I was thinking about the nature of rituals, and how different they are from invocations. I think it's normal that (almost) everyone should have access to Rituals, considering how close to shrine life they are (since few shrines have resident shugenja) and the importance of their effects.

That said, I was wondering what happens when actual shugenja are using rituals? Should they be allowed to treat them as invocations, allowing for offerings and channeling, at the price of risking a backlash? As a shugenja player myself, I find that it sort of makes sense to also pick up rituals (it's even part of most shugenja's starting kit and school curriculum), but I find it quite weird that I'm not allowed to use my usual tools. In my mind, rituals could be the catch all Void/General invocation type.

I'm planning on bringing this up with my GM, but I'd like to have some opinions here first. Would this break the rules or contradict lore or have some other adverse effect I didn't see?

I am in kind of agreement with you. Almost any character type should be able to perform them, but Shugenja should be able to channel to make their effects greater or more successful. The only one that I think could not benefit from Channeling would be the Tea Ceremony. That one is more of a one shot attempt rather than continual appeal to the Kami while wielding the mana of power that the Kami bestow on the character. Just my own two zeni.

Most invocations can only be used once per conflict scene where spiritual intervention is needed right away. Rituals on the other hand feel like extended petitioning and ceremony appropriate for a long downtime scene. While I agree that inherently shugenja are more familiar with rituals and probably should get more from their entreaties, I'm not sure if a backlash seems like an appropriate outcome, unless they were gambling by attempting to speed up the ritual outside of a downtime scene.

As a GM, here are my two cents on the matter. Generally, I would be happy to give shugenja some special powers/tools regarding rituals, but I have some concerns about the specifics.

With the exception of Threshold Barrier, I would be hesitant to let characters perform rituals in a quickly moving skirmish or even narrative scene. It makes sense that Cleansing Rite, Commune with the Spirits, and Divination be strictly downtime activities since it would be narratively jarring to stop the action while a character does these things during any kind of structured time.

With that said, channeling seems designed to work within structured time as it lets the character build up a pool of dice over multiple turns. If I kept rituals as downtime activities than building up dice over turns wouldn't make sense. I suppose I would allow a character to channel across a few downtime scenes, but that would have to fit into the story.

Importuning a ritual would make more sense than channeling. I would be okay with a shugenja character performing a ritual they have not learned yet provided they make an appropriate offering and the TN is increased by one (see Importune Invocations on page 189).

Whether or not Spiritual Backlash (page 190) was a risk while performing rituals is something the player and GM would have to agree to in advance. I suggest only adding the risk of spiritual backlash when the shugenja character is importuning a ritual.

Thanks for bringing this up. If it comes up, I'll let me shugenja players now that they can attempt to importune rituals they haven't learned yet, but when importuning they:

• Face a higher TN
• Should make an offering
• Risk spiritual backlash

check the type of action. Communing with Spirits states that it can be done as a downtime, or a support action. Support action is during conflict. definitely takes a round or two uninterrupted to talk to them, I would say, but we've treated it like more of an invocation. (I spilled water from my skin to commune with local water spirits, and called on a rainstorm to help control a fire. ) If it were ONLY a downtime action, which some are, then I would say no way Hantei, not during conflict.

I will now be squeezing "no way Hantei" into every session whether appropriate or not.

Then my work here is done.

Dangers,