Otaku wrote: ↑Thu Nov 02, 2023 4:20 pm
I guess this leaves me a little more confused rather than less.
We’ve seen that these folks clearly trade extensively with the rest of the empire (the feast menu, etc.), which was written up as how rapid assimilation has been happening for at least 20 years at this point. And none of the villagers have been here for more than five years, which means that they probably mostly *came from* places that acknowledged the Empire. We know Chouri did.
To be clear, this feels important IC because it has to do with how an honorable character with a strong sense of duty would feel they ought to deal with the village. If they are Shiba’s loyal subjects (just not any particular clan), honorable samurai owe them a powerful duty of care and protection. If they’re people who explicitly skipped town on the Empire, that’s a pretty different relationship. PCs have pretty much been told that we couldn’t come from recently unaligned tribes who are just fully oblivious to the empire anymore, so I’m assuming that’s not an option here (and it doesn’t seem to be the case with these folks anyway, since they are quite linked in with imperial trade/culture).
It is very confusing, yes. They're a village that popped up only five years ago, with people from all over the place in the Empire, that despite that and their apparent abundance, barely anyone has heard of, and no patrols ever ran across. Or at least, no patrols you can consult. You'd think more people would know about it, considering the type of plants they have and the amount of trade that would imply. It's pretty weird, and does present a conundrum to those of high honor about how they should deal with these people.
It's partly
because otherwise the tribes are so integrated into the Empire that this is an unusual situation. That's why it's legally unclear, because this hasn't been a thing. But the fact is, even with modern technology, people can hole up undiscovered in an industrialized country for a long time. And Rokugan is far from that.
Some of the villagers regard themselves as part of the Empire, like Yoshie and Daisuke, who are very proud of their samurai artist son and just can't be with him. Others are... less than keen on the idea of being bothered. So it's kind of ambiguous even within the village itself.