The classic liar's paradox. But, a good con artist or even an agent provocateur knows that sometime the truth works much better than a well crafted lie. Indeed, the best liars know how to use half-truths to great effect. "The truth she speaks may not be the truth you think you hear," -proverb about the Aes Sedai in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

I agree. Hence, when I crib elements of Rokugan into other campaign settings, the Lion typically gets retconned into the Tiger Clan. Tora! Tora! Tora!

And that may be Riku's out. Since her orders were to cripple the Lion, they don't say anything about the Hare serving in his place. So she doesn't have to worry about crippling the Lion Samurai if the opportunity never comes up. I can see Riku using the "first blood" to simply scratch him in a very glaring but ultimately harmless way(ie in a classic counting coup fashion) or even with just the back of her blade so that he collapses but is unharmed. Got to love the cleverness of Player characters finding a solution that the NPCs never expect.

The bolding was my emphasis. That leads me to believe that it is either to first blood or more likely incapacitation. But to your point, since she basically executed the Scorpion during her nominal due to first blood in front of the Castle of the Hare, I can understand the worry.

Called shot, critical hit. Roll to confirm severity Seriously, that actually went better than I expected. And the response from Goriate (or at least his player) was epic! And the plot thickens. I wonder what would happen if Auntie got wind of a girl dying to be the baby momma of a Dragon Samurai. Considering the clan's desires to address birth declines, an a desire to get some revenge on family, this is just too good to pass up. And the banter between Suiren and Horonigai is hilarious!

That "oh crap!" moment will be priceless then.

Either way, her life is going to keep getting more complicated when people think she is in bed with the clan of secrets. As for Ikue/Sakura, while she may not know Riku personally, just being in the same area where gossiping occurs and then the reactions of the PCs such as sweating bullets could still create issues. I apologize to your players for giving you ideas to bedevil their character's lives. Hapless indeed.

Fair point. For my East meets West campaign world (Samurai vs. Knights Templar), the Jade Empire is loosely based on Rokugan, but sized up to China and set in the southern hemisphere with the clans effectively representing the vestiges of this world's equivalent of China's Seven Warring States period. Hentai Genji was a combination of Qin Shi Huang Di and Yongle Emperor Zhu Di, having united the disparate regional powers into a single unified country. I made the Phoenix clan have Tamori, Asako, Isawa, and Shiba. The Isawa are actually elves while the Shiba are true-breeding half-elves. Their lands extend into areas as far south as Sakhlan is north. Like the Phoenix Clan, the Cranes also have elves with the Doji being high elves and the Daidoji as half-elves. Dragon clan was Yoritomo, Minamoto (the two family founders being twin brothers) along side the Kistuski and Agasha. Rather than being in the north, their lands were just north of the capital (closer to the equator). They have much in common with the Hmong Hill tribes as well as the Tanka boat people of Hong Kong. In their place was the Crabs with the Hida and Kaiu being dwarves whom swore allegiance when Hentai Genji's armies originally intending to subjugate them instead assisted them against an Orc-Giant invasion. Instead of Lions, the Akodo form the vanguard of the Tiger clan and occupying most of the flat inland areas. Anyhow, sorry for going off on a tangent. There is so much in this setting that is ripe for exporting into other campaigns. Why reinvent the wheel? Change a few of the origin stories and it is easy to incorporate into almost any other medieval setting.

Not meaning to distract nor hijack the discussion, but I feel it is best asked here. In the AEG canon, some of the Agasha defected to the Phoenix. Did any of their vassal families go with them? Or did the remaining Agasha who became Tamori consist of the vassals who refused to defect with the Agasha?

I would say that the vassal family would have the same skill set bonuses as the primary family they are assigned to, but then swap out the ring bonuses as desired. That way you are not drastically changing the power balance. To use the Isawa as an example, they normally get +1 fire and +1 void as they are normally associated with both Fire and Ishiken traditions. One vassal family more known for their air focused Shugenja could swap either of those rings for air. Another family could swap fire for water. And yet another could swap out for earth. Keep their +1 meditation and +1 theology and reduce the glory value to 35 or 40. Right there you have at least three Isawa vassal family alternate rules.

No doubt one of two thoughts was going through Kazuda-dono's mind: either being around scorpions has rubbed off on her OR she may be Kaito, but she has to have been born a scorpion(Auda Abu Tayi's line in Lawrence of Arabia "Thy mother mated with a scorpion!" comes to mind). Hopefully Bayushi Mei Lin's little pet at the okasan is NOT part of the staff who serve during the negotiations. That would be another.....complication for Kakita Riku. As for Horonigai's "Advisor", no doubt she wants to stab him for his "cleverness"(ie trolling). All of that is indeed very hilarious.

Considering the high attrition rate of prominent characters in Rokugan, they HAVE to be reproducing like jackrabbits. That is not looking at the population at large, that is just looking at the rulers of the various clans.

You have a very valid point with regards to population attrition caused by war. Indeed, Russia's population crisis today is a direct result of what was for them a Pyrrhic victory in WW2. As much as 70% of an entire year's worth of births were wiped out by the war. This video breaks that down. What does this have to do with Rokugan? It very much explains how the Crab's war of attrition with the Shadowlands is very much a monkey on the back of the clan's demographics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ56MYa9W8M