Sapphire Ambassadors

The second outing of my kiddie character from 1000 stances, the magical painter Matsu Inori (formerly known as Yuuka). It's been fun, and much better than I had anticipated. Fun was had, and several walls of text were written.

Now with this game almost in the books, this is the thread for any questions you might have

Ah man, didn't even know this was an experienced character. So how does one transfer from the life of a bushi to one of a shugenja?

Kaiu Kunio wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 04, 2022 2:39 pm

So how does one transfer from the life of a bushi to one of a shugenja?

Messily with a lot of confusion, futzing around and in her case, talking to a very helpful Phoenix (played by the player of Choudai) and other less helpful characters, plus some pretty cool help and accomodation from the GMs.

She essentially tried to become a good bushi again after she'd fallen behind in her training, then took trips to locations in that game, especially the pond, painted things, and eventually summoned a water sprite. Which prompted her to talk to more PCs and NPCs, including the local Shugenja, and her having to come to terms with the fact that her life would be upended.

That was basically her character arc in 1000 stances and the thing I had built this character for originally. I feel like she did take the first step towards that goal, which is also why she took her current name. This game basically continued, and in my opinion concluded, that arc. She's comfortable with being a Shugenja now, but also won't completely abandon her martial training.

Any regrets about not being able to deploy Inori as an NPC in later games?

Fukurokujin wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 04, 2022 2:56 pm

Any regrets about not being able to deploy Inori as an NPC in later games?

Hmmm. The way she is right now I think I CAN sunset her. I don't have to, she would have had one more game in her, but it's not like I feel it's necessary for closure.
That said, she would have made a pretty cool minor NPC, yeah. Would have been better, arguably, than as a PC.

I'll miss the overall cast of characters and the investment in the timeline more than Inori specifically.

We've got one more thread pending, so I'll try not to step on any toes here, but!


1. Which of the pieces Inori presented was your favorite? Which was hers?
2. I'd given serious thought to having Shiba Jiro/Ryusei write her to check in, but realized I really had no ability to get out of Choudai's brain and into Ryusei's to reflect his (infinitely less self-destructive and self-loathing) mindset, plus it would have meant more scutwork for our GMs. Would she have liked getting some mail?

What day did you find the most challenging, art wise, to think up something for?

Will Inori's relationship with her family mend after her success here?

If Inori knew about the gaki, could she have helped?

Lovely art for your character. Commission pieces are always a joy to see. I liked reading your scenes and your art write ups. Thank you.

Bayushi Choudai wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:19 pm

We've got one more thread pending, so I'll try not to step on any toes here, but!


1. Which of the pieces Inori presented was your favorite? Which was hers?
2. I'd given serious thought to having Shiba Jiro/Ryusei write her to check in, but realized I really had no ability to get out of Choudai's brain and into Ryusei's to reflect his (infinitely less self-destructive and self-loathing) mindset, plus it would have meant more scutwork for our GMs. Would she have liked getting some mail?

1: My favourite piece was also the one that won on day 6, the Gi piece. It was actually rather hard to come up with something for that topic, in part because I was busy IRL, in part because it's a hard topic to work. I had that idea while I was out and about running errands and it was so...off-the wall yet appropriate that I had to do it.
My characters tend to view the entire sincerity thing as "underpromise but overdeliver", which is fine and all (and even got one of my earlier characters killed). If a Samurai is expected to uphold his word at all cost then it makes sense to not give it lightly. But never promising anything is...cowardly, I think. So...this piece.

Inori herself? She'd have rather continued with spell scrolls like she did on the first 2 Days, but she (and the player) ran out of ideas/spells and some of the concepts are harder to frame that way. In many ways magic is power, after all, not principles


2: It would have been rather nice and thoughtful - He played a major part in her untangling her own issues during 1000 stances after all, some pretty good threads those were. That said, the reminder and the thought are more important than the actual letter itself.

I would like to think that Inori will write one to him in the near future

Doji Yoshino wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:26 pm

What day did you find the most challenging, art wise, to think up something for?

Will Inori's relationship with her family mend after her success here?

If Inori knew about the gaki, could she have helped?

Lovely art for your character. Commission pieces are always a joy to see. I liked reading your scenes and your art write ups. Thank you.

- Honour on Day 7 and it wasn't even close. It might be my personal favourite and to my mind often misunderstood tenet of Bushido, perhaps a legacy of one of my favourite previous other characters, but it's VERY difficult to express visually. I liked what I came up with eventually (balancing on that log, one of the two Samurai stabbing the other would fall to their death below as well, emphasizing the live-and-let-live aspect of Honour).

I knew lightning wasn't going to strike twice though.

- Half of this is in her head, and most of the other half will be fixed once she is gone for a while ("How can we miss you if you won't go away?") and comes back with some sort of accomplishment in her hands.

It mostly comes down to Inori being more comfortable if she can present a new version of herself to her family. Her mother's plans for an heir will fall on Inori's sister, of course, if they work at all, but...They'll work it out I think.

- I wanted to get in on that, but didn't exactly know how, in part because I as the player had balkanized myself a lot early and didn't have an "in" with Yoshino or any of the other PCs close to her. Fukurokujin supported that a little, I think, and even gave her "Yari of Air" in case it would have come down to a fight.

This one is mostly on me as the player for staying in my shell too long and not pushing hard enough to get involved, not Inori. She would have been down.


Also thanks, I really, really love the piece. The artist made the beatiful version with the lighting, and I actually asked him for a gloomier version (which was the original avatar) - the same without the lighting layer. So it really worked out well because I could even switch over to a non-gloomy Inori later on. Serendipity!

Curious where the idea for the character came from.

I enjoyed our one conversation. It wasn't lost on me that Sriyani was of one of the very few schools that might look at painting invocations as not completely out there, thanks to the weirdness of Meishodo.

Why back the Phoenix? The favorable with Lion part, or something more personal?

Horiuchi Sriyani wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:05 am

Curious where the idea for the character came from.

That's a bit complicated, there are two things playing into it. The first is Self-taught Shugenja as a technique:

Yes it's deliberately, horribly underpowered/nerfy, but I've always argued (and will, to this day) that Shugenja are so strong that even a self-taught Shugenja who never learns another spell can be somewhat viable and useful up to about IR 3, and I always loved their special technique. Plus their flavour - they self-teach through trial and error, so they can literally crop up ANYWHERE. Even, say, one of the most spiritually obtuse warrior families (and my reasoning was that if there was a family that would not recognize someone like Inori and would instead try to "counsel" her out of her attitude problem it would be the Matsu)

The other thing is that with them self-teaching, why exactly would they come up with exactly the same way of casting? One previous concept I had for an IRL Tabletop game that I ultimately never got to play was a self-taught Shugenja who had all spells innate and cast by tracing glowing Kanji in the air (Anime style). Bit too flashy, too expensive and not fitting. It would also need GM approval for allowing innate spells, much less all of them.
But..what if you had a Shugenja that cast in an unusual way that still used "scrolls"? I felt this would need a lot less accomodation from GMs. Plus...if there's another thing the Matsu in particular tolerate but not encourage is arts, particularly arts that aren't scholarly (I feel they'd be more on board with Calligraphy or Poetry). So that was the casting gimmick.

Why though, and in that game? Basically 100 stances was designed as a competitive showcase of the next generation of best and brightest for the next Naishou arc, and a lot of people ran exactly with that vibe. Bayushi Ameiko was, and I say this entirely without rancor, pretty much the PERFECT character for that game, exactly what was asked for. There was luck and calculated risk involved in her win, but it made a lot of sense and think fit that game.

Me? I'm a contrarian, dour curmudgeon and don't really like playing golden genius kids or 13 year olds acting like 30yo rising star corporate execs in training. But also wasn't content just being there and having fun. Much like in 7s, I built a character that basically challenged and subverted the concept of that game. I was fine with not winning. In fact I WANTED to bomb out, but in an interesting, honourable way that would be a really cool character arc (And not step on the toes of the GMs or other players instead of picking a fight). Plus this was literally a thing I could ONLY do in a game with kid characters, and I thought the idea was original.

So there you go. Get yourself a Matsu groomed for success that will eventually fail by becoming something rather un-lion, but something other that was pretty cool and respectable in its own way. And she's still a Lion. Just...not a normal one

Side note: Every single spell in her repertoire is something that can be visualized fairly easily. This was important to me.

I enjoyed our one conversation. It wasn't lost on me that Sriyani was of one of the very few schools that might look at painting invocations as not completely out there, thanks to the weirdness of Meishodo.

Likewise, although I seem to remember that was my most busy off-screen time and least active in the game. Good scene, wish we could have had one more thread or so. Next game. I'm getting out of my shell more these days.

Why back the Phoenix? The favorable with Lion part, or something more personal?

That, plus the fact that the Phoenix are a conservative and honourable clan (these subsets overlap heavily but are not the same - Scorpion are conservative but not honourable, and Crab are not conservative but honourable). I assume other Clans will do what they can to avoid exposure to Scorpions, especially on their turf, and the Mantis would be terrible hosts for this, both in the eyes of the player and in the eyes of most Lion characters.

1. Did you have fun?
2. What thing from this game would you like to see in future games?
3. What thing from this game would you like to not see in future games?

Saibankan wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:23 pm

1. Did you have fun?
2. What thing from this game would you like to see in future games?
3. What thing from this game would you like to not see in future games?

1: Yes I did. This was about as good as Naishou Topaz I think, overall quite enjoyable and pretty solid. The art concept (including bitchy judges, who really had their moments) worked a lot better than I would have thought and we had a small but quality contingent of players.


2: -Honestly the creative writing aspect - I was skeptical initially, but it's not any less "fair" than just rewarding the most busted mechanical build, and arguably much better (because you get interesting event threads genuinely worth reading end-to-end).
- Reward levels were still generous, but dialed back to something sensible, which I also like. Even IF this hadn't been the last game for this particular cast, characters can go though 2-4 such games without becoming bloated or overpowered
- player-generated events are a good concept in general, even though they only halfway worked this time, but I feel that's more an issue of ironing out the kinks than of it generally not working
- While I don't want every game to be like that, a peaceful game was a nice change of pace. Or hell, even just one that is entirely PvE.
- Side games were solid, and to be entirely honest I thought Tea Wars was the better designed one even though I and a lot of other players really underutilized it - with the caveat that points panic in the three Amigo game really made it close again. That was good.


3: - Most problems we had were a side-effect of the anemic player count I feel. There is not much we can really do about that, and if anything moving to a clean slate might help


In short: This game was quite pleasant. I think it didn't have this one major amazing selling point, upside is there but not massive, but it had nearly no downside. There was not a single day where I was frustrated with the game state to the point where I didn't even really wanted to post, which I've had in the majority of past games I was in, so that was really nice.

So, with Inori and Choudai both about wrapped, I can get more nitty-gritty!

What was Inori's emotional journey in this game like to write?

Obviously, she and Choudai hit it off (and she had a major role in his efforts to find a reason not to have Mikan murdered, even though she'll likely never know it), but I'll admit, I'm curious as to why you think they clicked (I have theories of my own, but this is your Q&A).

Given the Imperial assignment, it seems her new niche will outlast her Sapphire Ambassadorship. How's she gonna take to that?

Bayushi Choudai wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 06, 2022 6:06 am

So, with Inori and Choudai both about wrapped, I can get more nitty-gritty!

What was Inori's emotional journey in this game like to write?

It took a while to find the character voice again, in part because I didn't know exactly where she was after the last game had left of. It got a little better after 3-4 days and built from there.

I mean she started insecure and still a bit shaken, and given that she basically had no cash and no equipment (because Ronin school) I had to roll with that as well - meaning there had to be something wrong at the home front. Add in the fact that Inori was very much a kiddie character and I tried to account for that. That said conditions were pretty stable and I was able to find a way for the character to work.
This is the first character in a while whose mental state actually improved as the game went on. She built confidence, had some success and generally speaking things just worked out for her. As a consequence she became happier, more motivated and confident as the game went on.

Obviously, she and Choudai hit it off (and she had a major role in his efforts to find a reason not to have Mikan murdered, even though she'll likely never know it), but I'll admit, I'm curious as to why you think they clicked (I have theories of my own, but this is your Q&A).

I mean he IS a Scorpion, so I did my due diligence in having her be wary for the first two threads, but Inori was pretty isolated this game and looking for friends, so she latched on to Choudai because, well, he was around and actually friendly.
What ensued was, from her side, a lot like an older brother - younger sister dynamic. She did look up to Choudai a little and give him maybe a bit more credit than he deserved, but it's not like that hurt, and had him help her figure some things out while at the same time providing an alternative, not-so-jaded and cynical perspective.

There was also in the later part something like a mini-crush that she held off on - and that Choudai likely noticed but likewise did nothing about, for various reasons. Which, from my PoV, is pretty much how that should have played out.

Given the Imperial assignment, it seems her new niche will outlast her Sapphire Ambassadorship. How's she gonna take to that?

For context and because I've told this to you in PMs and to some people on Discord, but it's not been public: I do not "dream big" for my characters usually. I have more quaint notions about their place in the overall scheme of things and their future advancements. My characters do well, but they don't carve out empires for themselves.

Same here. Gaitsu actually offering Inori a job hit me as the player by surprise, even though there were definitely signs, and also the reason why I genuinely took almost a full OOC day to consider Inori's reaction.

Is this where I thought she would be, or exactly where she WANTED to be? No. She's stuck in an untenable position in character and so has to get ahead some way, and this is most certainly the biggest chance she has been offered this game, so she'll take it. And again, looping back, I assume realistically the biggest break she's going to get for the next few years. So, and also as to not offend the imperial she took it.

I have no real idea how it would develop from there if I actually played it - perhaps she would grow into it, become a Seppun and never look back - but there's the anti-imperial bias of me the player, and also Inori's main wish as of now is to get back out there and look for other undiagnosed talents and develop them. That's where she'll end up if she got her wish

She'll do well by the imperials, because that's the right thing to do, but preferrably not stay in the capital forever.

Full sheet reveal time? Full sheet reveal time!

Description/Background wrote:
Name: Matsu Inori (松祈里)
Gender: Female
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: Inadvertent Shugenja, Painter....It's complicated
Age: 14
Height: 5'2"/158cm
Build: Fairly trained/beefy for a kid, like most Matsu (around 50kg/110 lbs)
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: light brown

Character sheet wrote:Name: Matsu Inori
School/Rank: Self-Taught Shugenja (2)
Insight: 157 (IR 2)
Free EXP/Total EXP: 4 / 118 (Creation + 70 + 8 awarded)
Status: 3.0*
Honor: 4.0
Glory: 3.0


Rings (60 EXP Total)
Earth 3
-Stamina 3 (12 EXP)
-Willpower 3 (School bonus)

Water 3
-Strength 3 (Family Bonus)
-Perception 3 (12 EXP)

Fire 3
-Agility 3 (12 EXP)
-Intelligence 3 (12 EXP)

Air 2
-Reflexes 2
- Awareness 3 (12 EXP)

Void 2



Skills (* are school skills/emphasis) 46 EXP
* Athletics 2 (2 EXP)
* Defense 2 (2 EXP)
* Hunting 1
* Jiujutsu 2 (2 EXP)
* Meditation 2 (2 EXP)
* Spellcraft 5 (*Spell Research) (16 EXP)
* Soujutsu/Spears 3 (5 EXP)
Artisan: Painting 4 (10 EXP)
Battle 1 (1 EXP)
Etiquette 1 (1 EXP)
Kenjutsu 1 (1 EXP)
Lore: Theology 2 (3 EXP)
Lore: Bushido 1 (1XP)

Advantages: (13 EXP)
Forbidden Knowledge: Theology [Mental] (0 EXP*)
Blasphemed by actually opening the purely decorative Tao of Shinsei

Social position +1 [Social] (6 EXP)
- is a member of a cadet branch of the Matsu not too far removed from the main line, thus a little more important and has her parents pulling strings for her. +1 status

Yomi's blessing [Spiritual] (7 EXP)
+1k0 on all spellcraft rolls due to ancestral guidance

Disadvantages: (-5 EXP)
Idealistic (3 points for Lion)
Has a very naive and idealistic view of Bushido. Whenever Inori loses honour she loses an additional point

Soft-Hearted (2 points)
Can't intentionally kill people (unless she completes a TN 20 Willpower roll), and gets seriously upset if she does anyway (to the tune of a +10 penalty to everything for the whole day)

Techniques
Self Taugt Shugenja
Technique: The Kami's gift
Inori has taught herself to cast spells via the Magic of painting, and is deficient in both Fire and Air, and also has to research her own damn spells. But she also gains +2k2 whenever she spends a void point to improve a spellcasting roll.

Spells:
Sense, Commune and Summon

Air: Yari of Air (ML 1)

Earth: Jurojin's Balm (ML 1)

Fire: The raging forge (ML 1)

Water: Path to Inner Peace (ML 1), Inari's Blessing (ML 2), Reflective Pool (ML 2), Rejuvenating Vapors (ML 2)

Void: None


----

Inventory:
Sturdy Clothing
Yari
Traveling pack
- Blanket
- Fan
- small hand mirrot
- Rope (50')
- Charcoal and parchment
- Shovel
- Small Tent
- Straw Cloak
- Week's Rations (1)
- Wide-brimmed Straw Hat

----

Money:
koku - Sadness, made of pure broke
bu - 4
zeni - 15

----

Initiative roll:

Primary Weapon: Yari
Roll to attack: 6k3
Damage: 5k2

Armour: None
TN bonus:
Reduction:
TN to be hit: --> 20 = 5 + 15 (Ref) + 0 (Armour)