The first Gozoku is perhaps the most wide-ranking and cosmopolitan conspiracy in the Empire’s history, and it is certainly the most successful despite its relatively short duration and ultimate failure. (Unlike the far longer-lived Kolat, the Gozoku actually manage to seize the power they want and hold it for over a generation.) The beneficial effects accomplished in the name of the Empire during the Gozoku’s reign is something never honestly discussed in subsequent centuries, but the most intelligent and objective of Rokugan’s historians are keenly aware of the economic growth and artistic flowering which took place under the conspiracy’s rule. Perhaps this is why the Gozoku found it relatively easy to recruit agents from virtually every clan and family in the Empire.
Agents of the Gozoku were able to move among the courts of the Empire with near impunity, as their thinly veiled status as members of the conspiracy protected them from all but the most adamant Imperial loyalists. Few wished to risk the wrath of the Gozoku by acting openly against their representatives. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, only the Lion courts were relatively free of this level of brazen impudence.) It was perhaps these very tendencies that undid the Gozoku; while most of the original members had only the best intentions at heart, a great number among those who served them (and indeed some among their number as well) came to regard the Gozoku as nothing more than a means of seizing personal power and prestige at the expense of others.
This eventually led to a sharp divide among Gozoku agents. The more altruistic members of the Gozoku took after the original vision of Raigu and Gaijushiko: they genuinely sought to better the Empire and the lives of its citizens, and used their abilities to secure whatever was necessary to make this happen. Their counterparts, however, followed the path of Atsuki: they were petty and selfish, and preferred to use the threat of the Gozoku to garner increasing amounts of influence for their own purposes (which sometimes did not coincide with those of the conspiracy at all).
The technique of the Gozoku agents was originally created by Bayushi Atsuki, but he shared them with the other two founders of the conspiracy; all three men taught the technique to their immediate followers, from whom it spread through the conspiracy. Historically, the technique dies out as soon as the Gozoku are purged, but is revived by Atsuki when he returns to the Empire through Oblivion’s Gate in the twelfth century. GMs who wish to diverge from the historical pattern, however, may rule that the technique survives among Gozoku loyalists (especially if the "underground Gozoku" option is used). The technique may also be used to enhance the depiction of any other political conspiracy that recruits agents from multiples factions or clans, such as the Kolat in the various historical settings or the conspiracy of the Three Old Men in the Heroes of Rokugan setting.