Crane: Somewhere along the Emperor’s Road…

Lion: Some weeks later, in contested territory…

Dragon: Meanwhile, in the northernmost mountains of Rokugan…

Crab: Meanwhile, to the far southeast…

Phoenix: A week later, in the Phoenix lands to the east…

Phoenix and Lion give is a reasonable idea of the timeline. Meanwhile is a vague phrase. I was assuming they were concurrent in time and that was why they could vote of the order for those stories since it doesn't matter.

Just now, phillos said:

Crane: Somewhere along the Emperor’s Road…

Lion: Some weeks later, in contested territory…

Dragon: Meanwhile, in the northernmost mountains of Rokugan…

Crab: Meanwhile, to the far southeast…

Phoenix: A week later, in the Phoenix lands to the east…

Phoenix and Lion give is a reasonable idea of the timeline. Meanwhile is a vague phrase. I was assuming they were concurrent in time and that was why they can a vote of the order for those stories since it doesn't matter.

Some weeks later is a vague phrase as well. We also do not know how much time elapsed between the death of Satsume and the start of the Crane fiction.

Just now, RandomJC said:

Of course there are, but nothing in the fiction leads to this being unexpected or even mysterious, aside from a line which could have a few possible meanings. It is just as possible that Ujimatsu's death is tied to the unbalancing of the kami.

Sure could! I don't have any dog in this race, I just thought the lack of specifics concerning his death was curious, and thought I would spur some discussion by whipping up an idea. There remains, as I've said all along, too little information to come down strong on one side. That's kinda my overall point, really, but it doesn't hurt to bounce around ideas.

1 minute ago, RandomJC said:

Some weeks later is a vague phrase as well. We also do not know how much time elapsed between the death of Satsume and the start of the Crane fiction.

That's true though it needs to be reasonably close in time otherwise we would be measuring in months or years rather than weeks. I would assume it wasn't that long before Hotaru came to the capital the way people were talking in that story. Though I wouldn't expect the Scorpions to orchestrate all those deaths in a couple days. That would be too obvious

I think it's smart of them to be vague about things like time and distance because that usually get's authors in trouble.

11 minutes ago, Zetsubou said:

Sure could! I don't have any dog in this race, I just thought the lack of specifics concerning his death was curious, and thought I would spur some discussion by whipping up an idea. There remains, as I've said all along, too little information to come down strong on one side. That's kinda my overall point, really, but it doesn't hurt to bounce around ideas.

I'd argue that the lack of information of this being a suspicious death is enough information to treat it as such. (My opinion of course)

Just now, phillos said:

That's true though it needs to be reasonably close in time otherwise we would be measuring in months or years rather than weeks. I would assume it wasn't that long before Hotaru came to the capital the way people were talking in that story. Though I wouldn't expect the Scorpions to orchestrate all those deaths in a couple days. That would be too obvious

I think it's smart of them to be vague about things like time and distance because that usually get's authors in trouble.

Oh, I agree, plus orchestrating deaths across Rokugan takes a long time.

But since it seems as if Ujimatsu's death wasn't unexpected, there is little reason for people to think something sinister as a whole is happening, unless you're particularly cynical, or Scorpion. (It's entirely possible they aren't the ones behind all this)

1 hour ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

Ya know, I hope Spooky drops by and mentions what was in his mind's eye for Ofushikai, after considering the fiction for a while now.
Mostly because katana certainly aren't "drastically" curved at all... So I kinda wanna know his mind's eye image of a Katana too.

For Japanese katana, the curve depth (is that the correct term?) and the position of the deepest part of the curve along the blade change depend on smithing school / lineage as well as period. It's not something you really notice until you are shown two katana with very different curves next to each other, but there is actually a lot of variance.

I assumed when I read the fiction that "drastic" was being used for comparison between two curved blades rather than to say all such blades were drastically curved. But "drastic" is vague enough that what is or isn't considered drastic depends on the speaker.

23 minutes ago, Khudzlin said:

Satsume wasn't Crane Clan Champion at the time of his death, but Emerald Champion. Arasou was killed in battle. That leaves only Ujimitsu's death as a potentially suspicious Clan Champion's death.

Yeah that was a problem with my phrasing but it makes Satsume's death no less suspicious and destabilizing to the Crane (and therefore important to the discussion). In fact Satsume's death is the death that's flagged as suspicious explicitly in the narrative. I think it's worth being suspicious of Arasou's death since it was Hotaru who slew him, and my take away from the Crane story is Hotaru is not experienced enough to resist being manipulated by the veterans in the capital like Kachiko. The Crane story as a whole I think is meant to make us suspicious of what's going on in the capital and it pretty much points at the Scorpion. Perhaps that was all a misdirect and in the Scorpion story we'll find out they are investigating something suspicious themselves. That would be interesting.

We know next to nothing about Ujimitsu's death so who knows. It wasn't the focus of the story. It just feels really suspicious because of the other fictions. It's not like Ujimitsu's ghost was jumping to say hey watch out Tsukune I think there's a plot against us. That does deflate it a bit. Though the story does break right after the spirits in Ofushikai show her that Tsukune has their support. It's possible that was the next topic on Ujimitsu's agenda or maybe the Scorpion just waited until Ujimitsu was sick to start setting their plan into motion The big threat in Phoenix is there is something wrong with the kami and it felt like the council was acting a bit cagey about it to me. I'm very interested to see where Tsukune goes from here.

1 hour ago, Zetsubou said:

Hard to say, the extremely limited information we've been given in both cases leaves us mostly grasping at straws for an answer. Pure speculation on my part is the goal is destabilization of those clans by eliminating a stronger, more experienced champion and (especially in the case of the Phoenix) rolling the dice in the hope that a weaker leader fills the void. At the very least, the turmoil sets both clans back a ways. Perhaps this all ties into Yokuni's prophecy in some way?

Sounds like we will need to get some Kitsuki on the case! because nobody else is giving us any clues beyond speculation.

Well the Dragon are coming down off their mountain. Maybe we have a meaty Kitsuki investigation story in our future.

Just now, phillos said:

Well the Dragon are coming down off their mountain. Maybe we have a meaty Kitsuki investigation story in our future.

Dragon Clan Coup?

That would be an interesting way to turn the history on it's head.

1 minute ago, phillos said:

Well the Dragon are coming down off their mountain. Maybe we have a meaty Kitsuki investigation story in our future.

COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAAAAAAAAAIN

There might very well be a conspiracy afoot. If there is, I like the way it's only vaguely alluded to. There's no reason anyone of the perspective characters seen so far should be certain of a plot if it exists (except perhaps Yokuni).

That said, there's no plausible way to make Arasou's death part of that conspiracy. Having Hotaru one-shot him while shedding a single thoughtful tear was bad writing. But having that death be part of a greater conspiracy would be even worse writing. There's no way the conspirators could possibly have known events would conspire as they did (and that Hotaru would have the mad no-scope archery skills to pwn a clan champion from range).

That wouldn't be bad writing. Subtle manipulation is about gently pushing pieces around and adapting to their actions. It's entirely plausible a subtle manipulator would seed the idea in Hotaru's mind that Arasou's leadership in the Lion is what's causing the Crane so much grief and if he was removed then the pressure they are putting on the already stressed Crane clan would alleviate. Maybe she takes the bait and maybe she doesn't. I'm sure the theoretical plan didn't hinge specifically on Arasou's death, but it does desire a weakening of the Lion and Crane Leadership and for both clans to be too busy with each other to pay attention to the capital. To that end you just try and plant as many seeds as possible and see which take root.

"Chaos isn't a pit. Chaos is a ladder."

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Unless one-shotting heavily-armored soldiers from a thousand paces is something that regularly happens in Rokugan, Hotaru doesn't engage in any action to plausibly bring about his death before killing him. It's a fluke as plot device to get Toturi in charge.

A well-written story would have a manipulator like Littlefinger take advantage of that fluke for his/her own ends. A poorly-written story would have said manipulator (implausibly) engineer that fluke event in the first place.

1 minute ago, Rawls said:

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Unless one-shotting heavily-armored soldiers from a thousand paces is something that regularly happens in Rokugan, Hotaru doesn't engage in any action to plausibly bring about his death before killing him. It's a fluke as plot device to get Toturi in charge.

A well-written story would have a manipulator like Littlefinger take advantage of that fluke for his/her own ends. A poorly-written story would have said manipulator (implausibly) engineer that fluke event in the first place.

Yoritomo wants a word.

1 minute ago, RandomJC said:

Yoritomo wants a word.

Where did I leave my eye-roll emoji?

In a related note, if new5r can do without Mary-sues like Yoritomo and Daigatsu, I'd really appreciate it.

4 minutes ago, Rawls said:

Where did I leave my eye-roll emoji?

Dunno. Same place where two shots equal one? Or where the distance was stated in the story. But you know, facts, right?

Or where I care enough to take the constant bagging on the Lion fiction serious enough to give it a serious answer.

1 minute ago, Rawls said:

In a related note, if new5r can do without Mary-sues like Yoritomo and Daigatsu, I'd really appreciate it.

****, and here I was thinking Yoritomo Marisu would be a pretty cool name...

I'm being too snarky for my own good.

2 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

I'm being too snarky for my own good.

Snark is like onion rings. You can never have too much.

7 minutes ago, Rawls said:

Snark is like onion rings. You can never have too much.

But the more you have, the less other people want to be around you

23 minutes ago, Rawls said:

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Unless one-shotting heavily-armored soldiers from a thousand paces is something that regularly happens in Rokugan, Hotaru doesn't engage in any action to plausibly bring about his death before killing him. It's a fluke as plot device to get Toturi in charge.

A well-written story would have a manipulator like Littlefinger take advantage of that fluke for his/her own ends. A poorly-written story would have said manipulator (implausibly) engineer that fluke event in the first place.

yeah we definitely disagree. You are taking that in a completely different direction and running with it.