Phee Phi Pho Phum - Phi Q&A

[Nozomi]

So, first of all, my intention is to reprise Phi again in the next game. She was a lot more fun than I expected to play, and I enjoyed the direction her story took. However, while I often keep a fairly big number of secrets with characters I intend to reprise, Phi is much more of an open book than prior ones. This is in part because of the question I'm going to answer ahead of time.

Freebie Question: What was your plan with Phi?

Phi was originally intended as a Shosuro analogue with just a vague enough story that, if she drew the proper attention of Bayushi and character goals permitted it, she was a potential option for a future Scorpion Thunder. I felt strongly that the Scorpion and Bayushi didn't get the attention I would love them to get in Dawn 1, so I wanted to create a character who was similar to, but far from identical to Shosuro. There were a lot of details that were different enough but her memory of her early life was equally sketchy that she 'could' have been Shosuro, or she could have been just some young punk of a proto-ninja with a fantasy about catching Bayushi's attention and finding her place in a changing world as the Hikaru died off slowly.

And then the rubber hit the road, and this game happened, and she went a COMPLETELY different direction than I had planned. Her interactions with Shinsei, along with Yamadono, Ninube and several other cast members led things in a very unexpected direction. And two near escapes from Shadow Corruption caused her to have not only fascination but terror of the unseen force she's been following all her life. The result is that she has gone the exact opposite of the planned direction, and the direction she's going is one where transparency? Absolutely fine by me.

So, ask away!

[Seppun Chisei]

How DID all that happen, anyway? As someone who caught only bits and pieces along the way, I'd love to get a more complete view of the story.

[Kyosei of the Isawa]

So, will she marry Shinsei? Or at least bear his child (the bloodline must continue, after all!)?

[Nanzi]

Phi had a journey for sure, it will be interesting to see where it goes.

[Miyako]

Reading all that, I thought Phi definitely gave off the "Shosuro-like" vibe early on and I really loved reading her transformation over time into something completely different! My questions: at what point in events that occurred did you started to consider possibilities for alternate developments for Phi and was there a specific event where you took a look at it all and said "yep, I'm definitely going down this road now" or more a culmination of things?

[Nozomi]

How DID all that happen, anyway? As someone who caught only bits and pieces along the way, I'd love to get a more complete view of the story.

So, it was a bit of a process... and I didn't even realize it was happening until it was already deep into the weeds unexpectedly.

1) Yamadono showed a lot of interest in her because of Yama's big-time goals for his home and Matsu. I demurred things going in any direction but big sisterly/mentor-ship of Matsu because if Phi became Goju I... I just couldn't do that to Matsu. That's cruel even for me. But it started to open up possible non-scorpion angles.

2) She met Ninube by the stone in the Twilight Mountains where she had a VERY NEAR brush with Hanako. For those who don't know her, Hanako was a Goju-corrupted NPC in Dawn 1. With Mod permission, Phi (Who has Forbidden Knowledge-The Lying Darkness) met her as a child, when she fled her burning village. The faceless woman, as she remembers her, led her to safety and she's been chasing rumors ever since. Ninube, ironically considering the name, showed up just before and stopped the meeting. Phi didn't get a 'ping' off of Ninube and thought nothing of the meeting (If I rolled Perception-Lore on you, that was what was happening. She did it a couple times).

Afterwards, she had a nightmare of a faceless Bayushi statue, Hanako next to her and a figure who called itself 'Shuro.'

3) She went looking for Shinsei - It was your traditional "I sense a soul in need of answers" talk. Seriously, he gets them a LOT. But in that conversation, he offered her advice on the topic of being a "killer in this new world." Because she is just that. She's a hunter and killer. He gave her some good advice, but afterwards felt like it may have been questionable when speaking to Jiyo Sora, and so he came out looking for her a few days later.

This was where things began to get strange. An NPC actively sought her out to talk. And, as I interpret Shinsei to be the sort of person that normally breeds a certain amount of trust that he's not going to fuck you over, she was more honest with him the second time around. A piece of the talk shifted and she admitted to nightmares she had had from the stone in the mountains. When she talked to him, they realized something. Phi was telling him something he had never even heard of. The only thing he added was that Bayushi has a daughter, named Shosuro...

Phi showed him her actual face at that point and asked him to keep quiet about what they talked over, because she wasn't sure if the knowledge was dangerous.

4) The Bog Hags and the Swamp - Absolutely thundered home visions of horrible monsters with no faces, nightmares of Shinsei losing his face because she'd told him the secret, bog hags stealing people's skins, her parents being lost forever, and she saw several people almost die in the swamp, and the things trying to poison them all.

She snapped a little, asking her old kinsman Koyama to torture the hell out of the bog hag and make sure they were all dead, with their complete approval. In the aftermath, she looked for help in dealing with her issues and got some from a few, but it was Shinsei who was mot pro-active in trying to get her through the terrors. Around this time, she was starting to question if the two of them might be flirting some. Certainly, she wasn't thinking about Bayushi nearly as much...

5) Right around the time that Shinsei expressed a willingness to pursue something with Phi in a fashion about as casual as she usually treated romantic dalliances, he disappeared, running off to try and save the camp from a spirit spawned out of his head. He left a message for her warning her to find the only person she trusted. At this point, she trusted nobody, was jade testing everyone and certain there were faceless monsters everywhere, so she went to the one person she knew he trusted and she wasn't afraid of, Shinjo.

....which led to the two of them riding off on the back of a Ki-Rin to save his life. By this point, the emotional tension was overwhelming her young mind and she was finding herself attached to him and furious that he'd leave like some one-man army or messiah, and she finally decided to give up her old life, to remain with him and protect him from himself. Part of the reason he had opened up to her was that she really wasn't looking for wisdom after D3. She was just talking to him like a person, joking with him, poking occasional fun like she would anyone else, and had actually flirted back. And she felt a growing attachment to him, an increasing trust in him.

And then, when she returned, she 'pinged' the crowd for Lore-Lying Darkness, and rolled a 36. The Darkness NOTICED her. It forced an immediate Shadow Corruption defense roll that she narrowly passed (because I intentionally gave her a Void of 2 to leave her vulnerable this game and she barely won.). The feeling of the darkness was terrifying beyond anything she had ever experienced, and she warned Shinsei of it that night, that it was there.

Right about that time, she was infatuated and he was one of the few characters she trusted to have her back no matter what, so she decided to follow him as a student afterwards, provided he'd have her. This started to bring her into his circle, including Saruko, Kinsen and Shinjo, and she had several conversations with a few of these characters who actually knew him.

6) By the time of the nightmares, on the verge of the Shadowlands itself, she found him and openly propositioned him before they entered tainted lands and the danger thereof. They had Sex on D13, and she became pregnant. On D15, Jiyo Sora had a foresight vision that warned that she could never publicly marry Shinsei because of the danger to all three and the empire if it was known the child she was carrying (yeah, congrats 2 days later. You're pregnant. That was a shock.) was Shinsei's. This has led to she and Shinsei agreeing to conceal the identity of the child's father as "Taka," one of the random NPC guards killed and replaced by a Bog Hag.


Missing a few pieces, and several interactions but that's kind fo the 'short' version of how a Shosuro Analogue got scared out of her mind by the shadow and shadowlands, NARROWLY missed getting tainted several times by both and decided to throw her hat in with one of the only people who seemed to fully understand the dangers inherent and who she trusted and is now also infatuated with.

[Nozomi]

So, will she marry Shinsei? Or at least bear his child (the bloodline must continue, after all!)?

She will not marry Shinsei publicly anytime soon.
1) I didn't have the points for it. Shinsei is not Low/Medium. It wuld cost 2, and that's a bargain, but I am not willing to ask for people to help to get that, so we went with "Secret Child" because it's rokugani tragic love and it REALLY fits the Heir of Shinsei story arc.
2) Jiyo Sora happily played along with a request for a doom prophecy about the pregnancy, setting up the bastard child storyline with "Taka" a dead guard killed by bog hags.
3) I am paying 1 pt for the child because I firmly believe that the Heir of Shinsei's worth AT LEAST that much. it's one of the seminal stories of the game after all.

[Nozomi]

Phi had a journey for sure, it will be interesting to see where it goes.

Nanzi had a journey and a half too. I'm looking forward to seeing his as well.

She... respects him because she sees him as a very bold, open and courageous warrior.
She really really doesn't like him because she also thinks he's an officious oaf with way too much love of this "Honor" stuff that she has no time for. (Failure of Honesty)

[Anjing Xia]

That's definitely something.

[Nozomi]

Reading all that, I thought Phi definitely gave off the "Shosuro-like" vibe early on and I really loved reading her transformation over time into something completely different! My questions: at what point in events that occurred did you started to consider possibilities for alternate developments for Phi and was there a specific event where you took a look at it all and said "yep, I'm definitely going down this road now" or more a culmination of things?

I opened up to the idea of a possible flirtation with Shinsei around D5/7 though I joked with Baku about it earlier. Shinsei's reactions to her issues after the Bog Hags were strong indicators of the viability of a romantic route. I had not decided she'd forsake the Shosuro/Bayushi angle until D11, when she rode off to rescue Shinsei, saved him from near death alongside Shinjo, and then walked back only to find the presence of Goju watching them, and NOT BEING SAFE.

She went from Yay Bayushi to "...I want to like him, but this man is no longer safe for me. Or anyone." By Day 11 my plans for her story were changing, and I was much more carefully trying to avoid her getting tainted/corrupted, because if that happened, it drastically impacted her storyline.

[Nozomi]

That's definitely something.

It's been a buuuusy month, hah.

[Nozomi]

May I also add as a player that...

"My character gets onto the back of a god transformed into a magical oriental unicorn while shouting that she's going to rescue the buddha from himself before riding off into the shadowlands"

may be the most EXTRA moment I have ever had in L5R play in over twenty years of doing this?

[Jiyo Sora]

I legit loved that. It added to the mythic feel Birb brought up.

[Nozomi]

I legit loved that. It added to the mythic feel Birb brought up.

By that moment I had embraced this reality. We are in the first century, where gods walk among men. This is myth and we are all entitled to have a little dragon (or in this case a baby buddha) in us. I embraced the myth, and I don't regret it.

History always makes it both mythic and tones it down, but when the craziness hits the fan in the days of legend, it's always a little extra.

[Canary]

I legit loved that. It added to the mythic feel Birb brought up.

By that moment I had embraced this reality. We are in the first century, where gods walk among men. This is myth and we are all entitled to have a little dragon (or in this case a baby buddha) in us. I embraced the myth, and I don't regret it.

History always makes it both mythic and tones it down, but when the craziness hits the fan in the days of legend, it's always a little extra.

I worry sometimes that people will be disappointed when things settle down into regular history... XD; I'll just have to be a bit extra when it comes to samurai drama, too.

[Jiyo Sora]

Well, I mean, in canoN Rokugan, Hida and Doji stuck around for friggin' ever., so you have some time for that little adjustment to settle in

Besides, we're going to have Imperial Ogres, an ambassador the Nezumi Empire, we allready found Oblivion's Gate, we already know about the Five Ancient Races...

[Nozomi]

Hida and Doji were around for a couple centuries...
Shinsei didn't die for centuries himself even if he left...
Shinjo didn't actually die and eventually just ET phoned home after 1200 years when she decided Rokugan was being dumb.
I want to say Bayushi was around for at least a century because of the whole Shosuro/Soshi thing.
Togashi body hopped worse than Iuchiban until 1200 (I honestly think that's why he hated Iuchiban as much as he did. Dude was stealing his body swapping mojo)

Yeah, there's definitely some room to breathe there.

[Nozomi]

Just in case there's confusion about why Phi is suddenly "Nozomi."

On Day 24, in the evening, she takes an early version of a monastic vow, changing her name from Phi (Ghost in Thai) to Nozomi (Wishful Hope). So, when we see her in the next game, she'll have the new name as well.

[Kyosei of the Isawa]

Don't forget Hantei Genji lasted some 400 or so years. Simillarly with Togashi Hoshi. Long life in the second generation is also a thing.

[Nozomi]

Don't forget Hantei Genji lasted some 400 or so years. Simillarly with Togashi Hoshi. Long life in the second generation is also a thing.

That's actually true. If I recall correctly, it is Genji, not Hantei, that is a large part of why the empire has so few Hantei dynastial members.