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- They/Them
Cheap and disappointing and narratively frustrating.
It was a rocks fall, everyone dies trap option considering I'm, like, 100% sure they had this planned from the start.
In Thunder's Echo (Legend of the Five Rings Quest)
Cheap and disappointing and narratively frustrating.
It was a rocks fall, everyone dies trap option considering I'm, like, 100% sure they had this planned from the start.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
From a Unicorn? Laughing Darkness agent, they're penetrated like whoa.
On the flip side, the Mantis is fucked. The Unicorn is Fucked. They basically started shit and murdered a head of a delegation in what should have been a battle to first blood.
On the flip side, Working As Intended for the Laughing Darkness. That's just how these things go, you can't beat a nigh omniscient creature that's nearly invisible after all. We made the right move, it's just that Rokugan is a shitty setting that kills decent people. We either had to risk being discredited (And subsequently double teamed), or stand up for our cause. We chose right, and we did well--it's just that Rokugan is a shitty setting that kills good people.
On the flip side, we're absolutely in the right here at least--because it was a duel to first blood, and we each struck at the same time--but she disqualified herself by going for murder when the terms were to first blood.
At the very least, Naoto basically unveiled how deeply this shit went by what amounted to being a flagrantly obvious assassination play in full view of plenty of witnesses.
On the flip side, the Mantis is fucked. The Unicorn is Fucked. They basically started shit and murdered a head of a delegation in what should have been a battle to first blood.
On the flip side, Working As Intended for the Laughing Darkness. That's just how these things go, you can't beat a nigh omniscient creature that's nearly invisible after all. We made the right move, it's just that Rokugan is a shitty setting that kills decent people. We either had to risk being discredited (And subsequently double teamed), or stand up for our cause. We chose right, and we did well--it's just that Rokugan is a shitty setting that kills good people.
On the flip side, we're absolutely in the right here at least--because it was a duel to first blood, and we each struck at the same time--but she disqualified herself by going for murder when the terms were to first blood.
At the very least, Naoto basically unveiled how deeply this shit went by what amounted to being a flagrantly obvious assassination play in full view of plenty of witnesses.
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You mean exactly like what happened to the Crane?
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- They/Them
Fuck me for actually getting invested in a new world (since I never followed L5R before this).
In a fight that was explictly to the death. Sorta, you know, vaguely signposted.
In a fight that was explictly to the death. Sorta, you know, vaguely signposted.
Well I suppose that's why you get Earth 3 asap if you're a bushi.
C'est la vie.
We'd need at least two raises to get out of a kharmic strike, and even then the assassin is likely to not give a fuck about technically losing the duel.
Although it's weird that Naoto didn't void the focus.
C'est la vie.
It is somewhat odd given that the Unicorn are heavily Kolat influenced at this time and the Kolat are one of the few organizations that known about the Nothing and can act on it.
We'd need at least two raises to get out of a kharmic strike, and even then the assassin is likely to not give a fuck about technically losing the duel.
Although it's weird that Naoto didn't void the focus.
Dude, this is an L5R quest. And I'm not actually entirely sure the Quest is ended, personally...
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
As far as Scorpions go honestly this was our win because we were able to hurt her, so now everyone knows the Nothing is involved.
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- They/Them
Sorry that I didn't know that L5R Quests operated under dissatisfying narrative rules, seeing as this is the Quest that actually had got me somewhat interested in L5R.
but we would have a chance of others intervening
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They were goading everyone, likely for the express purpose of that.
Come on, we knew they were ready to duel for it. Thats the basic requirement of a strategy based on insulting everyone
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Honestly, again this isn't as bad as it look. With this act Naoto is likely to go down on Rokugan history, because despite being overmatched by an agent of the Nothing, he managed to expose her in front of the entire court.
He died, but he fulfilled his duty to expose the true enemy of the Empire. This is the best kind of death a Scorpion could ever ask or hope for.
Da Boyz
The Cutest Apocalypse.
One more reason why they're the true heroes of l5r, but yeah the Unicorn delegation was probably killed and replaced here.
Well yeah from Bayushi Kachiko's PoV this is about as good as it gets. She now has what may be the most solid Scorpion/Lion alliance to come around in centuries cause from the Lion PoV:
1.The respectable war hero and covert lover of their lord was brutally assassinated by inhuman agents working against Rokugan, this happening after she had nobly worked to prevent a dishonorable war from occuring.
2.Her honorable and dashing protege was then assassinated as well despite being under their watch all but mocking the Lion for their impotence.
The Matsu are going to befriend the hell out of the Scorpion.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
This here is also correct.
Unless she happens to be just a murderous Utaku (Which is unusual given how high their Honor is, they would absolutely take care not to kill a man in a duel to first blood), this was totally an agent of the Laughing Darkness--and we wounded her in full view of the audience.
The secret is out, and an official investigation is now underway that they can't fully hide from.
And best of all? Technically, we defended our own position and the position of the Scorpion delegation too
Kharmic Strike means that both sides are right--except in this case, the other one was unmasked as a monster. Thus, not a Samurai, and thus, not eligible to be correct in an Iaijutsu match.Technically speaking, Naoto dying here was a perfect move for the Scorpion delegation. He wasn't a courtier, and he was incredibly inexperienced. He took a dive and in doing so, proved that there was dark deeds afoot, while basically making the Mantis our bitch in reparations for using a "Tainted" Samurai as his Champion, and locking the Matsu into basically repaying us for bringing the rot to full view.
From the clan's point of view, this was a massive coup, unless it just turns out that "No, the Utaku was literally just a murderous bitch who would randomly set aside her honor just because lolscoripon". We've got the sympathies of virtually everyone involved, and revealed a genuine threat on the way down.
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Yes. A duel to first blood.
I'm just saying here, we chose a single option to do a certain thing, but whoops, Nothing assassin with very high stats comes and kills us instantly.
There's nothing technically wrong with anything that happened. It's just narratively unsatisfying as all fuck and, more than that, feels like the QM just throwing rocks. Not in some 'you lose' sense, since I'm sure he legit rolled the dice and that's what happened, but...
He set a hidden scenario behind one of the basic options that would have a very high chance of us dying, and gave no hints or way to even know about it ahead of time or do anything about it.
I mean, we could have not chosen the option, but still. Considering the Mantis himself probably wasn't even plotting to murder us...if we'd refused we'd have done so for the incorrect reasons.
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Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
We had been warned that the Nothing was gunning for us, and you know, we already experienced the Nothing gunning for us beforehand.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah.
Technically speaking, Naoto's days were numbered. A single rookie Samurai isn't beating the Nothing when it wants to kill them. He died in a way that makes it impossible to hide that they're a thing, and in a manner that's going to be getting everyone rallying behind the Scorpion in their roaring rampage of revenge.
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Fine you're right, this is incredibly narratively satisfying and doesn't feel at all like a cheap shot coming out of nowhere.
Sure great. We'll never see that, it's all speculation.
Actually we don't know the Nothing Assassin's stats. And was it was it was very close. Just we got rocked on that damage roll.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Rokugan is a shitty setting where good characters go to die.
That's just in genre. You're outmatched, outgunned, and almost certainly going to die in an uncermonious manner.
The key to winning L5R is to ensure that when you die, you take your nemesis down with you. We functionally did that by wounding the Nothing's secret surprise murderblender champion from out of nowhere despite the fact that we were ludicrously outmatched, and pulling a Kharmic Strike out of it.
Not bad for a Rank 2 Bushi who's been subsequently backed into a corner by all of his allies systematically being destroyed by a pervasive, mighty conspiracy that's got everyone by the balls and was doing a pretty damn good job of fostering war until that kid managed to unmask them when they sprung their trap.
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- They/Them
We know they have Iaijutsu 5, so we can guess they're probably heavily spec'd towards it, though that at least makes sense in the meaning of the phrase where a normal non-assassin would probably have at least pretty alright skills in that area.
And if we, you know, actually see or know that for sure rather than this being the end of the Quest...maybe you'd have a point.
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
We already knew there were shapeshifter assassins.
Beats me why we went full aggro on that
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- They/Them
Um, because we were accepting a challenge to first blood because the Phoenix had a lot to lose if we backed down and we'd have been placed in an even weaker position?
Like, the logic only seems foolish in hindsight when you know what's going on which involves a secret assassin on us.
Da Boyz
The Cutest Apocalypse.
Yeah this could have gone either way, honestly I'm a little disappointed that @primemountain's Free Raise is going to waste here. I would have laughed my ass off if it had been deployed as an emergency +5 to our Focus roll and saved us from getting wrecked.