Thanks @DGLaderoute for the long and thoughtful reply. I am indeed happy to bend a good deal, right up until the point where my NPCs stop feeling to me like relatable people and become face tentacles of some kind of abstract ideal- your insights are appreciated.

17 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

Okay, I get where this is coming from now, I think. That said, I think the OP needs to bend a little bit and accept that there some values in Rokugan that simply have no analog in the real world. There IS an objectively real divinity, that everyone knows about and accepts;

We've already covered this point of difference in our perspectives- I would still say that in feudal Japan there was also an objectively real divinity that everyone knew about and accepted, and didn't stop people from pulling all kinds of shenanigans through rationalizing their actions around it. But I don't think it's really a make-or-break point of contention, so I think we can agree to disagree there.

17 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

Bushido IS the social code that governs all aspects of samurai society (with conformance to, or departure from its tenets defining one's worth in terms of honor); the clans HAVE been given their particular, respective duties, and they take them very, very seriously (really, it makes little RL sense for one clan to be about "art and poetry and such", another about "scholarly pursuit of spiritualism", another about "being the army of the Empire", and so on. In reality, the clans would be more like the clans of Sengoku-period Japan, just tribalistic groups under various warlords, with no particular assigned duties and a focus mainly on advancing their own interests; however, this setting did originate as a card game that needed to give each faction its particular flavor in the game).

That's all fine- I tend to read these clan specialties as more or less stereotypes or "exemplary cases"- just like the Irish are well known for being drunks and poets doesn't mean that every or even most Irishmen are drunks or poets, just that they've shown a cultural knack for producing superlative drunks and poets.

17 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

-if simply being given stewardship of lands is an issue, then that's easily solved for the Crab families--the Hiruma lands are still the Hiruma lands, and Daylight Castle is still their ancestral seat of power. They haven't ceded their lands to the Shadowlands by any means. Likewise, the Kuni still have stewardship over their lands, and are trying very hard to find ways to return them to some semblance of life.

Right, this isn't really where my issue lies- I'm totally comfortable with the idea that the Hiruma are a sort of "government in exile"

17 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

-if it's having PRODUCTIVE lands that's the issue, then we've got to define what "productive" means. As noted, the Moto may have peasants farming some of their lands (I haven't really written anything about the Unicorn, so I'm not sure), but even if they don't, there are other resources the empire needs--minerals, stone and lumber come to mind. But "productive", as a concept, is unequal across the Empire. Again, the Yogo have lands that are mostly fallow, as do the Soshi. The Hiruma obviously don't produce much (although they do have lands generally south of the Shinomen Mori), while the Kuni are probably still producing things like stone and various ores. The western portion of the Unicorn lands are mostly undeveloped. The Dragon have VERY little arable land and, again, produce stone, timber and ore. So, really, if this is an issue for the Hiruma and the Kuni, then it's an issue for several other families, and one entire clan.

By "productive" all I mean is "capable of generating income that can be used to pay the stipends of samurai retainers"- if that income does not come in the form of food then there are political implications to that, but it's not problematic in itself.

17 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

-inside the setting, the standard has been set that, this notwithstanding, the Empire's political makeup has remained largely unchanged for over a thousand years. Really, if you want to have issues with suspension of disbelief, this is where you should probably have it. It's tough to imagine a civilization with the technological achievement of Rokugan in, say, the fifth century, by the time of the thirteenth century having remained utterly unchanged. Much of the population is educated to at least some degree, there are scholars who are curious about the world around them, and yet there has been no innovation to speak of, no development of new technologies to make life easier and more productive? And yet, if we can accept this, then I think we need to be able to accept that these political constructs, like a daimyo being what a daimyo is, irrespective of having lost all their lands or not producing enough food to feed their own people.

You're not wrong about this being a stretch of the imagination, but for me it's unproblematic because it has virtually no impact on actual gameplay. I can easily say, "Oh, actually in my Rokugan the horse collar was invented 200 years ago and increased crop yields by 20%" and there's no need to adjust any of the contemporary setting. My concerns are solely about being able to run the stories I want to with a minimal overhaul of the setting, not to rationalize the whole thing down to the last almanac entry.

17 hours ago, DGLaderoute said:

Now, if there's a way of harmonizing this frankly somewhat "forced" version of the Empire (which, again, exists primarily to be a game setting!) with more something more "realistic", then I'd be really interested to see it. ****, I'm one of the writers for the fiction and the RPG, I've been playing games set in this world since 1996, and I still have trouble with some aspects of the setting!

I've always done what I think a lot of people who prefer a grittier feel have done, which is treat the printed material not as an objective out-of-game description of reality, but simply a presentation of the "official" history- ie, propaganda. So the 1000 years of peace are actually 1000 years of less-than-devastating-warfare, the "unbroken descent of divine rule through the Hantei line" includes some breaks in the paternal line and some second cousins taking the throne, and yes, some branches of various families breaking with the main line and defecting to another. This makes a lot more room for the kind of thing I want to do, without needing to radically rewrite anything, as it's all been swept under the rug one way or another.

So if you will, as a thought experiment, accept these premises:

- Bushido and honor are powerful motivators, but so are wealth, comfort, security, and prestige, and individual samurai are going to respond to both of these competing motivations differently.

- There's no system in place to prevent samurai from packing up shop, no "military police" to hunt down defectors, etc. Samurai can swear fealty to any lord that's willing to take them on as retainers. They will typically do so as a family unit- not necessarily a Family in the sense of a whole lineage, but as a group of people who can also state their exact blood relation to one another pretty easily. So there are power players on the micro scale who can say "hey kids, pack your bags, we're going out west for a better life".

- Competition between lords at every level of the power structure is vigorous, constant, and regularly if not often violent. Clans feud with Clans, Families with Families, and most of all, family branches with other family branches. For every diplomatic scuffle in the Imperial court, there's a thousand within the clan power structures.

- Daimyo maintain power by keeping retainers. Divine right or no, a daimyo is subject to the laws of power, and if they are unable to offer their retainers good incentives, they will lose those retainers. That might happen on a generational time scale, or much faster, but sooner or later they find that they are weak and unable to protect their lands, and will be conquered by a neighbor. This has actually happened many times already- the daimyo of any given family may or may not be the direct descendant of the family founder, but is simply the one who has managed to take/keep control of the family seat.

With those premises as givens, what else would you need to adjust to imagine a family like the Hiruma, who lack any direct control of income-producing holdings of their own, still be able to remain autonomous rather than simply becoming an appendage of the Hida- that means some form of power or authority that their counterparts in other families do not possess.

Hope that maybe clarifies what I'm interested in a bit further.

40 minutes ago, robothedino said:

So if you will, as a thought experiment, accept these premises:

- Bushido and honor are powerful motivators, but so are wealth, comfort, security, and prestige, and individual samurai are going to respond to both of these competing motivations differently.

- There's no system in place to prevent samurai from packing up shop, no "military police" to hunt down defectors, etc. Samurai can swear fealty to any lord that's willing to take them on as retainers. They will typically do so as a family unit- not necessarily a Family in the sense of a whole lineage, but as a group of people who can also state their exact blood relation to one another pretty easily. So there are power players on the micro scale who can say "hey kids, pack your bags, we're going out west for a better life".

- Competition between lords at every level of the power structure is vigorous, constant, and regularly if not often violent. Clans feud with Clans, Families with Families, and most of all, family branches with other family branches. For every diplomatic scuffle in the Imperial court, there's a thousand within the clan power structures.

- Daimyo maintain power by keeping retainers. Divine right or no, a daimyo is subject to the laws of power, and if they are unable to offer their retainers good incentives, they will lose those retainers. That might happen on a generational time scale, or much faster, but sooner or later they find that they are weak and unable to protect their lands, and will be conquered by a neighbor. This has actually happened many times already- the daimyo of any given family may or may not be the direct descendant of the family founder, but is simply the one who has managed to take/keep control of the family seat.

With those premises as givens, what else would you need to adjust to imagine a family like the Hiruma, who lack any direct control of income-producing holdings of their own, still be able to remain autonomous rather than simply becoming an appendage of the Hida- that means some form of power or authority that their counterparts in other families do not possess.

Hope that maybe clarifies what I'm interested in a bit further.

Again, there are Clan Magistrates and Emerald Magistrates, you can consider the former state/provincial police and the latter the federal police. They have the authority to hunt down deserters, heck, the Wasp clan whole point of existing is hunting deserters down. Aside from that, you are correct, a daimyo could accept anyone that shows up at their door if they so accept, granted, the vast majority of them don't. They might hire the ronin to do odd or dangerous jobs, but won't accept them as retainers.

Aside from that, the reason the Hiruma are not de facto an appendage of the Hida is because the Crab Champion by doing that, would pretty much accept that the Hiruma de jure lands are forever lost and the morale hit would be terrifying. The Crab are stubborn and you can think of each one of them as the Black Knight from Monty Python. The Maw was only a setback and the 500 years of their land being controlled by the Shadowlands is just a flesh wound.

15 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Again, there are Clan Magistrates and Emerald Magistrates, you can consider the former state/provincial police and the latter the federal police. They have the authority to hunt down deserters, heck, the Wasp clan whole point of existing is hunting deserters down. Aside from that, you are correct, a daimyo could accept anyone that shows up at their door if they so accept, granted, the vast majority of them don't. They might hire the ronin to do odd or dangerous jobs, but won't accept them as retainers.

That's all fine, but not what I was asking. You missed or misunderstood the framing of that whole post:

55 minutes ago, robothedino said:

So if you will, as a thought experiment, accept these premises:

...

With those premises as givens...

Quote

Aside from that, the reason the Hiruma are not de facto an appendage of the Hida is because the Crab Champion by doing that, would pretty much accept that the Hiruma de jure lands are forever lost and the morale hit would be terrifying.

This is only true if you, again, don't accept the premises given above, which state that lands change hands all the time, and there's nothing stopping the Hida from reclaiming those lands in their own name.

While I appreciate your efforts, you are still arguing that what I am looking for doesn't match the canonical sources, which I've happily acknowledged already. I'm not trying to support my vision with the canon- I'm looking for the shortest route between canon and the things I want to include in my game, such that the Rokugan I'm left with is sufficiently similar to the canon Rokugan that I can explain it to a new player in minutes instead of days.

Without taking up the whole "canon Rokugan is not Sengoku Japan" thing all over again, the article linked below captures a lot of the feel I want:

https://newvoices.org.au/volume-2/understanding-samurai-disloyalty/

An exemplary quote: " ‘the frequency with which warrior codes stress the virtue of loyalty is due precisely to the fact that it did not obtain in the violent “world without center”

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The Hiruma daimyo is a she, at the moment. She doesn't hold court per se; obviously she meets advisors and discusses policy, but she doesn't hold 'court' because her court is Shiro Hiruma and that's "unavailable at the moment".

Right, makes perfect sense- except I can't begin to imagine (literally) what she could possibly be making policy on. She has no resources to distribute of her own, or at least very little, and has nothing of value to offer to anyone outside the clan. Perhaps she's responsible for the management of all that rice that comes in via Yasuki trade and Kaiu weapons, and is essentially a glorified quartermaster. Or has military authority and is making tactical decisions (always subject to approval from Hida leadership) about how to deploy troops. Both of these things in another clan would be handled by hatamoto of the Champion, but sure, we can call her a daimyo if it makes her feel better. But without any personal power- not symbolic power, but real power that comes from controlling something other people want - her daimyoship is a figurehead position.

Under those conditions, I'd expect three basic sorts of Hiruma daimyos to reoccur over history:

1 - Unambitious ones who are basically content to let the Hida run the show, and show up for ceremonial occasions when needed, and spend the rest of their time enjoying the, um, delights of Kyuden Hida

2 - Ambitious ones who try to bring some wealth to the family itself the only way they can- through raiding. A small portion of this is going to come from stuff rescued from the Shadowlands, but the vast majority is going to be whatever they can rip off from the Crane. When they think they can get away with it, they might even raid Crab lands that are far from the Wall and not already directly invested in supporting the Wall.

3- Overambitious ones who try to be the Chosen One and retake Daylight Castle, and we know how that works out.

Things get more interesting (to me) if the Hiruma are supported not by the Hida (through direct fiat payments which amount to a stipend), but by a tax placed on all the other Clans by Imperial decree, paid directly to the Hiruma, rather than to the Crab as a whole- reparations, if you will for the loss of their lands. Then the Hiruma daimyo can actually play politics with the other family daimyo because she has something to put in the pot. She can tell the Hida leadership, "I don't want to send my soldiers on expedition X because I think it's a bad idea. If you order me to send them, I have to. But don't think I'm going to fund this nonsense myself- you're picking up the bill on this one."

I hope that small example makes it clearer why I bother with all this- because the particulars of who holds power, and how, is the material I make stories out of.

I had a lengthy post about how this seems to work in Rokugan, but if we want to accept your premises @robothedino (which appear to be rejected by the material as I understand it), the best answer is that the structure of the Crab standing army shields the Hiruma in ways that do not apply in clans that are not constantly at war. The defense of the Wall as described in the Shadowlands book is done by a central army raised and directed at the clan level not as called up levies from the individual families. This central structure is more like the Imperial Legions on a smaller scale as opposed to the called up militia like structure that the other clans use for their border skirmishes and the like. Since it is explicitly the duty of the Yasuki to procure the supplies for this force, it makes sense that the funds for this force would be dispensed at the Clan level. Since the Hiruma for the most part serve in this standing army, their stipends and resources are predominantly going to come from clan level taxes and income which would not require family resources as it is normal for individuals in Clan service to be paid at the clan level.

I should also note that politically the Crab Clan frequently has to argue that the importance of their duty requires that they be supported by wealthier groups in Rokugan (frequently by Imperial decree). It would be politically disastrous for the Crab Clan to contradict two Kami and this external message by taking away prerogatives laid down by Hida-no-Kami and Hantei I and anyone in the Clan who thought differently would be a renegade who would need to be discredited quickly before they undermined the war effort by giving the Crane et al excuses to take away resources from the Crab.

2 hours ago, robothedino said:

Thanks @DGLaderoute for the long and thoughtful reply. I am indeed happy to bend a good deal, right up until the point where my NPCs stop feeling to me like relatable people and become face tentacles of some kind of abstract ideal- your insights are appreciated.

Thanks. And I'm glad you have a vision for the setting as you want to play it. By all means, adapt it as you see fit; that's what the RPG setting is MEANT for, in fact--a starting point that you can never leave, and just play as it, or adapt as much as you want so it conforms to what you and your players want from a game.

That said, I can't really go through all of your points, because I can't really disagree with them. They are, in general, not how the canon setting works, and I write for the canon setting (it's what I get paid for), so any departures from it are going to be up to the individual making those departures--i.e. you, in this case. And if you're happy with the changes you've made, because they make the setting "work better" for you, then great. I mean, in the canon, the Hiruma continue to be a Great Clan family because they're a Great Clan family; such is the extent to which pronouncements from Kami and Emperors shape the way the Empire works, so that no one would consider the Hiruma to be anything else (or they might, but they'll find a fearsome institutional insistence that they're wrong pushing back at them). You don't believe this is sufficient, so in YOUR Rokugan, it's not--and so the situation regarding your version of the Hiruma is different.

That's fine. Enjoy Rokugan "your way"!

I think, at the end of the day, the upshot of this conversation is that y'all are content with the setting as it stands, either because it makes good sense to you, or because you don't mind the ways that it doesn't. I never really wanted this to be a sparring match or debate, but it seems to have turned out that way. So I'll quit flogging this horse, who is getting a bit ripe by now, and just say thanks for the input- if nothing else I learned a bit more about what to expect in terms of base expectations of the L5R player base, and that's actually valuable for when/if I ever try to launch a PbP. Cheers!

6 hours ago, NathaninVic said:

I hack the crap out of the setting to make it more "realistic" in some senses. Changes it quite alot though.

Oh, I almost overlooked this- do you have a setting document written up there you'd be willing to share?

12 minutes ago, robothedino said:

Oh, I almost overlooked this- do you have a setting document written up there you'd be willing to share?

I don't write notes and setting info in a manner that is useful for anyone but myself to use, and it's all on paper, otherwise I would share it (but it would be gibberish to most as I memorize everything). I don't use or have a computer beyond my phone.

We are only 6 years into a roughly 15 year arc. I'll likely share the mechanical ruleset at somepoint though, it's a hack of 4E R&K system, change a decent amount in some areas to make it fit the themes and philosophy of the setting, metaphysics, and remove some of the more power gamery elements that I aways see pop up in the game. I keep on tinkering with it, i think it will be locked in fully in a year or two.

On 4/3/2020 at 6:08 PM, robothedino said:

Right, makes perfect sense- except I can't begin to imagine (literally) what she could possibly be making policy on. She has no resources to distribute of her own, or at least very little, and has nothing of value to offer to anyone outside the clan. Perhaps she's responsible for the management of all that rice that comes in via Yasuki trade and Kaiu weapons, and is essentially a glorified quartermaster. Or has military authority and is making tactical decisions (always subject to approval from Hida leadership) about how to deploy troops. Both of these things in another clan would be handled by hatamoto of the Champion, but sure, we can call her a daimyo if it makes her feel better. But without any personal power- not symbolic power, but real power that comes from controlling something other people want - her daimyoship is a figurehead position.

Under those conditions, I'd expect three basic sorts of Hiruma daimyos to reoccur over history:

1 - Unambitious ones who are basically content to let the Hida run the show, and show up for ceremonial occasions when needed, and spend the rest of their time enjoying the, um, delights of Kyuden Hida

2 - Ambitious ones who try to bring some wealth to the family itself the only way they can- through raiding. A small portion of this is going to come from stuff rescued from the Shadowlands, but the vast majority is going to be whatever they can rip off from the Crane. When they think they can get away with it, they might even raid Crab lands that are far from the Wall and not already directly invested in supporting the Wall.

3- Overambitious ones who try to be the Chosen One and retake Daylight Castle, and we know how that works out.

Things get more interesting (to me) if the Hiruma are supported not by the Hida (through direct fiat payments which amount to a stipend), but by a tax placed on all the other Clans by Imperial decree, paid directly to the Hiruma, rather than to the Crab as a whole- reparations, if you will for the loss of their lands. Then the Hiruma daimyo can actually play politics with the other family daimyo because she has something to put in the pot. She can tell the Hida leadership, "I don't want to send my soldiers on expedition X because I think it's a bad idea. If you order me to send them, I have to. But don't think I'm going to fund this nonsense myself- you're picking up the bill on this one."

I hope that small example makes it clearer why I bother with all this- because the particulars of who holds power, and how, is the material I make stories out of.

Hey, I think that's a marvelous idea. Granted, 5 centuries of inflation (even of a feudal society) mean that probably the amount of money they now receive probably isn't even enough to fit an entire squad.

I say this because usually Imperial Edicts are written in a way that they don't get updated over the centuries.

On 4/3/2020 at 11:08 PM, robothedino said:

except I can't begin to imagine (literally) what she could possibly be making policy on. She has no resources to distribute of her own, or at least very little, and has nothing of value to offer to anyone outside the clan. Perhaps she's responsible for the management of all that rice that comes in via Yasuki trade and Kaiu weapons, and is essentially a glorified quartermaster. Or has military authority and is making tactical decisions (always subject to approval from Hida leadership) about how to deploy troops.

Probably both. She does have territories she nominally holds, and is responsible for deployment and training of Hiruma scouts. The fact that they are rarely deployed an masse doesn't diminish this as a job.

On 4/3/2020 at 11:08 PM, robothedino said:

Ambitious ones who try to bring some wealth to the family itself the only way they can- through raiding. A small portion of this is going to come from stuff rescued from the Shadowlands, but the vast majority is going to be whatever they can rip off from the Crane. When they think they can get away with it, they might even raid Crab lands that are far from the Wall and not already directly invested in supporting the Wall

Obviously, no Hiruma have ever done this.

On an unrelated note, this has nothing to do with the reason maemikake (now the main hiruma-governed settlement) is situated just southeast of the shinomen between the falcon clan lands the golden river valley where the sparrow, fox, hare and most other minor clans worth talking about (aside from the mantis) are based...

On 4/3/2020 at 11:08 PM, robothedino said:

Then the Hiruma daimyo can actually play politics with the other family daimyo because she has something to put in the pot. She can tell the Hida leadership, "I don't want to send my soldiers on expedition X because I think it's a bad idea. If you order me to send them, I have to. But don't think I'm going to fund this nonsense myself- you're picking up the bill on this one.

Again, remember that 'Hida Daimyos' and the clan leadership are not a monolithic entity. The crab champion is a Hida, but he's a distinct legal entity from the Hida Family and may often side with his or her Hiruma vassals over his or her Hida ones (The old adventure Twilight's Honour had this happen when a Hida commander - as you find out later - has steadily gone bug-fecked crazy with PTSD from one oni too many and his Hiruma scouts, on instruction from their Lord with Kisada's backup, told him to get stuffed).

On 4/5/2020 at 4:53 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

On an unrelated note, this has nothing to do with the reason maemikake (now the main hiruma-governed settlement) is situated just southeast of the shinomen between the falcon clan lands the golden river valley where the sparrow, fox, hare and most other minor clans worth talking about (aside from the mantis) are based...

Hey! I'm nowhere near there!

6 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Hey! I'm nowhere near there!

Perhaps not, but the Dragonfly are joined at the hip to a great clan to a far greater extent than other minor clans, so even if they were convenient they'd hardly be a suitable target for discrete raids...

On 4/3/2020 at 9:11 PM, KakitaKaori said:

I'm sure there are plenty of tragic stories of young people who abandon their comrades on the wall to spend more time with their beloved. But there are also many, many stories of the new wife who is secretly a demoness who is intentionally luring their spouse away from their duties to make the wall fall and bringing them both to a bad end.

I would think that these stories are generally frowned upon in the clan because they imply gross incompetence. The wall is supposed to be nigh-impenetrable both physically and spiritually, random daemons can't just pop through it to pretend to be wives. And any daemon who does pop through will be hunted down by the Kuni in short order. And no, one bushi going AWOL will not make a difference, in fact, if they want to leave then they should do so. The only rule: if you leave the Wall then never come back.

3 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

I would think that these stories are generally frowned upon in the clan because they imply gross incompetence. The wall is supposed to be nigh-impenetrable both physically and spiritually, random daemons can't just pop through it to pretend to be wives. And any daemon who does pop through will be hunted down by the Kuni in short order. And no, one bushi going AWOL will not make a difference, in fact, if they want to leave then they should do so. The only rule: if you leave the Wall then never come back.

Except that stories of things getting past the wall are in all the behavior and stories of Crab lands. From the fact that all their villages are walled, to their behavior towards strangers, everything. I didn't make the story of the bride tempting her husband away from the wall up...There's a story much like it (and many similar) in Bearers of Jade. (This one is The Collected Ensho of Shosuro Hojiako).

In someways that's the point of Hida's very story. Hida /failed/. He knows he failed. in his first story with Shinsei, Shinsei is consolling him after he failed....the story itself is about failure. Here... https://craneclan.weebly.com/hida-and-shinsei.html

The fact that Hida failed is what gives him the strength to do what he does. He fails and he learns from it. The Kuni aren't searching the Wastes alone...they're searching Rokugan. Random demons /do/ pop through and become wives. Or did once 500 or more years ago, which made the stories. Once the story is made, it's a convenient belief to keep the Crab samurai in line and not fleeing the wall, and to keep Crab wives from whining about their missing husbands, that when a deserter bails because it's too hard, that that deserter 'died to an oni'. It's better for morale on the wall, better for the wives back home, and maintains the stability of the society that everyone thinks it was a sneaky demon getting through. That it doesn't go further than Crab lands, that it's all caught by Kuni investigators...just proves how good the Crab are.

I'm not saying that those stories don't exist, just so that the Crab is not the happiest to have them around for a variety of reasons. I reckon the clan is supposed to be much more grounded in realities than question the Wall's (very real) effectiveness just to cover up desertion. That sounds more like a Crane thing. The Crab would call a desertion a desertion, end of story.

19 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

I'm not saying that those stories don't exist, just so that the Crab is not the happiest to have them around for a variety of reasons. I reckon the clan is supposed to be much more grounded in realities than question the Wall's (very real) effectiveness just to cover up desertion. That sounds more like a Crane thing. The Crab would call a desertion a desertion, end of story.

Yes, and a desertion caused by a demon bride is not just a desertion, it is also caused by a demon bride. That is grounded in reality, because it actually happened. They aren't making up a story, they're recounting a cautionary tale. "Remember, this is how it happened before. Learn from it and don't repeat it."

On 4/7/2020 at 5:21 PM, Hida Jitenno said:

Yes, and a desertion caused by a demon bride is not just a desertion, it is also caused by a demon bride.

I don't think that it would make much difference, in the end. Desertion is desertion, whether caused by a daemon wife or Lady Amaterasu herself. Getting anything involved is really just unnecessarily spicing up the lesson, especially if it presents an extreme case as a normal one. That's not a cautionary tale but fearmongering.