If It Weren't For Bad Luck, I Wouldn't Have Any Luck At All- Raizo Q and A

[Kaito Oubaihime]

Raizo will always be welcomed in the Water Dragon Temple. You know how things are ran there. Even if you don't want to go to the lands of the Phoenix. You know you always have a home there with Bai.

[Shiba Raizo]

I somehow doubt everyone else in the empire is going to be as forgiving as the PCs here

Part of why he kind of likes becoming a Tortoise, actually... it gives him an excuse to avoid all of that.

[Kitsu Moshumaru]

I somehow doubt everyone else in the empire is going to be as forgiving as the PCs here

It's Kyuden Shika in 5e, the social rules are as lax here as they'll ever be.

[Shiba Raizo]

Well, and as I just PMed Unsei, 5E SERIOUSLY encourages misfits builds the way the 20 questions are phrased...

[Shiba Raizo]

Answering Questions Nobody Has Asked!

• Would any not-Aimi pairing have generated a different result for Raizo?
  
  Almost anything but what did happen, actually. He loves her dearly, but it was actually the fact that the Deer paired him with someone he'd never met that made him flip the table over. Literally any of the female or gender fluid PCs or NPCs he'd spoken to he would have gone, "guess this is my fault" and tried to make it work. He would have done the marriage and just had an affair like a good samurai should.
• What about his jilted betrothed?
  
  He figures between his loathing for the Deer and the fact that she's never met him either that he's doing her a favor.
• What was your basic concept for him and how did it change?
  
  The Phoenix are my favorite Great Clan- but I like picking at their failings, and of the Phoenix I've played online, only one has been able to more or less cleave to the Clan's party line, and not one has had a terribly good relationship with their father.
  
  So where Isawa Taisho was a Jade Magistrate who thought the Elemental Council had made a litany of stupid mistakes based upon his own less Ivory Tower experience, and Isawa Mei was a Black Sheep non-shugenja Isawa who was effectively discarded by the clan for her "shortcomings," I saw Raizo as the taken for granted Shiba who everyone just assumed could be left to do as he was told. Why is he so close with the ronin and ashigaru he's served with? In part because unlike his superiors, they actually interact with him in a meaningful way.
  
  I'd meant for him to be resigned- as some of my friends in the military say, "embrace the suck." But the miai gave him hope- hope for a happier life, and a duty that seemed less pointless to him- and then basically took them away. Which then led to an ugly scene of angry self-pity, which Aimi interrupted, proving, to Raizo, that he actually needed here- up to that point, he was in love, but prepared to be "realistic" about it. When she rolled in to save him from himself, that was it. Done deal. If Yoshi hadn't cooked up his offer, he still would have run off with her as a ronin, and not looked back.
• What's up with that ugly old saya?
  
  Tessho gave it to him.
• Biggest surprise the game threw you?
  
  The fact that he had so little romantic chemistry with almost everyone he spoke to! Think my boy might be some species of demisexual, actually...
• Thing you might have done differently?
  
  I never once, the whole goddamn game, recovered a Void point. The one time I tried to trigger his Anxiety with a roll... he passed the damn thing! I could easily have sleazed 6 strife worth of Void gain per day had I just spent some time slots on it- but Raizo's Anxiety, while it fit him, was also the kind of thing he had a very easy time avoiding.

[Asahina Bo]

How much credit is Raizo going to give himself in his head for Bo and Narumi ending up together?

[Shiba Raizo]

How much credit is Raizo going to give himself in his head for Bo and Narumi ending up together?

Not much! He could tell she was gone for the guy, and as he said, Bo reminded him of a fellow soldier, so he figured a slight push with his trademark degree of subtlety couldn't hurt, but ultimately, the Deer paired them, and merely acted on what he observed from Narumi...

So very little credit, but very great happiness- especially since he figures Bo can handle the scandal better than Ishioka. He'll definitely try to get to know the big guy better when he visits, since he figures anyone for whose honor Narumi is willing to endure house arrest is probably a hell of a good dude.