The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Casual conversations about anything you want!

Which of the will receive your vote?

Path 1 - To Do What We Must
25
38%
Path 2 - The Left Hand of the Emperor
11
17%
Path 3a - Salvation in the Colonies
4
6%
Path 3b - Salvation in Rokugan
25
38%
 
Total votes: 65

Himoto
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Himoto » Fri Aug 21, 2015 7:00 pm


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Asahina Shimato
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Asahina Shimato » Sun Aug 23, 2015 4:46 am

And what would be so terrible about that? We're living in an Empire where only the dishonorable prosper. The Throne clearly doesn't give a rats ass about theHonor of those who get to defend and advise them. If being super-honorable means being super-weak and super-predictable, do not want.

Himoto
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Himoto » Sun Aug 23, 2015 12:06 pm

Ah, yes, the well-known link between Crane becomign Scorpion-lite and winning storyline tournaments.

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Asahina Shimato
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Asahina Shimato » Sun Aug 23, 2015 1:40 pm

Sorry, your comment is way too meta for me. I'm just going by the story as it is being told via fiction. You cannot make excuses for how story results are determined, that way madness lies.

Himoto
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Himoto » Sun Aug 23, 2015 2:25 pm

lol

Point stand. We're not failing (to the extent that we are, in fact, failing) for being too honorable, and becoming more dishonorable won't make us more likely to succeed. The only thing honorable/dishonorable will change, if we don't win tournaments, is whether we fail honorably or dishonorably.

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KakitaKaori
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby KakitaKaori » Sun Aug 23, 2015 5:00 pm

Let's let it lie here...

The Crane has had and has lived up to a certain ideal of honor since the founding of the Empire. Through the passage of time, there have been times where things have gotten very very bad for the Crane and the order of the universe has been overturned. During the worst of these times, a select, small number of the Crane decide that honor alone is not enough for the Crane to survive...that certain things need to be done. And they band together to do it. Clan champions or Daidoji family daimyo may or may not be aware of their presence, but if they are, and if times are dire enough, they are willing to give tasks to this specific group without inquiring too closely the 'how' by which they accomplish their goals. Their family members and a small number of others in the clan hierarchy are aware of the group, perhaps only as an elite unit without knowing the specifics of what they have done, or even how dishonorable their actions were. Even the Lion feel no qualms about attacking by surprise, for example...to many the Harriers may be considered only an elite unite. Probably the majority of the Clan does not know of them as anything other than dedicated Daidoji bushi.

In any event, the specific Crane who are engaged in the activities are fully aware that what they are doing is dishonorable. Completely unlike the Scorpion, they don't old their honor in their masks...(Scorpion answer for honor: "It's not dishonorable that I lied because I told you beforehand by my mask that I was going to lie"). The harriers know what they did was dishonorable but consider it necessary. They also understand that to save the on, the face, of the clan, the moment that any of their activity is traced back to the Crane, they will be compelled to commit seppuku to make up for the loss of face. The Champion would not advertise the specifics of their failure, if the Dragons had not....merely kept it as required because those bushi used dishonorable tactics in battle in order to preserve the territories of the Crane. Many in the clan might consider that that might not be too bad...especially if it prevented an oni from eating your children. Ideals are great...and true...and hard to live with in the times when harriers crop up in the clan in the first place.

Face is an important concept. And it's one that the Dragon, understandably, don't have much appreciation for. It is more important how you are seen, your face, or on, than anything else about you. Face must be maintained at all costs. The failure of face to be honorable is far more important, culturally, than the failure of an individual to be honorable. This is true for all clans, though the Dragon get to be a little 'odd' so can break some of the rules. That is, for example, why testimony is more important than evidence. Testimony reflects On, evidence reflects what actually happened.

In any event, the current Harriers were probably a group that had only been around since Clan war, though there had been older iterations in times of great trial, the On had been lost. When the Dragon discovered them and outed their existence, however subtly, the champion, from a Crane point of view, would have no choice but to make all remaining harriers commit seppuku. It didn't matter that the Dragon didn't make a huge deal of it....it mattered that now On was lost and the personal 'sacrifice of honor' made by a small faction within the Crane now reflected on the Clan as a whole. The Crane were honorable. The Champion, officially, was now aware of the dishonor and had to take steps to end it. This is similar to what Kurohito did. The Scorpion, of course, would never need to commit seppuku for this; their On accommodates dishonorable actions by their members. So, now the Crane are completely honorable, officially, and the harriers really are gone.

BUT....

Those Harriers had loved ones and family members and leaders who knew who they were and why they did what they did. Even knowing why they had to commit seppuku (to save the on for the Crane), the Dragon would make a very natural target for their anger at having lost loved ones. That anger would be even more poignent as new threats arrived that said friends of the Harriers knew the Harriers could help with....but they are no longer there. Every death to dishonorable attack could be blamed on the ones who caused loss of face instead of looking away.

Even more so, the Dragon have had no regard for On for themselves. They protected the hated Spider....and failed in their task of guiding them. Amongst the Crane, that sort of failure would be a cause for widespread seppuku, in and of itself...in particular for the specific group within the clan tasked with monitoring the Spider. They have clearly and grossly failed at their duty and the Dragon are radically shamed. They also have failed to make the empire aware of other grave dishonors under their noses, making it clear they are treating the Crane differently. That's plenty of reason for them to get some wroth.

However, it's got to be subtle wroth...and political. It needs to make clear at the same time that revenge is taken that the Crane is even more honorable because of it.....and that the dragon are hypocrites. A good trick, if you can pull it off. But the dragon is making it easy right now.

Just my 2 bu.

Kakita Kaori
Golden Petal village.
Kakita Kaori
Kenshinzen of Golden Petal Village and overly prolific fiction writer
http://craneclan.weebly.com/
[Kakita Kyoumi/WC5]

Himoto
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Himoto » Sun Aug 23, 2015 6:11 pm

That there would be Cranes who might want to avenge the harriers make sense to me. I wish we as a playerbase moved on (it's been over eight years!), but in-story, it can probably work. (Although my understanding is that Crane exposed as using gunpowder and other similar treasonous trick would be executed without a chance at seppuku).

And yes, I agree, the harriers as originally conceived were a cool idea, and one I liked. It made sense. The problem was when the Crane fanbase (and L5R fanbase in general) saw the harriers and interpreted them as an everyday part of the clan. More precisely, when the Crane fanbase saw Crane using gunpowder and other treasonous tricks and reacted "Holy shit that's awesome we should do this more often!" instead of "Holy crap how have we become THIS desperate?!". Which only got worse when they were actually turned into a playable archetype in the card game that (play-wise) was more Iron Warriors than Harriers. And every Daidoji had to be printed as a harrier because the game needed more harriers to feed that archetype.

And suddenly powder-blue meant gunpowder-using traitor in the same way that pink meant maho-tsukai or purple meant kolat.

THAT is when the harriers became a rotten problem that had to be forcefully extripated from the clan to make the Crane remain the Crane.

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Kakita Ijiwaru
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Kakita Ijiwaru » Tue Aug 25, 2015 9:45 am

New fiction at the Imperial Assembly. Looks like the Crane will be using the old pepper stick against the spider in Onyx.

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Doji Pheelyp
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Doji Pheelyp » Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:30 pm

Courtier * Doji Innocent * Loyal

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Kakita Shiro
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Re: The Left Hand's Path - Crane Story Paths

Postby Kakita Shiro » Tue Aug 25, 2015 12:41 pm

Bushi. Artisan. Duelist. Magistrate. Hatamoto.



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