FFG posted a new Crane Clan fiction.

Please see the below link:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2019/8/14/by-the-stroke-of-a-brush/

Big war here we come!

OK... the situation of the Crane just took a turn and go to a next level of problems...

And I really hope we can have a tale of the reception of Kuwanan's letter by Tsukune.

...

...okay, I must accept undeniable evidence: Kakita Yoshi is a fool.

1 hour ago, 987654321 said:

...

...okay, I must accept undeniable evidence: Kakita Yoshi is a fool.

Welcome to the fold. Here have a # for that

Just now, Schmoozies said:

Welcome to the fold. Here have a # for that

WE DO INDEED!

For what it's worth, I really want to see Shiba Tsukune's reaction to being told about the Crane Clan civil war.

1 minute ago, Vulcan646 said:

For what it's worth, I really want to see Shiba Tsukune's reaction to being told about the Crane Clan civil war.

"... Wat."

First, love the nod to the Palace of the Emerald Champion RPG adventure.

Second, great that Kitsuki K ā gi's motivation is still up in the air.

Third, Kakita Yoshi is what you get when a Crane tries to Scorpion while thinking themselves too good for it.

Fourth, Doji Hotaru was hosed from the get-go. The only acceptable answer to Doji Satsume's death is the one Doji Kuwanan himself cannot accept, and the reality of her relationship with Bayushi Kachiko meant that even a whisper would have been enough, much less having Kachiko's grudge-filled ninja master brother steal her correspondence & plant it to be discovered.

Fifth, I'm already more invested than I was for False Hoturi or Uji going rogue against the Lion.

I loved this story. Also I love Kitsuki Kagi returning here. I'm still suspicious of that guy.

I can't wait for more Crane civil war stuff. Yoshi certainly seems foolish here, but also he's working with incomplete information. We know what is going on with all these story strands (especially if you played the RPG adventure), but he only knows what he heard in this story. If he's guilty of anything it's being biased toward not trusting the Scorpions, which I think even a Scorpion would say is a fair position to take. From their perspective Kuwanan and Yoshi are finally cutting to the truth even though both of them are way off base Fantastic.

Kuwanan think a Matsu would be loyal, doubly loyal, to Toturi.

That's cute.

Yoshi surmises Kachiko might be capable of the unthinkable. He is correct, although Sotorii beat her to the punchline. He also surmises that Kachiko will scramble to consolidate power around the heir. Also correct.

As to whether Doji Hotaru killed her father? He does not need it to be true; he does not need to believe it; he only needs Kuwanan to do something about her. This is also correct. The entire Crane Clan is hopelessly compromised under Hotaru’s leadership.

It’s bad enough that Hotaru allowed herself to be seduced by Kachiko. To slander her own father in writing and send the evidence to the Crane’s most dangerous rival in court?

One can only hope that at some point Hotaru will finally live up to her father’s trust in her. Seppuku may the only honorable path for her.

9 minutes ago, Manchu said:

Seppuku may the only honorable path for her.

Who does a Great Clan champion offer her seppuku too though? Her superior I assume would be the Emperor. Would Kachiko allow Sotorii to accept Hotaru's sepukku? I doubt it.

She would offer it to the spirit of her father and to her clan.

Love how this all comes back to the big story choice where Matsu Tsuko lets Kuwanan go instead of killing him off out of hand. Well played Tsuko!

I guess this explain how the Scorpion gained this much power. They send their Ace Players to the Imperial Palace where the Crane send the B-team.

Every Crane outside Otosan Uchi seems to have more brain, more court understanding and more long time politic vision than the ones we saw set foot in the imperial palace... Perhaps the Scorpion used a shugenja to place a "Ward of Bird Brain" around the clan rooms in the capital...

3 hours ago, Manchu said:

Yoshi surmises Kachiko might be capable of the unthinkable. He is correct, although Sotorii beat her to the punchline. He also surmises that Kachiko will scramble to consolidate power around the heir. Also correct.

As to whether Doji Hotaru killed her father? He does not need it to be true; he does not need to believe it; he only needs Kuwanan to do something about her. This is also correct. The entire Crane Clan is hopelessly compromised under Hotaru’s leadership.

It’s bad enough that Hotaru allowed herself to be seduced by Kachiko. To slander her own father in writing and send the evidence to the Crane’s most dangerous rival in court?

One can only hope that at some point Hotaru will finally live up to her father’s trust in her. Seppuku may the only honorable path for her.

I'll point out that we don't actually know that the letter is written by Hotaru. Yoshi's internal thoughts is that he can't be sure whether it is real or a forgery, then states out loud that it is real.

I'd say that Yoshi has been fooled, but is not habitually a fool.

1 hour ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I'd say that Yoshi has been fooled, but is not habitually a fool.

His track record to date indicates that he very much is. I can't think of a single fiction he's appeared in where he hasn't been either lead by the nose by someone else, utterly blindsided, or duped by his own biases into avoidable mistakes.

The guy is a disaster.

As I said the last time my favored whipping boy came up, I actually want him to get a courtly win of some kind, because so far he has ZERO. Seriously. I can't think of ONE thing he's done that has served either the Crane or the Empire well in the slightest. His folly and ineptitude have become comical at this point.

4 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

His track record to date indicates that he very much is. I can't think of a single fiction he's appeared in where he hasn't been either lead by the nose by someone else, utterly blindsided, or duped by his own biases into avoidable mistakes.

The guy is a disaster.

As I said the last time my favored whipping boy came up, I actually want him to get a courtly win of some kind, because so far he has ZERO. Seriously. I can't think of ONE thing he's done that has served either the Crane or the Empire well in the slightest. His folly and ineptitude have become comical at this point.

And that is why its perfect.

His arrogance is serving to steer the Empire to the looming disaster that we as viewers of the grand scheme can predict but without that macro knowledge is difficult to see and so he, acting in what he thinks is the best interest of the Crane and himself (I love that he is planning to take credit for Asami release from the Lion when he did absolutely nothing to help her). We are in the rising tension part of the story so we need characters to kick over the sand hill and rile things up and that is Yoshi's primary role at the moment. Maybe once the descent to anarchy that this succession crisis will perpetuate we can see characters starting to put things together and start working towards resolution of some of the issues that have cropped up, but were still a good way form that I would figure.

At this point my guess is cycle 4 we see the large scale interclan conflicts come to a head and we get our all out war cycle from it. Followed by a rising tides cycle that focuses on the background threats of the Kolat and Shadowlands, hopefully with Core 2.0 either immediately before or after to address some card balance issues and salvage some of the cards that are due to rotate out at that point that are good for the environment (I'm looking at all the Imperial cycle Magistrates except you Cunning, you can just go away and never see the light of day again)

I was kinda hoping there would be some sort of Kolat reveal in those letters that Kuwanan found.

14 hours ago, Manchu said:

It’s bad enough that Hotaru allowed herself to be seduced by Kachiko. To slander her own father in writing and send the evidence to the Crane’s most dangerous rival in court?

I got the feeling that Kachiko and Hotaru actually have a mutual romantic relationship. At least I feel we've only been shown that so far. I think it's telling they have a cute story about Hotaru and Kachiko in the RPG core book to recount the history of Rokugan. So I think it's less a seduction by Kachiko as it is a failing of Hotaru's integrity as a champion if she's putting her relationship above her clan. I'd have to go back and read the Hotaru stories, but has she ever really had to consider putting her clan above Kachiko? She's mostly just been dealing with the Lion since day 1 of the new continuity.

48 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I was kinda hoping there would be some sort of Kolat reveal in those letters that Kuwanan found.

There still could be considering everything else that went on in this story, but certainly no smoking guns in the story itself.

I would have liked to see Kuwanan struggle with learning he was right about his father's death, but, learns his father might possibly be involved in some shady stuff. While learning his sister's resentment of their father it seems more justified..... But he's too going to challenge for leadership anyways.

I don't like their to be an excuse for Kuwanan to make when this thing goes sideway.

I don't want some b.s. ending to this Crane Civil War"Oh I didn't know our dad was involved with the kolat.......forgive me sis, friends now k?"

I want me some desperate Cranes....the kind that will turn to the Shadowlands for aid.

My question is: Would Kakita Yoshi have become Imperial Chancellor if he hadn’t been the Kakita Daimyo?

We see him set to take credit for Asami freeing herself, so this can certainly imply a situation where due to his noble birth, he’s been able to climb upwards on the skills of subordinates and has basically promoted himself to a position he’s not actually defy enough to handle.

16 minutes ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

My question is: Would Kakita Yoshi have become Imperial Chancellor if he hadn’t been the Kakita Daimyo?

We see him set to take credit for Asami freeing herself, so this can certainly imply a situation where due to his noble birth, he’s been able to climb upwards on the skills of subordinates and has basically promoted himself to a position he’s not actually defy enough to handle.

I think that he definitely reached the position he is in due to his noble birth.

Bribes likely also helped.

I mean the man is the definition of not humble and this story shows that he can't even treat his spies with anything resembling respect.

Let's just say that he has many flaws and leave it at that.

20 minutes ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

My question is: Would Kakita Yoshi have become Imperial Chancellor if he hadn’t been the Kakita Daimyo?

We see him set to take credit for Asami freeing herself, so this can certainly imply a situation where due to his noble birth, he’s been able to climb upwards on the skills of subordinates and has basically promoted himself to a position he’s not actually defy enough to handle.

So Yoshi is Trump?

9 minutes ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

My question is: Would Kakita Yoshi have become Imperial Chancellor if he hadn’t been the Kakita Daimyo?

Almost certainly not, as far as his portrayal goes.

6 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

And that is why its perfect.

His arrogance is serving to steer the Empire to the looming disaster that we as viewers of the grand scheme can predict but without that macro knowledge is difficult to see and so he, acting in what he thinks is the best interest of the Crane and himself (I love that he is planning to take credit for Asami release from the Lion when he did absolutely nothing to help her). We are in the rising tension part of the story so we need characters to kick over the sand hill and rile things up and that is Yoshi's primary role at the moment. Maybe once the descent to anarchy that this succession crisis will perpetuate we can see characters starting to put things together and start working towards resolution of some of the issues that have cropped up, but were still a good way form that I would figure.

See, the problem there, as far as it pertains to Yoshi the Fool? (Because I agree, we're not at the part of the story where wise leaders make good decisions)

Kachiko, Tsuko, the Elemental Council (and a special different-subset-of-mistakes nod to Tadaka), Altansarnai, Yori, Taka, Hotaru, and so on have all made bad decisions for a variety of reasons and have made things worse- but they've also gotten little snippets of competence to make them look a wee bit better than ol' Yoshi does.

For the ur-example: Kachiko's mistakes and villainies are very, very real- she has definitely done more damage to the empire as a whole than Yoshi on his worst day- but she's also shown as generally good at what she does. In fact, she's been shown as on top of things several times prior to her massive , Empire-wrecking, Shoju's-gonna-be-so-mad misstep- and thus, when she made that mistake, it made sense. Her hubris has something to underpin it.