On 1/15/2021 at 7:38 PM, igorhorst said:

This is why I'm glad that Imperial Histories and Imperial Histories 2 exist and are well-regarded in the L5R fandom.

The Emerald Empire of Togashi, with Hantei founding the Owl Clan as the diplomat to the non-humans is one of my favourite L5R things ever.

I’ve never had the opportunity, but I would absolutely love to play a campaign in that version of Rokugan, and just Studio Ghibli it to Jigoku and back.

I cannot help but feel as though the whole "deals with inhumans" was stupidly limiting.

The Crab Clan deals with the Shadowlands, and they revolve around dealing with the Shadowlands far more so than the described Owl Clan would deal with inhumans. And yet you don't see the Hida or Hiruma bushi schools written up as techniques that only affect Shadowlands creatures nor the Yasuki written up as courtiers whose techniques only have effect on Shadowland creatures.

And its so frustrating that they didn't just lean into the themes that the imperials already had-- Hantei gave way more of a **** about what Shinsei had to say than probably any of his siblings did-- why not lean into the whole "we support the Shinsei brotherhood aspect"? They have the greatest focus on magistrates and bureaucrats, so why not lean into the whole "we keep law and order" aspect? They are the ones who pretend to be all noble on the surface, but then have smugglers and ninja working for them-- so lean into that whole "we aren't afraid to break the rules and resort to dirty tricks to achieve order and justice" aspect?

There was so much of a richer and more functional direction to bring them, and yet whomever was charged with writing the book somehow couldn't think beyond "well.. uhhhh.... what haven't we covered? So... uh... I guess they... do non-human stuff... totally defined by techniques that effect only non-humans."

It was a waste. There was all the potential right there to create a great clan even more valid than the Mantis or Spider yet they just crapped the bed from the get-go. Decided to throw out everything and pigeon-hole them into a corner that doesn't remotely make sense and wouldn't remotely be functional.

Even if there were wide-spread non-human involvement in Rokugani affairs simply because Togashi took the throne, it would not be the purview of a single clan-- every clan would need some organization to deal with those who were local to its particular area. But, most importantly, in a human-dominated empire, even with inhumans being more active, a group whose bushi could only harm inhumans, whose courtiers could only interact with inhumans, whose shugenja had no techniques that affected anyone but inhumans-- they would not be a lasting presence.

The writers absolutely should have leaned into the aspects that already existed. Bring the "Seppun Royal Guard who guard only the royal family" to the "Hantei guards who guard monasteries and caravans", bring the "Seppun Hidden Guard who guard the Emperor from supernatural threats" to "Seppun Astrologers who look at the stars and generally predict what you will face in the future.". So from "Otomo Courtiers who rely on connection to the Hantei to get away with crimes in plain sight" to "Otomo lawyers who record the law and utilize extensive knowledge of legal precedent in order to get their way and manipulate the bureaucracy to cut through red tape, even if everyone finds them tiresome and dull." and bring the Miya from Diplomats who can enforce peace with but a word-- to simply a scout family who is super popular among the commonfolk and has a very positive reputation among other clans for being just and kind. And then let them keep the Kasuga and Yotsu and Tsi and as well as the special relationship with the Brotherhood...

There is plenty of variation and unique flavor there to capitalize on. You have there a nice, rather unique clan that doesn't overlap with other clan anymore than the Mantis or Spider did-- has a robust concept where one can understand how they can exist as a power interacting with other clans...

But--- no-- apparently the writers couldn't look at what they already had and think beyond "Dey do non-human shtuff, so all dey do is non-human shtuff and dat's all."

Maybe the only good thing that came out of that was the choice of Owl as a concept-- given that, in western mythology, the Owl has a very "wisdom" based image attached to it, it is actually very well suited for a Shinseism-led Clan. But given that they couldn't figure out anything beyond "Dey es da gud at talking ta mermaids n' tengoo 'cause dey du da not hooman shtuff."

I really don't quite understand how anyone can look at a concept that throws out everything there is to grasp onto and instead throws out this off-the-wall, rationally unworkable concept and just entirely pigeon-holes everything around it.

If it had been one more thing they do much like handling Shadowlands is one more thing the Crab do? Sure-- it isn't unreasonable to add if what was there didn't feel like enough. But making it the sole purpose of their existence well beyond the extent that being anti-Shadowlands is the sole purpose of the Crab Clan's existence? No--- that was dumb.

On 1/23/2021 at 9:43 PM, TheHobgoblyn said:

Maybe the only good thing that came out of that was the choice of Owl as a concept

I disliked the use of the Owl as the totem for Hantei's clan. Prior to Imperial Histories 2, the animal that was associated with the Hantei was the Stag. Why would they go for another animal without any previous connection to that Kami AFAIK when a Stag Clan would have been perfectly fine? The only thing I can think of is the fear of it being "linked" to the Baratheon family emblem, and it's really far-fetched.

On 1/26/2021 at 1:22 AM, KerenRhys said:

I disliked the use of the Owl as the totem for Hantei's clan. Prior to Imperial Histories 2, the animal that was associated with the Hantei was the Stag. Why would they go for another animal without any previous connection to that Kami AFAIK when a Stag Clan would have been perfectly fine? The only thing I can think of is the fear of it being "linked" to the Baratheon family emblem, and it's really far-fetched.

I think I pretty much would have been fine with just about anything.

Owl, Stag, Tiger-- it just felt weird that all the other Kami were clearly associated with some animal, but Hantei and buddies didn't have one. They had a flower instead.

And the Chrysanthemum is the symbol of Japan's imperial seal-- and actual Japanese Samurai Clans never had associated animals anyway. So rather than follow the rather unique aspect of Rokugan, they just default back to real life Japan.

By it was ridiculously reductive-- that was the main point.

The shugenja can only affect non-humans, the courtiers can only affect non-humans, their clan blades only affect non-humans and some of their battle techniques only affect non-humans...

The Crab Clan does not focus on Shadowlands to anywhere near the same extent and the Shadowlands is a far, far more looming threat than "non-humans" would be. Moreover, 95% of the Shadowlands threat exists in a single location and only the Crab Clan has borders with it. To deal with that other 5% there are organizations within half the other clans.

If you are going to group together all non-Shadowlands non-humans, there is no single location. If there even was a main location for them, it would be the shinomen forest. But whether you keep the Owl where they are or have them switch locations with the Dragon-- either way, they have no border with the Shinomen forest. Thus this super reductive specialty they were written into is something that they would naturally be dealing with far less often than the Scorpion or Lion do.

It really strike me as though it was really the result of the writing team hitting the last book they would be making for that RPG (or very close to it) and given the restriction that every single technique in every single school across the entire game had to be different (except the multi-attack ability) and by that point they had written a dozen schools for every Great Clan, including the Mantis and the Spider, and a couple for the two dozen Minor Clans... at that point, having entirely run out of ideas, they were told "Now... make another Great Clan out of the blue-- you've for 5 pages to do it."

And so they were left there, entirely out of ideas, having used pretty much every good idea for a mechanic that could be implemented in the game and well... left just saying "Is there literally anything we haven't done as a Great Clan or Minor Clan?"

****... did they have any animals left they could have used for that matter? Among the Great Clans they already had 4 Bugs (Crab, Mantis, Scorpion, Spider), 2 Birds (Crane, Phoenix), 2 Mammals (Lion, Unicorn) and a Reptile (Dragon). But then most of the other really iconic ideas were used up by minor clans. Even though one would think that if Hantei chose his animal, then even if in another AU that would exist as a minor clan later on-- he could still claim it first. But, I guess they didn't want to risk doubling-up because it could cause confusion.

Though if the color scheme was still presumably green, brown and gold-- seems like a reptile might have been pretty fitting. So... maybe Tortoise/Turtle would have been the best fit if it hadn't already been taken?

And the non-human specialization had nothing to do with it making sense, following the spirit of the families that made up the Imperials and just bringing them down a rank to the same level as the clans-- it was just a result of being entirely out of good ideas. So they just threw a random something out there that hadn't been done yet across all the minor clans they had written up.