The outstanding example for me is
Shiki (Four Seasons) for Sengoku, a series of four adventures based on the four seasons which takes our protagonists from escaping a besieged castle with the baby heir to, fifteen years later, supporting the heir as he retakes his ancestral lands from the usurper.
When I ran it, we played 15 years in 15 hours, and it was truly epic. I set it in the actual Sengoku period - their enemy was
Oda Nobunaga, their ally was
Takeda Shingen, their nemesis (mainly in the court and intrigue scenes) was
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (played according to one historical version as a grinning capering monkey-like vizier), and their final battle against Nobunaga (cutting short his wars of conquest and his life*) was on the slopes of Mount Fuji.
*One PC’s journey was that he was an intensely honourable figure who was slightly broken by events and decided that Nobunaga was unstoppable except by dishonourable means; he disguised himself and joined Nobunaga’s army, working his way up to being one of his bodyguards over several years, and then assassinated him (while calmly and clearly stating why he was doing so) in the middle of the final battle. He died laughing on a dozen spears.
(A lovely player addition was that one of the PCs had a crush on his lord’s wife and was devastated when she remained behind in the first adventure with her husband to commit seppuku when the castle fell. On the journey to safety to the baby’s uncle, the group encountered the lady’s cousin Eboshi, who bore a strong resemblance to her and was on her way to an arranged marriage with Takeda Shingen. The PC fell in love with her, and chose to briefly leave the group to escort her to her wedding. Eboshi gave birth to Takeda Ran, who was of course actually the PC’s daughter; Ran went on to marry the PCs’ lord (now all grown up, or rather a teenager) and Eboshi married the PC after Shingen’s death.)
