Legend of the Five Rings General: Roll to Coup

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I can't say how happy I am that the Unicorn are actually the focus of a story event that isn't MONGOL KILL BURN or Kolat stuff

Yeah I actually like that a lot. I fully expect this is going to blow up in their faces, but still

I really liked how the Suppun brought up the fact that Crane have been doing something similar since forever, binding the two together in the upcoming conflict

As a 'Corn player I am pissed that the story choice is...

1. Declare all your Shugenja heretics

2. Give away your Shugenja's secret technique

It looks like it is Lose/Lose for me. I hope we get declared heretic, team up with the Dragon (who are also dealing with Phoenix heresy bullshit) and Crane (who are doing the same shit and might get caught in it), and the shit all over the Fire Chickens until the get desperate and reach into the Maho cookie jar again (which, going by past behaviors should be about 15 seconds after they start losing a battle). Then we get to say, "No, Isawa you are the heretics" and Isawa Tomo is a maho-tsukai.

The Phoenix motto should be
>I'll do my best... not to get caught
for how often they're secretly up to maho.

What sorts of things could I use a raise on an artisan or performance for? I get a free one but I'm not sure what I would be trying to accomplish with that.

There isn't really any specific mechanical for Free Raises, but it at base you can use it to make your art better. If there's something unusual you want to do with your art, like include a secret compartment in a statue, or encode a message into a biwa tune, you ask your gm how many raises it takes, and they tell you-- and you get one for free, meaning it doesn't count against your normal limit or actually affect your TN.

Or if your game uses a sliding scale for that kind of roll, instead of the set-TN-and-Raises style, then it's just a +5 to the roll, and your art will be simply numerically better.

What clan are you from? What's your backstory? What do you know about the game you will be/are currently playing?

Anyway, the answer is always bonsai.

My mistake, kakita artisans get a free raise on sadane, but their raises in their chosen art isn't limited by void which raises mostly the same question. I'm thinking I'm going with storytelling as my main art since I have several good stories I can tell rather than just vaguely describing a painting or a song.

I love that the HORSE has a Scorpion ClN mask.

Horse samurai are clearly a thing

>that isn't MONGOL KILL BURN or Kolat stuff
To be fair, they kinda didn't get into either of those right off the starting line, and Nu5R has pushed back to where Old5R started.

So why would they be focusing on either of those?

It's like being happy how the Mantis aren't busy building a katamari ball out of every minor clan they can find.

>building a katamari ball out of every minor clan
Thanks for the chuckle. That mental image will keep me amused for a long time.

Come to think of it, did any Minor clan get mentioned at this point beyond the Mantis?

You mean.... Only when it was building up to the return of Fu Leng?

Isawa Akuma disagrees....

Right but in that instance he was just one man doing some maho and studying oni.
Every clan has their traitors, but I will never understand why the common trope is that the Phoenix practice maho.

The Mantis weren't even mentioned by name. Yoritomo was mentioned (in thought bubbles) to be leading a band of pirates by the Crane champion. Whether this is an internalized slight, if Hotaru is simply not aware the Mantis is a minor clan, or if the Mantis is not a minor clan is not known.

>Every clan has their traitors, but I will never understand why the common trope is that the Phoenix practice maho.
It's probably a CCG thing. Common or powerful decks did a lot to cement the stereotypes.

I felt that way at first too, but the story seemed to be implying they would just share it with the Hidden Guard. Those guys really should know how any form of magic in the Empire works.

I'm completely against other clans using meishodo since it takes something unique away from the Unicorn, but I wouldn't be opposed to a couple of Imperial shugenja cards that reference it.

Try your best to ignore the old fans with their shitty humor stuck in the late 90s. All they do is bring up how shit AEG was at writing and use it to attack other fans.

I don't remember them even mentioning the concept of Minor Clans yet. They may not even exist for all I know.

The Hidden Guard almost certainly *cannot* perform meishodo. When it was first developed, learning it precluded you from becoming a normal shugenja, and becoming a normal shugenja precluded you from being able to wield meishodo. It wasn't until the emergence of the Horiuchi much later that they were able to overcome the disconnect and practice both.

The Horiuchi were founded just before the Coup, so even if they exist yet, which they might not, they haven't had enough time make those developments.

Doesn't the unicorn clan's unique magical talent cut them off from the kami of Rokugan?
Like you either practice one or the other, but not both.

I can understand why the standard shugenja would call it heresy.

The Unicorn must adapt to Rokugan as Rokugan must also adapt to the Unicorn.

Yeah, but they should still know how it works at least on an academic level. Hell, in the interests of protecting the emperor, they could have a small school to specifically train some kids in meishodo instead. I'd like to see how the Phoenix react if their warning backfires like that.

The Seppun don't have the scorpions Nothing magic, connection to the Void like the Isawa or the Kitsu ancestor stuff.
Why should they get the Unicorns?

Because it's a different class of magic entirely. It's like if everyone had Clerics, but the Unicorn had Warlocks.

They probably won't actually "get" it, but they will most likely get a scholastic understanding of how it works.
My guess is that the clans that vote to support the Unicorn will also get at least a vague idea of how it works so they can confirm that it's not heresy. It's unlikely that any of them will actually use the practice though.

This was in fact how the meishodo issue was settled originally, so it's a nice callback.

So im going to be in the tournament Thursday. Anybody else gonna be there? I can't quite decide who to play Veeky Forums.

Play the clan you like. Top of each clan gets prizes.

The Scorpion Coup wasn't decided by tournaments - it was the event that kicked off L5R to begin with. When the RPG first came out, it was set four years before the CCG timeline.

Actually the Coup was a prequel. The first arc was the Clan War/Imperial. All we knew at launch was that the Emperor had this hot concubine from a Scorpion Clan that betrayed his father.

We don't know if the Scorpion have their connection to the Lying Darkness in this timeline, do we? Or even if the Darkness is still a thing.

Oh, there you go then. The Coup was still a fixed storyline decision though, one that maybe won't play out at all this time.

Lion.
Seemed the least play them and so you get all the matsu waifu for yourself

Has the legend of Osano-Wo not taught you anything? Matsu waifus are never worth it.

No better waifu than Yogo. When she stabs you through the heart, there will be no doubt that she loved you and only you. The purest form of love.

By 1e Way Of The Lion, Lion women in general aren't worth it. Ikoma sometimes excepted.

Hey now, Hida (Formerly Matsu) Tsuneko was a great Matsu waifu. She even got to be acting Crab Champion after her husband died, and the Crab accepted her 100%.

Never forget

Old lore belongs in the 90s. Go away.

In all honesty for the LCG I'm split on playing either unicorn or lion. The main issue is the unicorn lore seems cool, but it just seems that card wise they have a whole lot going on that doesn't seem to do much while spending fate for it. I like lion for their lore too, and I like swarm decks, but I'm just worried with how to deal with politics since it's looking pretty necessary to take 3x let go and I can't take captive audience then

There is absolutely no reason to believe that the Matsu won't ruin everything this time around too.

There is a huge reason. That reason is AEG had no oversight on their writing team and therefor basically everything they did fucking sucked, and FFG does and therefor it wont. Go away.

Ah, so you think that FFG will completely whitewash them so they're just Akodo by another name. Sounds like shit to me. You go away.

I'm a newbie with L5R lore, I know the basics, but I don't really get the specifics, whats wrong with the Matsu? I know they are based on a matriarchy, and that their founder didn't agree to marry or join Akodo (and that she was slighted by a Crane because she was unbecoming as a warrior for lacking respect).

All the old lore is in limbo and nothing is canon until explicitly stated. Anything anyone tells you is apocrypha, written by John Wick and his ilk, and you should ignore them.

The Matsu are brash and bullheaded and absolutely convinced that they're better than everyone else.
When I say ruin everything, I'm saying it with a fondness. I love those stupid, brutish bitches.

But they will ruin everything, by jumping face first into conflicts when they really should have taken a step back and actually looked at the situation.

This isn't Disney's Star Wars. Until FFG actually touches on something, there's no reason to believe that it's any different than it used to be.

A sorta like in the new short story? Where the Matsu widow was really disrespectufl of her new Clan Champion?

Yep. Even in the new lore, local Matsu ruins everything.

What the fuck are you talking about? Theres a ton of shit that's entirely up in the air. The Unicorn not mentioning the shadowlands at all when it would have been extremely relevant to do so calls into question the nature of the shadowlands this time around, if the Dark Moto exist, and even if the taint functions the same. You're an idiot.

The Crab still being right where they were and doing exactly what they were doing proves that the Shadowlands are right where they were and doing exactly what they were doing. I'm not going to directly attack you though, because I'm a better person than that.

Tsuko is following in the steps of her old incarnation so far and taking it a bit further since in her eyes Toturi is now responsible for Arasou's death. She's going to do dumb shit.

The Darkness should still be a thing, it's very important after all.

Even if it is, I don't want it taking over the plot like it did in old L5R.

Does this have anything to do with the Spider Clan? Or does the Darkness just started going over the Clans conflicts?

It only took over the plot for that one arc.
The CCG model had a major problem where they needed recurring characters, but also needed a massive crisis for the game to abstract around every single set. So the world was ending once or twice a decade, every decade, starting with the clan wars.

The LCG model might very well have the same problem, what with the evergreen unique characters in the core set. They could just handwave it, or say that those cards being used in later eras represent similar characters or reincarnations, or just never move the timeline that far forward. We don't know yet.

No.
The Darkness has nothing to do with Jigoku or the taint. It's a primordial Thing that wants to undo the world, and was really active in trying a little while after the Clan Wars.

The Lying Darkness is one of many of the forces in the old lore that constitutes a setting-ending (if not world-ending) threat. It was related to the Spider Clan, who had the Goju ninja, who themselves were agents of The Lying Darkness. The Lying Darkness was a force that wanted to return all existence to nothingness.

You're talking from the perspective of looking back at an entire setting's lore laid out, rather than the organic process of revealing it actually went through. AEG didn't set down everything from the getgo, and FFG aren't going to, either.

>It was related to the Spider Clan, who had the Goju ninja
More like it had the Goju and Ninube, and working with the Spider just happened to align with what it wanted.

>bullshit nonsense "story" "prizes" that let the winner of a cardgame tournament decide whatever the fuck he wanted is organic
>having no concrete plans for the future and how to keep setting themes is organic
wew lads

Matsu Tsuko's path seems to be fucking things up this time too

They aren't letting them decide whatever the fuck they want, they're letting them delegate on an issue of FFG's choosing. Did you even bother to read up on it before you shitpost or are you too lazy?

read the context again. i was mocking AEG's method.

I think you are overestimating the necessity of let go.

You fucked up either way.

If Dragon voltron is as broken as it has been in testing, it seems pretty damn necessary.

why scorpion is the best faction and why not just play scorpion - why everybody plays scorpion ?

She's ruining this timeline too. She was the one that convinced Arasou to go get headshotted by the Firefly.

>And Dairu exists, so maybe this time around he really is Shoju's son or hers by some other romance.
How about this: he is still Hotaru's son, with Toturi.

Plot fucking twist

When everyone is Scorpion, nobody is.

Lots of abilities and fun events for a cost, but

Where's the Stats?!

That would be cool. I mean, not only we get two people fucking the same gal, but one of them killed the others brother.

Every Clan, much like the Shwartz, has an Upside and a Downside. The Upside of the Lion is they are masters of all forms of warfare, and their kami wrote the book on strategy. (though that gets complicated by several things)

The Downside of the Lion is that for all their adherence to Honor they sure do flip their shit a lot. Seriously. They flip out and make war over the dumbest shit. Now, in the old Lore Akodo had these both the upside and the downside, but his family eventually became the sterotype of the upside, while Matsu was always nothing but downside, and her family proudly follows in her stupid, stupid footsteps. Unfortunatly for everyone involved, the Matsu Bushi School produces some amazingly deadly bushi, so they Matsu aren't likely to realize the error of their ways anytime soon. So instead the Akodo plan AROUND the Matsu, using the Matsu as elite shock troops and Akodo as disciplend line troops. If everything goes well, anyway. Sometimes you get Akodo throwbacks like Arsehoru who get all wild and ragey.

>while Matsu was always nothing but downside, and her family proudly follows in her stupid, stupid footsteps
And still are doing so!

Sadly this is my meta - is this as bad everywhere ? Every person wants to be scorpion and most games are scorpion vs scorpion - most underepresented clans in my meta are lion and crane (and to extent unicorn - clan for homofags)

>Game unrealesed
>Meta

If I'm honest the Lion Clan remind me a bit of Dwarves from Warhammer Fantasy. All that honor, rage and grudges.

What did Matsu do that was so stupid?

I don't know what emotion that you're trying to express with that pig, user

He wishes for your oats, user.

Well, for starters the first Test of the Emerald Champion. She mocks and belittles every opponent she beats. Kakita bows to every opponent he beats. When they square off she gets pissy that he treats her the same way she treated everyone she beat.

Then there was this one time when the wisesest man in the Empire, wiser even then the demigods that ran it, turned to Ikoma to save the Empire from certain doom. At which point Matsu arogantly knocked Ikoma out and took his place. Even if, as some suggest, Matsu was always supposed to be the Lion Thunder, the fact that she was such a thorny bitch Shinsei had to get her to put on a play like that just to get her to go along speaks volumes about her character, and none of them are good.

How about her family's Gempuku ceremony?
Recite your lineage, your WHOLE lineage, from memory. While grown adults beat you with sticks. If you fall over, you fail. If you misspeak a name, you fail. If you pass out, you fail. If you make a sound that isn't an ancestors name, you fail. If you fail, you have to kill yourself.

is there a pdf trove for 4th? I'm trying to find Great Clans so I can read up on the Unicorn.

You should also look at the Way of the Unicorn book from 1e. Most of the material is the same, but there's more of it in WotU.

All that shit sounds dope. Matsu sounds like the samurai all samurai wish they could be.