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

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As we die, we hear the roar of an angry crowd.

The agents of the Nothing do not bleed as men or even creatures of the Shadowlands do; they leak black smoke. As we fall, it is likely that our opponent is doing so at this very moment. We're dead. But our opponent, both in a current sense and in larger one, is exposed. The Matsu will be furious, believing that Maho has been used in their court to assassinate a foreign dignitary. There will be severe consequences for both the Unicorn, who had this creature in their midst, and the the Mantis, who called upon it. At best, we have just kicked off the War Against the Shadow several years early. At worst, the Matsu will send our swords home and express gratitude to the Scorpion clan for having discovered a mahotsukai at Court, and praise our honor and our bravery.

Victory in death. This is the most Rokugani thing ever.
 
The Laurent said:
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.
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But we did not.

We already dismantled their argument, and would have walked off with a minor Glory loss. The duel was primarily based on "we can take them" and reversing the Glory loss to a gain
 
veekie said:
But we did not.

We already dismantled their argument, and would have walked off with a minor Glory loss. The duel was primarily based on "we can take them" and reversing the Glory loss to a gain
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Nope. Because as was also noted. The Phoenix had taken a huge hit and we'd done nothing to help that.

And alliance with the Phoenix was an important part of our plans.
 
"Still, while the full impact of this dispute will likely not become apparent for some time, it seems doubtless that your own position has suffered somewhat. That momentary hesitation earlier cost you significantly, and while you have clawed back some of the initiative enough of the guests are going to remember your lapse to have a distinct influence on future events. Additionally, the Mantis have successfully introduced enough uncertainty into the court to mitigate their own loss of glory in the Bowman's Wager. If you walk away now, you will still be in a superior position in days to come, but with a notably reduced lead, while the Phoenix would have suffered greatly."

Important part of the update before last highlighted and underlined.
 
MrGazzer said:
That was...

Disappointing.
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Nah, that's L5R.

Baby.

You're outmatched by evil, and have only the strength of a mortal to face dark gods and foul demons. But you can still win even if you don't live to see it.

Naoto won. He died on the way down, but he exposed the Nothing in public on what should have been a surefire masterstroke, and indebted just about every party involved to the Scorpion in the process.

The only way this stops being a win is if that Nothing agent manages to kill everybody in the building and no witnesses get out. As it is, we basically unmasked them long before they hit the level of penetration they did in the canon War Against the Shadow.
 
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That said, I fully understand why @The Laurent is upset.
It's not particularly satisfying from the perspective of wanting to see your win. Particularly when it seems likely that Maugan Ra is at best going to give us an epilogue rather than continuing. (And this quest was a lot of fun)

But this is far from the first time our aggression nearly got us wrecked (See kakita duel) so I guess I'm not too unhappy myself.

@Maugan Ra
If it's not to much trouble can we get the big picture for this though?
(Also why we didn't void the focus)
 
The Laurent said:
Actually, let me be honest, @Maugan Ra , I'm moderately pissed at how pointless it made all of our investments over quite a few months feel that a single roll and the game ended.

A single roll in a contest that wasn't even slated to be deadly.
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It's the Nothing. It doesn't give a shit about the rules of Rokugan. And honestly, looking back it's kinda obvious just how hard Harike was pushing for a duel.

Still, I get why you're upset. It's never fun to see a character we've come to care for to die. I know that Maugan Ra has said the quest would end if we made a bad decision and it resulted in death, but I won't be surprised if we do end up seeing another L5R quest soon, or a redo.
 
I appreciate that this is likely to be frustrating to some people, but Legend of the Five Rings is, in fact, an infamously lethal setting and system, and narratively people can and do die.

This specific incident wasn't planned for in advance, but there were agents of the Nothing running around in the background looking to accomplish their own goals. Perhaps the biggest one of those was an attempt to manipulate the Lion and the Crane into open war.

(I intend to write an Epilogue for the Quest covering what exactly the ramifications of this event were, for the record).

You derailed that plot, and indeed insured that it was basically never going to happen. In so doing you saved thousands of lives, prevented a serious blow to the Empire's health and stability in a potential time of crisis, and made yourself a very powerful enemy.

And then you... did absolutely nothing to prepare for it.

OK, I'm not being entirely accurate. You did make a record of all of your findings and had it sent to your superiors in the Clan. That did actually get through, and will have its own ramifications on future developments.

But beyond that... you knew there were shape shifting assassins who were working against you. You knew that they were probably vulnerable to Crystal, but not to Jade. You knew that this was a new threat, one that most of the rest of the Clans and indeed the Empire as a whole were unprepared for.

Who did you tell?

Nobody. I went back and checked. You told absolutely nobody. You told Ketsui that you were waylaid by an ice spirit, but not why. You told the other courtiers that Kimoko was assassinated by enemies of the Empire, but not which ones or what to watch for. You made no attempt to spread the news, no attempt to acquire any Crystal, and no attempt to actually prepare for the next attack from a powerful and dangerous enemy rather than engaging in more politicking.

(Hell, you even kept saving xp for an Intelligence upgrade or something, rather than buying more investigative or combat skills)

Now, maybe you would have told people. Indeed, once Hanzo was awake there was going to be a more in-depth interview with the Magistrates where this could all be covered properly.

Except, of course, that the Nothing knew all of that. It knew that you might be about to uncover it publicly, but that you hadn't done so yet. It knew the dangers of that for its long-term plans. So it put plans into motion to stop that. It leaned on Yoritomo Harike, who was angry and desperate and proud, and had him bait you into a duel. Then it stepped forwards to champion him in that duel.

And then it killed you, in front of everyone.
 
Maugan Ra said:
=
And then it killed you, in front of everyone.
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Except then we also revealed that it was a monster--in front of everyone, and that makes the data we gathered and preserved valuable.

Though that was admittedly us getting good rolls on the Focus check to turn it into a Kharmic Strike, and then hitting hard enough to draw smoke.

So in the end, its own effort to silence us just created the public unmasking that it feared. Very Ebon Dragon, I approve. And since all of our data has managed to get through to the Scorpion, and people will be inclined to listen to it, yeah, I'd call this an overall win, even if we potentially could have handled it better.
 
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Good point, though there was sorta a three month hiatus in the middle of that, though I can't say for sure we would have necessarily done more about it even if we were constantly plugged into the setting.
 
Let's raise our glasses for Naoto may his next life be even greater. A proper and in hindsight expected way to end such a quest.
 
Wait a second...how did it even know? Like, didn't we choose to step into it and defend the Phoenix for...*goes back and check*

Like, I guess they could have known that *surely* we would have defended the Phoenix, but it seems weird that they set up this entire contingency...

That I think only happened because of a write-in idea where we said, "Defend the Phoenix in a debate on this day."

Did we write it in a calendar that Nothing then read?
 
The Laurent said:
Wait a second...how did it even know? Like, didn't we choose to step into it and defend the Phoenix for...*goes back and check*

Like, I guess they could have known that *surely* we would have defended the Phoenix, but it seems weird that they set up this entire contingency...
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They had their Mantis patsy ready to fuck with us no matter what we did. Yoritomo Courtier is all about yelling at someone until they give in.
 
I'd been under the impression that we'd voted to share the info with the rest of our delegation. Had we not done that?

We were also planning to tell the crab at next available opportunity.

Other question... could we have tried for an Honor reroll? Not sure it would have been better, but "I am facing a faceless foe - a follower of the Lying Darkness. I must kill this enemy of Rokugan that I hate" seems like the sort of thing that Honor rolls might be useful for.


The Laurent said:
Wait a second...how did it even know? Like, didn't we choose to step into it and defend the Phoenix for...*goes back and check*

Like, I guess they could have known that *surely* we would have defended the Phoenix, but it seems weird that they set up this entire contingency...

That I think only happened because of a write-in idea where we said, "Defend the Phoenix in a debate on this day."

Did we write it in a calendar that Nothing then read?
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Pretty sure they were just waiting for an opportunity... and we gave them one.
 
They don't need to.

Just keep goading Naoto and he'd challenge eventually. Then stab.

Or wait for him to trip something.
Or frame him.
 
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Okay, here's the text of the bit of write-in plan that led to all of this.

[x]Plan Squid
- Day 2 conversation: The victory of the Phoenix in the Bowmans wager as a lead in for the kami:"Shiba-san may not have called on any kami to aid him in the wager, but they surely smiled on him that day. Are those closer to enlightenment also closer to the kami?" as a way to segue into talk about kami in Rokugan and their role in everyday life. Perhaps the gathered samurai have their own stories of meeting the spirits? (curries mild favor with both phoenix, while upsetting few if any)

Was the Mantis going to literally follow us around looking for something to argue with us about?

I mean, it's plausible, but it seems too...too.
 
Hell, you even kept saving xp for an Intelligence upgrade or something
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This I will freely admit to being salty about, mainly because Int 4 is already pretty good and people wanted Int 5 before even getting to IR3. I distinctly recall pushing for more combat power earlier on in the quest, but I kept getting shot down because Naoto's brainmeats weren't big enough.
The Laurent said:
Wait a second...how did it even know? Like, didn't we choose to step into it and defend the Phoenix for...*goes back and check*

Like, I guess they could have known that *surely* we would have defended the Phoenix, but it seems weird that they set up this entire contingency...
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All the Nothing really had to do was get Harike pissed off at Naoto since Harike was a proud idiot. The Bowman's Wager provided it an excuse, and Harike acted the way the Lying Darkness wanted.
 
The Laurent said:
Okay, here's the text of the bit of write-in plan that led to all of this.

[x]Plan Squid
- Day 2 conversation: The victory of the Phoenix in the Bowmans wager as a lead in for the kami:"Shiba-san may not have called on any kami to aid him in the wager, but they surely smiled on him that day. Are those closer to enlightenment also closer to the kami?" as a way to segue into talk about kami in Rokugan and their role in everyday life. Perhaps the gathered samurai have their own stories of meeting the spirits? (curries mild favor with both phoenix, while upsetting few if any)

Was the Mantis going to literally follow us around looking for something to argue with us about?
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Probably, Yoritomo Courtier lets them be rude and assholes as long as they want without losing face, honor, or glory. If it wasn't this, it'd have been something else.
 
Sirrocco said:
Other question... could we have tried for an Honor reroll? Not sure it would have been better, but "I am facing a faceless foe - a follower of the Lying Darkness. I must kill this enemy of Rokugan that I hate" seems like the sort of thing that Honor rolls might be useful for.
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Honestly? I'm just confused as to why we didn't Void the Focus roll since we knew that she would massively outclass us and its not like we were going to be using it for something else.
 
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