Legend of the Five Rings

>Breaking off an arranged marriage
I hope he likes her family being mad forever.

Also is Bron-Do a Brando joke?

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Anyone willing to explain, what the more important rings for bushi, shugenja and courtier are? Or should I just go with the rings their skills are used with? Dumb question I know, but I can´t really wrap my head around that.

And since reading Imperial Histories on the Togashi Dynasty I´ve been trying to come up with an animal for Ryoshun. Is there an canon example for an animal anywhere?

It isn't just rings, its the traits. Bushi need agility for melee or reflexes for shooting, and Earth as a ring for not dying.

Courtiers run on Awareness, but also benefit from Perception and Willpower depending on your skill make up. Int based courtiers are also a thing but I've yet to see one played effectively.

And shugenja should always have their primary elemental ring for their school high, but then do secondary rings in whatever since spell versatility is good. You get spell slots based on your rings so if you don't know ANY water spells but have water 3 you just are wasting that.

Bushi can use any physical trait, but especially Agility and Reflexes. Both Earth ring traits are important to boost your ability to not die and resist diseases and mind effects.
Courtiers need Awareness above all else, but also need Willpower and Intelligence to resist other courtiers and not look like a tard. Raising Reflexes also helps them stay alive in a fight, which makes the Air ring most important.
Shuggies need whatever ring is attached to their primary spells and then whatever ring is attached to their second best spells. Everyone can use Void, but it actually translates to more spells per day for shuggies.
Speaking of Void, getting it to 3 is what brings you above the 20tn threshold to consistently regain Void Points from meditating or tea ceremonying, which exponentially increases the number of VPs you have per day as long as you can get a half hour of peace and quiet.

Courtiers will want a strong Air Ring (Primarily Awareness) with a side of Fire and/or Earth (For Intelligence and Willpower respectively). Most instances of social interaction will require awareness, but the others do occasionally come up. Perception is probably the least useful mental trait for a courtier, unless you are dealing with the Scorpion. Coutiers have little use for any of the physical traits unless things have gone very wrong.

Bushi vary wildly, and your investments may change based on what sort of bushi you are playing. For you standard bushi you want to invest in Agility, Reflexes, and Earth. At the least a Bushi character should probably have an Earth Ring of 3, as Earth 3 grants you 50% more Wounds than someone with Earth 2, and often allows you to stay in combat for more than a single round. It's also generally agreed that a high Reflexes keeps you in the game longer, since you are harder to hit. As a duelist you want a high Air Ring and a high Void, since you utilize both Awareness and Reflexes. As a yojimbo or strategist or magistrate etc you probably want to invest in Perception in addition to your standard bushi traits (Earth, Agility, and Reflexes)

Shugenja are special - The Rings you want to invest in depend entirely on what element you are focusing on. To further this situation, Shugenja utilize skills significantly less to perform their duty, giving you free reign to focus almost entirely on Rings. An Air Shugenja wants Air, an Earth Shugenja wants Earth, etc.

It should also be noted that Intimidation is actually errata'd to be linked to Willpower, not Awareness by default. So the rare Earth Courtier is actually somewhat more viable, if likely dishonorabru as all get out.

Let's run through all of the Rings and Traits.

Earth - Increases your Wounds. Invaluable to anyone who wants to not die.
Stamina - It rarely comes up on it's own and does not govern any skills. Its usefulness varies wildly. It may come up for things like long term physical exertion or resisting poison and status, though these are just as often resisted by an Earth roll.
Willpower - According to the errata it governs Intimidation. Outside of skills, it is used to resist torture and mind effects, which come up more often than you might like.

Air - You get to add it to your TN in defense stance. The ring's traits are some of the most useful.
Awareness - Used for almost all social things. It's also used for all art stuff and sometimes investigation rolls related to social things. It can be useful for anybody, and helps in a duel.
Reflexes - Governs shooting and evasion, making it a single Trait powerhouse for any warrior. It has a heavy impact on dueling and governs iaijutsu strikes, allowing you to potentially make melee attacks, shoot, and dodge with the same Trait.

Fire - Does it even do anything?.
Agility - This is the trait that governs almost all attacks. It has the added bonus of stealth and sleight of hand which are often ridiculously useful.
Intelligence - This one depends on your GM. It governs Lore, most Craft skills, and Medicine. It's usefulness depends entirely on how useful these skills are in your game.

Water- Governs how far you can move.
Strength - Athletics and melee damage. Athletics is okay but when you need it you need it. If you are investing for damage, going beyond 3 Ranks is rarely worth it.
Perception - When you need it you REALLY need it. It is mostly just used for investigation, which you will use constantly.

Void - Lets you do anything better. Void 3 is a great investment, but the cost and ability to restore void points makes investing more dubious.

No, Fire as a ring does not do anything because Agility and Intelligence are both really strong traits.

>Fire - Does it even do anything?.
If you're a shugenja, sure!

The Badger Clan are the ones who guard his tomb, so I've always associated him with them

The Badger clan is a myth.

They pay their taxes every year!

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>Also is Bron-Do a Brando joke
If you meant Brawndo, then yes

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The Bran Dao, the way of Brando!

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Question for all you anons: Have any of you used the alternate timelines/events from the imperial history books? If so how did it go and what happened.

That's a pretty good summary. The only addition I'd add are a small explanation of Honor, Glory, and Status.

Status - Social Rank. A higher status character is able to ignore many social combat effects from a lower status one, but he is not outright immune to lower status characters.

Glory/Infamy - Fame. How recognized a character is. Often goes hand in hand with Status, but not always. For instance the Emperor without his retinue is generally a fairly low glory character.

Honor - L5R's version of Alignment. Unlike D&D's alignment it is on a sliding scale and easily rises and falls. In addition it helps provide resistance to mental effects and under a commonly used optional rule be used to Re-Roll failures.

Slightly. I've taken cues from some stuff in there, but my present game is set 100 years after the Destroyer War in a future that takes cues from how the next era began but was less dumb.

This is mostly because my last game was a bit meta about dealing with, during the Destroyer War, if the Empress's call at the end was right. In the end the PCs helped shape a similar but different future. I stole some shit from the Togashi Dynasty and Iron Rokugan, and it has worked out pretty well so far. Nobody has rioted at least.

Boar clan, anons.

>he is not outright immune to lower status characters
Kuge are outright immune to social efforts of buke, while higher status get to ignore lower status in all but exceptional situations, or if their equals/betters pay attention to the lower status samurai.

Ay, Veeky Forums, got a question.
I'm planning a campaign based on the City of Lies.
I have:
>Gambling Rings, legitimate and illegitimate
>Geisha Houses and their loose women
>Open and closed Opium trading
>Fire Gangs waging a secret war with a weakened Kolat
>Trading Fleets being slowly infiltrated by the Spider Clan
>Usurpation of power through clan, allegiance, and bloodline.

What else should I add?

I'm pretty conflicted on that because there are three of them tide at the first place.

First there's Scorpion because why not be edgy as hell, justifiy yourself with 'being the ennemy from within' and get filthy rich and powerful by being a total cunt ?

Second there's the Phoenix because the research for knowledge above all is a great theme for a character in my opinion (I personally mostly play Isawa, mostly just for the appeal of playing an ishiken-sen because fuck you)

And then there's the Unicorn, because they seem like rather nice people who explore a lot, like their horses and their aimins, honest and good workers... And also they have cool courtiers, I love the Ide school that lets you win in court by being overtly blunt about stuff.

>I love the Ide school that lets you win in court by being overtly blunt about stuff
Honesty and direct speech, but also good with social expectations and not giving offence.

Yeah that's what I meant

Oni. You should always add some Oni.

I played an Ide before, my version of social combat was beating my opponents to death with public acts of kindness. Making it known far and wide just how much I have sincerely helped them to the point that if they took action against me it would look like a dramatic betrayal the court would love to dive on them for.

It actually worked quite well honestly.

Death with a smile!

It is also important to mention that 'fantasy' in the 'fantasy samurai' stands for 'historically inaccurate' and not 'preternatural badass'. You can get supernatural stuff, but those come from the setting and not from being a samurai.

Don't expect epic shit like soloing an oni, shrugging off maho with pure willpower, or cutting through hundreds of ashigaru with ease (be warned, the third or fourth ashigaru will fuck you good). You are really just a mundane dude with some extra training and a pretty good sword.

Love it

>You can get supernatural stuff, but those come from the setting and not from being a samurai.
I mean, that's arguable. As a samurai, you have a strong chance of being descended from a god, along with having an intrinsically higher position in the sacred Celestial Order. And humans are inherently supernatural in Rokugan-- that's what Void use is, basically. And then samurai like Togashi ise zumi or any shugenja are also magical from the get-go.

You're tight that it doesn't amount to Naruto-tier feats of nonsense, though.

>As a samurai, you have a strong chance of being descended from a god, along with having an intrinsically higher position in the sacred Celestial Order.

Neither of these things are exclusive for the samurai. You can be commoner-born and be a descendant of a god (like the celestial Dragon's daughter), and snatch a higher position in the Celestial Order despite being a dirty peasant (Toku anyone?). Same goes for Void-usage and monks/shugenja too. These are setting-specific deals and not samurai-specific. The only samurai-specific supernatural thing I can think about is ancestor guidance.

And personally, I miss supernatural feats that would clearly put samurai above the common cut. A samurai (regardless of profession!) should be an unavoidable game changer in every situation, not just a glorified commoner with a technique or two duck-taped on him for good measure.

Toku-likes, newly discovered shugenja, and undiscovered divine children pose kind of a chicken-egg problem, in that the reason they get to advance is stated to be that they were always samurai, and no one knew about it until now-- and metaphysically, that may actually be true and not just sophistry.

Monks are definitely a weird edge case, I grant you, but my argument wasn't "there's magical stuff only being a samurai can get you", it was that simply being a samurai can in fact get you magical stuff.

The Dragon are best because they understand honor in addition to having it. Other clans scream at each other for being dishonorable, but the Dragon know that the way of the Crane is not the way of the Scorpion. Why, then, should Crane honor and Scorpion honor be the same? To each clan falls a task, and that service determines the details of that clan's honor.

Of course, the others are too unenlightened to realize that they must study all types of honor to understand honor as a whole. And that comprehension is Dragon honor.

Yeah, samurai can get you magical stuff, but you won't get it because you are samurai but because magical stuff exists in the setting and you can just waltz in and pick it up for use (just like pretty much anyone else).

>tips kabuto

Played the Iron Rokugan setting, it was dope but quite counter-productive because of the shitty firearm rules. Instead of having samurai drama with progressiveness beating tradition we had our Kaiu Engineer hitting Glory 9+ and everyone else being maximum comfy because they had actual meaningful contributions to society instead of starting pointless blood feuds over petty matters 24/7.

The other game was in the Shadowed Throne setting, searching for Iuchiban's hearth with based Toku. The party also participated in the Battle of Toshi Ranbo. It was overall a pretty boring campaign because the setting is kinda bleak.

>You're tight that it doesn't amount to Naruto-tier feats of nonsense, though.

I mean a rank 5 mirumoto can kill like four people a turn and high ranking shugenja can literally summon hurricanes. So it can get its own special brand of violently absurd.

Oh and let's not forget the Kakita artisans in 1e and the Master Artisans where that tech got shoved in this edition, even if they put in some common sense power limits in it in 4e

I'm hopefully getting my first campaign soon (3E since the GM prefers the cinematic action possible with the 3E schools).
Since the GM prefers social/political games, I'm not all that worried about combat that much, but I want a quick check on the background.
Kitsuki family, Mirumoto school. She was training to be a yojimbo for her twin brother who was going to be a Magistrate. Along the way, she also got betrothed to someone she really liked (no idea on their clan yet, but I'm thinking Scorpion) and ended up pregnant before the wedding. On their way to a meeting between the two family daimyo, they (PC, brother, betrothed) traveled with a Miya Herald, and got ambushed by a Lion her betrothed had ticked off during some court event. A pair of vicious duels (and her own duels against some hired ronin brought along to prevent her from being champion for the others), and her betrothed is dead and her brother crippled. And the Miya did nothing (huh, he's kind of a coward).
So now the Miya family Daimyo gets involved, with a message from the Lion that their precious boy was never there, it was just some ronin pretending to be him, and the cowardly Miya Herald gets ordered to marry her as penance.
Current Day, she has been ordered with some excuse that requires her to go adventuring, with her child left at home with a step-dad that can't bear to look at him, and an oath to take down that damn Lion. And oh yes, she's been getting prophetic dreams and did I mention that she's really short?
Yes, everything is represented by advantages/disadvantages.
One of the things that I'm wondering is this: Imperial Spouse says that the spouse joins your clan. But in this case, would it make sense for the Miya family daimyo to offer a place to her in his family instead?

I was thinking this for

or this

So if you were going to be the only player in a campaign where shit would be all story and rp intense and about you, what kind of stuff would you like to explore in rokugan?

A group of ronin trying to conquer gaijin areas for the Empire. Includes an eventual Iron Empire era as they adapt enemy weapon tech for their own.

A clan samurai marrying an imperial joins the imperial family instead, unless through their own exploits they have somehow risen to have a higher status than their spouse-- for a starting character, that's pretty much impossible.

As for backstory, the Kitsuki are the Dragon family most involved with keeping an eye on the Scorpion, and historically there's a fair bit of bad blood between them based on Kitsuki penetrating or being victimized by (typically to prevent them from penetrating) Scorpion plots. Obviously not every Scorpion is a schemer, and not every Scorpion schemer is malicious, but it's still an odd situation, and you should flesh out the backstory on your betrothal-- why did your families arrange this particular marriage? It's not out-there enough that you would have to justify it to be allowed to play at the average table, but it is absolutely fertile ground for something interesting to have happened, and interesting things in your backstory are a good foundation for roleplay and a gift to your GM.

Fight-wise, samurai getting attacked by bandits on the road are under zero obligation to duel the bandits, and that's exactly what this Lion would be making himself by leading a bunch of ronin to attack travelling samurai, let alone samurai travelling with an Imperial. This would be a skirmish more than anything, and if the Lion survived, he would be a wanted criminal. The Lion as a clan could claim that he was not in fact there, but as an Imperial, the Miya's testimony would take precedence, especially if he kicked it up the chain and his superiors got involved.

The only Mr. Lion might not make himself a criminal by attacking is if he had a pre-existing blood feud with the scorpion, but both families involved have to get their daimyo's permission or that's illegal too, and you would have to have a doozy of an inciting incident.

>, I'm not all that worried about combat that much
>still playing a Mirumoto
The rape train has no breaks user, remember that. Praise niten

I've only ever played the 4e version, just how ridiculous do Mirumoto get in 3e?

Either court drama with a courtier of any clan or a Scorpion infiltrator if I was in the mood for tactical espionage action and intrigue.

Thanks for the pointer on the imperial family situation - so she would now be Miya Sakura instead of Kitsuki Sakura (still need to create the lineage name, which is what we're using to distinguish bloodlines in the families).
As for the Scorpion marriage... My first thought is there was a childhood incident at a winter court (the books never mention children, but I think a courtier taking their partner and kids along to winter court for exposure to politics happens a lot) where she discovered that he couldn't lie. Or had a hard time doing so. There was probably youthful idealism and him turning himself into his clan rep for not being able to lie (imagine a scorpion kid saying "I can't lie! What use does the scorpion have for me?" and tell me that the Scorpion doesn't need somebody like that for their twisty plans), and then it blossoms into love and marriage arrangements (there might have been a Crane involved. A short Kitsuki growing into a dangerous beauty marrying a scorpion? Who can't lie? Perfect. Beautiful. I must write poetry about it).

AS for the Lion, he probably either used some very dishonorable information on some very dishonorable actions committed by some very honorable people to get away with it, or he went Ronin. Or something. I might have to change it around a bit (A Lion moonlighting as a Ronin to take down dishonorable people like any Scorpion he sees? Maybe.)

I feel the need to make this Lion an HONOROBURU mass-murdering Edgelord.

>Lion an HONOROBURU mass-murdering Edgelord.
>HONOROBURU mass-murdering Edgelord.

Glib reply of a pillow book writer, I thought that was what all lions were

Remove Spider.

They get a second attack at rank 2, at rank 4 if they kill a target they get an extra attack (no limit on number of attacks if you keep making kills), and at rank 5 they get a third attack. With the ridiculous bonuses available 3e each one of those attacks will have the Extra Attack Maneuver tacked on so a minimum of 6 attacks/round. That is an out of the box Mirumoto Bushi, they also had a handful of silly as fuck paths like the Crazy Mirumoto Mountaineer (Rank 3) that let's you dodge attacks.

We used to call Mirumoto Bushi, Cuisinarts for a reason.

All that pales before the outrageous power of Lord One-Shot the Ronin Duelist.

They're essentially the most broken school of that edition, in your favor. I've heard some people argue it got nerfed too hard in the 4e shift and suggest it is the worst school out of the core book bushi selections, but I think those people are faggots. Its still pretty strong and able to pump out attacks, the problem is it does shit for you as a duelist now compared to the Kakita who are all about that shiznit.

Actual worst school in the 4e core for the GC is the Bayushi, due to some poor flat value effects you get and a trivially beaten higher rank status inflictor. Everyone else is pretty fine, desu fampai

But even a Mirumoto 3e Bushi pales before a 1E Kakita Artisan.

Even Fu leng himself pales before a 1E kakita artisan

Well yes, there's no way to beat immortal gods who can travel in roving bands to summon gods and Emperors to command your death while the jesters destroy your honor score with their japes and jibes.

Something like in one of my previous games: hunting down a big conspiracy by violently ousting every participating lord, one-by-one, until the conspiracy is reduced to nothing. All this while being a member of a party that is strained by character differences. So lots of violence (both armies gutting each other on the battlefield and quiet face-offs/battles of will) and badassry themed around infighting.

>(still need to create the lineage name, which is what we're using to distinguish bloodlines in the families).
Vassal families are a thing, and the format for that would be Miya Sakura no (or kara? I forget which is right) [INSERT NAME HERE] when you're talking to people outside the Family/Clan and [INSERT NAME] Sakura to other Miya. Canonically there's not a lot of vassal families but I think a perfectly reasonable home modification is saying there's a fuck ton but nobody outside of the big Family really gives much of a shit unless you're into genealogy.

>A clan samurai marrying an imperial joins the imperial family instead, unless through their own exploits they have somehow risen to have a higher status than their spouse-- for a starting character, that's pretty much impossible.

Technically true, but that doesn't mean you'll be allowed the imperial name. More common will be that you're marrying a disgraced imperial, who will be low status enough to take your name.

It's kinda snowflake-y, purely by how many exceptions to the norm you're stuffing in there.

Being that Lord One-Shot hits his stride at Rank 2 even the 1e Kakita Artisan gets smoked by virtue of needing to be rank 3 before the Artisan begins his summoning shenanigans.

I think he's looking for a distinguishing name for a particular lineage of a Family, rather than a vassal family thing. Vassal families are basically to Families as Families are to Clans; each vassal family has its own distinct duty it performs in service to the larger Family, and maintains its own structure in the same part-of-but-separate deal Familes have going on with their Clan. Like, the Raikuto vassal family serve the Hiruma and are allowed to carry the Hiruma name, but are not fully Hiruma themselves, whereas among full Hiruma, the lineage of Hiruma X is distinct from the lineage Hiruma Y even though they share a common ancestor, and both are distinct from and not even related to the lineage of Hiruma Z, who are descended from some other samurai to swear fealty to Hiruma himself forever ago. None of these lines are members of a vassal family, but should still be distinguishable in some way.

>I've heard some people argue it got nerfed too hard in the 4e shift and suggest it is the worst school out of the core book bushi selections, but I think those people are faggots.
It can't be the worst school, as that place is occupied by the Suzume. Did get nerfed harder than necessary, though. The ATN bonus is shit at every rank, and dual wielding is an action penalty disguised as a bonus.

>Actual worst school in the 4e core for the GC is the Bayushi, due to some poor flat value effects you get and a trivially beaten higher rank status inflictor.
Bayushi get some decent paths, including the second best luck technique behind the tattooed orders.

doesn't speak much of optimization but my favorite character was probably a 4e bayushi bushi. Shit was pretty batman cash.

>I think he's looking for a distinguishing name for a particular lineage of a Family
Use their retained farmlands or ancestral village/city/province.

>and metaphysically, that may actually be true and not just sophistry.
Directly because the Emperor has pope-like powers and can change destiny and the heavens by simply declaring it. Things that were once inherently wrong and immoral (Like cremation) become the only right way to do things when an Emperor says so. Entire new deity equivalent beings literally pop up overnight because the Emperor declared a recently dead person to be a Fortune.

Per the Imperial Spouse advantage in 4e core, "...your family has arranged for you to be married to a minor member of an Imperial family. Your spouse was not of high enough rank to warrant taking an Imperial name, but there are benefits all the same. You gain +0.5 Status...".

Starting characters have Status 1, which becomes 1.5 on taking the advantage. The status table list the average Imperial samurai as Status 3, which is still pretty low, all things considered-- it's below a revered sensei or the very lowest clan magistrate, for example.

The lower status spouse always transfers fealty to the family of the higher status spouse, so even with the boost, the average pairing will have the clan samurai moving over to the Imperial family.

While a demotion or two might put the spouses on parity or tip the clan samurai over higher than the Imperial one, the fact that the marriage comes from an advantage suggests that the Imperial spouse is not so disgraced as to be embarassing, and the fact that the marriage itself provides status to the clan spouse suggests that the Imperial spouse is still of a higher status rank than their clan partner.

I suspect what happens is that the clan samurai spouse swears fealty to their new Imperial spouse's family, and then just keeps their original name.

Are all Kakita Bushi graduates of the school in Kakita dueling academy? Seems like the academy doesn't have that many students. Presumably there are smaller dojos that churn out similarly iajutsu focused students around the clans lands?

You have the gist of it. There are many Dojos in Crane lands that teach the Kakita Bushi school, but there is only one Kakita Dueling Academy and it is a fairly exclusive school.

That makes sense. Thank you user. Also correct to assume that most Imperial heirs are trained at the Kakita dueling academy?

There are many dojo that teach the school. The academy itself is the most prestigious of the lot (Similar to the Hida or Akodo war colleges) but the school itself is not exclusive to that particular dojo/campus.

The emperor's firstborn traditionally is, but any further kids tend to go straight to the Otomo Bureaucrat school or somewhere else based on high level politics and favors, and the tradition is not binding law or anything like that.

Yeah, most are. Though not all of them. Naseru for instance never trained as a bushi. In 3e he's stated as a Bayushi Courtier 3/ Otomo Courtier 1/Naseru's Snowflake Path 1

Man, must kinda suck being a Kakita duelist and imperial heir, knowing no one would ever dare duel with you, because that would be dishonorabru. There's a good story in there about one of them sneaking away on a Musha shugyo. Bit like like the dunk and egg short stories from ASOIAF.
>naseru snowflake path

So has it ever happened that an imperial heir was a shugenja? Where would s/he be trained?

Yes, and all things considered, marrying a disgraced imperial would be an incredibly rare situation - second only to being considered worthy of marrying into an imperial family as a status 1 scrub samurai.

>So has it ever happened that an imperial heir was a shugenja?
Nope. It's actually something of a plot point (Or it would be if there was a plot related to it) that no Hantei has ever, ever manifested the ability to speak to the small Kami.
But if they were, they'd probably train with the Seppun, who are considered the most pious and traditional of all shugenja families, or the Isawa, who are the "best" shugenja with the strongest understanding of metaphysics. Depends how much ass kissing the Phoenix can do, I suppose.

The Hantei line has explicitly never had a shugenja. That's actually the origin story for the Salamander Minor Clan; the guy who will become the founder is at a spellcraft contest, loses to his future wife, and makes a comment about the Emperor being able to do better-- and the Emperor, who is watching, goes " No Hantei has ever been a shugenja in a thousand years," and Salamder promises to dedicate his life to finding out why.

And then the Toturi and Iweko dynasties have been too short to see if the trend continues.

Sezaru trained at the Isawa Tensai School. Now that I think about none of Toturi's little chucklefucks trained at the Kakita School. Tsudao and Kaneka were Akodo Bushi.

Fascinating. And do we know what the implication is that there have been no shugenja hantei emperors? In a timeline where they are around, would it have any unusual theological significance, or otherwise?
>thanks for answering all my dumb questions anons

>In a timeline where they are around, would it have any unusual theological significance, or otherwise?
that is, significance if there was a shugenja heir born

The shugenja gift can vanish from a bloodline; Agasha Kitsuki was a shugenja of the Agasha line, but he neglected his magic and focused on other pursuits so hard that his descendants stopped being a shugenja family. I suspect that if Hantei ever had the gift, his own focus on being the first and best Emperor he could be withered it down to nothing.

>The shugenja gift can vanish from a bloodline
Unless you're talking ic, it's more accurate to say the kami are fickle and will stop paying attention to you if you stop doing the things they like.

>And then the Toturi and Iweko dynasties have been too short to see if the trend continues.
Well Toturi Sezaru was one of the most powerful shugenja of his age but also a total crazy person, so maybe it is for a good reason the Imperial line doesn't produce many/any.

> It's kinda snowflake-y
I did tried to tone it down (since my last couple of RPs were with people who told me that I needed to make snowflakey OP characters with lots of drama attached). I'm still figuring out the details, and a lot of the implications change depending on which details I use. But the basic structure is there:
>Twins where one has a dream and the other swears to defend them
>low enough in the birth order to not have to marry for politics
>gets engaged to someone she loves
>gets pregnant before the wedding
>ambush where beloved dies and imperial bystander does nothing
>bystanders Imperial family forces him or a relative to marry her to make up for the honor loss
>adventure time begins

I am looking for Lineage VS Vassal name. I remember reading a discussion of this on the AEG forums a few years ago, and I think the distinguishing factor was vassals used NO between the names and lineages used KARA. What was interesting was when the vassals had vassals. Oh, and the lineage name could be
>Ancestor that swore fealty
>a place the lineage holds
>your own name if your lord gives you permission to create a new lineage within the family.
So her name would be Miya kara [lineage] Sakura, and the deciding factor is if she takes her husbands, or if the daimyo makes her lineage more important than the husbands.
>Random name example: Miya kara Yukimura Sakura
If she married a vassal family, say Satoshi, she would be
>Miya no Statoshi kara Yukimura Sakura

We're playing 3e, which only gives GM arbitrated suggestions for Imperial Spouse.

Things I didn't notice until after this post: the Kitsuki have a vassal family named Sakura. Who get Forbidden Knowledge (Lying Darkness) and Heartless.
Which I am not going for.

Given how Sakura is the most common name for baby girls in the setting, don't worry about it. People will know the difference.

So I'm trying to figure out this Rokugani evidence thing.

So if there's something that superficially would indict someone (such as the presence of a personal piece of clothing at a crime scene), and a ranking samurai corroborates that evidence with his word, it's trusted?

And similarly, even if one samurai claims it's true evidence, but a higher ranking samurai says it isn't, then the higher ranked samurai's word is taken?

And in cases without evidence, it's a comparison of merely their respective words?

With the only system-breaker being a duel to show who the Kami truly favor?

>So if there's something that superficially would indict someone (such as the presence of a personal piece of clothing at a crime scene), and a ranking samurai corroborates that evidence with his word, it's trusted?
This is the only sort of evidence that will beat word. Like if you find someone's personal katana stained in blood at a crime scene. Also obvious enough to get in: Finding a piece of clothing that is clearly enough to indict someone from a clan but not necessarily someone specifically.

Anything fancier than that is basically bullshit and unusable unless you sell it hard to the daimyo

How does one make a shungeja's spell casting.... Interesting?
Right the person has no real power other than being able to see/speak Kami and politely request their aid.