This is still not true. There was one beastmaster in Celestial - Benika xp2. Zero in Emperor, and one in Ivory. Half of all beastmasters appeared in Twenty Festivals.

Fair enough, although I will point out that there were at least two beastmasters (including basic Benika) in Lotus. I didn't pay much attention to which got printed where.

Dragons have always had tattooed monks and dual wielding samurai.

If by "always" you mean "Starting in Jade Edition" and "starting in Shadowlands" respectively. So, not quite always.

(the first personality with both Tattooed and Monk was the Jade Edition reprint/errata of Togashi Mitsu ; prior versions were tattooed but not monk. This was quickly followed up on thanks to the Dragon civil war and the Hoshi hiding in the brotherhood plotline going on at the time. The first dual-wielder was Mirumoto Taki, and the NEXT one after that had a Gold Edition bug on him (Mirumoto Tokeru in HoR). After Taki (and his soul of), the next Non-unique dual wielder had to actually wait until Dark Allies.

Which is pretty much my point. Themes were not "always" there. A lot of themes took an eternity to develop properly, and most themes were later extrapolations from a single card. Beastmasters are no different in that regard.

That does make me wonder if new themes will be devised for the clans.

For the initial launch, I don't see a reason to. Maybe several years down the road.

This is still not true. There was one beastmaster in Celestial - Benika xp2. Zero in Emperor, and one in Ivory. Half of all beastmasters appeared in Twenty Festivals.

Fair enough, although I will point out that there were at least two beastmasters (including basic Benika) in Lotus. I didn't pay much attention to which got printed where.

Dragons have always had tattooed monks and dual wielding samurai.

If by "always" you mean "Starting in Jade Edition" and "starting in Shadowlands" respectively. So, not quite always.

(the first personality with both Tattooed and Monk was the Jade Edition reprint/errata of Togashi Mitsu ; prior versions were tattooed but not monk. This was quickly followed up on thanks to the Dragon civil war and the Hoshi hiding in the brotherhood plotline going on at the time. The first dual-wielder was Mirumoto Taki, and the NEXT one after that had a Gold Edition bug on him (Mirumoto Tokeru in HoR). After Taki (and his soul of), the next Non-unique dual wielder had to actually wait until Dark Allies.

Which is pretty much my point. Themes were not "always" there. A lot of themes took an eternity to develop properly, and most themes were later extrapolations from a single card. Beastmasters are no different in that regard.

That does make me wonder if new themes will be devised for the clans.

I guess that depends if we're talking themes or Themes. Lower case themes as in "this clan is good at doing X and has Y and Z character types to support that" whereas upper case Themes are "this clan runs Y and Z keywords almost exclusively, and needs A and B and C cards to support those keywords".

The first is fine. Scorpions have courtiers, ninjas, samurai, and magistrates. You can mix and match those to an extent, with some mixes being a better fit than others. You might water your deck down or you might shore up a weakness by mixing and matching. The exact mix of the personalities isn't set in stone. The second means that you have ninja personalities in ninja decks with ninja support cards, and including a samurai or a magistrate without ninja is watering your deck down, almost in every case.

This is still not true. There was one beastmaster in Celestial - Benika xp2. Zero in Emperor, and one in Ivory. Half of all beastmasters appeared in Twenty Festivals.

Fair enough, although I will point out that there were at least two beastmasters (including basic Benika) in Lotus. I didn't pay much attention to which got printed where.

Dragons have always had tattooed monks and dual wielding samurai.

If by "always" you mean "Starting in Jade Edition" and "starting in Shadowlands" respectively. So, not quite always.

(the first personality with both Tattooed and Monk was the Jade Edition reprint/errata of Togashi Mitsu ; prior versions were tattooed but not monk. This was quickly followed up on thanks to the Dragon civil war and the Hoshi hiding in the brotherhood plotline going on at the time. The first dual-wielder was Mirumoto Taki, and the NEXT one after that had a Gold Edition bug on him (Mirumoto Tokeru in HoR). After Taki (and his soul of), the next Non-unique dual wielder had to actually wait until Dark Allies.

Which is pretty much my point. Themes were not "always" there. A lot of themes took an eternity to develop properly, and most themes were later extrapolations from a single card. Beastmasters are no different in that regard.

That does make me wonder if new themes will be devised for the clans.

I guess that depends if we're talking themes or Themes. Lower case themes as in "this clan is good at doing X and has Y and Z character types to support that" whereas upper case Themes are "this clan runs Y and Z keywords almost exclusively, and needs A and B and C cards to support those keywords".

The first is fine. Scorpions have courtiers, ninjas, samurai, and magistrates. You can mix and match those to an extent, with some mixes being a better fit than others. You might water your deck down or you might shore up a weakness by mixing and matching. The exact mix of the personalities isn't set in stone. The second means that you have ninja personalities in ninja decks with ninja support cards, and including a samurai or a magistrate without ninja is watering your deck down, almost in every case.

I was thinking of new actual themes or revisions for the clans. For example, the Unicorn become much more hit and run than they usually were and suddenly have the most ranged attacks of the clans (Mongol roots). A lot of this could simply be story driven too. For example, the Crab clan are pushing on new lands and suddenly have quite a bit of Conqueror-like characters to account for it. Stuff that we might not have seen in the past.

Most of this just depends on what the story team wants to push.

Most of this just depends on what the story team wants to push.

No, ugh.

Good gameplay first, story to suit.

Can we please, please, please not have a clan with an emphasis that is "drastically higher access to lethal actions than everybody else?"

As long as they fully support any "themes" they put forth and don't create situations where the personalities are ALMOST enough to build a deck i'll be happy. Three arcs of siege honor tease is enough for me thanks.

Most of this just depends on what the story team wants to push.

No, ugh.

Good gameplay first, story to suit.

Despite being in the story camp? Yeah. Card design should focus on a fun game people can enjoy.

They had a few implementation. They had the Ancestor card type which served as attachment you could put on a personality while recruiting.

The later got a breeder box which could create ancestor personalities pretty similar to the one box that could pop out Undeads.

Huh. Neither of those really grabs me.

I do agree that ancestor veneration is significant in setting.

This seems like the kind of thing that would be good for a themed cycle of packs, to me, maybe with token support in core. Ummm, meaning a little support, not support in the shape of tokens.

Although I rather suspect the first cycle after the core is going to be like... "More Powerful than Steel," or maybe just, "Stronger than Steel," and focus on honor stuff. With the core box being more straight ahead mil and less politics. Not to say honor won't be supported in core, because I'm sure it will.

Thinking of expansion, "Focus Packs" and "Strike Boxes" would be a neat little themed nod.

The Sodan Senzo (Lion shugenja) are almost completely based around magic that communicates with ancestors. They also have a hangup about using magic offensively, so as a rule the Lion don't. The breeder honor box had some mechanics that weren't bad, but I don't feel like it captured that facet of the Clan perfectly. I liked the idea of having expendable personalities that you could explode defensively to gain honor, but I don't really want to see that exact mechanic come back.

It should be represented in some other way though, it's important to the clan identity as a whole.

I see this said quite often about the lion shugenja, but in the 4th ed rpg book they are explicitly called out as war priests, even with a bonus to battle spells. I assume this wa not always the case?

Deathseekers. What exactly are they? Well they are dishonored members of the Lion clan. However instead of committing seppuku, they were utilized on the field of battle so that they may regain their honor. In story time, it would mean they would spend around 1 year's time as a Deathseeker to become rehonored.

Just as a fluff quibble, Deathseekers aren't rehonored automatically after a certain period of time. That would create an incentive for them to fight to survive, rather than their intended role of fighting to kill.

....And I just realized that post is over a year old. Good grief.

I see this said quite often about the lion shugenja, but in the 4th ed rpg book they are explicitly called out as war priests, even with a bonus to battle spells. I assume this wa not always the case?

It's always been part of the lore, but it's never been reflected well in the mechanics. There are a lot of ways the mechanics mishandled the Kitsu, unfortunately.

It's always been part of the lore, but it's never been reflected well in the mechanics. There are a lot of ways the mechanics mishandled the Kitsu, unfortunately.

Rassum frassum Emperor Edition Kitsu being better Shiba/Isawa synergy than the Shiba and Isawa ever got...

I think this raises the question of what, exactly, are the defining themes of each clan? The simple truth is that we won't have all the aspects of every clan available from the get-go. There simply won't be enough room in the starter to include everything everyone wants. Additionally, I think FFG will want to be very careful about including too many keywords with built-in rules, as opposed to including keywords that other card effects target by name. As an example, instead of shugenja being allowed to attach spells because of the definition of the shugenja keyword, spells would start with "Attach to your Shugenja..."

So, what are the "essential elements" of each clan? Here's what I've got (your answers may vary):

Crab - Defense/Sheer Force/Utility

Crane - Honor/Culture/Politics

Dragon - Enlightenment/Monks/Shaved Heads

Lion - Tactical Genius/Loyalty

Mantis - Archery (I've heard that there are non-Tsuruchi Mantis, but I think they're just a myth)

Phoenix - Shugenja/Yojimbo/Mysteries

Scorpion - Trickery/Deceit/Secrecy

Spider - Being-Pretty-Much-Univerally-Disliked-While-Simultaneously-Being-Awesome

Unicorn - Movement/Hating On Poor, Defenseless Archers

Not really sure some of these would translate well into particular traits, but I think it'd be a good starting point.

I'd say:

Crab - Pragmatic (i.e. not really caring about personal honor) Strong Defenders

Crane - Skilled, Cultured and Courtly

Dragon - Mystics seeking Enlightenment

Lion - Large Honorable Military

Mantis/Minor Clan Alliance - a Varied Group made up of less Groups working together as One.

Scorpion - Sneaky, Deceptive and Counter-intuitive

Spider - Elite Dark Samurai*

Unicorn - Cavalry?

*samurai in this case referring to character types usually associated with Japanese Historical fiction which include Sohei and Courtiers in addition to Samurai warriors.

I'm going to use two for each clan (of course, there are more themes):

Crab - a rock

Crane - Dueling and Honor/Court

Dragon - Dueling (to counter the Crane) and Enlightenment (to counter the Phoenix)

Lion - Direct Military and Tactical Military (representing two families and similar, but different, approaches)

Mantis - Ranged attacks and those darn pirates (maybe something like the ambush or pillage mechanic from AGoT)

Phoenix - Magic and Enlightenment

Scorpion - Ninja and Dishonoring

Spider - Semi-"Indirect" Military (to reflect the idea of operating outside the empire) or Imperial Military (to reflect that they are in control) and Imperial Favor Court/Honor (Susumu and the ability to go around normal avenues of your typical honor strategy) Much of the spider will depend on what the story will do to them.

Unicorn - Cavalry is obvious but what could be another? The battle maidens are possible but might be pushed to expansions to really push that keyword, so maybe there will be a push on their own brand of economy. I'm thinking it could be something along the lines of trading or playing to the goodwill of multiple players.

I think this raises the question of what, exactly, are the defining themes of each clan?

Crab: Smash face and use inglorious/pragmatic tactics

Crane: Duel, make art, and talk yourself up.

Dragon: Duel, navel-gaze/magic in the name of enlightenment

Lion: Smash face and talk yourself up

Mantis: Inglorious/pragmatic tactics and magical power used pragmatically

Phoenix: Magical power (paired with yojimbo) used for enlightenment, talking yourself up

Scorpion: Use shady tactics and run the enemy's reputation down

Spider: Evil face smashing via monsters magic and mayhem, and shady tactics

Unicorn: Smash face and unorthodox maneuvers (in court as well as in war)

People keep forgetting Crab's commercial theme. That's an iconic aspect of our Clan right? Aww, I can feel my lovely dishonor slipping through my fingers.

It's cool, but hardly iconic of the Crab...

"We are the wall," not, "We have your money."

I suppose big castles and heavy armor are what drew me to the Crab in the first place, but I enjoy being a merchant lord. It suits me.

It's almost as if with an organization as large as a Great Clan any broad generalizations are going to exclude certain parts of it.

Also, from a design standpoint I think having a second Clan with a dishonor theme is a good idea since otherwise you have an entire Victory Condition that only the Scorpion can achieve on a regular basis.

I suppose big castles and heavy armor are what drew me to the Crab in the first place, but I enjoy being a merchant lord. It suits me.

It's almost as if with an organization as large as a Great Clan any broad generalizations are going to exclude certain parts of it.

Also, from a design standpoint I think having a second Clan with a dishonor theme is a good idea since otherwise you have an entire Victory Condition that only the Scorpion can achieve on a regular basis.

That might end up with the Spider though, even if it doesn't necessarily fit with the Susumu family and their ways of generating honor (i.e. clout). Then again FFG could just make some of their clan members monsters or bog hags again to get that shadowy point across. Plus shadow ninja!

The Yasuki are a fun family and I really enjoy their take on dishonor/economy but they feel like something that would be introduced at a point after the core set. I'd imagine that there might be a card here or there until a deluxe set is introduced that features the crab clan.

That might end up with the Spider though, even if it doesn't necessarily fit with the Susumu family and their ways of generating honor (i.e. clout). Then again FFG could just make some of their clan members monsters or bog hags again to get that shadowy point across. Plus shadow ninja!

The Yasuki are a fun family and I really enjoy their take on dishonor/economy but they feel like something that would be introduced at a point after the core set. I'd imagine that there might be a card here or there until a deluxe set is introduced that features the crab clan.

I feel like clout never really came together as a mechanic. Plus low starting honor Clans tend to not do well with Honor victories. I think Kitsune were the only ones to make a decent go of it.

I'm totally in favor of the Shadow Dragon making a comeback. I always felt he was a more interesting enemy than Kanpeki.

Some of your best placed agents are bog hags. At the very least they need to bring back M'rika in honor of that broken combo the Rules Team dropped the ball on.

I can be patient for my merchants, provided I get them eventually. Mostly I'm just eagar to play the game again. There's a L5R shaped hole in my heart that needs to get filled.

I feel like clout never really came together as a mechanic.

True story: They honestly forgot about it. The Design team, I mean.

There's a mea culpa somewhere on Shinden Fu Leng to that effect.

I feel like clout never really came together as a mechanic.

That was mostly because there were only 4 clout cards total: Kuroko Sensei and 3 personalities (one of them unaligned, unique and intended more for the Kolat Conspiracy deck). The deck (and several of the other new themes released in A Line in the Sand) only had the bare bones baseline for their mechanics.There were multiple fumbles when the Design Team rotated between clans which led to most of the "new" themes being not properly supported.

It's cool, but hardly iconic of the Crab...

"We are the wall," not, "We have your money."

Crab: We are the Wall

Crane: We are the Culture

Dragon: We Contemplate

Lion: We are War

Mantis: We are many Voices

Phoenix: We Burn ( obligitory RWBY reference )

Scorpion: We Know What You Did....

Spider: We are the Montsers you think you Know

Unicorn: We are the Wind

That might end up with the Spider though, even if it doesn't necessarily fit with the Susumu family and their ways of generating honor (i.e. clout). Then again FFG could just make some of their clan members monsters or bog hags again to get that shadowy point across. Plus shadow ninja!

The Yasuki are a fun family and I really enjoy their take on dishonor/economy but they feel like something that would be introduced at a point after the core set. I'd imagine that there might be a card here or there until a deluxe set is introduced that features the crab clan.

I feel like clout never really came together as a mechanic. Plus low starting honor Clans tend to not do well with Honor victories. I think Kitsune were the only ones to make a decent go of it.

I'm totally in favor of the Shadow Dragon making a comeback. I always felt he was a more interesting enemy than Kanpeki.

Some of your best placed agents are bog hags. At the very least they need to bring back M'rika in honor of that broken combo the Rules Team dropped the ball on.

I can be patient for my merchants, provided I get them eventually. Mostly I'm just eagar to play the game again. There's a L5R shaped hole in my heart that needs to get filled.

I'd agree that it didn't come together but I did like the way that it played. It was a different take on honor than what we have been used to. It felt like they were on the right track and had a decent idea Maybe if Obsidian edition had been released, then who knows?

There might have been too much design space given to the Goju and the general, "beat up your opponent" approach in the last few sets than to the honor approach. Even the monks felt a bit neglected. Then again, the story seemed to be pushing that idea with them with Tetsuo Exp 2.

Phoenix: We Burn

I would have sworn the Phoenix were supposed to be pacifists.

Phoenix: We Burn

I would have sworn the Phoenix were supposed to be pacifists.

Pious purist pacifists. In principle.

But just ask the fanbase... ohhhh, we are a weird, fractured,squabbling bunch,in part because the story has often had no clue what to DO with the Phoenix clan...

We have "let's just nuke somebody to remind them we CAN" sorts (Guilty...)

We have maho fans who make the Spider look tepid. (I blame this mostly on the fact that the last time the Phoenix got any in-setting respect in the published story, it was when we had Bloodpseakers everywhere)

We have "let's be pacifist hardline traditionalists"

We have "Path of Man synchs well with Kolat ideology" types.

We have "let's be the super-heroes Rokugan needs" sorts. (I dabble in this between fantasies of blasting the Mantis or Spider into oblivion)

Of course... for much of the game's history, NONE of those sections were happy with what we got...