Plague

Legend of the Five Rings card from Obsidian Edition, Imperial Edition, Emerald Edition, Shadowlands

Card Type

Event

Keywords

Unique, Plague

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, destroy all Followers with 3 or lower Force.

Legality

Clan Wars (Imperial)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: Kan'ok'ticheck:
  Text:
  "Unaligned Ratling Chieftain Creature Soul of Tchickchuk Plague tokens do not affect Ratlings. Each other Ratling Personality and Ratling Follower gains +1F while in Kan'ok'ticheck's army. Reaction: When paying for a Ratling, bow Kan'ok'ticheck to lower the Ratling's Gold cost to 0. You may take this action when paying for a Ratling attaching to Kan'ok'ticheck."
  Kan'ok'ticheck Exp.
  Ratling Clan Champion . Green-Green-White Tribe Chieftain . Creature . Experienced . Unique . Will only join a Ratling player. Ratling Followers gain +1F while attached to Kan'ok'ticheck. After each time one of your Ratling Followers attached to one of your other Personalities is destroyed, you may return it to play unbowed attached to Kan'ok'ticheck
  When I overlay Kan'ok'ticheck with Kan'ok'ticheck Experienced,
  Do the bonuses to Ratling Personalities and Ratling Followers stack? Do they become +2F? Or do they stay as +1F
  What abilities would that personality now have?
  A: When you overlay, you keep everything on the old card starting with an action type keyword (Limited, Open, Battle, and Reaction) and you keep any effects currently active on it. You lose all the old printed stats, keywords, and other traits. An overlayed Kan'ok'ticheck would have only the Reaction from the original. The Follower bonus would only be +1F. Jeff Alexander, "rules for 22 March 2004", 23 Mar 2004
• Q: Kan'ok'ticheck Unaligned Ratling Chieftain Creature Soul of Tchickchuk Plague tokens do not affect Ratlings. Each other Ratling Personality and Ratling Follower gains +1F while in Kan'ok'ticheck's army. Reaction: When paying for a Ratling, bow Kan'ok'ticheck to lower the Ratling's Gold cost to 0. You may take this action when paying for a Ratling attaching to Kan'ok'ticheck.
  -I'd like to clarify this. Can he bow to reduce the gold cost of all ratling cards or just personalities and the specified follower?
  A: All Ratling cards. Jeff Alexander, "post for 11 October 2002", 12 Oct 2002
• Q: 2) When one destroys Plague-infested Personalities in order to satisfy Rampant Plague's conditions for immunity, this makes one unable to be "targeted with plague tokens." Obviously, this means they can't get anymore tokens from the Plague event. However, also under these circumstances, what of the following applies?
  2a) Can Sympathetic Energies transfer a Plague token to a Personality controlled by an "immune" player?
  A: No. Jeff Alexander, "replies to July 3-5", 17 Jul 2001
• Q: When one destroys Plague-infested Personalities in order to satisfy Rampant Plague's conditions for immunity, this makes one unable to be "targeted with plague tokens." Can Sympathetic Energies transfer a Plague token to a Personality controlled by an "immune" player?
  A: Er. No. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 14 July 2001", 15 Jul 2001
• Q: A Walking Death reads...
  Until the game ends, after each of your Events Phases ends, each player, starting with you, gives a target Personality controlled by the player on his left a -1C Plague token.
  Your opponent "targets" one of your personalities with a -1C Plague token, so it would stand to reason that you could redirect the the token from the targeted personality to another legal target via Chugo Seido, deflection, etc. Am I wrong?
  A: Chugo Seido reacts when an action would target a card. It does not react to traits. Alex Jones, "Redirecting chi tokens from A Walking Death?", 31 May 2011
• Q: This question is mainly about Paneki's Disgrace and Bayushi Paneki in CE.
  If I have both in my provinces, can I bring Bayushi Paneki and overlay the Disgrace? I'm not sure if the title must be the same to overlay or just the Experienced version.
  Relevant Text: Paneki's Disgrace Shadowlands • Undead • Samurai • Tactician • Plague • Experienced 6 Bayushi Paneki • Unique
  Bayushi Paneki Scorpion Clan • Clan Champion • Samurai • Tactician • Hero • Experienced 5 • Loyal • Unique
  A: http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Glossary_E#Experienced: "Keep in mind that an Experienced card's alternate title also regulates his or her capacity to enter play and change control.
  "Example: A player who controls a Unique version of The Golden Ronin with the keyword “Experienced Matsu Ichi” can not bring the Unique non-Experienced version of Matsu Ichi into play, or take control of another player’s Unique version of “Matsu Ichi.”"
  I could just as easily rewrite the example:
  "Example: A player who controls a Unique version of Paneki's Dissgrace with the keyword “Experienced 5 Bayushi Paneki” can not bring the Unique Experienced 5 version of Bayushi Paneki into play, or take control of another player’s Unique version of “Bayushi Paneki.”" Zen Faulkes, "Overlaying and Uniqueness", 16 May 2011
• Q: In regards to viewtopic.php?f=59&t=81558
  and viewtopic.php?f=59&t=81554
  Does it matter which order a token that gives -1C goes onto a personality to cause 0 Chi death destruction?
  ie. I give a personality a -1C Plague token to bring him to 1 Chi. Player plays The Last One on their personality. I give a personality a -1F/-1C Curse token to bring him to 0 Chi.
  Does the destruction still take effect since I have a 0 Chi person that is in part being destroyed by a -1C token generated by a trait? If the order does not matter, would I need 2 Plague tokens to kill a 2 Chi personality that had been targeted by The Last One?
  A: Order does matter.
  The effect generating the ongoing negation of destruction has to come before the final Chi penalty is applied that would make him 0C.
  If it is before the penalty that gets him to 0C, he does not die.
  If it is (somehow) after that penalty, he dies.
  EDIT: Also, if the trait that gives him -1C is last, the ongoing destruction negation, if it depends on destruction from actions like The Last One, will fail to negate that personality's destruction. Dan Jacobson, "Order of tokens from Traits vs Actions.", 2 Feb 2010
• Q: Until the game ends, after each of your Events Phases ends, each player, starting with you, gives a target Personality controlled by the player on his left a -1C Plague token.
  -This is only talking about my events phases, right?
  A: Correct. Dan Jacobson, "A Walking Death", 20 Jul 2009
• Q: Does Plague of Locust refer only to the base gold cost (those with printed "0") r does it also destroy holdings that entered play with their gold cost having been reduced to 0 (i.e. Palace of Otosan Uchi, Heart of the Shinomen, etc.)
  I'm thinking it also destroys holdings that entered play having their gold cost reduced to 0. Otherwise the wording would refer to base or printed gold cost.
  A: Technically, you're correct, but what an unpleasant thing to have to keep track of. Ah, old school Design! Brook Cunningham, "Oracle of the Void #rules", 26 Jun 2024
• Q: Does Plague of Locust refer only to the base gold cost (those with printed "0") r does it also destroy holdings that entered play with their gold cost having been reduced to 0 (i.e. Palace of Otosan Uchi, Heart of the Shinomen, etc.)
  I'm thinking it also destroys holdings that entered play having their gold cost reduced to 0. Otherwise the wording would refer to base or printed gold cost.
  A: Technically, you're correct, but what an unpleasant thing to have to keep track of. Ah, old school Design! Brook Cunningham, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 26 Jun 2024