Ronin family names are rare, but they are not wholly unknown. They are most often created when the Emperor chooses to reward a ronin for an exceptional deed, such as Usagi helping to defeat the Bloodspeaker, Tsi creating a magnificent weapon for the Imperial house, or Yotsu rescuing the Emperor’s son. Usually, these families quickly gain the right to create a Minor Clan (such as Usagi becoming the Hare Clan) but on some occasions they continue as ronin families for many generations. Eventually such families either die out, become a Minor Clan, or get absorbed into another clan or family. For example, the Tsi eventually become the Oriole Clan and the Kaeru become a vassal family of the Ikoma. The Yotsu in the canonical L5R timeline have sworn fealty to the Seppun family and may be on their way to being absorbed by them.
A ronin family can also be created when a samurai family is officially disbanded but its members refuse to accept the judgment, clinging to their name and traditions while living as wave-men. The Akodo and the Usagi during the Clan War and Hidden Emperor eras are examples of this phenomenon, as are the Tsume in the Heroes of Rokugan era. Unless they can restore their reputation, these sorts of ronin families tend to die out within a couple of generations, both due to loss of faith among their members and enmity from clan samurai who consider their behavior improper.
Mechanically, a ronin PC who belongs to a ronin family must spend 5 Experience Points on Social Advantage: Ronin Family. This grants him the ronin family’s Trait bonus as well as social connections to the rest of the family— the GM may award a variety of bonuses and obligations in play based on such connections. Such characters still technically have Status of 0.0, but their name grants them a certain degree of respect from clan samurai that other ronin do not receive.
The Scales of the Carp is a ronin smuggling organization run by the Yasuki family; its purpose is to conduct trade with the Crane, who otherwise largely cut off all mercantile contact with the Crab. Although the trade barriers between Crane and Crab diminished over time, the Yasuki found the Scales too useful not to keep around, especially for dealing with illicit trade that might otherwise sully their own hands.
This ronin shugenja order was founded in the wake of the second war with Iuchiban. Its members travel across Rokugan, always going to the most war-torn and disasterplagued regions, healing the injured and treating the sick with no expectation of payment or reward. They are welcomed in Crab lands but tend to encounter suspicion and hostility in most other regions, since their actions can be perceived as shaming the local clan shugenja for callousness.
This band of ronin are known by the name of their preferred weapon, a long iron smoking pipe. Perhaps fortunately, the machi-kanshisha pipe is not well known in many parts of the Empire, and as a result many associate the name with the ronin band itself rather than the pipe for which they are named. The Machi-kanshisha are the guardians of the City of the Rich Frog, a major trade hub that sits in the narrow divide between the holdings of the Lion and Unicorn clans.
The ronin band known as the Hidden Sword is a large group that patrols the outskirts of the Shinomen Mori, trying to protect the people in the lands around it from the various enemies who threaten them. The Sword targets primarily bandits but also the various enigmatic creatures emerging periodically from the Shinomen. The band’s area of operation requires them to interact with the Scorpion, Crab, and Unicorn clans fairly regularly, and as a result the men of the Hidden Sword, while honorable, remain extremely practical and realistic individuals who do not succumb to blind idealism.
The Ghosts of the Forest are a small band of ronin with a legacy many generations old. They tend to recruit from their own family lines, and there are some members who are the sixth or seventh generation to take up the banner of defending Nazo Mori.
In the aftermath of the infamous Scorpion Clan Coup at the beginning of the twelfth century, the Akodo family of the Lion Clan was dissolved by a wrathful Emperor. The majority of the family joined other Lion families, and many others took their own lives in shame. Some, however, took up the life of the ronin rather than remain within the now hostile Lion Clan with its new Matsu leadership. Of those who became wave men, a small group banded together for mutual defense and survival.
The Thousand were formed during the First Yasuki War under the banner of a Crane ronin named Tamedaore who had a knack for both military organization and mercantile commerce. His ronin band peaked at over a thousand men and fought for the Crane during the latter years of the Yasuki War. Afterward, the band remained together but its numbers gradually diminished over the centuries; their last remnants were wiped out by the Unicorn Clan in the year 816.
Although they pride themselves on their skill as hired killers and assassins, the Silent Blades are in truth little more than rank amateurs when it comes to the arts of infiltration and assassination. Although they do have some skill, it is vastly less than they like to imagine, and as a result they are constantly struggling to overcome the impact of botched jobs and the occasional disastrous failure.
The Moonless Riders are an extremely small and specialized group of ronin who have carefully cultivated skills that allow them to not only survive but seek regular employment by the armies of the Great Clans. The Riders, who are comprised primarily of former Unicorn, Lion, and Dragon samurai, specialize in cavalry tactics - but unlike most samurai, they train at night. As a result, they are among the preeminent nocturnal scouts and couriers in the Empire.
This Technique represents the skills taught to the diplomats of Nanashi Mura in the twelfth century, but can also
be used to represent the training of any long-lived and powerful ronin group that has the resources to teach diplomats-the Kaeru family of the City of the Rich Frog are an obvious example.