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, 7 July 2011
If Chuda Kiuchi uses his ability:
Open: Choose your performing Personality and your performing Nonhuman or Undead Personality: Set each Personality's Force equal to the higher base Force of the two.
On 2 legal targets each with a -1F poison token on each of them (Lets assume a undead spud 2f/2c with a -1f psn token on him. And a random 8 force nonhuman with a -1f psn token on him). When does the timing of the -1f of the poison token apply? Does Chuda kiuchi's ability set the undead spud token to 8 before or after the -1f for the psn token is applied? A functional difference of 1 force. The same question for the random non human since it sets both to the base force of the highest of the two.
If the answer is the poison token is applied first and the force is set to 8 total (9-1 for the poison token) if the poison token is later moved will the force stay at 9. If that is not the way the above effect works you can obviously ignore this second part.
A player, 7 July 2011
When does the timing of the -1f of the poison token apply?
Everytime, because stats penalties have no 'timing', but that does not matter here. The relevant rule is this one.
Card features, Setting stats to a value: "To set a stat to a value, give it the smallest possible appropriate bonus or penalty (or the smallest possible gain or loss, for Honor) such that it reaches that value."
Chuda Kiuchi's action sets each Personality's Force equal to the higher base Force of the two, 8 here. The Nonhuman has a current Force of 7 = 8 (base) - 1 (Poison token), so he is given a +1F bonus. The Undead has a current Force of 1 = 2 (base) - 1 (Poison token), so he is given a +7F bonus. If he had four Poison tokens instead of one, the Force bonus would increase accordingly and become +10F, so that it reaches the value of 8.