Kuroiban > Kuni Tsukai Sagasu > Phoenix Inquisitors, as far as 'rule of cool', goes.
Honestly, the Isawa Inquisitors in "old5R" were mostly fanatical, power-hungry jerks. Which, to be fair, is pretty much spot-on as reference to real-world Inquisitions.
3 minutes ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:Kuroiban > Kuni Tsukai Sagasu > Phoenix Inquisitors, as far as 'rule of cool', goes.
Honestly, the Isawa Inquisitors in "old5R" were mostly fanatical, power-hungry jerks. Which, to be fair, is pretty much spot-on as reference to real-world Inquisitions.
Asako Inquisitors. 
Honestly, I kind of preferred it when they were a tiny organisation. And IIRC, per the Phoenix book, most of the people they inquisited were Isawa, on the grounds that they're supposed to be an example for everyone else 
.
Theoretically, the three organisations had completely different remits :-
A peasant who has made a deal with a kansen is for the Kuni, a shugenja using his powers to terrorise a village is the Asako and ninja mystics are the Kuroiban. Of course, when most maho users were shown to be Shugenja and the Shadow and Shadowlands joined forces, all their remits got mixed up. 
They were actually Asako Inquisitors. 
16 hours ago, Mirith said:You bring up a good point. I thought they considered leather taboo for the same reason as meat. Mostly it was Metal, Wood, and rope/cloth I think?
I hope FFG is using more historical accuracy in Japanese armor depictions/descriptions and dropping nuances from the original setting that made no sense.
Japanese armor was not made out of wood or rope, and it used leather (egawa, printed leather).
1 hour ago, Shiba Gunichi said:They were actually Asako Inquisitors.
Oh, right you are. Well, that totally makes them a-ok!
The Asako monks should have kicked some sense into the Inquisitors (not Karachu, though. That glory-hound did enough as it was, even after he was supposed to be offed by a tourney winner prize).
3 hours ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:Kuroiban > Kuni Tsukai Sagasu > Phoenix Inquisitors, as far as 'rule of cool', goes.
Honestly, the Isawa Inquisitors in "old5R" were mostly fanatical, power-hungry jerks. Which, to be fair, is pretty much spot-on as reference to real-world Inquisitions.
Pfffbbbttttth to the Kuroiban. How many top secret secret organizations does one clan need?
46 minutes ago, McDermott said:Pfffbbbttttth to the Kuroiban. How many top secret secret organizations does one clan need?
It's a secret.
10 hours ago, WHW said:He gives tons of ****. This whole fic was about him giving ****. Giving a **** is the only thing that can penetrate his armor. I'm expecting "giving enough **** to want to secure a foresable future beyond his oncoming demise" will be the main reason for his eventual move to make the Empire care.
I couldn't really see him giving all those *****. His whole line of thinking was "The war grinds on!" with some compulsory angst because we can't have an L5R fic without angst. Other than that, we only had bleak and straight-to-the-point descriptions without much passion put into them, with a big focus on what Kisada wants to achieve rather than how. Hell, he even told Yakamo to chill out when the poor boy tried to imply that there was something else on the line other than grim duty.
Also, it was the nameless retainer who recognized Tomonatsu, not Kisada. And Kisada's reaction was more around "Welp, that's why I sent O-Ushi to that random sewer!" rather than aiming explicitly at Tomonatsu.
3 hours ago, AtoMaki said:I couldn't really see him giving all those *****. His whole line of thinking was "The war grinds on!" with some compulsory angst because we can't have an L5R fic without angst. Other than that, we only had bleak and straight-to-the-point descriptions without much passion put into them, with a big focus on what Kisada wants to achieve rather than how. Hell, he even told Yakamo to chill out when the poor boy tried to imply that there was something else on the line other than grim duty.
Also, it was the nameless retainer who recognized Tomonatsu, not Kisada. And Kisada's reaction was more around "Welp, that's why I sent O-Ushi to that random sewer!" rather than aiming explicitly at Tomonatsu.
"Kisada walked slowly over, noting for the first time that the crest on the bushi’s helmet was Hida, that of his own family. The strap that held the mempō in place on the helmet was snapped, and the daimyō carefully lifted the mask aside. The retainer gasped, and Kisada was deeply grateful that the man’s exclamation covered his own shock."
They both recognized the face as evidenced by Kisada's own shocked expression when the mask was pulled off. Later he draws parallels to his own children and how they easily could have been the young body lying in front of him. Earlier he requested specifically that the bushi be found and brought to him I'm assuming so he could express his gratitude. I do get a jaded and world weary vibe from Hida Kisada, but he clearly cares. If he didn't care he wouldn't have corrected his children so much. He's still trying to teach them to be better stewards of their duty as the Crab clan. If he didn't care he wouldn't have bothered to track down the bushi that saved him, he wouldn't have commanded Yakamo to stay by his side...
Add: That said I don't think he's portrayed as perfect. Clearly he internalizes stuff too much as evidenced by his children's unspoken frustration with him. It seems like they all try desperately to seek approval from him and most of the time he gives them criticism in the story. Also he's probably putting himself at risk too much considering Yakamo is clearly not mature enough to lead. If he's really as old as he feels he probably shouldn't have been the one to face off against an Oni.
Edited by phillos8 minutes ago, phillos said:They both recognized the face as evidenced by Kisada's own shocked expression when the mask was pulled off.
I think he was shocked because there was a gurl under the mask, and the O-Ushi parallel was kicking in. Especially considering that she was genderless before the big reveal.
Also, it might be that Kisada's family is the last thing that anchors him in the real world. This kinda gives me the idea that the Yakamo/Hitomi story will play out differently in some way or form.
4 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:I think he was shocked because there was a gurl under the mask, and the O-Ushi parallel was kicking in. Especially considering that she was genderless before the big reveal.
Also, it might be that Kisada's family is the last thing that anchors him in the real world. This kinda gives me the idea that the Yakamo/Hitomi story will play out differently in some way or form.
The fact that she was genderless before the reveal is what makes me thing that her being a women isn't what shocked Kisada. If the reveal of her being a women was shocking she wouldn't have been genderless, she would have been assumed male until her mask was removed.
10 minutes ago, GoblinGuide said:The fact that she was genderless before the reveal is what makes me thing that her being a women isn't what shocked Kisada. If the reveal of her being a women was shocking she wouldn't have been genderless, she would have been assumed male until her mask was removed.
She was genderless to build up the shock for the readers. It is an old trick .
5 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:She was genderless to build up the shock for the readers. It is an old trick
Or she was genderless because the Crab understand that boobplate armor is a good way to shatter your sternum, and when you wrap somebody up in a tin can with a helmet on top, it's pretty tough to tell male from female.
Just now, Kinzen said:Or she was genderless because the Crab understand that boobplate armor is a good way to shatter your sternum, and when you wrap somebody up in a tin can with a helmet on top, it's pretty tough to tell male from female.
She spoke to Kisada, so either she had a many voice too, or we can give this to Kisada not hearing the feminine tone through the sounds of battle.
I don't think its fair to accuse this piece of using her gender to trick reader into feeling bad for "aw, a pretty girl died, such a shame". Mostly because you can switch every gender related thing in that paragraph to male and it still reads the same, while the "trick" would read weird because it would rely on her gender to work in the first place.
Basically, I think that you are reaching :P.
“Give her a proper funeral, with all honors,” he heard himself saying, pulling the sheet back over her as he pulled his wits back together, locking his emotions back under his armor. “She honored her family, and served her daimyō well.”
I think this sentence is pretty much explicit about him caring so much that he needs to distance himself from it. Inspecting her corpse invokes strongest emotions in the Kisada compared to everything else in the fic. Thanks to that context, we know that the dude who was unphased by Shadowlands army, unphased by being knocked down by an oni, and unphased by tons of other stuff *still* is moved by death.
8 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:She was genderless to build up the shock for the readers. It is an old trick
True, but then I would still have expected Kisada to order his retainer to "find him" instead of "find the samurai" and his retainer to use male pronouns instead of genderless when talking about her pre-reveal. Setting up expectations of her being male is arguably more of a shock to the readers than leaving it ambiguous.
12 minutes ago, WHW said:I think this sentence is pretty much explicit about him caring so much that he needs to distance himself from it. Inspecting her corpse invokes strongest emotions in the Kisada compared to everything else in the fic. Thanks to that context, we know that the dude who was unphased by Shadowlands army, unphased by being knocked down by an oni, and unphased by tons of other stuff *still* is moved by death.
I'm fairly sure that his concerns were for O-Ushi:
QuoteKisada looked up to see O-Ushi gazing at him, and for a moment something in him trembled like the plucked string of a shamisen. He recalled the first moment each of his children wore armor—Yakamo, nearly popping out of his first set, even at an early age; Sukune, stumbling under its weight; and O-Ushi, confident as if she was born to wear it.
Confident as Tomonatsu had been when she stood next to him, facing the oni by his side.
His problem was not Tomonatsu dying, but that O-Ushi could have been in her place.
Can't it be both? Seeing such a young woman die makes him feel for the parents of this vassal. Makes him think how easily it could have been one of his children. Makes him angry that the Crab are dying and no one in the Empire seems to care. There's a swirl of emotions going on in that scene before he clamps them down and gets back to work.
I had to reread the oni scene, because I assumed she was a woman then and thought they must have said so.
I clearly did not think it was a twist.
Also, the quote you provided shows him caring and thinking about all 3 of his children, not just his daughter. I thought the meaning was that he values crab lives like the lives of his children yet still has to see them die. But everyone takes their own meaning.
I like the subtle accusation that Kisada is a sexist by this reading. It really shouldn't be a surprise that the samurai is a she for the crab. The relate to a child could work just as well to one of his sons, and it is clear that female warriors were apart of the battle. So Kisada wouldn't have in anyway been surprised by the gender. Unless we assume he thinks girls can't fight.
20 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:I'm fairly sure that his concerns were for O-Ushi:
His problem was not Tomonatsu dying, but that O-Ushi could have been in her place.
This is the only way I read it. Rokugan is already a setting that from the get go has women serving the role of samurai just as much as men, to wait 4 fictions to try to surprise players that "Surprise, that awesome crab hero was a WOMEN " is entirely out of place considering every other fiction before featured women samurai fighting or more then ready to fight and treated this as a common occurrence, which in this setting it certainly is.
A theme running through the entire fiction is Kisada's family, the constant banter of his children with Kisada weighing in on each of them.
Kisada is written as a man who has seen far too much war and in many ways hardened by everything that rests on his back. He is defined by his silence and his quiet contemplation along with his constant care for his family, showing his concerns and knowledge of each of his children's individual strengths and weaknesses. But the moment of seeing a younger samurai die, knowing that it could have been any of his children in her place, is a rare moment where we see his shell crack. He's not surprised because a woman died, but because the moment brings a fear to his mind, that the death could have easily been any of his children, leading him into contemplation in which he is again confronted by the idea of just how much will he really have to sacrifice to accomplish his duty, almost shuddering about it.
Unlike other champions Kisada is presented like a father watching his children die while the emperor does nothing, a thought that no doubt keeps him up at night.
5 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:Kisada is written as a man who has seen far too much war and in many ways hardened by everything that rests on his back. He is defined by his silence and his quiet contemplation along with his constant care for his family, showing his concerns and knowledge of each of his children's individual strengths and weaknesses. But the moment of seeing a younger samurai die, knowing that it could have been any of his children in her place, is a rare moment where we see his shell crack. He's not surprised because a woman died, but because the moment brings a fear to his mind, that the death could have easily been any of his children, leading him into contemplation in which he is again confronted by the idea of just how much will he really have to sacrifice to accomplish his duty, almost shuddering about it.
I agree. I suspect he was originally thinking it was a grizzled veteran around his age. Seeing that the samurai was his children's age caught him of guard.
11 minutes ago, RandomJC said:I like the subtle accusation that Kisada is a sexist by this reading.
I think it was just some poor writing. Tomonatsu's gender should have been clear from the beginning.
If it wasn't that he literally recognized Tomonatsu then the only other plausible explanation for his shock is her age because she's younger than his kids. His next thought isn't just about O-Ushi. He sees her then the line reads that he thinks about "each of his kids". His next thought it specifically about Yakamo in his armor at her age. Then Sukune and then O-Ushi.
I think Tomonatsu's gender was known to Kisada. I mean he talks to her on the battlefield. It's just not known to the reader.
Add: The more I read this section the more I feel like this is foreshadowing.
Edited by phillos11 minutes ago, phillos said:Add: The more I read this section the more I feel like this is foreshadowing.
O-Ushi better have plot armor! I need more Kuon!!