So in the old story, the Agasha were a Dragon family that defected to the Phoenix, with the remaining loyalists eventually becoming the Tamori. What in the meta prompted that? I presume it was the result of the CCG somehow, but can anybody go into detail? And what, if any, bearing does that have on the new continuity?
Agasha Family (Old and New)
I can better answer your second question- No bearing at all.
As for the first... I don't actually recall that it was a CCG result, but I'll admit that I can't confirm that 100%. I think it was just a Brand/Story move (which, given how little was ultimately done with the Agasha as a Phoenix family, is extra-hilarious if true).
The move was story alone. Hitomi became the clan champion after killing Togashi and asked total loyalty from her clan. The Togashi didn't really liked this and were exiled / hunted down, a move that the Agasha didn't liked very much and most of them moved to the Phoenix (which was rebuilding at the time). To ease the fealty change, the Agasha offered the multi-elemental spells to every clan.
I heard it was because the Phoenix had 3 families and the Dragon were getting a 6th so they decided to balance out the families a bit using that story stuff mentioned above.
If that was the goal, it was something of a dismal failure- rather than adding a family to take some of the "everything that isn't bushi or shugenja" burden off of the Asako, the Phoenix ended up with another shugenja family... and since in addition to the Isawa, the Asako produce a fair amount of shugenja, it was really... coals to Newcastle.
Mind you, they seemed to have trouble coming up with stuff for the Phoenix to do in the old days, so introducing a potential source of lasting- and legitimate- bad blood with a neighboring clan wasn't a horrible idea, but the fact that the Agasha defection basically got shrugged off more or less turfed the potential there.
Y'know Gunichi, since you're clearly more experienced with the Phoenix- and L5R story in general than I am, I'm almost tempted to ask you to make an itemized list of all the Phoenix-related plot threads that AEG dropped for the duration of O5R.
6 hours ago, Mangod said:Y'know Gunichi, since you're clearly more experienced with the Phoenix- and L5R story in general than I am, I'm almost tempted to ask you to make an itemized list of all the Phoenix-related plot threads that AEG dropped for the duration of O5R.
Ohhhhhhh, that is a dark road you ask me to walk, my friend...
39 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:Ohhhhhhh, that is a dark road you ask me to walk, my friend...
I promise I'll be right behind you, all the way to the end...
8 hours ago, llamaman88 said:I heard it was because the Phoenix had 3 families and the Dragon were getting a 6th so they decided to balance out the families a bit using that story stuff mentioned above.
The Dragon at the time had the Togashi, the Kitsuki, the Agasha and the Mirumoto. They added the Hitomi but the Togashi and the Agasha left, so no 6th family. The Tamori joined years later (in Spirit wars, so decades later in-game) but true, the Togashi and the Hoshi joined before them... but years after the Agasha left. So when they did the Agasha move, the Dragon ended with 3 families and the Phoenix 4. Not sure for balancing at the time.
26 minutes ago, okuma said:The Dragon at the time had the Togashi, the Kitsuki, the Agasha and the Mirumoto. They added the Hitomi but the Togashi and the Agasha left, so no 6th family. The Tamori joined years later (in Spirit wars, so decades later in-game) but true, the Togashi and the Hoshi joined before them... but years after the Agasha left. So when they did the Agasha move, the Dragon ended with 3 families and the Phoenix 4. Not sure for balancing at the time.
Some (unsure of numbers here) of the Agasha stayed however, which meant for the time in game until Spirit Wars, both the Dragon and Phoenix were home to the Agasha family.
3 minutes ago, OokamiGauru said:Some (unsure of numbers here) of the Agasha stayed however, which meant for the time in game until Spirit Wars, both the Dragon and Phoenix were home to the Agasha family.
Indeed, some stayed, but in too small numbers to be considered a real family (and none were released ever at the time in card form). Time of the Void mention a minority.
1 hour ago, okuma said:The Dragon at the time had the Togashi, the Kitsuki, the Agasha and the Mirumoto. They added the Hitomi but the Togashi and the Agasha left, so no 6th family. The Tamori joined years later (in Spirit wars, so decades later in-game) but true, the Togashi and the Hoshi joined before them... but years after the Agasha left. So when they did the Agasha move, the Dragon ended with 3 families and the Phoenix 4. Not sure for balancing at the time.
None of those really feel like "adding" to me anyway, because they're not really new families joining up with the Dragon to replace the Agasha; they're mostly just existing Dragon samurai changing their family names. There were some new people, but for the most part it was a costume change.
When I started the Dragon had; Togashi, Hitomi, Hoshi, Tamori, Kitsuki and Mirumoto families. But yea, I am a bit fuzzy on exactly when each family officially joined up, as it was halfway through gold edition when I started. I'm actually super sad to see the Tamori erased, I felt it would be easy enough to say the family divide happened earlier in the timeline to keep a family that existed longer as the Dragon's Shugenja than the other, but Agasha Sumiko is pretty cool so far so maybe I'll come to accept it.
13 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:Mind you, they seemed to have trouble coming up with stuff for the Phoenix to do in the old days, so introducing a potential source of lasting- and legitimate- bad blood with a neighboring clan wasn't a horrible idea, but the fact that the Agasha defection basically got shrugged off more or less turfed the potential there.
I wouldn't say it was shrugged off. All the stuff with the Dark Oracle of Fire and the Dragon-Phoenix War was consequence of that, as well as the War of Dark Fire that was itself the prelude to the Destroyer War.
12 hours ago, Kinzen said:None of those really feel like "adding" to me anyway, because they're not really new families joining up with the Dragon to replace the Agasha; they're mostly just existing Dragon samurai changing their family names. There were some new people, but for the most part it was a costume change.
Indeed, but I used the terms that were used in the books. In order, the Dragon started with Togashi, Mirumoto and Agasha. The Kitsuki were added centuries later. Then Hitomi created her family and driven the Togashi and Agasha away. Following her departure, the Togashi and Hoshi joined in. Decades later, to end the Spirit Wars, the Tamori family was created as part of the peace treaty with Hantei XVIII
17 hours ago, Mon no Oni said:I wouldn't say it was shrugged off. All the stuff with the Dark Oracle of Fire and the Dragon-Phoenix War was consequence of that, as well as the War of Dark Fire that was itself the prelude to the Destroyer War.
Compared to the other Great Clan family that foreswore its oaths of fealty to join another clan? The defection that led to literal centuries of animosity? The Agasha definitely got shrugged off. "Oh well, a lot of the Tamori hate them- and extend this to the Phoenix, for the most part, but everybody else treats them more or less like regular samurai." Which is bupkiss. Speaking as a Phoenix fan, the Phoenix should have paid a much higher price in social capital for accepting those "traitors" into their midst- the Phoenix emphasis on saving lives is weird by Rokugani standards, and should be treated as such.
And again, it didn't help that the Agasha basically got lost in the shuffle over in Phoenix-land- what did the Agasha family do between, oh, the end of Samurai Edition through the sale of the IP? Almost total absence from the War of Dark Fire, one nonhuman helped with the whole God-Beast debacle, their new castle got ninja-stomped by the Scorpion, and their daimyo went on a fact-finding mission to the Colonies that never really went anywhere.