1 hour ago, AtoMaki said:

Yet, between the Fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century) and the Age of Discovery (15th century) the same world was in a rollercoaster of stagnation and regression with little to no advancements made.

Just because civil engineering and agricultural technology aren't sexy, everyone assumes there was no advancement.

Just now, ExplodingJoe said:

Just because civil engineering and agricultural technology aren't sexy, everyone assumes there was no advancement.

Victorian "scholars" have alot to answer for.

41 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

This sentence makes the Hiruma inside of me very-very sad .

Confirmation that the Maw didn't destroy their lands in the new timeline?

6 hours ago, Hida Jitenno said:

Confirmation that the Maw didn't destroy their lands in the new timeline?

Well, yes, I must admit, there were some changes to the border of southern Rokugan. Not sure I'd call it the result of "development" though.

12 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

Well, yes, I must admit, there were some changes to the border of southern Rokugan. Not sure I'd call it the result of "development" though.

Development in Oni Summoning power level?

But fair, technology-wise, there's not a ton of development, save for a massive wall built in 73 days. But the majority of the Empire probably never sees it.

(mostly ribbing IC as a Crab than as a player)

Ribbing aside, the Kaiu do keep with the trends scientifically speaking. A Kaiu Engineer can build a crossbow, remove it's Prepare trait to make it a repeater, and tour the empire with his new death machine (that he also keeps extra opportunity on since they built it). Pelting Hail style indeed. That alone should be unsettling to the social order.

Nous firearms/gunpowder IS not matter of no évolution but respect of impérial decree and keeping consistent the social ordre. What would happen to social order if it would be assumed an hantei could have do wrong? A god might have fail? All the celestial order would go wrong if a divine decree IS openly not respected whatever the reasons are. si non gunpowder/firearms are to be officially supported.

13 minutes ago, Azrael40 said:

What would happen to social order if it would be assumed an hantei could have do wrong?

If the case of the Steel Chrysanthemum is any measure then there would be lots of ANGST but there would be, like, one or two people who would actually care in a constructive manner.

officially, if this part of History IS avoided in any discussion, all the Shame and sanction were to be assumed by subordinates "that misunderstood emperor will" rather to assume and pretend the emperor might be wrong. Later, scorpions paid to have assume "Empire goes first va emperor" and lions paid to have not dare to contest the "emperor IS truth" concept. During Big crisiS, this contestation Can be unofficially supported, but i do not think that any clan could officially support gunpowder vs impérial decree and originate The political/Sociétal crisiS to assume "an hantei went wrong"

So after giving it some thought (and talking with an expert), I realized that the teppo wouldn't be too hot in Rokugan but something closely related totally would.

Apparently, the success of the teppo in historical Japan was due to the Japanese soldiers... not being the exemplars of courage, so to speak. The teppo was loud, messy, when it hit it hurt, and it hit from nowhere, so despite its questionable battlefield performance, it was extremely effective as a terror weapon. And terror won many more battles in feudal Japan than all the other weapons combined. There was even a historically very important battle that was won like this (guns scared an enemy army so much they changed side). Obviously, this is a no-go in Rokugan because Rokugani samurai are far less lily-livered than their historical counterparts. A gun volley wouldn't scare a samurai army into a rout, and as I was informed, matchlocks were not cool otherwise until Pike & Shot came around that in turn had some very serious cultural foundations the Rokugani do not have. This leaves the Rokugani teppo a weapon for skirmishers and highly skilled sharpshooters, so not a deal breaker by any means. Also, it looks like equipping and training an ashigaru musketeer was quite a considerable effort and these ashigaru were in fact samurai. The things I learn !

Anyway, teppo are kinda 'meh' but what is huge is artillery. There is a reason cannons never became a thing in Japan, but this does not apply to Rokugan, so we can have Rokugani cannons! This is what we should discuss: screw teppo, they won't become important until flintlocks show up (or the Yodotai), but cannons are a go, and they will have a profound effect on pretty much everything!

2 hours ago, Azrael40 said:

What would happen to social order if it would be assumed an hantei could have do wrong?

You mean like the one who murdered most of his family, all his friends, took out a couple clan champions, tried to destroy a couple of the clans?

Well, in that case it seems it is up to the Seppun to execute them.

i do not contest the interest of gunpowder in history, but it cannot be accepted on Rokugan per "divine" decree long time ago. The rokuganese society and celestial order would not survive to a such revolution that deny the infalibility of an emperor.

Just now, fbtn said:

i do not contest the interest of gunpowder in history, but it cannot be accepted on Rokugan per "divine" decree long time ago. The rokuganese society and celestial order would not survive to a such revolution that deny the infalibility of an emperor.

Guns and even steam engines did happen in the Iron Rokugan alternate timeline and all that happened was the aforementioned angst.

6 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Guns and even steam engines did happen in the Iron Rokugan alternate timeline and all that happened was the aforementioned angst.

For narrative convenience.

The introduction of steam engines and guns would cause the entire feudal system to utterly collapse, merchants would immediately become far richer than any samurai and the samurai themselves would have so little value in terms of military strength that the entire samurai class would likely just entirely be disbanded. There would be no more need for massive standing armies when recruits can be trained to do everything they need to do in a short time and be more effective than the samurai ever were. Maybe the very heads of the clan would be able to hang onto power as governors of the various provinces, but otherwise the line between samurai and peasant would be erased.

Steam power would mean being an industrial revolution, farming could be done with less farmers, instead the peasant population would need to be educated at least in language and basic mathematics in order to do those jobs.

If the writers actually accounted for all of the consequences that would occur is gunpowder and steam engines were introduced into the setting, it just flat out would not be Rokugan anymore-- everything one knows and cherishes and likes about the setting would be relegated to the background. The differences would be so vast that it would literally be impossible to cover it in the few short pages that the Imperial History books would have allowed.

It would require an entirely new sourcebook to introduce the whole this new setting of some steam-punk version of meiji era Japan with magic that had Rokugan as its backdrop. The 7 Great Clans that Rokugan is all focused on would become nothing more than background noise, their influences still felt in the land to an extent, their borders perhaps still deciding where the provincial lines are drawn on the map, the holy sites would still be the holy sites, the castles would probably still exists but might be just historically preserved sites for the most part, the barest forms of many of their organizations perhaps still present in some new form....

But players wouldn't be playing "Samurai from Clan X, Family Y, School Z" but would instead play as citizens of this new Rokugan and would mostly come from peasant lineages and the land would have so many random names that pretty much any existing or made-up Japanese family name could be possible and there would be no reason to have any mechanics tied to that. The previous Rokugan clan names that even existed-- they wouldn't even be exclusive to the provinces that those clans once ran, but instead would be found throughout the land.

You know what is a perfect example of this? The Series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" or called "The Legend of Aang" outside the U.S., I believe. Compare the setting of the original to what one sees in the sequel series "The Legend of Korra". It did a good example of showing the extent to which society can be altered by the introduction of just a few basic new technologies that inevitably lead to associated technologies.

It would be that drastic. And considering the big time jumps, one could easily see a 100 year time jump in Rokugan and despite having remained pretty much the same for the previous 1100 years, Rokugan would be almost completely unrecognizable after only 100 years with the new technology. It would be a far, far bigger change than even introducing the whole "Colonies" idea to the setting was. A bigger change than the 1000 years of darkness setting. At least as large of a change as would have happened had AEG continued with their plot of having Jigoku take over all of Rokugan.

And it could be an interesting setting-- particularly if you had some reason that general unrest and lawlessness take hold in various reasons and you double down on the ghost and demon stuff, had it pop up just about anywhere instead of being all neatly contained in the Shadowlands. But it basically require an entire separate sourcebook equally large as the core book and entirely different character creation system.

So the little bit about "Iron Rokugan" in the Imperial Histories was partially the writers just being lazy and defaulting to status quo like usual, but mostly simply the fact that the setting would be so wildly altered by such technologies that nothing else printed for the game would be particularly relevant anymore.

This is why in my "Rapid Technological Advancement Rokugan" I have described above, the sitting Empress was deposed in a coup (in specific, lured outside the Empire to deal with traditionalist separatists, and attempted assassination organized by her younger brother, himself who believed it was successful and claimed the throne to dismantle the modernization she was pushing), and then reclaimed her throne with the backing of a peasant, modern-style army. And THEN dismantled the entire caste system, including the Great Clans, by Imperial decree. And centralized and modernized the military power, revolutionized her entire empire, and basically upset centuries of tradition... all with the backing of Heaven because she was, in fact, truly the Daughter of Heaven.

And divine right autocratic monarchy can get scary FAST when that monarch is a populist.

It would be an alternate history as said before, thus no place in the 5th Ed Rokugan where gunpowder is still forbidden. Here is not a playing system (like was rolemaster or savage world) to be adapted by user in any world u want, but a whole game that shares the same world as (at least) 1st and 2nd editions. Thus no way to officially have gunpowder there, unless special supplement dealing with outside Rokugan is done.

Btw, it could be your vision of rokugan in a World u may wish to play. sure, u are free to do wathever u may wish including setting onis are peaceful pink rabbits sharing the World with Bisounours samouraïs. But, please forgive us with attempts to make ffg to denaturate the legacy (1st and 2nd Ed) L5R World with such heretic considération.

16 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

The introduction of steam engines and guns would cause the entire feudal system to utterly collapse, merchants would immediately become far richer than any samurai and the samurai themselves would have so little value in terms of military strength that the entire samurai class would likely just entirely be disbanded. anymore.

This would depend entirely on how the samurai themselves look at these changes. The samurai of historical Japan were a lost cause from the get-go, and even then they managed to come back in the Interwar Era, but then the Rokugani samurai are quite a different (read: considerably more capable) cut. The Emerald Empire does have everything it needs to go full Prussia thus have that proverbial cookie and eat it too.

49 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

This would depend entirely on how the samurai themselves look at these changes. The samurai of historical Japan were a lost cause from the get-go, and even then they managed to come back in the Interwar Era, but then the Rokugani samurai are quite a different (read: considerably more capable) cut. The Emerald Empire does have everything it needs to go full Prussia thus have that proverbial cookie and eat it too.

Also, as noted above, this is a society where proof of the divine exists and manifests itself in the world every day . In Old5R, two minor dragons got uppity about the Sun and Moon's successors (one of which actually chosen by the Sun herself) having formerly been Mortals (with Souls of Thunders), and straight-up murdered them and cast them out.

Because they used to be mortal.

A peasant uprising that overthrows the Divine Order? I can see the Heavens taking real and actual retribution. The kami flee the land, leaving it desolate, and no crops grow. The air becomes thin, no gentle breezes to cool the land. Fires burn only with the driest of wood, and then only for minutes, the heat insufficient to even boil water. Water becomes stagnant, polluted.

Literally Bad ThingsTM could happen if the peasants rose up and decided to overthrow the actual, real, existing Heavenly Ordained Order.

Now, if that progress and innovation is the domain of the Samurai, and is used by them for the good of the Empire, maintaining the majority of the Society Hierarchy Status Quo, the Heavens could be just fine with that.

Since I now have the book, from page 232, the description of the chokuto describes it as being the design of many of the Clans most powerful nemuranai, since they were the weapons wielded by the founding Kami.

Something else to keep in mind about Rokugan is the way the society handles truth. There has clearly been evolution in sword technology, but some contradictions on when the katana actually came about. This section says Kakita, this sections says an Agasha in a later century... ect. Rokugani have a tendency to smooth the truth to fit their social narratives. So maybe Kakita invented a particular type of samurai blade the remained popular for centuries, and the modern katana was more recent it is just everyone now calls most blades back to Kakita the katana because clearly Kakita created the superior blade. IIRC, in 4 edition there was something about tri-folded steel versus seven-folded steel, and that the seven fold didn't happen until 9th century Kakita practices but they of course considered everything prior to already have been made in this superior manner. In Japanese history there is a change in the specifics of blades that in popular knowledge tend to refer solely as katanas. Blades shifting from favoring being mounted to not, from how they should properly rest when sheathed, the various lengths, ect. The return of the Unicorn probably presented some big shifts in military technology. The introduction of better horses, new ways to build weapons, and of course new ways to counter these new introductions.

In previous editions it was even mentioned it took time to develop the higher rank techniques. It took a few centuries for the techniques to fill out to 5, but as society was stronger and more training more available it appears higher level techniques were quicker to develop. Again, IIRC, in 2nd to 3rd edition it took about 50 years to develop techniques up to rank 5 as opposed to the few centuries at the beginning of the Empire.

Personally, I think a good way to look at the history of Rokugan is with the understanding that the people tend to present it as "this is how things have always been" even in official histories, but that the reality is quite different. Still, it does feel like technology develops slower than it did in real life but I don't consider that to be a failing in a fantasy world, as long as change is happening. In the old fiction ship technology definitely improved. I would think the firearms technology has improved. Have we had a good description of the Battle of White Stag yet? If we have had some small improvements in firearms technology since that period, it doesn't need to mirror the same level of improvement seen in the real world. Maybe the ingredients are more rare, or some key technologies that would advance their use haven't been discovered in the world Rokugan inhabits.