Just got my copy of Celestial Realms - one thing to note, from the short story at the start of one of the chapters:

Lady Moshi ascended the final steps of the path leading to the Shrine of the Lady Sun. At the top, she lit incense and placed it in an offering bowl at the statue’s feet, the scent of orange and clove filling the air. She reached into her robes, producing a piece of paper, and folded it expertly as she spoke.

“Mother Sun, you knew me before I knew myself…” Lady Moshi smiled. It was true that when her parents had been under the mistaken belief that they had a son, it had taken them all by surprise when Amaterasu began to speak to her. “…and so I have come to you for guidance. I can sense an imbalance in the world, within the elements themselves.” She frowned, staring down at the origami flower she had made.

Suddenly, flame surrounded the paper flower, crumbling the delicate petals and filling Lady Moshi’s unscorched hands with ash. She was overcome with a vision, images captured in the dancing fire.
She stood, ash swirling around her. Her goddess had given her a duty, and she would not fail her.

So the Centipede clan are explicitely aware of the Elemental Imbalance, and Moshi Chiasa, the Clan Champion, has been given some sort of instructions on what she needs to do about it.

Yes, I saw that. Possibly exterminate the Phoenix and Mantis? 😂

Seems a bit unrealistic for a single minor clan, but never underestimate a very angry woman with spontaneous access to vast amounts of magical fire.

And with the backing of Lady Sun herself.

That might not be the thing with the most unsettling implications in that piece of writing.

But, honestly, I feel skeptical that any shugenja who actively use elemental magic on a regular basis should at all be unaware of the imbalance. It is a bit like the Dragon Clan trying to keep quiet that their volcanos all erupted when the black ash and smoke can be seen quite plainly across the Unicorn, Phoenix and Lion Clan lands in the very least.

As an aside to this point, I'm not sure if anybody else has mentioned it, but it was very interesting to see the gender representation on that story.

Lady Moshi is distinctly implied to be transgender, since her parents thought she was a son, but Amaterasu only speaks to women. So when Moshi Chiasi started hearing Lady Sun, that meant she must have always been a woman all along. It's even presented like she always knew that she was supposed to be female, but didn't know herself, which is similar to how some people describe gender disphoria.

35 minutes ago, Pompz1 said:

As an aside to this point, I'm not sure if anybody else has mentioned it, but it was very interesting to see the gender representation on that story.

Lady Moshi is distinctly implied to be transgender, since her parents thought she was a son, but Amaterasu only speaks to women. So when Moshi Chiasi started hearing Lady Sun, that meant she must have always been a woman all along. It's even presented like she always knew that she was supposed to be female, but didn't know herself, which is similar to how some people describe gender disphoria.

That's what I meant by not the most unsettling implication.

The Moshi family apparently presumes that anyone who can interact with... the kami.... or... what exactly does "hearing the voice of Amaterasu" mean?...

Well, regardless, they presume that makes them a woman and force them into those gender/sexual characteristics so that they don't have to change their own perspectives on the world... even though literally every other clan has shugenja of both sexes.

So while it is transgender representation, it also heavily implies it is forced transgenderism onto an individual by their family.

One can argue both that "well, having this ability absolutely proves their soul is female and was born into the wrong body" as well as "the members of this clan are so certain, for no particularly clear reason, that a celestial mother who had mostly sons would never deem to communicate with a boy and thus forced body modification onto a child in order to preserve their own personal prejudices and has internalized those prejudices as an adult"

I guess the writer expects an applause for what they meant to do and ignore the uncomfortable implications if one fully considers the presented scenario. But I don't know to what degree transgendered people would feel about their representation being "this family forces non-biological gender conformity upon individuals that display a particular set of skills or abilities."

1 hour ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

The Moshi family apparently presumes that anyone who can interact with... the kami.... or... what exactly does "hearing the voice of Amaterasu" mean?...

Hearing the voice of Amaterasu means exactly that: Lady Sun started speaking to them. Given that Amaterasu is served by priestesses, someone born biologically male hearing the voice of the Goddess would raise an eyebrow. Now, one could see that as Amaterasu forcing a gender identity on Lady Moshi, but in Rokugan samurai are born with a specific dharma; a destiny and place in the Celestial Order. If Amaterasu deems that Lady Moshi's place is as her High Priestess, that's her prerogative as Chief of the Fortunes, and Lady Moshi's soul will be judged on how well she performed that duty in life. If Lady Moshi, transgender or not, wasn't particularly religious and had no interest in venerating the Sun? Not getting into Yomi with that attitude.

6 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

But, honestly, I feel skeptical that any shugenja who actively use elemental magic on a regular basis should at all be unaware of the imbalance.

We have some business in one of Kaede's POV bits where the imbalance is "spreading" to the Lion lands. So at least some of the characters think that there is a geographic component or scope in play.

Early Phoenix stories had stuff going wrong with some frequency, although the Council also plainly seems to be keeping the worst of it even from their own rank and file, with the Master of Fire's apprentice taking the blame for a spell going haywire.

Meanwhile, we have several depictions of Mantis shugenja using elemental magic and it's just business as usual, with zero indication of any difficulty. In addition, we have now seen Scorpion and Crab shugenja doing their thing without a hiccup.

The Centipede are heavily mystical and not that far removed, physically, from the Phoenix, so their figuring out it's happening before, say, the Unicorn, makes a fair degree of sense.

Suffice it to say, I think the picture we have of the situation is incomplete. Less incomplete than what the characters in-setting have to work with, but still full of gaps.

16 hours ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

Hearing the voice of Amaterasu means exactly that: Lady Sun started speaking to them. Given that Amaterasu is served by priestesses, someone born biologically male hearing the voice of the Goddess would raise an eyebrow. Now, one could see that as Amaterasu forcing a gender identity on Lady Moshi, but in Rokugan samurai are born with a specific dharma; a destiny and place in the Celestial Order. If Amaterasu deems that Lady Moshi's place is as her High Priestess, that's her prerogative as Chief of the Fortunes, and Lady Moshi's soul will be judged on how well she performed that duty in life. If Lady Moshi, transgender or not, wasn't particularly religious and had no interest in venerating the Sun? Not getting into Yomi with that attitude.

If there are individuals that THE primary deity of the entire setting indisputably and verifiably communicates with and through, then what exactly is the point of having an Emperor? No one descended from the son of the Sun is going to have the divine wisdom, knowledge and foresight of an eternal goddess who oversees all. If it were an actual thing that was absolutely true and no one in Rokugan could dispute, then everyone would have long ago agreed to depose the emperor in favor of whatever vessel the mother of all living things was choosing communicate through and affect change in Rokugan.

And why have they not already destroyed the Shadowlands? Amaterasu would undoubtedly have the power to seal the pit of Jigoku and/or fix Fu Leng were she to have any power to affect anything within ningendo at all.

That indicates "hearing the voice of Amaterasu" means absolutely nothing beyond the empty, totally questionable claims of a splinter group from the Phoenix lands that live in a tiny little peninsula and come across as borderline mad to everyone else beyond their insular little group. It bears all the weight of any other cult leader claiming that the voices in their head are those of god.

Maybe their own little wacky clan thinks it is the voice of Amaterasu-- but very obviously no one else in the empire believes them. Which means also there is plenty of reason to disbelieve them.

13 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

If there are individuals that THE primary deity of the entire setting indisputably and verifiably communicates with and through, then what exactly is the point of having an Emperor?

The Emperor rules with the Divine Mandate of Heaven. Hantei Genji, the second Emperor inherited it from his father Hantei-no-Kami who received it from his mother Amaterasu after the Tournament of the Kami at the dawn of the empire. Amaterasu & Onnotangu were largely unconcerned with events on the mortal realm until their children ended up there.

13 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

And why have they not already destroyed the Shadowlands? Amaterasu would undoubtedly have the power to seal the pit of Jigoku and/or fix Fu Leng were she to have any power to affect anything within ningendo at all.

Because Amaterasu is not an all-powerful creator god. Because Jigoku exists and has its own place and purpose in the Celestial Heavens. The Fortunes are constrained by the rules and limitations of their existence. And because Onnotangu gets a say too, and Lord Moon hates like it’s nobody else’s business.

FYI - The term transgenderism is a term that's used pretty much just in anti-trans circles, as part of the "transgender people converting our children" accusations. It is best avoided.

(And one can hardly be forced to be transgender - transgender is something you are or are not, deep down. One can be forced to pretend to be, at most; one can be mistakenly identified as, but being forced to be transgender is pretty much a no-go. Forced to transition is probably more accurate to what you are talking about).

As for the rest, the link between the Centipede and Amaterasu was well established in every aspect of the old game; while of course the new game can do differently, I would argue that if the same clan is presented as being the priestesses of the same godess in the new canon, the reasonable assumption is that until evidence otherwise is presented, it is likely true here also.

9 hours ago, Himoto said:

As for the rest, the link between the Centipede and Amaterasu was well established in every aspect of the old game; while of course the new game can do differently, I would argue that if the same clan is presented as being the priestesses of the same godess in the new canon, the reasonable assumption is that until evidence otherwise is presented, it is likely true here also.

Well, this in particular is drawn from Celestial Realms - rather than being a piece of fiction, it's an RPG sourcebook - that is, whilst it may be 'legends', said legends are being related to the GM in the form of a third-party-narrator reading the stage directions, rather than as an in-setting script. So we can be broadly confident it's true.

On 12/4/2020 at 9:03 PM, Doji Hyōkin said:

Given that Amaterasu is served by priestesses, someone born biologically male hearing the voice of the Goddess would raise an eyebrow.

One thing they've done in the new setting is specifically called out that almost all full-blood Moshi are female; that is, rather than having a question of a matriarchal clan by law, it's generally matriarchal because if a Centipede samurai has a child, most of the time it's a girl, leading to a matriarchal setup kind of by default where most male characters are lower status individuals who've married in, or students who, however respected, don't get a say in the running of the clan.

"One effect of the Blessing of Amaterasu is that any child born within the valley has a much higher chance of being female than one born anywhere else in Rokugan; female
children outnumber children of other genders three to one. As a result, most daimyō, priests, and other officials of the Centipede Clan tend to be women."

"The Centipede Clan Champion and daimyō of the Moshi family can only be someone who has heard Amaterasu’s voice. The one who holds this position receives the title “Mother of the Centipede,” or “Parent of the Centipede.” Whichever version is used, the title is a source of great cultural pride."

Also, there is some not-just-in-her-head evidence for Chiasa having Ameratsu's blessing:

"A keen observer may notice that the goddess tends to dote on the young woman like a mother following a child. Chiasa never gets stuck out in the rain, never has her hat pulled from her by a strong gust of wind, and never seems to feel cold outside, even during the winter. Indeed, temperate weather appears to follow her wherever she goes, and she always seems lit by a convenient ray of light."

.....I'm now going to have to come up with some sort of RPG session which involves her trying to sneak somewhere, with essentially a glowing evening sunbeam spotlighting her (and the PCs) the entire time.

Yes, I liked this solution to explain why the Moshi are “matriarchal” in a setting where there’s no overall difference in treatment between male and female (compared to first edition, for instance). Although that still doesn’t explain the Utaku and possibly the Matsu.

On 12/6/2020 at 11:44 AM, Doji Hyōkin said:

The Emperor rules with the Divine Mandate of Heaven. Hantei Genji, the second Emperor inherited it from his father Hantei-no-Kami who received it from his mother Amaterasu after the Tournament of the Kami at the dawn of the empire. Amaterasu & Onnotangu were largely unconcerned with events on the mortal realm until their children ended up there.

That's just the thing-- the Hantei line gets its right to rule at all from someone that was granted by Hantei himself which was granted by his mother. The right to rule derives directly from Amaterasu. If everyone within the empire absolutely agrees that objectively you have this person who is a direct line to Amaterasu-- there is no longer a need for a facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile on the throne-- you have a direct line. Put the Oracle of Amaterasu in charge of making the wide-sweeping decisions for the empire.

Certainly a family that can produce definitive Oracles of Amaterasu and express her voice and will would be considered among the most important families in all of Rokugan. Even if not handing Amaterasu's puppet the throne just as the puppets of Togashi rule the Dragon Clan, then in the very least one would be appointed an Imperial Advisor or Imperial Oracle and people from all throughout Rokugan would be traveling to the Centipede lands to seek advise.

But-- that's just simply not the case. The Centipede are a Minor Clan, and even pretty far down the list as far as Minor Clans go. They are small, they are generally forgotten and while holding some lands along the coast, they are generally not considered important. No one makes pilgrimages there and they are not under investigation and experimentation to see what could possibly be gleaned from having a direct line to the grand divinity.

So any claim to "hearing the voice of Amaterasu" has to be considered some completely subjective interpretation of whatever is going on by this particular clan. And it is an insular cultural view, some subjective religious practice that they have built their own clan's pride upon and thus invested in this whole idea that-- whatever the **** 'hearing the voice of Amaterasu' means for them and no one else in the entirety of the empire....

Well, they are going to force gender expression upon people in order to maintain this political/cultural standard.

Now-- granted-- in reality gender expression/practices are always forced upon children regardless. And a lot of what even is gender expression is entirely cultural to begin with.

But it certainly feels way more insidious when a parent decides to tell a child they were born with the wrong genitalia because they have a certain ability, desire, interest or hobby. Any such inference that one was "born wrong" should not be coming from the parents or community.

1 hour ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Put the Oracle of Amaterasu in charge of making the wide-sweeping decisions for the empire.

Historically, the Pope has been God’s speaker on Earth and crowned Holy Emperors. The Catholic world did not rise up with one voice to make the Pope God-King of the World.

The Kami understand the Mandate of Heaven as having passed from Amaterasu to Hantei. The Rokugani understand that Hantei’s descendants inherit his divine blessing.

Lady Moshi is Amaterasu’s Pope, and the Centipede Clan as a whole concerns itself with maintaining Amaterasu Seido, the most important temple to their faith; a duty with a far greater spiritual significance than managing the secular matters of rice farming.

1 hour ago, Doji Hyōkin said:

Historically, the Pope has been God’s speaker on Earth and crowned Holy Emperors. The Catholic world did not rise up with one voice to make the Pope God-King of the World.

The Kami understand the Mandate of Heaven as having passed from Amaterasu to Hantei. The Rokugani understand that Hantei’s descendants inherit his divine blessing.

Lady Moshi is Amaterasu’s Pope, and the Centipede Clan as a whole concerns itself with maintaining Amaterasu Seido, the most important temple to their faith; a duty with a far greater spiritual significance than managing the secular matters of rice farming.

`I think that analogy precisely highlights the issue here.

The Pope carried a vast power throughout the history of Europe, above that of any of the Kings. His word and verdict was that of God and all Kings had to bow down and obey his will. To the extent that there were vast wars when people declared that they no longer had to obey the Pope (Protestant) or when the King of England decided that he didn't like the policy of the Church and broke off to create his own Catholic-like church in England-- a distance only possible due to being an island nation that it would have been ineffective for those under control of the Pope to go to war with.

The church declaring that they wished to control the lands described within the bible is what made the Crusades even a thing.

And to this day, when most Christians have come to the realization that the whole organized religion thing is just utterly wrong and leads only to immortality and either keep up religion as only a cultural practice or choose their own personal interpretation of Christianity to use as a moral guide (or political cudgel), the Vatican is still considered to be a sovereign nation in the middle of Italy that is utterly exempt from most of the laws within Europe and in direct control of the Pope and has vast financial and political influence.

The Centipede Clan within Rokugan has virtually no influence or power, no one really gives a **** about them and their weird practices. Were they remotely analogous to the Pope, they would have vast powers that exceed those of the Emperor and would be the single richest and most politically influential force in Rokugan. But-- they are not. They are considered a small, weird, cult-like group that is dismissed by all of the Great Clans and afforded no more respect than any other Minor Clan.

That very much directly indicates that no one beyond their own little clan is remotely convinced that they have a direct line to the highest divinity. So any radical decisions they have made based on such claims can only be regarded as decisions taken to further a personal view held only by themselves and done in order to advance their own political and faith-based goals.

2 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

His word and verdict was that of God and all Kings had to bow down and obey his will.

That’s incredibly reductive of the thousand years of politics that defined the Holy Roman Empire.

10 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

The Pope carried a vast power throughout the history of Europe, above that of any of the Kings. His word and verdict was that of God and all Kings had to bow down and obey his will. To the extent that there were vast wars when people declared that they no longer had to obey the Pope (Protestant) or when the King of England decided that he didn't like the policy of the Church and broke off to create his own Catholic-like church in England-- a distance only possible due to being an island nation that it would have been ineffective for those under control of the Pope to go to war with.

There were numerous conflicts between...most every European king and the Pope (not the Church; half the time the Church in the relevant country sided with the King, not the Pope) over who had the final say in what. Kings *read* their bible, kings *knew* their bible, and they most certainly and especially knew the part which says "Render unto Caesar's the things that are Caesar's". And they were very, very, very protectie of the things that are Caesar's (eg, theirs).

Kings and Popes fought centuries-long tugs of war (and at times actual war) over whether the Church or the State had the authority to appoint bishops (and the solution - the Pope appoints, but the bishop swears fealty to the king) was a compromise, not the pope getting it all). The Church and King of France established an entire religious framework that claimed papal authority was limited strictly to spiritual affairs. Rome (with the Pope in it) was sacked, besieged or otherwise attacked by multiple Christian kings - multiple Holy Roman Emperors even (Henry IV, Charles V). The Pope went nuclear at the Holy Roman Emperor (Excommunication, the ultimate punishment within the authority of the Church), without successfully unseating them as a result. And the pope spent long centuries at multiple time being essentially politically irreleant - the Bishop of Rome (sometimes not even politically powerful enough to actually live in Rome) and little more.

The Wars of Religion had fairly little to do with the authority of the Pope and almost everything to do with the intersection of temporal politics and faith - much of the fighting was over vassals claiming a different (heretical) faith than their liege. It was the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, of assorted French dukes and princes, of the Spanish King in the Netherlands that were in question. Not the authority of the peope. And it was realpolitiks that fed into them - economic and military rivalries between the established Spanish empire and the global seafaring ambitions of Elizabethan England and its desire for an European mainland foothold post-fall of Calais that led to the Armada; hereditary disputes over the Bohemian throne and Swedisn and Danish ambitions that fed the Thirty Years War. The greatest evidence that the Thirty Years War was less about enforcing the will of the pope and more about realpolitik is, of course, the fact that the French, at the behest of a prime minister who was no less than a *Cardinal*...sided with the Protestants because at the end, the will of the pope and spiritual heresy didn't hold a candle before a temporal opportunity to break the Habsburg dominion over half of Europe.

Spiritual power sometimes translate to political power. But there's no univeral rule to it, and nothing shocking to the priestesses of Amaterasu being limited to specific roles (Especially as Rokugan is polytheistic, not montheistic: the priestesses of Amaterasu may speak the direct will of the prime Goddess, , but then shugenja in general speak to (and transmit the will of) spirits of varying level of divinity (that's what a kami *is*, after all), and ultimately it's the person with the mandate of heaven who speak for all of the Heaven. That is the Emperor.

The comparison between the Emperor of Rokugan or the daimyō of the Centipede to the Pope is not really a good one because the Emperor represented both secular authority as well as religious authority. The best comparison would be with the Khalifahs. In a way, IF the Centiped daimyō was declaring herself the one with the Mandate of Heaven instead of the Hantei line, you would have something similar to the sunni-shia conflicting view on succession.

On 12/7/2020 at 5:43 PM, DSalazar said:

Yes, I liked this solution to explain why the Moshi are “matriarchal” in a setting where there’s no overall difference in treatment between male and female (compared to first edition, for instance). Although that still doesn’t explain the Utaku and possibly the Matsu.

the Utaku's biases are driven not by their human culture, but the Utaku steeds . Remember that Utaku steeds are a lot closer in nature to Tolkein's Maeress, Donaldson's Ranyhyn or Weber's Coursers than they are to mundane 'horses'.

It is an observed rule in-setting, and appears to be a universal one, that Utaku steeds will for some reason not accept a male rider. Since the Shiotome cavalry are basically 'the point' of the Utaku family, you therefore get a natural female bias in positions of authority (though, unlike the Moshi, not in overall demographics).

The Matsu, by comparison, are just arrogant tools, and have been at pretty much every defining moment of their family history.

6 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The Matsu, by comparison, are just arrogant tools, and have been at pretty much every defining moment of their family history.

7 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

the Utaku's biases are driven not by their human culture, but the Utaku steeds . Remember that Utaku steeds are a lot closer in nature to Tolkein's Maeress, Donaldson's Ranyhyn or Weber's Coursers than they are to mundane 'horses'.

It is an observed rule in-setting, and appears to be a universal one, that Utaku steeds will for some reason not accept a male rider. Since the Shiotome cavalry are basically 'the point' of the Utaku family, you therefore get a natural female bias in positions of authority (though, unlike the Moshi, not in overall demographics).

I admit I had never thought that way, and yes, you are right, that is a reasonable explanation.

For a militaristic family, it's kind of hard to justify a male daimyõ if they can't ever be part of the vanguard.

3 minutes ago, DSalazar said:

I feel there is some accumulated irritation being let slip there.

15 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I feel there is some accumulated irritation being let slip there.

Probably just coming to grips with the effects of the short visit Matsu Tsuko made to Kyuden Kakita, and Daidoji Uji's time to leave message.