So to clarify, there was coup talk at the end of the Scorpion story. My understanding of this part of the passage is:

1. Scorpion should solidify their power while they are ahead and stay ahead and this is probably their direction that they want to go.

2. Any mention of a coup seemed like a way to say "no we are not doing a coup"

3. The mention of a coup was meant as a nod to the old timeline without a continuation of it this time.

Do these interpretations make sense? I thought it seemed pretty clear that no one would end up pushing for the coup after reading through the fiction.

Sure, they make sense. They're also not the only interpretation. Personally, I start with the assumption that FFG is going to head - generally, and with an unknown timescale - towards the second day of thunder. It's both a great story and a highly iconic part of the license they bought. I suspect they will have a coup to lead off into that story (there are, of course, other forms of disruption that can serve similar purposes, and I say a coup rather than Scorpion Coup because that is also a possibility.)

Anyway, seen from that point, I'd put your points as:

1. Shoju intends to solidify his power while he's ahead, and since he's in charge, that's the way they'll go, but he listens to his wife, the Imperial Adviser, who doesn't agree.

2. The mention of the coup could also be to plant the seeds, instead of making it seem like it came out of nowhere. Further, Shoju's immediate shutdown of the idea can easily be seen as caution against listeners, even as secure as he's tried to make his gardens.

3. The mention of the coup can be a nod to the old timeline, as well as early seed planting, especially if another clan will try to pull off the coup this time (say, Unicorn after having meshodo banned...) In that case, this would be seen as showing that it's not unthinkable, and the Scorpion weren't the only ones thinking about it.

Again, my interpretation can certainly be wrong, and I start with the bias of expecting them to head to a Day of Thunder. Your interpretations do make sense too. I don't think that story is enough to draw any actual conclusions either way. FFG is keeping their options open, and more power to them as long as they keep the story quality high - I've liked most of the fictions so far, and am happy to go along for the ride.

I read through the original 1st Day of Thunder stories and they were awesome in my opinion. I wouldn't mind seeing another Day of Thunder sort of thing this time around, would be a great story line to see.

As a follow up to your post and because I have mulled over the idea, who, if anyone, would you guys expect to Coup. I actually think that it feels like they are setting up Lion as the bad guys, starting tons of wars and trying to force peoples hands, they are practically already at war with everyone.

The talking at the end felt more like a nod.

The part that felt most like a scorpion coup was sticking his hand into the coy pond and talking about seeing the future.

The writing was a bit clunky for this fiction, I'm going to need to read over it more, but I think it was just a nod/psych out.

It felt more to me like "We would NEVER even THINK of doing something like that" *wink nod wink*

Meaning that they are thinking about pursuing the Scorpion Clan Coup. Just my 2 zeni though!

Yogo Junzo "Shoju, the Scorpion are too strong... I just don't think I could live if I ever betrayed you. Why don't you abandon all power, maybe throw your best armies at the Crab... without weapons... um... and I'll help by giving your name to an Oni. That would be great, wouldn't it? Then no one would think to challenge the Scorpion, because they're already ruined!!"

Shoju "hm... an interesting though... if I commit suicide to the Crab then Hotaru is certain to not show up and shoot me..."

Kachiko "Shoju! Don't you dare! I'm putting in a lot of work to learn how to wear these kimonos, don't you burn the house down just to play outside!"

I think it's a primer to intensify the later story. When Shoju later learns the prophecy that leads him to conclude a coup is necessary, we will better appreciate the anguish this will cause him. The Scorpion are loyal to those who earn their loyalty, and Hantei XXXVIII has earned Shoju's loyalty.

Chances are it might be the crab clan coup. After all they are already dealing with the crap that lead to the alliance with the shadow lands. They might not go down that path again but Kisada already seems to be tired of not being heard and might decide its time for his tetsubo to do the talking. It's too bad that it's emerald champion that is up for grabs and not the jade champion(yes, I know the job hasn't been made yet) because then we could just ride in going "all your jade are belong to us".

7 hours ago, paulsk said:

I think it's a primer to intensify the later story. When Shoju later learns the prophecy that leads him to conclude a coup is necessary, we will better appreciate the anguish this will cause him. The Scorpion are loyal to those who earn their loyalty, and Hantei XXXVIII has earned Shoju's loyalty.

I mean, nothing in the current lore hints at any prophecy. Why do we keep thinking (or hoping?) that we are playing the same old game?

And I seriously hope that this "coup" talking has been purely fan-service, and they will go in a completely different direction. I mean, feudal Japan had enough war and conflicts without the removal of the imperial bloodline, i'm sure FFG can think of something original

12 hours ago, wolfien8 said:

I read through the original *1st Day of Thunder* stories and they were awesome in my opinion. I wouldn't mind seeing another Day of Thunder sort of thing this time around, would be a great story line to see.

My apologies if you already know this, but in the L5R lore there was an event called the First Day of Thunder that happened at the Dawn of the Empire and the Second Day of Thunder that occured with the contemporary thunders (Toturi, Kachiko, et al.) Referring to the AEG Day of Thunder as the "first" could be confusing to some old players.

Again, my apologies if you were talking about the dawn of the empire one.

I hope the coup does occur, it was a crucial element of what made the old game; the broken scorpion seeking revenge. I'm also hoping that it takes a much longer time to play out, that we see the prophecy uncovered we really get to meet a pre black scroll Junzo, before the plunge in to darkness.

1 minute ago, JolOfNar said:

I hope the coup does occur, it was a crucial element of what made the old game; the broken scorpion seeking revenge. I'm also hoping that it takes a much longer time to play out, that we see the prophecy uncovered we really get to meet a pre black scroll Junzo, before the plunge in to darkness.

Wouldn't be more fun if the story would be completely different? Why watching a movie we have already seen?

I dunno, probably because if they were going to tell a completely different story, why reboot to the same period. That would be like buying the ip for GoT and saying actually I just fancied having Jon Snow in my story, I'm going to go off and tell a completely different story.

I think the clan coop is going to be a story prize event this time around. They've gone to great effort to show that every great house has good reason to flip out, flip table and flip the emperor off

42 minutes ago, Taki said:

I think the clan coop is going to be a story prize event this time around. They've gone to great effort to show that every great house has good reason to flip out, flip table and flip the emperor off

Agreed but its still a ways away imo. From memory, the current story events look to be shaping up to be:

1. Meishodo Y/N? (Ongoing)

2. Who gets Emerald Championship?

3. Who wins the impending Civil War of the Lion? (Tsuko vs Toturi)

4. Coup?

Also, you could say that Hotaru finding out about Satsume, and the Dragon's war with the Perfect Land sect could also be chosen as Story Decisions.

I have two Scorpion characters I want to know a lot more about in Rokugan 2.0.

1) What is up with Dairu? Someone with that name exists and is, at the very least, Shoju's child. What up wit dat? Is he the child of Shoju and Hotaru? Because that would be pretty messed up.

2) I want to see a pre-corruption Junzo. I want to know if he was always completely nuts, or whether that was primarily black scroll influence + revenge. Basically, how much of the old Junzo is in this Junzo. The world needs to know!

If they are going to head towards Day of Thunder (which they probably will) I would like to see Shoju get the prophesy, much like before, but not react to it the same way. I would like to see either a better planned coup, or another non-coup approach to the "problem". I am not sure what that approach would be.

Also, if they do the coup, they better not retcon Ambition-the-bloodsword into it.

I am as angry about that retcon as the dragon players are about Togashi, the body hopper.

2 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Also, if they do the coup, they better not retcon Ambition-the-bloodsword into it.

I am as angry about that retcon as the dragon players are about Togashi, the body hopper.

So you'd rather it be his own bad idea?

I think it is something left to be decided, or at least influenced, by the players.

The Scorpion can:

A) Withdraw into the shadows and let others take center stage.

B) Maintain and strengthen their current position of power.

C) Attempt to seize full control of the Empire.

The other clans have choices of their own to make, such as the Dragon and how they will deal with the heretical sect.

3 minutes ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

So you'd rather it be his own bad idea?

I prefer "I am doing this because I feel I need to save the empire." to "the bad sword made me do it!"

One makes him a tragic hero. The other makes him a manipulated fool.

2 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

I prefer "I am doing this because I feel I need to save the empire." to "the bad sword made me do it!"

One makes him a tragic hero. The other makes him a manipulated fool.

In the Steven Sullivan novel, it WAS Shoju's own choice the sword simply turned the outcome into something Shoju couldn't get out of.

5 hours ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

My apologies if you already know this, but in the L5R lore there was an event called the First Day of Thunder that happened at the Dawn of the Empire and the Second Day of Thunder that occured with the contemporary thunders (Toturi, Kachiko, et al.) Referring to the AEG Day of Thunder as the "first" could be confusing to some old players.

Again, my apologies if you were talking about the dawn of the empire one.

I was referring to the 1st day of Thunder not the second day, I haven't read about the Second one before. Also the reason you reboot is to change things. They bought a whole IP and they needed to start somewhere, they went to the simplest time so they could control the story. Redoing the Coup could be useful if they want to change the outcome and the negative points of the old timeline. However if they had reset to another time later on they have to accept all of the old history. Resetting allows them to retell the story from a point of their choosing, might as well start clean than way far in to the fiction for new people just joining.

48 minutes ago, Kitsuki Edogawa said:

I think it is something left to be decided, or at least influenced, by the players.

The Scorpion can:

A) Withdraw into the shadows and let others take center stage.

B) Maintain and strengthen their current position of power.

C) Attempt to seize full control of the Empire.

The other clans have choices of their own to make, such as the Dragon and how they will deal with the heretical sect.

I hope not. I really hope they don't leave this level of player choice, especially for each clan. It's what AEG was doing by the end, and it caused a lot of problems. Good narrative, good stories, need planning, seeds, foreshadowing, motive, and so on. Even the greatest writers can't do that if they don't know which way the story will head. Or they have to plant seeds for every possible direction.

Yes, I want player input, just not at this level. Let us have an influence on how things turn out, not how they develop. If there is another scorpion coup, plan for it and give us good stories. Then, maybe at a GenCon or Worlds, if Scorpion (or some of their allies, whoever they may be) win, they manage to hold the throne - at least for a while. But the build up needs too many stories to work together to throw that open to player choice.

I will say also, that the choice offered this year, to ban or share the Unicorn's meishdo, goes against what I'm hoping for. Unless, of course, it's a pointless choice, or a magician's force (where both choices really lead to the same outcome.) Of course, I could be wrong about the type of choices they will offer all along - and I'll still hope they can give us good stories anyway, or it might just be a weak choice because they're just starting up.

I think of a reboot more in terms of GoT from book to series. There are changes all over the show, but the fundamentals are the same. The coup is the back story that led to the clan war. It was a core element of the scorpion identity, it gives us the characters of Junzo, Kachiko and Undead Shoju (who was just a really cool story based card mechanic). Togashis prophecy could be a whole mislead, a tip of the hat etc or it could be exactly what it seems to be. I like the idea of the story team taking what was and changing lots of elements of it, it could in all fairness be improved as an overall story and drawn out to make it more epic, but the bones of the story should remain. The scorpion should coup and seek revenge/redemption, Toturi should be disgraced and seperate from the traditional Lion, The black scroll should be opened by Junzo and the emperor should be possessed, Togashi should enact his plan.

Those to me were the core elements of the old story, I don't know what other people think of when they think about that story period, but it would be nice if the bits that made it what it was for each player were kept, and the flavour and fluff was changed improved, and embellished upon.