Meishodo

From L5r: Legend of the Five Rings

Meishodo, or Name Magic, is a magical discipline practiced by the Unicorn Clan. Unlike traditional Rokugani magic, meshodo does not call upon the kami. Meishodo instead uses the name of a thing uttered at its creation.^[1]

Contents 1 Origins 2 Functions 3 Views on Meishodo in Rokugan 4 References

[edit] Origins

Meishodo was created outside of Rokugan and was first encountered by the Ki-Rin Clan in the City of Sorcerers in 152 IC.^[2] It was discovered by Iuchi, who presented it to Shinjo. Although Shinjo did not discourage his use of meishodo, she told Iuchi that it was only meant for mortals and that she could not listen to him talk about it or study it herself.^[3]

Iuchi himself had difficulty understanding and working with meishodo, but upon his death his apprentice, Iuchi Nobane, took up the study and vastly improved it.^[4] Credit for this is also given to Iuchi Tsubei, another shugenja considered to be Iuchi's greatest student.^[5]

[edit] Functions

Instead of reading the meishodo spell from a scroll like traditional shugenja, a practitioner of meishodo holds a trinket with the spell bound to it and simply focuses on the trinket, which immediately creates the spell effect. The advantage of this over traditional spells is that traditional spells is its incredible speed, as traditional spells may take a long time to prepare and cast.^[6]

Meishodo has its drawbacks, however. While any spell that makes use of the kami can be replicated as meishodo, more complex spells cannot be created unless the practitioner is adept in the spell's element. Also, traditional spells can be memorized by shugenja but meishodo cannot be. Thus a meishodo user must be holding the meishodo trinket any time he wishes to use its power. Finally, a traditional shugenja may increase the casting time of his spell or use some other technique to alter the spell he is casting, such as causing a healing spell to heal a greater number of wounds or causing a spell to affect more targets than it normally would. A meishodo practitioner cannot do these things, a meishodo spell is what it was at its creation.^[7] The only exception to this is the Horiuchi Shugenja School^[8] and those of the Iuchi family born with the phenomenon known as Blood of the Jinn.^[9]

[edit] Views on Meishodo in Rokugan

Meishodo is viewed as strange and even blasphemous by the other clans, as it does not call upon the kami. This is viewed as disrespectful to the kami, who are revered within Rokugani culture. When it was brought back to Rokugan and shown to the Emperor, it was decried by the Phoenix Clan but sponsored by the Crane Clan, who were fascinated by magic that bore some similiarty to their own tsangusuri. The Emperor proclaimed meishodo to be acceptable and the purview of the Unicorn and any they chose to share it with.^[10]

[edit] References