3 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:

That was one of the problems with the Kolat.

A lot of its members, like Taka, weren’t originally written as Kolat, but when the organization appeared, suddenly they were members, their stories rewritten, and they had to invent lame excuses for things that had happened and made no sense for a Kolat member.

That’s why they came with the “Sleeper agents” and the brainwashing.

I could be mistaken, but I think the same happened with Kage. He wasn’t a Kolat originally, but when they decided he was, they retconned his wife’s death as a Kolat plan.

Coming from a RPG perspective Kage was more foreshadowed, while Yasuki Taka and Shinjo Yokatsu were completely out of the left field. IIRC Kage also had s smaller fiction footprint before Hidden Emperor and was actually revealed as a Kolat in the Clan War arc.

5 hours ago, Waywardpaladin said:

Describing rationalism as inherently Western is kind of... blergh.

Fun with the English Language And Its Vagaries in a Textual Format: I specifically meant " western concepts of rationalism," as opposed to the forms it takes in other milieu- the Kolat felt like what they were, a 1990s trope-pile awkwardly grafted onto another setting the creator thought was cool. They break my immersion in the worst friggin' way.

5 hours ago, SpookyElectric said:

The Kolat are literally the Illuminati transplanted into Rokugan.

Seriously. I'm not even being hyperbolic.

4 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

And your point was?

That a lame hackneyed trope is a lame hackneyed trope, wherever it rears its ugly head...

Now, some possible fixes for my least favorite antagonists ever (and as sick as I got of Phoenix bloodpseaker jabber, that's saying something!):

1. No Samurai Need Apply. Make it a thing for monks and peasants. That makes it plausible that nobody cares enough about they're up to to catch on- the original iteration had some fun with this... in places... but the desperate need to shoehorn clan characters from the CCG into the faction to give it a presence really monkeywrenched any chance of this happening. When the Voice of the Elemental Council, the Yasuki Daimyo, the Unicorn Clan Champion, the most revered sensei in the Lion Clan, and large swathes of the Shinjo family are all members at one time or another, it becomes preposterous to think that nobody dug up dirt on them. For the RPG, in particular, this can work just fine- a peasant conspiracy built around an ancient heresy. Not exactly the most original plot out there, but not a terrible one.

2. Philosophy Need Not Apply. Make the Kolat a banal but omnipresent organized crime entity. This makes their endurance plausible- "eh, it's just criminals and money, we'll whack 'em when we find 'em, but we have bigger problems"- leaves many openings for cross-Clan membership (honorless dogs!), and gives them a clear-cut motive that puts them at odds with the established order of the samurai caste without making it a big existential struggle. They're not insidious spymasters from the dawn of the empire... but they ARE criminals with deep financial roots that even the Scorpion have to at least respect. They could be crushed, sure, but at what cost?

3. Purity of Essence. Alternately... throw out the criminal elements entirely, and make them a set of heretical philosophers who (and this is key) sometimes get to be heard in public without getting squashed- maybe monks preaching stuff that juuuuuuuuust skirts being outright heresy or the like. These guys wouldn't resort to magical brainwashing, or even to assassination as a matter of course, but would ultimately be a lot more insidious because, hey, you know what, they've kinda got a point. The earlier suggestion of merging Kolat philosophy with the Path of Man, for example... "What do you mean 'heresy'?! We got this from Shiba-Kami!"

4. One and done. Alternately, give us our Super Secret Agents of Evil... and then let their story end. In the old lore, there were several chances for this*, all of which were passed up because fans are noisily needy creatures, whatever they're fans of- but considering that, say, Toturi's Army (which was not just a beloved faction, but a playable one) went away, more backbone could have made it stick.

* Toturi's coronation indicating that a mortal dynasty had taken the throne and that their job was essentially done, the Scorpion accepting the Temptation to curbstomp the Kolat, Iweko's ascension theoretically letting her know exactly who and where they are, Shinjo returning from the Burning Sands to blow them up... I'm not kidding when I say that every time they actually DID anything, they tended to get torn to pieces.

Yokatsu was actually hinted at in Burning Sands:

12 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Kage was the result of a story prize so I wouldn't put that much into the ret-con there. As to Taka before his Kolat reveal in O5R we hadn't really seen anything about him from a story perspective that would have indicated either way. He was a Crab Clan Willy Trader who gave them an economic boost and that was about it.

The Unicorn infested with Kolat was the odd one, but was based on deck lists that were prevalent at the time where Unicorn were running high numbers of Kolat Master and Assassin cards due to having one of the stronger economic engines with a very high Gold Production stronghold

6 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Now, some possible fixes for my least favorite antagonists ever (and as sick as I got of Phoenix bloodpseaker jabber, that's saying something!):

1. No Samurai Need Apply. Make it a thing for monks and peasants. That makes it plausible that nobody cares enough about they're up to to catch on- the original iteration had some fun with this... in places... but the desperate need to shoehorn clan characters from the CCG into the faction to give it a presence really monkeywrenched any chance of this happening. When the Voice of the Elemental Council, the Yasuki Daimyo, the Unicorn Clan Champion, the most revered sensei in the Lion Clan, and large swathes of the Shinjo family are all members at one time or another, it becomes preposterous to think that nobody dug up dirt on them. For the RPG, in particular, this can work just fine- a peasant conspiracy built around an ancient heresy. Not exactly the most original plot out there, but not a terrible one.

That's actually one of the more perplexing things about the Kolat; why would any Great Clan samurai join them? The samurai derive their right to rule from the Kami, so why would they seek to undermine their own source of power? The Kolat preying on particularly honorless and/or down-on-their-luck Ronin, I can understand, since those are the samurai who could actually use the Kolat as a support network when their Clan stops helping, but a Daimyo or Clan Champion?

11 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

2. Philosophy Need Not Apply. Make the Kolat a banal but omnipresent organized crime entity. This makes their endurance plausible- "eh, it's just criminals and money, we'll whack 'em when we find 'em, but we have bigger problems"- leaves many openings for cross-Clan membership (honorless dogs!), and gives them a clear-cut motive that puts them at odds with the established order of the samurai caste without making it a big existential struggle. They're not insidious spymasters from the dawn of the empire... but they ARE criminals with deep financial roots that even the Scorpion have to at least respect. They could be crushed, sure, but at what cost?

3. Purity of Essence. Alternately... throw out the criminal elements entirely, and make them a set of heretical philosophers who (and this is key) sometimes get to be heard in public without getting squashed- maybe monks preaching stuff that juuuuuuuuust skirts being outright heresy or the like. These guys wouldn't resort to magical brainwashing, or even to assassination as a matter of course, but would ultimately be a lot more insidious because, hey, you know what, they've kinda got a point. The earlier suggestion of merging Kolat philosophy with the Path of Man, for example... "What do you mean 'heresy'?! We got this from Shiba-Kami!"

Both of these are great ideas, and I'd be fine with either. Course, I'd also be fine with Fudoism showing up again, but without the complete nutcase-thing hanging off it.

33 minutes ago, Suzume Chikahisa said:

Coming from a RPG perspective Kage was more foreshadowed, while Yasuki Taka and Shinjo Yokatsu were completely out of the left field. IIRC Kage also had s smaller fiction footprint before Hidden Emperor and was actually revealed as a Kolat in the Clan War arc.

The problem with taking anything from the RPG on early Clan War stuff is that it was all done after the fact (first edition RPG came out in 1997 after the results of the First Day of Thunder was wrapped up). The Yokatsu thing as I said was a result of the prevalence of Kolat cards being played by Unicorn at the time because they were really good for them. Yes there were hints of it dropped in the burning Sands but that was because at that point Unicorn were already running Kolat cards in higher proportion than the other clans due to an economic advantage.

And literally there was nothing hinted about Kage before it happened because it was a story choice made from a tournament result before the RPG was released. When it came time to release his RPG stats he was already established as a Kolat Master so leaving it off would have looked worse. For Yokatsu and Taka their status was unknown and you didn't really see any story written from their perspective and all we had seen up to that point were Clan Letters being written to their respective clans and snippets of flavor text referencing or attributed t them and none of that should have hinted at their association with the Kolat, heck we didn't even know that Taka was Daimyo of the Yasuki until we saw the first RPG. When we did see it revealed in was in the Merchant's Guide which was meant to be a GM aid for using the Kolat as an antagonist for your players.

2 hours ago, Mangod said:

That's actually one of the more perplexing things about the Kolat; why would any Great Clan samurai join them? The samurai derive their right to rule from the Kami, so why would they seek to undermine their own source of power? The Kolat preying on particularly honorless and/or down-on-their-luck Ronin, I can understand, since those are the samurai who could actually use the Kolat as a support network when their Clan stops helping, but a Daimyo or Clan Champion?

Oh, I can find many reasons for Great Clan samurai to join them even if the anti-kami ethos is mantained even at the Daimyo level, and with qualifiers at the Champion level.

Take the Isawa for instance their right to rule is not derived from the Kami. In fact one of the Kami bent the knee to them. Their rule is completely independent from the kami. The kami answer to them. Noblesse Oblige is why they also respect the kami. The Asako know from Shiba himself the Path of Man and Apotheosis.

If you go to the Lion, which on the surface would seem to be the ones that would never ever go for something like the Kolat, well, the Kitsu are tragically, painfully aware of how fallible the kami are, the Ikoma, descended from the strongest man in the world who Akodo chose not to fight, and the Matsu, who constantly challenge the Akodo, are descended from the woman who would never be Akodo's bride.

The Unicorn have seen places the Kami do not rule (pending on how that is going to be treated in the new lore).

Finally any devout Shinseist knows Fortune favours Mortal man...

Samurai might no be interested in a complete overhaul of the system, but they don't have to feel that whoever sits at a specific postion has earned it, deserves it or it is entitled to keep it just because of some supposed notion of "Celestial Order".

What is puzzling is that people who have been almost to the last been described as being greedy, venal, cruel and self-serving would be able cooperate with each other and mantain a long term conspiracy successfully.

That''s why I feel what whe call the Kolat works best as a series of loosely connected or even unconnected conspiracies.

An interesting thing that occurs me is that they might be giving "Heaven's Mandate" the full Chinese treatment in the new lore which opens interesting options (altough, hopefully without any literal Deus Ex Machina Race for the Trrone style). Seeing successful or insuccessful coups being given the Mandate of Heaven treatment Three Kingdoms style would be a novel thing in L5R.

To me, the most interesting thing about the Kolat is summed up by its name.

"What's a kolat?"

This is a noise, not a word. It is unfamiliar in one's mouth. It's nonsense. Of course, it doesn't mean anything. Just gibberish! But ... what if it did mean something? What would that thing be?

Rokugan uses the word "foreign" to encompass the world beyond the Empire. The word "foreign" situates all things that are not Rokugan as inferior to Rokugan. Yet deep down there remains some doubt. The sound of that doubt is "kolat." Maybe kolat refers to the puzzling capacity, not accounted for in the cosmologies of the great scholars of the Empire, for things to be other than how things in Rokugan are expected to be. The little cracks in the alignment of the divine order of Heaven, presumably more prominent outside of the Empire, is ... kolat .

Kolat is like a meme. Wherever it came from exactly (just, somewhere else) is not that important. What is important - what's troubling - about it is that by the time it finds us we already somehow have an elusive, disquieting inkling of what it means. The Kolat with a Capital K would be the reality of this doubt. For example, the unthinkable, nonsensical, surely false notion that people could reject the divine order. Pfft!

And yet they do. At least outside the Empire. Not within the Empire, of course.

If you think about it, this is very different from the concept of jigoku - the existence of which actually reinforces the existence of Heaven. Kolat is a lateral step aside from the orthodox worldview. In a world where Kami are real, where the Emperor and the Great Clans really descend from them, how could there be an alternative worldview?

So the most interesting function of the Kolat or kolat generally (kolatness?) is literary. It demonstrates just how deeply "real" the culture of Rokugan is for the people who live there. In our own lives, how aware are we of the possibility that things are not at all as we think they are? How quickly do we push such a possibility out of our minds, dismissing it as conspiratorial nonsense?

Sure, when an author has to nail this abstraction (the fact that nothing is more fearsome than fear itself, nothing more doubtful than doubt itself) down into something concrete, like some kind of political scheme, it is bound to be diminished. The monster usually isn't so scary or even believable in broad daylight. All the moreso when the story beats are dictated by who wins some card games.

7 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

1. No Samurai Need Apply. Make it a thing for monks and peasants. That makes it plausible that nobody cares enough about they're up to to catch on- the original iteration had some fun with this... in places... but the desperate need to shoehorn clan characters from the CCG into the faction to give it a presence really monkeywrenched any chance of this happening. When the Voice of the Elemental Council, the Yasuki Daimyo, the Unicorn Clan Champion, the most revered sensei in the Lion Clan, and large swathes of the Shinjo family are all members at one time or another, it becomes preposterous to think that nobody dug up dirt on them. For the RPG, in particular, this can work just fine- a peasant conspiracy built around an ancient heresy. Not exactly the most original plot out there, but not a terrible one.

As Tangen's Lies says a samurai has the free time, education, and power to contemplate beyond their current position. A peasant wishes only to know where their next meal is coming from.

Besides, devotion knows no social class.

As for exposure, all these high ranking samurai have testified that they aren't part of any conspiracy. And the very helpful magistrate with the tiger tattoo conducted a very through investigation and determined that no such conspiracy exists. It was probably just the Scorpion, they never deny anything.

7 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

2. Philosophy Need Not Apply. Make the Kolat a banal but omnipresent organized crime entity. This makes their endurance plausible- "eh, it's just criminals and money, we'll whack 'em when we find 'em, but we have bigger problems"- leaves many openings for cross-Clan membership (honorless dogs!), and gives them a clear-cut motive that puts them at odds with the established order of the samurai caste without making it a big existential struggle. They're not insidious spymasters from the dawn of the empire... but they ARE criminals with deep financial roots that even the Scorpion have to at least respect. They could be crushed, sure, but at what cost?

The philosophy is really the cornerstone of the organization. They couldn't exist without it.

7 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

3. Purity of Essence. Alternately... throw out the criminal elements entirely, and make them a set of heretical philosophers who (and this is key) sometimes get to be heard in public without getting squashed- maybe monks preaching stuff that juuuuuuuuust skirts being outright heresy or the like. These guys wouldn't resort to magical brainwashing, or even to assassination as a matter of course, but would ultimately be a lot more insidious because, hey, you know what, they've kinda got a point. The earlier suggestion of merging Kolat philosophy with the Path of Man, for example... "What do you mean 'heresy'?! We got this from Shiba-Kami!"

When you're persecuted by the established order you need to work outside that order to have any hope of succeeding. Which means dealing with the underbelly of society.

Besides, the Kolat were instrumental in the establishment of Koku. They aren't going to do that and then not accumulate it.

Ah, but you actually like the Kolat as they are... all of your explanations and/or justifications basically feed into why I regard them as an unfortunate narrative tumor...

3 hours ago, shineyorkboy said:

As Tangen's Lies says a samurai has the free time, education, and power to contemplate beyond their current position. A peasant wishes only to know where their next meal is coming from.

Here's an interesting ret-con that they've enacted: Lies was now written by Bayushi, not Tangen:

49 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Here's an interesting ret-con that they've enacted: Lies was now written by Bayushi, not Tangen:

Yes, but as we don't have as many quotes from the new version I was specifically referencing Tangen's.

On 7/20/2018 at 9:26 AM, Goshiu said:

I always liked the Kolat in theory. They originally seemed like a Yakuza/Kabukimono/Triad stand in. I think they just took the secret society plus magic and took it too far. The philosophy of the Kolat sounds nice but in actuality they are just a group of self important gangsters trying to get rich. I loved that idea but the execution was ham fisted.

If you look at the cards that existed before the Way of the Merchant it kinda backed up the idea as them being a shadowy criminal orginization. Kolat assassin could kill a low chi card and the Kolat master meant he was part of the conspiracy; both cards in game were super expensive for their effect showing coin for shady effect. They also had cards like Kolat oyabun which tied into the gangster look of the Kolat.

With a reboot and changes I hope the Kolat get more gangsters with a philosophy as an excuse and less SPECTRE with moustache twiriling.

This.

Bear in mind, this is a specific villain niche that nobody else can really touch, except as a stepping stone to elsewhere. A Scorpion sneezes near an assassination, everyone assumes. A Yasuki caravan moves through a town and the koku stores are lower, everyone assumes. Yes, individual clans had reasons to be involved in crime, but we had no yakuza analogue except for the Kolat. Even the idea of the yakuza getting bold and deciding they could run the show works. This was how they worked in the RPG.

A problem arose, however, when the Kolat became one of the bigger ongoing antagonists in the CCG, but unlike every other faction in the CCG, they weren't held to the same rules. Running Kolat cards counted as Kolat corruption, and the Kolat could and did act in the CCG story arcs... but the story team alone decided when anyone could strike back, and after midway through Hidden Emperor, that might have been once every five years. ****, they even had the Unicorn successfully purge the clan of all Kolat influence, and decided that this major feat wasn't worth so much as a line of flavor text. The Scorpion struck a "major blow" that didn't even slow them down, inexplicably letting a cell structure organization operate just fine without its communication network. Multiple clans had major grudges against the Kolat, and it never mattered in any way.

So, yeah, the Kolat were less badasses that were just that cool, and more the GM's favorite evil NPC that kept showing up no matter what the players said or did.

The Kolat show up as the yakuza? I'm down with that. The Kolat return as the Illuminati? No thanks.

On ‎7‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 4:23 PM, phillos said:

The idea that a subset of humanity still resents being subjugated by the kami I think is not all that unreasonable. That people looked down on like merchants and people from lower social standing (or even people with more philosophical motivations) would band together to create a counter balance to the established authority is in my opinion a great place to explore in the setting.

That in itself would be a nice niche for the kolat, trying to gather the more numerous peasants at the bottom of the hierarchy pole, in order to break their order and build a different and more equal society has a lot of appeal. It's the spirit of the European/American revolution, but it would fit just as well here.

However that concept clashes with the secretive, shadowy trait that the kolat have. Shouldn't they be more open and transparent about their intentions? While the masses are more numerous than the aristocrats/samurai, if you keep your ideals hidden you are not going to enrol many to your cause. Look at the Perfect Land sect that has a similar idea: they go around proselytising. That's how the kolat would make sense.

Otherwise they could be just some organised crime, doing their own things for personal gain, below the threshold of what samurai care or follow -- sometimes they'd get to be and need a smacking, but they are just too many and too loosely connected to completely destroy.

That said I wouldn't mind one bit if the story team never introduced the kolat to this new Rokugan: there's no reason to copy every bit of the old story, and the kolat were half-baked.

On ‎7‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 2:14 AM, Suzume Chikahisa said:

Take the Isawa for instance their right to rule is not derived from the Kami. In fact one of the Kami bent the knee to them. Their rule is completely independent from the kami. The kami answer to them. Noblesse Oblige is why they also respect the kami. The Asako know from Shiba himself the Path of Man and Apotheosis.

If you go to the Lion, which on the surface would seem to be the ones that would never ever go for something like the Kolat, well, the Kitsu are tragically, painfully aware of how fallible the kami are, the Ikoma, descended from the strongest man in the world who Akodo chose not to fight, and the Matsu, who constantly challenge the Akodo, are descended from the woman who would never be Akodo's bride.

The Unicorn have seen places the Kami do not rule (pending on how that is going to be treated in the new lore).

Even if their power is not derived from the kami, and even if they are aware of the fallibility of the current order, the GP's point stands: it's hard to imagine anyone who benefitted so much from the status quo as Rokugan's samurai are, trying to plot (dishonourably) to blow it up. They may be unhappy with the current situation and look for ways to improve it, but nothing as extreme as the kolat.

On 7/29/2018 at 12:56 PM, HisuiTaka said:

However that concept clashes with the secretive, shadowy trait that the kolat have. Shouldn't they be more open and transparent about their intentions? While the masses are more numerous than the aristocrats/samurai, if you keep your ideals hidden you are not going to enrol many to your cause. Look at the Perfect Land sect that has a similar idea: they go around proselytising. That's how the kolat would make sense.

Ah, yes. Letting the powers that be know you're trying to overthrow them sounds like a great idea. ?

Reading through the comments it becomes increasingly obvious that most people think that

A) The Kolat had WAY too many hats at the same time and would be better if they just focused on one thing.

B) Most have a specific part of the Kolat they liked and want to be the focus, letting all other parts go.

C) That they were a bit Mary Sue-ish as they seemed to be able to act, and be acted upon, without any real consequences to said actions. Always popping up like this huge conspiracy and then instantly getting torn down, just to pop back up.

I would actually suggest splitting the Kolat up into smaller and most focused organizations.

Let the PLS evolve to take the role of the anti-celestial dominance idea and have some new organization take the role of the Yakuza or something like that.

So, not to drop too large a bombshell here, but...as of today Kolat confirmed.
https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/54/5d/545d40f0-3e88-406a-ab00-fecd7cea0875/l5r01dlc_adventurecompressed.pdf

So basically we can't call out Kolat because their existence being public knowledge undermines the emperor's divine authority and does their job for them. ?

*Yawn*

Hopefully they’re better-executed this time.

... That tidbit is not inspiring, but I'll have to reserve further judgement until after I read the adventure.

3 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

*Yawn*

Hopefully they’re better-executed this time.

This. As I explained to someone way far ago, we don't mind stories where Crab casually slaughter goblins. The clans responsible for fighting the Kolat -- Scorpion and whomever else fits in the new setting -- should be putting down agents with similar frequency, even if the overall plots move on.

*squee*

Oh most joyous day

Bringing forth a sublime bliss

Wheels begin to turn

8 hours ago, Kaito Kikaze said:

So basically we can't call out Kolat because their existence being public knowledge undermines the emperor's divine authority and does their job for them. ?

Yeah, it is interesting that the conceit the Empire is built on is so seemingly fragile even in the mind of those who support it that to even acknowledge the existence of heresy is seen as a potential disaster. I am surprised the PLS is as tolerated as it is then if publically acknowledging something like the Kolat is feared to possibly undermine the Emperor's legitimacy.

It’s not the existence of heresy, it’s more the fact that its more important members are high positioned samurai.

Heresy of the heimin is not a scandal, because they don’t know better. However, heresy of a Daimyo or an Emerald Champion...

Like in the PLS, which is widely known, but the Dragon hid the fact that Mashahige’s son joined them, because that’s a shame for the Dragon.