I much prefer the non-contagious Taint.

I much prefer the non-contagious Taint.

Not a criticism - but why? What do you see that's better about it that way?

I much prefer the non-contagious Taint.

Not a criticism - but why? What do you see that's better about it that way?

Each character -- from eto mortician to Clan Champion -- resists or succumbs only through their own choices, not through silly random chances.

If the Taint were purely a physical disease, without spiritual implications or consequences, then it would be one thing... but it's not.

I much prefer the non-contagious Taint.

Not a criticism - but why? What do you see that's better about it that way?

Each character -- from eto mortician to Clan Champion -- resists or succumbs only through their own choices, not through silly random chances.

If the Taint were purely a physical disease, without spiritual implications or consequences, then it would be one thing... but it's not.

It being choice based removes all the aspects of tragedy and sacrifice from it though. It also makes people with the taint very 1-dimensional baddies.

It has been the part of the spider clan I could never really make sense of. How can you willingly embrace taint/jigoku and remain a samurai within the empire.

IMO, from a lore perspective, it was one of the biggest mistakes made and is a main culprit of the stagnation of the storyline.

I much prefer the non-contagious Taint.

Not a criticism - but why? What do you see that's better about it that way?

Each character -- from eto mortician to Clan Champion -- resists or succumbs only through their own choices, not through silly random chances.

If the Taint were purely a physical disease, without spiritual implications or consequences, then it would be one thing... but it's not.

It being choice based removes all the aspects of tragedy and sacrifice from it though. It also makes people with the taint very 1-dimensional baddies.

It has been the part of the spider clan I could never really make sense of. How can you willingly embrace taint/jigoku and remain a samurai within the empire.

IMO, from a lore perspective, it was one of the biggest mistakes made and is a main culprit of the stagnation of the storyline.

Jigoku is (more or less) the Rokugani equivalent of hell -- pure evil, rejection of all that is proper, and eternal punishment for those who give in to its temptations.

I don't see any noble tragedy or sacrifice in potential condemnation to "hell" being spread like a contagion.

Actually I like my taint contagious...

The problem is noncontagious taint is that there is no reason to stay away from a tainted person.

Yes he has a connection to hell... But Daigotsu seems to be a pretty okay and honest guy and he is in charge of the thing.

Yes it might turn him into a mindless monster, but before that he is just like me... with the ability to regrow limbs which seems pretty cool.

Contagious taint has the ability to spread to people who cant deal with it.

How fall instantly and become consumed by Jigoku immediately just by being near a person with taint.

And it can affect me I am unfree in my choice, this is why the only way to stay pure is to avoid all tainted persons.

Actually I like my taint contagious...

The problem is noncontagious taint is that there is no reason to stay away from a tainted person.

Yes he has a connection to hell... But Daigotsu seems to be a pretty okay and honest guy and he is in charge of the thing.

Yes it might turn him into a mindless monster, but before that he is just like me... with the ability to regrow limbs which seems pretty cool.

Contagious taint has the ability to spread to people who cant deal with it.

How fall instantly and become consumed by Jigoku immediately just by being near a person with taint.

And it can affect me I am unfree in my choice, this is why the only way to stay pure is to avoid all tainted persons.

You're looking at it from a purely mechanical point of view, instead of from the character's point of view.

If the Taint a matter of choice, then that person you know is Tainted made a deal with hell for that "neat power". He is not "just like you" -- he's a servant of a corrupt, unclean power that wishes to undo everything your people have held dear for over 1000 years, to piss on everything sacred and bathe the world in blood and fire and ruin.

But hey, no one has "any reason" to shun and avoid him as long as he's not contagious, right?

Actually I like my taint contagious...

The problem is noncontagious taint is that there is no reason to stay away from a tainted person.

Yes he has a connection to hell... But Daigotsu seems to be a pretty okay and honest guy and he is in charge of the thing.

Yes it might turn him into a mindless monster, but before that he is just like me... with the ability to regrow limbs which seems pretty cool.

Contagious taint has the ability to spread to people who cant deal with it.

How fall instantly and become consumed by Jigoku immediately just by being near a person with taint.

And it can affect me I am unfree in my choice, this is why the only way to stay pure is to avoid all tainted persons.

The reason to stay away from tainted folks even when taint is not contatious is simple, it is to avoid temptation. The people who are tainted when taint is not contatios are clearly that way because of their own amorality, and I am not sure you noticed how eager the Rokuganese culture is to behave properly and stay spirutual clean. So if you enjoy the company of such people it will erode your morality and thus open yourself to become tainted willingly. That is basically the same with most religious zeolots, that other people who do not follow the religion of the majority of a society will be seen as unclean and so even when you and I know that things like atheism is not contatious, some people will not want such people around for the perception of them being unclean. So, no need for contatious taint in that regard.

And really, no GM worth his salt would just throw in taint contamination willy-nilly.

If you are going to risk the players' characters like that, you need to follow through and make sure it is worth it.

When you remove the contagious nature of the Taint, you remove its main element of horror. It becomes just a power-up of sorts - that you can willingly choose to get. And lets not forget that every single Crab damsel can go make a picnic in the Shadowlands without fearing to grow an extra arm or a leg.

When you remove the contagious nature of the Taint, you remove its main element of horror. It becomes just a power-up of sorts - that you can willingly choose to get.

It's only a " free power up" if the GM is a lazy git who doesn't delve into the blatantly obvious social and moral consequences of being a willing servant of The Enemy Heaven and Man. It's only a "free power up" if the player doesn't mind the character being on the express elevator to damnation and at constant risk of losing his mind and turning into a gibbering monster.

I'm sorry if that's harsh, but this "free power up!" thing keeps coming up, and I just don't see how that's the case unless everyone just ignores all other negative aspects besides "The Evil Flu".

When you remove the contagious nature of the Taint, you remove its main element of horror. It becomes just a power-up of sorts - that you can willingly choose to get.

It's only a " free power up" if the GM is a lazy git who doesn't delve into the blatantly obvious social and moral consequences of being a willing servant of The Enemy Heaven and Man. It's only a "free power up" if the player doesn't mind the character being on the express elevator to damnation and at constant risk of losing his mind and turning into a gibbering monster.

I'm sorry if that's harsh, but this "free power up!" thing keeps coming up, and I just don't see how that's the case unless everyone just ignores all other negative aspects besides "The Evil Flu".

At no moment did I say that it was free. There is a cost, but it is not a horrid, heart-wrenching cost because it is simply a personal one. The greatest horror of the taint was always its ability to spread beyond control, to infect a character's loved ones - it is a truly beautiful RP moment to have a player decide between their character's child's life, or the honor/duty to the Empire... when said child just became noticeably Tainted (or even Lost... low Rings and all) due to being infected by daddy/mommy.

Personal costs are not free, but they sure are cheap - even from an in-game/IC perspective. What is real costly is when you risk something/someone other than yourself... and that is what non-infectious Taint removed from the table.

You're looking at it from a purely mechanical point of view, instead of from the character's point of view.

If the Taint a matter of choice, then that person you know is Tainted made a deal with hell for that "neat power". He is not "just like you" -- he's a servant of a corrupt, unclean power that wishes to undo everything your people have held dear for over 1000 years, to piss on everything sacred and bathe the world in blood and fire and ruin.

But hey, no one has "any reason" to shun and avoid him as long as he's not contagious, right?

And that is exactly what the Spider Clan is for. I already shun them for exactly this reason.

So what is the difference between a tainted and a non-tainted Spider? Non that matters.

The Taint is just a synonym for the Spider Clan alignment.

Also the Legion of the Damned simply looses all appeal.

The Legion were tragic heroes exposed to the Taint in the line of duty.

They did what was right and they ended up being avoided by everyone, due to fear that you would become just like them.

And they were part of the Crab. The Clan that opposed the Shadowlands the most due to its history.

If the taint becomes a choice, it becomes uninteresting in this setting.

Because this is what honor already is for. The taint in this form is unneeded. It does not add an extra dimension to the setting.

It just enforces what we already know: The Spider clan (plot twist) is EVIL!

It is therefore ignored, and rightly so.

Contagious taint adds something to the setting.

Samurai already have a strong moral compass within them, but how do they deal with it when they now that Jigoku got a hold of them.

One of my favored scenes was then Kuon got mad as he realized that the Damned were deployed against the Crane.

They were loosing, they needed the extra fighting power, but his celestial mandate was to protect Rokugan from the taint.

And that included the Crane which he was at war with. The last thing he wanted was spreading the taint among the Crane, even if that meant loosing the war.

One thing I would like to add: Monster!

I think Rokugan needs more untainted monster, when you have a contagious taint.

Sending Goblins or Undead is simply not an option when every encounter means possible contamination.

And Bandits are fine but if I play a fantasy setting I would like to have a fantasy setting.

It is not that I think contagious taint simply makes everything better,

but I think it is far more relevant then noncontagious taint.

I much prefer the non-contagious Taint.

Not a criticism - but why? What do you see that's better about it that way?

Each character -- from eto mortician to Clan Champion -- resists or succumbs only through their own choices, not through silly random chances.

If the Taint were purely a physical disease, without spiritual implications or consequences, then it would be one thing... but it's not.

It being choice based removes all the aspects of tragedy and sacrifice from it though. It also makes people with the taint very 1-dimensional baddies.

It has been the part of the spider clan I could never really make sense of. How can you willingly embrace taint/jigoku and remain a samurai within the empire.

IMO, from a lore perspective, it was one of the biggest mistakes made and is a main culprit of the stagnation of the storyline.

Jigoku is (more or less) the Rokugani equivalent of hell -- pure evil, rejection of all that is proper, and eternal punishment for those who give in to its temptations.

I don't see any noble tragedy or sacrifice in potential condemnation to "hell" being spread like a contagion.

For the Crab Clan there was a very noble sacrifice. They would protect the empire at the wall from the shadowlands, but would quite likely become tainted themselves in performing their duty. That was quite noble.

The damned are another great example. Finding out they are tainted, and instead of committing seppukku would just venture into the shadowlands to live out their last days knocking snot out of Onis and Zombies.

The contagion spread provides a feel of the inexorable advance of Jigoku, and the struggle at keeping it at bay. Now that it isn't contagious anymore, it removes all that.

The free power up thing from a lore perspective is true to a point. Before when you got the taint it continually spread. So maybe at first you become a little bit stronger, quicker and more preceptive. This is great at first and it feels free. There is a cost however, in that the spread continues, the tainted character becomes more and more powerful, but begins to suffer other symptoms like metal illness and disfigurement. This meant that the taint had a real cost. You got so much power, but at a cost. When it is voluntary, it seems like you take just a little bit, and keep it around there as long as you want. Being able to control the taint removes a lot of the risk factor as you have a choice about exactly how far you delve into it. That to me, is just boring. At low levels of taint, how are people to know you are tainted? You can't tell thet from the outside. Then you are able to keep it at that level. So really, at low levels there is very little drawback to it.

The descent into madness and the involuntary loss of free will until you eventually become a slave to jigoku was the entire shtick of the taint. It was always the temptation of power that drew people to it, the power was there, but it came at a massive cost - that you would eventually become a mindless servant of Jigoku. That cost has been pretty much removed.

Cross Posting from another thread re: contagion or not:

I'm largely agnostic on the contagious or not question. I see benefits to both, and it's far too late to ask for consistency from AEG's version. I think there are ways to make it both a Faustian pact and a contagion simply by arguing that it's only a contagion where the land itself is so tainted that it thrives. Elsewhere, it's personal taint. Best of both worlds, I think. It allows for both the existential horror of service on the wall, and the personal corruption that can lurk under the surface closer to the heart of the empire. It also justifies (mistaken) belief that the merest touch of a tainted person is anathema, and will infect you (unless you're near the wall or a heavily tainted area, in which case, it actually will).

This has the side benefit of giving the taint some genuinely unknowable qualities. Is this area tainted enough that it's a danger? Who knows? Your GM does...Dare you take the risk? Do the demands of honor mean so much? Alternately, it can be obviously contagious, if that suits the story, just by being a more tainted area, which would be obvious visually. It's no longer about risk, it's about certain taint. Do you do your duty regardless?

Meanwhile, in the Imperial Palace, a shugenja studies a forbidden scroll and picks up a little taint. Just a little bit. Easy to hide. But it's there, eating away at his soul.

Contagious Taint vs Non Contagious Taint offer two different types of horror.

Contagious Taint is the very existential horror of unstoppable, alien force that randomly invades your life and no matter how you try to oppose it, it will slowly subvert every aspect of it. It taps into fear of unknown and fear of losing control; it also invokes terrible feeling of powerlessness. It works best over time; idea of losing yourself and not knowing where "you" stop and "it" begins is pretty potent in horror. Another reason why it can summon powerful emotions is it's resemblance of diseases, especially terminal ones. Your whole life loses it's purpose, and with everyday, you stop being yourself. No matter what you do, there is no stopping it and only thing that awaits you at the end of the road is either death, or fate worse than death. It's a very real and common fear, which is why this type of existential threat is successful and popular - it's easy to dress as fantasy story, but it actually touches very real life problems and fears.

Basically, focus of fear here is powerlessness and the fact that it doesn't choose; anyone can become it's victim. Again, just like diseases.

Non Contagious Taint is quite different. Let's be frank, it's hard to invoke fear by throwing at you a guy who cut himself to gain super powers. There is nothing quite adequate in common real life threats to it, so it won't be as powerful. This is why Non Contagious Taint is a type of horror that shouldn't focus on the actual Taint - the horror here is not the guy with 10 tentacles, it's *story of why he did it*.

In order for it to be scary, you must present situations where your Taintlord is not gleefuly grabbing power, but where your reader can sympathize with him. Yes - you basically need to turn Tainted person into a victim of circumstance. Present a situation, where grabbing this forbidden power was the only solution and they had no other choice. Horror here comes from realization that sometimes you are forced into situations with no good solutions, into circumstances so terrible, that even literally sacrificing your humanity is better than the alternatives; here, your horror comes from commenting on the terrible and sad reality, and ability to hulk out by drinking Cool Taint is only a way to showcase these. Again, this can cause fear and anxiety, because while most people won't be able to picture themselves selling their souls for power like this, you can subtly remind them that yes, reality is terrible and some day, you might find yourself in a situation where you would grab anything to save yourself and to escape hell, even turning to cannibalism or murder. Usually, stuff like Taint and pact with the devil is a stand in for monstrous crimes and taboos - for example, previously mentioned cannibalism and murder.

I wholeheartedly agree with WHW's assessment.

I would like to add in one thing to it: The Samurai Drama!

It is in its core a story about doing the RIGHT thing and suffering the consequences of it.

Giving into the taint boils down to failing in being a Samurai, because it simply isn't the right thing to do ever.

This removes the horror of the taint in context of the Samurai Drama.

You can't sympathize with the tainted. They are the failures the can't be the protagonists of the story.

It does not mean you can't understand them, but in the end they ended up with the wrong choice.

And by the way having the Taint contagious does not mean you can't stories of voluntary corruption.

Daigotsu Rekai springs to mind. She is one of my favored characters in L5R.

However she lost her ability to be the protagonist of a samurai story after she choose to do the wrong thing to protect her son.

Yup.

Don't forget that one of the reasons Rekai left for the Shadowlands was exactly to prevent the rest of her family from being contaminated by the Taint. Even in a story of personal sacrifice and/or personal tragedy, Contagious Taint adds an extra layer of tragedy.

The contagion spread provides a feel of the inexorable advance of Jigoku, and the struggle at keeping it at bay. Now that it isn't contagious anymore, it removes all that.

The free power up thing from a lore perspective is true to a point. Before when you got the taint it continually spread. So maybe at first you become a little bit stronger, quicker and more preceptive. This is great at first and it feels free. There is a cost however, in that the spread continues, the tainted character becomes more and more powerful, but begins to suffer other symptoms like metal illness and disfigurement. This meant that the taint had a real cost. You got so much power, but at a cost. When it is voluntary, it seems like you take just a little bit, and keep it around there as long as you want. Being able to control the taint removes a lot of the risk factor as you have a choice about exactly how far you delve into it. That to me, is just boring. At low levels of taint, how are people to know you are tainted? You can't tell thet from the outside. Then you are able to keep it at that level. So really, at low levels there is very little drawback to it.

The descent into madness and the involuntary loss of free will until you eventually become a slave to jigoku was the entire shtick of the taint. It was always the temptation of power that drew people to it, the power was there, but it came at a massive cost - that you would eventually become a mindless servant of Jigoku. That cost has been pretty much removed.

There are two entirely different things there. Whether the Taint is contagious or voluntary is an separate question, from whether the Taint festers like a cancer inside someone however they were "infested". Unless I'm entirely misreading the RPG books, voluntarily Tainted characters are still at risk of madness and mutation and eventual loss of self -- especially if they actually use those "neat" powers.

As for how low-level Taint is revealed... aren't there several groups that are searching for the Tainted?

I wholeheartedly agree with WHW's assessment.

I would like to add in one thing to it: The Samurai Drama!

It is in its core a story about doing the RIGHT thing and suffering the consequences of it.

Giving into the taint boils down to failing in being a Samurai, because it simply isn't the right thing to do ever.

This removes the horror of the taint in context of the Samurai Drama.

You can't sympathize with the tainted. They are the failures the can't be the protagonists of the story.

It does not mean you can't understand them, but in the end they ended up with the wrong choice.

And by the way having the Taint contagious does not mean you can't stories of voluntary corruption.

Daigotsu Rekai springs to mind. She is one of my favored characters in L5R.

However she lost her ability to be the protagonist of a samurai story after she choose to do the wrong thing to protect her son.

Samurai drama is all about decisions, and yes the right decision would be to rather die then to become such evil, but that makes it feel like the non-contagious taint would be the one that is actually more in line with samurai drama, since that is about choices you have and your lord makes and whoever, while simply getting afflicted by the taint is not a story that involves choices regarding the taint. Looking at the history of L5R, with all plenty of bloodspeaker who have fallen to the taint, not knowing what they are dealing with always made better stories, then the guys who got bitten by a goblin and then commited seppuku or walked into a monastry and never have been seen again in the stories. Let's be honest, how many stories are there about the Legion of the Damned the Crab have? Or if you look at the non-contagious taint as the dark side of the force in Star Wars, which is also not contagious, but also serves great as starting point for an epic story there. Sorry, but I really think the fasutian taint, makes the better, more interesting stories. Sure, not necessarily interesting protagonists, but much more interesting villains!

The contagion spread provides a feel of the inexorable advance of Jigoku, and the struggle at keeping it at bay. Now that it isn't contagious anymore, it removes all that.

The free power up thing from a lore perspective is true to a point. Before when you got the taint it continually spread. So maybe at first you become a little bit stronger, quicker and more preceptive. This is great at first and it feels free. There is a cost however, in that the spread continues, the tainted character becomes more and more powerful, but begins to suffer other symptoms like metal illness and disfigurement. This meant that the taint had a real cost. You got so much power, but at a cost. When it is voluntary, it seems like you take just a little bit, and keep it around there as long as you want. Being able to control the taint removes a lot of the risk factor as you have a choice about exactly how far you delve into it. That to me, is just boring. At low levels of taint, how are people to know you are tainted? You can't tell thet from the outside. Then you are able to keep it at that level. So really, at low levels there is very little drawback to it.

The descent into madness and the involuntary loss of free will until you eventually become a slave to jigoku was the entire shtick of the taint. It was always the temptation of power that drew people to it, the power was there, but it came at a massive cost - that you would eventually become a mindless servant of Jigoku. That cost has been pretty much removed.

There are two entirely different things there. Whether the Taint is contagious or voluntary is an separate question, from whether the Taint festers like a cancer inside someone however they were "infested". Unless I'm entirely misreading the RPG books, voluntarily Tainted characters are still at risk of madness and mutation and eventual loss of self -- especially if they actually use those "neat" powers.

As for how low-level Taint is revealed... aren't there several groups that are searching for the Tainted?

There are the Witch Hunters (the only ones that are any good at it ), the Inquisitors, and to a lesser extent the Kuroiban. Other groups may know to be watchful (Jade Magistrates, for instance) but aren't actively searching for tainted folks.

Those are just a few, relatively small groups in the entire Empire. This is where this becomes a bigger issue. Over the course of 3e and 4e there has been a growing trent wherein people, consciously or otherwise, treat the Empire as small. It's not. Rokugan is massive. The idea that these groups are going to get around to even every known tainted person, let alone those who hide it, who have no obvious symptoms, or that haven't been 'diagnosed' yet, is rather farfetched. Especially after all the exposure to Shadowlands dangers the Empire has seen, as a whole, in recent decades.

Occasionally, we see hints of how Rokugan is still a big, wild place. Not too long ago there was story about a warlord that enslaved an entire area for awhile. No one knew because he was out in the middle of nowhere and peope don't travel there. Rokugan still has both its unexplored places, and its places where it's easy to hide. Try finding a single tainted person, without physical symptoms, who isn't actively using their taint, in a city the size of Ryoko Owari. If they don't want to be found, odds are they're not going to be.

As for the issue of contagious vs. non-contagious taint, there's a major reason I'm for the former- because life isn't fair. Especially when you're dealing with horror/horror elements like the taint, bad things happen to good people. Accidents lead to tragedy. One of the most poignant character backgrounds in 2e was for a tainted Crane bushi. He had been patrolling some haunted forest when he slipped and fell in a mud puddle. Something in it bit him and, before long, his eyes had turned entirely black. What did he do? He sought to join one of the groups that fights back against the Shadowlands, not just because they're evil, but because he had a personal vendetta. This, in turn, creates drama and moments for excellent storytelling.

Corruption is meant to be scary/threatening. Taint is such a looming threat because it can spring up in pockets, out of nowhere. A new tea shop opens and suddenly there's a spreading taint outbreak. Numerous lives are ruined/lost. Seeing this, the Witch Hunters come in and have to look at the shop owner, workers, etc. and, in addition to helping the tainted folks, figure out who came in and streated spreading the corruption. Take away the contagious nature of taint, and you lose out on the important element of this story- the existence of victims. The tragedy.

Lastly, non-contagious taint is just too limiting, IMHO. Sure, the kansen can whisper in your ear to encourage you to become a tsukai. But they're going to have a much harder time getting the rest of your family corrupted (a goal that I'm sure they have). They're going to have a difficult time teaching you how to get your friends/allies to willingly accept giving their souls over to the lord of hell itself. The taint wants to spread. It's a spiritual plague that, left unchecked, would blanket Rokugan. That's why foljks wear fingers of jade. Having it be non-contagious makes that spread much harder to pull off. You're pretty much limited to malicious folks deliberately accepting the taint, and monster rampages. The insidiousness is all but gone.

Mind you, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a horror writer. It often plays a big element in my games. Thus, I prefer a Shadowlands Taint that's as frightening as possible. That said, I'd be all for GMs that are less into that playing the taint as non-contagious. That said, I think the standard should be contagious. Players are likely to react negatively if you house rule taint to be more dangerous (also to catch on to the fact that taint mechanics may come into play). Make it less dangerous by removing that element and players get to be less paranoid, the tone for your game is just a bit lighter, and you have something that works for you. Whatever is going to allow your group to have the most fun, I say go for it.

I want to offer a slightly different perspective.

Tengoku v. Jigoku isn't about good and evil, it's about order and chaos. Rokugan represents order, a society based upon the precepts of knowing one's place, not about virtue and kindness. Even the Rokugani concept of compassion isn't actually that compassionate so much as it is a matter of avoiding flagrant tyranny or despotism - things that are very good triggers of revolutions. If one's place is not forcefully made more odious, then keeping it is simpler. Blasphemy mostly includes speaking out against The Celestial Order. Desire, Fear, and Regret are just different aspects of refusing to accept fate or circumstance. Ambition isn't a sin because advancement requires the support of one's betters so it drives a person to excel and perform their existing duties with extraordinary skill.

Tengoku and Rokugan are about responsibility, consequence, and fatal acceptance of divine justice. The heavens will see to their own.

Jigoku is injustice, opportunity, freedom and defiance. **** the shackles of society, I deserve more!

With this, the taint requires a contagious nature to fulfill its purpose of being that unseen, unjust, unstoppable horror to which none are immune. If you can't get it unwillingly, then it just isn't a threat.

Actually I like my taint contagious...

The problem is noncontagious taint is that there is no reason to stay away from a tainted person.

Yes he has a connection to hell... But Daigotsu seems to be a pretty okay and honest guy and he is in charge of the thing.

Yes it might turn him into a mindless monster, but before that he is just like me... with the ability to regrow limbs which seems pretty cool.

Contagious taint has the ability to spread to people who cant deal with it.

How fall instantly and become consumed by Jigoku immediately just by being near a person with taint.

And it can affect me I am unfree in my choice, this is why the only way to stay pure is to avoid all tainted persons.

The reason to stay away from tainted folks even when taint is not contatious is simple, it is to avoid temptation. The people who are tainted when taint is not contatios are clearly that way because of their own amorality, and I am not sure you noticed how eager the Rokuganese culture is to behave properly and stay spirutual clean. So if you enjoy the company of such people it will erode your morality and thus open yourself to become tainted willingly. That is basically the same with most religious zeolots, that other people who do not follow the religion of the majority of a society will be seen as unclean and so even when you and I know that things like atheism is not contatious, some people will not want such people around for the perception of them being unclean. So, no need for contatious taint in that regard.

It isn't about temptation -- it's just a matter of "This is a guy who is willing to do horrible, horrible things if he thinks it will benefit himself. I should not hang around guys like that."

I want to offer a slightly different perspective.

Tengoku v. Jigoku isn't about good and evil, it's about order and chaos. Rokugan represents order, a society based upon the precepts of knowing one's place, not about virtue and kindness. Even the Rokugani concept of compassion isn't actually that compassionate so much as it is a matter of avoiding flagrant tyranny or despotism - things that are very good triggers of revolutions. If one's place is not forcefully made more odious, then keeping it is simpler. Blasphemy mostly includes speaking out against The Celestial Order. Desire, Fear, and Regret are just different aspects of refusing to accept fate or circumstance. Ambition isn't a sin because advancement requires the support of one's betters so it drives a person to excel and perform their existing duties with extraordinary skill.

Tengoku and Rokugan are about responsibility, consequence, and fatal acceptance of divine justice. The heavens will see to their own.

Jigoku is injustice, opportunity, freedom and defiance. **** the shackles of society, I deserve more!

With this, the taint requires a contagious nature to fulfill its purpose of being that unseen, unjust, unstoppable horror to which none are immune. If you can't get it unwillingly, then it just isn't a threat.

Shouldn't be then there also a Tengoku taint that makes people less tolerant and less flexible towards ideas that fall outside the box? the Shadowlands taint is not about being evil, why is it then important to be nevertheless seen as threat and thus being contagious? I would say your argument leads exactly to the opposite conclusion, that taint should be not contagious and it should be no threat, since it is not about evil, but about chaos.

The contagion spread provides a feel of the inexorable advance of Jigoku, and the struggle at keeping it at bay. Now that it isn't contagious anymore, it removes all that.

The free power up thing from a lore perspective is true to a point. Before when you got the taint it continually spread. So maybe at first you become a little bit stronger, quicker and more preceptive. This is great at first and it feels free. There is a cost however, in that the spread continues, the tainted character becomes more and more powerful, but begins to suffer other symptoms like metal illness and disfigurement. This meant that the taint had a real cost. You got so much power, but at a cost. When it is voluntary, it seems like you take just a little bit, and keep it around there as long as you want. Being able to control the taint removes a lot of the risk factor as you have a choice about exactly how far you delve into it. That to me, is just boring. At low levels of taint, how are people to know you are tainted? You can't tell thet from the outside. Then you are able to keep it at that level. So really, at low levels there is very little drawback to it.

The descent into madness and the involuntary loss of free will until you eventually become a slave to jigoku was the entire shtick of the taint. It was always the temptation of power that drew people to it, the power was there, but it came at a massive cost - that you would eventually become a mindless servant of Jigoku. That cost has been pretty much removed.

There are two entirely different things there. Whether the Taint is contagious or voluntary is an separate question, from whether the Taint festers like a cancer inside someone however they were "infested". Unless I'm entirely misreading the RPG books, voluntarily Tainted characters are still at risk of madness and mutation and eventual loss of self -- especially if they actually use those "neat" powers.

As for how low-level Taint is revealed... aren't there several groups that are searching for the Tainted?

yes you are at risk to it...but it is a voluntary risk, but massive mutations don't really kick in for a while. At first you get ranks of things like reflexes, traits like night visions, then you graduate eventually to dark stuff like wings, blackened claws and massive boils . The fact that this can happen too even when it is voluntary is moot because you ahd to choose to go that path in the first place. That means you have designed or decided that the guy you are making is just a one dimensional baddie. Instead of a guy who takes a risk in dabbling in certain jigokery!

I am not sure how it works since the deal was made, and the 4th ed rule book for the RPG still seems to have the older contagious version of the taint. There is ambiguity in that if you accept the taint, does it then spread uncontrollably, or do you only get more taint when you use the super powers it gives you. That hasn't really been explained.

There are groups that can test for taint, there are even spells for it, and even Unicorn Deathpriests can do it. The thing is though, it is pretty dishonorable to just go around randomly checking people for taint because it would be a great insult to do so. There would need to be a suspicion first, and obvious symptoms of the taint don't kick in for quite some time. It would be some pretty next level meta gaming in an RPG to test someone who is rank 1ish for taint, unless they gave you obvious reasons to check.