Planewalking Gaijin in Rokugan

So, long story short, I only really know Rokugan from its appearance in D&D's Oriental Adventures and Rokugan Campaign Setting. But, one thing I took away is that Rokugan is rather... self-important? They think of themselves as the heights of civilization, the center of the multiverse, and so forth?

Well, I was curious: what would happen if a plane-travelling band of pretty high level adventurers would up in Rokugan? How does Rokugan react to this band of foreigners who inadvertently challenge their beliefs - and who are too strong to just brush aside?

They brush them aside, with an army if necessary. In the unlikely event that one or more of them manages to keep their head down enough to learn the culture and find someone willing to give them a chance, they could end up accepted as a Rokugani. It's more a culture than an ethnicity, but ethnicity is still important for appearances.

Also the D20 lore contradicts lore before and after itself and shouldn't be used.

And if those adventurers are too strong to be brushed aside?

The D&D Paradigm supports characters who are literally god-like. Defeating entire armies, levelling cities, reshaping continents. When entire armies disappear if you go after this one small band who display every intention of not being a problem if you leave them alone, are the Rokugani going to persist in poking the sleeping dragon in the privates?

>And if those adventurers are too strong to be brushed aside?
Rokugan has killed literal gods. They aren't too strong to brush aside. Entire armies disappearing means you send a bigger army with better supernatural support.

>Rokugan has killed literal gods.

Not easily, though, and besides it wouldn't necessarily come to a fight. I think OP was more thinking along the lines that some Crane or Crab or Phoenix or whatever city just has a spelljammer appear over it and a band of gaijin adventurers hop out looking to do what adventurers do: hit up the local tavern, the local whorehouse, and spend enough gold to shatter the local economy. They're not looking for a fight, but if anyone tries to give them one ("anyone" here defined as the town guard or something, it's doubtful the local lord would get personally involved) they can end them with minimal effort, or even prevent the fight altogether (Dominate Person, natch).

Then after a day or two of acclimating themselves they start asking around about the place and if there's any tombs to plunder or monsters that need killing.

They might be boorish and rude, but Rokugani expect gaijin to be boorish and rude, but any Rokugani lord with two brain cells to rub together will recognize that these particular gaijin represent a tremendous opportunity, for trade if nothing else, and so put up with them to an extent.

Correct, you get the prize, that's exactly what I had in mind. How are the two likely to interact, what sort of misunderstandings are likely to occur when there are, say, bladelings (who in one edition are "humans fused with sword spirits") or thri-kreen or dragonborn in the party, how badly do they scare the locals, can they make peace especially if they show up around the Wall and make their entrance by blowing up an attacking swarm of Shadowlands spawn, stuff like that.

>How does Rokugan react to this band of foreigners who inadvertently challenge their beliefs - and who are too strong to just brush aside?
They other them. The Paladin who punishes samurai for invoking "kirisute gomen," they portray as a barbarian with a completely backwards understanding of honor. The Fighter whose peerless skill comes from a purely non-spiritual martial tradition, they portray as an animal, an oni, a creature that only mimics humanity, so it's acceptable for your glorious Void technique to fail against it. The Wizard, who commands the elements, rather than bragaining with them as a meishodo does, they portray as a plunderer, an enslaver.
They cannot brush these champions aside, but they can ensure that virtually every Rokugani "understands" they have gotten their strength by cheating the system, that they are not something to be emulated, but scorned, or perhaps pitied. Anytime they try to effect positive change in Rokugani society they are met with heavy skepticism at the least, and opposition from the very people they try to help at the worst. Anyone who chooses to ally themselves with these foreigners will be constantly shamed and heaped with insults for their "betrayal."

>you get the prize

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.

From my understanding of Rokugan, the reaction depends largely on where thy appear. It can be presumed that most will react poorly to obviously inhuman creatures like thri-keen or dragonborn, however, regardless of their intent.

>Crab
If they make their appearance by destroying oni in the Shadowlands then they're going to be looked at relatively favorably. At the very least they'll be welcomed to do whatever they want on the far side of the Wall and be warned about the Shadowlands Taint, and even be given supplies if they pay for it. The Crab will not welcome them in their own cities, however.

>Crane
Flat rejection of the baka gaijin, unless one of them looks in any way decent with a sword, in which case they'll still be flatly rejected but at least one Crane will want to duel the baka gaijin. Becuase the Crane duel. It's what they do. It's ALL they do. It's a no-win situation: if the gaijin wins, he's branded a murderer; if he loses, he's dead.

>Dragon
Flatly rejected and told to go away, although dragonborn MAY get a buy thanks to dragonic appearance if they play up their draconic heritage and can prove it.

>Lion
Flat rejection of the gaijin but somewhat nicer and less haughty about it than the Crane. With the Crane you get active scorn and insults; from the Lions you just get told to go away and threatened with attack if you don't.

>Mantis
The Mantis will want to acquire that spelljammer at any cost. The gaijin are a secondary concern.

>Phoenix
Anyone who displays skill with magic will probably be branded as a maho-tsukai publicly. If captured, however, the mages will be brought to Phoenix shugenja and plundered for their knowledge.

>Scorpion
Local lord will appear friendly, but will actually hate the gaijin. Will direct the gaijin against one of their foes.

>Unicorn
Only clan who might interact with the gaijin in an outright favorable manner, depending on how much the Unicorn has traveled.

Sounds like a local lord looking to get executed. Gaijin are forbidden by imperial decree on pain of death. A big fat gaijin ship that resembles previously observed gaijin ships would be cause for alarm, not a strange curio. Hostility will be met with hostility. Magic will be met with magic. Jumping down in the middle of a town will cause widespread panic and an immediate military response.

Literally all of those are wrong, especially the ones about non-humans. Rokugan has had half-dragons itself, they look like humans. The Lions "flat rejection" would be in the form of a ballista bolt. The Crab would be similar unless they literally start their appearance by bombing an onion, and even then they might be branded as worse. The Crane won't duel someone who isn't a samurai, there's no honor in it.

Rokugan is incredibly xenophobic except for the Unicorn and certain Mantis, who will still have r to gauge their intentions and ability to adhere to rokugan tradition.

>onion
Oni.

Let's go down the list of some notable gaijin interactions in Rokugan history.
Early on, the Yobanjin, who are ethnically similar, but culturally opposed were allowed in as mercenaries sometimes, but it was seen as sketchy.
Then the not!europeans came, Rokugan allowed them to set up trade for a while until the differences in culture built up too much and they were kicked out. They killed the third most popular emperor to ever live in retaliation and thus all gaijin were banned forever on pain of death after that point. As this is an imperial decree, failing to follow it leads to actual spiritual damnation. Some of the survivors from that were secretly saved and integrated into the newly formed Tortoise Clan, and thus didn't count as foreigners after that point.
The Unicorn added a bunch of Gaijin into their ranks by supernaturally and metaphorically mixing blood with them to make them Rokugani and not technically foreigners. Their return caused a big stink and nearly got them wiped out because of their strange customs.
The Scorpion got exiled out to where the Unicorn had picked up their gaijin, brought back a few new customs but not much.
The Mantis allowed a small handful of worthy gaijin to join their ranks using the same loophole as the Unicorn.
After the destroyer war, where a bunch of tainted gaijin demons attacked, Rokugan set up a colony in their old country and sent the worst of the worst samurai there to pacify it. Relations with locals are strained at best.

>Early on, the Yobanjin, who are ethnically similar, but culturally opposed
So are the Yobanjin not!Ryuukyuuans?

They are made up of all the tribes that rejected the Kami when they fell to earth, and managed to survive the ensuing purge by heading up North beyond where the Kami decided to arbitrarily place their borders.

It depends on who and what they encounter during their stay and how those encounters go. Factions comprise of tens of thousands of different personalities with different beliefs and ambitions, you need to understand that they don't all think and act in the same way. "What" happens is more important than "where" it happens when your "where" comprises of literally an entire world.

Imperial decrees were made to be twisted to suit the needs of the daimyo bound to them. In theory, the power of the Emperor is absolute. In practice, it rarely extends far beyond the limits of Toshi Ranbo except during times of extreme crisis and major wars.

Which only matters if the gaijin actually keep their heads down and make an effort to fit in. Dropping in the middle of a city with trumpets blaring looking for whores to bang and tombs to raid (Of which there is exactly one in the entire nation because all bodies are cremated to avoid undead plagues, and it's basically the Tomb of Horrors) out of a ship that resembles the #2 most hated group in the nation leaves no choice for daimyo but a strong military response.

They could theoretically not be attacked by ever escalating force, but they cannot do it in standard adventurer fashion. Their best bet would literally be to fly away to the West or North and never come back to Rokugan. There's a whole world out there that probably won't use Kill On Sight rules of engagement.

Tell me about the one single tomb in all of Rokugan? I don't suppose it's where they inter the imperial family?

No, it's where they interred the necromancer who forced them to make the cremation law in the first place because he just won't die. The Kaiu's best trapmaker designed it, built it, burned the plans, and then walked inside, so absolutely no one knows what kind of things are really down there. There is no treasure, just that one asshole in the middle. If you get within range of him, he body hops into you with no saving throw, damning your soul to take his original place and then tries to body hop further afield to get out and retake control of his blood cult.

The spelljamer that the gaijin roll up in won't necessarily strongly resemble Thrane or Merenae vessels, at least no more so than Rokugani ships already do due to a need to follow certain basic nautical principles. The Shou Lung Empire in the Forgotten Realms even builds its own spelljammers that strongly resemble Rokugani ships (top pic).

To be honest, though, the most likely spelljammer to roll up to any given world are the ships of the Imperial Elven Armada, which don't look a thing like Thrane or Merenae ships (bottom pic)

Well, that ship is so fucking weird and elves are notably inhuman (But not so inhuman as to be considered monsters), that they might actually have half a chance if they come out elf first and not hostile. They might be considered some kind of weird spirit. Would have to deal with banishment attempts if they aren't quick on the cultural uptake though.

>Would have to deal with banishment attempts if they aren't quick on the cultural uptake though.

That's...not how contact with the Imperial Elven Armada goes.

"Open the country. Stop having it be closed."

Aaaaand then they get attacked with blade and magic. Rokugan has dealt with that before.

Rokugan is basically Fantasy Japan, and this guy is suggesting a scenario where they have to confront Fantasy Admiral Perry.

Similarly related question. In the unlikely event foreign powers start to get extremely powerful, is Rokugan going to go the China Route and continue to stagnate until foreign powers end up strangling them, or will they go the Japan route and attempt to adopt "foreign ways, Japanese spirit"?

Yeah, they dealt with that before. They won.

They'd more likely go China and have a very good chance of winning due to having strong divine support. There is an alt setting where they decided to get their own guns instead of banning them for being abominations against the divine, but even there they didn't "westernize" (Although it would be easternize in this case), they took it in their own direction without importing anything except for the earliest examples to reverse engineer.

Rokugan really isn't a low powered setting when they pull out all the stops. They've killed gods and primordial forces back to back to back.

Just for the sake of clarity - Rokugan has dealt with extraplanetary invaders representing an empire that spans across hundreds of star systems that has absolute, uncontested space superiority over them before?

Actually in truth Imperial Elves tend to try and limit contact between the inhabitants of Wildspace and those who haven't yet started exploring Wildspace, so more likely what actually happens is the gaijin adventurers show up to do their thing, get in trouble, the situation escalates (let's be real, Rokugan can't concentrate its power very quickly so at least in the short term the gaijin adventurers would have the run of wherever they are), but before things can get out of hand the Imperial Elven Navy shows up, grabs the gaijin, and leaves, maybe first sending a messenger via flitter or teleporting archmage to the local lord who's had to deal with them apologizing for the rudeness and promising it won't happen again. And that if they encounter any elves on their world, leave them be.

Which if anything is probably worse for Rokugan's collective psyche, seeing as the entire take-away message is "you are small."

The message they'd actually take away is nothing beyond the local area. History is subjective in Rokugan. In 20 years, the most anyone outside of that area would know about it is that there was some kind of gaijin problem that got resolved. In 40 years, only the oldest people in that area would know any different.

And depending on where they land, there's already a ton of power locally available.

No, they dealt with people of rough technological parity; a little more advanced in some areas, a little less advanced in others, and in any event operating far from home with limited supply and limited ability to BE resupplied.

The Thrane and Merenae represented feudal or age-of-exploration level gaijin, not a fully industrialized, superior-in-every-way nation that could quickly and easily project power and was absolutely determined to open the country.

They also deal with the Shadowlands every single day, and that's a "nation" that has vast supernatural power and is absolutely determined to open the nation. Industrialized doesn't mean shit when magic is involved. Cannons and guns don't mean shit when magic is involved. Magic meets magic. Everyone who matters in Rokugan is divinely empowered in at least a small way, whether through their ancestors, through the blessings of spirits, their own natural potential, or some combination thereof.

Prideful people, Great Clan or otherwise, have a talent for ignoring things that reveal their insignificance.

I think your missing the point. It's not about being outclassed technologically or industrially, both of which become subjective in settings when magic is involved. By All means it can be said that by merit of its magic Rokugan is more technologically advanced than many other nations.

But how about this. Some nation rolls up and destroys the shadow lands. Just like that. Poof, gone in a giant explonion of magic and might, and further more they come knocking on Rokugans door.

>Industrialized doesn't mean shit when magic is involved.

I don't deny that, but the point is they were dealing with people who were their rough equals in Thrane and Merenae. The Imperial Elven Navy, or maybe spelljammers from Shou Lung or Wa (the major spelljamming powers on Abeir-Toril), represent a situation closer to Admiral Perry: Huge empires already with vastly more advanced resources and plentiful magic to spare. The entire way spelljammers WORK is a a mage sits in a throne-like spelljammer helm and feeds the throne spell slots, which them powers the spelljammer, so every spelljammer can be reasonably presumed to have several high-level mages on-board who work in rotation (and in the case of the Imperial Elven Navy, the elf favored class is wizard - so they have plenty of mages of lesser talent, too).

The divine angle is also irrelevant, because it's not like the elves don't have their own gods an their own divine magic. Unless you want to try and get into a "who's more powerful, Amaterasu or Corellon Larethian" fight, I think we can probably safely say that the two are evenly matched.

I'm not saying that Rokugan isn't a very powerful nation on its home planet. I'm just saying that it is not up to the abilities of a multi-planetary empire that controls or exerts influence over dozens of star systems and can bring force to bear against Rokugan in a way that it's never had to deal with before - namely, space superiority. If the Imperial Elven Navy parks an Armada ship in mid orbit over Rokugan's planet, what can the Rokugani do in response that the elves don't naturally and logically have a response to?

Of course, like I said, the Imperial Elven Navy usually has little interest in contacting non-elves on worlds that haven't achieved Wildspace, but this same principle applies to other Spelljamming powers - the Shou Lung or Wa, the Neogi, the Illithids, the Scro, and so on.

A lot of unknowns there, but I would bet on the Rokugani NOT being grateful for foreigners steamrolling the Shadowlands.

Probably not, but what are they going to do when the power that did that sends an embassy? Tell them to fuck off?

It seems unlikely that some nation could do that, considering that the Shadowlands are an extension of an entire plane of existance that can and does directly attack the souls of everything it can reach.

IEN policy is to never let ships with helms land on planets. They'd send parties down in depowered flitters.

Rokugan seems more than capable of defending against it, even defeating its invasions. If I'm not mistaken the Unicorn clan accidentally skirted the region and came into Rokugan by the wall per accident and fought the crabs for a time until they both realized who they were and became good friends thereafter.

But if the shadowlands forces can be resisted by Rokugan it stands to reason it's not absolutely invincible. Maybe it can't be literally removed but flattening any demons near the vicinity of the mortal realm such that it's been rendered a non threat for decades seems possible.

It's what they've been doing for centuries. So probably that. No foreigners allow go away.

Not really. They pour through a literal hole in reality that also spews forth a blisteringly lethal amount of actively harmful planestuff. Jigoku is itself alive and has the intent of controlling everything in existence. There's a point in the Shadowlands where no amount of protection will save you from its influence, and that point is miles and miles away from the actual hole. The number and strength of creatures it sends out is variable and is based on what tactics work best. If you overwhelm its forces completely and scour the earth (Since the plants are just as dangerous as the monsters, if not more so, and the land itself moves to be less convenient and is full of dangerous features aside), it will just send out perfectly adapted infiltrators to get behind your ranks and start eating the squishy bits of anyone they can isolate. If that doesn't work, it'll start sending out endless hordes of really fast shit until something slips through. It's adaptive.

Could a level 20 wizard deal with an interplanar hole like that? Based on your description, I'm pretty sure that no physical obstruction, be it a big old gate or even a giant plug, would work as a permanent solution. Although the idea of someone TRYING to stop it like a bathtub drain is funny.

It's physically wide enough that if you could somehow survive being within viewing distance of it, you wouldn't be able to see the far side. But at that point, you'd have Jigoku's direct attention, and the attention of its most powerful creations. Spirit Realms have absolute control within themselves (For example, the mortal realm's control is that you become mortal and will eventually die, the only creatures that manage to avoid this fate are the ones who deliberately avoid acting mortal and keep to the special bans and permissions of their own realms while visiting. Even really powerful beings like the Kami and top end Oni can be killed because of it.). Not even gods can prevent being affected without taking massive precautions and keeping their visits short. Jigoku wants to own the bodies and souls of every single thing in all of creation and is the only spirit realm to actively move outside of itself. It's been waging a constant war against all of creation since it was first created at the dawn of time.

I wonder why the shadowlands hasn't tried to do any of this shit to bypass the Crab and the wall.

They have and do. Infiltrators get by all the time by either being really sneaky and fast or by impersonating people. It's why the Crab are so paranoid and the rest of Rokugan actually has to deal with Shadowland incursions sometimes.
Its attacks wax and wane to catch the defenders off guard, but when it really ramps up to attack, it's done very, very serious damage.

Not to mention according to Rokugan lore the whole universe itself is something of a creation of primordial darkness isn't it? Made of its three sins or something.

Basically yes, but that thing is its own special kind of ancient evil unrelated to Jigoku.
In the beginning, there was nothing. Then the nothing became sentient somehow and it all went downhill from there. It feared being alone, desired companionship, and immediately regretted that desire when it accidentally a few pre-gods and became less than perfect and whole. Then those gods offed themselves to big bang everything else into existence.

Who let the 40k chaosfags out of their containment thread?

No, that's basically how it is. Getting physically close to the Festering Pit is like getting physically close to a Chaos God. You just don't do it.

Uh-huh...interesting...

And if meteors start falling from orbit?

There's a reason why they sit on the border of the tainted lands for over 1200 years instead of trying to push it back. Spirit Realms > Gods. Mortals have a hell of a lot of power in this setting, but waltzing up to something that specializes in taking control of minds and souls is not possible in the context of the setting. The best protection they can muster isn't good enough.

Then meteors start falling into a spirit realm. The hole doesn't have a bottom, because it goes into another plane of existence. You can't fill it up, there is no floor in there.

Nothing in particular happens, since the land moves and the lowest layer of earth is a soupy mess. This effect is an established part of the lore from over 20 years ago, and is still canon. If you managed to land a meteor the size of a large lake directly onto the hole without dinosauring everything on the planet, it would still be spewing Taint and would eventually melt the meteor.

I would imagine the meteors just careen wildly through there, occasionally smacking the fuck out of an oni or clonking Fu Leng on the head. Just annoying enough to make the inhabitants want to expand Jigoku into Rokugan even more.

Yeah yeah, I get it, it can beat Goku and Superman, and kick the demisuperurge out of any dimension at will. That's always the thing about things like chaos, the flood, or this they are always conveniently as powerful as they need to be in vs debates but somehow never powerful enough to beat the forces that keep them contained despite said beings lacking unlimited numbers or power. But no, yeah they can kill anyone, except when they don't...

Fair enough.

What if I open a permanent portal to the River Oceanus and have the inherently holy, blessed water of the upper planes fall into Jigoku?

Except when they do. The reason it hasn't actually won is that the festering pit doesn't move. It's just a big hole. Nothing can approach it, nothing can close it, but it also can't go anywhere and gets progressively weaker the further you are from it. You don't strictly need any jade on the wall or in Hiruma Lands. You do strictly need it out in the shadowlands due to ambient Taint. After a certain point, it cannot help you and will melt away within moments. If you say "Oh, well what if it can't do these things that it's established to be able to do", then yeah, it's weak as shit, but in the context of the setting, what it's established as able to do makes it an unbeatable enemy. You can delay it, you can stop its forces (Mostly), but you can't beat it.

Probably nothing, since it most likely isn't the right kind of holy anyway and at that point, the holy water is falling into a direct unholy area that is established as obliterating holy materials before they get close. Best case is that some smaller oni die on their way out and more big spawners are necessary. Worst case it starts trying to attack Oceanus to spread its Taint, as it tries to do in all spirit realms.

Honestly, I think if you did that, it would be pretty disruptive to the upper planes and a celestial would drop by to tell you to knock that off.

Doesn't help that you can summon an oni outside of the shadowlands with a simple incantation, the name of someone close to you (Or your own) and a bit of spilled blood.
L5R does "Evil magic is easy and powerful" pretty well imo. Normal magic requires you to be born with the ability, have years and years of training, maintain a priestly lifestyle with proper devotion to the spirits, and then comes with a bunch of supernatural troubleshooting.
Blood magic requires you to be able to recite a sentence and spill someone's blood. Could be yours, could be someone else's. They don't tell you up front that it also Taints you, but even the dumbest illiterate peasant can pull it off if they know the right words.

The River's waters are infinite, so I can't see how or why.

So it's a eternal, undefeatable pit of evil that can infinitely spawn as many monsters as it wants and appears to be actively much more powerful than any of the forces of good, and it's adaptive and clever. Yet for some reason, it hasn't been able to overtake Rokugan in thousands of years despite only a finite number of one clan fighting against it and some rat people.

Yeah, I don't buy it. Someone is lying about Jigoku's power level, or its intelligence, because with what you've described I can't understand why it wouldn't build an army consisting of enough Oni to literally build ramps to climb over the Kaiu wall and still have enough Oni left over for there to be at least one for every man, woman, and child in Rokugan.

Kind of doesn't work on folks with ridiculously insane CHA modifiers, or whatever the system equivalent would be if this was all translated to something other than D&D. Like, you're literally describing a virgin Rokugani v chad anything else meme in the making. And most people who actively use r9k are still pretty disgusted by folks on it.

I'd like you to reconcile your criticisms about Jigoku with your claims about the upper planes.

>Someone is lying about Jigoku's power level
Yeah, it's you.
Jigoku gets more and more powerful the closer you get to its Pit. Its offensive power comes and goes as its forces kill each other out in the shadowlands, but there are a lot more powerful ones deeper in along with the ambient taint. The more attention you draw, the more strong shit comes out of the woodwork to kill you. The Kaiu wall itself only exists because of one of its giant coordinated attacks that come every decade or so. Its big armies get big commanders that usually can't leave its depths.

An important part of the setting is that fortune favors the mortal man. Every 1000 years it goes balls to the wall and makes a break for the prize and gets fought by a number of mortal champions who so far have always won. They still never actually attacked it, and have only actually pushed back to their older borders that had been previously lost.

The Upper Planes haven't won in D&D because they have to contend with the Lower Planes and the River Styx. The forces of Good are infinite, but so are the forces of Evil, Law, and Chaos.

Rokugan isn't infinite, and only a fraction of the Empire is devoted to fighting the Shadowlands on top of that.

And they're backed up by Tengoku, Yomi, the elemental spirits, various minor gods, fate itself usually, and their ancestors, who were also backed up by the same.

Jigoku's ability to pull shit out at any given time isn't infinite. When the Crab can't muster a good defense, shadowlands break through and then the rest of the empire has to actually step up. It would be a war of attrition if either side were actually being ground down fast enough to matter.

How about this: Jigoku is infinite the same way that the Abyss or Nine Hells or whatever are, but only a finite amount of Jigoku-ness is leaking into Rokugan, and almost exclusively at one point?

But you described Jigoku as being actually intelligent. Why doesn't it just build up its forces to the point where there's no way Rokugan could stop it?

Alternatively, why bother with Rokugan and the Kaiu Wall at this point if its so unassailable form that angle? Why haven't the oni traveled west and conquered the rest of the planet?

>Why doesn't it just build up its forces to the point where there's no way Rokugan could stop it?
It certainly tries, but it either a: gets impatient (It really wants to own everything) or b: The Crab notice the buildup and start picking away at the edges as best they can so it has to go before its forces get whittled down.

>Why haven't the oni traveled west and conquered the rest of the planet?
Because the rest of the planet is spiritually irrelevant. Why go for basically nothing when you could go for the area that has a direct line to the other spirit realms including the big one (Tengoku)? There's also the slight problem of the Plains Above Evil, which are just Northwest of the Shadowlands and inexplicably repel most everything. Nothing lives there except grass. Mortals are inherently creeped out by the place and can't stand being there for long, and immortals avoid it like it's full of plague.

I don't actually know this, but I'm guessing the Shadowlands has no agriculture. So you can't just build up a snowballing army without the first dudes you summoned dying of starvation.

Kind of. Oni and undead don't necessarily have to eat (Some might, some might not), but Lost, Ogres, Goblins, Hags, and the other random beasties certainly do, and they are mostly carnivorous because Jigoku deliberately tries to subvert moral standards (Related to eating red meat) and the plants are more likely to eat the beasties than the other way around.

By conquering other parts of the planet, Jigoku might not gain any spiritual power but it does gain an increase in resources and space to build up power, not to mention more Tainted humans - y'know, the normal benefit of conquering places.

More reason to conquer places that aren't Rokugan first, and then move to Rokugan as an endgame.

Jigoku doesn't give a fuck about the other parts of the planet. The first area it would encounter is a giant fuckoff desert with nothing worth taking and little material to actually get a foothold with. Part of the Crab's defense is a line of complete and utter devastation where no elemental spirits live and not even microbes can grow. Mortals and Oni and the like can cross over it because they bring their own elements with them internally, but the taint itself can't take hold without first revitalizing the area using its own twisted elemental spirits, which would take a very long time. The desert is similarly empty. North might not be the only direction it can go, but it's the only direction it wants to go.

>a line of complete and utter devastation where no elemental spirits live and not even microbes can grow

This isn't a perfect defense either, since its minions can just taint the land beyond that area and ignore it once they get past. It's just a way to prevent the ambient taint from spreading without a simultaneous successful invasion.

I'm pretty sure that it's canon that the Oni of the Shadowlands build ships, or at least have monstrous seafairing Oni.

There are seafaring oni, and there is likewise a Crab Navy holding them off. The sea directly off the coast of the shadowlands is a thick soup that erodes wood and kills all wind so that neither oars nor sails work once you're in it. There's a Skull Tide which is nearly certain doom for anything on the water, and an Elemental Terror of Water that sometimes pops up along the coast to localize a tsunami or two. But again, Jigoku doesn't give a fuck about that and wants to march right up to the Emperor's throne room and plop its champion upon it so it can focus more on its other fronts against the other spirit realms.

1) To a certain degree, Rokugani self-importance is justified, it's the one part of the mortal realm Jigoku actually cares about
2) Jigoku can only introduce Taint into the mortal realm at a finite rate. Every foreign land or person Tainted represents an opportunity cost.

So, Jigoku is intelligent, but not actually the best at tactics?

I think "sapient" might be a better term here than "intelligent," since what's important is the awareness more than the exact level of mental prowess.

Warlocks out the ass
Samurai Jack, with shadowlands
Fucking Vampires plz no
FAT
FUCK
ORCUS
Deadly Happas
Black egyptian cultural enrichment from the Mullorhandi
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Every magical Catfish tale was actually just a Nip discovering an Aboleth that had dire consequences in the future.

Unquestionably yes. But it'd be a lot easier to have a whole party of them work on the solution, for example Wishing it away.

It cleanses the taint and Rokugan probably explodes consequently.

Not how Wish works.

Wish doesn't undo direct divine will.

They'd have to survive being near it first.

Rokugani shugenja have pulled off spells that are above Wish in power by killing themselves in the process of spellcasting and those fatal spells are explicitly not enough to seal the Pit. Rokugan is not a dinky low powered setting. They've got magic on par with any other normal fantasy setting. Hell, the 3.0 version literally had Wish as it exists in D&D.

Threads like these are why I hate this fucking board. What started as an interesting prompt about how Rokugan would react to Adventurers from the wider Multiverse devolved into a powerwank argument about who could beat who and whose hell dimension is worse

It's not really an interesting prompt. Rokugan is incredibly xenophobic and has high power magic. You have to actively suppress what the setting can do to have a result other than the visitors being driven away or killed.

Almost like mixing settings that were never designed to mix is a bad idea. L5R is limited in scope to one single nation in the setting. The other nations are irrelevant to the point where they are only mentioned when the writers need a new threat and completely ignored the rest of the time.

Except Rokugan is also Fantasy China when necessary and also the Fantasy part of either China or Japan makes their traditional delusions of grandeur true and correct. Rokugani are literally descended from gods.

Yes, probably. Fu Leng may be a lot of things but at least he not a gaijin.

It wasn't interesting. It was powerwank from the start, since it established (wrong or right is irrelevant) that one of the two sides was inferior.

Real China didn't do so hot when real imperialists came knocking, either, so I don't see how being fantasy China will help against fantasy imperialists with the same innate power gap.

>Rokugani are literally descended from gods

SOME are. There were humans on Rokugan before the Kami fell to Earth.

There is no way that the Rokugani are so stupid that, if someone appeared in orbit, blasted away the Shadowlands (at least to the point of wiping out all current oni in it, even if the Pit remains), and then sent a messenger to Toshi Ranbo, they'd tel them to fuck off.

No one ever answered my question as to what Rokugan's response is if some spelljamming power - the Imperial Elven Navy, the Shou Lung, the Wa, the Neogi, the Illithids, the Scro, whoever - park a ship in mid orbit over the planet, say geosynchronous with Toshi Ranbo.

I recognize that Rokugan isn't a low-magic setting, but they've never had to deal with threats of this scale or from this angle before, and I have to believe they'd be smart enough to be cautious first.

>of this scale
Because you're completely inflating the scale beyond all reason to powerwank. I refuse to believe that a spelljammer can wipe the shadowlands clean. Could a spelljammer park itself above the center of the 9th layer of hell and wipe it clean of all those high end devils right in the middle? I doubt it.

>the same innate power gap.
There is only the innate gap that you are manufacturing to jerk off some elves. Your example is retarded and pointless. Might as well ask what they'd do if a 40k fleet showed up and exterminatus'd the planet.

>No one ever answered my question as to what Rokugan's response is if some spelljamming power - the Imperial Elven Navy, the Shou Lung, the Wa, the Neogi, the Illithids, the Scro, whoever - park a ship in mid orbit over the planet, say geosynchronous with Toshi Ranbo.
Void bomb it, since we're going full retard here. Togashi saw it coming 200 years ago and ghost authored a prophecy, and then the Master of Void read that prophecy, scanned upwards, saw it there, and made it not there anymore using the power of everything and nothing all at once. Alternatively, a maho-tsukai discovered it was up there and started sending high end blood magic (Which doesn't interact with normal magic and thus can't be countered using normal methods) to kill everyone and try to steal the ship.

Alternatively alternatively, Amaterasu and/or Onnotangu and/or a/the fortune(s) of stars take offense to its existence in their airspace and swat it directly with divine power.

>I refuse to believe that a spelljammer can wipe the shadowlands clean.

A single spelljammer, probably not, unless it RKV's the planet, which is difficult but not impossible (you need to override the safety feature that prevents spelljammers from hitting or being hit by objects while jamming at 4 million mph, which is their jamming speed).

However, what's not beyond the realm of possibility is the crew *on* the spelljammer deciding for whatever reason the Festering Pit needs to be dealt with in some way. If this is a bunch of, say, 20th level adventurers, then maybe the want to make a good impression on the Rokugani before arriving there. Or maybe they just assume that any place with that many monsters MUST have phat l00t. Or maybe they want to just close what is obviously a portal to a Bad Place because they're good people.

After that, pick your D&D bullshit infinite combo of preference. Using Gate to bring in a Celestial Gold Dragon and using that dragon's Wish to copy Gate to bring in another Celestial Gold Dragon, etc., seems like a good place to start.

For a less cheesy solution, in 5th Edition a 20th level Cleric has a class ability that lets it outright invoke the power of their god to intervene directly in some matter, 100% chance of success, results both determined and limited solely by DM fiat. Theoretically this means any 20th level cleric could close the Festering Pit since the Festering Pit is not more powerful than the DM. In practice it might be something more like that perpetual Oceanus portal I mentioned, or maybe a mile-thick, miles-wide capstone of jade (it was established upthread that while Taint is infinite the amount Jigoku can exert at once is finite, so if you had enough jade...), neither of which close the Pit but both of which certainly curtails it.

There's sort of two arguments going on right now - can the Festering Pit be closed by D&D methods; and how does Rokugan deal with spelljammers.

Focusing on the second, l mean what does Rokugan do if, say, the Shou Lung or Wa (the Forgotten Realms counterparts to Rokugan, basically, and the major spelljamming powers of Faerûn after the elves of Evermeet) show up and send down an embassy looking to open relationship and trade with Rokugan? They can tell the Shou or Wa to leave but the Rokugani don't seem to have the means to FORCE the issue without divine intervention, but I can't think of a reason for the deities of Rokugan to get personally involved (and besides which, it opens up a "who's god is more powerful" debate that is, frankly, meaningless)