Hello! The game in question is one I GM for two people: Shosuro Inflitrator turned yojimbo, Shosuro Masamune; and Ishiken-do Isawa Michiru. This takes place in our personal brand of Rokugan, which is generally less rigid, with lesser than usual dose of "japan" and bigger than typical dose of "china", and in general, much more mystical and less tragic wuxia/asian fantasy genre. We also use our own take on Honor system and our interpretation of it and clans might sound weird or alien to you (Scorpion that values Honor?!); if so, feel free to ask about it, but please, don't drop in just to critique about how un-L5R our take is and how much we are trampling on the franchise. Also note that English isn't my first language and I haven't took a class in it once during my life; this means that following post will probably contain tons of language errors, for which I sincerely apologize.

In about a week or two, one of my onging games is going to reach a point with which I feel that I could use some help. Here is the basic setup:
Isawa Michiru and Shosuro Masamune (her unwilling yojimbo, assigned to her based on a horoscope and as a punishment), two of our protagonists, stumbled upon a sad Scorpion - Bayushi Kaminari - who was shopping for gifts and masks. After short conversation, on a whim guided by intuition and belief in the guiding hand of fate, man asked Michiru to help him with choosing a mask. Based on their observations, they deduced that he is searching for a gift meant for a deceased - or at least lost/gone - person. In the end, they figured out that he the present is meant for Kaminari's daughter who, according to their deductions, who ended up in a coma after trying to prove her worth in a unsanctioned duel in the city's underground Fight Club.
Amazed by their intuition, Bayushi confimed that his Little Flower has been decided "gempuku worthy" by all of her sensei...with him being the lonely "no" vote. And him, being the Master Sensei of the Dojo, having the decisive vote. Kaminari is wrecked by guilt - he believes that if he wasn't so stubborn, Little Flower would be taking her gempukku tomorrow (as it was determined to be the "perfect day" according to their households Shugenja).
Believing his daughter curses him in her sleep, he decided on a whim to held a honorable, symbolical gempuku over her comatose body. Knowing she will probably never wake up, he wants to place his hand picked mask on her face to show that he really, really respected her and in the end, he acknowledges his mistake and retroactively recognizes her as an adult.
And again, on a whim, he decides to invite Isawa Michiru to that gempuku ceremony, guided by very simple thought process; "Fortunes threw them at me when I made up my mind, so it's destiny; also, Isawa Shugenja = the best Shugenja = having one during your gempuku equals much respect wow wow very honor". Players being players accept it.
They also decided that they will do whatever they can do brink the girl back - or at least communicate with her spirit in order to fix this family drama and a) stop Kaminari from shaving his head/seppukuing/abandoning the Dojo in shame, and b) make it clear that Little Flower didn't hate her Father and vice versa.

So I basically need as much of inspirational material for "trying to communicate with a soul of nearly deceased". My players already want to do some oujia-style communication, but also consider making her posses someone of her blood, using sacred puppets, and borrowing some bats from certain Chikushudo-happy Unicorn.

The creepiest possible way to speak to the dead.....

Have doing so require a priest or priestess and have the ghost literally possess the body of that person and speak through that person. Just like the way it worked in Rashomon.

Also, dead spirits cannot lie, they may also be able to "see" things in a different way than a living person can, seeing people as their spirits rather than their physical bodies.

You said you're using China for inspiration; this is more or less what TheHobgoblyn is suggesting. Obviously Little Flower doesn't have any descendants to serve as the personator, but depending on which flavor suits your story better, either Kaminari could be the vessel (because related), or Michiru (because Void).

For recognizing the body . . . heh. A while back I played a character (not in an L5R game) who was very much in the Aztec/Mayan paradigm; it means I got blood magic into my head and it's never really gone away. But since you probably don't want to convene the first meeting of Quasi-Maho Club in your campaign, hmmm. I could see Michiru being able to mostly restore Little Flower by talking up the Void concept -- the idea that the body is a vessel, that the emptiness of the vessel defines its function, that she can be the material that fills the Void, etc. Or make use of the mask somehow, like Little Flower uses the personator to place the mask on her body, thus claiming it as her own. But I'm the sort of GM who would have her come back with some kind of weird and interesting flaw as a result, because that kind of experience should have lingering effects. If the Void-based route, she might come back with the Momoku flaw, because her Elements aren't properly integrated with each other. If the mask-based route, maybe she has to wear the mask for the rest of her life or her spirit will lose its grip on the body, and/or people who can sense spirits will register her as a spirit possessing a body rather than a normal person. Or something like that.

3 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

The creepiest possible way to speak to the dead.....

Have doing so require a priest or priestess and have the ghost literally possess the body of that person and speak through that person. Just like the way it worked in Rashomon.

Also, dead spirits cannot lie, they may also be able to "see" things in a different way than a living person can, seeing people as their spirits rather than their physical bodies.

I'm happy that you mention the Kurosawa movie but in Rashomon the ghost lies like the living!

The Ghost Channeling / Possession is definitely one of the options; it was the first one I've suggested to them when they started brainstorming. Shugenja's player usually played Bushi until now and is not very versed in the religion, though she tries very hard to become better at it. Which is why I want to have a good backup plan for inevitable "I roll for Knowledge" - she will not want the solution handed to her. Which is great!...but it's much harder to give someone jigsaw puzzle of clues :P. We decided some time ago that "masters" of Channeling the Dead are Kitsu, being viable hosts to *any* dead, while majority of the dead will only possess someone of their blood. Hosts that I'm thinking as possible are Kaminari (because he is her dad; but I feel that his sorrow and fatalism and self hate should short circuit everything), Little Flower's brother (but again, he feels so strongly about her demise that I'm considering putting a warning sign of "you think that this might lead into their feelings mixing, turning her into vengeful ghost"), Michiru (OOC reason of "player loves being subjected to creepy creepy stuff"), her dead body using some seals (this is a baddddddddddddd idea they know is bad), a doll made to resemble her (OOC reason of "player invested points into Crafting and loves idea of using creepy dolls in creepy magic thingies"), and...Masamune (OOC reason of making the non shugenja player involved in the heavy shugenja stuff, OOC reason of Masamune being deeply disturbed by stuff like this so it would provoke interesting roleplaying, and OOC/IC reason of Masamune - who in general is very...suppressed emotionally - getting really riled up about Little Flower's tragedy, feeling incredibly angry about all of this and empathizing with her a lot; I see a lot of potential here, but I don't see a good answer to "why is he a viable host?")

I've decided that when the ritual will start and they will somehow harmonize with the world enough to see her, she will appear as a blue flame, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitodama

As for Quasi Maho Club...while Maho is still Blood Magic in our Rokugan, not everything blood related is corrupted; a lot of folklore magic (read - dealings with spirits that don't necessarily involve Shugenja, but often involve a Wise Person versed in local tradition doing what their ancestors did after figuring out a way to make spirits not only not eat you but often protect you if you provide them with worship and offering of X) involves bloody sacrifices. Simple example - in the province where they are currently working, legends say that Bayushi made a deal with Great Wolf Spirits of the Forest; they stopped hunting down Scorpions and their loyal retainers (so local people decided that "yeah, let's become vassals of this Bayushi Kami guy, he looks like an OK person") in exchange for periodic sacrifice, usually of a majestic deer. This usually is a duty of the local Monks. And yes, "loyal to the Scorpion" mean that spies and unwelcome guests are fair game for the Wolves of The Forest, which is very handy, because it's basically a Scorpion border :P.

...anyway, Isawa in question recognizes that not everything involving blood has to be Maho, but anything involving blood *can* invite Kansen and their whispers. So feel free to post something almost-blood-magicky! One of reasons why people in our gameworld fall to Maho is because it's hard to navigate what is blood magic and what is not. And Michiru is a Knowledge junkie who, while pure hearted, tends to somehow end up with the weirdest pieces of wisdom. Like, when someone sent an oni assasin after her, she ended up in a conversation with the demon (monster tried to scare the living hell out of her by writing creepy messages on various things in the forest where Michiru had to meditate for few days during her training; instead of getting scared, she wrote him back, excited that some kind of spirit is trying to talk with her!!) who ended up so amused by her that it taught her a weird language and decided that killing his summoner is better than consuming this weird Isawa who didn't fear him and gained his respect. Like a proper Isawa, Michiru has bad tendency of "it's ok, I will research it and everything will be ok, nothing wrong about it, I'm a Isawa, I know what I'm doing" :P.

Momoku idea is interesting; I definitely don't want the healing to be "roll for Void spellcasting, you succeed, she is fine now!"; I want it to be more engaging than that, involving some kind of ritual proceedings. Placing the mask is a good example. They already convinced Kaminari to give her his *own* mask instead of buying a random one. And talking about Kaminari: it must (and was supposed) to sound weird that while he is all "oh, my fault, I love my daughter, I'm a horrible father, woe is me, I need to abandon the dojo and become a monk or worse!!", he promptly decided to pick up a mask from a town market as the gift, AND then he asked random strangers to pick it for him :P. He is like that because he really believes in the concept of kharma and fate and his spin of it- he is already past his 50ties and he feels a weight of his past on his shoulders, his sins crawling on his back. As a premier duelist of the Scorpion Clan, he became a master of the sword - and started obsessing about the idea that if two equal swordmen will perform at their 100%, the deciding factor is Fate and whim of the gods. Luck is doing everything you possibly can, and leaving rest in the hands of destiny, who need to be properly bribed :P. This paradoxically leads to his current inaction, as he strongly believes that his current suffering is a direct kharmic payback for sins he had to perform in the name of his Clan, and that he has to endure it with dignity. His fatalism is one of biggest sources of conflict with his children (who feel responsible for their father succumbing to despair) and one of reasons why this whole tragedy happened, as Little Flower tried reaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy hard to make Kaminari proud of her.

Anyway, since the accident, dude stopped wearing his mask as a sign of "I'm not worthy of being Master Sensei". Mask itself is special; it was a gift that was a symbol of Scorpion recognition of his deeds to the Clan and a physical representation of his right to retire from pro-duelist job and retirement into being a Master Sensei of his new dojo. When they met him, Isawa tried to divine what kind of mask would please the recipient of the gift; they ended up finding 0 masks worthy of it...but divination produced an "OK" result when performed on his unworn mask (no, they don't know symbolism of the mask; they assumed he is one of the Scorpion who doesn't wear masks outside of formal settings). They interpreted it as "yeah, she wants this mask", he interpreted it as "my daughter wants me to give up this mask to punish me, I will retire afterwards". The intended reason of why "this mask will satisfy the person in question" is actually "dad, please, stop being emo, start wearing it again and be the Coolest Sensei Around again!!!!!!!!!".
So...giving her this specific mask might produce problematic results. Maybe even bad ending of "she gives into despair and gives up, dying". I want the "perfect ending" to require convincing Kaminari to put it on himself proudly again, but I also really like the idea that him placing a mask on her would be a good sign of "THIS IS MY DAUGHTER YO" that would be vital to helping her re-enter the body. But I also want Michiru to have something to do, so it should involve something more than just "you focus on the Void real hard" roll. For now, I think that she will definitely need to somehow communicate with the ghost, convince her that she is not dead (I warned them that a lot of spirits like this don't know they died, so making them aware of it without care is dangerous), and somehow assist the final act of re-entering, possibly providing a way to bypass the "Void block". It's OK that Masamune doesn't have a lot to do here, because I'm pretty sure he will be vital to actually understanding hearts of everyone involved. And I'm going to allow him to interact with the dead along with Michiru, because they share a strong kharmic bond, so I can do some creepy sense sharing stuff :P.

...anyway, Momoku. They are going to be around this town for months, because Michiru will be overseeing building a temple, so I really like the idea of girl - IF they even manage to rezz her - having to deal with some kind of Void flaw. This would provide me with great opportunity of making Michiru responsible for nursing her back to full recovery, allowing me to keep this family "in sight" for much in a natural way. Good way to optimize the effort I've put into writing them :P.

By the way, here is L5R Art that inspired the whole subplot and is basically used as Kaminari's portrait: