Hi, I am running a somewhat informal 4E game set in the 1130s. I have a small party of ronin and monks trekking who ended up helping to defend an out-of-the way village in the southern Dragon lands (Kitsuki territory) from a group of bandits led by a few ronin. I am not sure if the players appreciated the irony, but either way there are now some thirty dead bandits and three ronin. The PCs gave the village advanced warning and acquitted themselves well in the defense, so they have secured their own shelter for the upcoming winter (it is late autumn and that played a big role in why the bandits wanted to attack). The jisamurai warden is the only Dragon representative and this late in the autumn, no patrols are expected until spring.

So, at this point the local burakumin (actually the village is fairly small and I'm not sure it would have any, but let's say it does) will dispose of the bodies. However, I expect that the local jisamurai will want them to gather and present all the serviceable weapons and armor, as well as the ronin's swords. The question is, what do you think would happen to them? I expect any light armor or spears that are fit for ashigaru will either be stored in his house to be used if the villagers should be mustered or handed over to the dragon armories. Yet the swords are a more interesting case, since they are the mark of a samurai. I expect the ronin will be allowed to help themselves to any "lesser" gear (things get lost) but what happens with the three daisho? I would expect that any captured samurai weapons would belong to the clan, yet on the other hand I am not sure the clan would care for the weapons of bandits and murderers, except maybe as waste to be reforged. I know the Dragon clan is short on samurai, but I'm not sure if it is short on weapons. Meanwhile, I can see a ronin being quite interested in acquiring a second pair of swords - less for their monetary value (still conceivable) and more because it's an extra pair of swords for their family - an extra pair they can gift to a sibling or another child.

Also, how big of a deal would that be to the local junior Kitsuki magistrate who learns about it next spring? Would s/he want to make sure all weapons and gear are accounted for or would they not care much about that and focus on the issue of the bandits.

YMMV

But the way I would do it, if the players are still there by the taw, they could end up being invited into the clan in a probationary or even permanent manner. If that’s the case, them getting first spoils would be proper.

Even if they are not invited into the clan, the Dragon are pragmatic enough to allow them “payment in weapons” for saving the village and leave them be. Then again, individuals may differ and the Kitsuki Magistrate might decide to hunt them down for “stealing Clan weapons”.

Thanks for the answer!

I can definitely see any ronin who look like Dragon samurai material and want to join being considered for adoption (or marriage, there was a recent war and quite a few samurai have been ... made eligible). However, I think the Dragon are looking for a certain kind of Samurai for their ranks and not every PC would be a good match.

Generally, would the village warden immediately claim all of the bandits' gear as property of the clan , and how big of a deal would you see the swords being in this case? Would a jisamurai as the warden have the authority to allow the ronin to take something or even gift them something for their valiant fighting in defense of the clan's holdings and people?

My initial idea is that he won't care too much for any spears, axes, bows etc but will probably make sure that all swords are missing and not give any out, though I'm not sure. The PCs haven't expressed any interest yet, but I suppose that for a ronin a "spare" daisho or just a wakizashi could be a Very Big Deal.

This has not been made explicit in L5R. If you want a related example from the souce material, in Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, which has an almost identical story, a group of ronin defend a village from bandits. It comes out that the villagers have plundered quite some weapons from battlefields and hidden them away. The ronin are furious when they find out, almost deciding to kill villagers for the transgression. But finally they relent and use what they get to defend the village.

If we take that example, we can deduce:
- It is very untypical for a ronin to use a weapon taken from a battlefield in T7S. Looting is just not a thing for them, even thougfh they are so poor that a meal of rice a day is enough for them to risk their lives on an almost suicide mission.
- It is very common for the peasants to pilfer weapons and armor from the dead and hide them somewhere.
- When the battle comes, the ronin arm peasants with pilfered armor and allow them to use the spears they hid. There is no peasant (if we do not count main characters) with a sword in the movie.

I was about to comment that there was one instance of a peasant with a sword, but you did make that one caveat .

The Seven Samurai is an apt illustration, good call! In that case, though, the peasants took weapons that weren't theirs and disturbed the honorable dead samurai for personal gain. I can definitely see this being an issue for the more idealistic ronin - it just ain't right!

At the same time, though, in a war I find it hard to imagine that the armor and weapons would just be left lying there - if nothing else, samurai don't want thieves and peasants getting their hands on it. Instead, I expect that commoners taken by the winning army as support personnel would be sent to secure the gear of the fallen and round up the bodies for cremation.-The gear of their own samurai would be purified and returned to their families. Presumably that of the enemies will be taken as trophy or returned after the war (possibly "ransomed" or in mutual exchanges). At any rate, they cannot just leave it there.

This is what made me curious what the situation would be in this skirmish. In this case, it is a bandit attack with some ronin who threw in their lot with the bandits - definitely not honorable foes and they have no famiies to return the gear to. There is also a samurai in charge who represents the clan and can make an official decision. So in that case, what happens to the weapons? The samurai warden will not allow them to just disappear (or at least will try to). I would expect the "rightful owner" is the clan that owns these lands and he will try to make sure they end up there. In a situation with regular samurai, that would be that. However, how much leeway do you think they have in case, say, he decides to gift some of that gear to one of those that helped in the fight? It is the clan's property, but he is the clan representative.

Ultimately, it depends on the samurai- and their Lord. Theoretically, a goshi has absolute authority over the village for anything which doesn't contravene imperial law, clan law, or specific orders or policies set by their Lord.

Whether they think their Lord would rule on the matter of weapons if they were told about it depends on the personalised involved.

We actually had something similar in a campaign I ran, and in that one the village leader basically used the weapons to pay for repairing some of the damages, selling them to the Kaiu Wall garrison, who always need more weapons and armour.

I am almost certain a ji-samurai have the higher status, no? Even if they are not part of the same hierarchical structure, this kind of number comparison can work when in doubt. I mean, sure a rōnin is a disgraced samurai and a ji-samurai is an elevated peasant, so the hubris of the former can affect relations but in the end, you can argue that the ji-samurai has authority over all this and they may be willing to look the other way or not.

Even if they have broadly similar status, the jisamurai is a full member of the clan, and, lacking anyone more senior, is legally the proxy for their clan champion.

I agree, but in this case the jisamurai has added status in that he is the "warden" of the village (I do not remember what the official name of the title was). They are already invested with some authority and expected to, among other things, represent the clan and organize the defense.

The default title is 'goshi', I believe, according to Emerald Empire.

Often referred to as 'country samurai', and - in remote cases - sometimes a (very) trusted peasant given a few samurai privileges if no actual samurai are available.