It seems like the nature of the kami allows for a very different perspective on time compared to human reckoning...a few hundred years is probably a much bigger deal to humans than kami. If so, it would seem reasonable that the unacceptable practices of the Unicorn could have been initially ignored by the kami, either from lack of notice or from the assumption that it was a brief fad and, like the seasons, soon fade away. As more time passed and the kami took notice, realized it wasn't going away, maybe they started to get twitchy. It may have started as something much more subtle, maybe even easily explained away or misinterpreted as caused by other things. But things have now escalated to a level that can't be explained away.

37 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Except that, in the old timeline, the were only away for just over 700 years, leaving in Y90. I admit that's still 200 years, so I'm now a bit dubious.

I've seen the 800 year roundoff somewhere before. Probably 1st ed. rpg materials before they started doing detailed timelines.

Doesnt mean it isn't a change of some kind. But since we haven't seen any other changes to the base setting yet I'm inclined to see Tried and True before New and Different.??

2 hours ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

It seems like the nature of the kami allows for a very different perspective on time compared to human reckoning...

Yeeeeaah... suuuuureeee... or maybe the Phoenix is jumping at shadows because the Unicorn has special snowflake magic that is not Isawa property (yet) ?

And after all said and done, we are still at "Meishodo is wrong because it is foreign" that does not sound that much different than the "Moto blood is weak because it is foreign" story.

31 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Yeeeeaah... suuuuureeee... or maybe the Phoenix is jumping at shadows because the Unicorn has special snowflake magic that is not Isawa property (yet) ?

And after all said and done, we are still at "Meishodo is wrong because it is foreign" that does not sound that much different than the "Moto blood is weak because it is foreign" story.

The conflict about mysterious magic that could lead to total chaos seems a lot more neutral (and believable for a pacifistic clan) than fighting pople because they have weak blood. Plus it reminds me of Golden Sun, which is always a plus.

36 minutes ago, Ignithas said:

The conflict about mysterious magic that could lead to total chaos seems a lot more neutral (and believable for a pacifistic clan) than fighting pople because they have weak blood.

Well, those people with weak blood was afflicted by a curse in their bloodline and did brought total chaos at least once to the Empire. Not only that, but their curse was lifted by foreign gods with questionable and malign agendas with quite a track record of not keeping their words. At this point, Meishodo still has a lot less to go against it - at this point there are only two things the Phoenix have: it is foreign and it is not theirs. And to be honest, neither of these are standing on strong legs for one reason or another (unlike the Moto bloodline deal).

22 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Well, those people with weak blood was afflicted by a curse in their bloodline and did brought total chaos at least once to the Empire. Not only that, but their curse was lifted by foreign gods with questionable and malign agendas with quite a track record of not keeping their words. At this point, Meishodo still has a lot less to go against it - at this point there are only two things the Phoenix have: it is foreign and it is not theirs. And to be honest, neither of these are standing on strong legs for one reason or another (unlike the Moto bloodline deal).

But aren't those both excellent reasons for the Phoenix and the Empire as a whole to turn against meishodo and the Moto?

As others have suggested further upthread, Rokugani society is overtly racist, but their racism is arguably distinct from real world racism and entirely justified because it is based on the divine heritage of the kami and the Emperor (for which there is empirical evidence). Foreign is very definitely bad in this world as is, to a lesser extent, being magical and non-Phoenix. As the appointed guardians of the empires soul it also seems entirely justified for them to be suspicious/hostile to religious/magical practices that are not in line with their practices.

Just now, Fumo said:

But aren't those both excellent reasons for the Phoenix and the Empire as a whole to turn against meishodo and the Moto?

The Moto had it coming, that's for certain, but so far there isn't much against Meishodo. It isn't even strictly foreign because it was developed by Iuchi from Rokugani proto-magic. If you go against Meishodo then you might as well go against the Unicorn as a whole... and with that we are back to the Old5R Phoenix/Unicorn conflict yet again.

4 minutes ago, Fumo said:

As the appointed guardians of the empires soul it also seems entirely justified for them to be suspicious/hostile to religious/magical practices that are not in line with their practices.

I must admit, the Phoenix also growing angry at the Lion because of the Sodan-Senzo would be hilarious .

12 hours ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

It says on the product page they were gone for 800 years. So the old math still adds up

I have a theory as we have no evidence for what the Phoenix get their information. But they mentioned at the end of the last story that the imbalance was not fixing itself so this imbalance may have been going on for a long time even a couple hundred years, but now it is finally tipping and only now causing real problems.

They may have been looking into this for a long time and already tried making some changes.

Again it might be a recent change. And I could be totally wrong.

12 hours ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

Double post

This sounds dangerously close to the Dragon throwing nemuranai into volcanoes.

7 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

The Moto had it coming, that's for certain

Not really- since literally nothing of their new curse had been shown in the old fiction and it just got word of god-ed at us.

Quote

but so far there isn't much against Meishodo.

Since we've gotten exactly one fiction in which the problem is directly addressed so far (and also exactly one fiction in which shugenja have performed any magic at all), of course not.

In the old continuity, meishodo was something the Isawa coveted, because in their Worf-like way, they were getting utterly shown up in an area that was supposed to be their specialty- like Thunder magic. In the new continuity, this is patently not the case.

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It isn't even strictly foreign because it was developed by Iuchi from Rokugani proto-magic.

From explicitly foreign practices. So no. It is foreign by the incredibly rigid standards of Rokugan.

Quote

If you go against Meishodo then you might as well go against the Unicorn as a whole... and with that we are back to the Old5R Phoenix/Unicorn conflict yet again.

And again, no.

Going against their entire ruling bloodline, the one their reborn Kami is in, is far more grievous because it means the Unicorn themselves are born unclean.

Going against an imported practice, developed outside of the Empire in a time of great danger and peril, and which, of it's anything like the old lore, isn't even ubiquitous among the Unicorn, is far, far less objectionable.

Seriously, dude, the old version of these two clans going at it was Bad. Your efforts to defend it as superior to this have actually crossed the line into being incomprehensible. Actually validating the disgusting racism of the Rokugani with in-setting objective truth was what the old version did. End of story. If the Phoenix are right in this new version, there are ways around that which simply could not apply in the old continuity.

48 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Going against their entire ruling bloodline, the one their reborn Kami is in, is far more grievous because it means the Unicorn themselves are born unclean.

Shinjo being reborn as a Moto only made the whole situation even more disastrous because it put the soul of a Kami on the line. Getting rid of the Moto might have been one thing (even the Unicorn seemingly started to befriend the idea at the end), but getting the soul of Shinjo corrupted would have spelled calamity far beyond the initial Phoenix assessment. Like, this was real, honest-to-goodness serious business, especially considering the ongoing Kampeki/Daigotsu mess. But nope, instead of building this up and explaining the situation, the writers had the two clan champs talk about literally nothing in a shrine .

In the end, I guess since it was a Phoenix/Unicorn storyline, it was hopeless to ever get anything good out of it .

Oh, and by the way, I'm giving this Meishodo plotline a chance, because we know nothing about it after all, but considering all the "legacy fluff" and what I'm seeing with the new stories, I'm cautiously pessimistic and don't expect the writers reinventing the wheel.

Say, I wonder if this elemental imbalance thing is related to why the Phoenix purged that cult from their lands. That is, they blamed the imbalance on the cult, and since they didn't want to admit to losing control of the elements, they labeled the cult as heresy as an excuse to move against them. But purging the cult didn't solve the problem, so they began looking for external causes. Cue an Iuchi walking by waving around his amulets...

29 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Shinjo being reborn as a Moto only made the whole situation even more disastrous because it put the soul of a Kami on the line. Getting rid of the Moto might have been one thing (even the Unicorn seemingly started to befriend the idea at the end), but getting the soul of Shinjo corrupted would have spelled calamity far beyond the initial Phoenix assessment. Like, this was real, honest-to-goodness serious business, especially considering the ongoing Kampeki/Daigotsu mess. But nope, instead of building this up and explaining the situation, the writers had the two clan champs talk about literally nothing in a shrine .

In the end, I guess since it was a Phoenix/Unicorn storyline, it was hopeless to ever get anything good out of it .

Oh, and by the way, I'm giving this Meishodo plotline a chance, because we know nothing about it after all, but considering all the "legacy fluff" and what I'm seeing with the new stories, I'm cautiously pessimistic and don't expect the writers reinventing the wheel.

Yeah I have been looking up a lot of the old fiction and until I get my copy of Way of the Unicorn in about a week I have found no Unicorn stories recommended by anyone. Phoenix were also quite lacking. Looking further into it it felt like they were often the 'we need a villain, we haven't used Unicorn for a while lets use them.' kind of way.

3 minutes ago, Fumi said:

Say, I wonder if this elemental imbalance thing is related to why the Phoenix purged that cult from their lands. That is, they blamed the imbalance on the cult, and since they didn't want to admit to losing control of the elements, they labeled the cult as heresy as an excuse to move against them. But purging the cult didn't solve the problem, so they began looking for external causes. Cue an Iuchi walking by waving around his amulets...

I am okay with this but I want to see some kind of reasoning. I want the Kami to be in upheaval, I want there to be a real problem. And I want there to be a solid reason for the Phoenix to hunt Unicorn.

7 minutes ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

Yeah I have been looking up a lot of the old fiction and until I get my copy of Way of the Unicorn in about a week I have found no Unicorn stories recommended by anyone. Phoenix were also quite lacking. Looking further into it it felt like they were often the 'we need a villain, we haven't used Unicorn for a while lets use them.' kind of way.

I am okay with this but I want to see some kind of reasoning. I want the Kami to be in upheaval, I want there to be a real problem. And I want there to be a solid reason for the Phoenix to hunt Unicorn.

Agreed. It'll be a much more compelling storyline if both sides have a reasonable point of view.

9 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Like, this was real, honest-to-goodness serious business, especially considering the ongoing Kampeki/Daigotsu mess. But nope, instead of building this up and explaining the situation, the writers had the two clan champs talk about literally nothing in a shrine .

Ah yes, Tsukimi literally saying, "I could resolve this but I'm not going to."

And people wonder why I greeted the news that she was going to be dead before Onyx Edition dropped with a resounding "meh."

9 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

In the end, I guess since it was a Phoenix/Unicorn storyline, it was hopeless to ever get anything good out of it .

It hurts because it's basically true. ?