In our L5R RPG game, my Scorpion shugenja just married into a family of Dragons. At the wedding, one of my exes - a drunk Lion bushi - interrupted right after the ceremony completed. When chastised by my new father-in-law, the Lion challenged the man to a duel.
My father-in-law had a champion - a distant Scorpion relative of mine who saw it as an affront to both clan's honor. It was a duel to first blood, but alas the drunken Lion struck too hard and did not pull his blow. He killed the champion, and honor demands that my father-in-law has the same fate. Before the end of the evening, he was to commit seppuku.
This put a damper on the evening's festivities.
A few hours later, my new husband and I -- neither of us had said a single word to the other -- were called to meet with his father-in-law, who was meditating in a cliffside dojo overlooking a fog-filled ravine. He wanted to give us his wisdom, and shortly thereafter would take his own life. But when we arrived, we heard sounds of a struggle.
My husband burst in, finding four thugs with clubs trying to knock the old man out and abscond with him. They were aided by a shugenja, calling upon the air spirits so the kidnappers could simply fly away.
I realized that if fate had not brought us here at exactly this moment, they would have made it look as if my father-in-law had fled as a coward, which would bring dishonor to the family. My husband dove into the room, fighting the thugs, but I realized what needed to be done.
I hid myself in a cloak of night, turning invisible, then sprinted forward. While two thugs tried to waylay my husband, the others were getting out a bag to put over the old man's head. Unseen, I conjured a *bo of water*, transmuted it into a katana, and with a single strike I beheaded my father in law.
I became visible, and the man's body and head thumped to the ground beside me, and his blood pooled at my feet. The hostile shugenja cursed and ordered her men to take my husband instead. He moved beside me, then behind me, and for a moment I thought he intended for us to fight back to back.
It was only at the last second that I realized I'd miscalculated, had assumed my husband valued Bushido more than he loved his father. I managed to twist away from his sword blow so it simply knocked me to the ground, my kimono gashed, rather than slaying me. He tried to reach down to behead me, screaming, "YOU DID THIS!"
My life was saved by the enemy shugenja slamming my husband into the wall with a blast of wind, after which the thugs rendered him unconscious. The sounds of battle drew some nearby allies (the other PCs), but by the time they arrived the enemies had flown away with my husband and the two pieces of my father-in-law.
And imagine how suspicious it looks for, in the span of a few hours, a former Scorpion to wed into a family, and then rise to the head of the household, the elder dead and her husband conveniently alive but out of the way.
This will be a complicated game. It also is an important lesson in the value of communication in a marriage.
Update: It has been brought to my attention that perhaps the person whose champion died in a duel only has to commit seppuku if the duel was intended to be to the death. If so, eh, the GM could have just rejiggered the narrative so it was a duel to the death.