. As it turned out, Toku was a commoner, who'd picked up a fallen samurai's swords in a moment of desperation and ended up outfighting many of the born samurai who'd fought in the battle. He confessed his crime (impersonating a samurai), offered up his swords, and asked only that he be allowed to commit seppuku. Toturi I immediately declared him an actual samurai, backdating it to when he'd first picked up the swords (thus erasing his crime), and ordered him to become both captain of the guard and head of the newly-created Monkey Clan.