A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A player, 13 August 2015
Our playgroup has been reveling in the glorious carnage of the Big Deck Highlander format for a year or two--"There can be only one!" It's great to be able to play with those dusty old cards from aeons ago. Here's the situation:
Phoenix Clan player is using the City of Blood stronghold with the Iuchiban Sensei, giving him a starting family honor of -2. He's got plenty of cards dealing honor losses to himself which will trigger Nexus of Lies: "Before another, non-Spider Clan player loses Honor from a card he owns, increase the loss by an amount equal to half his Starting Family Honor, rounded down."
We've been playing it as if the starting family honor were zero, with no additional honor loss, because it didn't seem quite right that Nexus of Lies could result in an honor gain.
Yorishiku o-negai shimasu, Isawa Jeff, Phoenix Clan Instigator Watakushi wa Watakushi desu.
Brook Cunningham (rules official), 13 August 2015
Our playgroup has been reveling in the glorious carnage of the Big Deck Highlander format for a year or two--"There can be only one!" It's great to be able to play with those dusty old cards from aeons ago. Here's the situation:
Phoenix Clan player is using the City of Blood stronghold with the Iuchiban Sensei, giving him a starting family honor of -2. He's got plenty of cards dealing honor losses to himself which will trigger Nexus of Lies: "Before another, non-Spider Clan player loses Honor from a card he owns, increase the loss by an amount equal to half his Starting Family Honor, rounded down."
We've been playing it as if the starting family honor were zero, with no additional honor loss, because it didn't seem quite right that Nexus of Lies could result in an honor gain.
Yorishiku o-negai shimasu, Isawa Jeff, Phoenix Clan Instigator Watakushi wa Watakushi desu.
This is essentially correct, but there are real Rules reasons why it works this way.
Nexus specifically says it causes a player to "lose" Honor, so trying to lose a negative amount wouldn't result in a gain, in the same way that if you have an effect on a 5F Personality that says, "Raise his Force to equal the Force of another Personality in his army". If your only other Personality has less than 5F, you can't "raise" it to a lower number, so nothing would happen.