I have read very little of the FFG fiction. If I'm looking for information about the Lion-Unicorn conflict, does anyone have any fiction they would recommend?

I've read Rule from Horseback, the 2020 Clan Update (War Update - Shinjo), and the Across the Burning Sands novel, but that's basically it.

21 minutes ago, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

I have read very little of the FFG fiction. If I'm looking for information about the Lion-Unicorn conflict, does anyone have any fiction they would recommend?

I've read Rule from Horseback, the 2020 Clan Update (War Update - Shinjo), and the Across the Burning Sands novel, but that's basically it.

So, Curved Blades is the start of it all. Family Duty and A Swift End lead up to the novella on the Unicorn side. Cold Autumn Harvests gives you some info from the Lion's POV as the conflict approaches winter.

Can I suggest Kakita Kaori's timeline google sheet for links to the fiction, as well as a place to look for more?

Perfect! Thanks so much! This is very helpful information.

Was there some mentions of what happened BEFORE Curved Blades? The main premise sounded rather far-fetched. The Unicorn is marrying a clan champion away into a lower-ranking nobleAND giving off a dowry for a rather nebulous promise of peace. The Unicorn have been in Rokugan for "just" a few centuries for their diplomats to be blindsided by that. That sounds like they lost a war, but they don't seem to be too wary of starting one.

30 minutes ago, The_Shaman said:

Was there some mentions of what happened BEFORE Curved Blades? The main premise sounded rather far-fetched. The Unicorn is marrying a clan champion away into a lower-ranking nobleAND giving off a dowry for a rather nebulous promise of peace. The Unicorn have been in Rokugan for "just" a few centuries for their diplomats to be blindsided by that. That sounds like they lost a war, but they don't seem to be too wary of starting one.

I know right?

I find this particular “tricked by different customs” too far fetched and idiotic.

45 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I know right?

I find this particular “tricked by different customs” too far fetched and idiotic.

It probably made sense two and a half centuries ago, but after ten generations of courtiers, they probably would have picked up enough basic marriage customs, yeah. It sounded like a stupid "gotcha" from the Lions that shouldn't have worked.

I admit, it wasn't my favorite lore piece. I wasn't too impressed by the Phoenix in that story either.

3 hours ago, The_Shaman said:

Was there some mentions of what happened BEFORE Curved Blades? The main premise sounded rather far-fetched. The Unicorn is marrying a clan champion away into a lower-ranking nobleAND giving off a dowry for a rather nebulous promise of peace. The Unicorn have been in Rokugan for "just" a few centuries for their diplomats to be blindsided by that. That sounds like they lost a war, but they don't seem to be too wary of starting one.

The point seems to be that the Unicorn thought they had a family daimyo marrying into their Clan. Curved blades is, IIRC, amongst the first fiction written - one of the 7 released before even the LCG.

On 10/24/2020 at 7:38 PM, The_Shaman said:

It probably made sense two and a half centuries ago, but after ten generations of courtiers, they probably would have picked up enough basic marriage customs, yeah. It sounded like a stupid "gotcha" from the Lions that shouldn't have worked.

To be fair (under duress), there are virtually no families in Rokugan which use a gender-driven rule on who marries who.

As far as we know, it's literally just the Lion, and specifically only two families therein; just the Matsu (men marry in) and the Ikoma (women marry in), and they're not even entirely consistent on that - Akodo Arasou was not, as far as we know, about to give up on being Clan Champion to become Matsu Arasou. For everyone else , the custom is the lower status marries the higher status.

I agree it was literally a 'gotcha', and (assuming they wanted to start a war with it, which is clearly what Ikoma Ujiaki really wants given his behaviour to date*) it didn't work. Remember that Shinjo Altansarnai was prepared to give up the Championate in favour of her son, and give up her lover, for her duty to the clan. At the start of Curved Blades, the Unicorn have discovered the Ikoma marriage rules are 'a thing' and have gone " ah, bugger " but still accepted the deal . What broke it was refusing to watch an innocent third party be forced to commit suicide.

Since the peace treaty got binned in Curved Blades, we never find out much about it. We know what the Unicorn were giving up (Hisu Mori Toride, Unicorn warhorses, Altansarnai) but we don't know what guarantees they were actually getting.

The treaty is mentioned in passing in the Unicorn novella, Across The Burning Sands , by Ide Ryoma (who had a hand in reviewing it).

Apparently the written treaty said the wedding would be ' according to custom ' and that's it. Rokugani custom is, as noted above, that the lesser samurai joins the family of the greater (i.e. Shinjo Anakazu), and exceptions are sufficiently rare it's easy for it not to occur, since even the families that have them don't enforce them all the time. It was never said to the Unicorn that it was intended to be different until after it was signed, at which point the Lion insisted that the Ikoma custom was what was referred to.

Which is really stupid in the sense that there's no proof one way or another to a third party which 'custom' was intended by the signatories - but in that situation it comes down to who has the more pull in the courts, and frankly that's not the Unicorn, especially given the whole meishodo thing as this is before the Imperial ruling that it's 'legal'.

I'd actually be interested to know where the negotiations took place. Having them in Shiro Shinjo would put the Unicorn at a massive advantage (higher status people in the room and access to any experts and libraries), having them at Kyuden Ikoma wouldn't work (because if you're actually in the Ikoma's own castle you're much more likely to pick up on their customs and the fact the Daimyo is married before the Ikoma want you to). Which means they were probably done in the capital - which would make sense if Ujiaki was the Lion's lead negotiator since that's where he's always been when we've seen him 'on screen'. Which in turn makes me wonder if the negotiators might have had a certain member of the Imperial families as a mediator...

Was it an odd decision on the Unicorn's part? Kinda. It feels like the Ide were handed the idiot ball for this story, because out of any 'diplomat' family in the Empire, the Ide - who deal with Ujik and Qamarist ambassadors on a regular basis - should be the first people to question if 'traditional custom' means what they think it means.

Not so much on the Ikoma, since they seem to be taking every opportunity to find an excuse for all-out war. Offering an insulting treaty is fine and they probably never expected the Unicorn to actually go for it (we don't know specifically why they did).

What's a bigger failing on the Ide's part is never clocking that Ikoma Anakazu was already married. That seems like the sort of question you should ask when negotiating a marriage treaty - admittedly, assuming the party the other side is offering for marriage is actually free to marry seems like the sort of assumption that's forgivable, but it was the actual failure that derailed the treaty, not the wedding customs. And it is, in itself, further evidence that the Ikoma had no intention of allowing the peace treaty to proceed. If the Unicorn should have known Lion customs, then it's also incumbent on the Lion to know Unicorn customs - and with Compassion the single most important bushido tenet to the clan, breaking up a genuinely loving marriage and abandon a daughter (because Akari specifically said 'put us aside') for the sake of a piece of paper is going to be seen as incredibly insulting.

Either the Ikoma knew the Unicorn would find this insulting and did it anyway, or else they didn't know or care what the Unicorn would think which is a failure of duty on their part. Since Akari made it to Altansarnai's home - which would require Lion travel papers to reach from Kyuden Ikoma - we can probably assume it was the former.

* Setting up a rigged engagement, sending Ikoma/Asako Akari to Altansarnai, sending Matsu Mitsoko specifically to attack Hisu Mori Toride and then ordering her to 'hold at all cost' without providing her the troops to do so (and making sure a single 'witness' got away), ordering Lion border garrisons to raid Unicorn villages for food instead of supplying them themselves or allowing them to buy the food.

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Was it an odd decision on the Unicorn's part? Kinda. It feels like the Ide were handed the idiot ball for this story, because out of any 'diplomat' family in the Empire, the Ide - who deal with Ujik and Qamarist ambassadors on a regular basis - should be the first people to question if 'traditional custom' means what they think it means.

This, that's exactly the crux of the matter. It totally feels like Worf Effect *

* Warning : TV Tropes may ruin your life .

To be fair, we've consistently seen the Crane (in the person of Kakita Yoshi) outmaneuvered in the courts, the Scorpion (Kachiko) tie themselves up in their own clever plots so it all falls to pieces, the Phoenix (specifically the Elemental Council and their students) finding that the Kami aren't going to play nice anymore, the Crab (the Kuni daimyo) discovering they've become tainted without actually noticing, and the Lion losing the majority of the military engagements you see them fight.

The Unicorn are hardly alone in this.

On 9/28/2020 at 9:06 PM, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

I have read very little of the FFG fiction. If I'm looking for information about the Lion-Unicorn conflict, does anyone have any fiction they would recommend?

I've read Rule from Horseback, the 2020 Clan Update (War Update - Shinjo), and the Across the Burning Sands novel, but that's basically it.

Also A Swift End and Cold Autumn Harvest .

I've been thinking about how the Lion-Unicorn treaty got to where it was. Here are some guesses.

Arasou thinks he'd much rather be fighting Crane than Unicorn, so asks for the guy in the capital to get some sort of arrangment sorted out on this.

Ujiaki clearly wants to be fighting the Unicorn rather than the Crane [other than the Kolat supposition, I guess this is because territory gained from the Unicorn goes to the Ikoma??] so sets off to create some sort of easily sabotagable thing, full of tricks, gotchas and odd demands to make sure it falls through as no fault of his.

Altansarnai actually wants to get more integration into the Empire done. Despite 2 centuries, the Unicorn are still kinda outsiders, probably because one border is with a mountain range and the other one is with an army. She says to get this deal at whatever cost.

The Ide are already working on a deal with the Dragon (:shakes head: Never deal with a dragon) which is slightly odd and involves marrying people out of the Unicorn clan but is all actually in good faith. It's possible they imported some of the treaty clauses from a succesful relationship which had loopholes in but neither the Unicorn or Dragon are taking advantage of them.

Ujiaki keeps trying to covertly sabotage the deal, while the Unicorn agree to increasingly odd/ridiculous things until he finally sets up the marriage proposal between Anakazu and Altansarnai.

Curved Blades, which now reads as (the Kolat?) Ujiaki finally getting his way and a war.

13 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I guess this is because territory gained from the Unicorn goes to the Ikoma??

Unlikely - the 'historical claim' to Unicorn lands is explicitely a Matsu one. But you never know.

13 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Arasou thinks he'd much rather be fighting Crane than Unicorn, so asks for the guy in the capital to get some sort of arrangment sorted out on this.

Definitely. After all, the issue with the Unicorn was a centuries old legal dispute the historians and cartographers keep whinging about, whilst the issue with the Crane is that Tsume no Doji Retsu stormed Toshi Ranbo only few years ago and massacred the Goseki no Matsu family to the last man, woman and child.

Arasou was very much a lead-from-the-front-honour-and-glory-huzzah! sort of commander so it's hardly surprising he wanted to deal with the latter rather than the former.

3 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Unlikely - the 'historical claim' to Unicorn lands is explicitely a Matsu one. But you never know.

My thoughts were that, based on the 4e map, the Unicorn border is with the Ikoma provinces, whereas the Matsu are the southern part of the Lion Clan lands.

Right, for me the mistakes in negotiating the marriage terms were too egregious. The "we don't know the norms" doesn't fly after several hundred years, and considering the status of who is being married and the political implications you'd expect both sides to be going over the terms with a fine-toothed comb. I was also a bit nonnplussed at the lions trying a rather obvious ploy - weren't they supposedly the honorable ones? - but the Ikoma can be pretty cunning on the down low.

Even for an "idiot ball" moment it seemed a bit too much, to the point it is immersion-breaking. What's next, a great clan bushi not having heard that you're not supposed to touch another samurai's swords without permission?

On 10/27/2020 at 9:53 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

Unlikely - the 'historical claim' to Unicorn lands is explicitely a Matsu one. But you never know.

Definitely. After all, the issue with the Unicorn was a centuries old legal dispute the historians and cartographers keep whinging about, whilst the issue with the Crane is that Tsume no Doji Retsu stormed Toshi Ranbo only few years ago and massacred the Goseki no Matsu family to the last man, woman and child.

Arasou was very much a lead-from-the-front-honour-and-glory-huzzah! sort of commander so it's hardly surprising he wanted to deal with the latter rather than the former.

Actually, wouldn't the last part make him more willing to take on another warrior clan like the Unicorn, rather than the Crane where the outcome of the war may well be decided in court? I cannot remember just who mentioned it, but I think I came across an opinion in 4th that some of the older Lions are happy the clan actually has a serious rival rather than just minor clans to bully or the crane or scorpion, who would much retaliate with intrigue rather than on the battlefield. It struck me as a very interesting perspective.

7 hours ago, The_Shaman said:

Actually, wouldn't the last part make him more willing to take on another warrior clan like the Unicorn, rather than the Crane where the outcome of the war may well be decided in court? I cannot remember just who mentioned it, but I think I came across an opinion in 4th that some of the older Lions are happy the clan actually has a serious rival rather than just minor clans to bully or the crane or scorpion, who would much retaliate with intrigue rather than on the battlefield. It struck me as a very interesting perspective.

I wouldn't think so, because the Unicorn - from a Lion perspective - don't 'fight fair' and are (from a Lion perspective) neither especially honourable nor entertaining to fight, relying as they do heavily on hit-and-run engagements, mounted archers, and shock cavalry that's something alien to Lion tactics (which is all about mass infantry warfare and heroic duels).

The Crane may try to make the outcome irrelevant in the courts, but at least they fight the actual battle in the same manner as the Lion and hence you get a 'proper' battle - notice that all Lion/Unicorn battles shown have been a completely one-sided massacre one way or the other.

Also, forcing the Unicorn into battle when they clearly didn't want to fight is a slow and frustrating process, whilst Toshi Ranbo, by it's very nature, is always going to be right there to attack. Arasou never struck me as patient.

Which is ironic considering that Akodo One-Eye said that “in war, all is fair”. It makes me wonder what Akodo-Kami would think of his children today.

3 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Which is ironic considering that Akodo One-Eye said that “in war, all is fair”. It makes me wonder what Akodo-Kami would think of his children today.

Blame Hantei Muhaki (or, since one can't blame the Emperor for anything, blame Kakita Kuga). The 'actual' text of Leadership was gutted of anything talking about the use of Deception in warfare. Only the Lion Clan champion gets to read the unexpurgated version, and by the time they've reached that high a position most people's prejudices would already be set in stone.

Lol, I had to check for that one. Funnily enough, I played a character called Kakita Kuga who was totally fine in deception in warfare 😂