1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

Interesting point. Has FFG said anything definitive about the Kami? For all we know, this timeline could have Doji and Shinjo being male, with Hida and Akodo being female, and the gender swaps were made to keep clan champions the opposite gender of the founding Kami.

I'm pretty sure someone thought about Togashi as being male, I'm gong to check the rest of the fictions.

In the L5RLive videos they definitely referred to Doji as Lady Doji. Also I'm pretty sure Akodo was referred to as male by them as well when they talked about the Lion.

I think it was just speculation based on an observation that it's possible for the champs to line up with the kami by gender based on what we know currently. It doesn't actually matter whether they do or not. It would just be a cute parallel.

19 minutes ago, phillos said:

In the L5RLive videos they definitely referred to Doji as Lady Doji. Also I'm pretty sure Akodo was referred to as male by them as well when they talked about the Lion.

I think it was just speculation based on an observation that it's possible for the champs to line up with the kami by gender based on what we know currently. It doesn't actually matter whether they do or not. It would just be a cute parallel.

...is it even possible for something to be both "acute" and "parallel"?

(I'm kidding, I'm kidding)

5 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I realise that there are odd optics behind having a woman kneel to a man

To put it lightly...

52 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Interesting point. Has FFG said anything definitive about the Kami? For all we know, this timeline could have Doji and Shinjo being male, with Hida and Akodo being female, and the gender swaps were made to keep clan champions the opposite gender of the founding Kami.

Fu Leng as female. Make it happen FFG.

3 hours ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Yeah, but she could be an elemental master easily, with them printing an elemental master in place of the champion as the signature card, since they are the ACTUAL leaders of the clan after all. Many times in the CCG have they used an elemental master as the centerpiece card over the champion. In fact every master would probably be that kind of power level anyway so if they ever wanted to print all five, starting the core with at least one is a good start.

All this as well as the issue that if Ujimitsu dies in their opening fiction Tsukune still couldn't be champion, the Soul of Shiba will have been passed on to a new child, and I DOUBT they want to go through the clan war without the Soul of Shiba around, unless they ditched that idea, but I certainly don't think they would abandon the concept of the reincarnating soul of Shiba, since it IS the phoenix clan after all and its central to their identity.

I think she will be the interest character for sure, she has the same style of dynamic art work as the other champions, signifying her as part of the cycle, but I would guess her being a master before her being the champion.

Well, putting Tsukune as an Elemental Master would be making some very big changes : Tsukune was a bushi and not a shugenja (even becoming Phoenix Champion at Ujimitsu's death, so it's just an anticipation) or the elemental masters all being Isawa before the 2nd Day of Thunder for example. Moreover, she's clearly depicted as a bushi on her art, not as a shugenja.

On the other hand, the Soul of Shiba doesn't work like that at all (if even it's still a thing in new L5R). At that time, the Soul of Shiba was anchored in Ofushikai, the ancestral sword of the Phoenix. Then, beginning with Mirabu, so years after the 2nd Day of Thunder, it began anchoring itself directly in Champions. Even at that time, it never went to newborn, but directly to the new Champion when the previous one died.

Honestly, Tsukune being Champion some months or years earlier than in the original storyline is a lot more plausible change than the ones you're putting in your post.

The CCG had a wonderful oral tradition....

2 hours ago, WHW said:

Coyote Walks's post seem to imply that Bayushi wore a mask to distinguish himself from Shiba, which...I don't remember. Maybe it was in original AEG lore, before AEG-retcons? I'm pretty sure that the most "up to date" story about Bayushi and his mask was "Shinsei was talking nonsense, Bayushi pretended to understand it, Shinsei smacked him in the face for being a bad liar, and Bayushi tore his sleeve to wrap it around his mouth so it would never betray his true intentions again".

And just when I thought I couldn't be more annoyed at the old Story Team team, I find out about another retcon.... sigh.

Then again perhaps it was part of the L5R mythology of the western United States. What I can say is that I'm not the only person to hear the story of the Mask being improvised during the Dawn of the Empire tournament. And when I tried to source the tale this morning, all I found was that idiotic story about the frog.

To be fair, I think the Frog and mask story is as old as the first Way of the Scorpion, so as far as 1999?

Considering that of the three Phoenix Clan Champions/ Champion-types with the most staying power in the old lore (Tsukune, Aikune, Tsukimi) two were women, and since the Kami are more archetype than character?

Shiba could be a woman. No particularly compelling reason it couldn't be so. It's pretty much irrelevant, regardless- but I suspect the Champion-Kami linkage was probably more fan-theory than anything- the old Clan Wars didn't give women who weren't Kachiko a hell of a lot to do, which is reason enough to change things up.

5 minutes ago, WHW said:

To be fair, I think the Frog and mask story is as old as the first Way of the Scorpion, so as far as 1999?

98, but yes it is

1 minute ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Considering that of the three Phoenix Clan Champions/ Champion-types with the most staying power in the old lore (Tsukune, Aikune, Tsukimi) two were women, and since the Kami are more archetype than character?

Shiba could be a woman. No particularly compelling reason it couldn't be so. It's pretty much irrelevant, regardless- but I suspect the Champion-Kami linkage was probably more fan-theory than anything- the old Clan Wars didn't give women who weren't Kachiko a hell of a lot to do, which is reason enough to change things up.

As one who supported this theory early, the idea was not that they changed some champions' gender just to match the kami, but since they decided to change some genders to have a better repartition between male and female characters, they chose Hoturi/Hotaru and Yokatsu/Altansarnai instead of Kisada or Toturi (for examples) to have that kami-matching little touch.

3 hours ago, JJ48 said:

As someone less familiar with the old lore, is there some reason that they would have to be identical?

My comment was made in reference to Mumei-san's preceding comment (emphasis mine):

4 hours ago, Daidoji Mumei said:

Only if Bayushi is too. Identical Kami twins and all

Ignore. Did not realize there was a second page.

One possibility is that Ujimitsu is still the Phoenix clan champion even if he isn't their premiere badass. You don't have to be the best fighter in the group to be the group's leader, and if any L5R clan would openly embody that it'd be the Phoenix. Tsukune could be the enforcer and the heir-designate, and Ujimitsu a more modest midrange character rather than a curve topper.

This could also be a nod to Ujimitsu's weirdness with regards to his old Imperial era card which wasn't even unique so you could have multiple Ujimitsu's out at once. He was always a bit of an odd cookie, evidently.

6 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Considering that of the three Phoenix Clan Champions/ Champion-types with the most staying power in the old lore (Tsukune, Aikune, Tsukimi) two were women, and since the Kami are more archetype than character?

Shiba could be a woman. No particularly compelling reason it couldn't be so. It's pretty much irrelevant, regardless- but I suspect the Champion-Kami linkage was probably more fan-theory than anything- the old Clan Wars didn't give women who weren't Kachiko a hell of a lot to do, which is reason enough to change things up.

Was Aikune ever champion ? I don't believe he ever was . ( pretty sure Mibu was champion during his entire life)

4 hours ago, Willisbatman said:

Was Aikune ever champion ? I don't believe he ever was . ( pretty sure Mibu was champion during his entire life)

Hence "Champion/Champion-types." Although I do seem to recall Aikune holding the title for about five minutes at some point.

Mirabu became champion after the end of the Four Winds era, basically because somebody had to do it and he never rocked the boat, which I'm sure the council liked.

But after Tsukune ascended in early Four Winds era (and took the Soul of Shiba with her) there was a champion void for a while. Aikune seemed like a good choice for the position, and sort of filled that spot for some of the player base, but was ultimately never given it (presumably because Taeruko didn't like him and he was too strong willed and unpredictable/unstable for the council's liking.) They also hadn't figured out what they were going to do without the Soul of Shiba at that point.

14 hours ago, Kubernes said:

Fu Leng as female. Make it happen FFG.

If you take Bearers of Jade as canon in Old5R (many people don't, which is a shame because it's probably the best RPG supplement they ever made), Fu Leng would swap genders frequently in order to sire children with both male and female followers.