Hi guys,

I was toying with the idea of forming a Ryoshun Clan, but I am struggling on what duty shall I assign them, Phoenix are the spiritual leaders, Crab prtotects from Shadowlands and Taint and I have the Owl takung care of the otber Spiritual Threats.

What could be a good duty for them?

In the homebrew setting my gaming group plays we made Ryoshun's clan into the "Renegade Clan". As: they don't have any duty because they don't want to be associated with the Empire in any way or form. They are pretty much a bunch of anarchists roaming the wilderness and only showing up to depose the occasional tyrant, hunt down some big monster, or challenge Imperial authority. In the canon setting, they would also despise the Celestial Order and crack down on it hard whenever they could.

In our setting, nobody wants to take them out because they kinda "fit" into the world in a certain way (it also helps that they are technically the largest clan). In the canon setting, the other Great Clans would leave them alone because marching into a forest filled with these guys is a very painful way of committing suicide and you can't really catch them anywhere else.

Maybe they were formed by the returned spirits instead of having them commit mass suicide. (linking them further to Ryoshun)

The reasoning would be that in order to preserve the celestial order and the political balance (and to prevent another Spirit Wars), every single spirit had to renounce to their old titles and other claims and join the Crow Clan.

For the first generation, they would be quite a mess in term of general outlook, prefered colors and specialization, but within a few decades, they would be much more homogenous, marrying mainly outside the clan to get rid of the ''spirit'' negative bias. In the end, the Emperial Throne would give them the task of keeping an eye on destiny and the cycle of rebirth. Having caused great ripples themselves by returning from the dead, they are uniquely qualified for prophecies and understanding the mysteries of fate.

Courtiers from the Crow Clan would oversee the funerals of important individuals and the birth of those who were determined to inherit their souls. Their techniques would revolve around understanding the lineage of their opponents (including ancestors) and using that to their advantage.

Bushis would be yojimbos task to protect the courtiers and shugenjas of their clans, as well as the children from other clans who inherited ''glorious'' souls. Their techniques would be about protecting and honor above all. (They need to have a reputation of being unable to be corrupted, since they are guarding other clans children)

Shugenjas would be all about divintation. Understanding the prophecies, analyzing their potential outcomes and the actions needed to make sure they happen or not. Their techniques would be linked to analyzing one's soul and its place in the celestial order.

Thanks guys. I really like Tetsuhiko's idea of tying Ryoshun's Clan with the War of the Spirits.

Schoolwise I will start with the Badger and will later annex the Bat, as both their theme and flavor fits with the clan.

Bushis would be yojimbos task to protect the courtiers and shugenjas of their clans, as well as the children from other clans who inherited ''glorious'' souls. Their techniques would be about protecting and honor above all. (They need to have a reputation of being unable to be corrupted, since they are guarding other clans children)

The more I read into this the more enthusiastic I become. Really like this idea. I think I need to take out a notepad and start brainstorming a homebrew school.

I would generally tend to agree with what has been said.

The Ryoshun clan duty-- and Crow is a pretty good name for the clan, although Bat would be just as good if you were to say it existed before the minor clan or maybe even the Fox or Dog or Wolf clan-- would be good to focus on putting the dead to rest. Even if one was working within an alternate Rokugan where 9 or 10 Kami all fell to Earth together and none of them got lost... somehow I think one could imagine that somehow his tendency could still be of the macabre.

I don't think what Tetsuhiko said about them being necessarily totally involved in funerals should be a thing though. After all, samurai should avoid touching the dead and the priesthood would primarily be responsible for taking care of the matters of the dead which is generally a far too common of an event for one clan to hold complete dominion over.

Rather I would imagine Ryushun's clan would be primarily interested in getting involved when thing don't go smoothly. They would be primarily involved with putting to rest spirits and the undead, maybe guarding tombs and maybe they do traditionally serve as guardians during really important funerals.

But don't make the entire clan a single-trick pony. That was the major misstep that was made when the Owl Clan was put into Imperial Histories II. The person who wrote it was clearly out of any sort of ideas at all and just latched onto the whole "they are about nonhumans" and then made literally every single technique in all of the schools they made about having advantages against nonhumans... and why? Even the Crab clan doesn't have anywhere near that degree of focus on fighting the Shadowlands and that is a far more existential threat. Worse, the schools were made so focused on nonhumans that the techniques are utterly useless 95% of the time because that time is spent dealing with humans.

So don't do that. Make it so that their techniques are generally okay, maybe subpar against normal human opponents, but excel when fighting zombies and ghosts. I would even recommend taking and tweaking the Hantei Bushi school so that the techniques have some effect against humans and a superior effect on the restless dead as your Bushi school. If you are going to use the Owl Clan too, I would suggest taking their schools completely back to basics and thinking of new and better ideas for them.

Also, think about the Crane Clan for instance...

The Doji are about arts and crafts.

The Kakita are about dueling.

The Yasuki are about money.

The Daidoji are about underhanded battlefield tactics.
The Asahina are about expressing poetry and songs.

So there is an overall thematic element of "arts", but certainly not to a degree that they are functionally useless in various spheres of life when arts are not directly involved. In fact, they absolutely dominate in various spheres using "art" only slightly in their motif of being good at something functionally commonly encountered.

The Crab clan is even more difficult to find a central theme with. They are both about defense and power while also being about fighting corruption. It makes for an odd mix, but the clan ends up more well-rounded for it.

As such, even though "Ghosts/Spirits" is a plenty good as the loose thematic backbone for the schools, each family and thus each school should deal with something that may remotely related thematically. So maybe the default bushi school is pretty good against humans, but excels in slaying the restless dead. The shugenja can speak to the dead and gain wisdom and advice from them (yes, similar to the Kitsu) and maybe the default courtier school excels at studying and recalling lore, they are scholars and researchers.

Then, perhaps as a clan their primary flaws could be their tendency to get too deeply involved in uncovering lore that it harms other aspects of their life, their callousness and their general lack of resources. But, you also need to then justify how and why they haven't had all their lands taken from them in a war with another clan.

Honestly, I think another misstep of the RPG is that not every clan has scouts, heavy warriors, cavalry, special forces ("ninja" but not necessarily of the magic variety) and priests/mages as well as accountants, artists, craftsmen, diplomats, etc. and every single Clan should have some version of all of the necessary components to field a complete army and have all the skills to run their holdings. I have to think the sheer power packed into the school advantages is such that it overrides the skill system completely and pigeon-holes people in clans to a degree that wasn't originally intended nor true to how the world is intended to function. But that is an argument for another time.