In Thunder's Echo (Legend of the Five Rings Quest)
[X] Remain silent
We have no reason to intervene and a lot of reason to not intervene. If we volunteer ourselves it would come like we were aligning ourselves to the crane, and given the degree of conflict they seem to be building up with the Lion right now, if we do it's going quite directly against our present main goal of "not alienating the Lion too much and keeping the pass open". Besides, she has a Kakita on her retinue, that's exactly what they are for.
We have no reason to intervene and a lot of reason to not intervene. If we volunteer ourselves it would come like we were aligning ourselves to the crane, and given the degree of conflict they seem to be building up with the Lion right now, if we do it's going quite directly against our present main goal of "not alienating the Lion too much and keeping the pass open". Besides, she has a Kakita on her retinue, that's exactly what they are for.
Also, totally not a place to train infiltrators and spies...
[x] Volunteer to act as Mariko's champion.
-[x] "Matsu-sama, whatever your quarrel with Mariko-san, you are acting unspeakably rude. You are demonstrating a deep failure of Courtesy. Additionally, by saying such things to Mariko-san, you insult *me*. If your rage is such that it overwhelms all propriety, and can only be soothed by the dance steel and blood, then I will be your partner. Mariko-san, with your permission?"
-[x] "Matsu-sama, whatever your quarrel with Mariko-san, you are acting unspeakably rude. You are demonstrating a deep failure of Courtesy. Additionally, by saying such things to Mariko-san, you insult *me*. If your rage is such that it overwhelms all propriety, and can only be soothed by the dance steel and blood, then I will be your partner. Mariko-san, with your permission?"
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
I'm seeing this as a chance to gain ground solving the Crane Enigma. Flirting with Mariko and playing Go with Chen are pleasant ways to pass the time, but they're not really getting us anywhere.
But if we put our life on the line for Mariko, well...if that doesn't get us a break in this investigation I don't know what will.
Course, it's got a high risk of "Mauled to death by Lioness" but it comes with a high reward as well. (I regard the fact that it will let Naoto to continue to stomp on Kakita Whatshisname's childhood crush as a point in the plan's favor, others may see it as a drawback).
But if we put our life on the line for Mariko, well...if that doesn't get us a break in this investigation I don't know what will.
Course, it's got a high risk of "Mauled to death by Lioness" but it comes with a high reward as well. (I regard the fact that it will let Naoto to continue to stomp on Kakita Whatshisname's childhood crush as a point in the plan's favor, others may see it as a drawback).
[] Remain silent
This is the safe bet, but it raise the difficulty of our relationship with her.
[] Volunteer to act as Mariko's champion.
This is the more dangerous option and not only because of he risk of death.
As this is the one that could brake our will in seeing her as an asset.
This is the safe bet, but it raise the difficulty of our relationship with her.
[] Volunteer to act as Mariko's champion.
This is the more dangerous option and not only because of he risk of death.
As this is the one that could brake our will in seeing her as an asset.
Illusion
Behold the power of the Ultimate Idol!
[x] Volunteer to act as Mariko's champion.
-[x] "Matsu-sama, whatever your quarrel with Mariko-san, you are acting unspeakably rude. You are demonstrating a deep failure of Courtesy. Additionally, by saying such things to Mariko-san, you insult *me*. If your rage is such that it overwhelms all propriety, and can only be soothed by the dance steel and blood, then I will be your partner. Mariko-san, with your permission?"
Mama didn't raise no coward.
-[x] "Matsu-sama, whatever your quarrel with Mariko-san, you are acting unspeakably rude. You are demonstrating a deep failure of Courtesy. Additionally, by saying such things to Mariko-san, you insult *me*. If your rage is such that it overwhelms all propriety, and can only be soothed by the dance steel and blood, then I will be your partner. Mariko-san, with your permission?"
Mama didn't raise no coward.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Yeah, I realized that part as I was writing in further edits. Mariko's covered, but presumably we'd need permission from our Lord, and the Matsu from hers.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Remain silent
The Lion's clearly confident in her ability to win this duel, else she would not have challenged her so. That means that she expects to beat a Kakita in a duel, which means that she's probably a pretty heavy duty combatant... That implies combat stats beyond what we can likely match. Given that I'm rather fond of keeping Naoto's head attached to his shoulders, I'm against intervening.
The Lion's clearly confident in her ability to win this duel, else she would not have challenged her so. That means that she expects to beat a Kakita in a duel, which means that she's probably a pretty heavy duty combatant... That implies combat stats beyond what we can likely match. Given that I'm rather fond of keeping Naoto's head attached to his shoulders, I'm against intervening.
cokerpilot
Here comes the rain.
I think I will ask to see what others say about the situation I am leaning towards stay silent but... Well.
Why? I mean, there is a bit of insult against us as well for such failure of courtesy in front of us, but that's also valid against every other samurai present in the scene, other Lion Samurai included. Unless we are admitting to some kind of connection to the Crane clan or at least to Mariko in particular, we don't really have much to do with it.
I suppose we could argue that we are simply concerned with the violation of courtesy as an affront to honor, but even so, she's not lacking for a champion. In fact, her default champion, aka: the Kakita in her retinue, would probably be considerably better than us at the duel, both because it's his specialty and because he wouldn't duel in the specialty of the Lion in question. By offering ourselves to be her champion she might end accept to not shame us or something like that, and thus actually get in a worse position than she if we did not interfere.
If she asks (indirectly as it might be) to champion her, then we should consider, but without any prompting? Let's not risk make things worse by interfering.
A Nation's Virtue
南國山河南帝居
Her being confident in her ability to defeat a Kakita doesn't necessarily mean all that much. The Matsu and Kakita schools are two of the oldest bushi schools in the Empire, and the families have feuded since the dawn of the Empire. I'd be more surprised if she doubted her ability to defeat a Kakita in combat.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Remain silent
...changed my mind.
...changed my mind.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Matsu... can do dumb things for honor. She might just be overwhelmed by rage that she'd rather die than live with it - a sort of Seppuku by Kakita.
Can we tell approximately how old this Matsu is?
She's essentially saying that we're spending time with a geisha. We were pretty obviously walking with her... and if we agree to duel for her, then we're pretty clearly admitting a connection anyway.
Argh. Mostly wish people weren't voting quite so *fast*. It'd be nice to pick up some QM feedback first.
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mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We can totally step to this uppity little whore. See, the nice thing about L5R is that we have a lot of variables and little things we can use to ferret out an advantage, e.g. VP, Honor Rolls, various armor and weapons types, etc., etc. So if we take her on...
*She hits harder. Wound Penalties cascade so if she hits us we're basically a goner.
* If she's Insight 2--which is likely--then we gotta deal with this: "When you assume the Full Attack Stance, choose an opponent within 30'. If you successfully hit him this Turn, the target is frozen with fear and cannot take Move Actions to move from his current position. During the Reactions Stage, an affected opponent may attempt a Willpower roll against a TN equal to the amount of damage dealt from your latest attack to negate the effects of this Technique (the opponent does not suffer penalties from his Wound Rank for this roll). If he fails, the effects of this Technique end during the next Reactions Stage (the second after he was struck)."
That's not TOO big of a deal in the sense that melee mano y mano tends to just devolve standing still and whacking each other but it's still something we can't do anything about.
*Matsu have no concept of restraint so she'll almost certainly go nuts on trying to hit us.
*This turns it into a game of who wrecks who first, for more; we'd have to play that game and then do everything in our power to not get hit. She also probably is tankier than us on Earth 3.
*We probably will win Initiative. If we don't, well, just Full Defense and let her overkill on us the first turn.
*If we DO win Initiative then in Light armor we're at ATN 35, which is Too Fucking Low.
I... can see us donning Heavy Armor, and taking an Honor Roll to hit. 6k6 clears basically everything and she oughtn't be hard to hit - we could call our Feint, which Kimoko would, I feel, have taught us by then, call Increased Damage and maybe Void also. That would be... 7k3+10 damage.
If she has a certain Advantage that won't make it an insta-win and she CAN Void it. But if we burn Our Everything then we can totally win this.
I make no comment on "should".
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Actually it was Mariko who challenged her and I it's not all that likely for random Lion Bushi to have the foresight to bait people into duels by blatant insults. That and, well, Lion Bushi do tend to be rather confident in their skills.
I thought spending time with Geisha wasn't in any way shameful and in fact considered nearly a basic need for Samurai so they could decompress and relax.
That aside, from what I understood we are walking close enough that while it's obvious that we are walking together it's still far enough that we can and do maintain the appearance of not doing so.
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
A thought occurs.
This Lion Samurai is acting in cold blood. She picked this time, and this place to call Mariko out. Anyone with half a brain knows that if you call out a Crane you're going to go up against a Kakita.
But if something were to have happened to the Kakita back at Matsu Shiro, some kind of accident or injury that left him unable to step in and champion Mariko...either this Lion thinks they can beat a Kakita, they don't care if they live or die, or there's some tricky business going on here.
Yeah, that wouldn't fit with the stereotypical Proud Lion Honor Strong way of doing things, but we've seem from Ginwei that the Lions are not above ditching that honor if they get pissed enough.
And the Crane have been trying their hardest to piss the Lions off since they got here.
This Lion Samurai is acting in cold blood. She picked this time, and this place to call Mariko out. Anyone with half a brain knows that if you call out a Crane you're going to go up against a Kakita.
But if something were to have happened to the Kakita back at Matsu Shiro, some kind of accident or injury that left him unable to step in and champion Mariko...either this Lion thinks they can beat a Kakita, they don't care if they live or die, or there's some tricky business going on here.
Yeah, that wouldn't fit with the stereotypical Proud Lion Honor Strong way of doing things, but we've seem from Ginwei that the Lions are not above ditching that honor if they get pissed enough.
And the Crane have been trying their hardest to piss the Lions off since they got here.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
@Maugan Ra - could we please get an Etiquette check on the implications of agreeing to be her champion in this? What would it mean to her if we do or if we do not? What would it mean to the Lion if we do? Is there any way to have it not be a duel to the death and/or not kill the Matsu without dishonor to those involved?
That's a definite possibility. On the other hand, it's also entirely possible that she saw the Crane and was overwhelmed by RIGHTEOUS MATSU RAGE. Matsu are like that, and Brash is totally a flaw that some of them take.
That's a definite possibility. On the other hand, it's also entirely possible that she saw the Crane and was overwhelmed by RIGHTEOUS MATSU RAGE. Matsu are like that, and Brash is totally a flaw that some of them take.
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mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's just it. Does it read like she's enraged to you? Maybe it does but... This feels calculated. Almost impersonally so.
I have this niggling hunch that she's a body of many pushing to instigate things with the Crane.
@Maugan Ra
Actually, I'm going to request an etiquette (or whatever skill is appropriate here) roll(s) for the following:
Actually, I'm going to request an etiquette (or whatever skill is appropriate here) roll(s) for the following:
- Can we volunteer without breaching etiquette?
- If we volunteer, would it likely alienate the Lion?
- Can we even volunteer to champion someone who isn't even from our clan or allied to it, let alone go through a duel to the death without first clearing it with our boss?
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[x] Volunteer to act as Mariko's champion.
-[x] "Matsu-sama, whatever your quarrel with Mariko-san, you are acting unspeakably rude. You are demonstrating a deep failure of Courtesy. Additionally, by saying such things to Mariko-san, you insult *me*. If your rage is such that it overwhelms all propriety, and can only be soothed by the dance steel and blood, then I will be your partner. Mariko-san, with your permission?"
-[x] "Matsu-sama, whatever your quarrel with Mariko-san, you are acting unspeakably rude. You are demonstrating a deep failure of Courtesy. Additionally, by saying such things to Mariko-san, you insult *me*. If your rage is such that it overwhelms all propriety, and can only be soothed by the dance steel and blood, then I will be your partner. Mariko-san, with your permission?"
Or maybe the reason she's doing it is because she thinks that doing it here and now, makes it more likely that the Scorpion -- who is not going to be as good at dueling as a Kakita -- will speak up and volunteer. And she's more confident about beating the Scorpion than the Kakita.
Seriously though guys... I'm curious as to why she did this. Or why somebody had her do this? Does some Lion have a goal here and they sent off a bushi to insult a Crane and challenge them or something?
@Maugan Ra do we have any suspicion or idea as to whether somebody would be trying to pull something here?
I mean... Who benefits? Assuming this situation plays out in some way, who would actively desire a confrontation?