Imperial Funeral

Legend of the Five Rings card from Gold Edition, Forbidden Knowledge, A Perfect Cut

Card Type

Event

Keywords

Unique, Imperial

Card Text

After you reveal cards in your Provinces at the start of your turn, if this Event is face-up in one of them, starting with you and proceeding in turn order, each player may bow any number of his Personalities and gains 1 Honor for each Personality he bowed. Then, each player loses 3 Honor for each of his unbowed Personalities whom he did not bow, and those Personalities are dishonored.

Legality

Clan Wars (Imperial), Four Winds (Gold)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rulings

• Erratum: Should read, "Imperial Funeral Starting with you and going clockwise, each player may bow any number of his or her Personalities and gain 1 Honor for each Personality he or she bows. Each player loses 3 Honor for each of his or her unbowed Personalities who does not or cannot bow, and those Personalities become Dishonored." [Erratum to MRP, JA, web, 9 September 2001] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 72
• The honor gains/losses occur in separate packets. [DW, l5rinfo] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 33

Rules Q&A

• Q: Can I use Imperial Messenger on either Revering the Past or Imperial Funeral?
  A: Yes. See Rules Archive (http://www.legendofthefiverings.com/rulings). Jeff *may* have misspoken about this combo; I specifically asked him about it, and he hasn't instructed me to change the archived ruling. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 4 July 2003", 4 Jul 2003
• Q: Player A have Doji Nagori in play and Player B resolves an Imperial Funeral. Can player A lose some honor, use Nagori and don't lose any honor for Nagori because he is bowed?
  A: No. Player A cannot use Nagori on his own losses. He can only use Nagori on player B's losses. [Nagori card text] Jeff Alexander, "post for 27 March 2003", 28 Mar 2003
• Q: Can Balance in nothingness cancel an Imperial Funeral if I have a bowed personality?
  A: No. The only cards Imperial Funeral targets are the unbowed ones that are chosen by their controllers to bow. Jeff Alexander, "post for 25 February 2003", 26 Feb 2003
• Q: Three questions. Sorry if they have already been answered before... my friends and I can't seem to agree on the rulings involving them.
  1. When Imperial Funeral resolves, do my bowed personalities automatically get dishonored and cause me an honor loss?
  A: No. This is errata, and can be found in the Accumulated Rulings at http://l5r.alderac.com/rulings/ . Jeff Alexander, "post for 9 January 2002", 10 Jan 2003
• Q: Can you seppuku your personalities in order to prevent them becoming dshonoured from Imperial Funeral? (yes, I do know you could just bow them)
  A: Yes, because that's making a decision. Each one would die honorably and result in only a 1-point loss. Jeff Alexander, "post for 21 November 2002", 22 Nov 2002
• Q: 1) Is Imperial Funeral one loss or multiple losses?
  A: Multiple. Jeff Alexander, "post for 11 November 2002", 12 Nov 2002
• Q: I am starting to try out Shadowlands for the first time and I have a question. Can I play Imperial Funeral in my Dynasty deck
  A: Yes. Jeff Alexander, "post for 23 September 2002", 25 Sep 2002
• Q: 1.) A lot of cards have recently been drastically errata-ed: not simply basic ruling changes, but the cards themselves have been rewritten (The Emperor's Under-Hand, Snow Crane Tattoo, Imperial Funeral (again), and Nagimaki, among others). Will AEG be following the 7th Sea model for these cards and placing errata-text versions of them in future starters?
  A: Where feasible. I don't have plans to do it across the board. Jeff Alexander, "post for 30 October 2001", 31 Oct 2001
• Q: Also, does Imperial Funeral make a player lose honor for peeps already bowed when it resolves?
  A: Yes. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for August 14th", 14 Aug 2001
• Q: And what about Imperial Funeral?
  A: Can Shadowlands play it, you mean? Yes. It's not an action.
  Zen Faulkes! * Crab Clan Scholar * Unaligned Rules Deputy Rules Archive: http://www.planet.net.au/~zfaulkes/o-ushi.html Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 1 August 2001", 2 Aug 2001
• Q: I'll just be over in the corner, sulking. Right after I explain that Imperial Funeral is still the card causing the honor loss, just like Iaijutsu Challenge is still the card causing that honor loss, even though it was the decision of another player to make it do so. Unless a card specifically and explicitly says that the personality making the choice is forced to cause the honor loss, the card itself is considered to be causing the loss.
  Taking the last statement above to heart, I still have to think that the wording of IF is too ambiguous as stands. From my POV, it is indeed the personality(s) involved that cause the honor loss. So, by this reasoning, IF also cause the honor gain involved if that decision is the one made?
  A: Yes. However, the personality who bows/doesn't bow would still be considered to be involved in the creation of the gain/loss for purposes of seppuku and dishonor. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for February 2nd", 3 Feb 2001
• Q: Yoshi Sensei says "Your card effects do not cause honor losses for other players."
  Imperial Funeral says "Starting with the current player and going clockwise, each player in turn has one chance to bow any or all personalities they control, and gain 1 honor for each personality that does so. Players lose 3 honor for each personality that remains unbowed, and these personalities are dishonored."
  Now the question is, does Imperial Funeral cause the honor loss, and is thus prohibited from effect by Yoshi Sensei?
  A: Yup. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for January 31st, addendum", 31 Jan 2001
• Q: Or does Imperial Funeral give *other players cards* the ability to cause a card effect that results in an honor loss?
  I see it as the second option, since IF gives each player a choice (forced or not) about whether or not he incurs an honor loss, with the deciding factor lying in his own cards, not the IF.
  Zen, clarification please?
  A: You know, I probably wouldn't have answered this right away, if it hadn't been for the fact that you went over my helmet!
  Dude, I'm right here. I just answered a bunch of questions earlier today. Am I not good enough for you?!? (*sob*)
  I'll just be over in the corner, sulking. Right after I explain that Imperial Funeral is still the card causing the honor loss, just like Iaijutsu Challenge is still the card causing that honor loss, even though it was the decision of another player to make it do so. Unless a card specifically and explicitly says that the personality making the choice is forced to cause the honor loss, the card itself is considered to be causing the loss. Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for January 31st, addendum", 31 Jan 2001
• Q: Not sure if this changes anything, but in the 2000 version of the rulings, Imperial Funeral didn't change
  A: I edited a little more onto the end of my last post for context. 😉
  (Replying to a player: "Thanks. So it's one big honor loss for Dealing With Shadows, right? For Imperial. It is a deal breaker if I will include it in playtest.") Well, it's really difficult to pin down a Ruling contemporary to Imperial, but my best guess is "yes", for the reason I stated above, that IF has a special Ruling but DwS doesn't. Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 29 Oct 2025
• Q: [Imperial]
  Does the honor loss occur in separate packets if multiple Shadowlands are in play? I assume it's the same as Imperial Funeral having separate packets of honor loss/gain (as per accumulated rulings 1998)
  A: Hrm. I would say maybe not? Since they had to make a specific ruling just for Imperial Funeral to clarify it? By the by, thanks for pointing that out, as maybe I will have to re-Oracle IF to account for that ruling, because more modern Rules clearly define an "X for each Y" effect as a single occurrence of X*Y, not separate effects. Although, I will have to see if that ruling persists in FAQs more concurrent to its last printing. Or maybe I just won't because it's kind of weirdly inconsistent. Classic Rulings were unfortunately a lot of, "this is what we meant but this is not what the card actually says" without official hard errata to back that up. 😦 Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 29 Oct 2025