Maho is blood magic in Rokuganese, period. It was once safe, but Fu Leng's fall opening the Festering Pit and releasing lots of kansen changed that and made it very risky, so it was forbidden by Imperial edict.

Using blood magic to call upon a kami doesn't cause Taint. Doing the same with a kansen, does. Problem is, sometimes you don't know what you are getting; kansen are tricky, they want you to fall. Somebody experienced like Tadaka probably can tell the difference... 99% of times, under controlled circunstances and in the relatively safe Isawa lands. Now, he means to go to the Kuni lands. This is not going to end well.

8 hours ago, dbmeboy said:

Yeah, it’s the background knowledge I’m missing. Like all the discussion about maho. I don’t really have any idea what it is or what “kansen” are or any things like that. On one hand, I could go look things up in a wiki... but I don’t want to get confused with elements FFG changes (or have plot points they don’t change spoiled for me).

It's part of the overall setting, so this won't spoil you. Of course, some details may have changed in this version of the story, but it seems to be the same for now.

The basics is, before the Fall of the Kami, there was the Tribe of Isawa, powerful human sorcerers. They used blood magic. Blood magic requires a sacrifice of blood to the kami (elemental nature spirits), the sorcerer's own, or somebody else for a harsher version. The more you asking of the kami, the more blood you need. The bigger offering may involve deaths. Now, when the Kami fell to Rokugan (long story) one of them, Fu Leng, fell even further, and opened a literal hole into the world leading to the hel-like realm of Jigoku. This is the Festering Pit, and it's where the Shadowlands thingies come from. This released loads of kansen into Rokugan's spiritural ecosystem. Kansen are the evil version of kami. The nearer you are to the Pit, the more kansen you can find, and they are attracted to blood. So, from this moment on, when a Shungenja makes an offering of blood, he has a huge chance to find a kansen instead of a kami, and it causes practitioners to be Tainted, spiritually contaminated. Problem with Taint is that, once it has a toehold on your soul, you just cannot get rid of it. It doesn't make you automatically evil, but it will be always tempting you to do it again, and again. It's literally the slippery slope.

At some point, if you keep accumulating Taint, you will be Lost and become a pawn of Jigoku. Even a mediocre shugenja (or even somebody who was not a Shugenja) could get huge destructive effects with maho. It was just not worth the risk. At some point early in the Empire's history, blood magic was completely banned and shugenja were outright forbidden to offer blood to the kami, upon pain of death. For centuries, and until present days many Isawa scholars have longed and researched for ways to reclaim their ancestral, pure blood magic in a safe way. It has not happened yet.

So we have this story where Tadaka "offers his own earth" at several points, which clearly seems to be an euphemism for using blood magic, as the writer depicts or implies some bloodletting everytime this is used. Of course Tadaka is not tainting himself, for the moment. But we are shown that he is brash, that he his willing to risk his soul's purity (he snarks at his sensei for not being willing to do so himself), and he his traveling next to the Wall, the frontier with the Shadowlands, nearer the Festering Pit, and where the kansen are far more prevalent.

Repentance doesn't come first. Blessings come first, then repentance.

(Fun fact: In the old lore, followers of Fu Leng called Taint "the Dark Lord's Blessing""

5 hours ago, Mon no Oni said:

Maho is blood magic in Rokuganese, period. It was once safe, but Fu Leng's fall opening the Festering Pit and releasing lots of kansen changed that and made it very risky, so it was forbidden by Imperial edict.

Using blood magic to call upon a kami doesn't cause Taint. Doing the same with a kansen, does. Problem is, sometimes you don't know what you are getting; kansen are tricky, they want you to fall. Somebody experienced like Tadaka probably can tell the difference... 99% of times, under controlled circunstances and in the relatively safe Isawa lands. Now, he means to go to the Kuni lands. This is not going to end well.

Nope.

Use of Maho causes taint. Period.

What Tadaka did here is therefore something else. Blood must be spilled for the the kansen to do their thing. Ergo... this is not maho as we have historically understood it. It's something else.

I think it's fair to say that the rules for maho (both in-game and in-rules) have changed enough over the 4 editions of the RPG and duration of the CCG that it's very hard to make any concrete assertions about it generally. However, there are a couple of things in the RPG beta that support Gunichi's interpretation in this version of the setting.

Quote

However, the knowledge to call them is in itself corruptive.

Only characters with the Shadowlands Taint disadvantage can purchase mahō.

Thanks for humoring my lack of knowledge :-)

Sounds like I need to go read through the RPG beta next. I just reread all of the other FFG fiction in preparation for the book, but looks like I still have time before it gets here.

We (and I hope the others don't mind me speaking for them) are L5R grognards. It's not that we are humouring you: we like discussing the setting info, trying to pull out the implications of every little comment and letting other people know how much we know. .

Just wait until you get to the stage when the background in the art of a single card gets everyone excited. Like this one did:

(The card was Qolat Master from Legend of the Burning Sands)

What Karasu said- we love talking about this stuff.

I'm enjoying the lore so far. It's not been easy getting into, particularly with the number of non-English terms thrown around, but I figure there's no rush for me to understand everything. In the mean time, I lurk and try to absorb as much as I can.

The first chapter in the Phoenix clan pack was great IMO. I'm wondering if we'll get more context for this story once we can read the whole novella. Perhaps it will go into Maho more so we can get a good idea on what the ground rules are in the new setting.

I read Tadaka's actions as just really risky. He was willing to cripple or destroy himself to prove his point. Offering some of you own element in the L5R setting could mean a lot of very dramatic things to the person making the sacrifice. As other's pointed out yeah his face got eaten away a bit, but what else did he weaken in himself as part of this sacrifice. Earth governs quite a lot in your body. I'm hesitant to argue how that differs from Maho though since we don't have a concrete definition of how that works in the new setting. I would assume though it would be similar to the old setting of spilling blood and invoking Fu Leng thus exciting kansen. Could Tadaka's actions open himself up more to be tainted since he offered up his own earth? Could offering your own elements in this was pervert a kami into becoming like the kansen? Maybe, we just don't know yet. I for one am excited to find out. I'm trying not to take any prior lore for granted.

1 hour ago, phillos said:

The first chapter in the Phoenix clan pack was great IMO. I'm wondering if we'll get more context for this story once we can read the whole novella. Perhaps it will go into Maho more so we can get a good idea on what the ground rules are in the new setting.

I read Tadaka's actions as just really risky. He was willing to cripple or destroy himself to prove his point. Offering some of you own element in the L5R setting could mean a lot of very dramatic things to the person making the sacrifice. As other's pointed out yeah his face got eaten away a bit, but what else did he weaken in himself as part of this sacrifice. Earth governs quite a lot in your body. I'm hesitant to argue how that differs from Maho though since we don't have a concrete definition of how that works in the new setting. I would assume though it would be similar to the old setting of spilling blood and invoking Fu Leng thus exciting kansen. Could Tadaka's actions open himself up more to be tainted since he offered up his own earth? Could offering your own elements in this was pervert a kami into becoming like the kansen? Maybe, we just don't know yet. I for one am excited to find out. I'm trying not to take any prior lore for granted.

I really like the idea that what Tadaka did isn't Maho or likely to summon Kansen... but it's the first step towards Maho and turning Kami into Kansen.

It's the gateway drug to blood magic!

49 minutes ago, Mangod said:

I really like the idea that what Tadaka did isn't Maho or likely to summon Kansen... but it's the first step towards Maho and turning Kami into Kansen.

It's the gateway drug to blood magic!

Which he learned how to do by reading the notes of Isawa Akuma, no less.

It does seem like all the dots are there to draw the line

Things like maho are vastly more interesting when they're presented as a slippery slope from "totally fine" to "a bit extreme, but okay" to "you really shouldn't be doing that" to "Jigoku's puppet," rather than there being a bright line between the right way of doing things and the wrong way.

And most interesting of all when some characters see a slippery slope (and think they won't slip) while others see a bright line.

They just discussed this fiction on the latest episode of The Last Province podcast and their take on what had happened is very similar to what we were discussing here.

"There is nothing to see here! Maho, what maho? Don't stand around! Those scarlet stains aren't blood, where did you get the crazy idea? It's just, er, "somebody's own earth"? Yes, that it! Completely different. Who is going to know best, you or the Phoenix?" XD

What are you going to believe, the eternal and unchanging wisdom of the Phoenix or your lying eyes?

Smack-talk aside... in a room full of Phoenix, including an Elemental Master, I'm preeeeeeetty sure actual maho would have been noticed by somebody.