On 5/16/2017 at 3:55 AM, KerenRhys said:

SirEuain probably wasn't talking lore-wise but by their appearance on cards.

Both appeared in Imperial, though the Moto were only with Tsume who was unaligned/shadowlands.

So gamewise the Horiuchi do predate the Moto as a Unicorn family .

This. Moto were originally the fourth, minor family of the Unicorn. Moto Soro was the first appeared in Hidden Emperor 3, the first Unicorn Moto printed in L5R, though LBS had them a little sooner. For Shadowlands, Moto Tsume had been in since Imperial, and Sada joined him in Crimson & Jade.

I'm not saying not to print the Moto, just reminding the players that originally, they were a Shadowlands family in the CCG and the Horiuchi a greater family. For comparison, by Time of the Void Crab had two Hiruma, Crane two Daidoji (one experienced), Dragon had one Kitsuki, Lion one Akodo (duh), and Scorpion one Soshi. The Phoenix had no fourth family in the first place, partly because "balancing" the number of families wasn't even a thought then, much less so far in advance of the Dragon having six.

It wasn't until the drawing board stage of LBS and Way of the Unicorn that the Moto were likely even mentioned as anything but Shadowlands. The Horiuchi, in contrast, just didn't get much in the way of attention, especially considering how neglected the Unicorn as a whole were in Clan Wars.

Assuming FFG cares about the number of families per clan, and assuming they're bringing back the original icons of the game, it's entirely possible that Moto Tsume will return, but the Unicorn Moto may not, with the Horiuchi coming into their own instead. Big assumptions, sure (has any Unicorn been as popular among their players as Chags?), but not entirely unlikely.

On ‎5‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 7:39 AM, Radon Antila said:

The loss of the Tamori, while disappointing, is lore-related consequence of the FFG direction

To be fair, the Dragon aren't losing anything with this at all. After the Split, the Tamori were all about Mizugusuri (alchemy) and the Phoenix-Agasha were all about playing second fiddle to the Isawa... and a lil teeny tiny bit of multi-elemental magic.

The Dragon Agasha were all about BOTH Mizugusuri and Multi-Elemental Magic! So FFG Agasha is just AEG Tamori++

59 minutes ago, SirEuain said:

Assuming FFG cares about the number of families per clan, and assuming they're bringing back the original icons of the game, it's entirely possible that Moto Tsume will return, but the Unicorn Moto may not, with the Horiuchi coming into their own instead. Big assumptions, sure (has any Unicorn been as popular among their players as Chags?), but not entirely unlikely.

I have no reason to think that FFG would favor printing order over past developed lore (that they will reboot, I guess). And from what I heard, AEG devs killed the Horiouchi later based on "Uni has too many families". Not sure how true that is but Horiuchi ended being destroyed while Phoenix healers attended puny Crane diplomats. Meanwhile, in L5R LCG, Aggressive Moto is already confirmed. *shrug*

Also, not a fan of Burning Sands Moto and their influence/dominance, that includes Chagatai. Great characters and all that, so I understand and respect most Unicorn players' preferences/likes. I was soooo happy with Toturi's Charter for the Unicorn. *sigh*

1 minute ago, Wintersong said:

I have no reason to think that FFG would favor printing order over past developed lore (that they will reboot, I guess). And from what I heard, AEG devs killed the Horiouchi later based on "Uni has too many families". Not sure how true that is but Horiuchi ended being destroyed while Phoenix healers attended puny Crane diplomats. Meanwhile, in L5R LCG, Aggressive Moto is already confirmed. *shrug*

Also, not a fan of Burning Sands Moto and their influence/dominance, that includes Chagatai. Great characters and all that, so I understand and respect most Unicorn players' preferences/likes. I was soooo happy with Toturi's Charter for the Unicorn. *sigh*

I have no reason to assume that FFG would jump either way, beyond the possibility of a Shadowlands/Spider faction, and the list of iconic, non-oni characters from the first arc is essentially two people long: Moto Tsume and Yogo Junzo, and of the two, Junzo's the one with less personality (assuming he even goes corrupt). Now, the possibility of Daigotsu popping up in his youth is there, so it's not like it's a sure thing, but I'd be struggling to come up with anyone else to rival Tsume. He was in every deck, and the Unicorn story still referenced him off and on for years after his second canonical death.

Kuni Yori

Just now, williamobrien said:

Kuni Yori

Yori was nominally Crab Clan until after the Day of Thunder, and it'd be charitable to say his term as leader of the Shadowlands wasn't especially noteworthy. For all the complaints people have about how the story of magical samurai fighting a common foe instead of each other, the first half of Hidden Emperor actually did a pretty good job of showing squabbling clans with little Shadowlands interference.

Yori was much more active in the early story arcs than Tsume. Tsume was a great card, but basically all he did in the story was die, get resurrected with Fu Leng's head, then die again. Yori got the Crab to betray their purpose and the empire, got the Crab Thunder to give his name to an Oni, and managed to kill said Crab Thunder later on.

1 hour ago, SirEuain said:

It wasn't until the drawing board stage of LBS and Way of the Unicorn that the Moto were likely even mentioned as anything but Shadowlands.

Thank you. People keep acting like I'm crazy when I say the Moto weren't a thing for Unicorn until LBS. I know we are getting Moto characters in the new base set, but they were all lost to the Shadowlands when the original game was released and we won three different story prizes to try and redeem Moto Tsume. None of them stuck.

9 hours ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

To be fair, the Dragon aren't losing anything with this at all. After the Split, the Tamori were all about Mizugusuri (alchemy) and the Phoenix-Agasha were all about playing second fiddle to the Isawa... and a lil teeny tiny bit of multi-elemental magic.

The Dragon Agasha were all about BOTH Mizugusuri and Multi-Elemental Magic! So FFG Agasha is just AEG Tamori++

For the longest time, our mascot shugenja was Toph Beifong from Avatar: The Last Airbender because the Tamori was Earth-aligned.

Now we're Fire again, and we have no mascot. I count this as a loss.

Well, technically, the Agasha are all about "the kami of the Mountain," so... Earth and Fire.

19 hours ago, williamobrien said:

Yori was much more active in the early story arcs than Tsume. Tsume was a great card, but basically all he did in the story was die, get resurrected with Fu Leng's head, then die again. Yori got the Crab to betray their purpose and the empire, got the Crab Thunder to give his name to an Oni, and managed to kill said Crab Thunder later on.

And he did it in a failed gambit to entice the survivors of a family in a clan he had nothing to do with previously. Yori meant something to the Crab Clan, sure, but not to the Shadowlands players.