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[L5R] Minor Clan Quest

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HastyGaming said:
Basically this.

So much for tradition...

As to what we do here. Well, a little thought is probably required before we jump to a decision. Especially since SBK has pretty much said 'use a really, really good write-in fools'.
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Fun fact - this actually happened in canon. I believe that it was Crane/Lion/Phoenix instead of Dragon, but something along these lines did occur, according to the wiki.

And yes, a write-in where you combine options and so on is definitely a possibility, though that is the most obvious one.

Sirrocco said:
Are those marriage bonuses for our primary holding only? would there be any follow-on for our vassal?
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For the primary holding only. Koibu will make his own marriage decisions, though you can give him suggestions.
 
HastyGaming said:
Basically this.

So much for tradition...

As to what we do here. Well, a little thought is probably required before we jump to a decision. Especially since SBK has pretty much said 'use a really, really good write-in fools'.
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Good point.

In general, I think this is something both the Emperor and the Crab should know about; the former because it affects the Empire as a whole, the latter because it's basically their entire shtick as a great clan being threatened.

For the Emperor, we're a personal friend so we should probably be able to get an audience with him reasonably easily, although a *private* one is more of a problem. Being betrothed to one of his relatives might be very helpful in this regard; either as a pretext, or as a discrete middleman.

Getting in contact with the Crab Champion also shouldn't be too difficult; IIRC Minato is friends with him? And there's lots of business talk and whatnot as well that could be used as a pretext. Again, meeting in private is the bigger problem.

The main issue would be how to arrange things so we can talk about this with both, without tipping off the Alliance about it.
 
Wade Garrett said:
I must protect this smile. :mad:
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I agree, but I think we can do better than the default 'run to the Crab option'. Even just specifying that we go to a Yasuki rather than say a Hida would be an improvement. They at least might think for a second before going ballistic.

This could also end up working to the Crab's advantage. It's worth remembering that the last time anyone but the Crab tried to hold the Wall (a tiny portion of it for a night) they were slaughtered...

Just off the top of my head if the Crab and Emperor were on board (so they didn't get custody but rather permission to help) when they fail miserably it could really impact how people view the Crab and the Wall.
storybookknight said:
For the primary holding only. Koibu will make his own marriage decisions, though you can give him suggestions.
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Interesting, he was the only one I was thinking of making an exception for - the Crab or Scorpion obviously - and the Minor Clans for the rest. It gives fewer benefits but we could really use a few more ties with them. The Minor Clans need to stand together to survive the Great Clans, and it could make the Gold River Alliance much easier.
 
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Thinking caps on.

The most obvious combination is "The Crab and the Emperor" because I think the latter would definitely like to know about this grade A Ca-Ca Storm before it lands in his lap.

Throwing the Scorpion in there is...Bayushi Yamato is a wild card. Hard to tell what he'll do with it. On the other hand, that would definitely make us better friends with the Underhand of the Empire (who are our neighbors. Who we kind of need to be friendly with) because hot damn is this juicy news.
 
HastyGaming said:
This could also end up working to the Crab's advantage. It's worth remembering that the last time anyone but the Crab tried to hold the Wall (a tiny portion of it for a night) they were slaughtered...
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That happened year 930 or so in canon. The year is currently 913. This *is* that event, 20 years early. Of course, that time there were the peaceful Phoenix instead of the martial Dragon, and there were no Shimizu in the mix...
 
My initial inclination... drop a note to the Scorpion Clan Champion that we have found some information that may interest him about the Crane Coalition, and we invite him to send the trustworthy representative of his choice to discuss it in our quarters come evening. We pick some appropriate Yasuki (or pull the same trick there) an invite them. Then we tell them both at the same time, and suggest that perhaps we might establish a common strategy. Scorpion techniques work that much better when they're the second attacker, rather than the first. Discuss how we could thwart this, and how we could use it to damage the Crane (something that would be near and dear to the hearts of both clans). On a separate occasion, while spending a bit of quality time with our fiance, we mention this small bit of information that we suspect he might find pertinent to his interests. Then we say nothing else on that front. The Emperor will know, and will be prepared to react, but he will not be in a position where he must admit that he knows. We probably pass on to each group, at least by implication, that we've spoken with the other.

It gets us a bit closer with the Crab, and a bit closer with the Scorpion, and gets them in a position to work together a bit for common good. It makes sure that the Emperor won't be blindsided, but doesn't have him "handling the situation".

Not necessarily completely happy with it, but my applicable ergs are low these days, and I figure it's a decent Plan B or Plan C if we can't come up with something better.
 
storybookknight said:
That happened year 930 or so in canon. The year is currently 913. This *is* that event, 20 years early. Of course, that time there were the peaceful Phoenix instead of the martial Dragon, and there were no Shimizu in the mix...
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Found it (or at least i found the event I'm thinking of)! For anyone else that's interested in what happened the last time a non-Crab Samurai tried to hold any of the Wall...
L5R Wiki said:
The Emperor brought Winter Court at Kyuden Hida to silence the Clan Champion's squabbles of land and know that they were equals atop the Kaiu Wall. [1]

Yojimbo's contest Edit
Kakita Toshimichi, the Kakita Daimyo, Kitsuki Masakatada, the Kitsuki Daimyo, and Bayushi Sashiko, the Scorpion Clan Champion, believed the duty of the Crab could be accomplished by any of their retainers and yojimbo, despite the Crab Clan Champion Hida Shonojo told these samurai could not survive one night at the wall. The Daimyo ignored the Crab, so the Kitsuki guarded the western wall, the Kakita the eastern, and the Bayushi the northern one, while the Crab remained in the southern wall. [2]

Akutenshi attack Edit
During night Toshimichi, Masakatada and Sashiko went to the south wall were a Crab screm was heard. They fought an Akutenshi but their weapons dipped with jade powder did not harm the minion of Fu Leng, realizing as one that all the jade powder was outside. Shonojo timely arrived wielding a jade-encrusted tetsubo, smashing the creature and killing him with Chikara. [3]

Aftermath Edit
All the non-Crab bushi guarding the walls laid dead, slaughtered by the Shadowlands, but only one Crab, the one whose duty was scream to warn the keep just before he died under the Shadowlands attack. This day the three Daimyo understood what truly meant the ancestral "Duty of the Crab". This event was depicted in the infamous novel Meifumado.[4]
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Screaming is an important job. True Story.
 
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[X] Take the information to the Crab. You have no desire to leave your allies in the dark on a matter which concerns them intimately, and they need to be prepared for such a move. On the other hand, there is a chance they could react rashly or violently to such news, and this is going to be a tricky diplomatic situation.

[X] Pursue a minor marriage alliance with the Scorpion (+1 Diplomacy, +1 Information)

There was another, similar incident that occurred to this insanity. Some Lion Champion (I believe a Matsu) claimed that the Crab were weak and that he would close the Festering Pit with his army. He didn't return until the Crab Clan Champion went in personally to rescue him months later once the Lion started claiming that he'd betrayed their Champion.
 
Sirrocco said:
Not necessarily completely happy with it, but my applicable ergs are low these days, and I figure it's a decent Plan B or Plan C if we can't come up with something better.
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Well, before we try and come up with a plan a good first step would be to decide what we want to accomplish.

Do we want to try and stop the Crane Alliance from even making this play? Or do we want to (with the Crabs knowledge) try and control how it goes forward so that they try, fail, and end up recognising the Crab's work?

I'm leaning towards the latter myself.
storybookknight said:
the Kitsu are worried about Lions attacking the wrong targets again, whatever that means
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By the way, does anyone have a clue what this is about?
 
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Honestly? I would rather this idiocy happens in a way that won't screw over all of Rokugan. Screwing with the Fundamental Jobs of two of the Great Clans for petty political idiocy is a BAD idea, before you remember that one of the families of the Lion is A) supposed to fight Maho, and B) has instead been converted almost entirely to the service of Jigoku.

If it does go forward I am SO looking forward to the EPIC response that Togashi-no-kami is going to lay on the Crane for this. He'd blame the other parties, and the Mirumoto especially, but the Crane? They just pissed in his cornflakes because they thought they were SOOOOOOOooOOOoOOOoo special.

After all, is it not said "Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with Ketchup"?
 
HastyGaming said:
By the way, does anyone have a clue what this is about?
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This is related to how the Kitsu family came to be.

The Kitsu weren't originally humans; they used to be one of the Five Races with Elemental ties that preceded humanity. These were the Zokujin who were aligned with Earth, the Trolls who were aligned with Fire, the Kenku who were aligned with Air, the Ningyo who were aligned with Water, and the Kitsu who had an affinity for the Void. They were basically giant shapeshifting werelions with their own civilization before it just kind of faded away. The Tsuno are basically evil Kitsu who now fully live in the Spirit Realms.

Fast forward to the Dawn of the Empire, after Hantei declares a purge of all nonhumans due to the recent Shadowlands invasions, Akodo discovers a race of lion-men living in the mountains close to his domain. He leads an army to purge them, and only after five Kitsu are left of their race he discovers that they aren't Tainted and have their own sense of honor when one of them spared him. He pleads with Hantei to exclude them from the purge since they're not beings of Jigoku, and this reprieve is granted. As compensation, Akodo marries all of his daughters to the Kitsu and thus forms the Kitsu family of the Lion.
 
A Nation's Virtue said:
This is related to how the Kitsu family came to be.
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*sigh*, now I just feel silly. I kept trying to think who the Lion had attacked and gone to war with and I completely forgot about the Kitsu's origins.

I'm still thinking about the specifics of a plan but for the marriages I'm thinking the Minor Clans are the best choice.

Encourage Koibu to marry the Scorpion (which gets us that alliance, or at least enough ties to build on) rather than the Crab (as he's not included in this decision) since his province boarders the Scorpion and it balances our existing alliance with the Crab. And for the rest of our underlings the Minor Clans because tbh, we really do need them. The Minor Clans only survive the Great Clans together and there's so much potential with a Minor Clan Alliance in the short and long term.

Moreover we don't want them to cause us trouble, the Great Clans will - for the most part - ignore us, but the Minor Clans are our natural allies/enemies and they may come after us if they think we're ignoring them for the Great Clans or not showing them proper deference (older) or whatever.
 
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Wow. This is certainly a thing.

HastyGaming said:
Do we want to try and stop the Crane Alliance from even making this play? Or do we want to (with the Crabs knowledge) try and control how it goes forward so that they try, fail, and end up recognising the Crab's work?
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I think that call is probably above our pay-grade. This whole fight is out of our weight class, to mix metaphors; our best bet is to make sure our allies are well-informed and offer our support to their plans.

Thoughts:
  • I think we have to tell the Crab. If we don't share this kind of information with them, our alliance isn't really much of one, is it? The risk of them doing something hasty and ill-advised is troubling, but still the Crab aren't stupid.
  • If the Otomo are doing their job, the Emperor already knows, but I think we still ought to touch base with him on this (probably through our to-be husband). One worst case scenario is the Crab/us hatching a plan that winds up working at cross-purposes with the Emperor's plan and handing the Crane the victory.
  • Going to the Scorpion is tempting as always, but also risky as always. They've seemed more-or-less friendly so far this Winter Court, but they always seem that way right up until they sting you. Note that - so far as we've seen - the Scorpion don't seem to have done particularly much to stop this trainwreck so far, despite seemingly knowing about it from day one. Their plan may be to just stand back and let the whole thing explode messily all over both the Crane alliance and the Crab.

On the marriage choice, my initial gut instinct is to go with the Minor Clans, my second thought is to coordinate with Koibu and get whichever of Scorpion or Crab he isn't marrying. Haven't really decided between those two.
 
I think we should at least tell the Crab ABOUT the Scorpion interest in the matter. At the very least it'll probably stop them from being TOO hasty in reaction as they first decide whether they want to try to work with the Scorpion or not.
 
anowack said:
I think that call is probably above our pay-grade. This whole fight is out of our weight class, to mix metaphors; our best bet is to make sure our allies are well-informed and offer our support to their plans.
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Yea of course. It's not something we (in game) can just decide, but we (here) have to decide which we want to try and lobby for in order to make a plan.

Regardless of which we go for we're going to have to involve the Crab at an absolute minimum so the decision will be out of our hands regardless. The best we can do is present a plan to them when we inform them of this and suggest they go with it (with additions or changes if they have any).
anowack said:
On the marriage choice, my initial gut instinct is to go with the Minor Clans, my second thought is to coordinate with Koibu and get whichever of Scorpion or Crab he isn't marrying. Haven't really decided between those two.
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Regarding this, we already have a strong alliance with the Crab regardless of marriage so we don't really need more ties with them unless we want to go completely all in, which tbh I don't think we need to.

I'm also wary of too many competing ties. We have our alliance with the Crab and ties to the Otomo; if we add Minor Clan Alliances and some ties to the Scorpion to that we're still fine I think (since it's lesser Scorpion ties and the Minor Clans rarely get Otomo attention). But if we go for a proper Scorpion Alliance thats full on Alliance level ties to three big players which could be incredibly difficult to manage.
 
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[X] Take the information to the Crab. You have no desire to leave your allies in the dark on a matter which concerns them intimately, and they need to be prepared for such a move. On the other hand, there is a chance they could react rashly or violently to such news, and this is going to be a tricky diplomatic situation.
and
[X] Take the information to the Emperor. This is something that affects the Empire as a whole, and he needs to know about it. More than that, the Emperor can almost certainly deal with such an event... but if he handles the situation, you will be throwing away a priceless opportunity to win valuable allies for your Clan.

This is full crazy and both of our allies need to know (and we would look bad if we withhold it from them.) Hopefully we can get them to deescalate the conflict or manage it some what peacefully, but we just support it's their show.

[X] Pursue a minor marriage alliance with the Minor Clans (+1 Trade, +1 Information)
With our alliances strong our next goal is to take control of trade. (Let's keep focused and stick to the plan.)
 
[X] Take the information to the Crab.

[X] Pursue a minor marriage alliance with the Minor Clans (+1 Trade, +1 Information)
 
I do want to pursue SOME sort of official relationship with the scorpion (at least to have a lockdown on exactly what manner they'll be screwing us in the event that they decide to screw us) but in general I am extremely reticent about giving the Scorpions a path to influence over the Wave Province. It's SOMEWHAT less concerning given that Jiro is set to inherit not any kids Koibu might have with a scorpion wife but on the other hand I'd prefer Jiro didn't get murdered to get around that little problem.

At the same time, us pursuing a Scorpion minor alliance and Koibu going with minor clans isn't really an option and if it was I don't think the minor clans would really like the implications, so... I think I AM going to have to go with
[X] Pursue a minor marriage alliance with the Minor Clans (+1 Trade, +1 Information)
-[X]Encourage Koibu to go scorpion.
 
[X] Take the information to the Crab. You have no desire to leave your allies in the dark on a matter which concerns them intimately, and they need to be prepared for such a move. On the other hand, there is a chance they could react rashly or violently to such news, and this is going to be a tricky diplomatic situation.


[X] Pursue a minor marriage alliance with the Minor Clans (+1 Trade, +1 Information)
- [X] Unicorn
 
I had a rather convoluted idea where we inform the Crab and Emperor about this. The plan is to allow this plot to continue, while making preparations so that when the conspirators presented their challenge, the Emperor requires the challenging clans to send men to serve on the Kaiu Wall as a test. The Crab act as a advisors and fall backs with their men on reserves when the idiots eventually fuck things up.

Oh we also tell the Scorpion so any plots that they have would take into account actions of the Crab and the Emperor. The Scorpion could gain more by either doing nothing assisting in the counter plot. Win-win for them.

The end result would be Crab get appreciated, Scorpion get a leg up, and more bodies for the meat grinder. The other clans get smacked down which can then be used by the Yasuki to press their advantage.

No idea how to word this vote beyond voting for informing the Crab, the Scorpion, and the Emperor. And even then, this is complicated.

@storybookknight
Can we use the cipher the Scorpion gave us to write them a discrete letter?
 
Damnit @storybookknight this is ridiculously difficult to plan for -_-

I've spent the last hour or so trying to figure out how to word this plan properly so that no one (re: the Crab) goes ballistic simply from us suggesting it. But... I'm going to have to finish it in the morning. Hopefully people don't just bandwagon on the default options in the mean time.
 
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