6 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

That said given their role as the "emissaries" of the Dragon and that the wife of the founder was an Isawa Shugehja a courtier/shugenja focus does make more sense. and most Dragonfly bushi would really be more likely to just be training in the Mirumoto style given their proximity to the Mirumoto school rather than a unique style (even though the son of the first Dragonfly champion who dueled the Lion general to avenge his father's death was trained in both the Shiba and Mirumoto style there is nothing to indicate that a proper school curriculum was founded around his training).

I think the thing there is that all clans, Great, Minor, whatever, need more bushi than they do courtiers or shugenja- it comes with the territory. When the very symbol of samurai status is a daisho, and when the job is mostly administer and protect the lands they occupy?

I can see the Imperial Families skewing more toward courtiers because, after all, they're supposedly above the petty day to day affairs of the clans,

Heck, even the Phoenix field more bushi than anything else.

As to the point about "easy access" to Shiba or Mirumoto schools for the Dragonfly- at no point has there been any serious presentation of such. ****, in 4th edition, Dragonfly have to pay for Different School, same as anyone else. Every Dragonfly we spend time around tends to be a shugenja, which makes the rarity of shugenja seem somewhat laughable.

Bushi is in the end just a job. So have some guys trained in kenjutsu, yarijutsu and wearing Yoroi, there, you have bushis. It's not mandatory to have a bushi school with techniques, those cost resources to maintain. With the Dragonfly exemple, even with "easier" access to Shiba or Mirumoto school, doesn't mean any aspiring swordman would get enrolled. Maybe the elite of the clan would receive the honor of such training. The grunts and rank and file would learn simply kenjutsu and weapon practice (maybe bow and spear) in a dojo, with a kenjutsu Sensei. Maybe this sensei would be clan school trained, but he would just teach them kenjutsu.

The same way it seems shugenja rarity is a joke when you can't turn a stone without finding one, profusion of bushi using techniques makes knowing techniques less of a wow factor. Even inside a Clan, I don't think every single ji-zamurai is schooled in the clan's bushi school.

When GMing Rokugan my Way (loved this in 4th ed), my take was that select individuals (most often the powerful, connected or wealthy, the prodigies, and of course, somehow player characters) would actually attend clan's schools. That made being schooled a plus, and when fighting an opponent trained in a clan school, this opponent would stand out. You maybe killed 6 Phoenix samurai, but here comes their leader, and he is trained in the Shiba school.

Yagyu shinkage ryu was the Tokugawa official school, but not every Tokugawa soldier would have the honor to learn some if its techniques.

So, I'm wondering if this corruption of the Hare Daimyo is the equivalent of the the Kitsune Daimyo opening one Black Scroll (Walking Horror?) in the old lore.

5 hours ago, Mon no Oni said:

So, I'm wondering if this corruption of the Hare Daimyo is the equivalent of the the Kitsune Daimyo opening one Black Scroll (Walking Horror?) in the old lore.

Seems like garden variety Maho. Pretty tame no reason to be alarmed......nothing to see here. Carry on.

8 hours ago, Nitenman said:

Even inside a Clan, I don't think every single ji-zamurai is schooled in the clan's bushi school.

Indeed. The Crane academies are implied by the view of Tsuma you get in the RPG to be a pretty exclusive place - 'line' samurai are still nobles but I suspect there will be some ji-samurai who pretty much get trained at the barracks.

41 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Seems like garden variety Maho. Pretty tame no reason to be alarmed......nothing to see here. Carry on.

For some reason I have a mental Eddie Izzard voice going "we're going to run out of Maho at this rate....we didn't expect it to be so popular...."

I used to wonder if the Hare clan wasn't perhaps an echo of the previous Snake clan.

Both specialized in hunting down Maho Tsuki, but the former decided to try to fight fire with fire and tainted themselves before being destroyed. Of course, being that their role of hunting down Maho Tsukai means that they would have had to be traveling all over the empire rather than administrating lands (which ought to make one wonder if such a task should really be one assigned to any clan and not some imperial vassal family) means that they couldn't have been all there to be destroyed on one convenient night.

A few hundred years later a "ronin" that just so happened to be really good at hunting down Majo Tsukai and helped save the Emperor's family was rewarded with a new clan. And then many hundreds of years after that they were accused of using blood magic and also destroyed.

Really-- it is worth considering as a potential hidden story if the Hare wasn't just formed from the uncorrupted members of the Snake Clan who just carried on hunting down maho tsukai as ronin after their palace was burned down and the heads of the family were killed off. In the very least, the way the two mirror each other seems to suggest some story potential that was never explored.

On the other hand-- it is literally impossible to take any samurai clan with the family name "Usagi" remotely seriously. Once FFG had control of the IP, this was something they had the opportunity to fix-- take the utterly embarrassing family names of minor clans that just lazily used the animal name in Japanese and give them actual family names. Or at least say that they don't have family names but are generally referred to as "Usagizoku no" and their name.

I mean-- its not like you are calling them the "Bunny Tribe", there is an attempt in English to make them sound a bit tougher by calling them the "Hare Tribe". But to anyone familiar with Japanese at all, "Usagi" is just too much of a cutesy image to take any samurai using that as their clan symbol seriously. And anyone familiar with anime ought to be hearing the Sailor Moon theme playing every time they are mentioned.

1 hour ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

I mean-- its not like you are calling them the "Bunny Tribe", there is an attempt in English to make them sound a bit tougher by calling them the "Hare Tribe". But to anyone familiar with Japanese at all, "Usagi" is just too much of a cutesy image to take any samurai using that as their clan symbol seriously. And anyone familiar with anime ought to be hearing the Sailor Moon theme playing every time they are mentioned.

Really because this is all I see.

But seriously the Usagi is actually a respected animal in Japanese folklore symbolizing cleverness and self-devotion (thus a good nod to the family motto We Strike First)

Yes, those familiar with TMNT have that interpretation too.

But-- either way-- impossible to take samurais with the family name "Usagi" seriously.

It's not like the Crab clan is led by a family called "Kani" or the Lion Clan is led by a family called "Shishi" or the Crane Clan is led by a family called "Tsuru" or the Unicorn clan led by a family called "Kirin" or the Dragon Clan led by a family called "Ryuu" or the Scorpion clan led by the "Sasori" family or the Phoenix clan led by the Phoenix led by the "Houou" family or the Mantis clan led by a family called "Kamikiri"...

So why they got lazy as **** with the minor clans-- and, ironically enough, not even the minor clans that were extinct-- but those that were still alive... and then that just stuck. Its so dumb. One writer who knew nothing about Japan or Japanese made one bad decision just once and everyone just rolls with it eternally?

The FFG team has shown a better awareness, for the most part, than the previous team handling the franchise towards the Japanese language-- so them just failing and face-planting like this in the most obvious and easy fix to make is just utterly baffling. The whole setting has been retconned! If there had been any better opportunity to stop treating "Usagi" as anything but a ludicrously laughable family name that anyone would be utterly embarrassed to have, writing this fiction would have been the exact moment to do it.

And I am not saying it is bad to have the rabbit as a totem animal. But there are virtually no Japanese family names that come from animals in all of Japan except those that come from fish because their ancestors were fishermen and specialized in capturing that kind of fish.

2 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

the Crane Clan is led by a family called "Tsuru"

Fair point. But I could see it for a vassal family, say a cadet branch of the Doji.

2 minutes ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

Fair point. But I could see it for a vassal family, say a cadet branch of the Doji.

Even if there is some minor vassal family that was added in some expansion book or Clan-specific book that added them, I think the fact that none of the major clans have a main family that is just the animal's name in Japanese is an admission that it is rather childish and silly to have the clan's animal totem be the clan's family name.

That this is a second chance to redo the world and that major error wasn't fixed is kind of a a huge missed opportunity.

But I think this is a distraction from the main point I wanted to get at which was that the Hare Clan seems to echo the Snake Clan. If they aren't blood relatives like I used to theorize, in the very least it seems like any group set to the task of hunting down Maho Tsukai is likely to become so frustrated at the task and see using blood magic as the best tool to do so that they are inevitably going to end up walking down the same path. They are still have that connection.

2 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

But-- either way-- impossible to take samurais with the family name "Usagi" seriously.

Yeah, but calling samurai "Doji" and "Daidoji" is totally cool. Gotcha.

In a setting built out of "One writer who knew nothing about Japan or Japanese made one bad decision just once and everyone just rolls with it eternally?" this is like, the least meaningful concern available- and while we're pontificating, Usagi Yojimbo had an existence well before anything to do with the Ninja Turtles, and is probably where the Hare Clan got their name- a bunch of scruffy hard-fighting athletic types and so forth.

And if you're worried about

32 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

But I think this is a distraction from the main point I wanted to get at which was that the Hare Clan seems to echo the Snake Clan.

might I suggest limiting your editorializing until that point has been adequately discussed?

Personally, I don't see it, because I think it's more an echo of a wider theme in the lore that those who tangle with darkness are vastly more susceptible to corruption by it- the line of Kuni daimyo in the new lore having a long tradition of getting tainted, the fall of the snake, the mess in this story, the road Tadaka is strolling down. All we need now are a bunch of corrupted Asako Inquisitors. It's not that the Hare mirror the Snake in particular, it's that everyone who tangles with that stuff seems to run longer risks.

3 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Yeah, but calling samurai "Doji" and "Daidoji" is totally cool. Gotcha.

What makes you think that just because in a thread about the Usagi I decided to point out their name as being particularly humiliating doesn't mean I wouldn't make a similar point about a number of other highly questionably named families? I don't think I wrote that they were good, did I?

But my first bone to pick would probably be about the Asako. And, as extension, any samurai whose name included a "ko".

2 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

What makes you think that just because in a thread about the Usagi I decided to point out their name as being particularly humiliating doesn't mean I wouldn't make a similar point about a number of other highly questionably named families? I don't think I wrote that they were good, did I?

No, you didn't mention them at all, you just engaged in histrionics about the Minor Clans in particular as if it were in some way exceptional with zero acknowledgment that aside from the "Otaku/Utaku" shift, all of the old naming conventions stayed the same. It's pretty comical to lead off with

5 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Once FFG had control of the IP, this was something they had the opportunity to fix-- take the utterly embarrassing family names of minor clans that just lazily used the animal name in Japanese and give them actual family names.

... and not expect to hear about the rest of the junk that everyone just rolls with.

If you caterwaul about one aspect of the clunky design as if it is in some way exceptional. expect that to be what people respond to. Especially since, if these issues are really near and dear to your heart, you've been carrying that pebble in your shoe for decades now.

*sigh* I really don't get why people seem so hostile to this setting. Seriously, twenty years of accumulated lore and history and yet people seem like they can't wait to set fire to the lot of it.

9 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

which ought to make one wonder if such a task should really be one assigned to any clan and not some imperial vassal family

It would be the task of Jade Magistrates, but the Phoenix have successfully kept that office vacant. It would otherwise fall on the Kuni, but are the other Great Clans going to give the Crab unlimited access to their lands? No. But a minor Clan samurai is one step above a ronin. They can, in a way, move around more easily and engage in shady activity.

The Falcon do a similar thing with ghosts, and the Tortoise for questionable trade. Even the Mantis, as the biggest example. The Throne delegates out low honour activities to Minor Clan families to deal with on their behalf.

8 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Yeah, but calling samurai "Doji" and "Daidoji" is totally cool. Gotcha.

Ah, yes, the famously uncool Daidoji (or Daidōji, which would be rendered Daidoji or Daidouji in common english usage, much like Tōkyō becomes Tokyo) name.

Shame nobody told Feudal-era Japanese Samurai how uncool it was. If only they knew their own language better than western fanboys!

But alas, there was no one to warn them, and an entire actual historical feudal Japanese clan was shamed by calling themselves Big Blunder* because they didn't speak Japanese well enough.

*Or, you know, Big Blunder is a faux etymology retroactively applied to a genuine historical Japanese samurai name by an arrogant clown with a Japanese-English dictionary and little actual understanding of the language who thought it would be a funny anecdote, and perpetuated by Crane-bashers of all stripes.

5 hours ago, Himoto said:

Crane-bashers of all stripes.

Guilty. Kyuden Doji Delenda Est

And point is, quibbling about "Usagi" as a family name in this setting is an odd ditch to choose to die in when there are so many to choose from.

Fair.

Although I was surprised while looking this up at how many of the Rokugani family names are actual Japanese proper names. We have at least six feudal clan names (Asahina, Daidoji, Ikoma, Shiba, Ide, Otomo), a bunch more family names not apparently related to feudal clans (including Hida, Hiruma, Togashi, Isawa, Soshi, Shinjo, Horiuchi, Iuchi), still more to given names (Yasuki, Doji, Asako, Soshi, Yoritomo (duh), Soshi, Moto) - which given that most of the families are actually named after an individual's given name to begin with, was at least retroactively justified. That's more than half the families right there.

And a bunch of the rest are city names or other place names (Kakita, Kitsuki, Matsu, Yogo).

On the flip side of course there's the Tongue Kissing family, and that one was entirely deliberate (though even then they got it wrong)

I mean, the way family names are given is based on the first name of the founder of that family. So, either the first Kitsune was called Shinjo Kitsune or they decided to change their name to that. I am honestly not concerned about that, same way with the Doji or Daidoji. I had heard about meaning klutz or blunder or whatever but I could never actually find anything like this and even found out there was an actually Daidōji family in feudal Japan so I thought that was particularly strange. Until I finally got a friend who spoke japanese and he kind of went on that it could mean klutz or blunder bit it also depended on the way it was written. And that’s is explained, for instance in My Hero Academia where you have a character called Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu.

I mean, if we are going to bash on the whole IP and misrepresentation of Asian culture in general, we have way worse offenders than the Minor Clans having family names after the animal.

16 hours ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

It would be the task of Jade Magistrates, but the Phoenix have successfully kept that office vacant.

Indeed. They've spent a lot of effort doing so. But also, to be fair, pretty much every great clan had an equivalent- the Kuni, but also the Scorpion Kuroiban, the Asako Inquisitors, as you say.

The empire doesn't really like imperial-level authority - yes, emerald magistrates exist, but their authority only really extends to inter-clan disputes or offence against imperial taxes or holdings. Working day-to-day law enforcement is very much in the hands of the clan's, and even the emerald champion is an appointed great clan samurai, not a member of the Imperial families. Hunting maho-tsukai must involve rooting through a a clan's secrets, which is why clans want to police this sort of thing 'in house'.

The Hare did/do administrate land that they were rewarded with for their actions as pre-clan ronin - they don't have imperial authority to go into other clan's land to hunt maho-tsukai. We Strike First is absolutely the Hare daimyo using rumours to justify a land grab whilst the great clans aren't looking.