Here is my take on the Bear Clan, found in driodscotty's Empire of the Emerald Stars Companion . Tell me what you think, folks.
The Bear Clan
"The Strong always survive."
History
The rule of Hantei XX was not good to the Crab.
The selfish and vain Emperor had openly and cruelly showered favors upon the other clans, especially the Crane, and placed punitive taxes on the Crab during the Great Famine after the Clan of Hida claimed they didn't have enough rice to pay taxes and feed their armies.
It is only luck that there was no major Shadowlands uprising during Hantei XX's rule, or it is likely that the Crab would not have the strength to hold back the tide of darkness.
Hantei XX levied many insults and humiliations upon the Crab's shoulders.
One such insult came in the form of the Bear Clan.
During Winter Court of 664 (held in Kyuden Doji, as most of Hantei XX's Winter Courts were), Crane Champion Doji Morito arranged for a sumai contest to be held in 'honor' of the Crab.
In truth, the whole tournament was arranged to insult and humiliate the Crab.
The year before, the Crab had attacked the Crane in a desperate attempt to gain the food needed to survive in what is now known as the Rice War, only for the Crab army to be blocked off by the Imperial Legions.
Due to the Crab's increasingly dire food situation, their best sumai wrestlers had given up the sport, which required a high-calorie diet.
As such, the Crab were ill prepared for the tournament, having brought no trained sumai to court; the Crab had been told there would be no sumai contests this court (a miscommunication by an Otomo clerk with a Doji wife, strangely enough).
Still, with the pride of the clan on the line, several Hida entered the contest, their sheer strength and years on the Wall pitted against the sumai of the other clans.
In all amazement, the Crab prevailed, until at last a warrior of Hida stood for the final match.
However, the Crane had prepared one final humiliation:
his opponent was not a samurai, but a commoner named Kuma.
Members of the Crane had heard rumors of a peasant who possessed strength like no other, said to be a son of Bishamon himself. They found this young man, named Kuma, and hatched a cruel plan to pay the Crab back for the Rice War. The Crane educated Kuma is the basics of court etiquette and trained him brutally by the clan's best sumai masters, promising him a life of ease for his family and a Doji wife should he win the sumai contest. Having seen that the Great Famine was only getting worse, Kuma readily agreed.
The Hida he faced put up a good match, but Kuma soon proved victorious, throwing the desperate but unskilled warrior out of the ring in an impressive display of strength. After the tournament, the same Hida attempted to get revenge on Kuma by killing him outright (his peasant status meant there would be no reproductions for such an act), but the Seppun stopped the attack. The Emperor had been deeply entertained by the Crab's humiliation; to protect the Crane's champion sumai, Hantei XX named Kuma the Champion of a new Minor Clan, thereby granting him samurai status. The young man chose the Bear as his clan's symbol, and the Crab had no choice but to accept the humiliation and leave.
Though Kuma was given a ( very low-ranking) Doji bride, his peasant birth meant he had few samurai willing to join the Bear, and instead he selected almost all of his early followers from the ranks of the heimin caste. Made mostly of men of great strength, the Bear became a clan of warriors and wrestlers. Aside from sumai, the Bear branched out to all areas where they could employ their great strength, earning a reputation as brawlers, athletes, and even reliable bodyguards.
Geography and Economics :
After Hantei XX created the Bear Clan, he didn't give much thought to the new Minor Clan, including giving them a home. The actual responsibility fell to the Otomo, who were less than pleased with the whole affair surrounding the clan's creaction. Eventually, the Bear was granted lands nestled in the foothills western section of the Wall above the Ocean mountain range, very close to Crab lands. Originally, the Otomo attempted to place the Bear on the eastern side, in Crane lands, but the Crane petitioned to the Emperor, who of course favored the Crane and instead placed the Bear near Crab territory rather than deprive the Crane of one foot of land. This has not endeared the Bear to the Crab at all.
The Bear's single province is of workable quality, but has little overall worth. The most valued spots of the nearby mountains were already claimed by the Crane and Crab long before the Bear came into existence, as were the locations with the most fertile soil. Still, it is enough for the Bear to get by, and the clan's simple tastes mean they rarely need real extravagances. Their peasants are willing to work hard, as the Bear's samurai often share bounty of their labors. One notable resource the Bear maintain is honey. Kuma himself had a regular sweet tooth, as did many of his followers, and the Bear maintain a small but reliable supply of honey on hand because of this. This supply has never been very big, seeing as their lands are not strongly suited for wholesale honey production, but it is enough that the Bear have never needed to buy it from another clan.
The Bear have only one important holding, Shiro Kuma. The keep was build by both peasant and samurai hands, as Kuma and his followers were eager to have their home completed quickly and had no qualms about doing the work themselves. The 'castle' itself is small and plain, more like an estate. However, the grounds surrounding it have been turned into a vast gymnasium, fit for any form of athletic training. Bear samurai train themselves at the castle grounds at all hours of the day, constantly fighting in all sorts of physical challenges to prove who is strongest. At the center of Shiro Kuma is a large shrine to Bishamon, whom the Bear consider their patron (and possible forefather, if the rumors surrounding the first Kuma are to be believed).
Demography
The Bear Clan has a slightly smaller than average population for a Minor Clan.
The Bear's birthrates are normal, but their relative poverty means that they sometimes lack the medical care available to richer clans.
They also have had no recorded shugenja born amongst their ranks, and must ask the priests of other clans to bless their crops and births.
Every birth in Bear lands, samurai or commoner, is celebrated with a plentiful but simple meal of the family's favorites, followed by a desert of honey on toasted flatbread. The custom was born of the simple food item being the first Kuma's favorite treat; the Bear believe that eating it at a birth grabs the attention of Kuma's spirit, and helps make the child strong.
Kuma family members tend to be strongly built and tall, especially males. They're rarely considered attractive, especially when compared to samurai from other clans, due to their peasant origins. Most samurai notice that Kuma have 'commoner' features, which lack both the softness favored by the Crane, or the confident proud look prized by the Lion. Most wouldn't be called ruggedly handsome so much as simply gruff and hard-featured. A few, especially those from long sumai lines, are the notable exceptions. A good sumai can normally expect a good marriage, regardless of status, and sumai are always in demand. As such, Kuma from the family's sumai best lines tend to show features common amongst other clans, especially the Lion, Phoenix, and Crane.
In spite of their great love of sumai, Kuma are rarely 'fat.' Their love of all athleticism and disdain for laziness means the Kuma work out regularly, and are often more muscled and stout than outright fat. If anything, they are never flabby.
Relations with other Clans
The Bear have few allies. After their initial creation, the Crane had little use for the Bear, and largely ignore them. The Lion find their peasant origins revolting overall, and their creation insulted the Crab. Luckily, the in the years that followed, the Bear offered no further insults and the Crab seem to have dropped any interest in feuding with the Minor Clan (or considers destroying them more trouble than its worth). The Bear's only form of influence is in their strength and athletic skill; they try to compete in any athletic contest they hear of, and send as many representatives to the Winter Court sumai tournaments as possible. Successful sumai bring wealth, favors, and prestige to the Bear, as well as good marriages and connections.
Of relations with the Minor Clans, the Bear fare slightly better. The Hare and Sparrow both are close enough to their commoners to not care about the Bear's peasant blood and bearings, and are generally friendly, though their different spheres of influence means they have little interest in one another. The Bear consider magic something outside of their understanding, so shugenja clans like the Dragonfly and Fox pose little interest to them, though the Bear do prefer to request a Minor Clan shugenja to bless their crops or births rather than one belonging to a Great Clan. The Bear admire the Badger's strength and appreciation for wrestling, and the two would be strong allies normally. However, both the distance between them and the Badger's deeply reclusive traditions mean members of either clan rarely see each other. In eras where the Mantis are still a Minor Clan, they have a semi-hostile relationship, seeing the Bear as rivals in both athletic contests (which the Mantis also appreciate), and in mercenary work. Once the Mantis become a Great Clan, they might view the Bear in a different light, as a clan of strong warriors they can possibly absorb into a Mantis family.
Occasionally, the Bear find themselves hired by other clans as yojimbo, especially to the Crane. While this may seem strange at first, a few courtiers have found that having a powerfully built bodyguard can influence negotiations, especially with the Crab. The presence of Kuma bushi can disrupt a Yasuki merchant's negotiation methods, as they often attempt to have their Hida yojimbo subtly threaten their adversaries, a task far harder when the person sitting across the table has a bushi that can match the Hida in size and bulk.
Customs
Athleticism is the most prized aspect of the Bear. Wrestling and sumai are held in highest esteem, but any display of athletic ability is encourage. Likewise, scholarly pursuits are seen as unnecessary, and education, which can be expensive for the poor clan anyway, is kept to a minimum. The Bear do not have the resources to teach any refined and courtly arts, though they trade favors to the Crane to teach their brightest students of sumai the etiquette lessons necessary to avoid embarrassment in court. If a Kuma has a Crane mother or wife (which can be a little more common than one might think), it falls on her to teach him such arts instead.
Because traditional sumai is reserved for men* (though woman are allowed to compete in several contests, including some Winter Court tournaments) boys children are favored slightly over girls, and sumai fathers will go to lengths to ensure their sons follow in their footsteps. This tradition is less apparent in non-sumai family lines, and ignored outright in families that focus on a bushi's traditional role as a warrior first and foremost. The few women sumai of the Bear can expect promotions and the best possible marriages, in or out of the clan, as such rarities are considered clear signs of Bishamon's favor. Woman warriors and athletes alike are respected as equal members of the clan, though only males that have gained the sumai rank of sanyaku are allowed to become Bear Champion. Non-warrior women can expect to receive better educations than their male counterparts, especially in finances and history, and are the most likely to be selected for training outside of the Bear, even if they are encouraged to maintian athletic fitness. Women normally oversee the economics and education of their household. In fact, the Bear Champion's wife normally knows just as much, if not more, about the clan's finances and politics than he does.
A promotion in rank in the Bear Clan is followed by the person promoted wrestling those beneath him in one-on-one contests to prove his strength and worthiness. This also means that a newly crowned Bear Champion must wrestle all of his most important vassals, and such an event is treated as a grand tournament the whole clan can watch and enjoy; often, troops will cheer for their commanding officers rather than thier new young Champion, and the Bear consider this acceptable.
The Kuma are simple people with simple and cheap tastes. They do not have lavish parties, are content with simple meals and drink, and dress in the plainest clothing their station allows for. Because they come from peasant stalk, the Bear treat their commoners well, not allowing them to be abused by clan-mates or outsiders alike. The Bear are a jolly people, and they have many festivals, often centered on athletic contests, that peasant and samurai alike can join in. On the very rare occasion that a commoner wins such contests, they are allowed to join the Kuma family.
*Note: Modern professional sumo wrestling is still male-only in real life, and highly traditional. While a few woman sumo originations are around, they are rare. The GM is free to decide how true this is in Rokugan (if this distinction exists at all).
Kuma Family : +1 Strength
The Kuma of the Bear are a strong, large people. They universally despise physically weakness, and constantly train in athletics to improve their bodies. While rarely attractive, the Kuma's strength cannot be denied.
Kuma Bushi School
The Kuma Bushi are paragons of strength, favoring melee combat and especially wrestling. The Kuma favor endurance and strength, trusting it to see them through against faster and more skilled opponents. Those unlucky enough to be caught in the Kuma bushi's grasp rarely escape.
Kuma Bushi
- Benefit : +1 Stamina
- Skills : Athletics, Defense, Heavy Weapons, Hunting, Jujutsu (Grapples), Kenjutsu, any one Skill
- Honor : 4.5
- Outfit : Light or Heavy Armor, Travelling Pack, Daisho, Any one weapon, Practical Clothing, 3 koku
Techniques
Rank 1 : Way of the Bear
The Kuma possess strength and endurance of their namesake, making them mighty warriors. Add +1k0 to all Damage rolls made with Melee attacks (including Unarmed attacks). You gain 3 bonus Wounds per Wound Rank.
Rank 2 : Sleeping Strength
The Kuma Bushi endures like a hibernating bear, his strength outlasting even the winter's rage. You subtract your Strength from any Wound Penalties you suffer.
Rank 3 : Claws and Fangs
Strength and speed lead power to each other. You may make Melee attacks as Simple Actions, including when fighting Unarmed.
Rank 4 : Hibernation's End
A bear awoken from hibernation is as dangerous a foe as most oni, and the Kuma Bushi emanate its power. You may spend a Void Point on any Strength-based Roll (including Damage Rolls) to cause the lowest kept dice to Explode.
Rank 5 : Might of the Bear
Nothing that stands before an angry bear lives to tell of it. Once per encounter, when you damage an opponent in with a Melee attack or while Grappling them, you may spend a Void Point to cause the target make an Earth Ring Roll against a TN equal to the damage dealt, or be Stunned for one Round.
Edited by Samurai Fox