I am currently brainstorming the concept of a Major Clan for Ryoshun and I am stumped with the design of a Courtier School for this Clan. (Since I am also using the Owl Clan, I can't use the Oromo Diplomats). Besides, I see them as scholars using the wisdom of the Spirit Realms to succeed in their duties. I thought of using some Spirit Realms as themes and flavors for the School Techniques something like:

Rank Two (Chikushudo): You may spend a Void point and make a Courtier (Manipulation) / Awareness roll (as a Simple Action) at TN 25 to force a number of opponents equal to your School Rank within 20 feet of you to suffer a penalty of –1k1 to all their Courtier and Etiquette Skill rolls for the next hour.

Rank Five (Yomi): Once per Round, you may spend a Void Point to reroll any Courtier or Etiquette skill roll. You add +2k1 to the new roll. You may choose to keep the new roll or your original roll.

What do you think? Ideas, suggestions,...

One approach I can see you taking is to assign an ability for each Spirit Realm; like how the Togashi Tattooed Men choose tattoos from a list of options. I quick and abstract breakdown from the top of my head...

Rank 1: You may choose two Spirit Realm abilities

Rank 2: You gain some kind of bonus on all Social Skill rolls against creatures and spirits from a Spirit Realm. Also, this same benefit applies to mortals with the Touch of the Spirit Realms Advantage or Cursed of the Spirit Realms Disadvantage.

Rank 3: You may choose two Spirit Realm abilities

Rank 4: ???

Rank 5: You may choose two Spirit Realm abilities

This would make this type of courtier a more mystical courtier. It would fit well in the Togashi Dynasty Alternative Setting too. Hope that helps and good luck.

I really liked this. Let me put something together and get back to you. Thanks BlindSamurai13!

This is a rough draft of the concept you proposed BlindSamurai13:

RYOSHUN COURTIER SCHOOL

Benefit: +1 Awareness

Skills: Calligraphy, Courtier, Etiquette (Courtesy), Lore: Spirit Realms (Choose One), Meditation, Sincerity, any one High Skill

Honor: 4.5

Outfit: Sensible Clothing, Wakizashi, Calligraphy Set, Traveling Pack, 5 koku

TECHNIQUES

RANK 1: X

You gain one of the Touch of the Spirit Realms Advantage for no cost in Experience Points (if you already have that Touch of the Spirit Realms Advantage, you are refunded that many Experience Points). You gain a bonus to all Courtier and Etiquette Social Skill rolls equal to the number of Emphases you have in the Lore: Spirit Realms Skill.

RANK 2: X

A number of times equal your School Rank, you may spend a Void Point to grant one of your allies within 30 feet, one of the Touch of the Spirit Realms Advantages for a number of hours equal to your School Rank. If your ally already has this Advantage, your Technique fails.

RANK 3: X

You gain a bonus of 2k1 to all your Social Skills. You receive two additional Touched by the Spirit Realms Advantages.

RANK 4: X

A number of times per session equal to your School Rank, you may speak with someone for a few minutes and then make a Contested Roll of your Courtier (Manipulation) / Willpower against their Etiquette (Courtesy) / Awareness. If you succeed, they acquire one of the Cursed by the Spirit Realms Disadvantages (your choice) for a number of hours equal to your School Rank. By calling two successful Raises on this roll, you can inflict a second Cursed by the Spirit Realms Disadvantage of your choice on the same person for the same period of time. (You cannot use this technique on the same person twice in the same day.)

RANK 5:

All bonuses, penalties, TNs, etc bonus or penalties that the Touched of the Spirit Realms or Cursed by the Spirit Realms confer are now doubled. You gain three additional Spirit Realms Advantages.

It needs a little bit of massaging and maybe tone it down a little bit, but it's something to start with.

This is a rough draft of the concept you proposed BlindSamurai13:

RYOSHUN COURTIER SCHOOL

Benefit: +1 Awareness

Skills: Courtier, Etiquette (Courtesy), Lore: History, Lore: Spirit Realms, Meditation, Sincerity, any Lore skill

Honor: 4.5

Outfit: Sensible Clothing, Wakizashi, Calligraphy Set, Traveling Pack, 5 koku

TECHNIQUES

RANK 1: X

You gain one of the Touch of the Spirit Realms Advantage for no cost in Experience Points (if you already have that Touch of the Spirit Realms Advantage, you are refunded that many Experience Points). In addition, you gain a +1k0 bonus on all Etiquette and Lore Skills.

RANK 2: X

A number of times equal your School Rank, you may spend a Void Point to grant one of your allies within 20 feet, one of the Touch of the Spirit Realms Advantages for a number of hours equal to your School Rank. If your ally already has this Advantage, your Technique fails.

RANK 3: X

You gain a bonus of 2k1 to all your Social Skills. You receive an additional Touched by the Spirit Realms Advantage.

RANK 4: X

A number of times per session equal to your School Rank, you may speak with someone for a few minutes and then make a Contested Roll of your Courtier (Manipulation) / Willpower against their Etiquette (Courtesy) / Willpower. If you succeed, they acquire one of the Cursed by the Spirit Realms Disadvantages (your choice) for a number of hours equal to your School Rank. By calling two successful Raises on this roll, you can inflict a second Cursed by the Spirit Realms Disadvantage of your choice on the same person for the same period of time. (You cannot use this technique on the same person twice in the same day.)

RANK 5:

The bonus or penalties that the Touched of the Spirit Realms or Cursed by the Spirit Realms confers to your allies or opponents is increasingly by +1k1. You gain two additional Spirit Realms Advantages.

It needs a little bit of massaging and maybe tone it down a little bit, but it's something to start with.

Ok, some thoughts:

-Skill set: I would add a free Emphases to the Lore: Spirit Realms Skill. Is this school a heavy lore school like the Asako Loremasters School? If not, I would drop the Lore: History Skill and other free Lore Skill for something IMO. Calligraphy and Investigation perhaps?

-Rank 1 Tech: The first part is solid to me; nothing wrong about getting a free Advantage from the get go. The second is not bad but it can use some flair or uniqueness IMO. A suggestion...

You use your vast knowledge of the Spirit Realms to both express and guard yourself in social interactions, or some kind of fluff along those lines. lol Anywho... You gain a bonus to all Courtier and Etiquette Social Skill rolls equal to the number of Emphases you have in the Lore: Spirit Realms Skill.

The more you focus on studying different spirit realms, the more that knowledge aids you. Static bonuses are nice.

-Rank 2: Very nice tech. Make it 30 ft. and your golden. Given that some of the Touch by the Spirit Realms Advantages has some combat crunch, this has some Skirmish applications as well.

-Rank 3: Not bad. If you go with the suggestion for the second part of the Rank 1 Tech, then it will need some changing concerning the Social Skills. Another free Advantage is all good since there is a theme and flow going on with this school.

-Rank 4: Daigotsu Courtier Rank 4 Tech, is that you!? lol Change Willpower to Awareness on your part of the Contested roll and your all good.

-Rank 5: The first part is good but I would say that all bonuses, penalties, TNs, etc, are now doubled; this will help cover all manner of mechanics from the different types of Spirit Realms Advantages and Disadvantages. I feel you only need one more Spirit Realm Advantage instead of two. This creates a nice flow for this school; gaining an advantage at Rank 1, 3 and 5.

Well, hope that helps.

I liked your suggestions and implemented the School accordingly.

Yeah, lol, Rank 4 is a vile copy of Daigotsu Courtier Any suggestions for this Rank???

Hmm. I have an idea but not sure how to put it to mechanics; well mechanics that will not come out overpowered. The idea is since these courtiers have a keen knowledge of the Spirit Realms and gain Spiritual Advantages from the Spirit Realms, that they learn how to temporarily become a Spirit (insert benefits here) for a number of hours; either equal to their Void Ring or School Rank. Either way its fouled by the knowledge from the Lore: Spirit Realms Skill and by spiritual power from the Spirit Realm Advantages. It is strange but it makes this courtier stick out from the other courtiers.

Mystic Courtier FTW. Let us brainstorm with that idea in mind, that is if you wish to go forward with that direction with this Rank 4 tech.

Sounds good let me get back to you.

I dunno but I think it would be easier to establish the Courtier Family first, and work from there. Who are these guys? Who was their founder? What do they want to accomplish? How do they want to accomplish their goals? Etc. The School Techniques usually write themselves from there.

These are fair questions AtoMaki, I have to put the horse before the cart.

My main goal is to set a new Major Clan to my homebrew setting, Ryoshun's Clan, the X Clan (still debating the Mon: Shishi Dog, Wolf or Bear). In my setting one of the the events in the early reign of Iweko II was the meeting of the newly crowned Emperor with a small delegation of soheis. This group forewarned Iweko II about the events that will be triggered by the ambitious Kanpeki and how to prevent them. Iweko II dismissed the group and destitute the Spider Champion and replaced him with his brother.

The events continued as we know them and the one great regret that Iweko II carries, was not heeding the monks advice. It was during Iweko II first spring that he was visited again by the sohei and this time accompanied by the bearers of Ryoshun's Gifts. They met with the Exiled Emperor as well as the leaders of each Great Clans in a close door meeting. The outcome was the creation of a new Great Clan that will monitor and protect the balance between the Spirit Realms and Ningen-Do. Their duty will include deal with trespassers from the Spirit Realms, protect the passage of the Spirits to their correspondent Spirit Realm, Protect the Temples and research a solution to reseal the barrier between Ningen-Do and Jigoku.

The Emperor bestowed the Family name of Ryoshun (honoring the dead Kami initiative to restore the fallen Kingfom of Rokugan) to the ruling family, with the Ichiro family and Komori family swearing fealty.

So this is my take on Ryoshun's Clan. Hopefully this background of the Clan will ease the process of creating the courtier family.

Mechanically I am planning to use the Komori family as the main Shugenja family, the Ichiro will be the support bushi family and I am thinking of using the mechanics of the Mirumoto Taoist Swordsman as the main bushi family. I always think of that school every time I see Ryoshun...

PS I forgot to add that they were assigned the lands of the Eternal Danger Islands as their territory.

Hmmmm... So a spiritual protection themed clan that so far has two offensive bushi schools and the smartphone shugenja school. I guess the courtier school should be magistrate themed (kinda like the Kuni Witch Hunters) then to round out the other three: this way, the clan will have the courtiers to ferret out spiritual imbalances, then use the shugenjas to call in the bushi to deal with the problem.

I would give the courtier school something like the following:

Rank 1: Free Raise for Etiquette, Investigation, and Spellcraft Skill rolls (maybe Meditation and some thematic Lore Skills too). +1k0 to rolls made to resist supernatural effects and fear.

Rank 2: Spend a Void Point and make a Spellcraft roll to detect spirits, people with certain Spiritual Advantages (like Inner Gift and Touch of the Spirit Realms), and spiritual phenomenon.

Rank 3: Some sort of big psychological defensive bonus. Immunity to fear/intimidation/mind control maybe?

Rank 4: Spend a Void Point and make a Contested Spellcraft roll to compel a supernatural being to be totally sincere to you. Might work on non-supernaturals for two Void Points.

Rank 5: Big Social Skill bonus (+5k0/2k2) if you are within the boundaries of a temple or other holy site, as well as when interacting with creatures from a different realm than you are in (works in every realm).

You know, I like this concept. Especially how this School ties the other Schools together.

For Rank Three will you suggest spending 1 avoid Point to activate the Technique to receive the psychological bonus or do they simply get it, maybe a 3k2. Also is this bonus will work against everybody or only Spirit Creatures?

Now I will like to keep what BlindSamurai13 and me started and give it a little twist as a Monk School.

For Rank Three will you suggest spending 1 avoid Point to activate the Technique to receive the psychological bonus or do they simply get it, maybe a 3k2. Also is this bonus will work against everybody or only Spirit Creatures?

Nah, if you go with my suggestion, then just roll with a straight, universal immunity. Rank 3-4 Techniques are supposed to be game-changing, and I wouldn't wait for Rank 4 because the Rank 2 Technique is very specific.

Thanks AtoMaki.

Oh my goodness, I love this topic. Ahem.

So, for years my group has played with the homebrewed Bear clan; I don't want to take up too much of your time, but here's a brief run-down of the Bear.

Our patron kami is Ryoshun (obviously); the Ryoshun family serves as bushi and governors; the Reika family are our monks and shugenja, and the Motoko are magistrates and courtiers.

We serve two masters; our Kami in his realm of the dead and the Emperor in the Empire. We give counsel about the Spirit Realms freely, but we do not seek to influence. Our primary duty is to serve the balance between the realms of the Heavens and their influence on the world below.

Obviously, this clan has been my baby for a long time - if you want to know anything else we came up with, message me! I could talk Bear all day...

This is actually a far, FAR better concept for another Great Clan than the people who wrote up the Owl Clan in the Imperial Histories did. I really got to give you credit for it.

Abilities that give you knowledge of and benefits from the spirit realm are actually universally beneficial (as opposed to say... here are some schools whose abilities only affect Ratlings and Naga and give you no way to deal with the people you actually deal with on a regular daily basis). Tying together the Ichiro and Komori schools works nicely... Although, honestly, those family names are absolute garbage and if you are going to fix Rokugan at all, you should start by renaming the minor clan families anyway.

If you really, REALLY want to pull them together though...

I recommend looking through the Main Book, the Great Clans book, the Emerald Empire book and the Books of Air, Water, Earth, Fire and Void from 4E-- see if you can roughly write up as much about them as was written there about the Great Clans. See if you can pull them together into as nicely of a unified theme as the other Great Clans are.

When I wanted to revise the Owl Clan, I was looking at the families of Seppun, Otomo, Miya, Kasuga, and Yotsu... and considering adding both a group of monks as Hantei was the most devoted to Shintaoism and non-magical peasant-born Shinobi serving as the eyes and ears hidden among the servants, and sitting there with way too many families with wildly different honor scores and overarching personality traits and, well, a concept far too spread out to really pull into a concept as nicely unified as the Great Clans are. On one hand, having a larger number of families with different specialties united primarily by history and politics rather than ethical standing and filling all needed roles makes for a far more realistic clan, without that strong unifying theme the whole thing falls apart.

Also, while it may seem like a "minor" thing... you should also consider... what color scheme can your Ryoshun clan have that will be clearly distinct from the other 10 clans? That color scheme might help you decide what animal avatar you should have.

On 1/31/2017 at 4:37 PM, Ryoshun Higoka said:

Oh my goodness, I love this topic. Ahem.

So, for years my group has played with the homebrewed Bear clan; I don't want to take up too much of your time, but here's a brief run-down of the Bear.

Our patron kami is Ryoshun (obviously); the Ryoshun family serves as bushi and governors; the Reika family are our monks and shugenja, and the Motoko are magistrates and courtiers.

We serve two masters; our Kami in his realm of the dead and the Emperor in the Empire. We give counsel about the Spirit Realms freely, but we do not seek to influence. Our primary duty is to serve the balance between the realms of the Heavens and their influence on the world below.

Obviously, this clan has been my baby for a long time - if you want to know anything else we came up with, message me! I could talk Bear all day...

Cool.

In my campaign's narrative we went with a Stag to represent Ryoshun. Though my campaign is set well before the Fall of the Kami, and only Ryoshun and Fu Leng have "fallen" to Rokugan and because of a well meant deception of Fu Leng, his brother Ryoshun has blood roots within some of humanity, tying his fate and lifeforce to the world before Lord Moon has his baby eating binge. After three years of gaming (100 years in game) the canon Fall of the Kami event may happen and we'll see how things go and if his spiritual bloodline makes the claim for becoming their own clan.

On 2/1/2017 at 0:09 PM, TheHobgoblyn said:

This is actually a far, FAR better concept for another Great Clan than the people who wrote up the Owl Clan in the Imperial Histories did. I really got to give you credit for it.

Abilities that give you knowledge of and benefits from the spirit realm are actually universally beneficial (as opposed to say... here are some schools whose abilities only affect Ratlings and Naga and give you no way to deal with the people you actually deal with on a regular daily basis). Tying together the Ichiro and Komori schools works nicely... Although, honestly, those family names are absolute garbage and if you are going to fix Rokugan at all, you should start by renaming the minor clan families anyway.

If you really, REALLY want to pull them together though...

I recommend looking through the Main Book, the Great Clans book, the Emerald Empire book and the Books of Air, Water, Earth, Fire and Void from 4E-- see if you can roughly write up as much about them as was written there about the Great Clans. See if you can pull them together into as nicely of a unified theme as the other Great Clans are.

When I wanted to revise the Owl Clan, I was looking at the families of Seppun, Otomo, Miya, Kasuga, and Yotsu... and considering adding both a group of monks as Hantei was the most devoted to Shintaoism and non-magical peasant-born Shinobi serving as the eyes and ears hidden among the servants, and sitting there with way too many families with wildly different honor scores and overarching personality traits and, well, a concept far too spread out to really pull into a concept as nicely unified as the Great Clans are. On one hand, having a larger number of families with different specialties united primarily by history and politics rather than ethical standing and filling all needed roles makes for a far more realistic clan, without that strong unifying theme the whole thing falls apart.

Also, while it may seem like a "minor" thing... you should also consider... what color scheme can your Ryoshun clan have that will be clearly distinct from the other 10 clans? That color scheme might help you decide what animal avatar you should have.

Thank you very much for your comments!

Color-wise I haven't given too much thought. I was more concerned about selecting an avatar that simbolized protection. However, I agree that I need to select a color scheme that will clearly differentiate them from the other Clans.

I recall that there was a Clan color scheme that showed which options were available. I might need to find it...

8 hours ago, Nheko said:

Thank you very much for your comments!

Color-wise I haven't given too much thought. I was more concerned about selecting an avatar that simbolized protection. However, I agree that I need to select a color scheme that will clearly differentiate them from the other Clans.

I recall that there was a Clan color scheme that showed which options were available. I might need to find it...

That was something I made last year.

Scorpion has Red & Magneta with lots of black
Phoenix has Orange & Red with gold
Lion has Yellow & Orange (well, brown)
Dragon has Lime Green & Yellow
Imperial has Emerald Green & Lime Green with gold and white
Mantis has Turqoise & Emerald Green
Crane has Sky Blue & Ocean Blue with white
Crab has Ocean Blue & Sky Blue with black and red
Spider has Indigo & Ocean Blue with black and white
Unicorn has Indigo & Violet

That only leaves Turquoise & Sky Blue and Violet & Magenta has remaining color schemes. Neither of which particularly looks "Owl" to me. And if one just tries to match owl feather colors, then you are left with something that is pretty indistinct from Lion or Spider, especially if you mix gold or white or black in there. Of course, with the Owl there is the option of just keeping the "imperial" colors, but those are generally depicted as functionally identical to Dragon... and Mantis to a slightly lesser extent.

I guess since you haven't chosen what animal you want for Ryoshun, if you could figure out what would go with either of those two.

Thing is for your animal, if you are thinking stag or bear or something... doesn't really fit. In fact, since mammals are generally brown/orange or black, gray or white in color, it would be hard to go mammal at all. With either Turquoise or Pink as your options, you might want to go with an fish, insect, reptile, or bird.