I've always thought official Iaijutsu duels were using standard Samurai katana sword so not really sure now if Hotaru and Kuwanan are doing an official battle in their images at the next pack.
By the Stroke of a Brush - New L5R Fiction Story Discussion
I think that image is more akin to a movie poster for the conflict than an actual depiction of a specific encounter.
7 hours ago, Yogo Rye X said:I've always thought official Iaijutsu duels were using standard Samurai katana sword so not really sure now if Hotaru and Kuwanan are doing an official battle in their images at the next pack.
More significantly, it's outside the walls of a Crane fortress, not in the gardens somewhere and there are bodies in the background, all of whom are wearing Crane colours. If it's representing specific events, it's not a formal duel, it's a clash during an all-out civil war.
15 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:More significantly, it's outside the walls of a Crane fortress, not in the gardens somewhere and there are bodies in the background, all of whom are wearing Crane colours. If it's representing specific events, it's not a formal duel, it's a clash during an all-out civil war.
It seems that is the case indeed, interestingly enough , you can place Kuwanan on the right and it can appear that they are fighting back to back instead haha.
Notice the tree branches on their left and right respectively.
Could there be more to this....*suspense rises*
Edited by Yogo Rye XJust read back through Dreams of Shadow - the 'prequel', I guess.
There were two other jobs Hametsu wanted doing at the same time - a 'minor crane retainer' in the Chisei district, and a servant in the Emerald Champion's residence, both dying 'of natural causes' (which means it wasn't 'eliminate them so we can impersonate them' so it's not like the servant reporting to Yoshi was Shosuro's plant or Kagi's a fake or some such), as well as planting what's almost certainly the letter Kunawan finds.
The Chisei district is the Crane, Dragon and Minor Clan region of the capital, covering law and inter-clan relations, according to Emerald Empire.
There's no indication we know who these are and why, is there?
1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:Just read back through Dreams of Shadow - the 'prequel', I guess.
There were two other jobs Hametsu wanted doing at the same time - a 'minor crane retainer' in the Chisei district, and a servant in the Emerald Champion's residence, both dying 'of natural causes' (which means it wasn't 'eliminate them so we can impersonate them' so it's not like the servant reporting to Yoshi was Shosuro's plant or Kagi's a fake or some such), as well as planting what's almost certainly the letter Kunawan finds.
The Chisei district is the Crane, Dragon and Minor Clan region of the capital, covering law and inter-clan relations, according to Emerald Empire.
There's no indication we know who these are and why, is there?
I would suspect that its all of a piece. We now know that the goal was to plant the Hotaru/Kachiko letter in such a manner as to imply the Emerald Champion had read it & was killed due to the contents. His servant and the retainer are likely killed because they might disprove that Satsume had ever seen it, which would lead to the follow up question “How did it get amongst his things after his death?”
Their deaths are not strictly necessary, as the contents are explosive enough on their own, which is why they’re tier 2 priority.
I get that, but no-one's mentioned any deaths which could be these individuals, unless I've missed them?
And they definitely 'happened', since she was on her way to plant the letter after doing this.
2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:I get that, but no-one's mentioned any deaths which could be these individuals, unless I've missed them?
No, you haven't missed them. If Sadako did her job well, then they will be considered deaths from natural causes--unfortunate, but those happen all the time in a city the size of Otosan Uchi. Several people probably died in the city that night...and the next night...and the one after that...and so on. Now, I'm not saying they might not become significant later on, but as of yet, they haven't resurfaced in any way.
Thanks, that's what I was checking. As noted, I'm assuming they were all part of the same plan (broadly) or they wouldn't have sent Sadako to do all of them on the same night if the letter was so much more important than anything else, but who they were and why it mattered hasn't come up yet. It was more the Emerald Champion's residence since there can't be that many servants there, we've seen a fiction set in part in and around it, and it happened after Bright Flame Of The World's Glory, so it can't have been as simple as " kill them before the new Emerald Champion can possibly talk to them ".
I was pretty sure nothing had come up but wasn't sure if something might have been suggested in passing I don't have all the 'insert' fiction, and the RPG stuff (presumably deliberately) doesn't tend to cross streams with the main story line (or at least where it does it's in retrospective, like Satsume's murder and the last winter court).
Oh - I take back one thing; getting scragged by the Warriors of the Boar wasn't Kunawan's first battle, so he may not be as useless as I first thought.
From the RPG core rulebook:
"The renowned Crane warrior Doji Kuwanan holds the resplendent blade Omeka, which bears the mark of Ashidaka Sora, who forged it three centuries ago as a gift to one of Kuwanan’s forebears. Doji Kuwanan added renown to the blade’s legend when he used it to defeat the pirate Umitaka in the defense of Cold Wind City, cleaving through his foe’s blade to deliver the deathblow."