The Return of Fu Leng

Legend of the Five Rings card from Anvil of Despair

Card Type

Event

Keywords

Unique

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 who may win an Honor Victory may choose to permanently be unable to win an Honor Victory; each player who did not, or could not, choose this has his rightmost Province destroyed.

Legality

Clan Wars (Imperial)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rulings

• Any player unable to win an Honor Victory must destroy a Province to this event. Any player who can win an Honor Victory can renounce it to spare a Province, even if he or she is using a clan listed. [29 September 1997] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 75
• Does not destroy a player's Province if: Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 75
• Honor Victories are temporarily prohibited for all players (e.g., Shoju Sensei). [DW, email, 29 January 1998] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 75
• There are additional conditions for achieving an Honor Victory (e.g., Kisada's Funeral) [DW, 30 July 1998] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 75
• A player must react with Defenders of the Realm immediately after "All players have their rightmost Province destroyed." If played, no one loses a Province and no one can give up their honor victory to avoid losing a Province. [DW, 19 February 1998] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 75
• Does not automatically destroy everyone's Province if some other card, such as Duty to the Empire, is temporarily prohibiting Honor Victories. "Players have 'the ability to achieve an honor victory' still intact. They're just not allowed to win that way for 2 turns." [DW, personal email, 1/29/98] Accumulated Rulings, February 8, 2000, p. 50
• Q: How does Kachiko, the Scorpion Thunder, work with The Return of Fu Leng? If I've given up my Honor Victory, can I play her and get it back? A: Yes. Putting her into play gives you the option of an Honor Victory if you don't already have it. You can also renounce the victory path that she provides if she shows up before Return of Fu Leng and you're playing one of the Clans that it says must lose a Province. Legend of the Five Rings FAQ, Version 3.6.2, May 1998, p. 22
• Focus on... Shoju Sensei: "No player can achieve an Honor Victory while the Personality remains in play." The important word here is "remains." The effect only lasts as long as the targeted Personality stays continuously on the table. It ends as soon as the Personality leaves and does not resume if the Personality comes back. Feign Death, The Sight of Death, and the Crane Tattoo all return a Personality to play immediately after death; none of these cards preserve Shoju Sensei's effect. Shoju Sensei does not actually remove any individual player's Honor Victory option. It will not force everyone to lose a Province to The Return of Fu Leng, for example. Dave Williams explains. "The Return of Fu Leng is about whether you are allowed to achieve an Honor Victory ever. If you give up the ability to achieve an Honor Victory to avoid losing a Province, you turn off the power to the "I win by Honor" switch. You will never be allowed to achieve an Honor Victory. Shoju Sensei, on the other hand, says that while the target Personality is in play, you can't achieve an Honor Victory. That means that whether or not you are allowed to achieve an Honor Victory, you have to get rid of the Personality if you really want to do it. To follow the "switch" analogy, there's now a cover on the switch that you have to lift in order to flip the switch and win the game (assuming that there is power to the switch)." Shoju Sensei does not prohibit canceling an action that targets the crucial Personality. As with Kaede Sensei, Shoju Sensei's effect continues if the card gets destroyed or discarded but becomes suppressed if it's temporarily prevented from affecting play. The Imperial Herald, Issue 12, p. 33

Rules Q&A

• Q: According to the Oracle of the Void, The Maws Grave is an unaligned stronghold, not Shadowlands. Though it states you cannot gain or lose honor, it technically can still win via honor since nothing about it explicitly states otherwise.
  When playing cards like The Return of Fu Leng that look for clans that are exempt from winning via honor, this stronghold would not fall into that category and can opt out even though it is also Shadowlands.
  Is this an error, or intentional?
  A: No error. The Maw's Grave (as well as The Forgotten Temple, one might note) is a delightful loophole, allowing you to renounce an ability to win by Honor that you DO have, even if your inability to GAIN Honor means you can never practically achieve it. Enjoy!
  That said, I do feel obligated to correct your implicit and explicit assertions above: The Maw's Grave is not, nor has it ever been, a "Shadowlands" or "Shadowlands Horde" Stronghold. Brook Cunningham, "Legacy question: Maws Grave vs Return of Fu Leng", 21 Aug 2013