And in a random note: Marriage: Are we an available asset for it, at least in the sense of proposing a prospective match we might have found for our family to handle the rest if they so desire and approve? Unlikely to make much difference in the short term, that is, for this specific court, but marriages are an old and time honored way of handling politics and improving relations.
You're a young, intelligent and well educated Bushi with court experience and no major downsides. In marriage terms you're not massively valuable, but you would be a fairly solid pick. That perception would probably change over the course of the Winter Court if you do well enough.
Bayushi Kimoko is deeply unlikely to actually agree to a marriage contract involving you, since the Scorpion take that sort of thing very seriously and she's not your relative, but forming ideas in that direction and taking it back with you to your family would be fairly reasonable.
We'd need to be far worse than we currently are to make said potential embarrassment be worse than the (certain) embarrassment of not participating. We don't need to win. We don't even need to make a particularly good showing. We just need to avoid demonstrating absolute incompetency, aka, make a complete fumble through rolling all 1s or something of the kind. Not only we are young enough that inexperience can explain a lot, not being a great fighter is not particularly shameful. Furthermore, we already have our boss here to show that the Scorpion can be phenomenal fighters, we can reassure them that she's the exception and most of us are pretty mediocre compared to the Lion, aka, back to the comfort zone for our hosts.
This is fairly accurate. Obviously performing well in the tournament would be great, but there is just as much honour and glory in losing to a superior opponent and then graciously acknowledging their skill. Your conduct in the tournament will lead to all manner of knock-on effects further down the line.
Fun fact - Matsu Ketsui met her first husband in a Jiujutsu duel - by which I mean they punched each other until he passed out. She was sufficiently impressed by his fortitude and willpower that she accepted a marriage proposal.
This might be a good opportunity if we wish to engage in an affair with a woman from one of the other delegations. Unfortunately, our artistic/storytelling abilities are nonexistent at this time. Would be a good opportunity to buy some Calligraphy/Poetry before this if we want to get some points with someone.
Courtly romances are an accepted and even encouraged occurance. My current notes include three possible options, so if you want to pursue that angle it's a perfectly valid choice.
Okay, I have to say I like this event. I just sounds amusing and awesome. Should probably get a point in Poetry just so we don't embarrass ourselves too badly, though.
This might also provide an opportunity to embarrass someone from another delegation, though; goading them into saying something stupid/insulting, spiking their drink or food so they'll get drunk much more quickly and make a fool of themselves, things like that. On the flipside, we might want to look into some herbs or the like we could use to fortify our constitution so we can take our drink better, or something like that. Both so we can better avoid issues that might come from our drunkenness, and potentially impress the Lion and possibly other martial clans through our staying power.
The Winding River Banquet is a favourite setting element of mine, yes. To clarify, after you've taken a drink and recited a poem (which could be composed on the spot or memorized in advance) you can either put your cup back in the river in order to continue, or keep it in your lap to signify that you are withdrawing. There is no shame in backing out after one, but the longer you keep going the more impressive it is.
We'll probably want to enter this competition as well. We won't get far, but thanks to Crab hands we shouldn't embarrass ourselves, and it might further garner some points with our Lion hosts. The Tsuruchi is obviously going to dominate this one, though, but that also makes this a potential opportunity to embarass him, and by extension his Mantis charge; subtly messing with the balance of his bow and arrows so he only provides a mediocre showing despite the Wasp Clan's reputation could cost him and by extension the Mantis some face at this court.
The Tsuruchi is a woman - Tsuruchi Miyako to be precise. That said, messing with her equipment would be a perfectly valid course of action... and one quite likely to lead to a duel or an unfortunate accident if you are caught, but that's always a risk.
What are the general current clan relations in the current time, other than the general stereotypes that is. That is, which clans are going to be more suspicious than normal about us, which clans are already pissed off at us, which clans might be more sympathetic to us, and so forth? Having some idea of possible secondary objectives would probably be a good idea to handle what we'd do other than randomly stumble around trying to bring metaphorical profit to our clan.
The Scorpion are in a reasonably neutral position in terms of Clan diplomatic relations. The Scorpion Coup is serious black mark for everybody except the Crab (who were actually considering supporting you) and the Mantis (who basically admire the massive balls it took to even try). But you didn't have much involvement in the Clan Wars proper and showed up in full force for the Second Day of Thunder, so most people are willing to look past that. Toturi publicly absolving your Clan of any wrongdoing (on account of it being obvious what you were trying to prevent) helped a lot.
That said, though, we should probably discuss with Hanzo, and possibly Kimiko, where their talents in regards to the various events lie. If either of them is a good storyteller or dancer, for example, it means they can represent us in the corresponding event, and we can invest the XP we'd have spent on those skills into raising skills for other events, or our courtier-related skills in general.
I'm going to assume you ask them off-screen so I can easily summarize things
Kimoko's whole schtick is that she is a terrifyingly dangerous frontline combatant. She's got weapon skills, Battle and a few associated abilities at a high level. That said she only has a few court related skills and they're not at fantastically high levels - she won't embarrass herself, but in a court held anywhere but Shiro Matsu she'd be a terrible choice of ambassador.
Hanzo is a Shugenja, and as such is quite knowledgeable in a number of different fields such as theology and natural science. In mechanical terms he's got pretty good and well balanced Rings more than high skills - the Yogo have an affinity for all Ward spells rather than for a particular element, so he's become pretty well rounded there. He'll do reasonably well at just about anything, but probably won't shine - except perhaps in the endurance race, which he reckons he'd be pretty good at.
Incidentally, iirc Archery uses Reflexes.
Yup. Rokugani archers don't actually
aim per se - rather they've trained themselves to shoot without thinking about it, drawing and firing in a single smooth motion that can be repeated over and over again.
