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, 1 December 2011
If Cursed Relic targets a person with its Removal from Game ability, can I react to the targeting with I do not Die so easily, and then take a battle action on my next turn to return the personality to the game (albeit into the discard pile?)
Cursed Relic Battle: Any number of times per turn, give this Personality -1C: Ranged 3 Attack. Battle: Bow this card, give this Personality -1C, and target an enemy card without attachments: Remove it from the game.
I Do Not Die So Easily! Reaction: After another player's action targets your Personality during a battle: Negate his destruction from the action's effects. After the resolution of your next Battle action this battle, destroy him.
Zen Faulkes (rules official), 1 December 2011
If Cursed Relic targets a person with its Removal from Game ability, can I react to the targeting with I do not Die so easily, and then take a battle action on my next turn to return the personality to the game (albeit into the discard pile?)
No, because I Do Not Die So Easily negates destruction. Cursed Relic does not destroy; it "removes from the game". The two terms are not identical. Destroyed cards are removed from the game (http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Glossary_D#Destroy), but there is no rule that all cards removed from the game are destroyed (http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Areas_of_the_ga ... ommunal.29).
A player, 1 December 2011
As a follow up to Barswanian's question here http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=95157...
Zen answered that Cursed Relic removes from the game, not destroys, so I Do Not Die So Easily wouldn't negate the removal from game. That's all fine and good, but that was not Barswanian's question. After having read it, I am curious too.
Essentially, Barswanian's question was "If a card that removed from the game is destroyed, would it go to the discard pile? And if so, would it be a dead personality or not?" He was just using the example of I Do Not Die So Easily's effect of destroying a personality after the next action taken by you.
This is very similar to the question in THIS thread http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=94949 except that the destruction effect is triggered after the card is removed from play, instead of simply being a delayed effect (in the case of Razer of the Dawn Castle).
Zen Faulkes (rules official), 2 December 2011
[T]hat was not Barswanian's question. ... Barswanian's question was "If a card that removed from the game is destroyed, would it go to the discard pile? And if so, would it be a dead personality or not?"
Thanks for the rephrase. (Here we have an example of the perils of asking a question using a bunch of specific cards in a combo as an example, rather than asking the general question.)
Will try to deal with this a very similar thread over here: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=95155. To repeat what I initially said there: Personality destroyed while out of play does go to the discard pile, and is considered discarded, but is not dead.
But what I since realized is that this started with a situation where an out of play Personality was destroyed. I overextended from "out of play" to "out of game," which was a mistake.
So, a correction: A card removed from the game can't be destroyed, and thus, can't be brought back.