A lot of things that used to be in the FAQ aren't here anymore. Unclear rules have been reworded and incorporated into the booklet you'll find in Clan Decks, and errata to particular cards has been moved either into the rulebook or onto the cards themselves.

Table of Contents

Section One: The Fundamentals
Section Two: Clarifying the Rules
Section Three: Battles
Section Four: Clans and Cards
Section Five: New Business
Section Six: Errata
Section Seven: Contact Information
Section Eight: Obligatory Legal Boilerplate

Section One: The Fundamentals

A: The Book Of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi. Imagine warring clans in feudal Japan, then throw in wizards, dragons, and all sorts of legendary creatures. Some of our other influences were Sun Tzu's The Art Of War, the Tao Te Ching, and a bookshelf of Japanese and Chinese history and mythology.

A: You can get Legend of the Five Rings at most Adventure Game stores, some comic book stores, and some mass market outlets. The Diamond Edition of the basic set is currently on sale, picking up the storyline five years after Emperor Toturi III ascended to the throne. The next expansion, Reign of Blood, is expected in December. L5R is sold in both semi-sorted Clan Decks, which contain enough cards to play a game, and in smaller Destiny Packs that contain random cards.

A: It's a bad idea to buy Destiny Packs exclusively. You need at least one Clan Deck. First of all, the Clan Decks have a Stronghold in them, which you absolutely need when you play, to determine your affiliation and to generate gold and whatnot. Second, the semi-sorting is a good thing: 50 of the cards in each Deck are deliberately chosen so they'll play well right out of the box. The remaining cards, which include most of your rares and uncommons, are random. Third, the Clan Decks have the rules in them. Finally, the only way to get certain nifty Faction-specific cards is to pick up Clan Decks. These cards aren't in Destiny Packs.

A: Right. Sealed Deck is a popular tournament format and is not a bad way of learning how to play the game, either, since most of the work of building the deck has been done for you.

A: L5R CCG products have a symbol on the packaging somewhere that looks like this:
If you collect enough koku, you can mail it in in exchange for neat L5R-related merchandise. A list of what you can get for your koku is printed in every issue of the quarterly Imperial Herald magazine received by our fan club members. The list is also available on the World Wide Web -- skip ahead to Section Seven for information on our website. The Herald and web site together comprise the only items we officially have available for koku at any given time.

A: Anyone can redeem koku, either by going through our website or using a photocopy of the order form in the Herald. Assembly membership is not required.

Q: Where else can I get koku? And is there anything else I can use?

A: Winning tournaments is one way to earn koku. The old "One Koku" card is worth just that, as are any cards that say they're worth koku. Cards that are misprinted so badly they're unplayable -- like, say, the back is the wrong color, or the image on the front is shifted and cut off -- can also be sent in and are worth 3 koku each. This only applies to gross misprints, not to cards which simply have erroneous or outdated text or stats or which were mispacked with the wrong rarity.

All koku ever printed or issued for any L5R product, even non-CCGs, is valid. It doesn't have to be from Diamond Edition and later, although earlier editions used a different symbol, so don't get confused. We will also accept Plunder from 7th Sea, Ghost Rock from Doomtown, and Dinari from Legend of the Burning Sands. We don't accept any redemption points except these, and we don't accept any Retailer or Distributor points. Finally, koku from the Forbidden Knowledge expansion is no longer worth double.

A: For card orders, if you cannot procure U.S. postage, the preferred method is International Reply Coupons. You buy IRCs from your local post office and include them with your order, then we redeem them for the return postage. A typical order can be covered by one IRC plus one for every ten cards or fraction thereof (so, two for a typical order).

A: Other than the artists' names, which are there to keep them happy and encourage them to draw more pictures for us, that line contains information to assist those trying to collect entire sets or to trade cards with others.

Before the artist name is the abbreviation of the set the card came from: DE = Diamond Edition, RoB = Reign of Blood, and so on. This abbreviation is left off when a card is not new to a set. (The semi-sorted part of Clan Decks often contains cards reprinted from earlier sets to make the deck more playable right from the box.)

After the copyright date is the card's sequence number and the total number of new cards and Strongholds in that set, separated by a rarity symbol. Again, cards that are not truly new in a set will not have a sequence number (though they'll still have a symbol).

That rarity symbol will be one of these:

Common

Uncommon

Rare

Promotional

Clan Deck only

A: Legend of the Five Rings is a game with a story. As such, there are occasions, like when introducing the game to potential new players or using tournament results to determine future storyline events, when it is desirable to minimize anachronisms in the play of the cards themselves. To this end, AEG designates alternate tournament formats. We cannot stress strongly enough that the decision to run a tournament in a particular format is ENTIRELY UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE TOURNAMENT ORGANIZER. AEG has always, and will continue to, sanction without prejudice or preference all tournaments that do not deviate drastically from the basic rules.

That said, there are two standard Constructed Deck tournament formats:

• Open Format. All cards and Strongholds ever printed are legal.
• Diamond Storyline Simulation, a.k.a. "Strict Diamond" Format. Decks must be entirely comprised of cards and Strongholds with the Rokugani symbol for "diamond" in the lower left-hand corner, or previous printings of such cards. All cards in Diamond Edition and all subsequent expansions have this symbol, but so do many cards printed just prior to Diamond.
  For Diamond-legal Personalities that are the "Soul of..." Personalities from earlier sets, the original and other "Soul of..." versions may also be played, but they count in all ways as the newest "Soul of..." version, including any changes to family name, traits, or any other card elements. (This is true for Strict Diamond only. In Open games, the older Personalities are played exactly as written.)
  The Diamond-legality of a Personality does not automatically make all other Experience levels of that Personality Diamond-legal. That rule is from older storyline tournament formats. It does not apply to Strict Diamond.

There is no "Extended Diamond" Format.

A: Brand new promo cards become legal in Constructed Deck tournaments the next time a base set or expansion becomes legal following the promo's first official release date.

Changes to existing cards, Strongholds, or the rulebook through reprinting take effect as soon as the reprint is released.

Errata takes effect immediately.

For a number of reasons, there is no one site, official or otherwise, that has gathered together every single scrap of L5R story-related information ever published. A summary-style timeline of important historic events from the Clan Wars through the Four Winds storylines can be found at http://l5r.alderac.com/rpg/feature_history_01.html and http://l5r.alderac.com/rpg/feature_history_02.html. The vast majority of Four Winds stories can be found on our official Fiction web page, http://www.legendofthefiverings.com/fiction/ .

For more potential leads, and a much better analysis of why there is no one site with everything, please check out Zen Faulkes' L5R Intro for Newbies at http://l5r.shorturl.com/zenfaq.html .

Section Two: Clarifying the Rules

A:

• The player with the highest Starting Family Honor takes the first turn. If there is a tie, the players tied for highest should determine who goes first with a uniform, random method such as dicing off or flipping a coin.
• The rules for whether and what an action targets revert to what they were prior to Gold Edition. An action targets something if it uses the word "target" or if any player sometimes has to choose what it affects. If no player, under any circumstance, has to choose what gets affected, the action is not targeted.
• The rule prohibiting targeting your own bowed Personalities with your own actions no longer exists. Bowed Personalities are still prohibited from casting Spells, however, and are also not allowed to issue challenges unless forced by another player's card or Stronghold.
• A new trait has been added to the game: Singular. You may only have one copy of a Singular card in play at a time. Unlike Unique cards, you may use three copies of a Singular card when you build your deck, and you may still play a Singular card if other players have a copy in play. (These rules don't override the rules for Unique cards, so if a card is both Singular and Unique, it is still bound by all the usual uniqueness restrictions.)
• All Regions ever printed gain the "Singular" trait. This change applies to all game and tournament formats.
• Also, Regions are played more like Events: they enter play or get discarded immediately upon being revealed in the Events Phase. Playing a Region is still mandatory if it is legal and has no cost.
• Courtier Personalities are able to commit seppuku like Samurai.

A: No. There is still the rule on page 54 that abilities on cards and Strongholds are unusable while that card or Stronghold is bowed unless the ability straightens it. Also, deciding which card to play or which ability to use is not targeting it, so the new targeting rules in Diamond Edition don't actually apply here.

A: Yes, you can do that now.

A: In general, yes. Just make sure the Kiho itself has not been printed or reprinted to require an unbowed caster. Also remember that Spells do not work this way -- the casting Shugenja must be unbowed, even if he doesn't need to bow to cast.

A: The trait doesn't work any differently than it did in Gold. There is only one Personality involved -- the Personality you target to receive the bonus is the one performing the action. And since this is a Tactical action, he's the one who needs to have the Tactician trait.

(We changed the way the Tactician rules are worded to make it clear that the standard Tactical action of discarding for a Force bonus is not actually written on Tactician cards. Unfortunately, in answering this Frequently Asked Question, we inadvertently created another. It's amazing how often this happens...)

A: The experience level inside the "Soul of..." trait only tells you exactly which version the new Personality counts as for deck construction. The new Personality is Experienced only if he or she has the "Experienced" trait outside the "Soul of..." phrase.

A: No. See the rulebook, page 72. If a card is sent home bowed but it doesn't move, it doesn't bow either. This is an exception to the usual rule that all effects are separate and happen independently.

A: Typically, yes. The word "then" usually only means that the two effects happen one after the other instead of at the same time. Negating the first effect won't necessarily prevent the second from happening.

A: It does not resolve or come into play immediately. It just sits there until either it resolves, which happens during its player's next Events Phase if the card is still in the Province, or until it is discarded, which may be caused by a card effect or may be done by its player when he discards unbought face-up Dynasty cards at the end of his next Dynasty Phase.

A: No. Only Spells and Kihos do.

A: They don't just "count as" actions, they are actions! Reactions, along with Limited, Open, and Battle actions, are one of the four types of actions in L5R. (But I should remind you here that Reactions do not count against a player's one chance to "take an action or pass" during a battle or an Action Phase.)

A: No.

A: Kihos are Action cards with the "Kiho" keyword (much like, say, Retainers are Holdings with the "Retainer" keyword). They have their own page in the Overview of Card Types section of the rulebook because they have a distinct appearance.

A: Being dishonored lasts forever. Tokens last forever. "Swearing fealty" lasts forever. Focusing in a duel lasts until the duel ends. Effects of Immediate Terrains last only while the Terrain is in play. Effects that last until a certain card straightens also end if it leaves play. All other effects, including those of Delayed Terrains, normally last until the end of the turn they happened in. This applies to all effects, not just stat bonuses.

Also, remember that effects on a card don't end early if the card leaves play. For example, a Personality who died because her Chi was reduced to 0 still has 0 Chi in the discard pile, and if she is returned to play before her Chi penalties wear off, she will immediately die again.

A: If you have all been formally following the action sequence, with every player in turn either taking an action or clearly passing, then the answer is "No". The Attack Phase can only start once every player has passed in a row, which means you must have passed, which means you deliberately chose, for whatever reason, not to take your action at that time. You can't go back and change your mind now that you have new information on what the current player is planning to do.

On the other hand, if your opponent is rushing things and not waiting for you, you can call him on it and take one action, then let him either pass or act, then either act or pass yourself, and so on until you both formally pass in succession.

A: All the time. This is important, since there are cards that care about total unit and army Forces outside of resolution, like To Do What We Must and Outmaneuvered by Force.

A: Whatever the number is after the "+". That plus means the Follower's Force adds directly to the Personality's own Force instead of adding separately to the unit's total. Either way, that number is still the Force of that individual card.

One subtle but neat result of this is that such a Follower will still end up contributing its Force even if just that Follower is bowed. Being bowed stops Followers from adding to the unit's total Force, but a Follower with a "+" in front of its Force doesn't add to the unit's to begin with -- it adds to the Personality, and that still happens if the Follower is bowed, much the same way as bonuses from bowed Items still add. (Of course, if the Personality is bowed as well, this isn't very helpful.)

A: No. There is nothing in the rules about reducing the bonus like that. If you add "Yu +3" to a card without the Yu trait, you get a card with "Yu 3",not "Yu 2".

A: No. Only unplayed Dynasty cards are "in" Provinces. Regions, Fortifications, and any other cards that have been brought into play and attached to a Province are "on" it, not "in" it.

• Although the Shadowlands is a Faction, the word "Shadowlands" does not indicate that a card is a member of that Faction. It does not work like the other traits do. This is the reason Shadowlands players cannot reduce the cost of Personalities by 2 during the Dynasty Phase -- there is no word that means "this Personality is aligned with the Shadowlands faction", so it's impossible to find a Personality that that discount can be applied to.
• "Unaligned" is not an alignment itself, and it does not affect what Factions a Personality is aligned with. It may even appear on a card along with Faction traits.
• "Unaligned" and "not aligned with any Faction" do not mean the same thing. It is possible for a Personality to fit only one of these two categories. A Personality is Unaligned if she has the "Unaligned" trait, while a Personality is not aligned with any Faction if she completely lacks all the traits listed in the rulebook as Faction alignments.

A: There are several recurring traits in the game that don't have special rules of their very own. These traits only serve as extra ways for cards to interact with one another. Some of the more common traits used like this are Political, Elemental, Maho, and Siege.

A: No. The "Elemental" trait must be explicitly present.

A: Typically, no and no. If your opponent plays a card that forces you to do something or to choose between alternatives, you cannot select an option that is guaranteed to fail unless you have no other choice. You are allowed to choose an option and then negate some or all of its effects with Reactions.

Watch for the exact wording of the card in question, though. If you play a card that says, "Your opponent must bow one of his Holdings," he is not allowed to pick one of his bowed Holdings. However, if your card said, "Your opponent must target one of his Holdings. Bow that Holding," he could.

A: Yes. Any card that gets played "as a focus" adds its focus value as well as doing whatever else it does. A card that gets played "instead of focusing" does not.

A: The exact rules allow other players to cause your bowed Personalities to issue challenges. Only you can't.

A: For deck construction, the ^KYD version is a separate level. It's legal, for example, to have both the Experienced and the Experienced^KYD versions of a card in your deck, even if the numbers are the same.

With regards to overlaying, the ^KYD doesn't matter, only the number. You can overlay an Experienced 2^KYD Personality on top of the Experienced one, then lay the Experienced 3 version over that. You can't overlay the Experienced 2^KYD over the Experienced 2, though, or vice versa.

The Uniqueness rule during the game works just like always: you cannot play or overlay a card if that would cause there to be two cards in play that both have the Unique trait and the exact same title.

Section Three: Battles

A: No. You may stand aside and let the attack through. You are also free to defend unattacked Provinces.

A: During an attack, every Battle and Open action is checked against two special rules, called the Rule of Presence and the Rule of Relevance. If the action fails either check, it's not legal. In a nutshell, these two rules basically say, "You can't take a Battle or an Open action unless both it and you are somehow involved in the battle going on right now." That's all there is to it, really. The rest is nitty-gritty details defining exactly what "involved" means.

In addition, some -- but not all -- actions require that the acting card be in the battle itself. If an action -- any action, even a Reaction -- refers to an "opposing" card, or "this battle", or something like "any other unit in the battle" or "another attacking Personality", that action's card has to be present in the current battle. (This rule only applies when the card is one that can actually be in battles. If something like a regular Holding talks about "opposing" cards, it really means "any card opposing one of your other cards", not "any card opposing this Holding", and if it says "this battle" it means the same thing as "the current battle".)

A: That's right. Terrain cards are ordinary Battle actions in this regard.

A: No. Only actions with a special phrase like "opposing" or "this battle" impose this restriction. The action's type doesn't matter.

A: You were misinformed. Being an Open instead of a Battle action only means you can use it in the Action Phase as well as the Attack Phase.

A: These card types don't get special breaks. You cannot use any Open or Battle actions on them if you don't have any real live units with them. Not only that, there's an extra rule that Battle actions on these two types of cards can only be used when their own battle is happening.

Remember that you can always use Reactions, and that traits like "This Province gains +4 strength." are always "on" and don't need to be activated.

A: It doesn't matter. Bowed units are good enough. Their presence lets you play things like Block Supply Lines or a Terrain.

A: Yes. Although all attacking and allied units bow and return to their controllers' homes as soon as the battle they were in is over, the Defender's own units do not bow at all, and do not leave their assigned Provinces until the entire Attack Phase is over.

A: Units may move into battles that have already finished. Units moved into already-resolved battles don't fight there a second time. You don't recompute Force totals just because somebody showed up too late to do anything but bury bodies. Strategically, this is one way to save a valuable Personality whose army is about to be eliminated.

If an attacking or allied unit is moved into an already-resolved battle, it will still become bowed, though it will wait and bow along with the cards in the last normal battle of that Attack Phase.

A: Not only is he allowed, he's obliged to resolve it at some point before that Attack Phase can end. Each time you're attacked, there will be exactly one battle at each of your Provinces, even ones with no units at all. The Attacker must resolve them all, although he can do them in any order he chooses.

A: The Attacker gets the first action, then the player to his left gets the second, and soon.

A: Yes! The rules were deliberately worded to allow that. The rule about the Naval army's commander taking the first action doesn't apply (and wouldn't change anything if it did, since the players will act in that order anyway in this case), but the other two special rules still hold. This is a good way to prevent someone from using a Sneak Attack against you.

A: Only actions with the "Battle" keyword.

A: You can't. Although the Force total of his unit -- and the Force that that unit adds to his army -- is 0, as an individual card, his Force is still 8. Since ranged attacks care about card Force, a ranged attack below strength 8 won't kill him.

Even when a unit is just one Personality card with nothing attached, there's still a distinction between individual card Force and total unit Force. Some cards and game effects, like To Do What We Must and the Resolution Segment at the end of a battle, care about one, and some, like Test of Might and ranged attacks, care about the other. You need to read the card or the rulebook carefully and decide which kind of Force it refers to.

A: No. When you combine Ranged Attacks, each has to come from a different card. One card can't combine several of its own.

A: Yes and yes. Combining ranged attacks and modifying them are two different things. An attack that prohibits you from doing one will still allow the other.

Section Four: Clans and Cards

A: You can. They are, in fact, aligned with you. "Mantis Clan" and "Yoritomo's Alliance" are completely equivalent. Any time you see one phrase, you can replace it with the other. (There are one or two old cards that work with only one of those two traits, but they're exceptions to the rule and are clearly worded as exceptions.)

A: No. As with cards, actions on bowed Strongholds cannot be used, even when they don't require bowing the Stronghold as a cost, unless the action's effects include straightening the Stronghold. Kyuden Doji is worded in such a way that its Reaction is an ability of the Stronghold itself, not of your Personalities. When it's bowed, you can't use its Reaction.

A: The Towers of the Yogo are worded differently: they add an ability to your Samurai. And they do so by way of a trait. Since traits do not "turn off" when a card or Stronghold is bowed, your Scorpion Clan Samurai always have their special Battle action, whether your Stronghold is bowed or not.

A: It means uncombined.

A: No. You must search for and play your Ring "after all players reveal Strongholds," and in L5R, "after" and "before" mean "immediately after/before".

A: Yes. The Castle tells you to target "one of your Provinces" -- that can be any of them -- and then says, "Discard a card from that Province and fill it with the targeted Personality". Those are separate effects. The filling effect does not care if the discarding effect did not happen.

Morning Glory Castle will not let you put a card into a Province that cannot hold cards, such as one with Togashi's Shrine.

A: They are reprintings. Their old play conditions and game effects are no longer valid in any official format.

A: All the Winds are new cards, save for Black Heart of the Empire, which is considered a reprinting of Daigotsu. In the Open format, you may play with any of the nine.

A: We are not issuing any errata to Far and Wide.

A: No. That also means it doesn't count as a use of the Favor.

A: The answer is the same: if you do not have to discard the Favor as a cost of the action, you can use the action when you don't have the Favor.

A: By the Most Recent Printing rule, all versions of Wedge provide a Force bonus. (The previous printing worked differently.) Reactions to Force bonuses, such as Overconfidence, may be played in response to this gain when it happens. In Search of the Future is not a useful strategy against it, though, because In Search of the Future is a Battle action that only affects bonuses already present, while Wedge does not add its bonus until the Resolution Segment begins -- when In Search can no longer be played.

A: No. Feign Death targets the Personality you wish to return to play. Wedge destroys the Personality "when the battle ends" and prohibits you from targeting him with actions until "after" that time.

A: Not unless they also say "Oni". You can't use a piece of a trait as another trait.

A: No. He is just a Champion.

A: Fall on Your Knees can cancel any Reaction played at any time during the Battle Action Segment, including those played "when" or "after a battle begins" or "before the Defender's first action," such as Sneak Attack. It can also cancel Reactions to Delayed Terrain effects, since Delayed Terrains resolve just before the Battle Action Segment ends. It cannot cancel a Reaction played "before a battle begins", nor can it cancel anything once the Resolution Segment starts, such as a Feign Death played in response to a unit in the losing army dying. It certainly can't cancel any Reactions played "after a battle" or "after battle resolution".

A: No. Those restrictions apply only to units on the same side as that Personality -- units trying to assign to a battle "with" it.

A: There's no misprint. That text is there solely in case you overlay the Mask over the non-Experienced version, so it still weakens over time. If you play the Experienced Mask directly, it does not get any porcelain tokens to start with.

Note that the Experienced version is not destroyed when it has no tokens, so whether you overlay it or play it by itself, once there are no tokens on it, you simply stop removing them.

A: No. That line only clarifies that Vengeful Dead does not follow the rule that each Event can resolve only once per game.

A: If there are more unbowed attacking cards than the Attacker has unbowed Gold-producing Holdings, the Attacker bows attacking cards until these numbers are equal. Then, if there are more unbowed defending cards than the Defender has unbowed Gold-producing Holdings, the Defender bows defending cards until these numbers are equal.

A: Yes. It's hard to visualize at first, since Retribution takes so long to do what it does, but once the whole extra Retribution-created Attack Phase is over, you're back to where you started: an attack against you has just finished, you took the opportunity to react, and now the player to your left gets one chance to react, and so on, in turn order, until all of you decline to react in succession. Until that happens, all Reactions taken "after an Attack Phase in which you were the Defender" are still legal -- including another Retribution.

A: There are no restrictions on Moriko herself that she can only move your own units or that she has to be in the current battle, so, in general, the answers to these questions are "Yes" and "No".

But...

Isawa Moriko interacts more often with the Rules of Presence and Relevance than perhaps any other card in L5R history, and often one of those rules will restrict how Moriko can be used in a particular situation.

With Moriko, there are three distinct cases that come up:

1. You have no one at all in the current battle.
2. You have one or more units in the current battle, but the Moriko you're using is somewhere else.
3. The Moriko you're using is in the current battle.

In Case #1, the only legal use for Moriko is to move one of your own units into the current battle from another one.

In Case #2, you can move a unit belonging to any player between the current battle and one of the other battles, in either direction.

In Case #3, you can move a unit belonging to any player from any battle to any other battle.

A: No. Slaughter the Scout can only be used by a Personality who was already at the destination Province when the other unit moved in.

A: Yes. Chiyeko basically gets to issue challenges as though she were unbowed at all times. Her Reaction works retroactively.

A: Yes.

A: Goju Hitomi is her own card and not an MRP. None of the cards in 1,000 Years are reprintings of existing cards. We tried to put the ^KYD mark only on cards that had exact title conflicts with existing or potential future cards in the main storyline, so it is not always present.

• Moving and attaching are different. You may attach cards to the stolen Personality from your hand.
• The controller of a Personality controls all cards in the unit. Cards you attach to this Personality will change controller along with him when Show of Good Faith's effect wears off.
• You may play Loyalty Renewed or Bane of the Anvil on the stolen Personality to gain permanent control of him.
• The restrictions against moving cards onto that Personality and against declaring attacks last until the first time the Personality leaves your control or leaves play. Normally, this happens at the end of the turn you play Show of Good Faith, but other cards can hasten or delay that.

• The destruction of its player's own Personality is now a cost, by MRP. Among other things, this means it still happens if Overwhelmed is canceled. Also by MRP, though, the performing Personality must be unbowed. It cannot be played by a bowed Personality now, despite the Diamond rules changes.
• Cares about Personality Force, not total unit Force. This means bowed Personalities are not treated as having 0 Force -- bowing changes the unit total without changing any individual cards. This is true for both its player and his or her opponent, and could impact whom both of them are allowed to target for the cost and the destroy effect.
• By card text, forces the destruction of the highest-Force Personality if the "send two units home" choice cannot be made, for whatever reason (including only having one unit in the battle).
• By general ruling, a choice may not be made if it is know that it is not doable. A choice may be made and then one or more of its effects negated with Reactions or other non-automatic responses.

• As with all Terrains, the "Battle:" keyword refers to the way the Terrain itself is put into play. No action needs to be taken to gain the Honor described by the card -- while the Terrain is in play, the gains happen automatically.
• Terrains naturally stay in play until the battle is completely over, so Field of Glorious Slaughter can create extra honor gains for the destruction of a losingor tied army in addition to the normal gains these generate. The gains from the Terrain are all separate.

This card received a significant change in wording in Diamond over previous printings. Many older FAQs and rulings differ from those below and are no longer accurate.

• Reduces all Force bonuses currently active on cards in the current battle to 0 except those created by that card itself or another card in that unit. [card text] The following bonuses would all be reduced to 0:
• bonuses from Strongholds, such as the Spawning Grounds
• bonuses from most non-Follower tokens (since only Follower tokens automatically count as both tokens and cards)
• bonuses from the standard Tactical Battle action of discarding a Fate card. (This action is performed by the Personality, but is not actually possessed by the Personality, therefore the bonus is not coming from the Personality card.)
• Is instantaneous. It affects only bonuses that exist when it's played.
• The phrase "in this battle" describes which cards are affected, not the duration of the effect. Any bonus reduced to 0 stays 0 until end of the turn, no matter where the card may move afterwards, and cards moved into the battle after In Search... is played will not suffer any reduction.
• A variable or conditional bonus that's based on other cards does not come from those cards. For example, imagine a Personality with the trait, "This Personality gains +1F for each Follower in this army." None of these bonuses would be reduced to 0 by In Search of the Future, not even the bonuses caused by Followers in other units, because they are not the source of the bonuses. The source is the Personality himself.

Section Five: New Business

Expect future changes to the FAQ to show up here first. Right now, so much is new that it went straight into the proper section.

Section Six: Errata

The House of Tao: In game formats where the earlier version of this Stronghold is legal, either version may be played verbatim. The original version retains its original statistics and its Monk affiliation.

Gifts and Favors: The ability now reads,
"Reaction: During your End Phase, if you've brought no Gold-producing Holdings into play this turn, bow your Stronghold to search your deck, then face-down Provinces, for this card. Put the first Gifts and Favors you find into play bowed and shuffle your deck. If you find none, you lose the game." [MRP]

Tsuruchi Hiro was accidentally reprinted with a Chi of 4. This is an error. His Chi is still only 3. [MRP]

Vengeful Dead: The phrase "another player's card effect" in the first sentence should instead read, "another player's Kolat, Ninja, or Assassin action". [errata]

Private Dojo: The Reaction requires bowing the Private Dojo as a cost. [errata]

Kanashimi: Replace "After a player draws a card outside his or her End Phase" with "After a player draws a card outside his End Phase due to his own card or Stronghold effect".

Noh Theater Troupe: This card is Singular. [errata]

Shinjo Guan: His Reaction is used "Once per attack", not "Once per battle". [errata]

Wholeness of Self: Its effect does not apply to focusing in duels. [errata].

Corrupted Dojo: This card is distinct from the Corrupted Dojo in Fire & Shadow. [errata]

Carrier Pigeon may still be played on a unit that could not have assigned if the only reason it could not assign is that it was bowed. [errata]

Kuni Tansho's ability should read as follows:
Battle: Bow Tansho and discard a Fate card to force an opposing player to discard a random card from his hand. [errata]

Overconfidence is Diamond-legal. [errata]

Section Seven: Contact Information

On the World Wide Web, visit the Official L5R Home Page at:

http://www.legendofthefiverings.com/

It contains pointers to several other documents, including this FAQ, checklists, and a much more comprehensive archive of rulings that have been made over the years.

AEG operates several electronic mailing lists for many of its games, including L5R. You can visit http://www.alderac.com/mailman/listinfo/l5r-ccg_alderac.com to sign onto this list, change your subscription options, and unsubscribe.

Send email to jalexander@alderac.com if you have more specific rules questions, comments or corrections to this FAQ, or input or questions about the game in general.

Section Eight: Obligatory Legal Boilerplate

Legend of the Five Rings, Empire of Rokugan, Fu Leng, Shadowlands, graphic design elements and all character names and their distinctive likenesses are ^TM and (C) 1995-2003 by Alderac Entertainment Group, Inc. All rights reserved.