Alright, let me try to be constructive here.

Folks arguing for the Spider, specifically Teveshszat, Huitzil37 and Drudenfusz. Please present your reasons for why the Spider's existence is beneficial for the setting, in a way that can't be achieved by:

a) The Scorpion Clan;

b) The Otomo and other existing Imperial Families;

c) AND the Shadowlands Horde.

1: It allows the card game to be made such that politics/courtliness is a thing everyone participates in as part of the game. As it stood, if you cared about military, you didn't really care about courtliness in most cases, and those victory conditions did not interact. The wonky or missing interaction between victory conditions was a bad thing about the CCG; having a faction that never participates in courtliness makes it far, far more likely that courtliness will be something decks can ignore, and then we're right back to the same problem. If you want a game where you cannot ignore courtliness, you must have built your setting and its factions in such a way that none of them can do so. Since the Scorpion Clan allegedly work for the good of the Empire, they cannot carry the weight of being the Big Huge Bad Guys, the Otomo are not antagonistic at all, and the Horde do not participate in courtliness.

2: Making a setting in which "summons oni" and "is invited to tea and kabuki" are not mutually exclusive makes the setting finally pick a side between "This is a story about good vs evil" and "This is a story about order vs chaos". The Spider are evil but may participate in the system because that is harmonious, and saying "This isn't right, these people are dangerous monsters, they don't get to follow the rules!" is disharmonious and damaging to Order. Knowing what your setting is about and pushing it is infinitely preferable to the old way of jumping from one foot to another whenever one of your inadequacies was pointed out. Samurai drama, in which people are relentlessly punished for doing the right thing, works much better when you have this giant thing to point to to say "Look, these guys are evil as all hell, but they follow the rules and that makes it fine". You could go around this, by emphasizing more evil aspects of the other Clans, but that's very harmful for different reasons. Better to have Clans who are mostly sympathetic but say "Hey man, Spider get to sit at the table because rules are rules" to establish that Rules does not map to Good, than to accomplish this by having Clans who are more evil in non-supernatural ways -- since non-supernatural evil other than murder drives players away a lot more than murder and supernatural evil. The Scorpion claim to be good guys and thus do not force the conflict between Lawful and Good on behalf of others (they go through it themselves), the Otomo are not evil or chaotic and really aren't relevant to any of these, and the Horde is necessarily outside the system and do not force the conflict between Lawful and Good.

3: Making a setting in which the Big Bad Guy is a participant in the systems of politics and culture draws attention and focus away from the big bad guy, not toward it. When it is 8 Clans and The Malicious Power Outside Who Will Destroy Them, we always feel as though they need to be doing more to address The Threat, and stories that do not have anything to do with The Threat seem cheapened. If we know The Threat is within the system and operating by rules, we can believe in-character assessments from people in the setting saying "We know these guys are a threat, but stopping them is just one of many interests we have to balance our resources between." Characters focusing on other conflicts are not doing so out of ignorance. The Spider and Jigoku may want to destroy everything, but it is clearly a longer-term goal that does not require everyone else's immediate attention. This goal can obviously not be accomplished with Otomo or Horde, but could in theory by leaving out Spider and Horde altogether; but then you're also destroying the Crab and removing horror stories altogether, which probably isn't good.

Huh. Okay.

I asked a question about the setting, your first point was about improving the card game's mechanics. I'm not even going to address that, as it is utterly irrelevant for the purposes of this thread.

As for point #2, I think you're drawing a fake line between good/evil and order/chaos. In this game's setting good = order, and evil = chaos. They are practically synonyms, and there has been plenty of text (from myself and better writers/more knowledgeable than I) about why the setting is so. So, what I'm seeing here, is that you're first trying to draw on a non-existing conflict to justify something. And second is that your point requires, has as an absolutely mandatory condition, the fact that "oni-summoner" isn't seen as something absolutely horrid and despicable by the rest of the population. And, unless you remove ALL the history of L5R (I'm not talking just the past 20 years, but the 1200 years of setting history), that is just impossible. You would need a rewrite from as far back as the Fall of the Kami for that argument to hold. And if you're rewriting everything, well, then it's no longer the L5R that 8/9ths (that's about 88.89%) of the player-base follows - touching here on an earlier point that stated that you can't expect or wish for the majority to change for the sake of the minority.

Regarding your point #3, it requires for the rest of the game (ie, Imperial Faction and other 8 Clans) to hold what me, Gunichi, Killjoy and plenty others affectionately call "the idiot ball":

The Spider and Jigoku may want to destroy everything, but it is clearly a longer-term goal that does not require everyone else's immediate attention

It's important to note that the "stopping them is just one of the many interests we have" is a fake argument. It has been shown, time and time again, that regardless of differences, the Clans come together when the purpose is to defeat the Shadowlands/Taint - other interests be damned. It's a matter of priorities, and this one is way, way at the top - simply because it's a matter of survival.

There is however one silver lining to this, and that's the Susumu. As the non-tainted, highly political faction of the Spider, they already do exactly what you're describing. But please, PLEASE note the keyword here: Non-Tainted. The Susumu are the human evil within the Spider - an evil that is also present in all the clans (Scorpion and Imperials chief among them), and they are interesting exactly because of that. They don't summon oni, they don't participate in maho, they study necromancy or invite zombies for dinner. They are human, and that is why they rock. That is also why they would be one of the few Spiders that could survive an extinction post-Kanpeki.

Ultimately, what I get from your arguments is that you would like to see the monsters and the humans all together socializing. I'm sorry, but that's something that would work in D&D, would work in Shadowrun, would even work in some LoTR stories. But, unless you're specifically going for a KYoD-type of setting (which you are NOT), then it is something that has absolutely no place in L5R as it stands.

Hypothetically... IF we accept the premise that everything that came before the moment FFG acquired the IP is in limbo and can be changed or eliminated, then... why keep anything from Onyx at all?

Well... Why keep anything from Ivory, or Emperor... or Celestial for that matters? I mean that arc was just awful.

I am not talking about what they planed for Onyx but what I already did in Ivory.

And in the Ivory arc Kanpeki kills his wife to acquired taint and rallies his forces to attack Rokugan.

That already happened this is part of Rokugan history.

Hypothetically... IF we accept the premise that everything that came before the moment FFG acquired the IP is in limbo and can be changed or eliminated, then... why keep anything from Onyx at all?

Well... Why keep anything from Ivory, or Emperor... or Celestial for that matters? I mean that arc was just awful.

I am not talking about what they planed for Onyx but what I already did in Ivory.

And in the Ivory arc Kanpeki kills his wife to acquired taint and rallies his forces to attack Rokugan.

That already happened this is part of Rokugan history.

Sorry, yes, I meant that part, I get the CCG "arc" cutoffs and names a bit confused still.

Why keep Kanpeki going all emo, killing his wife, and embracing the taint?

That's all great, but...

1. If it's going to be about all the factions having access to all the CCG mechanics, and trying to make the setting work around that, then the game is better off without the Spider at all.

2. For many players, and in big chunks of the setting material, it's not a story about "good vs evil" OR a story about "order vs chaos". And even within the setting, those dichotomies are not seen as two separate things to begin with.

3. Could just as easily be fixed by just not having a Big Bad Threat at all. Just the Clans, with their opposing priorities and different worldviews and competition over things ranging from their perceived honor, to the limited resources of the world around them.

I think these are fair arguments. And I agree as to #1 and #3 that the second-best option is "no Spider and no Horde and no Jigoku at all and probably no Crab either because what are they doing at that point?" Let's call them Option Spider and Option Nothing.

Each of them has its ups and downs, but I think Option Spider comes out on top because for Option Nothing to really work and end up looking anything like Rokugan at all, the Emperor has to be strong enough to quash conflict, which leads to the "player factions don't want to fight" problem. I would really like a setting where the Emperor's divinity is axed and people pay lip service to the Divine Emperor just enough in order to get things they want, but without a Big Bad Guy, the major reason to even pretend to Want A Strong Empire goes away, nothing to unite against, no particular need for the other Clans.

Under a strong Emperor -- defined as "actually divine, or otherwise worthy of everyone lining up behind him" -- that doesn't matter because folks want a unified Empire anyway. But that pushes them away from conflict with each other, and the players cry foul when their Clan fights another because We Should Unite Behind The Divine Emperor. Under a weak Emperor -- one not worthy of respect -- then people will pay lip service to his divinity and so on and so forth, but not really care about him, and slowly withdraw from things that require them to act like they care. The equilibrium state is "separate Clans end up behaving as the separate nation-states they are, not as participants in a larger culture or government."

With a uniting threat, there is reason for everyone to pretend to care about the Emperor's will -- you couldn't care less about what that joker wants, but you definitely don't want to be fractured and squished by The Threat. The equilibrium state is of everyone saying "Oh yes, sure, divine emperor, infallible will!" and going behind his back to do what they already wanted to do, staying in the System so they can count on its benefits if something gets crazy. They still act like parts of one culture and government.

So essentially -- I want a non-divine Emperor that people don't respect and are willing to fight each other contra his wishes. A Looming Threat makes that system work without them just breaking off into separate nation-states entirely. The Spider model of putting the Looming Threat inside the system itself allows that threat to work and be playable without undercutting other things the setting or game try to do.

The Spider already have a mandate: "Go forth and conquer in my name" was the mandate/charter given to them by Iweko I, as a way to accommodate them in the Empire's structure and prevent all those tainty folks from setting up shop in the Imperial Gardens - however, after all these years I think we have to come to the same conclusion you mentioned - it did not work. So again we go to my original question: What can they do -for the Empire- that isn't already accomplished by other Clan? Given the current doesn't work, then it'd have to be something different.... right?

I liked the Conqueror idea, but that only works until the world is conquered.

You could leave them in control of the colonies that would be kind of the next logical thing after conquering.

The problem if you want to have story consistency:

Kanpeki is already tainted and he is making a move on Rokugan.

The question is how to work from there.

I like the idea that FFG starts the game of from after the war.

A consolidated Rokugan that might look a bit different from our Rokugan we know.

And the first expansion would be a flashback similar to the Scorpion Clan Coup.

Like who did we end up here? Who is this Daigotsu Fuchan and how dis she became Spider Clan Champion?

Things like these

The question would be how could such a consolidated state look like.

What would be a more or less stable setting?

Gah, such a speedy thread! >_< Must type faster and shorter replies!

Agreed on the Conqueror problem. However, leaving them on the Colonies... wouldn't that be akin to removing them from the game/Setting altogether? We'd end up with a L5R: Empire and a L5R: Dark Colonies. Two games instead of one.

I'm not sure about a timejump. On one hand, I like it. It's a quick, **** easy solution to all these problems. However, in a war there are always winners and losers - logic and early votes dictated that Spider would lose and become the Horde. By this thread alone you can already see that a number of people would cry foul... But then again, as the saying goes "You can't please both Greeks and Trojans", so a similar solution to yours may end up being the best one in the bunch. (I just want a couple people to survive and show up, such as Keirohime, Karyudo and Miaka )

As for setting stability, that is something completely speculative at this point. It would be a stronger starting point, perhaps, but no guarantees it would remain as so - that depends only on the future developments of the story, and of course, on how much player interactivity FFG decides to have.

Hypothetically... IF we accept the premise that everything that came before the moment FFG acquired the IP is in limbo and can be changed or eliminated, then... why keep anything from Onyx at all?

Well... Why keep anything from Ivory, or Emperor... or Celestial for that matters? I mean that arc was just awful.

I am not talking about what they planed for Onyx but what I already did in Ivory.

And in the Ivory arc Kanpeki kills his wife to acquired taint and rallies his forces to attack Rokugan.

That already happened this is part of Rokugan history.

Sorry, yes, I meant that part, I get the CCG "arc" cutoffs and names a bit confused still.

Why keep Kanpeki going all emo, killing his wife, and embracing the taint?

Don't! Who the hell wants to keep that part? Not me. Onyx was shaping up to be a terrible story and even if it wasn't, it's an awful place to start new people.

Relaunching it without 20 years of baggage means Onyx didn't happen, and Ivory didn't happen, and Emperor didn't happen, and Celestial didn't happen -- none of it happened except that parts we decide worked well enough we should make them happen in the new relaunch of the setting. That's what a reboot is! "None of this happened except the bits worth doing again." What did you think a reboot meant?

Alright, let me try to be constructive here.

Folks arguing for the Spider, specifically Teveshszat, Huitzil37 and Drudenfusz. Please present your reasons for why the Spider's existence is beneficial for the setting, in a way that can't be achieved by:

a) The Scorpion Clan;

b) The Otomo and other existing Imperial Families;

c) AND the Shadowlands Horde.

The question is if you want to have a a force as part Rokugan which represents Fu Leng.

If not, then there is nor reason to keep the Spider around having the Horde is very acceptable.

Another question is why the Spider were created in the first place and this was to mainly focus on Samurai and not giant Monster.

It also followed pure mechanical purpose of introducing a Shadowlands faction which was not immune to the Dishonor victory that they wanted to focus on.

What does it bring now? Well, first a sense of continuity. A progression of the Story that is.

Even if the Spider leave Rokugan for good and become the Horde again.

I would say that most people would call the Lost the Spider Clan.

In this sense the Spider would stick around. Instead of being the Clan of the Lost, being the Lost Clan.

I think the main problem with the Spider and I would say the reason why this treat exist is that the Spider in its current form do not work.

So there are a few possibility how to deal with that problem either you integrate them or you throw them out.

I think out is the easier route since that already worked once,

but I would say it is less interesting because we already had that.

As I mentioned before they would need a Celestial Mandate however.

A purpose to see themselves as part of the empire. And I think there are interesting possibilities to find this place.

Do I think it is the only possibility? No, but it is the one I find currently most interesting.

What do you think of the conspiracy idea I suggested earlier? It would solve a lot of the problems you mention. They would get to stay human-focused. They would maintain a presence in the courts, albeit not under their own mon, so they could be vulnerable to a dishonor victory. They would get to keep their taint, as long as they stop wagging their freakish growths in everyone's faces. They could be used as either villains or protagonists in any given story arc, depending on what the writers wanted to do.

They could also maintain a Lost/Horde section out in the Shadowlands to distract the Empire from the internal threat, as well as give the Crab something to do.

Really, the only thing the Spider would give up is being an official, Emperor-approved great clan. They could even still call themselves a clan, if they want to, it just wouldn't be official.

What do you think of the conspiracy idea I suggested earlier? It would solve a lot of the problems you mention. They would get to stay human-focused. They would maintain a presence in the courts, albeit not under their own mon, so they could be vulnerable to a dishonor victory. They would get to keep their taint, as long as they stop wagging their freakish growths in everyone's faces. They could be used as either villains or protagonists in any given story arc, depending on what the writers wanted to do.

They could also maintain a Lost/Horde section out in the Shadowlands to distract the Empire from the internal threat, as well as give the Crab something to do.

Really, the only thing the Spider would give up is being an official, Emperor-approved great clan. They could even still call themselves a clan, if they want to, it just wouldn't be official.

I think that would work. Setting-wise, IMHO, the Spider work as an underground, hunted 'Clan' of sorts - pretty much what they were before the whole mess in the Destroyer War and being made a Great Clan.

Also, I just posted this in another thread. Would allow your idea to work in a LCG environment.

Why keep Kanpeki going all emo, killing his wife, and embracing the taint?

Well, probably would be best to go for Shibatsu as emperor, and ignore Seikan's thunderous acclaim which set the whole thing in motion.

Basically a small retcon to keep the setting intact as is.

On day Iweko I wakes up and had a terrible dream a vision of the future to come.

It is the day of succession and she says Shibatsu will follow her on the throne, which keeps the Spider untainted and under the control of the Emperor.

Agreed on the Conqueror problem. However, leaving them on the Colonies... wouldn't that be akin to removing them from the game/Setting altogether? We'd end up with a L5R: Empire and a L5R: Dark Colonies. Two games instead of one.

Yes... Which is the reason I have to say the Emperor arc might have been a stupid move in the long run.

I still think that the Spider and the Nothing could square of.

It is no secret that Kanpeki and the Shadow Dragon can't stand each other.

And as I mentioned before in this thread, keeping the world from being unmade is a mandate you hold as long as you do your job.

What do you think of the conspiracy idea I suggested earlier?

From a pure mechanical perspective, it sounds like one or more All Clan Senseis, which would change you alliance to Spider Conspiracy or add Spider Conspiracy to your alignment or work it like Kobi Sensei.

I think could get behind that... however that would require a lot of retconning.

Why keep Kanpeki going all emo, killing his wife, and embracing the taint?

Well, probably would be best to go for Shibatsu as emperor, and ignore Seikan's thunderous acclaim which set the whole thing in motion.

Basically a small retcon to keep the setting intact as is.

On day Iweko I wakes up and had a terrible dream a vision of the future to come.

It is the day of succession and she says Shibatsu will follow her on the throne, which keeps the Spider untainted and under the control of the Emperor.

Agreed on the Conqueror problem. However, leaving them on the Colonies... wouldn't that be akin to removing them from the game/Setting altogether? We'd end up with a L5R: Empire and a L5R: Dark Colonies. Two games instead of one.

Yes... Which is the reason I have to say the Emperor arc might have been a stupid move in the long run.

I still think that the Spider and the Nothing could square of.

It is no secret that Kanpeki and the Shadow Dragon can't stand each other.

And as I mentioned before in this thread, keeping the world from being unmade is a mandate you hold as long as you do your job.

Given the actual sh**storm the succession caused in the L5R community, I'd advise against revisiting and/or retconning it in anyway. I'd be akin to shoving your head in a beehive and hoping not to get stung.

As for the Shadow Dragon/Nothing... well, it can never be defeated. It is ultimately an elemental force of the Universe, so it'd be akin as to saying "Fire is going to disappear" or "Water shall be no more!". You can defeat their avatars, sure, but you'd end up being consumed by what they represented - or the whole of Existence would end (IIRC, that was part of the reason why the Air Dragon took Nothing within himself too)

What do you think of the conspiracy idea I suggested earlier?

From a pure mechanical perspective, it sounds like one or more All Clan Senseis, which would change you alliance to Spider Conspiracy or add Spider Conspiracy to your alignment or work it like Kobi Sensei.

I think could get behind that... however that would require a lot of retconning.

Not if you combine it with your earlier suggestion of "10 years after the Kanpeki war"

What do you think of the conspiracy idea I suggested earlier? It would solve a lot of the problems you mention. They would get to stay human-focused. They would maintain a presence in the courts, albeit not under their own mon, so they could be vulnerable to a dishonor victory. They would get to keep their taint, as long as they stop wagging their freakish growths in everyone's faces. They could be used as either villains or protagonists in any given story arc, depending on what the writers wanted to do.

They could also maintain a Lost/Horde section out in the Shadowlands to distract the Empire from the internal threat, as well as give the Crab something to do.

Really, the only thing the Spider would give up is being an official, Emperor-approved great clan. They could even still call themselves a clan, if they want to, it just wouldn't be official.

I think that would work. Setting-wise, IMHO, the Spider work as an underground, hunted 'Clan' of sorts - pretty much what they were before the whole mess in the Destroyer War and being made a Great Clan.

Also, I just posted this in another thread. Would allow your idea to work in a LCG environment.

I agree, the two ideas are quite compatible.

What do you think of the conspiracy idea I suggested earlier?

From a pure mechanical perspective, it sounds like one or more All Clan Senseis, which would change you alliance to Spider Conspiracy or add Spider Conspiracy to your alignment or work it like Kobi Sensei.

I think could get behind that... however that would require a lot of retconning.

Either that or a time skip, which I think they ought to do anyway, really. Say, restart the game at the fall of the Onyx Empire, when the Spider are driven underground. That would also give them time IC to thouroughly infiltrate the other clans.

Either that or a time skip, which I think they ought to do anyway, really. Say, restart the game at the fall of the Onyx Empire, when the Spider are driven underground. That would also give them time IC to thouroughly infiltrate the other clans.

And the time skip is want I would be cool with and what I wish for. Let the spider be a playabel faction but not the Horde or a great clan and let them keep their cool toys and go for the infiltration. I don´t need the great Clan Spider I never wanted it what I wanted was the lost away from the Shadowlands Horde cause I dislkied the brute elements of it but I never wanted them to become a great clan cause I like Maho and Ninja etc.

Perhaps having the Kolat and the Spider work together from the underground. They would then both have a common enemy. Fu-chan becomes Master Tiger.

Perhaps having the Kolat and the Spider work together from the underground. They would then both have a common enemy. Fu-chan becomes Master Tiger.

Not quite. The Kolat aren't exactly friends to the Taint/Jigoku - their main goal was to have Man take power away from the Gods... doesn't matter if they're from Tengoku or Jigoku. They -could- infiltrate the Kolat.... would ask for some suspension of disbelief, but not as much as a "we're all buddies now" situation.

Ultimately, an Empire where the Spider are hunted and shunned, as well as the Kolat, bloodspeakers, Khadi, etc, is a good one - and one that works within the existing lore and setting.

It was more a thing of the enemy of my enemy thing... not buddy buddies...

The last part with Master Tiger was just a joke.

This is a great opportunity to switch away from the “Players have lots of control over the story” aspect of L5R. At least for me, it was never a selling point that people good at cards were allowed to push whatever cards they wanted into the spotlight. The Spider Clan players should not be asked what they will give up to fit in. They won't make a decision, at least not one even a majority of the base will be happy with. They need to be told what they can have, not asked what they want.

This is a great opportunity to switch away from the “Players have lots of control over the story” aspect of L5R. At least for me, it was never a selling point that people good at cards were allowed to push whatever cards they wanted into the spotlight. The Spider Clan players should not be asked what they will give up to fit in. They won't make a decision, at least not one even a majority of the base will be happy with. They need to be told what they can have, not asked what they want.

You are kidding me right? You go and say people should accept the dictatoship and be quiet a bout it? No way. this is nothing which should be tried cause it will piss of many people if onyl 8 out of 9 factions can have a say in the story because of the complete subjective assumption of people with limited view on how the setting should be.

If we take away the player driven sotry than for the complete part of the comunity and all have to accept what FFG thimngs is the best for it but how you said it, it would be opression and this is nothing anyone should support.

Wow, infiltrating the Kolat. That's hardcore.

There could be some interesting fiction about the two competing conspiracies butting heads, infiltrating, counter-infiltraing, cooperating, double-crossing, etc each other. It wouldn't have much impact on the CCG, though.

You are kidding me right? You go and say people should accept the dictatoship and be quiet a bout it? No way. this is nothing which should be tried cause it will piss of many people if onyl 8 out of 9 factions can have a say in the story because of the complete subjective assumption of people with limited view on how the setting should be.

If we take away the player driven sotry than for the complete part of the comunity and all have to accept what FFG thimngs is the best for it but how you said it, it would be opression and this is nothing anyone should support.

“Oppression?” That is an absolutely ridiculous, borderline offensive thing to call it.

This is a great opportunity to switch away from the “Players have lots of control over the story” aspect of L5R. At least for me, it was never a selling point that people good at cards were allowed to push whatever cards they wanted into the spotlight. The Spider Clan players should not be asked what they will give up to fit in. They won't make a decision, at least not one even a majority of the base will be happy with. They need to be told what they can have, not asked what they want.

They need to be asked what they want in order to determine "what the playerbase wants", but that answer should not be a binding judgment.

Player involvement in the story creates a sense of investment and spectacle, but the way AEG had committed to doing it just before the sale was EXACTLY the wrong way to go about it. You don't tell the players they get to pick where the story goes -- they are not good at that, that is not their job, it;s your job. They don't have the tools and information required to plan ahead for what makes a good story, and you do. You're abdicating your responsibility and putting it in the hands of the people least suited to carrying it out.

I agree that there was too much player direction to the storyline while AEG was in charge. Still, I think this thread is a discussion worth having. FFG wants customer approval of their decisions, that's just good business sense. And they do read these threads for player input.

Though, maybe not this one, now that it's bloated to 10+ pages. Ain't nobody got time for that. Except for me, apparently.

You are kidding me right? You go and say people should accept the dictatoship and be quiet a bout it? No way. this is nothing which should be tried cause it will piss of many people if onyl 8 out of 9 factions can have a say in the story because of the complete subjective assumption of people with limited view on how the setting should be.

If we take away the player driven sotry than for the complete part of the comunity and all have to accept what FFG thimngs is the best for it but how you said it, it would be opression and this is nothing anyone should support.

“Oppression?” That is an absolutely ridiculous, borderline offensive thing to call it.

Borderline insulting? Yeah as if. Telling people to shut up and take what you deem is the best for them is opression cause you force your opinion onto them without them being able to have a say in how they want to be dealt with or what they think is the best for them.

The Spider Clan players should not be asked what they will give up to fit in.

If you don´t ask us but we are the only faction which would be subject to we do what we want with you faction I feel opressed by the people who decide what the best is for the faction Iam part of. If there is a option to have influence of the story it should be of equal power for each and not only for a part of them. If you take it away fine but than for all not onyl for the Spider.

They have done that though. They pulled the rug out from togashi in order for the dragon to fit better within the overall story. They have been a bit directionless, but are still a functional member of rokugsn and the setting in general.