So just like family and provincial daimyo, clan champions are also daimyo. But what about city and district governors, are they also daimyo?

I have never seen Shosuro Hyobu (for example) referred to as a daimyo.

How do you want your Rokugan to be?

Daimyo are essentially land-holding lords. Governors should always be land-holding lords as well (barring a truly exceptional appointment), so they have that title, but they will be refered to using whichever title is most appropriate for the situation - more often than not that of governor.

10 hours ago, shosuro91 said:

So just like family and provincial daimyo, clan champions are also daimyo. But what about city and district governors, are they also daimyo?

Depends on the city, I guess. Certainly the beta flip-flops between 'provincial daimyo' and 'provincial governor' but always says 'city governor' rather than 'city daimyo'.

A lot of the time, a City Governor is likely to be a Family Daimyo as well - although not always, where a city is, say, an imperial territory, the individual placed as governor shouldn't take noble airs when they have no family authority over those below them, and who may not be from the same family or even clan.

Let's see checking several cores...

There are the following titles in 3 & 4 E cores (Status Rank) and 5E core [status]

• Great Clan ___ (8) [80-89]
  • 3E: Daimyō
  • 4E, 5e: Champion
• Minor Clan ___ (7.5) [70-79]
  • 3E: Daimyō
  • 4E, 5E: Champion
• [Great Clan] Family ___ (7)
  • 3E, 5e: Daimyo
  • 4E: Champion
• Provincial Governor (6) [60-69]
• City Governor (5) [50-59]
• Vassal Family Daimyō (5) [50-59]
• Gokenin (2) [No entry]
• Great Clan Samurai (1) [30-39]
• Minor Clan Samurai (1) [20-29]
• Vassal Family Samurai 0.5 [20-29]

5E appears to use Champion only for Clan Daimyō, but includes minor clan daimyō in the champion.

All are consistent in the tables to use Provincial Governor, not provincial daimyō, and City Governor, not City Daimyō.

The lack of Gokenin is interesting... but, based upon prior and interpolating 5E, it should be in the 40-49 bracket.

Historically, within the later shogunate periods, Daimyō was used at all levels for hereditary lands in excess of a certain kokudaka threshold — officially 10,000 kokudaka, in practice, 5,000 kokudaka; below that, hereditary landholders were gokenin. (note that a historical Japanese peasant family could produce about 20-50 koku, eating about 6 of those and trading 4 for other foods and needs).

I imagine that one wouldn't want to get the title of "head of a family" confused with the title of "assigned to look after a particular province/city".

Unfortunately, using Japanese words doesn't get us there-- because the clans in Rokugan are far more hierarchical than the major land owners in the Japanese Shogunate were.

I think it is best in order to use the term "Governor" in order to avoid confusion because then you have a clear line...

The Emperor -> The Clan Champion -> The Family Daimyo -> The Provincial Governor

As far as I understand, in the Shogunate period, if you owned land then there were no intermediary steps between you and the Shogun. So it was really easy-- you were the daimyo and the only above you were the Shogun and (technically, but not really) the Emperor. I mean, the Shogun might appoint and overseer of all the daimyo in a particular region, but they were still acting on behalf of the Shogun.

The Clan system of Rokugan where there are and have always been precisely the same number of clans, their borders have never altered very much and each one has only 3-5 families within it... it is all quite alien, something that could only exist because one conceptualized a fictional setting in precisely that manner and wanted everything neatly divided and organizes rather than leaving a whole lot of ambiguity to things.

13 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

I imagine that one wouldn't want to get the title of "head of a family" confused with the title of "assigned to look after a particular province/city".

Unfortunately, using Japanese words doesn't get us there-- because the clans in Rokugan are far more hierarchical than the major land owners in the Japanese Shogunate were.

Not really more hierarchical, just more clear about the titles thereof.

And, the terms (like their English parallels) have changed meaning over time. Heck, in 200 years, governor has changed meanings - well, expanded to more meanings, really - and likewise, Daimyō has blurry bounds only because we are looking at a compressed lens showing us 1000 years of meanings.

Early period - Any landholder who wasn't vassal to another (and few were) was a Daimyō
Middle period - Any significant landholder
Warring States - Any landholder who could defend his land with troops sworn to him, either vassals or household/garrisoned troops
Shōgunate - Any landholder holding 1,0000 or more kokudaka of lands (smaller were gokenin, "estate lords")... and the legal difference was the need to spend half the year in the capital of the daimyō, but not the gokenin (tho' most had to spend half the year in their liege's central town)
Meiji - the daimyō all were removed from their roles and the samurai caste disbanded and outlawed...
Post Meiji - none. The term was used mostly for translations of other feudal groups histories.

L5R we get a nice clear 5 layer system...

• Clan Champion/Clan Daimyō
  • Family Daimyō/Family Champion
    • Provincial Governor
      • Gokenin (estate holder)
        • Individual Samurai
      • Village Yoriki - could be samurai, could be buke/ashigaru, could be the village peasant headman.
        • Doshin (beat cops)
        • Individual Samurai
    • City Governor (we'd say mayor...)
      • Ward Yoriki (one of several meanings of that term)
        • doshin (beat cops)
        • Individual Samurai
    • Vassal Family Daimyō

And then muddies it with Meiji era rank titles for the military, pre-shogunate tech, and weapon from all periods, chanbarra power levels, and a healthy dose of uniquely L5R fantastic elements...

I suspect that the L5r use for governor is a direct implication of appointee, not hereditary vassalage.
Likewise, given the way Daimyō was used in L5R 2 and 3, it was used also for infeudated lords of high income beneath the provincial Governor.

Then again, the Daimyo in the Sengoku era had various titles by type of holding....

On ‎11‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 6:52 PM, TheHobgoblyn said:

each one has only 3-5 families within it

Not entirely true; hence the comment about vassal families - who do pop up and are destroyed in a more lively 'ecosystem' - Than the great clan primary families. Taking those listed in previous editions for the Crab Clan, there are 19 families associated with the Crab - albeit that not all of them existed at the same time.

• Crab Clan Champion
  • Hida Family
    • Kakeguchi Family
    • Koebi Family (Probably just recently effectively destroyed, as their lands are wrecked in a monsoon in the early 1120s)
    • Moshibaru Family
  • Hiruma Family
    • Endo Family (doesn't exist yet, in the old history comes into existence during reclamation of some of the lost Hiruma lands)
  • Kaiu Family
    • Fundai Family
    • Ishi Family
    • Maisuna Family
    • Kenru Family (founded in the old history 'during the 12th century' - may or may not exist yet)
  • Yasuki Family
    • Kano Family (vassal family of the Yasuki who defected to the crab alongside their ruling great clan family)
    • Nobuto Family
    • Raikuto Family (used to be a Hiruma vassal family but 'moved' when the Hiruma lost their territories)
  • Kuni Family
    • Meishozo Family
    • Ugawari Family
  • Toritaka Family (currently the Falcon minor clan, in the old history is absorbed by the crab in a few years time)

22 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

I suspect that the L5r use for governor is a direct implication of appointee, not hereditary vassalage. 

This. Or at least the distinction between someone in a position of authority over a family as opposed to authority over a city, or to distinguish between someone's different legal personae when they are both.

Having a read through the core book (finally got the non-beta version):

• Ministers are officials tasked with overseeing a single aspect of a castle, town, or Empire-wide bureaucracy. One step up in prestige from ministers are the city governors, who are appointed to oversee the administration of a city.
• Provincial daimyō make up the backbone of the Empire’s feudal system and are the lowest ranking daimyō. Unlike city governors and ministers, provincial daimyō are not appointed but inherit their titles through a predetermined line of succession.

So, city governors are not daimyo; not only are they below the hierachy level but daimyo appears to specifically include the concept of inheritance (which makes sense if it's a 'Family' rank)