The Emerald Empire book gives the Imperial Families a +1 Air, but I don't think this reflects the nature that has been displayed in the stories, at least not in this version of Rokugan. Certainly if one thinks that courts mean Air and that we see them most often in courts, it is easy to imagine how one would arrive at that conclusion. However, whenever it comes to utilizing skills in an air style within the fiction-- we just see them failing and floundering over and over.

• They are really bad at manipulating people
• They can't seem to wrap their speech up in nuisance and simply imply things
• They lose every time they try outwitting or outmaneuvering people in games
• They can't perceive intruders literally inches from their face
• They seem to have little clue when it comes to stirring people's emotions positively using fashion or poetry, their attempts tend to fail

In other words, we see them trying again and again to act like an "Air" clan, only to repeatedly fail-- not just in the face of the Crane and Scorpion, but before the Unicorn and Lion as well. One might conclude that they are simply bad at everything, but there have been hints that they are quite competent at a number of things. It almost seems like a lot of the ceremony and things that are considered fine and valuable within Rokugan society weren't decided by what they excel at, but perhaps rather generation after generation of listening to Crane (and to a lesser extent Scorpion) advisors about how things should be.

• They are able to identify flaws within their own social systems, see how it doesn't line up with the tao or what would be most efficient
• They can immediately detect when others are being untruthful and quickly piece together what has happened from the evidence at hand.
• They recall all those they have encountered despite being exposed to far more people than other "clans" are
• They are good at guarding things, fighting defensively and safely transporting things
• They can organize things well, handling large amounts of reports and paperwork
• They are good at utilizing practical and grounded solutions to problems, reflected in them being more comfortable in simple brown and gray traveling clothes than the finest eye-catching robes

All of these things strike me very much as the traits of an Earth group. Like they naturally have far more in common with the Crab than they do with the Crane and Scorpion. The Crab also seem to struggle with the exact same sorts of things that the Imperials are struggling at and excel at the same sort of things too. And the Crab's clan bonus? Earth. Couldn't be further from Air.

And one could certainly imagine that in the earliest days of the empire, before all the unnecessary customs and traditions began to disrupt proceedings, having an Emperor who can see through all the distractions and deceptions to order the most practical solution to issues based on the evidence at hand would be seen as a good and wise ruler. But the more and more they allowed things to become all about appearance, swaying emotions and having a swift blade-- the more and more they found themselves simply out of their depths.

So I guess what I am suggesting is that the Imperials are actually an Earth "clan" who have been operating for generations in an environment that has become increasingly "Air" in customs and values. And while they could just force their way through via tradition and privilege, they have been forced to more and more to try to compete and aim to excel at things that are the polar opposite of their true nature. It was inevitable that they would lose their footing, screw things up and fall-- because instead of being allowed who they are naturally supposed to be and play the role in the empire they would do best, they are spending all their lives trying again and again at being something they are not.

But then-- most of this "attempting to be Air" applies only to the imperial court. I think if one met Seppun, Miya and Otomo out there in the empire who are serving as cartographers, bureaucrats, temple guards, magistrates, and so on-- I suspect they are generally quite good at their roles and I suspect they would all have higher Earth than Air.

Before I start, I would say that if the GM says that the Imperial Families get a +1 Earth bonus instead of a +1 Air bonus, that's totally okay. It's your Rokugan.

---

I confess to not reading the stories, but I still think the bonus is probably correct. The bonus is a +1 to Air, which does imply a lot of things, but doesn't mean that people have to be competent in Air-related stuff and not competent in Earth-related stuff. You can have characters that get official training in Air, enough to do decent in courts, and then decide that it's better for the Empire to stop studying Air and instead focus on Earth.

The Imperial Families "clan" gets a +1 Air bonus. But you have to specialize in one of three specific families...and two of those families are willing to embrace Earth. The Seppun, in particular, shun Air entirely.

• Miya: +1 Air or +1 Earth
• Otomo: +1 Air or +1 Water
• Seppun: +1 Earth or +1 Void

Furthermore, each character has the right to influence their own curriculum to some degree. In Question 4 of the 20 Questions character creation system, players are asked "How does your character sand out within their school?" They can pick a trait that gives them a Ring bonus as well. If someone is sympathetic to Earth, they would pick "Thoroughness, patience, and calm" and claim a +1 Earth bonus. And maybe most Imperials decide that maintaining the empire doesn't require the customs, traditions and appearances that Air support...that it requires the practicality that only Earth offers. Perhaps Imperial academies stress to their students that it is important to study Air officially...and Earth unofficially.

So my guess is what is happening in the fiction is that most Imperials are getting a +1 Air from their basic training, but doesn't try to get more Air bonuses after that. They either get +2 Earth (if they are Miya or Seppun) or +1 Earth, +1 Water (if they are Otomo). That's enough to explain why they might flounder when actually using their Air ring, while doing well in non-Air related matters.

Short answer: The Worf Effect.

It was a big problem under AEG and you can probably expect to see a lot of it under FFG as well. It's just the nature of L5R, when the whole setting is organized into groups who are good at "thing"s, then you can expect to see every time in the fictions that when someone or something shows up who is also supposed to be good at "thing" then the fact will be displayed by them one upping someone from the group that is supposed to be good at "thing".

The Crab will always be overrun, the Scorpion will always be outwitted, the Crane will always be outmaneuvered, the Lion will always be defeated, the Phoenix will always be corrupted, the Unicorn will always be... out... horsed?, the Dragon will be out fortune-cookied, and the imperials will always look bad at doing everything imperials are supposed to do. Because otherwise no antagonist will actually look like threats.

But it isn't as though they aren't competent at anything though.

When the Emperor was murdered, despite Kachiko having already done quite a lot to cover it up, including having her favorite servants slaughtered, Miya Satoshi walked in and immediately realized the Emperor had been murdered. When Kachiko told him it wasn't her but Sotorii, he knew she wasn't lying.

It isn't hard to tell when a Scorpion is lying-- the fact that their mouths are moving is a dead give-away. But detecting the one time a Scorpion isn't lying-- well, that's pretty impressive.

When Akodo Toturi was attacked and nearly killed, Seppun Ishikawa took one stroll through the house and immediately put together that it was a shinobi attack and one of them was disguised as a palace guard and that the Scorpion were behind it just from the little evidence left behind.

And I look in the RPG book and well... these kinds of things are Earth-ring rolls. And there are surely plenty of other examples. Daisetsu realizing there are structural inefficiencies in the Rokugani government and implying he might implement changes to the social structure if elected Emperor. The Emperor going against tradition to make the practical choice of giving the throne to his more level-headed son because he could sense that Sotorii was in desperate need of getting away from the toxic environment of the palace and getting some actual proper experience and training.

Plus, it would make quite a lot of sense if the Kami and those who took after them matched up to the rings.

Air - Bayushi and Doji
Earth - Hantei and Hida
Fire - Fu Leng and Togashi
Water - Akodo and Shinjo
Void - Ryoshun and Shiba

Each ring gets 2 Kami and thus those who take after the Kami and aim to emulate them would naturally display those rings. It really makes less sense for there to be 3 Air "clans".

Although, in 4th edition, the Hantei family (if one of the other siblings became Emperor) would have a +1 Void.

Why are these Earth things? Analyze (or Survey, in the second case) sound much more appropriate. Which, hey, that's Air (or Water). Earth's Recall makes no sense in these situations.

5 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

But it isn't as though they aren't competent at anything though.

When the Emperor was murdered, despite Kachiko having already done quite a lot to cover it up, including having her favorite servants slaughtered, Miya Satoshi walked in and immediately realized the Emperor had been murdered. When Kachiko told him it wasn't her but Sotorii, he knew she wasn't lying.

It isn't hard to tell when a Scorpion is lying-- the fact that their mouths are moving is a dead give-away. But detecting the one time a Scorpion isn't lying-- well, that's pretty impressive.

When Akodo Toturi was attacked and nearly killed, Seppun Ishikawa took one stroll through the house and immediately put together that it was a shinobi attack and one of them was disguised as a palace guard and that the Scorpion were behind it just from the little evidence left behind.

And I look in the RPG book and well... these kinds of things are Earth-ring rolls. And there are surely plenty of other examples. Daisetsu realizing there are structural inefficiencies in the Rokugani government and implying he might implement changes to the social structure if elected Emperor. The Emperor going against tradition to make the practical choice of giving the throne to his more level-headed son because he could sense that Sotorii was in desperate need of getting away from the toxic environment of the palace and getting some actual proper experience and training.

Plus, it would make quite a lot of sense if the Kami and those who took after them matched up to the rings.

Air - Bayushi and Doji
Earth - Hantei and Hida
Fire - Fu Leng and Togashi
Water - Akodo and Shinjo
Void - Ryoshun and Shiba

Each ring gets 2 Kami and thus those who take after the Kami and aim to emulate them would naturally display those rings. It really makes less sense for there to be 3 Air "clans".

I think you expect the Scorpian to be lying far more often than they actually do so. If the scorpion lie as much as you think they do they would never be trusted their lies would be ineffective. So no the scorpian do not alway lie. in fact it would extremely rare

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

So no the scorpian do not alway lie. in fact it would extremely rare

Found the Scorpion. (jk 🙃 )

1 hour ago, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

Found the Scorpion. (jk 🙃 )

nope. Dragon. But think about it. Who is going to believe a group of people who lie every time?

2 hours ago, Daeglan said:

nope. Dragon. But think about it. Who is going to believe a group of people who lie every time?

The classic liar's paradox. But, a good con artist or even an agent provocateur knows that sometime the truth works much better than a well crafted lie. Indeed, the best liars know how to use half-truths to great effect.

"The truth she speaks may not be the truth you think you hear," -proverb about the Aes Sedai in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

5 hours ago, Daeglan said:

I think you expect the Scorpian to be lying far more often than they actually do so. If the scorpion lie as much as you think they do they would never be trusted their lies would be ineffective. So no the scorpian do not alway lie. in fact it would extremely rare

The Scorpion walk around wearing masks all the time and spout off about their frog and scorpion fable every chance they get to tell people that they are going to betray them even if it means destroying themselves because that's just their nature.

And yet people in Rokugan continue to trust them even though it always turns out badly. The other clans just get hit with the dumb stick whenever they are around the Scorpion clan and are incapable of ever learning.

1 minute ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

The Scorpion walk around wearing masks all the time and spout off about their frog and scorpion fable every chance they get to tell people that they are going to betray them even if it means destroying themselves because that's just their nature.

And yet people in Rokugan continue to trust them even though it always turns out badly. The other clans just get hit with the dumb stick whenever they are around the Scorpion clan and are incapable of ever learning.

looking at the lore that doesnt happen as much as people think. It cant. because if it did they would have been destroyed generations ago. That is the biggest problem with the old lore. and why the new lore is so much better.

1 hour ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

The Scorpion walk around wearing masks all the time and spout off about their frog and scorpion fable every chance they get to tell people that they are going to betray them even if it means destroying themselves because that's just their nature.

And yet people in Rokugan continue to trust them even though it always turns out badly. The other clans just get hit with the dumb stick whenever they are around the Scorpion clan and are incapable of ever learning.

Actually they don’t go about telling that. And about the mask, I am sure that the Bayushi follow this tradition to a greater degree and the rest not so much.
Of course, the lore says one thing and the art in the cards might say another.

Also, that is extremely clanist 😂

4 hours ago, neilcell said:

The classic liar's paradox. But, a good con artist or even an agent provocateur knows that sometime the truth works much better than a well crafted lie. Indeed, the best liars know how to use half-truths to great effect.

"The truth she speaks may not be the truth you think you hear," -proverb about the Aes Sedai in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

"What is your name?"

"You can call me Moiraine."

5 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Actually they don’t go about telling that. And about the mask, I am sure that the Bayushi follow this tradition to a greater degree and the rest not so much.
Of course, the lore says one thing and the art in the cards might say another.

Also, that is extremely clanist 😂

I don’t know about current lore (gotta wait until there’s a scorpion book for that I think), but 4th ed « great clans » book spells it clearly : « all scorpion samurai wear masks at all times » regardless of family (page 207, scorpion masks side note)

4 hours ago, MB -Fr- said:

I don’t know about current lore (gotta wait until there’s a scorpion book for that I think), but 4th ed « great clans » book spells it clearly : « all scorpion samurai wear masks at all times » regardless of family (page 207, scorpion masks side note)

No we don't. You can look in the core book and Emerald Empire

There’s only a short reference to masks in the core book when reading about the scorpion clan in general but I might misremember something from 4th edition as @MB -Fr- pointed out specifically in the great clans mention that the clan wears masks all the time because I remember reading something how most Yogo don’t actually wear a mask. (Also, it’s the kind of thing that might look cool on paper but the logistics of this in real life would be a pain).

16 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Also, it’s the kind of thing that might look cool on paper but the logistics of this in real life would be a pain.

At the risk of getting flamed, we are kind of learning first hand the practical application of mask wearing. Think of it as empirical data testing the theory.

27 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

No we don't. You can look in the core book and Emerald Empire

CRB & EE give only basic information on the clans compared to the descriptions in the books so far

21 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

There’s only a short reference to masks in the core book when reading about the scorpion clan in general but I might misremember something from 4th edition as @MB -Fr- pointed out specifically in the great clans mention that the clan wears masks all the time because I remember reading something how most Yogo don’t actually wear a mask. (Also, it’s the kind of thing that might look cool on paper but the logistics of this in real life would be a pain).

Well that might be due to an earlier ed stating otherwise, L5r canon did evolve. But as mentioned the last ed before this one stated ubiquitous masks when the scorpions want to announce they’re scorpions

20 minutes ago, MB -Fr- said:

Well that might be due to an earlier ed stating otherwise, L5r canon did evolve. But as mentioned the last ed before this one stated ubiquitous masks when the scorpions want to announce they’re scorpions

Besides all the color coding?

I understand colourful dress code and banners for military purposes but it kind of gives me an eye roll when every depiction of a samurai in the card games where you can tell instantly which clan they belong to because of the color of their clothes. I mean, there’s a forking card with a Daidoji Harrier dressed in CELESTIAL BLUE ninjawear. How ridiculous is that?

15 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Besides all the color coding?

I understand colourful dress code and banners for military purposes but it kind of gives me an eye roll when every depiction of a samurai in the card games where you can tell instantly which clan they belong to because of the color of their clothes. I mean, there’s a forking card with a Daidoji Harrier dressed in CELESTIAL BLUE ninjawear. How ridiculous is that?

Ninjawear is a bad example anyway because it has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever and ninja movies tend to color code for convenience (what's recognized as ninjawear is really an adaptation of the outfit japanese puppet theater stagehands wear)

26 minutes ago, MB -Fr- said:

Ninjawear is a bad example anyway because it has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever and ninja movies tend to color code for convenience (what's recognized as ninjawear is really an adaptation of the outfit japanese puppet theater stagehands wear)

Oh, I know about the origins of it. It’s just that it makes it even more silly when you know the origin of it and how it was taken by movies to a whole new level of silliness. But the color coding still applies anyway. I mean, why can’t a Crane courtier fashionista wear orange or red?

11 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Oh, I know about the origins of it. It’s just that it makes it even more silly when you know the origin of it and how it was taken by movies to a whole new level of silliness. But the color coding still applies anyway. I mean, why can’t a Crane courtier fashionista wear orange or red?

they occasionally do already

while most TCG pictures show people in their clan colors to make their ID more obvious, there ARE pictures of clan members in different colors, here's 2 for example:

https://l5r.fandom.com/wiki/Daidoji_Enai

https://l5r.fandom.com/wiki/Hira