Kind of a cross-post - I put this thread in the L5R RPG section where I'm mostly trying to get advice on the mechanical effects (things like numerical honour and glory point losses) but I thought I should add it here for a wider audience to mull over the broad philosophical arguments.

Basically; 'The Promise' is all well and good between Isawa samurai X and Shiba samurai Y. No problem. Understand and accept.

But how does it affect vassal families of those two clan families (which you see a lot more of in the RPG since it allows you to have daimyo, battles, massacres, falling houses, etc without impacting the 'big name' characters in the LCG story).

Taking the specific examples:

• Shiba
  • Iga family - formed from elevated Ji-samurai and therefore not descended by blood from Shiba
  • Nasu family - formed from 'exiled' Imperials post-Gozoku and not descended from the Phoenix clan families at all
  • Sesai & Sodona families - descended from the Shiba samurai of those names.
  • Koganashi family - no heritage known that I'm aware of
• Isawa
  • Kaito family - descended from the Isawa samurai of that name, but early on in the narrative elevated to Clan Family status, meaning they arguably lose any claim to the Isawa name

'The Promise' is supposedly status-agnostic, so how would invoking 'The Promise' work if one or both of the samurai involved were vassal family samurai? Would it?