Courtier

Minor clan samurai who deal with members of the Great Clans are in constant danger of angering them with a misplaced word, action, or even a look. Minor Clan samurai who have survived the minefield of the courts long enough are often sent to the Minor Clan Alliance’s court in Kudo Mura. There, they can learn from the best diplomats in the Alliance, studying how to sooth the ruffled feathers of Great Clan samurai and, more importantly, how to avoid ruffling those feathers in the first place.

The Silken Promises are a secretive organization of geisha who use their acting and performance skills to develop influence with their important customers. The Promises work primarily to protect their own interests, but often act in alliance with other groups who are aware of them and value their ability to exert covert political influence-most notably the Scorpion Clan, who are the official sponsors of the Silken Promises. However, the Promises have also been known to work with the Kolat, as well as the Spider Clan in eras when that group is active.

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.

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.

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.

During the years of the Heresy the Empire has, as always, many ronin desperate for acceptance and belonging. Since the Hawk Clan did not yet formally exist, there was technically no penalty for impersonating a member, and some ronin took this opportunity to represent themselves as members of the Hawk Clan, hoping not only to mitigate the circumstances of their day-to-day existence but also perhaps to gain acceptance into the ranks of the Hawk Clan if the Heresy succeeded.

The methods of the Imperial bureaucracy began in the time of Hantei Genji, but came to full flower in the years after the Reign of the Gozuku, when the Otomo family was tasked with obstructing and dividing the Great Clans, ensuring they would never again be able to subordinate the Emperor. Otomo bureaucrats specialize in delay, obfuscation, and subtle but persistent obstruction, using such indirect and seemingly passive methods to block and foil the goals of the Great Clans.

Observers are assigned by the Imperial Bureaucracy to oversee the honorable conduct of war. It is an Observer’s duty to monitor the strategies of each side, reporting both honorable and shameful activity back to the Imperial Court. (The Great Clans assign their own battlefield observers, of course, but only those with Imperial authority are empowered to deliver unquestioned reports to the Throne.) The Technique of the Observers is an Imperial secret and is taught in the Ruby Dojo (best known for training the Emerald Magistrates).

The Imperial families exert control over the Empire in many ways both obvious and subtle. Although the Otomo family is best known for its ability to overawe and crush rivals through the sheer weight of Imperial favor, some of the family’s greatest masters follow a subtler path, shaping entire courts through things as deceptively simple as hosting dinner parties.