Thanks so much for the assistance there- truly a labor of love you have here, and it shows. If you ever run a PbP game, I want to be in it!

Glad you found these stimulating, verbage aside. My usual policy when working with historical (or historically-based) settings is to maintain the vocabulary of the times; to do otherwise, to me, risks whitewashing the real horrors of these times and places. (There's a much bigger conversation one could have about the ethics of the samurai genre as a whole, inasmuch as it romanticizes a fascistic caste-based kleptocracy, but that's for another time and place). All that said, since this is indeed an out-of-character document, your point is taken, and the offending vocabulary has been amended. Cheers!

Thanks for the replies. Having taken a second, more thorough look at the religion section of Emerald Empire, I do see they've gone a good long way toward a more diverse and multipolar approach to Shintao in this edition (cheers to the writers, if they're reading).
Here are some potential doctrinal or institutional conflicts I've come up with, drawn more or less directly from history, along with story seeds to implement them into your games. Hope someone finds them useful or interesting, 
 
* Does enlightenment happen suddenly, in a flash of insight, or gradually, through persistent effort?
- Until last year, the monk known as Sonkyo was a drunken, lecherous ronin known for his scanadalous escapades. After only a few months as an acolyte monk, he claims to have achieved full enlightenment, and gone on to roundly humiliate the venerable abbot of his monastery in a theological debate. Now the community is divided as to whether this upstart is a spiritual prodigy, or simply a clever rascal with a silver tongue.
 
* Do all beings share the same innate potential for enlightenment?
- The eta quarter of a major city is abuzz. A progressive, some might say "radical" monastery has accepted one of their number as an acolyte, under the principle that all beings have the right and potential to achieve enlightenment. Samurai and even heimin mock these monks, saying they might as well preach to dogs and monkeys. But the impromptu sermons they give on the outskirts of the city are drawing greater and greater numbers of eta, and have begun to take on revolutionary undertones...
- An ex-Kuni who has retired to the monastery has undertaken a grand experiment, or laughable folly, depending on who you ask. He has acquired an infant bakemono, and is rigorously disciplining it in Shinseist pedagogy. Most think him mad- but the creature has learned not just to quote the Tao, but to apply it.
 
* What does enlightenment actually entail for the destiny of the spirit? Do enlightened souls go to spend eternity in Yomi, ascend to Tengoku, or surpass all these realms and become one with the Void?
-  A young Kitsu sodan-senzo has been diligently seeking to make contact with a revered ancestor in Yomi. After many fruitless years, she proclaims that she is unable to reach him because he has transcended Yomi entirely, and that Yomi is merely a superior level in the same world of illusion as Ningen-do. This casts the many ancestors who are easily reachable through sodan-senzo in a less-than-favorable light, and threatens to create a dangerous breach in the Kitsu family order.
 
* Does the phenomenal world have any substance at all , and therefore, do actions taken there have any significance beyond the subjective experience of them?
- A Mirumoto swordsman of great skill and repute has entered a small town, slaughtered the entire burakumin population, and commanded the heimin there to start butchering their own meat. He says that he's done the burakumin a favor by speeding them toward their next life, and the heimin are not defiled by this work so long as they undertake it in a spirit of detachment. The swordsman has been arrested and is standing trial, but as he has only killed burakumin, and his knowledge of Shinseist scripture is impeccable, the magistrate is struggling to impose a meaningful penalty on him. By all appearances, he truly believes his actions to have been compassionate and in accord with the Tao.
 
* Was Shinsei a unique figure in history, or simply one of many enlightened souls who happened to play a visible historic role? How many other beings in existence have equalled or surpassed his spiritual status?
- A radical sect of travelling monks have been raiding monasteries simply to destroy all images of Shinsei. They claim that slavish devotion to his image is inimicable to his teachings, and that "the Shintao that can be named or envisioned is not the true Shintao". They melt idols and distribute the gold among the peasantry, and now have the support of much of the rural populace, giving voice to the frustrations of people who watch their religious teachers adorn statues with precious jewels while they themselves toil and starve.
 
* Can enlightenment, once gained, ever be lost?
- A revered monk, long-known for his holiness and wisdom, has begun travelling the countryside looking for plague-stricken lands. Wherever he goes, he lies with young women, claiming that far from lustfulness this is the bestowal of a transcendent gift. While this has discredited him in the eyes of many, rumors continue to spread that those young women are indeed cured of their pestilence, along with any other who lie with them. 
 
* Is violence ever justifiable, or is all conflict inherently an expression of desire and a source of karma?
- In the Crab lands, a dangerous idea is spreading. Peasant villages, after generations of mere survival, have stopped tilling their fields, but do not rise up in revolt- they simply sit. Torture and execution fail to induce them to labor, and they die with the dignity and resolve of any samurai. The famine has already begun, and the storehouses of the samurai begin to dwindle. Ashigaru levies are being disbanded and sent back to the fields, but some of them, too, have begun to refuse to work- better to die, they say, than to be defiled with the Taint. Samurai who have seen these mere heimin face death and excruciating pain without flinching have begun to question who is truly the superior being. 
 
Thoughts or responses welcome, of course.

Glad you found these stimulating, verbage aside. My usual policy when working with historical (or historically-based) settings is to maintain the vocabulary of the times; to do otherwise, to me, risks whitewashing the real horrors of these times and places. (There's a much bigger conversation one could have about the ethics of the samurai genre as a whole, inasmuch as it romanticizes a fascistic caste-based kleptocracy, but that's for another time and place). All that said, since this is indeed an out-of-character document, your point is taken, and the offending vocabulary has been amended. Cheers!

This harmonizes nicely with the historic Japanese tradition of looking on adoption as being just as legitimate of a familial bond as blood relation- social contracts define the self, rather than the other way around.
 
That said, it might be worth keeping in mind that, given the Hantei predilection for intermarriage with the Doji (and presumably only a specific, elite strata thereof), the average Empress probably does have Hantei blood to begin with. Granted, the Imperial line is more known as a "wife taker" than a "wife giver", but I'll bet you that just as most Imperial brides come from the Doji, a good number of Hantei princes/esses are married off into the Doji.
 
Of course, the ward's designers would probably not have been so short-sighted as to make it impossible for the Emperor to take a bride of his choosing, whatever her pedigree. But maybe this approach could ease some of the world-building issues you're facing.

Thanks for the info guys- there were some fine points in there that I missed re: the Kuni barrens being not quite so barren, and the Hiruma having some near-side of the Wall holdings. That said-
Most of the points y'all raised were about the official, ceremonial status of the Hiruma. I'm more interested in the functional aspects of the situation. Again, I'm approaching this from a perspective based on the principle that, whatever else is true about Rokugan, the samurai who populate it are still human beings and function according to the basic universals of human psychology.
If I am a Hiruma, theoretically sworn to a Hiruma lord, but the rice I eat is farmed in Hida lands, given to me by a Hida lord, I serve in Hida lands, live in a Hida castle, etc., then whatever the paperwork says or what syllables come in front of my personal name, I am in every practical respect a retainer of the Hida family. And functionally that means that if the Hida daimyo gives me orders that conflict with those of my putative Hiruma lord, well... it's honor or rice. 
You might respond with, "well, why would the Hida lord give orders conflicting with the Hiruma lord? After all, they're all part of the same Clan, and the Hiruma are subordinate to the Hida..." But at that point, you've thrown feudalism itself out the window, and the game is no longer a samurai game at all- we're basically looking at something much more like Meiji era Japana, with a Western-style civil administration organized into a unified chain of command. I know the whole issue of "is this game even about samurai?" has been kicking around for years, so maybe I'm beating a dead horse here- and perhaps I'm the only one who cares about this kind of stuff. Still, it'd be nice to have a functioning model for how food actually gets on the Hiruma table. Without that, it's much harder to run interesting games involving internal Crab politics.
 
Again, thanks for the responses, always appreciated.

These questions have probably been answered many times since 1E, so apologies for my ignorance here, but here they are:
 
1 - A samurai is, by definition, a warrior sworn to the service of a land-holding lord, who pays them in rice taxed from the production of his land. The Hiruma have no land of their own. Who pays their salaries, and how? And if the Hiruma daimyo has no lands of his own, in what sense is he even a daimyo? 
 
2 - The Kuni lands are described as "spiritually barren". How the heck do new Kuni shugenja train, or even know that they are in fact shugenja, when there's no spirits for them to talk to? (Since their lands are also described as ecologically barren, the same issue as the Hiruma applies- where does their wealth come from, and how do they support themselves?)
 
If this all comes down to them being subsidized by the Hida and/or Yasuki, then realistically, there is no Kuni or Hiruma daimyo. They're simply vassal families, by definition. I realize L5R lore plays fast and loose with the historical bases for the samurai feudal order as well as common sense, but if anyone has any marginally sensible rationalizations for these issues, I'd love to hear them. For my own games I'd probably simply say that following the loss of Hiruma lands to the Maw and the spiritual sterilization of the Kuni lands, they were granted territory from the Yasuki and/or Hida holdings in compensation, but alternatives are welcome.

Me: "What is the meaning of life?"
You: "Webster's dictionary defines 'life' as 'The state of organisms preceding their death, characterized by biological processes such as metabolism and reproduction and distinguishing them from inanimate objects; the state of being alive and living.'

Glad you found these stimulating, verbage aside. My usual policy when working with historical (or historically-based) settings is to maintain the vocabulary of the times; to do otherwise, to me, risks whitewashing the real horrors of these times and places. (There's a much bigger conversation one could have about the ethics of the samurai genre as a whole, inasmuch as it romanticizes a fascistic caste-based kleptocracy, but that's for another time and place). All that said, since this is indeed an out-of-character document, your point is taken, and the offending vocabulary has been amended. Cheers!

Thanks for the replies. Having taken a second, more thorough look at the religion section of Emerald Empire, I do see they've gone a good long way toward a more diverse and multipolar approach to Shintao in this edition (cheers to the writers, if they're reading).
Here are some potential doctrinal or institutional conflicts I've come up with, drawn more or less directly from history, along with story seeds to implement them into your games. Hope someone finds them useful or interesting, 
 
* Does enlightenment happen suddenly, in a flash of insight, or gradually, through persistent effort?
- Until last year, the monk known as Sonkyo was a drunken, lecherous ronin known for his scanadalous escapades. After only a few months as an acolyte monk, he claims to have achieved full enlightenment, and gone on to roundly humiliate the venerable abbot of his monastery in a theological debate. Now the community is divided as to whether this upstart is a spiritual prodigy, or simply a clever rascal with a silver tongue.
 
* Do all beings share the same innate potential for enlightenment?
- The eta quarter of a major city is abuzz. A progressive, some might say "radical" monastery has accepted one of their number as an acolyte, under the principle that all beings have the right and potential to achieve enlightenment. Samurai and even heimin mock these monks, saying they might as well preach to dogs and monkeys. But the impromptu sermons they give on the outskirts of the city are drawing greater and greater numbers of eta, and have begun to take on revolutionary undertones...
- An ex-Kuni who has retired to the monastery has undertaken a grand experiment, or laughable folly, depending on who you ask. He has acquired an infant bakemono, and is rigorously disciplining it in Shinseist pedagogy. Most think him mad- but the creature has learned not just to quote the Tao, but to apply it.
 
* What does enlightenment actually entail for the destiny of the spirit? Do enlightened souls go to spend eternity in Yomi, ascend to Tengoku, or surpass all these realms and become one with the Void?
-  A young Kitsu sodan-senzo has been diligently seeking to make contact with a revered ancestor in Yomi. After many fruitless years, she proclaims that she is unable to reach him because he has transcended Yomi entirely, and that Yomi is merely a superior level in the same world of illusion as Ningen-do. This casts the many ancestors who are easily reachable through sodan-senzo in a less-than-favorable light, and threatens to create a dangerous breach in the Kitsu family order.
 
* Does the phenomenal world have any substance at all , and therefore, do actions taken there have any significance beyond the subjective experience of them?
- A Mirumoto swordsman of great skill and repute has entered a small town, slaughtered the entire burakumin population, and commanded the heimin there to start butchering their own meat. He says that he's done the burakumin a favor by speeding them toward their next life, and the heimin are not defiled by this work so long as they undertake it in a spirit of detachment. The swordsman has been arrested and is standing trial, but as he has only killed burakumin, and his knowledge of Shinseist scripture is impeccable, the magistrate is struggling to impose a meaningful penalty on him. By all appearances, he truly believes his actions to have been compassionate and in accord with the Tao.
 
* Was Shinsei a unique figure in history, or simply one of many enlightened souls who happened to play a visible historic role? How many other beings in existence have equalled or surpassed his spiritual status?
- A radical sect of travelling monks have been raiding monasteries simply to destroy all images of Shinsei. They claim that slavish devotion to his image is inimicable to his teachings, and that "the Shintao that can be named or envisioned is not the true Shintao". They melt idols and distribute the gold among the peasantry, and now have the support of much of the rural populace, giving voice to the frustrations of people who watch their religious teachers adorn statues with precious jewels while they themselves toil and starve.
 
* Can enlightenment, once gained, ever be lost?
- A revered monk, long-known for his holiness and wisdom, has begun travelling the countryside looking for plague-stricken lands. Wherever he goes, he lies with young women, claiming that far from lustfulness this is the bestowal of a transcendent gift. While this has discredited him in the eyes of many, rumors continue to spread that those young women are indeed cured of their pestilence, along with any other who lie with them. 
 
* Is violence ever justifiable, or is all conflict inherently an expression of desire and a source of karma?
- In the Crab lands, a dangerous idea is spreading. Peasant villages, after generations of mere survival, have stopped tilling their fields, but do not rise up in revolt- they simply sit. Torture and execution fail to induce them to labor, and they die with the dignity and resolve of any samurai. The famine has already begun, and the storehouses of the samurai begin to dwindle. Ashigaru levies are being disbanded and sent back to the fields, but some of them, too, have begun to refuse to work- better to die, they say, than to be defiled with the Taint. Samurai who have seen these mere heimin face death and excruciating pain without flinching have begun to question who is truly the superior being. 
 
Thoughts or responses welcome, of course.

Thanks for the replies. Having taken a second, more thorough look at the religion section of Emerald Empire, I do see they've gone a good long way toward a more diverse and multipolar approach to Shintao in this edition (cheers to the writers, if they're reading).
Here are some potential doctrinal or institutional conflicts I've come up with, drawn more or less directly from history, along with story seeds to implement them into your games. Hope someone finds them useful or interesting, 
 
* Does enlightenment happen suddenly, in a flash of insight, or gradually, through persistent effort?
- Until last year, the monk known as Sonkyo was a drunken, lecherous ronin known for his scanadalous escapades. After only a few months as an acolyte monk, he claims to have achieved full enlightenment, and gone on to roundly humiliate the venerable abbot of his monastery in a theological debate. Now the community is divided as to whether this upstart is a spiritual prodigy, or simply a clever rascal with a silver tongue.
 
* Do all beings share the same innate potential for enlightenment?
- The eta quarter of a major city is abuzz. A progressive, some might say "radical" monastery has accepted one of their number as an acolyte, under the principle that all beings have the right and potential to achieve enlightenment. Samurai and even heimin mock these monks, saying they might as well preach to dogs and monkeys. But the impromptu sermons they give on the outskirts of the city are drawing greater and greater numbers of eta, and have begun to take on revolutionary undertones...
- An ex-Kuni who has retired to the monastery has undertaken a grand experiment, or laughable folly, depending on who you ask. He has acquired an infant bakemono, and is rigorously disciplining it in Shinseist pedagogy. Most think him mad- but the creature has learned not just to quote the Tao, but to apply it.
 
* What does enlightenment actually entail for the destiny of the spirit? Do enlightened souls go to spend eternity in Yomi, ascend to Tengoku, or surpass all these realms and become one with the Void?
-  A young Kitsu sodan-senzo has been diligently seeking to make contact with a revered ancestor in Yomi. After many fruitless years, she proclaims that she is unable to reach him because he has transcended Yomi entirely, and that Yomi is merely a superior level in the same world of illusion as Ningen-do. This casts the many ancestors who are easily reachable through sodan-senzo in a less-than-favorable light, and threatens to create a dangerous breach in the Kitsu family order.
 
* Does the phenomenal world have any substance at all , and therefore, do actions taken there have any significance beyond the subjective experience of them?
- A Mirumoto swordsman of great skill and repute has entered a small town, slaughtered the entire burakumin population, and commanded the heimin there to start butchering their own meat. He says that he's done the burakumin a favor by speeding them toward their next life, and the heimin are not defiled by this work so long as they undertake it in a spirit of detachment. The swordsman has been arrested and is standing trial, but as he has only killed burakumin, and his knowledge of Shinseist scripture is impeccable, the magistrate is struggling to impose a meaningful penalty on him. By all appearances, he truly believes his actions to have been compassionate and in accord with the Tao.
 
* Was Shinsei a unique figure in history, or simply one of many enlightened souls who happened to play a visible historic role? How many other beings in existence have equalled or surpassed his spiritual status?
- A radical sect of travelling monks have been raiding monasteries simply to destroy all images of Shinsei. They claim that slavish devotion to his image is inimicable to his teachings, and that "the Shintao that can be named or envisioned is not the true Shintao". They melt idols and distribute the gold among the peasantry, and now have the support of much of the rural populace, giving voice to the frustrations of people who watch their religious teachers adorn statues with precious jewels while they themselves toil and starve.
 
* Can enlightenment, once gained, ever be lost?
- A revered monk, long-known for his holiness and wisdom, has begun travelling the countryside looking for plague-stricken lands. Wherever he goes, he lies with young women, claiming that far from lustfulness this is the bestowal of a transcendent gift. While this has discredited him in the eyes of many, rumors continue to spread that those young women are indeed cured of their pestilence, along with any other who lie with them. 
 
* Is violence ever justifiable, or is all conflict inherently an expression of desire and a source of karma?
- In the Crab lands, a dangerous idea is spreading. Peasant villages, after generations of mere survival, have stopped tilling their fields, but do not rise up in revolt- they simply sit. Torture and execution fail to induce them to labor, and they die with the dignity and resolve of any samurai. The famine has already begun, and the storehouses of the samurai begin to dwindle. Ashigaru levies are being disbanded and sent back to the fields, but some of them, too, have begun to refuse to work- better to die, they say, than to be defiled with the Taint. Samurai who have seen these mere heimin face death and excruciating pain without flinching have begun to question who is truly the superior being. 
 
Thoughts or responses welcome, of course.

Thanks so much for the assistance there- truly a labor of love you have here, and it shows. If you ever run a PbP game, I want to be in it!

Howdy!   Custom Advantages and Disadvantages is a feature we haven't built into the GUI (yet...) but it's doable if you're willing to roll your sleeves up and check out the DB.  🙂  Steps Below!
1) Find the database file (paperblossoms.db, located in the folder opened by going to Tools->Open Application Data Directory.  Mine is at C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\PaperBlossoms ).  Make a copy of it just in case, then  close Paper Blossoms.
2) Open paperblossoms DB in a SQlite DB tool (I use https://sqlitebrowser.org/dl/ ).
3) We have a space for user-added advantages and disadvantages: user_advantages_disadvantages.  If you populate this with values similar to those in the official date (base_advantages_disadvantages) the will show up in the app--typically at the end of whatever dropdown or list you're looking at, on my machine.
So!  If I wanted to add a custom distinction, 'Cat Person' I could populate the columns with:
Distinctions    Cat Person    BookofCats    101    Void    Spiritual    
Write the changes (there's a button in DB Browser, if you're using that). THen re-open paper blossoms from scratch.  If it works, the distinction will be in the database, and selectable when you build a new character (at the end of the dropdown). 
4) Optional: Description
We don't put *any* descriptions in place by default. You can add them, however, under Tools->Description editor.  You should see your custom Distinction in the list (alphabetically, here).
 
After you're done, be sure to Tools->Export->Export All User Data Tables to make sure you can keep this data after we update the application (since an update will typically overwrite the data).
 
 
Hope that helps!
Addendum: It *is* possible you could export the user data tables, modify user_advantages_disadvantages in the same way (taking care to adhere to CSV constraints) and then import them back in -- but CSVs can be a little finicky, and I can't claim to have tested that, I'm afraid!

Thanks for the info guys- there were some fine points in there that I missed re: the Kuni barrens being not quite so barren, and the Hiruma having some near-side of the Wall holdings. That said-
Most of the points y'all raised were about the official, ceremonial status of the Hiruma. I'm more interested in the functional aspects of the situation. Again, I'm approaching this from a perspective based on the principle that, whatever else is true about Rokugan, the samurai who populate it are still human beings and function according to the basic universals of human psychology.
If I am a Hiruma, theoretically sworn to a Hiruma lord, but the rice I eat is farmed in Hida lands, given to me by a Hida lord, I serve in Hida lands, live in a Hida castle, etc., then whatever the paperwork says or what syllables come in front of my personal name, I am in every practical respect a retainer of the Hida family. And functionally that means that if the Hida daimyo gives me orders that conflict with those of my putative Hiruma lord, well... it's honor or rice. 
You might respond with, "well, why would the Hida lord give orders conflicting with the Hiruma lord? After all, they're all part of the same Clan, and the Hiruma are subordinate to the Hida..." But at that point, you've thrown feudalism itself out the window, and the game is no longer a samurai game at all- we're basically looking at something much more like Meiji era Japana, with a Western-style civil administration organized into a unified chain of command. I know the whole issue of "is this game even about samurai?" has been kicking around for years, so maybe I'm beating a dead horse here- and perhaps I'm the only one who cares about this kind of stuff. Still, it'd be nice to have a functioning model for how food actually gets on the Hiruma table. Without that, it's much harder to run interesting games involving internal Crab politics.
 
Again, thanks for the responses, always appreciated.

This harmonizes nicely with the historic Japanese tradition of looking on adoption as being just as legitimate of a familial bond as blood relation- social contracts define the self, rather than the other way around.
 
That said, it might be worth keeping in mind that, given the Hantei predilection for intermarriage with the Doji (and presumably only a specific, elite strata thereof), the average Empress probably does have Hantei blood to begin with. Granted, the Imperial line is more known as a "wife taker" than a "wife giver", but I'll bet you that just as most Imperial brides come from the Doji, a good number of Hantei princes/esses are married off into the Doji.
 
Of course, the ward's designers would probably not have been so short-sighted as to make it impossible for the Emperor to take a bride of his choosing, whatever her pedigree. But maybe this approach could ease some of the world-building issues you're facing.

This harmonizes nicely with the historic Japanese tradition of looking on adoption as being just as legitimate of a familial bond as blood relation- social contracts define the self, rather than the other way around.
 
That said, it might be worth keeping in mind that, given the Hantei predilection for intermarriage with the Doji (and presumably only a specific, elite strata thereof), the average Empress probably does have Hantei blood to begin with. Granted, the Imperial line is more known as a "wife taker" than a "wife giver", but I'll bet you that just as most Imperial brides come from the Doji, a good number of Hantei princes/esses are married off into the Doji.
 
Of course, the ward's designers would probably not have been so short-sighted as to make it impossible for the Emperor to take a bride of his choosing, whatever her pedigree. But maybe this approach could ease some of the world-building issues you're facing.

Hey guys, thanks very much for the feedback! I should note I guess that I have yet to actually use the system at all "in the wild"- I'm prepping for my first campaign of 5E now, so making custom stuff like this is part of me getting a feel for what works and doesn't; hence the glaring oversights. Some responses to your comments:
Appreciate the encouragement- I'm working on some Shuji in the same conceptual framework, so stay tuned on that.
The idea here was to counter some of the Water stance's main advantages. While, again. I have no in-game experience to reference, the ability to use Calming Breath or Maneuver for free seem core to tbe utility of the Water stance. I wasn't aware of other Air kata letting you move enemies around, so that's very useful to know. 
Maybe you can offer some alternative ideas that are in-theme. My deisgn goals are, A: Provide an effective counter to the Water stance's strengths, which are flexibility and recovery, and B), have a fitting game-world rationale for how that would stem from Air's strengths (subtlety and misdirection). 
If l5R by default had a tactical spatial map, I'd be tempted to let it designate a space on the board that, if the opponent moved into it, you'd get a free attack or something like that, but that doesn't work well with the whole range band thing. Other thoughts?
 
Thanks for catching that, I forgot that Earth stance also protects from conditions being applied- I'll fix that. The idea of adding strife is certainly thematic for Fire- I'm tempted to make it something like "inflict x strife, if target is compromised they cannot defend against this attack". Good looking out!
 
You make an excellent point here, I really didn't think that one through thoroughly. I still like it a lot conceptually, in terms of flowing into the spaces where the opponent is weakest, but for the number of opportunities it takes, it's as you say a crappier version of the Air stance. I'm thinking of two possible versions- keep the requirement the same, but make it so that they simply can't Attack with an out-of-range weapon, or leaving it as is but dropping the Opportiunity cost to a base of 1, so you can potentially wind up with a much higher TN penalty than Air grants.
Thanks! I like it too.
This is very much intentional- the idea of "opposite" rings is very much an Occidentalism that I don't like in my Rokugan.
That's actually kinda what I did- I used the traditional Chinese Wuxing cycle, removed Wood, and replaced Metal with Air. The defensive techs I'm working on reverse the cycle, so Air defends against Earth, Fire defends against Water, etc. This is a matter of taste, while I appreciate the feedback I'll probably leave this as-is.  But as you suggested I'm also working on some Void techniques- my initial concept has to do with forcing opponents to use their weakest Ring, so it punishes "elementally imbalanced" warriors. More on that later.
 
Thanks again for the feedback, kindly appreciated! Hope to add some more content here soon.

I love the idea and will see if I can come up with more in the same vein. I'll also allow my players to take them (provisionally, to playtest) although I supect that my not very warlike players might not be too interested.

Storm Drives the Waves sounds weak, sure, certain Kata also use Movement actions and they get blocked out of it, but moving someone far or closer away is easily achieved with other Air Kata already and blocking someone from Calming Breath, I mean, I don't know how often your table uses this option, but it seems like a weak option to choose from, anyway. Iron Smelting Strike doesn't work. Sure, you put the exception for the critical strike on the first use, but not on the second. So the second option doesn't work. I would consider something else, like giving the opponent 3 or 4 points of strife and I would change the first option to say if you spend this amount of opportunities, the attack cannot be defended against, which is just a slightly different way of saying you inflicted a critical strike. Flooding the Hearth Method is an okay Kata I guess, but it somehow it feels weak to me. Even if somehow you kind copied the ability of the Air Stance. Sacred Mountain Heavens looks like great. Specially if you Immobilized the target with something else, like Silent Elimination.  
Overall, I like the idea of what you did there, but only Flooding the Hearth Method and Sacred Mountain Heavens actually go against their "opposite" Ring.
Storm Drives the Waves is Air against Water, instead of Earth and Iron Smelting Strike is Fire against Earth, instead of Water.
If you don't want to make two pairs of opposite Kata (Air -> Earth, Earth -> Air), I would suggest going through the Rings in a clockwise or counter clockwise manner (disregarding Void and probably creating a Kata for Void against Void).
So, my take would be [Earth -> Air, Air -> Fire, Fire -> Water, Water -> Earth] or [Air -> Earth, Earth -> Water, Water -> Fire, Fire -> Air].

Trying my hand here at some custom Techniques for 5E for the first time. I'm working on a whole set of techs based around interesting interactions between characters in different Stances. The idea here was to provide good tactical "counterplay" that is also richly thematic. For starters here I present my offense-based techs, with plans to follow up with some defensive ones in the same vein. Each one seeks to negate or counter the tactical advantages of a given Stance, or capitalize on its weaknesses.
I'm quite sure some of these are badly broken in some way I haven't noticed yet, so powergamers are invited to chip in with their exploits and combos. Feedback warmly welcomed!
 
Storm Drives the Waves
Rank 2 Air Kata
Close Combat Kata
Circling his opponent while lashing out with a whirlwind of fast, unpredictable strikes, the samurai keeps his foe on the back foot and herds him into an untenable position.
Activation: When making a Melee or Unarmed Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Water stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Air O+: If the character spends O equal to his opponent’s vigilance, he gains one of the following benefits. Each additional O spent in this way grants one additional benefit.
-Until the beginning of your next turn, the target character cannot make any Movement actions.
-Until the beginning of your next turn, the target character cannot take the Calming Breath action.
-The target character must move one range band in a direction of your choosing.
 
Iron Smelting Strike
Rank 2 Fire Kata
Close Combat Kata
Against an overly cautious opponent, the warrior gathers his strength and unleashes an all-out assault to punch through his guard, his armor, and his bones.
Activation: When making a Melee or Unarmed Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Earth stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Fire O+: If successful, you may spend O equal to the target’s Earth ring to inflict a critical strike of severity equal to the weapon’s deadliness, plus your bonus successes. This does not count as spending O to inflict a critical strike for the purpose of the Earth stance’s benefit.
Fire O+: You may spend O equal to the target’s vigilance to inflict the Dazed condition on them.
 
Flooding the Hearth Method
Rank 2 Water Kata
Close Combat Kata
Rather than meeting force with force, the samurai fluidly evades his foe’s killing zone, and flows into the spaces where his power cannot be applied effectively.
Activation: When making a Melee or Unarmed Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Fire stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Water O+: If you spend O equal to the target’s vigilance, until the beginning of your next turn, the TN of any attack the target makes against you using a weapon for which you are not within range at the time this Technique is activated is increased by 1, +1 for each additional O spent in this way.
 
Sacred Mountain Pierces Heaven
Rank 2 Earth Kata
Close Combat Kata
Ignoring feints and misdirections, the warrior advances implacably until he overbears his enemy and they are at his feet, ready to receive the killing blow.
Activation: When making an Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Air stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Earth O+: If successful, you may spend O equal to the target’s vigilance to inflict the Immobilized condition on them until the end of your next turn.
Earth O+: If the target of your action has the Immobilized condition, you gain one bonus success for every O spent in this manner.

Trying my hand here at some custom Techniques for 5E for the first time. I'm working on a whole set of techs based around interesting interactions between characters in different Stances. The idea here was to provide good tactical "counterplay" that is also richly thematic. For starters here I present my offense-based techs, with plans to follow up with some defensive ones in the same vein. Each one seeks to negate or counter the tactical advantages of a given Stance, or capitalize on its weaknesses.
I'm quite sure some of these are badly broken in some way I haven't noticed yet, so powergamers are invited to chip in with their exploits and combos. Feedback warmly welcomed!
 
Storm Drives the Waves
Rank 2 Air Kata
Close Combat Kata
Circling his opponent while lashing out with a whirlwind of fast, unpredictable strikes, the samurai keeps his foe on the back foot and herds him into an untenable position.
Activation: When making a Melee or Unarmed Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Water stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Air O+: If the character spends O equal to his opponent’s vigilance, he gains one of the following benefits. Each additional O spent in this way grants one additional benefit.
-Until the beginning of your next turn, the target character cannot make any Movement actions.
-Until the beginning of your next turn, the target character cannot take the Calming Breath action.
-The target character must move one range band in a direction of your choosing.
 
Iron Smelting Strike
Rank 2 Fire Kata
Close Combat Kata
Against an overly cautious opponent, the warrior gathers his strength and unleashes an all-out assault to punch through his guard, his armor, and his bones.
Activation: When making a Melee or Unarmed Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Earth stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Fire O+: If successful, you may spend O equal to the target’s Earth ring to inflict a critical strike of severity equal to the weapon’s deadliness, plus your bonus successes. This does not count as spending O to inflict a critical strike for the purpose of the Earth stance’s benefit.
Fire O+: You may spend O equal to the target’s vigilance to inflict the Dazed condition on them.
 
Flooding the Hearth Method
Rank 2 Water Kata
Close Combat Kata
Rather than meeting force with force, the samurai fluidly evades his foe’s killing zone, and flows into the spaces where his power cannot be applied effectively.
Activation: When making a Melee or Unarmed Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Fire stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Water O+: If you spend O equal to the target’s vigilance, until the beginning of your next turn, the TN of any attack the target makes against you using a weapon for which you are not within range at the time this Technique is activated is increased by 1, +1 for each additional O spent in this way.
 
Sacred Mountain Pierces Heaven
Rank 2 Earth Kata
Close Combat Kata
Ignoring feints and misdirections, the warrior advances implacably until he overbears his enemy and they are at his feet, ready to receive the killing blow.
Activation: When making an Attack Action in a skirmish against a character in Air stance, you may spend O in the following way:
Earth O+: If successful, you may spend O equal to the target’s vigilance to inflict the Immobilized condition on them until the end of your next turn.
Earth O+: If the target of your action has the Immobilized condition, you gain one bonus success for every O spent in this manner.