https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/11/5/the-fires-of-justice/

And with that, Tsuko got more character development.

57 minutes ago, BlindSamurai13 said:

And with that, Tsuko got more character development.

And both of them are less stumpy.

Does this foreshadow that we might get another Crane civil war as well?

15 minutes ago, HirumaShigure said:

Does this foreshadow that we might get another Crane civil war as well?

God I hope not... civil wars are pretty much single-clan affairs by definition...

Tinfoil hat time! (Is there a more Rokugan-ish material we can substitute for that saying? Jadefoil hat, maybe?)

I wonder who's actually behind this conspiracy Tsuko seems to see (assuming it's real). I know many people will probably instantly think "Scorpion," but in the Dragon clan fiction and the fiction with Scorpion guitar hero whose name I forget FFG seemed to be playing up the threat of the Perfect Land Sect. They've mostly been a threat to the Dragon up to now, but if it turned out they'd been the instigators of the war between the Lion and the Crane that would make them a threat to all of Rokugan. So far, the fiction has focused almost entirely on members of the samurai class or higher--but even in the very first fiction (Hotaru's), we've seen that tensions between the samurai class and the peasantry have been present. They've set up a very interesting social conflict there, and I think that a cycle to focus on this struggle between a Perfect Land conspiracy and the Great Clans would be an excellent way to explore it. They wouldn't necessarily have to introduce a new faction--just have a set of neutral and clan cards with the "Perfect Land" keyword, like they're doing with the Imperials (maybe having them in your deck would mean you can't have any Imperial cards or something).

I just know it's that **** cat! " ::meow meow:: I a big Lion samurai! ::meow meow:: I pay you, kill big bad blue samurai man! ::meow meow:: Doji Kurohito's daddy " -Fumio the cat

My money is on the perfect land sect. They feel the samurai are responsible for their lot, so I can see them trying to put them against one another.

I'm thinking Ikoma Eiji (sp?) is involved. Even more so when Tsuko reveals that, to her knowledge, no one from Lion Clan knew Kuwanan was in that village. Yet in the L2P story, Eiji seems to know, and magically receives a letter about the ronin attack right after mentioning it.

24 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

I'm thinking Ikoma Eiji (sp?) is involved. Even more so when Tsuko reveals that, to her knowledge, no one from Lion Clan knew Kuwanan was in that village. Yet in the L2P story, Eiji seems to know, and magically receives a letter about the ronin attack right after mentioning it.

Preacher spitting truth and it hurts.

Flame on chicken, flame on

I even suspect the Kolat to be behind the perfect land sect.

Wonder what's Akodo Kage sensei is up to in this Rokugan?

I kinda hope the PL sect isn't the Kolat... but rather, a retooling of that stupid, stupid, mishandled villainous faction into something a bit more narratively useful.

As someone who was unfortunately not around for OLd5r, I'm not really a good judge of whether the Kolat were a good addition to the story or not. However, I do LOVE the idea of a hidden anti-Samurai conspiracy as an antagonistic faction, since otherwise it seems like most of the old game's villains were Maho or Shadowlands-affiliated. I hope they do use this core idea at some point in the new narrative, whether it's in the form of the Perfect Land, the Kolat, an evil milkman conspiracy, Samurai Communists, or whatever works well for the story.

I find it difficult to imagine the Perfect Land Sect — a movement dedicated to improving the condition of peasants — would hire ronin to slaughter a village. If they had it would be a serious radicalization. Easy perhaps to imagine someone with less regard for the peasantry trying to shift blame to others.

Bear with me here:

So the PLS grows and grows, begins to attract Ronin and some nefarious ‘outlaws’ who all have an axe to grind... soon after, certain entities in the Shadowlands “hear the rumblings” of unease and the stir of trouble beyond the wall, for which a cause (an opening) of sorts begins to take shape, but this movement still lacks a unifying leader... now enters the foundation of an ‘outside’ group that has some form of connection to Rokugan proper.

The birth of Spider Clan comes into being!!!

Soooooooooo, it’s Spider all along! The various clans were too self-absorbed to realize the gathering of forces against Rokugan, some of which were in the guise of the Perfect Land Sect, while others were clearly from beyond the Wall and from the Shadowlands. ?

On 11/7/2017 at 9:35 AM, Gamedog said:

I find it difficult to imagine the Perfect Land Sect — a movement dedicated to improving the condition of peasants — would hire ronin to slaughter a village. If they had it would be a serious radicalization. Easy perhaps to imagine someone with less regard for the peasantry trying to shift blame to others.

While I definitely agree that doing such a thing would be completely against the morals that the Perfect Land claim to follow, I think one important concept that seems to be present in all of L5R's factions is that no one faction is entirely good or without fault. Perhaps you're right, though, and the Perfect Land wouldn't take THIS PARTICULAR deplorable action. I like it as my own little tinfoil hat hypothesis, but I could be way off.

The Crab Clan is entirely good and without fault.

I'm actually wondering what's behind the PLS, and if it's detrimental to Rokugan, how come Lord Togashi let it develop in his lands.

His powers of foresight allowed him in Old5R lore to actually detect and prevent the Kolat from infiltrating his Clan.

Also, agreed that for the card game Kolat wasn't remotely interesting beyond flavour. But in the RPG they are the best manipulative vilains, with plan within plans that could sometimes make the scorpion only dream of such deviousness.

(As long as the GM was good with layered megaplots)