Curious. If you are given a title, you can choose whether to pursue that title or your school when you gain experience, and you can carry on with your school when you are finished with the title.

But the Monastic Acolyte describes someone who is retired. Why would such a person carry on with their school after completing Monastic Acolyte, and how would it work within the lore/mechanics?

Yeah, mechanically speaking there is no issue, but lore wise, it would be strange for someone to go out of retirement... this is probably intended for someone at the end of their career and once they complete the Title, they’re retired anyway so they would not be getting many xp

It’s not unheard of though.. I actually remember reading that Toturi had retired to leave the Lion clan champion spot for his younger brother, and was called out of retirement by that very same brother to fight the war against the Crane. The rest, as they say, is History...

I believe that was in the original Lion Clan book. I loved that story.

I suppose it is possible, then.

Monastic Acolyte could be someone that was educated at a temple and then returned to secular life (in Rokugan Toturi was a good example, using a real world example it would also be the background of Uesugi Kenshin), or it can be someone joining an order like Togashi Yoshi or Mirumoto Bujun, who as far as I know continued as member of their previous schools (although the Ise Zumi are a bad example due to the tattoos) without necessarily intending to retire from active life.

Looking at other real world inspiration you can also see retired samurai who took the tonsure involving themselves in secular matters. Hosokawa Fujitaka and Takeda Shingen come to mind.

Another use is building a retired samurai as a one-use experienced PC, who came out of retirement to cure "that one thing that keeps them awake at night."

Titles allow advancement without raising school rank, which allows for some interesting school rank mixing.