None was required.
Yeah, the facts of what happened are unlikely to come up in any single play through, but the collation of the various results produces a nice samurai drama.
I'm also happy that Itsuyo's showed up in the main story - it shows that FFG are paying attention to the RPG as well as the CG, where AEG just treated the RPG as an add-on.

He's also simply wrong about both Duels and Intrigues. They both work just fine.
However, the book does need more examples for stuff, although the latest errata did help.
Range bands also work. "Ignoring" in this case means "don't track them the way you would track a grid". (There is a bit of weirdness with moving to range 6, if you can make that happen, however.)

Nick Kempin has a great new Video Series for the Court Games podcasts group called Tokyo of the Five Rings, where he makes comparisons between L5R and Rokugan and RL Japan for religion and culture.
Check out his first episode!
 
 

I might disagree on that point - not in terms of simple 'capacity to make things expire' but because, depending on the setting of the campaign, or at least a specific adventure, the ability to do so without access to a sword (inside a 'secure' area of a court palace, for example) might be far more overpowered...

For a different opinion here.  I would say either "yes and no" or "no and yes".
Allow me to explain - various bits and pieces have implied that being part of a samurai family in L5R isn't just a bloodline thing, it's semi-mystical and at least partially to do with the which Clan a person believes they belong to.  So what I'd do is say that the player picks one clan or the other to represent where the character now belongs and they get access to the clan-unique effects of that Clan.  And it's not a big issue if they decide that their heart is still Crane after marrying into the Scorpion.  Heck, it would make a good ninjo-giri:  My duty is to act as a Scorpion for their benefit but my heart is still a Crane.  Side note, I would also refund the XP of anything that a character loses by changing Clans.

I would say yes and yes
keep in mind though that the clan exclusive techniques are the heritage of said clan and as a former outsider, you’re probably going to have to prove that you’re fully loyal to your new clan before they consider teaching you
as for your old techniques, well you don’t magically forget them but your new clan might frown upon you using them (even for their benefit) if they don’t align with your new clan ideology 

So what was your point with your 1st question ?
taoist swordsman can add the kiho to the sword which can double its deadliness endgame 
sure your granny weatherwax can use twin streams unarmed but she’ll be at least half as deadly as a daisho armed swordsman 
also, granny wouldn’t do that, she’d use headology to convince the opponent he’s a frog before it devolves to combat 

Which is the whole point of it   - I don't need a sword when this washbrush is a sword.
Hey I just realised, Granny Weatherwax knows this kiho  .

as I read it RAW in the core book, flame fist increases the deadliness by your fire ring while edgeless sword replaces the deadlines by your void ring, so flame fist is beneficial here while edgeless sword isn't

2 katas is absolutely RAW and RAI. and yep, the Taoist Blade can do some of the craziest high DLS combos. 
Generally, unless it's explicitly excluded (like having 2 kihō at once) you're supposed to combine things.

2 katas is absolutely RAW and RAI. and yep, the Taoist Blade can do some of the craziest high DLS combos. 
Generally, unless it's explicitly excluded (like having 2 kihō at once) you're supposed to combine things.

However, it works on both of them at the same time, because the kihō affect you, and then enhance whatever unarmed or one-handed profile you are using.
So unless you somehow obtain the Togashi Tattoed Monk mastery or get the benefit of a Chronicler, you only have one kihō at a time.

However, it works on both of them at the same time, because the kihō affect you, and then enhance whatever unarmed or one-handed profile you are using.
So unless you somehow obtain the Togashi Tattoed Monk mastery or get the benefit of a Chronicler, you only have one kihō at a time.

However, it works on both of them at the same time, because the kihō affect you, and then enhance whatever unarmed or one-handed profile you are using.
So unless you somehow obtain the Togashi Tattoed Monk mastery or get the benefit of a Chronicler, you only have one kihō at a time.

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Correct, so the set up is to finish off a really tough enemy with a high ring value before they can recover (i.e. Oni or a Manifest Kami). Granted, my players commented that its probably more efficient with Student of Talons, armed with a Bisento (or Maskari as he's a pleb), doing the +8-9 DLS (max range 5-6 w/ Piercing Bolt + his school rank ability of at least 3 to get the technique) without even moving (although the scene is only limited to skirmish). 

Uiri and Suiren were meanwhile talking to Miyoko, the former Doshin. Well - they were talking, and she was trying to talk between epic bouts of consumptive coughing. Otoha's medicine clearly wasn't working. She was staying at her sister's house and was clearly bed-ridden. She didn't know of any violence that had occurred in the house. When asked about the last crime she'd investigated, she said it was a theft of rice, which had led to the thief (a peasant called Jimba) fleeing the village. Uiri also spoke to Nayaka, the sister. She was, naturally, concerned about her sister. When asked about Jimba, she expressed surprise - he was a friend of hers and a close friend of her husband's, and news of the theft and his fleeing town was shocking. "He's dead, isn't he?" "Probably, yup." - Uiri and Goriate's players.  
The PCs met up again at Setsuo's home - each of them seeing evidence of the Onryu's curse as they walked through the village.  They compared notes, but as they did so, they were interrupted by an angry mob led by Banji, Nayaka's husband, who was accusing them of disturbing the spirits which nearly killed Daizo and being responsible for bringing the curse which was consuming the village. Faced with an angry mob, though, we saw one of the first obvious differences in playing Sins of Regret adventure elements with non-ronin. Uiri and Goriate both have high command skill and Voice of Authority from their completed Emerald Magistrate titles, allowing them to affect over a dozen targets simultaneously. With a combination of that and You Taught Me This, Banji's wanabee lynch mob evaporated, muttering that the farmer hadn't told them the 'strangers' were magistrates... Banji nevertheless attacked - wielding a kama - a small crop scythe - with a murderous madness in his eyes. To his credit, the peasants did manage to land a successful strike action against Uiri, despite Way of the Dragon. Then the Dragon and Crab samurai smartly pummeled him unconscious. With Banji subdued, things came out fairly quickly. Miyoko had arrested Jimba on Banji's say-so, tying him up in her house  - and then had told people he'd 'fled' based on her Brother-in-law's testimony. He was, of course, lying. He'd framed Jimba for the theft in the first place and then killed him in the night, dumping the body in the river. He'd suspected Jimba of seeing his wife behind his back, and used his sister-in-law as his unwitting accomplice...  
Banji was subsequently executed by Uiri, whilst Miyoko was pardoned at Setsuo's request (she didn't know what happened, however much she might have suspected, and the Onryu had been punishing her for weeks). Everyone in the village was suitably impressed with the PCs, and they headed on toward Hirosaka with a degree of optimism.  
Postscript: after the session, spending up XP, Uiri's player was told he - now a rank 3 Mirumoto - was encouraged to buy the ritual Commune with the Spirits.  "No, thank you. I've had quite enough of that for now and frankly would rather they stop communing with me...."

Two observations - firstly you'll struggle to open the range much given that the manoeuvre action doesn't exist in a duel and - presumably - your opponent isn't inclined to let you, and second if your plan is "I run away" I suggest that a duel is the wrong choice of conflict scene...

To throw it? Yes. 
To throw it effectively? No.
I'd rather say that what's missing is a 'generic thrown weapon' from the list of improvised weapons, which represents the damage you'd do if you tried to lob a sword, axe, or something without ever really practicing doing so first.

Well, I would say, yes it is needed, because if you can throw anything for "free", then that can really cheapen the way Range of a weapon matters. Weapons meant to be thrown usually also have a ranged component, but a lot of weapons aren't meant for it. Without the technique, I'd call that improvising a thrown weapon. But it is occasionally a cool martial arts movie thing to throw a weapon not meant to be thrown, and mechanically it can give otherwise short range characters an option to prevent too much shenanigans with a range lockdown. 

You're treating this like Murphy's Rules - taking the exact wording of the book to a ridiculous length for humorous reasons.

The Dragonfly Clan's LCG card is a Bushi called "Insightful Gatekeeper", so I could imagine a Courtier/Bushi school called Tonbo Gatekeeper and there really ought to be a Shugenja school.  I called mine a Diviner, because of their history with being intrigued by divination.

I mean, I got most of what I need out of it. It's spooky, it has some landmarks. If they did cover naga, which I won't say without a real marketing blurb for sure, it would make sense to talk about their turf in there, but they've already done the ol' "couple of pages in a half a chapter" treatment. I would prefer to see areas not really covered at all before we double back. I don't have CR yet, so I dunno if Isawa Mori/Kuroi Mori is handled yet, but there are some mountains and big open countryside left in Rokugan to poke. Wilderness is more than just "all the spooky haunted woods in Rokugan, which is all of them". 
They're definitely still that already, to the point where they're the majority of the "Dragon Clan District" in City of the Rich Frog, for instance. Historically they're a shugenja family, aren't they? Could see 1-2 schools. 

Schools-wise...
 
Something scouty for the Unicorn, is my guess. Maybe a Shinjo school?
For Dragon, I would't be surprised if we get Yamabushi, aka priests who do battle with spell weapons, mountian sages or the like.
 
I wonder if Dragonfy will still keep their niche of being gatekeepers of the Dragon, and what kind of school they'll have.

You could tweak Dark Tides from the GM pack a bit.  It assumes that the Otomo calls in a favour to get a Magistrate to search for a missing samurai, but he could equally decide to use money to hire a band of ronin as a deniable asset to go and do the search instead.  He has a certain motive to do that, since the task exposes the dishonourable behaviour of kin.  Magistrates who decide to go public with the info would be more believable than ronin.
From there, a direct link is possible to Mask of the Oni (and DLC) but there's a little bit of "why wouldn't the PCs just tell the authorities about this?" to that one.  You could get past that with "and why should I believe you?", especially if you set up the expectation that the party wouldn't be believable at the start of Dark Tides.
Winter's Embrace, on the other hand, really isn't available to a ronin band at all.
Obvioulsy, Wheel of Judgement is suitable for anyone, you just need a TPK first.