Kitsu Realm Wanderer School Question

By FelixFenix, in Legend of the Five Rings: The Roleplaying Game

Can the Kitsu Realm Wanderer School impromptu Invocations? I’m asking since I don’t see invocations in their Techniques Available list, but their available in their curriculum.

I would argue no. If you don't have access to Invocations as a category, you shouldn't be allowed to importune kami.

Thanks, that’s my resolution on my game, I wanted to be fair and run it here. 😉

I wished they gave it invocations just like the Kuni...

Edited by FelixFenix

By RAW, as long as you have access to one invocation, you can importune. Yes, that includes getting the Stolen Knowledge heritage one.

1 hour ago, Myrion said:

By RAW, as long as you have access to one invocation, you can importune. Yes, that includes getting the Stolen Knowledge heritage one.

Hummm this is a game changer for us.

I wasn’t aware of this oh wow even the characters that have gotten the invocation throughout Stolen Knowledge...

This really have changed my perspective on the Kitsu Realm Wanderer School and the Ishiken Initiate.

Thanks Myrion. Thank you for posting this.

Sure thing!

Also, I'm glad you just believed me but I realized I forgot to give a citation xD

"[...] a character who knows one or more invocation techniques may [...]" is the phrasing in the box on p189, and that seems to be the only requirement. If you somehow learn a single invocation, narratively, from the heritage, or whatever way you can cook up, you're golden.

mind, Importuning is a bit harder and also requires a "meaningful" sacrifice, so it should be a bit limited, but it is very powerful and useful.

To be honest, that is one of the things that I'd probably house-rule. To something like any school with the Shugenja tag or Invocations as a taught technique group.

Edited by Tonbo Karasu
or Invocations not of Invocations
10 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

To be honest, that is one of the things that I'd probably house-rule. To something like any school with the Shugenja tag of Invocations as a taught technique group.

Seconded.

Yeah, I can understand that. Though the thing is that if the kami listen to you at all, importuning should reasonably work.

2 hours ago, Myrion said:

Yeah, I can understand that. Though the thing is that if the kami listen to you at all, importuning should reasonably work.

Not necessarily. If you are a bushi that has the stolen knowledge background and has learned a single invocation but has no capacity to learn any more, I don't think you'd understand what you're doing. You have been taught that if you do a particular series of actions, an effect occurs. Imagine we were talking about using a computer instead. Someone who has been told who to carry out a particular set of key strokes to make a VOIP phone call, but doesn't know anything else about how the computer works would not be able to post on a message board.

But that's the thing, you're not interacting with a computer, you're interacting with a class of beings that only listens to some people.

If you know an invocation, in game terms, then the kami listen to you. The person next to you could do the exact same things and wouldn't get an effect. That's why shugenja are so rare and sought after and why peasant children are adopted into the samurai class if they display signs of the gift.

At the same time, that's the insidious thing about mahō: For that one you don't need any talent, truly anyone can do it - but sooner or later you'll screw up and down the taint highway you go.

10 hours ago, Myrion said:

But that's the thing, you're not interacting with a computer, you're interacting with a class of beings that only listens to some people.

If you know an invocation, in game terms, then the kami listen to you. The person next to you could do the exact same things and wouldn't get an effect. That's why shugenja are so rare and sought after and why peasant children are adopted into the samurai class if they display signs of the gift.

At the same time, that's the insidious thing about mahō: For that one you don't need any talent, truly anyone can do it - but sooner or later you'll screw up and down the taint highway you go.

I would have agreed with you for every single version up until this one. Commune with the spirits being a ritual that anyone can theoretically learn and the existence of the Stolen Knowledge entry on the Heritage table that lets any samurai know an Invocation at character creation really seems to imply that it's something that can be learned. Possibly it's more akin to some sort of physiological effect, like ambidexterity. Someone who's ambidextrous can just use each hand equally well no matter what they're doing (I simplify). Someone who isn't can train themselves how to do various tasks with their off hand as well as their dominant hand, but it's going to be extremely hard and on a case by case basis.

A shugenja can speak to the spirits naturally and understands how invocations work on an innate basis. All other Rokugani can learn how to ask trivial favours of kami (Commune with the Spirits). Non-shugenja who can put enough time and effort into it (ie samurai children - about 2% of PCs by rules as written) can be taught how to request a particular, more complex, effect but never any more than that (Stolen Knowledge: Invocation).

As you say, maho is very insidious and I think that importuning being more limited adds to that, rather than detracts from it.