So in canon the Yodotai basically steam rolled pretty much whatever was thrown against them. A rebel force attempted to do the same to Rokugan but the combined Unicorn/Lion army managed to keep them out. But it's noted that this rebel force was essentially operating independently and had no way to call on the deep reserves of the Empire.
BurdenCanon is a little different. The Yodotai can and have been stopped, but it's a rare thing. Generally if the Yodotai ever manage to stop compulsively stabbing themselves, they win. But canny rivals know it's very easy to convince them to resume compulsively stabbing themselves. (Well if you're near them, harder for Rokugan)
All that said, Hisao and his advisors don't really know what's going to happen when they and the Yodotai finally clash, but everyone knows it will happen because the Yodotai want Medinaat al Salaam. (Well they want everything really) and are willing to drown a continent in blood for it.
All that said, could I get a few more votes please?
[x] Plan the Imperial Whim
-[x] Acknowledge how important this all is to him, while also helping him understand more about the political situation.
-[x] Offer to arrange an opportunity for him to speak with his Father at the next Winter Court without the political costs.
-[x] Express to the Crane a mild-but-Imperial preference that Makoto attend next year's Winter Court... wherever it is that we hold next year's Winter Court.
-[x] Make a small request of our brother that one Doji no Ikoma Kusari attend the next Winter Court. Try to unbend enough to actually connect with the man emotionally, at least a little. Make an effort. Don't admit that you're making an effort, of course, but make an effort anyway.
-[x] Plan to arrange for them to both meet you privately at the same time at said court, let them have their discussion, and then be there with Makoto for the aftermath.
I would support a vote that tells him to reconnect. I don't think the political overtones of it will go 100% a good way, but I think it's important to Hisao's continuing character development.
Typically I refrain from making plans in games like this and MfD, because my ill-conceived ideas might badly mess something up that more observant players wouldn't have overlooked. In this case, I think your plan is actually close to what I would want. It's not a strict "Go back and talk to him, family is the most important!!" like I was secretly hoping, but it still allows avenues for him to reconnect with his father.
Plus, we don't know why he cut ties. If it somehow turns out he's a bastard child, that's a big yikes.
[x] Plan the Imperial Whim
-[x] Acknowledge how important this all is to him, while also helping him understand more about the political situation.
-[x] Offer to arrange an opportunity for him to speak with his Father at the next Winter Court without the political costs.
-[x] Express to the Crane a mild-but-Imperial preference that Makoto attend next year's Winter Court... wherever it is that we hold next year's Winter Court.
-[x] Make a small request of our brother that one Doji no Ikoma Kusari attend the next Winter Court. Try to unbend enough to actually connect with the man emotionally, at least a little. Make an effort. Don't admit that you're making an effort, of course, but make an effort anyway.
-[x] Plan to arrange for them to both meet you privately at the same time at said court, let them have their discussion, and then be there with Makoto for the aftermath.
@Spector29
I try not to punish players for not knowing the setting because it's a bit obscure. So filter through plans with what's appropriate if the players don't.
@Spector29
I try not to punish players for not knowing the setting because it's a bit obscure. So filter through plans with what's appropriate if the players don't.
You think about it for a moment. What did Makoto want from you? Honesty, what did you think? Well to be honest that wasn't a decision you could make. You personally? Would have tried to talk to your father before he died, if you had had a chance. That didn't mean it was the right decision for Makoto.
Part of being a leader was that you had to make your own decisions, you could rely on others for advice, but in the end as Shinsei said, ever man must judge himself.
With all of this in mind you slowly begin to speak.
"I do not think that is a decision I can make for you Makoto." You say. "I do not know know your father personally, I cannot say what he is like, or whether or not it is worth your time to reach out to him."
Makoto looks at you with a faint glimmer of betrayal in his eyes.
You raise your hand.
"I'm still going to help you, but this isn't a decision I can make for you. I will give you my advice, lay out what I understand, and give you the chance to reconnect with him. Whether or not you do so...that's going to be entirely up to you. The unfortunate part about being a leader Makoto...is that the decision always ultimately rests on you. I would be doing you a disservice to take that away from you."
"But I don't know if I should or not!" Makoto half shouts. "Why can't you just tell me? Finding a way to talk to him isn't the problem. A letter, a request for ambassadors from the Ikoma, I can find a way, Mikado."
He shrinks a little.
"I just don't know if I should or not."
You suppress a sigh.
"Well lets work through it together" You say. "I will not tell you what to do, figure out what to do? That I will do."
Makoto seems a little petulant, but nods. Gods were you ever that young?
"So first politics. The Crane as a whole were deeply skeptical of the alliance your mother forged with the Lion, for all it's attendant benefits. So they could believe you're seeking to rebuild that alliance."
"I don't want to though." Makoto says. "The Lion are honourable, and your brother seems nice, but the Crane and Lion just have different paths. The Unicorn shouldn't have needed the Naga to stop the Lion."
You file away that disagreement with his regent away for later.
"That is understandable. You naturally are aware of the fact that your father by rights should have been a regent in his own right. Attempting to bring him back can be seen as a rebuke to Daidoji-san and Asahina-san."
"Maybe I want to rebuke them." Makoto says quietly. "I know they did their best...but..." he trails off.
"But?" you prompt gently.
"I grew up in a land that was different from their land. The Age of Chaos is over, and thank all the gods for that. But they're still thinking like it's going to come back. I get it, but it's not the Empire as it was. Things have changed...and I need to show that I can adapt, and not be in the past."
Hmm, you had never truly thought about what the next generation was going to think about everything you had done. You had spent yourself, to forge a new better Empire. How it looked to those who had never known anything but your reign? That hadn't occurred to you.
"Very well, then the last two things to consider is your loyalty and your betrothal. As I recall it's being arranged that you take a bride from the Daidoji?" You ask.
"Daidoji-sensei thinks that me and Daidoji Akeha-san are a good match." Makoto shrugs. "I would need a good reason to break that betrothal, if I want to."
"A reason such as your father's disapproval" You say.
"That's...true...but not why I would do this. I like her, maybe not, love her, but that's not, what marriage is for." Makoto says shaking his head. "What's this about loyalty though?"
"It's a low chance, but if someone wanted to contest your honour, a whisper campaign that you were more loyal to the Lion through your father, is possible. Likely, I doubt, but possible." You answer.
"I am Crane, and I will die a Crane" Makoto declares.
You nod. "I know, but I had to put it out there just in case. So then the personal. What do you want from your father?"
Makoto looks down.
"I want to know, why he left. I have so many ideas, but I don't know, I want to know. I need to...see if I am my father's son or my mother's."
"So you need closure then from him?" You press.
Makoto frowns.
"I think so. If he didn't want me? That..." he trails off.
"Would make him a fool." You say. "But if he did want you but chose to stay away for other reasons. That would make him someone worth knowing. And until you know which it is I don't think the answer of connecting with him is one you can answer. However, you do need to meet him, to ask that question." You say.
Makoto's hands ball into fists as he looks down, seeming to close his eyes in meditation for a moment. You don't rush him as he grapples with the idea of it.
After however many minutes he opens his eyes.
"Yes, I do need to ask him that question. A leader has to confront their weaknesses to right?" he asks.
"Just so...leave the arrangements for meeting to me." you say.
Makoto bows.
"Thank you my Emperor
--------------------------------------- Month of the Tiger, 28th day. (End of Winter, Last Day of the Year)
After the conversation with Makoto, the court had gone peacefully enough. There had been no attacks, no sudden prank wars, and while you can't say you cared for the new artistic fad of giving people scarves in lieu of fans, you don't have anything against it either.
You had spent time with most of your vassals, listening to complaints here, addressing issues there, all in all it had been productive, boring, but productive.
You could live with boring.
Thus on the final day of the year, you were surprised when you entered into your rooms to find a large basin easily the size of a small pond being put together and filled with water. Kana is directing the workers, and seems utterly focused on the task.
While you enjoyed a private bath that's true, the hot springs of Kyuden Doji were some of the best in the Empire and you had a private bath in them already. So this new addition perplexes you.
So you walk over to her and cough.
Kana almost jumps as she turns around.
"...My Emperor..." she says quickly bowing. "I thought you had that meeting with the Ide right now?"
"Ide Shiki is a blunt sort, and we got through thing quickly."
"And what was that thing?" Kana asks clearly stalling for time.
"Mostly wanting an exemption on opium imports from the Jeweled City, he was mollified with a lowered tarrif. Now, what's all this?"
Kana lowers her head and whispers something.
"What?"
"Your birthday present" she mumbles.
"Eh? With the water? You got it to work?" You say.
"Hai, I need more than what I can carry in a normal basin though so um...yes I was going to surprise you when you got back this evening." Kana says.
She looks pretty down at failing that goal.
"...I think I'll go explore the art gallery then, I'll be back at the hour of the Rooster?" You guess.
"Dog is better" Kana says.
"Dog it is then." You say.
With gestures of respect from the workers and your wife, you leave to while away the hours in Kyuden Doji's exquisite art salons.
You even end up eating at a local shop on the outskirts of the castle rather than your usual fare. While you were still undecided on this curry thing. You couldn't say it was bad either.
The moon rises in full, as the final day of the year ceremonies get underway, you have to participate in no few of them in roughly an hour, but for now at least you can go see what exactly your wife has done.
Returning to your suite, you see Kana standing in a somewhat less formal set of clothing, with her kimono rolled up so that it doesn't touch the water she's standing in. In her hands is an old style wooden bamboo scroll.
Hearing you enter, she turns, and smiles at you.
"You're just in time"
"I see that, do I have to get in too?" You ask.
Kana shakes her head.
"No just stand at the edge here, and wait for me to finish my work."
You move towards the edge and wait as Kana begins to invoke the water kami with her words.
No one without the gift of a shugenja could understand the words spoken between a shugenja and the kami, the strange melodious language had too many intricacies for that. It sounded like nothing a normal human could make. You often wonder how Shugenja did that.
Slowly the water shifts and moves around Kana's feet, rippling as it begins to shimmer into place and rise up. The words continue and the water begins coalesce into a new form. Your daughter, you think it's hard to tell without water.
More words from Kana and colour fills in.
(Taken from Last Samurai/ Kato Koyuki)
She wasn't quite Kaname, she wasn't quite you, but your Daughter...was a woman now. Oh she was only 16 summers, but you think she had grown quickly to maturity as you had.
Minoru looks at you for several moments, you look at her.
"...Hello Father" She says at last.
"Hello Minoru-chan. you look nice."
"Doji-sensei despaired of making a kimono suitable for meeting the Emperor, but he managed." She says wryly.
"I see that, how is your training coming."
"It's...going well, I see now why Grandfather had you train with a Kenku." Minoru says.
There's a tension in the air. She's judging you for something.
"They can be frustrating but they're immensely skilled at training."
Minoru's smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. She takes a deep breath.
"So...there's....Father, can I speak freely?" She asks.
"Of course, you're my daughter." You say.
"Then tell me, when were you going to let me know that you had married another woman, and taken another as a concubine....when were you going to let me know I had siblings. I understand it's hard to find me in the Kawa forest. But I know you could have found a way. So tell me Father, why you left me ignorant of all this that I had to find out from your second wife?"
Whatever you had expected, it wasn't that.
You turn the question over in your mind, you had never...
Never wanted to exclude her, never wanted to keep her at arms length. But she had been Safe in the Kawa forest, safe from the outside world Safe from everything. You had promised Kaname that you would keep your daughters safe. And the best way you had seen to do that was to keep them at arms length to allow Minoru and Yuina to grow in obscurity, away from where they were easily found.
It had worked for you after all.
A more honest part of you admits, that this is all justification. That you had kept yourself away from Minoru and Yuina (Well as much as she let you. The Void remained frustratingly beyond your reach and Yuina was happy to abuse that) For another reason.
[] It was shame, shame that you had surrendered yourself so quickly to another woman, oh the requisite year of mourning had been met. But still it had been too quick, born of a desperate need to have someone who you could be Hisao with again. A need you hadn't known. Still it was shameful to move on from Kaname so quickly.
[] It was fear. Fear of what Minoru would say, your daughter was one of the few people who you had no defenses against, and she was as high spirited as her mother. You hadn't wanted to hear her recriminations, to hear her anger, her hatred directed at you.
[] It was something else.... (Write In)
==========================
AN:
Being a good Emperor doesn't mean you're a good father. Hisao isn't going to lie to Minoru so be careful on the write ins for this one.
[X] It was fear. Fear of what Minoru would say, your daughter was one of the few people who you had no defenses against, and she was as high spirited as her mother. You hadn't wanted to hear her recriminations, to hear her anger, her hatred directed at you.
[X] It was overprotectiveness. You knew that Minoru could handle the truth, knew she deserved the truth, but you couldn't bear to see the pain you knew the truth would bring her.
Huh, I wasn't aware that Hisao was avoiding informing his daughter on things.
Should we have made a point of it? I guess I forgot that just because tracking down a kenku teacher in the forest is hard, that doesn't quite it is hard to make a sure a message lands with the resources available to the emperor.
@gman391 are both the Shame and Fear options true or potentially true? Because I think this could use a write-in but "I honestly forgot I should have told you" is possibly even worse even if true from a OOC standpoint.
They're both potentially true. And it's not that Hisao couldn't do it, it's that we never made him do it. Hisao does a lot of things on his own, but I tend to leave a certain level of interpersonal relationships up to the players unless there's a prior vote saying something to the effect 'will maintain relations' like there was for Kaname and Daio way back when.
So now the question is why, and I'm letting you guys decide.
I'm not sure what to do here. I will note that the woman that we married, that she's asking us about, is right here. That seems pertinent to the discussion.
In particular, I feel like "shame" is kind of a bad pick for that reason. I really don't want our wife to feel like we're ashamed of her.
I feel like... it's not that we didn't tell her about this specifically. It's that we didn't really communicate with her at all. Moreover... I feel like Hisao wasn't really dreading this call in the way that he might have, if he was really trying to avoid talking with his heir about something. Maybe... thoughtlessness? I guess the idea that hey - she was safe, and properly training, and off doing her thing, and we didn't really even think about it. Is that at all in-character for us at this point?
I guess the other thing I see is that Hisao really doesn't like talking about his emotions (as his brother can attest). Like, this whole "staying emotionally connected with people" thing is something that he's pretty fundamentally bad at in some ways.
I'm not sure about how to turn any of that into a vote at this point, though.
[] It was shame, shame that you had surrendered yourself so quickly to another woman, oh the requisite year of mourning had been met. But still it had been too quick, born of a desperate need to have someone who you could be Hisao with again. A need you hadn't known. Still it was shameful to move on from Kaname so quickly.
That doesn't make a lot of sense for me personally since without his brother's intervention, Hisao would have kept being depressed and been a widower for the rest of his days. So shame would mean he never moved on from Kaname's death and has just been using Kana and Ayumi as a sort of emotional opium. And that just isn't true. That how it might have started admittedly under the cold hard light of truth, but wasn't true for very long.
[] It was fear. Fear of what Minoru would say, your daughter was one of the few people who you had no defenses against, and she was as high spirited as her mother. You hadn't wanted to hear her recriminations, to hear her anger, her hatred directed at you.
Fear? Not sure Minoru thought her father would remain single forever even without finding new love as having an empress is too handy politics wise (Ratings Lock OP!). I thought Hisao resolved the recriminations from Minoru at Kaname's funeral. So that shouldn't be true either if he feared Minoru's disapproval of him remarrying or having more children.
So we need a write-in I feel.
Although fear would work better than shame in my mind because Hisao tends to care a lot about the opinions of his family. More than an autocratic Ruler should probably.
Here is a stab at it.
{} It was worry. I didn't want to reopen old wounds and thus put off informing you as much as I could. That doesn't mean I didn't plan on you never being informed. Kana won out over all the other brides because of her honest determination to make you feel loved as your new step-mom.
Not very good and needs to include Ayumi but it is a potential start.
Everything we do is broadcast throughout the empire? How would we expect her to not have heard sooner then we could find her to tell her first?
I mean, honestly we forgot/didn't consider this to be an issue in any way with her specifically. We clearly aren't trying to keep it secret, new mom made this spell happen, after all.
Minoru is in the middle of a spooky forest isolated from the rest of the Empire. It's relatively difficult for her to hear things because of how far off the beaten path she is.
Minoru is in the middle of a spooky forest isolated from the rest of the Empire. It's relatively difficult for her to hear things because of how far off the beaten path she is.
[x] It was thoughtlessness. You had been focused on being a good Emperor, and on dealing with your own grief, and any number of other things, and, shamefully enough, simply hadn't thought of it. Minoru had been safe, and successful in her studies, and so had been largely out of mind. You are... not good at maintaining personal relationships that are actually personal, rather than being associated with your position. It was not shame that kept you from this, but you do feel shame in your lack of attention now.
Actually, Hisao has kind of shown a pattern of "I'm not good at maintaining my family relationships, so instead I use the power of Being Emperor to try to improve their lives where I can in order to make up for the fact that I'm screwing up on the more personal level." The results have been... mixed.
