Just a thought - I'm not sure I know which way I'd rule if this comes up, and I figure I should check other people's views. We have a Kaito PC in my group at home, and I have a broad campaign plan in might which might well end up with them at court in Phoenix lands over the autumn and winter, so I'd rather get my ducks in a row before it ever raises its head.

'The Promise' is a covenant between the Shiba and Isawa families - basically dating back to Shiba no Kami kneeling to Isawa during the first war against Fu Leng.

The short version is that if an Isawa asks for something and invokes 'The Promise' the Isawa is supposed to say 'yes Isawa-san, no Isawa-san, three bags full Isawa-san' , regardless of how inconvenient it is and what their relative status.

See Repentance Does Not Come First for an in-story description.

1. This is a pretty huge deal - with an Isawa PC, anyway - if you can locate a conveniently placed Shiba (or you're in phoenix lands where they're everywhere).
2. Obviously refusing comes at a huge social cost - I would assume both honour (because it's a failure of....what? Duty and Righteousness?) and Glory (if it becomes known you refused). Not sure on the severity of the losses.
3. It feels like using it should come at some sort of social cost too. Certainly repeatedly over-using it is wrong, as is using it for dishonourable ends, and would probably get the Isawa called on it by their lord but even using it once feels like something you should really not want to do if you can avoid it.
4. How do vassal families tie into it? The Shiba have the Iga, Koganashi, Nasu, Sesai, and Sodona vassal families, whilst the Kaito are (at least at the start of the narrative) an Isawa vassal family.
   • Could an Isawa invoke 'The Promise' to a Vassal Family samurai? The Sesai are descendants of a Shiba Samurai..... but then by that logic, the Iga descend from Ji-Samurai, so that argument wouldn't work.
   • How about a Kaito? They're Isawa descendants, so could an Isawa no Kaito samurai invoke 'The Promise' to a Shiba Vassal Samurai? How about a Shiba themselves? What about once the Kaito are made a clan family in their own right?

I might cross-link this post in the LCG section...the authors sometimes pop up there.

As I see it Isawa had to humble himself before Shiba so the same should apply to their descendents. An Isawa invoking "the Promise" to a Shiba should lose Glory, a refusing Shiba should lose Honor.

As for the vassal families I see them being simbolically bound to the promise in the same way as the vassals they are. So the Kaito can no longer invoke it once they cease to be bound to the Isawa.

If the same happened to a current Shiba vassal they would no longer be bound by it either, although I can see some of them being willing to take it up even after breaking away.

23 hours ago, Alisair Longreach said:

As I see it Isawa had to humble himself before Shiba so the same should apply to their descendents. An Isawa invoking "the Promise" to a Shiba should lose Glory, a refusing Shiba should lose Honor.

I think you got that wrong way around...? Shiba was the one who knelt to, and therefore humbled himself, before Isawa. That's why "The Promise" exists to the present, with the Shiba generally subservient to the Isawa.

As for vassal families of the two...huh. My (non-canonical!) take is that the vassal families would also be bound by the Promise. I can't see a vassal family not being subject to anything their patron family is. The Kaito, though, are no longer a vassal family, so the Promise would no longer apply to them, unless it was specifically meant to remain in place--in which case, the family's "charter", or whatever documentation codifies their new status in the clan, would specify it. I guess we don't specifically know that (at least, yet), so we should probably assume the Promise doesn't apply to the Kaito. Again, this is my take...don't take it as canon unless you see something in actual canonical writing.

Ok, I got it reversed. My point is that he who aksks "the Promise" should only do it out of dire need because of the Glory loss to keep them honest and he who is asked should not refuse any reasonable requests or suffer a Honor loss.

I'd suggest staking Glory on it, rather than an automatic Glory loss. If they're not being honest, then it's the same result; if they are, however, then they shouldn't be penalized for it.

I think The Promise is supposed to be a kind of "passive" thing, technically fulfilled by the Isawa having the wheel and the Shiba riding shotgun for them rather than the other way around. The "active" part is more of a last-ditch fallback in case the Shiba don't get what the Isawa want. So invoking it is the rough equivalent of a Doji reminding a Daidoji of who the lord of the Crane Clan is (the Doji). Turning it down is the rough equivalent of a Daidoji not complying an order from a Doji. The twist at the Phoenix is that the Isawa do not have the inherent right of lordship like the Doji, they "only" have The Promise.

So it is most likely only a thing for Shiba vassals while the Isawa vassals likely shouldn't call lordship over a major family for any reason so it is a no-go for them.

1 hour ago, AtoMaki said:

So invoking it is the rough equivalent of a Doji reminding a Daidoji of who the lord of the Crane Clan is (the Doji). Turning it down is the rough equivalent of a Daidoji not complying an order from a Doji.

Fealty and obedience goes up and down the chains of authority, though, not across them.

Whilst there would be social consequences, it's implied that in extremis a 'mere' Isawa samurai could in theory make demands of even high-ranking Shiba.

A Daidoji doesn't answer to a.n.other Doji; they answer to the Daidoji daimyo, who answers to one Doji in particular - Doji-Ue.

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Fealty and obedience goes up and down the chains of authority, though, not across them.

Whilst there would be social consequences, it's implied that in extremis a 'mere' Isawa samurai could in theory make demands of even high-ranking Shiba.

A Daidoji doesn't answer to a.n.other Doji; they answer to the Daidoji daimyo, who answers to one Doji in particular - Doji-Ue.

This is what I was thinking about as well, but I also don't really see "the promise" as being the same as following an order from another family. Shiba made the promise and essentially ordered his family to follow it for all time.

With this in mind, I suppose that technically any Isawa could invoke "the promise" with any Shiba. Doing so lightly, however, would probably be considered a (major) failure of the Bushido tenets of Compassion and Courtesy. It's poor form to order a person to do a thing just because you can and forcing another to embarrass themselves shows a lack of empathy for that person. It's also somewhat insulting to Shiba Tsukune not to allow her (or those within her families hierarchy) to correct the problems in her family. Furthermore, as a corrective measure, "the promise" would lose power if invoked too often and without appropriate cause.. I imagine the elemental masters wouldn't be happy about that.

Oh, absolutely. I've not problem with invoking it coming with some serious consequences, especially if it's done for selfish or trivial reasons.

But it still strikes me as the sort of situation where - 'legally' at least - the correct procedure is to complain to the Isawa's superiors in their family, after complying with the request.

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19 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Fealty and obedience goes up and down the chains of authority, though, not across them.

I think this is more about (normally divine) entitlement rather than actual authority. The Daidoji should obey the Doji in some way because the Doji are the lords of the Crane by the merit of being the descendants of Lady Doji so they "speak with her voice". Shiba's Promise is kinda like what Shinjo did in the old canon when she shafted her family for the Moto and thus the Shinjo became "just another major family" while the Moto was upgraded to "THE major family". In this case, Shiba made his family the secondary people while Isawa's became the primary despite the latter having no divine (or any other kind of) backing for it unlike the former. It is more of an Honor thing I reckon rather than Status or Glory.