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In Thunder's Echo (Legend of the Five Rings Quest)

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LastChronicler said:
I'm sceptical of the idea that our enemies are privy to the discussion we had with Tani given that it happened outside the castle and away from the centre-of-events. If we can't even keep that much secret, they might as well be functionally omniscient as far as we're concerned.
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I think you're misunderstanding me. The conversation at the temple is kind of irrelevant to the:

"Okay, while he was out of the castle we framed him. Ha ha ha ha! Evil Plan "No Witnesses, No Loose Ends" is proceeding well!"

"Yes, about that...funny thing...it turns out he was with this Phoenix samurai-ko the whole time and now she's swearing he's innocent and she's asking questions..."

"@$!#! NO LOOSE ENDS, NO WITNESSES!"

And regarding the possibility of her being next on the list, I don't see why that would be our immediate concern. She's provided testimony already, now we ought to care about protecting our own or tracking down the killers, not bodyguarding a member of a different delegation. That seems like a silly use of our limited resources.
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Trying to track a bunch of shape shifters who can look like anybody inside a city is hard.

Trying to watch for "people doing shady stuff at/around this one particular Phoenix" is much more simple.

Of course, if they don't move against her and just go to ground then we've wasted our shinobi, but if the shapeshifters just go to ground in a heavily populated area I'm doubtful that even a Shoshuro can root them out.
 
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Wade Garrett said:
I think you're misunderstanding me. The conversation at the temple is kind of irrelevant to the:

"Okay, while he was out of the castle we framed him. Ha ha, evil plan "No Witnesses, No Loose Ends" is proceeding well!"

"Yes, about that...funny thing...it turns out he was with this Phoenix samurai-ko the whole time and now she's swearing he's innocent and she's asking questions..."

"@$!#! NO LOOSE ENDS, NO WITNESSES!"
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So what exactly do you imagine Hideki is going to do then? He's a spy, not a yojimbo; with Hanzo and Kimoko aiding him, he was unable to stand his ground against the assailants last time, so I doubt he'll be enough on his own now. Not to mention, he should be unnecessary; I can't recall if the Phoenix delegation brought anything in the way of a security detail, but there's little reason we couldn't at least attempt to get Phoenix or Lion Bushi (or attempt to get either of our Daidoji or Otomo allies) to look out for her.

Hideki is the one agent we have at our personal disposal. Wasting him on protecting the Phoenix (not even a job he's trained for) whose testimony isn't even enough to get us off completely seems a little shortsighted. There are other jobs right now that only he can reasonably accomplish for us, let's go with one of those.

Also, she's already provided her testimony, hasn't she? I'll admit I'm unfamiliar with the Rokugani courtroom protocol, but do we know if she has to be present on the stand, with a hand on a bible when the four days have elapsed?

Wade Garrett said:
Trying to track a bunch of shape shifters who can look like anybody inside a city is hard.

Trying to watch for "people doing shady stuff at/around this one particular Phoenix" is much more simple.

Of course, if they don't move against her and just go to ground then we've wasted our shinobi, but if the shapeshifters just go to ground in a heavily populated area I'm doubtful that even a Shoshuro can root them out.
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You seem to be ignoring that there are other options on offer. It's not solely a choice between 'send Shosuro agent to track down the killers' or 'Guard the Phoenix'.
 
LastChronicler said:
So what exactly do you imagine Hideki is going to do then?
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Wade Garrett said:
Maybe we should detail Pale Oak to either watching over her...or possibly just watching her, use her as bait to draw the faceless out into the open so they can be dealt with appropriately.
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Are you even reading my posts?

The faceless come out to mess with the Phoenix, Pale Oak watches from the shadows, he follows them, he finds their lair, he finds out what cover identities they're using, etc etc, THEN we bring the hammer down on them.

Of course this is all predicated on the idea that they will move on the Phoenix, I admitted that if they don't it's a waste of time.
 
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Wade Garrett said:
Are you even reading my posts?
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Yes. I just think the ideas proposed in them are ridiculous. And so light on detail you might as well vote for Hideki to 'solve our problems'.

How will he use her as bait? What kind of bait is going to attract them? What makes you so sure that our enemies will move to take her out, when we're currently looking like we'll need to have to fight a duel in a few days anyway even with her testimony, and that it might start to look suspicious if she dies just before our judgement?

Not to mention, I'm still unsure of whether taking her out now even changes anything, since she's obviously told the magistrates we were with her by now. I'm not sure if her testimony is only valid if she's still alive later to give it again.
 
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LastChronicler said:
I'm not sure if her testimony is only valid if she's still alive later to give it again.
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But if she suddenly turns up dead in a pile of maho paraphernalia with all the evidence pointing to "She blew her own heart up trying some kind of blood magic ritual" then that's going to cast just a few doubts on all that "Soshi Naoto is totally innocent I swear" testimony she gave.
 
Wade Garrett said:
But if she suddenly turns up dead in a pile of maho paraphernalia with all the evidence pointing to "She blew her own heart up trying some kind of blood magic ritual" then that's going to cast just a few doubts on all that "Soshi Naoto is totally innocent I swear" testimony she gave.
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And if I thought that that was likely, and that Hideki could prevent that, I might agree that assigning him to protect Asako Tani was a smart use of resources.

I don't though, on both counts. And even if I'm wrong on both, assigning Hideki to pin the blame on someone else, for example, could easily sidestep both issues. As could Hanzo's testimony if Hideki were to wake him up.

Taking that into consideration, why not assign Hideki to do one of the aforementioned alternative jobs, and try to send a message to Tani/other allies asking them to watch her closely?
 
LastChronicler said:
And even if I'm wrong on both, assigning Hideki to pin the blame on someone else, for example, could easily sidestep both issues. As could Hanzo's testimony if Hideki were to wake him up.
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The problem with framing somebody else is that the Faceless are still out there doing whatever their big plan is, and if we throw some expendable patsy to the Lions we're basically giving them more cover to run around Shiro Matsu doing whatever.

As far as Hanzo goes, having a shujena would certainly be a big help, but what's his testimony going to be?

"I saw someone who looked exactly like Soshi Naoto kill Bayushi Kimiko, also he had Tainted minions" isn't exactly a helpful addition to the evidence pile.
 
For clarity, keeping an eye on Tani in case your enemies tried anything and thus exposed themselves would be folded into the 'Track down the faceless enemies' option. Actually assigning Hideki to protect her would be a Write In option that would take time away from the other possibilities.
 
Wade Garrett said:
The problem with framing somebody else is that the Faceless are still out there doing whatever their big plan is, and if we throw some expendable patsy to the Lions we're basically giving them more cover to run around Shiro Matsu doing whatever.
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Of course, we'd be alive to keep hunting them. That's a rather important consideration I feel we shouldn't overlook here.

Wade Garrett said:
As far as Hanzo goes, having a shujena would certainly be a big help, but what's his testimony going to be?

"I saw someone who looked exactly like Soshi Naoto kill Bayushi Kimiko, also he had Tainted minions" isn't exactly a helpful addition to the evidence pile.
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Why do you assume he'd tell the truth? Why do you assume he might not (quite truthfully) say 'the assailants were able to make use of magic that could change their faces'?
 
[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.

Because he saw somethign that repelled them.

Which means if we can get him back in play, he can start working on and developing a countermeasure, or a detection measure.
 
LastChronicler said:
Of course, we'd be alive to keep hunting them. That's a rather important consideration I feel we shouldn't overlook here.
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And we mess up the cover up, we're dead, and every gain Naoto has made so far gets undone, and we may well trigger a full blown war between the Matsu and the Scorpion.

This option could blow up in our face, and of it does it will make one hell of a kaboom. This is also an important consideration we should not overlook.

In addition to the whole "Helping the Lying Darkness cover its tracks" aspect of it.
 
[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.

Mostly because of what Alectai said. And because information for a countermeasures against shape shifting assassins seems like it would be more valuable to the Scorpion as a whole than Naoto's neck.

Because given that he's a Yogo and a direct relative of Mr. "I set Fu Leng loose" his testimony probably won't be that helpful to Naoto personally.
 
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[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.

Alectai said:
[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.

Because he saw somethign that repelled them.

Which means if we can get him back in play, he can start working on and developing a countermeasure, or a detection measure.
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Hmm, true. I suppose given my current indecision, that's as good an argument as any.

Wade Garrett said:
And we mess up the cover up, we're dead, and every gain Naoto has made so far gets undone, and we may well trigger a full blown war between the Matsu and the Scorpion.

This option could blow up in our face, and of it does it will make one hell of a kaboom. This is also an important consideration we should not overlook.

In addition to the whole "Helping the Lying Darkness cover its tracks" aspect of it.
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Yeah, okay, if your argument is 'if we mess up, bad things will happen', I feel like we've exhausted any fruitful results from the discussion.
 
[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.
 
I'm tempted to go for the 'work to convince the magistrates of your innocence' option just to make sure we can actually make it out of this mess. ut that's an entirely defensive option and I think we can do better - although it's a bit of a risk - by doing something pro-active and choosing to either track the perpetrators, or investigate the delegates.

Going after the perpetrators could maybe let us find them and go after the sect whereas investigating the delegates could let us discover what Samurai, or even Clans, are involved.

[X] Track the perpetrators of this attack. The trail has not yet gone cold, and a Shosuro can go places and do things that more conventional magistrates cannot.
[ ] Investigate your fellow delegates. If any of them seem to be benefiting from this or reacting faster than normal, you have your first suspect. Besides, your Clan's interests will be much easier to promote if you have accurate information on your rivals.

Don't want to overreach just yet.
 
[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.

First regroup, then we think on something else.
 
[x] Track the perpetrators of this attack. The trail has not yet gone cold, and a Shosuro can go places and do things that more conventional magistrates cannot.
 
LastChronicler said:
Yeah, okay, if your argument is 'if we mess up, bad things will happen', I feel like we've exhausted any fruitful results from the discussion.
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Let me break this down for you.

If we mess up any of the options, bad things will happen.

Each option comes with a different bad thing that could happen if we mess it up.

Failing to cure Hanzo will cause a certain bad thing to happen.

Failing to track the assassins will cause a different bad thing to happen.

If we fail at "Convince magistrates of our innocence", the bad thing that happens will be very bad.

It will be worse than the bad things that will happen if we fail at the other options.

Is that simple enough for you, or do I need to dumb it down some more?
 
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Wade Garrett said:
Let me break this down for you.

If we mess up any of the options, bad things will happen.

Each option comes with a different bad thing that could happen if we mess it up.

Failing to cure Hanzo will cause a certain bad thing to happen.

Failing to track the assassins will cause a different bad thing to happen.

If we fail at "Convince magistrates of our innocence", the bad thing that happens will be very bad.

It will be worse than the bad things that will happen if we fail at the other options.

Is that simple enough for you, or do I need to dumb it down some more?
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You seem completely ignorant of the fact that you hadn't supplied a single decent explanation for the prior proposal you were arguing for, before apparently conceding to and adopting the 'Try to wake Yogo Hanzo' vote. There's been a lot of vague babbling about secretly super shinobi bodyguards and complicated sting operations and how Asako Tani's safety is obviously our only possible consideration and so forth going on, but none of it's gotten any more coherent.

When you learn how to make a sensible suggestion and a good argument for why people should consider it, get back to me. Until then, give the childish temper tantrums a rest, mate.
 
[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.

I think there's a risk here that with the Faceless free to roam they might stage a recantation of Tani's testimony, complete with written confession and jigai to utterly sink us, but then again Yogo knows how to hurt them, and can provide valuable information like "Don't bother with jade." That's really more important than us at this point.
 
[X] Track the perpetrators of this attack. The trail has not yet gone cold, and a Shosuro can go places and do things that more conventional magistrates cannot.

What we need is not the testimony of a person who saw the person wearing PC's face killing his lord. We need solid proof and location of the enemy.
 
[X] Find a cure for Yogo Hanzo. You need your Shugenja back on his feet promptly, if only to provide a samurai's testimony to what happened, and the Shosuro know more about poisons and antidotes that anyone else in the Empire.

Alectai has the right of it I think. While we have no countermeasure's to the faceless men, we are always going to be wondering if the person who we are speaking with is the real one or a fake, and if we have no countermeasures, then there is nothing stoping this from happening again to us, or to the other delegates. Daidoji Chen attacking the Lion in revenge for his clanmates deaths. The Unicorn attacking the Phoneix. There is nothing stopping the faceless from coping the face of others and reaping havoc then their desire to be unknown. A desire that may no longer apply if Naoto lives. So I think we need to be prepared.
 
Mina said:
Yogo knows how to hurt them, and can provide valuable information like "Don't bother with jade."
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I'm sure getting Yogo back will be helpful but I don't think it'll be that helpful.

Well we already know not to bother with Jade because Pale Oak has told us it doesn't work, and I very much doubt that whatever ward Yogo used that actually worked during the mess of a fight was something revolutionary that no other Shugenja at the Winter Court could figure out.

Besides, even if we do find the cure and wake him it's not like we can actually use him to test people to make sure they're not these faceless; that would be hugely insulting and cause more trouble than it would avoid.

Plus, what makes him more suited to this task than the Shugenja already treating him? Surely he's better used tracking down the Faceless and making sure they don't strike again?
 
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