I love the Minor Clans. I am a RPG player first and foremost (owning practically every L5R RPG book ever released) and taking the plunge into L5R cards for the first time with the LCG.

I was very happy to see in the FFG fiction that Minor Clans exist, having confirmed the existence of the Falcon (my second favourite Minor Clan after the Sparrow) and have been wondering how they might include them in the game some time in the future.

I had a thought - what if the Minor Clans existed purely as influence cost splash cards? Rather than my current Crab splashing Crane, what about Crab splashing Falcon? It would give each Minor Clan an identity while only needing to balance a small card pool. They would still feel "minor" with only a card pool of say around 7-8 Conflict cards per Minor Clan yet bring more to the splash/influence design space while only having to test the cards as splash and not having to be concerned about how a card balances and interacts as in clan as well as out of clan.

Anyone else have a favourite (non-Mantis) Minor Clan? How do you feel they might show up in the game?

I really like that idea. I think its more likely that minor clans will be neutral cards, but I like the idea of them being influence only factions.

I had the same thought.

It would be neat, but I wonder if that would thin out the pool even more. We already have seven clans.

Perhaps you could splash with one major clan and one minor clan. Or maybe the minor clans would splash into the Dynasty deck or something.

Minor clans not having a stronghold on their own sounds great. Splashing them in your deck with influence too.

Maybe in the future we can see a neutral faction stronghold that allows you to play more out of faction cards... but all cards are out of faction.

12 hours ago, juggler434 said:

I really like that idea. I think its more likely that minor clans will be neutral cards, but I like the idea of them being influence only factions.

I'm guessing minor clans will be neutral (in-faction for all clans), but it would be rather interesting to see them as out-of-faction for all clans, and requiring influence.

Personally, I most want to see Wasp, though I think someone pointed out that if this timeline is at all like AEG's, Tsuruchi probably isn't even born yet. ;_;

3 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Personally, I most want to see Wasp, though I think someone pointed out that if this timeline is at all like AEG's, Tsuruchi probably isn't even born yet. ;_;

In old L5R, Tsuruchi was born in 1088. Shoju and Kachiko were married in 1113, so he would be at least 25 if both of these things happened again at those same times.

Yep, some of us had this thought back during the pre-release articles. Seems like a good plan. They could even go so far as having Three-man Alliance, or Brotherhood as splashable factions.

1 hour ago, DarkHorse said:

In old L5R, Tsuruchi was born in 1088. Shoju and Kachiko were married in 1113, so he would be at least 25 if both of these things happened again at those same times.

Someone told me wrong, then.

...then again, I probably shouldn't be too surprised. He told me a bit of wrong information during the CCG era.

Dynasty deck only minor clan cards is the way I'd go to.

Hare, Dragonfly, Fox, Centipede...

I missed the Hare Clan deck in Samurai edition, so... I kinda want a chance to do it here.

8 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Hare, Dragonfly, Fox, Centipede...

I missed the Hare Clan deck in Samurai edition, so... I kinda want a chance to do it here.

Hare Bodyguard all the way!

7 hours ago, Robin Graves said:

Dynasty deck only minor clan cards is the way I'd go to.

Is there something missing here? Is the way you'd go to what?

And Dynasty only Minor Clans wouldn't work, because your Dynasty deck has to be entirely in faction or Neutral, so you'd need Minor Clan Strongholds for that, which I doubt we'd get. Did you mean Conflict deck only?

Honestly, I would just as soon see minor clans introduced as neutral cards with their clan indicated as a trait, similar to what it looks like the Goblin Sneak has with its Shadowlands trait. That way they can easily be introduced as both dynasty and conflict cards. Sure, it could *technically* mean players are using more than 2 clans (if they still splash another great clan in their conflict deck) but seeing as we already have Imperial showing up to be essentially its own neutral minor faction, I don't see how implementing minor clans in the same manner as imperials would make any significant change to that format.

2 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Is there something missing here? Is the way you'd go to what?

And Dynasty only Minor Clans wouldn't work, because your Dynasty deck has to be entirely in faction or Neutral, so you'd need Minor Clan Strongholds for that, which I doubt we'd get. Did you mean Conflict deck only?

Minor clan characters could be neutral dynasty cards, with the "Hare Clan', 'Ox Clan', etc. trait. just like how the game already has neutral dynasty characters that are Imperial.

1 hour ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Honestly, I would just as soon see minor clans introduced as neutral cards with their clan indicated as a trait, similar to what it looks like the Goblin Sneak has with its Shadowlands trait. That way they can easily be introduced as both dynasty and conflict cards. Sure, it could *technically* mean players are using more than 2 clans (if they still splash another great clan in their conflict deck) but seeing as we already have Imperial showing up to be essentially its own neutral minor faction, I don't see how implementing minor clans in the same manner as imperials would make any significant change to that format.

This really seems like the best way to do it, overall.

Here's a Dynasty character using that system, and a Conflict deck character as well:

6 minutes ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

This really seems like the best way to do it, overall.

Here's a Dynasty character using that system, and a Conflict deck character as well:

Wow, do you have the fonts and bases to create new cards?

Just now, PsiLAN said:

Wow, do you have the fonts and bases to create new cards?

Wintersong (from these forums) made some nice basic blank templates for some clans months ago. The fonts that at least come close to whatever FFG uses on their cards are: Arial for text box, Forte for skill and glory numbers, and 'brushtipTexe' for the card titles.

Since then, I've been slowly working on making my own templates for minor clans and other factions, including a special Shadowlands template:

Thx, ill search for those bases.

2 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Is there something missing here? Is the way you'd go to what?

And Dynasty only Minor Clans wouldn't work, because your Dynasty deck has to be entirely in faction or Neutral, so you'd need Minor Clan Strongholds for that, which I doubt we'd get. Did you mean Conflict deck only?

Ah dammit! I meant Conflict. Conflict!

56 minutes ago, PsiLAN said:

Thx, ill search for those bases.

Here ya go. (Again, these ones were made by Wintersong) :

https://imgur.com/a/fUZxi

They could add banners to allow minor clans, even adding influence costs to them for dynasty characters wouldn't be a hard rework and could be done in a big box release down the road. I like the idea of adding in the smaller clans as characters but even as a former Shadowlands/Mantis player I'm not sure I want more playable factions anytime soon.

I'd love to see minor clans as neutral cards. My most wanted are:

1. Badger

2. Boar

3. Wasp

4. Monkey

5. Tortoise

I'm a new player so all I know about them is from the relating wiki articles.

The conflict deck splash seems maybe just a little too limited? While it would be really cool because you could get the color and mon on the card, it just seems you wouldn't have enough influence to spend to really have it feel like you're playing with that minor clan.

dynasty neutral with a keyword for their clan much like Imperial right now makes sense to me... but I would really love to see the mon and colors :<

maybe they can do the grey for neutral but put the mon in the color of the clan instead of the neutral brush circle symbol. these are completely non-mechanical gripes but mon/color is a big part of identity in this game.

I see Dynasty neutral as too bland, lacking identity. Everyone can pick 'n mix whatever Minor Clan they like, no more identity than Wandering Ronin.

In my experience so far (about 10 games), the splash clan influences the play of the deck. Crab splashing Crane has a different complimentary arsenal (political rival, admit defeat) than say Crab splashing Dragon (ancestral attachments, yoda monk backpack) or Crab splashing Unicorn (spyglass and captive audience). Can you tell I play Crab?

At the end of the day, this is just wishlist speculation on my part. I am just putting out into the ether my hope that Minor Clans get some fun options and table time in this good game.

I agree about the blandness.

others talked about this a while ago when gameplay was first starting to be shown.

I like the splash idea but it's kind of specific. Conflict characters should be guys who pop into battle imo. Making every minor clan that just seems bizarre.