34 minutes ago, Harzerkatze said:

That's harmless compared to https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2020/11/18/the-yogo-curse-part-1/ ...

Well, when the person you would demand they seek revenge against would be someone that also falls under the category of the people you would demand revenge against if you were used to draw the blood of... it is sort of an existential crisis.

So what happens when a magic sword's spirit faces an existential crisis?

7 hours ago, Harzerkatze said:

I have a more favorable view of the book, but just a detail: The size of the Obscuring effect is based on Air ring, not school rank, so affecting the whole battlefield should be possible from level 1 at least in most battles.
I really like the Shadow-Weavers. I also prefer that they seem to have no connection to the Lying Darkness, as one would expect knowing 4th Edition The Way of Shadows. Playing what is essentially a potential marionette to the power that wants to undo creations isn't my kind of heroic journey.
In 5th Edition, the Soshi and Shosuro do not seem to channel the Lying Darkness, in the novel " Whispers of Shadow and Steel ", working with Shadow Brands is a crime to the Scorpions. Instead, being marked by the Lying Darkness seems to be the Shadowlands Taint [One with the Darkness] Disadvantage from the Shadowlands book.

I haven’t read the novel yet. But we still don’t know what this iteration of the agenda of the Lying Darkness or whatever it is called now looks like. We do know that somehow the Ishiken are connected to that but they don’t seem Tainted, so let’s wait and see what more information we get.

1 hour ago, DSalazar said:

I haven’t read the novel yet. But we still don’t what this iteration of the agenda of the Lying Darkness or whatever it is called now looks like. We do know that somehow the Ishiken are connected to that but they don’t seem Tainted, so let’s wait and see what more information we get.

No, my understanding is that Shadow and Void are entirely unrelated things. The Void the Ishiken use is described as being without spirit or will, so inversions are more like western magic, the casters mind working on a matter without soul:
"They are not the invocations used by shugenja (though some ishiken can also use invocations), as they do not appeal to the spirits for power over the natural world or over the Spirit Realms. Instead, an inversion is the application of human will upon a fluid point in the fabric of the cosmos, temporarily or permanently altering the state of reality in the area that is around the wielder when they perform the inversion."
So if the Lying Darkness exists in 5th Edition, as I would say the novel implies, it has probably nothing to do with the Void wielders. At least, that is my reading.

Right, all these assumptions of mine are based on the short story where Kaede’s father senses a Shosuro shinobi wielding a Shadow Brand. I would have to go digging for the exact quote but I had the impression that he felt like an Ishiken or something like it was nearby.

Another point regarding the Sun Sentinel. Why bother giving +2 Fire if the Centipede already gets +1 Fire anyway? Wouldn’t it be bettet just say +1 Fire, +1 another Ring of your choice, like the Ishiken?

1 hour ago, DSalazar said:

Another point regarding the Sun Sentinel. Why bother giving +2 Fire if the Centipede already gets +1 Fire anyway? Wouldn’t it be bettet just say +1 Fire, +1 another Ring of your choice, like the Ishiken?

Same result, really. And yes, it would've.

2 hours ago, DSalazar said:

Another point regarding the Sun Sentinel. Why bother giving +2 Fire if the Centipede already gets +1 Fire anyway? Wouldn’t it be bettet just say +1 Fire, +1 another Ring of your choice, like the Ishiken?

One could argue that it can become relevant if you use the school, but come from another clan, as per page 56 of the Core Rulebook: "If you wish for your character to study at another school outside of their clan, ask your GM’s permission and work out a set of circumstances that have allowed for your character to receive their unusual training."

Right, but at the same time we have

Quote

Rokugani from all clans are welcome to train at the Light of the Lady Sun Dōjō, but only members of the Moshi family become Sun Sentinels

So it goes into how much of a snowflake you would want to be if you are a player trying to convince your GM to play as a Sentinel Sun from, I don’t know, the Matsu...

Or, if you are a GM how much you care about the consistency of the setting.

5 hours ago, DSalazar said:

Right, all these assumptions of mine are based on the short story where Kaede’s father senses a Shosuro shinobi wielding a Shadow Brand. I would have to go digging for the exact quote but I had the impression that he felt like an Ishiken or something like it was nearby.

I looked the story up: Dreams of Shadow. And you are partially correct, in the story, Shadow and Void cross their path, as the Master of Void has a daughters who seems to be either conceived or at least touched by the Shadow and in the end, he seems to fall into Shadow. But those events do not seem directly connected to Void, they just happen to happen to the master of void, probably the Shadow targeting him.

The story does have a Shosuro with a shadow brand, teleporting to a shadow like with the new Fluid Shadows invocation, doing sanctioned Scorpion business, and feeling his humanity slipping away each time he uses it, like with 4th Edition Book of Shadow.
To me, that is a contradiction to the novel. So maybe 5th Edition hasn't decided yet how much to use the Shadow/Lying Darkness angle, and thus produces inconsistencies.

The thing in Shadows is that the Shadowbrand user was unsanctioned. He was a shinobi entrusted with the art who was experimenting with it outside of approvals, and went rogue, completely enabling brands outside of the Scorpion clan's approval.

I have finally been able to buy a physical copy of the book 😭 hopefully the next book will not be so hard to buy in the Netherlands.

2 hours ago, Kiso said:

I have finally been able to buy a physical copy of the book 😭 hopefully the next book will not be so hard to buy in the Netherlands.

Well, I am waging that everything will be reversed, regarding Europe-North America wise...