/L5R/ Legend of the Five Rings General

Sure. Anyway, l5r pictures.

There's only one good L5R picture

>spider

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

what's up with the unicorn girl's bellybutton? in fact, what the fuck is up with her whole lower body in general.

>tfw Mantis is the cutest.

Off course, Opinions-kun.

What, you've never played with a girl's Taint?

Filthy gaijin genes combined with the consequences of a war maiden's special relationship with her horse have left her lower torso completely ruined.

There will never be a frog clan.

I don't think the Kaeru would be caught dead REEEEEEing, and the machi-kanshisha are too subtle for it.

Where's that one pic of the Scorpion and her horse while two Unicorn girls whisper to each other?

...

what is that mon? A literal unicorn with a scorp tail?

I seriously wonder if the Spider existing has spared the Mantis from being the hated executive favorite. They were on the fast track to getting everything they ever wanted and more, and Yoritomo in particular was written as sickeningly great. He personally convinced a ton of people to metaphorically suck his dick and could have easily been made the emperor by Shinjo because he was "the strongest leader in Rokugan" during the Hidden Emperor crisis.

basically just fuck all the bug clans.

They still got to pokéclan and overshadow some of the best minor clans, and the Yoritomo family grew multiple full blown schools and advanced schools in just a few generations where everyone else in the Empire had to work for centuries to get even a single one.

Crane-san always makes me lose it. That stuck-up haircut, modest dress and innocent look with blue eyes nnnggggg

Bitch best not be dissing muh Wasp and Bee clans.

1) Wasp are a bunch of pussies who can't even handle a fucking sword. Worthless in any real battle as they rely on their gimmick war doctrine.

2) Bee is lame. Fight me.

I honestly never had too much issue with the Yoritomo having multiple Bushi schools due to their nature of a compilation of Ronin. They got to refine various techniques various ronin had learned into finished schools.

That and Yoritomo schools are barely more than a Ronin school that the Mantis like. It's 'How people fight on ships, except now a clan likes it well enough to call it a true school'. They had a lot to work with.

What I DID have issue with is how the Yoritomo flavor basically overshadows the Moshi. The Yoritomo and Moshi founded the Mantis together yet you rarely see a Moshi shugenja actually going with their 'Sky' and 'Sun' themes beyond Lightning. The Kitsune at least get a good showing AS Kitsune Shugenja.

Mind, the Yoritomo also have their own Shugenja school. That puts them at three basic shugenja schools. That's more than the Phoenix have.

Fuck the Phoenix.

Oh no, he stole a crate full of apples, however will the poor Phoenix Henshin eat now? Oh wait, they don't need to eat because they're immortal. Suck on that honorless pirates.

>What are your favorite aspects of your clan of choice, /l5r/?
Two swords, nigga. TWO SWORDS.

TWO
S
W
O
R
D
S

>trying to compensate for the dishonor of being defeated by "honorless pirates."

One man, one move, one sword.

What's with the seeming hate for Mantis? I'm new to this franchise, and I really like them. The nautical aspect added to the whole "fresh under-dog who doesn't obey all the societal rules," is something that appeals to me. I also like that whole Crab/Unicorn/Mantis thing of being "ALMOST an outcast, and as such we're all brothers."

That was part of my complaint, yeah.

The Yoritomo overshadow the Moshi even in Shugenjas.

It's because they were created by destroying things people liked. People liked the Mantis, Centipede, Wasp, and Kitsune as minor clans. Then suddenly the Mantis absorbs them and basically erase their former identities from existence. Then the story team pushed how cool the mantis were relentlessly, making them get near mary-sue levels of bullshit underdog stuff.

TL;DR: you just had to have been there.

>Mantis, Centipede, Wasp, and Kitsune
Well, what were their things before the Mantis became a Great Clan? Now I'm curious. The only Minor I know about is the Sparrow, and they seem really fun.

Two is more than one, QED.

It's not really the Mantis people have an issue with.

It's the Yoritomo. No other family so very heavily dominates the fluff about it's clan and thus has Bushi, Shugenja AND Courtier schools.

The Yoritomo overshadow all the others and thus makes the Mantis feel one note, when it's supposed to be a loose collection of allied people.

Honestly, the Wasp and Kitsune didn't lose much. The Kitsune have always been Rokugan Druids and still are. The Wasp went from Bounty Hunter Archers to Bounty Hunter Archers...on ships. They mostly kept their identity.

The Centipede are the big losers. The Moshi family is a family known for dignity, intelligence, religious fervor and a blisteringly explosive temper. They set the sky aflame in anger and rode the wind on wings of fire to be closer to Lady Sun.

These days they mostly overlap in fluff pieces with the Yoritomo Shugenja, working with Storms and acting as navigators.

How would you guys suggest fixing them? I'm genuinely curious now.

personally i dont like them at all, but i'm the kind of guy who wants rokugan to be magically isolated from the rest of the setting's world because i don't give a single fuck about anything but rokugan. other gaijin threats aren't neccessary, the shadowlands and internal conflict are all that's needed.

so im the wrong guy to ask

I'm assuming something along the lines of allowing the clans that initially made up Mantis to keep their identities and having the Mantis Court be more like an actual conglomerate of allied clans. They hold council and make suggestions; but as the technical Great Clan, the Yoritomo make the ultimate decisions.

These decisions that concern the overall Great Clan (and not just the Yoritomo) may be cancelled out by a large enough vote from the Minior representatives, but this is rarely done. This entire set-up makes them seem EXTREMELY odd to those in the Imperial Court, something that also adds to their "merchant prince," nature.

Still have them be absolute best buddies with the Crab and Unicorn though. That's really neat.

How does that make you not like the Mantis then, if they're charged by the Emerald Court to keep gaijin influence away from Rokugan and act as a military buffer from foreign invasion?

>magically isolated

Does anyone have good historical pictures of Japan that I can use in-campaign? Honestly, I'm looking for things like cities, towns, ships, alternate clothes (pic related), ashigaru, bandits, and peasants or merchants at this point. My folder is overblown with samurai and shinobi right now.

Wait, what was the Yoritomo's thing before the Great Mantis?

I'd find them a theme that collects them all, rather than having them work with the theme of the Yoritomo.

Yoritomo: Waves and Storm
Moshi: Sun and Sky
Kitsune: Forest and Animal
Wasp: Justice

I'd go with a general theme of 'Nature's Justice'. They speak not for the raw elements like the Phoenix but for the interplay of them that makes up life and nature. Where Pirates spill merchant blood upon the waves, Yoritomo ships ride with them to hunt them down. When a forest is blighted by dark spirits, the Kitsune come and calm them down or drive them out. When Phoenix experiments blacken the land, the Moshi speak to them about the harm that they are doing to the lands that feed them and when people flee from making right what they have defiled they meet a Wasp arrow.

You'd still be able to keep the very strong naval focus (As that's a major part of nature) without it eclipsing all the other parts.

Storms, Being Impertinent Sods and Rebellion.

That's a dumb question. If the problem was the writers basically killed everything in the minor clans that made them what they were after being absorbed by the Mantis, then logically just letting the absorbed minor clans keep their identities and everything that made people like them instead of just becoming "Yoritomo but with X" fixes the issue.

they were silk and spice traders because their lands were not-so-remote islands. also the mantis founder was a child of osano-wo, so their ancestral heritage was of storms.

Married to Lion
Matsu girl is tsundere
Angry Snu Snu Love

HONOUR ON THE STREETS
DUTY IN THE SHEETS

New l5r player here. Kusarigama look really fucking cool, but I can't seem to find a mechanical reason to use one. Like, in dnd most weapons will have a small bonus like, "You can make trip attacks with this weapon" or "you get a bonus to disarm attempts with this". But as far as I can see, L5r doesn't seem to have anything like this. Like, there are six different types of polearms presented, but the only major difference seems to be their damage pool. Is there anything special mechanics-wise that kusarigama can do that a katana can't?

RAW there is no reason to use anything other than a katana, yumi or nodachi or tetsubo, given how shit the rest of the weapons and/or their skill's masteries are. Some schools and paths specialise and make other weapons somewhat usable, but in general you'll stick to those unless you houserule things.

I should add that there are two alternate paths in Book of Water that both focus the kusarigama, one for Mantis and one for Scorpion.

If you're using 4e, look at the skill list for the mastery abilities.
But basically, is right, with the caveat that any weapon that does Xk2 is usable, if not minmaxed.
If you want to use a kusarigama as a clan that doesn't have any Technique for using it as a SAA, ask your GM if you can add it to your rank 3 or 4 "may attack as a simple action" Technique. It's not a mechanical advantage, so most GMs should be fine with that.

And if your GM doesn't want to add it to that Technique, see if they'll let you replace it with a Technique that lets you SAA with the weapon category you want. Fluff it as the technique of your clan's weird little chain dojo that gets no glory but really actually exists, we swear.

>GM houserules that feint bonus damage is no longer capped

I feel like this is a bad decision. Just imagine some Scorpion cleaving anyone in twain.

Oh duh. I totally forgot about skill masteries. Okay yeah, all the stuff I thought was missing was just tackled in another section, thanks.

But that's WRONG. Rokugan isn't Japan.

That's not what "Rokugan isn't Japan" is supposed to mean and you should know better.

This nigga took hundreds of photos around the turn of the last century:
t-enami.org/

A few of them were even stereographs, which have been helpfully giffed here:
pinktentacle.com/2009/10/animated-stereoviews-of-old-japan/

The last one is a stereograph depicting geisha looking at stereographs. That photographer was a real meta sort of guy.

How accessable are Shugenja temples to commoners? Will the peasants particularly care about a nearby temple of the Water Dragon, or do they all just worship the ancestors/fortunes?

Shugenja specific temples might not be too accessible to peasants, but most peasants don't specifically worship the elemental kami anyway (And really, really don't worship ancestors, since that's entirely a samurai thing) and would be more concerned with shrines to fortunes than anything dedicated to elemental kami or samurai ancestors.

Local shugenja are involved in peasant life to at least some extent, even if it's only to bless the fields every season. But they might also attend to weddings and births, important festivals, that kind of thing... and they're going to talk about their particular religious stuff when they do that. So if the local shugenja are invoking the Water Dragon when they pray for just the right amount of rain, peasants will notice that, and the more the shugenja involve themselves, the more that will be reinforced. Chanesa re good peasant labor will get tapped for temple upkeep and maintenance every so often. So if your local shugenja are active in the community, chances are good the peasants will incorporate those influences into their standard worship.

I think most of that is covered under fortunism anyway, and which other fortunes you pray to along with the big seven will vary by region, and by what temples are nearby.

>Local shugenja are involved in peasant life to at least some extent
That's more often monks, due to the difference in numbers. Shugenja bless the fields, but their day-to-day existence relates to samurai, not heimin.

Some shugenja deal with peasants on a wide scale, like blessing an entire village at once, or praying for healing (Without actually using kamispeak/spells, since some shuggies consider it mildly blasphemous to waste a kami's time on a peasant) en masse.
The main functional difference from a peasant's point of view is that a monk is approachable and can help you individually, while a shugenja only comes around on their own schedule and helps the whole area in one go.

Thanks a lot. This will help a ton.

I'm asking because the PCs need to reduce growing unrest among the peasant populations, and I was wondering if helping the local temple would make them more respected in the eyes of the commoners.

If it's a Brotherhood of Shinsei temple, it could be helpful. Monks are really good at keeping the peasants content and/or riling them up, because they're the most direct moral and religious link to the peasants. Getting on their good side can really help when that's your goal.

How much sectarian conflict is there between Sintao and Fortunist temples? They're ostensibly compatible halves of the same religious whole, but I always wonder how well that holds up against human nature.

Anywhere from "They are also correct because everyone finds their own path" to "We don't talk about them because if we did someone would get punched. Ideally one of them.", depending on the individual monk, what Temple they're associated with (Some of them don't even really see the split, while others nearly reject the other side of the philosophy), and whether there's anything more important to deal with currently. Most of the time, an outsider wouldn't see any serious disagreements and even insiders wouldn't see anything worse than light arguments.

bump

So, my character died recently in a duel at the end of the 1199 summer court, and I've been considering new characters, but haven't quite made the choice yet.

On the one hand, I've rolled up a Badger recently turned ronin due to failing his duty to his lord (yojimbo/executioner that refused to kill his brother on charges of treason, which, incidentally, were true). He enjoys the company of the peasantry, telling the children of villages he visits stories, and does his best to side with the peasants rather than samurai due to his strong compassion, but also contrary nature. Physically stronger than most, he wields a tetsubo with great strength. Also looking at Zhang Fei for inspiration into character

On the other hand is an older, disgraced Matsu turned monk of Kaimetsu-uo that's essentially Iroh from Avatar : quite a few of the mental advantages with the fitting disadvantages to account for his dead son. Funnily enough, no fire kihos since i went for a more support/off-tank style with him, and was considering to play him as someone who could teach a thing or two to the young. firey monk already on the team.

Finally, a sparrow who's a fanboy to the party because they're the new big heroes and he really, really wants to hang out with them and write down/tell their stories

If anybody's interested in storytime as to why and how my Kakita died, feel free to ask

>essentially Iroh from Avatar
Obligatory.

>Kakita
Now I'm interested. How on earth did you lose a duel as a Kakita?

A Kakita dieing in a duel? He probably deserved it. But tell us anyway. We don't have many legit L5R stories.

thanks, that could actually describe either the badger or the monk, but more the latter, of course

Essentially, being new at the game, we all start with the Topaz Championship, me, the Kakita from a family of magistrates, a Daidoji, and a Togashi-trained Doji. During the championship, I met a Hare, who I befriended, and an Otome, who I insulted by referring to his Short disadvantage. Eventually, I lose the final duel to a Spider (the ST's dice seem to enjoy watching me fail at crucial points), and the PCs are put together to solve a mystery revolving a new drug that puts peasants and samurai alike under a neverending sleep, called Sweet Dreams. Long story short, we discover who's behind disctribution in Toshi Ranbo, destroy the supply, a tea-shop owner gives me a small jade statuette of Ebisu, and follow the trail to the Second City

Once there, after some investigation, the trail leads us into the jungle, and the Explorer who's going to guide us is the Spider who took the Topaz Championship. We also meet up with the new addition to the party, a Tsuruchi in training for the Ivory Magistrate. Stuff happens, the monk both wrestles a tiger and one-punch kills a Tsuno adolescent (we ran into a gempukku-like ceremony), we arrive at the production site for Sweet Dreams, and kill a Maho-Tsukai. I almost died there already, surviving at 3 wound left after essentially taking a blood-shotgun blast to the face (reminder never to cut open a desperate Maho-Tsukai), and avoided being tainted due to mini-Ebisu in my pocket. We finally finish up and return to Toshi Ranbo, where I got the great gift of a song on the biwa played by Kakita Ikura himself. We all get sent to training at the Emerald Magistrate, the Imperial Navy, and the Jade Magistrate respectively, then time skip happens.

Actually, just before the time skip, I received word that my betrothed, coming from a lowly branch of the Isawa, was captured by bandits, but with no ransom request. I had known she'd been captured just before the Topaz Championship as part of my backstory, but now I was offered to lead the charge against the bandits. After an intense battle, I fight against an honorless ronin that ends up using some weird amulet, probably in combination with the aforementioned Sweet Dreams, to put my betrothed and the other captives asleep. Angered by this, my honorful, yet brash Kakita beheaded him immediately upon his surrender. The captives are taken care of, due to not being able to wake up, and we do the time skip during our training, until suddenly, we receive invitations to the Summer Court, as heroes of the Empire.

At the grand event, some stuff happens, I've become friends with the Spider previously mentioned and am invited to his wedding, to be held the day after the end of the Summer Court. Both naturally and strangely, I end up being the only one with a decent amount of points spent in social skills, so I get into some political court shenanigans. Unfortunately, one of my "adversaries" is the Otome from the Topaz Championship, still holding a grudge against me. He manages to ensure I don't interfere with Otome business at the Court during the first day, so I instead interfere against the Lion defending the Spider. Second day, I win the haiku competition, of course, so lots of good fortune unto me. Third day, the Otome wants to talk some more, but this time I end up subtly insulting his entire family by implying the Crane being the shears in the garden of the Empire, even against sickened bushes close to the Emperor. He's rather unhappy, so points in my favor there again. Some other stuff happens involving the other PCs of course, but I don't think they're reading the thread, so I won't go into that. Except for what happens on the morning of the fourth day.

All of the PCs have received invites in letters marked with the Otomo seal to private conversations in different parts of the Palace grounds. The Daidoji goes to the garden, where he immediately feels a poison dart to the neck, and he fails to resist it, but is saved by the guards. The Tsuruchi asks the Mantis ambassador what to do, and a lookalike is sent to the meeting spot. That lookalike dies to the poison. The monk goes to the private audience chambers, where he is ambushed by men masquerading as guards, gets wounded, but subdues one of his attackers. Then, it's my turn.

I go to the silent rooms, private one-on-one areas for privacy, and who do I meet but the same Otomo who's been trying to push my buttons throughout the entirety of the Summer Court. He goes to the lowest of the lows, and insults me personally in order to provoke my misstep. Fortunately, I gallantly clear the Willpower check from my Brash disadvantage, and offer a subtle counter-insult as my only reaction, wishing for the best of the Empire no matter by who's hand. Leaving, guards come to escort me back to the Doji embassy. There, the ambassador tells me of the attacks, and seeing that my character has slowly been going Knight Templar over the course of the campaign, I ignore the command to stay at the embassy, rushing ahead of the guards assigned to me, so I can personally go ask Suikihime to lead the investigation of these attacks. I am allowed to assist the Ivory magistrates in the investigation, which is how I find out that the Otomo seals on the letters are very accurate forgeries.

The following morning, in the main hall of the palace, in front of everybody, a short, furious man storms up to me. The Otomo who's been on my ass the entire event is beside himself, accusing the Crane and myself of being honorless scum that set up the attacks and that the Otomo would take the blame, triggering my Brashness. This is where my dice started to fail me.

For those that might have forgotten, Brash means on any personal insult, I have to roll a Willpower + Honor rank against a TN of 25, or immediately draw steel. With a roll of 3k3+8, and already having succeeded a few days prior with the same situation, I thought I had no worries.

Then I rolled a 7.

Seeing as, during the Summer Court, no weapons would be allowed inside the main hall, I couldn't draw steel, so I did the next best thing.

Bitch slapped the Otomo in the face.

Needless to say, Suikihime was none too pleased with this turn of events. She declared that the personal insults thrown at each other (calling me a coward vs bitchslapping a higher-ranking samurai in public) would be resolved in a duel at midnight, marking the end of the event. Myself and the Otomo left the main hall to return to our respective embassies, so we can make the necessary arrangements. Despite the fabled Kakita Twins being present, I decided to personally enter the duel, my first mistake. Then, because even I, the player, wanted that Otomo dead, decided it should be until death. My second mistake.

Eventually, midnight arrives. I am prepared. And the Otomo, being a courtier, and short, chose a champion: a rather large and intimidating Seppun.

I apologize to the Seppun for being about to kill him, seeing as my quarrel is not with him, but the man he is championing. Of course, the duel starts with an initiative roll.

I'm roughly 8 points behind in that roll.

The rolls end up in a kharmic strike for the first strike with no hits, but being unto death, it evolves quickly into a skirmish. Then, even though i do manage to wound the Seppun, he first wounds me so that i'm Hurt, then uses a feint in full attack stance to finish me off. And that was the end of last session.

If you got any questions, feel free to ask.

>weebshit

Moral of the story is, never EVER take the Brash disadvantage. Even if you're playing a brash character, don't do it.

L5R is Nippon: the game... and you'll STILL find more weebshit in pathfinder than here.

Honestly, I thought it gave my character both good development, and a fitting death.

He was slowly but surely turning into essentially lawful evil, with a very generous helping of "muh honor", almost considering every breach of the law tantamount to treason and thus summary execution without a trial. Had he finished his training as Emerald Magistrate, he would've probably ended up with failure of bushido: compassion the way he was ending up.

On the one hand, it would've been nice to see how far i could've taken this character, on the other, I'm glad he was stopped before he became a BBEG.

Fortunately, I gave him a younger brother that the ST will allow me to play in the next campaign, in case I don't want to continue with whoever i'm rolling up right now

Shouldn't a karmic strike have judges immediately intervening to end the duel? That stuff is the will of the Heavens made manifest.

See, the first mistake made was allowing the Spider Clan.

Actually no, the spider mentioned was, IMO, the best handled spider I've seen.

Real mistake was continuing the duel after the kharmic strike.

I'm pretty sure a duel to the death doesn't care about Kharmic Strikes.

Good post.
Helps me resolve the problem of this favourite of my players that I hate.

Kakita and Hojatsu beg to differ.

I'm always disappointed when Badger aren't quite as Badger as WotMC Badger.

I don't think they do, actually.

That haiku is wonky as fuck though, 7-7-8, with no seasonal themes? Shamefur dispray

I cannot get over how Hida Iroh player keeps saying "Diyamo" instead of Daimyo.

Who here /seven samurai/?

The whole thing was wonky AF. The Crab was incapable of not putting out regular jabs, and thought that was polite.

Then to sit down, covered in blood, and continue like it was nothing? Unclean AF.

the entire basis for the ongoing feud between Mirumoto School and Kakita School is that although Kakita 'won', the duel he was A) Fighting Hojatsu, rather than the M-Daddy himself, and B) that it was a kharmic strike- but Kakita happened to survive long enough to have to finish Hojatsu's strike himself.
So maybe dodge the thrust of my argument, because sure they can't differe, because they are dead, but their example still stands.

tl;dr
Kakita family can never be confirmed as 'best duellists' because their highest master was equal to Mirumoto's second highest master. Because of a kharmic strike.

also, I'm going to use this as a call-out to my favourite abandoned piece of lore in L5R.
The blood-Kakita (those descended from the progenitor of the name) have never- ever- produced a shugenja.
Not one.
What the fuck did he do?
Source is Secrets of the Crane, 1e.

It's obvious that he pissed the elemental kami off somehow. My guess is that the only reason they're not actively cursed by the kami is that Doji herself intervened on Kakita's behalf.