replies to 27 June
A rules digest from the L5R CCG rules team, copied from the mailing list archive for Oracle of the Void. The askers' names are left out. Rulings are as they stood on this date; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A note to the Rules Archive
<!-- Joining and changing controllers
If a Personality changes controllers, he or she always enters play in the new controller's fief. This may cause a Personality to leave a battle (overriding effects prohibiting leaving the battle) or a duel (causing the duel to be abandoned without resolution). [JA, 27 September 2000] -->
If you read this, it seems that playing a Kolat Master will make the target personality to enter play again, so it could activate its entering into play effects.
This isn't correct, is it?
No, it's not. I shouldn't have used the term "enters play" in that ruling, since merely changing controllers does not count as entering play.
Yokai/Ancestor Question
Wasn't there a ruiling that if something was legal to play on a personality and then later lost it's (searching for a redundant word) legality..the card would stay attatched but the ability couldn't be used.
That's only if the attached card makes reference to the Personality's lost condition, such as spells which say "Bow this Shugenja to..." An item (or even a hypothetical spell) which says "Bow this Personality" or which doesn't reference the Personality at all (example: "Bow and destroy this Item to...") would still be usable.
Factions and Smactions
Just to make certain..factions/clans such as Toturi's Army/Mantis will be in Gold Edition, but their strongholds won't be reprinted, thus making them not a legal faction/Clan to play? As in they were decimated or enough left that they are no longer considered a full faction/Clan any longer? If that's true, then what of the Ratlings? I haven't seen their stronghold on the reprinted Gold Edition list.
They are two very different concepts at work here. The rulebook lists which Factions exist in the entire scope of the game, now or ever, with no regard for the storyline or for tournament formats. Jade/Gold legality is determined by whether a Stronghold has been printed with a Jade/Gold "bug" in the corner.
Note that even within a Faction, some Strongholds can be Jade/Gold-legal while others aren't. The Warrens of the Nezumi was printed with a Gold bug in Heroes of Rokugan, so it's Gold-legal despite there being no Ratling Stronghold in Gold Edition. Conversely, The Esteemed House of the Crane has never been printed with a Gold bug, so it's not Gold-legal, even though the Crane Clan *does* have Strongholds in Gold Edition.