Kappapa, Kappapa, Nitoriiiii...

I also would like to see more kappa, and tengu (none of this "kenku" nonsense), and karakasa-obake, and nue, and rokurokubi, and all sorts of strange yokai, to reinforce the notion that this is a strange, wondrous, magical world that can't be easily understood.

Whoa Rokurobi = amazing.

This is symptomatic of a wider discussion that comes up with regards to the setting from time to time. Some people like the supernatural elements of the setting, and place high priority on them; others prefer the setting to be primarily (nearly solely) about the people. I fall firmly in the latter camp. To be clear, I like that the various spirits and nonhuman creatures exist- they add richness to the world, make it more distinct from our own, and can provide handy plot devices if necessary. I am also a big fan of increasing the proportion of neutral spirits in the world, at the expense of the predominance of gribblies from Jigoku. But I also think that the more often they appear, the less importance is attached to them. Kenku (I don't care whether they're called kenku or tengu) should exist , certainly but it should also be a big deal when one of them appears, and that works much better when they're relatively rare. Likewise bakaneko, baku, and numerous others. In my view, Rokugan as a setting is compelling enough in its human interactions, and anything that distracts attention from those human interactions is to be downplayed.

With that said, I don't claim to be the sole arbiter of how Rokugan should be or anything. If people like kappa and shiyokai and kuchisake-onna and so on, there are rules for many of them, and there's absolutely no reason they can't increase their prevalence in their own games. If you're not having fun with L5R, there's no point getting into it at all, so everyone can and should do what works for them in their own games. Sometimes, a fluidly-defined setting is a good thing.

Well spoken. An interesting and, I think, balanced view from a storytelling aspect.

I find it interesting that the voices disapproving of supernatural elements come from the same Clan.

Funnily enough, since the matter of Clan affiliation and views on the setting has come up - as I have said elsewhere, I was drawn to the Lion through the Tsuno (I loved the Tsuno, but then they got thrown under the bus with the rest of the Horde, and I had come to appreciate the Lion through their interactions with the Tsuno, so Lion it was). So, if the supernatural elements had not been present, I would quite possibly not be a Lion fan... In fact, as it was the Shadowlands that initially got me into the game when I was small, I would very probably not be an L5R fan at all if they had not been present. To that extent, it would be hypocritical of me to deny that the supernatural elements of the setting can be compelling, or to call for their complete disappearance.

With that said, however- when I was first getting into the game, I barely knew anything about the setting, nor did I know anyone who really did (I had a couple of friends who were into it, but being children, we didn't really understand... our standard playstyle in the CCG was to run through our entire Dynasty decks until every single personality was bought, then throw them at each other). The primary motivation for my interest in the Shadowlands was pure aesthetic appreciation (Gold and Diamond Edition Oni were super-cool), rather than sensitivity to their importance for narrative coherency within the setting or anything like that. One of the reasons I gravitated towards the Tsuno as I got deeper into the setting was that they echoed (albeit in highly distorted forms) some of the core values of the Clans, and thus posed a philosophical as well as purely physically existential challenge; another was that, thanks to their Realm-hopping abilities, they could appear and disappear as necessary- unlike the Shadowlands writ large, the Tsuno don't have to be present if the narrative doesn't require them, but they can arbitrarily appear at any point if it's useful for the story, without breaking any aspect of the setting (another reason was, again, aesthetics). By the time the Tsuno and the Horde were actually done away with, I was deep enough into the setting that, most of the time, I would rather let the samurai do their thing without being constantly interrupted by external forces that forced them to put aside their (interesting) internal conflicts in favour of (boring) unification against a superior foe.

From my own experience, then, I think that the Tsuno are a useful model for the supernatural in L5R: it is - or can be - immensely powerful, and can intrude into the lives of the samurai in dramatic and unforeseeable ways. It also provides a point of sharp aesthetic difference, which can, potentially, attract people to the setting. But it doesn't have to, it normally doesn't, and the vast majority of the time, samurai can live their lives and engage with each other without ever being forced to acknowledge its presence or even existence. To borrow the simile of quantum physics- yes, it's mind-breaking if you think about it, and yes, it defines material existence at fundamental levels. But on the level of human existence and interaction, classical physics prevails pretty much 100% of the time, so there's not really any reason to consider quantum mechanics unless you really want to. I could say more, but this post is already too long, and dangerously close to going too far off topic, so I will leave it there for now.

To reiterate, once again- I have nothing against the supernatural elements of the setting. They brought me into the setting, and to the Clan that I now strongly identify with (well... I don't, because I like to think I'm not an insufferably arrogant psychopathic thin-skinned genocidal emotionally-amputated lunatic... but within the setting, I do). If people want to make them more prominent in their play, all power to them. Personally, I find interactions between samurai inhabitants of the setting more compelling, therefore I am not in favour of making it a canon fact that you can't go a day without running into a mujina or zokujin.

Personally, I find interactions between samurai inhabitants of the setting more compelling, therefore I am not in favour of making it a canon fact that you can't go a day without running into a mujina or zokujin.

I do not believe people are asking for Mujina, Zokujin, Tengu and Kappa to be as common as Dwarves, Elves and Halflings are in most fantasy RPG settings. I think that what they are asking for is things like the player knowledge that the Kuni enslave Mujina to work in the Crab's Iron Mines, much of the Lion's Copper Mining is done by Zokujin, Tengu/Kenku live in the mountains of the Crane provinces, Gashadokuro are a real threat during famines, traveling in the mountains during a snowstorm is a good way to encounter a Yuki-Onna, animals sometimes take human form and marry people, and various other Japanese fantasy elements are normal parts of the setting.