https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/4/2/repentance-does-not-come-first/

Was awesome! But did it spoil the novella? Or is it a continuation of this?

Well once more Phoenix arrogance leads to their own destruction. I can only imagine that the more hole Tadaka carves into his soul for offerings the more places the Taint has to dwell.

40 minutes ago, llamaman88 said:

But did it spoil the novella? Or is it a continuation of this?

The novella takes place before this fic.

I guess it's not really a spoiler the main characters survive. But it's got me super excited to read what happened.

3 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

Well once more Phoenix arrogance leads to their own destruction. I can only imagine that the more hole Tadaka carves into his soul for offerings the more places the Taint has to dwell.

The novella takes place before this fic.

I took that same thought from reading it myself, that he's opening himself up for the Taint. Great story though, very interesting teases of the novella as well.

Ah, the road to ****; paved with good intentions and Maho.

So, anyone else wondering if Rujo will show up as a Unaligned * Character later on?

Edit: Really? You're censoring that? C'mon, FFG...

Tadaka has a Shiba shinobi as his bodyguard?

I mean, he does have a point, I just think that he could have been more politic about it.

Also, Kyuden Tonbo, Yay!!

A more nuanced take on Tadaka's path to losing himself... one wonders if he would have listened to Tsukune, had she been able to be there. It's noteworthy that his drive and obsession are presented as something other Phoenix don't condone- the clan as a whole comes off much better this way, even if the story's protagonist shows himself to be almost everything the people around him are worried he might become.

Best of all... Tadaka's not 100% wrong... and hey, in this version of events, Rujo gets to look like something other than a total jerk in the bargain. I mean... he even said, "We can send someone else, I just don't want you going." Nice to see dashes of wisdom mixed with the hubris. And the philosophical differences are far more pronounced. Also interesting to note that Tadaka seems to genuinely wish his former master well in his new life as a ronin.

Sesai and Kaito... vassal families are most definitely going to be more of a thing this time around. HURRAH!

Love the description of the duel- far better than that Taryu-Jiai "ME BLAST YOU NOW" stuff.

Offering his own Earth? Having it accepted? I'm sure this will In No Way make Things difficult when he takes his field trip to visit the Crab.

Indeed. Tadaka is clearly not wrong. The Dragon are aware that the cresting wave of darkness is coming, even knowing where it will land. The Phoenix, attuned to the Elemental imbalance and leery of the Unicorn should be all-in on getting to the heart of things. Rujo is also clearly not wrong. Tadaka’s been studying early Akuma writings. Probably not evil or heretical in & of themselves, but a solid early warning sign. Coupled with his tendency towards reckless action and clear ego, and the fact that whatever went down with the Kaito, Tsukune can’t hold him back, everyone can see he’s going over a cliff.

yey!-

dragonfly are confirmed as existing in new5r

So...

Wait...

Was Tadaka using maho here? What's the difference between "sacrificing his own Earth" and "spilling blood?"
Do the Kami, in New5R, still answer prayers fueled by self-sacrifice? Are Kansen still a thing? I'm confused, lol.

I was kind of confused by that as well. I'm not sure exactly what offering "his own earth" means. Is this blood magic, or something else? At the end, it sounded like it literally just took a chunk of his face off.

Does this mean that the stories won't be in the packs anymore?

18 hours ago, Mangod said:

Ah, the road to ****; paved with good intentions and Maho.

Edit: Really? You're censoring that? C'mon, FFG...

You should have used Jigoku instead. They don’t censor it.

6 hours ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

So...

Wait...

Was Tadaka using maho here? What's the difference between "sacrificing his own Earth" and "spilling blood?"
Do the Kami, in New5R, still answer prayers fueled by self-sacrifice? Are Kansen still a thing? I'm confused, lol.

Kansen are still a thing (as per the RPG Beta).

But Kansen are evil spirits, and they only accept blood as an offering for their services. Their powers are fueled by corruption (the sixth element, at least in OL5R).

Kami, on the other side, will accept any offering of their element. Given that everything is composed by the four elements (Void ties them all), they’ll take their part. Some things have more of an element than others. For example, if you use a bottle of sake to appease a water Kami, the sake will be consumed, but not the bottle. The more valuable the offering, the more tempted will be the Kami to carry out the petition that goes with that offering. A decorated rod of sandalwood will be better for an Earth Kami than a chunk of pine bark.

Following that logic, the human body/spirit is also composed of the four elements, and it’s probably the more valuable thing that can be offered (I suspect as long as the offering is willing), so the Kami can take a chunk of your Water (a little part of your spirit or soul), but if the offering is big enough also part of your body.

4 hours ago, Kakita Shiro said:

Does this mean that the stories won't be in the packs anymore?

There will be another fiction inside the pack, as always.

Keep in mind that up until now, they publish a fiction in the web, and another one in the pack that (normally) ties in with the first one.

On 4/3/2018 at 4:05 AM, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

So...

Wait...

Was Tadaka using maho here? What's the difference between "sacrificing his own Earth" and "spilling blood?"
Do the Kami, in New5R, still answer prayers fueled by self-sacrifice? Are Kansen still a thing? I'm confused, lol.

In Old5R, the Phoenix once had blood magic techniques that weren't tainted until Fu Leng said they were. My first thought is that this was something akin to that.

34 minutes ago, MythicFox said:

In Old5R, the Phoenix once had blood magic techniques that weren't tainted until Fu Leng said they were. My first thought is that this was something akin to that.

Not exactly. The Isawa (not the Phoenix), prior to the fall of the Kami, invented Maho, and used it in a pure way, offering blood voluntarily to the elemental Kami.

When Fu Leng fell to Jigoku and the Isawa allied with Shiba no Kami, those elemental Kami got corrupted, becoming the Kansen, and Maho became tainted and led to corruption, so they forbade its use.

The basc difference between Maho and Invocations (“normal magic”), is that the first draws power from Fu Leng, making you corrupted. There’s no way of using Maho without becoming corrupted.

20 hours ago, Tabris2k said:

Following that logic, the human body/spirit is also composed of the four elements, and it’s probably the more valuable thing that can be offered (I suspect as long as the offering is willing), so the Kami can take a chunk of your Water (a little part of your spirit or soul), but if the offering is big enough also part of your body.

Careful using your Water. Since that's the element of perception you could end up going deaf and/or blind.

Given that he learned this technique from Akuma's notes it's probably a step on the road to Maho.

I think it can be thought of as the difference between casting from hit points (Maho) and casting from ability scores (this technique). Tadaka just to a permanent -1 Charisma for a one use spell slot.

1 hour ago, MythicFox said:

In Old5R, the Phoenix once had blood magic techniques that weren't tainted until Fu Leng said they were. My first thought is that this was something akin to that.

My understanding is that when the Seven Fortunes were just the guardian spirits of the Tribe of Isawa they protected them from the negative effects of Maho. But when Hantei elevated them to Fortune status their attention was divided over too wide an area and they can't offer the same degree of protection anymore.

2 hours ago, shineyorkboy said:

My understanding is that when the Seven Fortunes were just the guardian spirits of the Tribe of Isawa they protected them from the negative effects of Maho. But when Hantei elevated them to Fortune status their attention was divided over too wide an area and they can't offer the same degree of protection anymore.

To my recollection, this is correct.
When the Fortunes could no longer protect the tribe of Isawa, that is when they began practicing elemental magic.

The reason behind my question is that kansen are always the ones to answer a spell cast from the sacrifice of blood. There is no kami option.
So... how is this self-sacrifice different?

Well you aren't cutting yourself for magic. You're giving up a portion of your soul and that just happens to have a corresponding effect on your physical body.

19 minutes ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:

To my recollection, this is correct.
When the Fortunes could no longer protect the tribe of Isawa, that is when they began practicing elemental magic.

My recollection is that AEG offered different explanations at different times and in different stories. To me, this created the impression that the answer wasn't known to the samurai (maybe not known to the writers either ) In any event, that was the type of ambiguity I liked - things that the characters in story didn't know, and we as readers didn't know either. So each time, we would be introduced to the point of view of whoever was doing the story - and each time, in fitting with a samurai story, the answer was presented as definitively correct.

Isawas started using prayers to the Kami due to a better understanding of magic after the Tao and Shinsei's advices on the nature of elements.

They also stopped blood magic because it somehow seemed to turn them crazy.

only later would Kuni Nakanu study the taint and maho and found a correlation, but he was kinda ignored.

Until Otomo Jama found his journals...

Quick question, is there a separate lore somewhere on what happened to Tsukune and why she appeared to had been wounded/defeated/sacrificed by Tadaka?

Seems I saw in the intro page of the lore that there is a novel or something as well.

25 minutes ago, Yogo Rye X said:

Quick question, is there a separate lore somewhere on what happened to Tsukune and why she appeared to had been wounded/defeated/sacrificed by Tadaka?

Seems I saw in the intro page of the lore that there is a novel or something as well.

The information will be in the upcoming Phoenix novella. This story takes place after that.

6 hours ago, OokamiGauru said:

The information will be in the upcoming Phoenix novella. This story takes place after that.

So is this novella like a book we need to buy or is it the insert in the clan pack or part of the elemental cycle inserts?