The Phoenix Clan is pre-eminent in magic, possessing both the greatest numbers of shugenja and the most powerful individual shugenja. The descendants of Isawa command incredible mystical powers, and the descendants of the Kami Shiba are sworn to their defense.
The Asako are a scholarly family whose ascetic, monastic lives more resemble an order of the Brotherhood of Shinsei than a samurai family. They train the Clan's courtiers as well as the mysterious Henshin monks. They are known as contemplative and inquisitive individuals with little ambition beyond service and study.
Though the Clan Champion is from the Shiba, the Isawa family are the true rulers of the Phoenix Clan. Their shugenja are the most powerful, most learned, and most numerous in the Empire. Others perceive their pride as arrogance, and it is true that Isawa shugenja have sometimes acted unwisely in their pursuit of magical learning, occasionally leading to calamity.
The Shiba are a bushi family, but are more scholarly and less aggressive than almost any other bushi family in the Empire. They serve the Clan and the Isawa without complaint and without seeking their own advantage or glory. Though they are peaceable and compassionate, they do not shrink from battle when the Phoenix call upon them.
The Asako family's courtier school focuses on scholarship over intrigue. The broad base of knowledge helps the school's students examine and understand new situations to achieve insights.
You gain a Free Raise on any Lore Skill Rolls. Any time you spend a Void Point on an Etiquette Skill Roll, you get +3k1 instead of +1k1.
After spending at least one day observing events in a particular court, you can roll Lore: History/PER (TN 20) to gain +2k0 to all Social Skill Rolls in that court for the next two days. This technique can be re-activated without spending additional time observing (but if the roll fails, an additional day of observation is required before re-rolling).
You may spend an hour conversing with a friend or ally and roll Lore: History/INT (TN 25). On a success, the target may add your Lore: History Skill Rank to the total of any Social Skill Rolls they make in the next 24 hours. You may Raise twice to affect one (and only one) additional target who participates in the conversation. This technique cannot be used on the same target until the effect expires.
Any time you fail a Contested Social Skill Roll to resist someone influencing your emotions, opinions, or behavior, you may re-roll using INT as the Trait for the second roll. You must keep the second roll. This cannot be used to resist Fear.
Any time you make a Lore Skill Roll, including your other school techniques, you gain +5k0 to the roll.
The Isawa have a reputation as the Empire's greatest shugenja, and many of its members are accordingly proud—or arrogant. They number twice as many as any other school in the Empire. The school is the Empire's oldest shugenja school, and has no single specialization, allowing its students to master all the elements—including Void.
The Shiba bushi are almost paradoxically peaceful, and their training emphasizes many non-martial skills, earning many Shiba samurai a reputation as warrior-scholars. They are instructed to consider all options before entering combat, but when action is called for, they will strike without reservation, fully committing to the action. The Shiba bushi make excellent yojimbo for the Isawa shugenja.
The school trains in all the traditional samurai weapons, including the katana, wakizashi, bows, spears, and polearms.
When spending a Void Point to gain +1k1 to a roll, you may instead spend 2 Void Points to gain +2k2. You may Guard as a Free Action, but when you do so, your target only gets +5 to their Armor TN (instead of +10).
When you assume your Stance for the Round, you may choose a target within 30 feet. Whenever your target casts or is the target of a spell, you may increase or decrease the TN by 5. Whenever you are the target of a spell, you may increase or decrease the TN by 5. (These bonuses can stack when your target targets you with a spell.)
This technique activates in the Reactions Stage of combat if another character spent a Void Point that Round. You regain a Void Point. This may exceed your maximum, but extra Void Points are lost when combat ends. This technique can activate twice per combat.
You may make attacks as a Simple Action instead of a Complex Action when using polearms, spears, or Samurai keyword weapons.
For every Void Point you spend, you gain the effects of spending two Void Points (if applicable). You may spend Void Points on enhancement (as per the usual rules for spending Void Points) twice in one Turn.
The Henshin are an obscure monastic order that follows the Path of Man, as revealed by Shiba and taught by Asako. Their apprentices, michibuku, study the relationship between the individual and the Elements that make up the world. Eventually, they may be initiated as fushihai, living immortals who may eventually rise into the Celestial Heavens and become Fortunes.
Only one Mystery or Riddle may be in effect on a target at a time, and Riddles may be used a number of times per day equal to the Henshin's relevant Ring.
As a Simple Action, you can increase or decrease both Traits associated with one of your Rings by your School Rank, for a number of minutes equal to your Insight Rank. You can target someone else, but only increase or decrease their Traits by one-half your School Rank (rounded down, minimum 1). Altering the Traits of an unknowing or unwilling target requires a Contested WIL Roll. Altering Traits this way does not affect the Rings.
As a Simple Action, you can invoke the blessing of Earth: you become immune to all Conditional Effects (except Grappled and Mounted) for a number of hours equal to your Earth.
As a Simple Action, you can invoke the blessing of Air: for a number of hours equal to School Rank, you cannot be deceived by any illusion or false image, and perceive them as transparent falsehoods. For illusions created by a spell of Mastery Level higher than your Insight Rank, you must beat the caster in a Contested Air Roll, or you fail to see through the illusion.
As a Complex Action, you can invoke the blessing of Fire: you increase the kept dice of your unarmed damage rolls by your Fire, for a number of Rounds equal to your School Rank.
If you succeed at a Lore: Elements (Water)/Water Skill Roll (TN 20), you can take one Complex and one Simple Action per Turn, or three Simple Actions per Turn. Roll at the beginning of your Turn each Round.
Not as famed as the Kakita artisans, the Shiba artisans' unassuming tradition has been a mainstay of the Empire for centuries. They seek to capture the beauty of the world as an exercise unto itself, irrespective of any audience.
Select one Artisan Skill. When you spend a Void Point to enhance a Skill Roll using it, you get +2k2 instead of +1k1.
Once per month, you can make an Artisan Skill Roll (TN 15) to gain XP equal to the amount by which you exceed the TN, usable only for buying the Allies Advantage (subject to GM approval); these Allies are temporary, lasting for your School Rank in weeks.
Choose one Artisan Skill. When making a Social Skill Roll, you can use this Artisan Skill instead of the usual skill. You gain no Mastery Level benefits. (The GM may judge that this Technique is inapplicable in some situations.)
Once per day, you can make an Artisan Skill Roll (TN 30). On a success, you and a number of people up to your School Rank who are present regain all Void Points. This requires at laest 15 minutes, and cannot be done in the Shadowlands.
When your work is on display in court or the home of a lord, all present in the room where it is displayed gain one extra Void Point. If you are present, you gain two instead, and may deny the benefit of this Technique to anyone you choose. No one can gain more than one Void Point per day this way (or two, in your case).
The Asako train the Phoenix Inquisitors, who predate the Empire's Jade Magistrates as hunters of corrupt and blasphemous magic. They do not limit themselves to maho and the Shadowlands taints, but also gaijin magic and heretical cults and sects. Most of them are shugenja, but some Henshin and even Brotherhood monks become members. They take strict vows of duty and secrecy, and are marked with the tattoo of an eye, the symbol of their order, somewhere on the body—usually the back of the hand.
You are considered one Rank higher in your original Shugenja School for the purposes of casting spells; if not a shugenja, you gain one Kiho instead.
During a skirmish, you can use a Complex Action to prepare to disrupt enemy magic. At any later point in the skirmish, when an opponent is casting a spell, you may use a Free Action to force them to make two additional Raises on the spellcasting roll to no effect. Once this is done, you must take another Complex Action to prepare another attempt.
When casting any spell, you can spend a Void Point to make the spell count as jade or crystal for the purposes of Reduction and Invulnerability. If you cannot cast spells, you can instead make a melee attack as a Simple Action instead of a Complex Action when facing an opponent you know has violated the Empire's laws regarding legal forms of magic.
You are considered one Rank higher in your original Shugenja School for the purposes of casting spells; if not a shugenja, you gain one Kiho instead.
You may not prepare a disruption (as per your Rank 1 Technique) as a Simple Action, and inflict three Raises instead of two.
The Elemental Guard consists of four schools—the Avalanche Guard, the Firestorm Legion, the Hurricane Initiates, and the Tsunami Legion—one for each of the four elements, each paired with one of the Shiba Legions.
Your Shugenja School Rank is considered 1 higher for casting spells of your chosen Element. You can spend a Void Point as a Free Action to add 2× your chosen Ring to your Armor TN for a number of minutes equal to your Shugenja School Rank. This has a visible effect.
Your Shugenja School Rank increases by one. Your chosen Ring is considered 2 higher for the purposes of determining spell slots.
Your Shugenja School rank is considered one higher for the purposes of casting spells of your chosen element. Select one spell of Mastery Level 3 or greater from your chosen element: a number of times per day equal to your Void, you may cast that spell with a single Simple Action.
Founded long ago by a shugenja fascinated with the Yuki no Onna legend, the acolytes wield spells of ice.
Asako Mediators are almost monastic in their devotion to peace and pacifism. Their mediators seek to bring harmony into even the most bitter of conflicts.
The city of Nikesake in Shiba province is a famous center of education, and the Blue Tiled Room holds extensive tomes of philosophy from across the Empire and beyond. Many courtiers in the city, especially from among the Asako, spend hours poring over these tomes and debating each other. The best among them become adept sophists, able to switch points of view smoothly and swiftly.
A few students of the Asako Loremaster school in each generation have the "Mind of Fire," with an intuitive grasp of the connections between different fields. They are trained in a special dojo, and much is expected of them.
The Elemental Legions are bushi who fight alongside the shugenja of the Elemental Guard: the Legion of Wind with the Hurricane Initiates, the Legion of Stone with the Avalanche Guard, the Legion of Flame with the Firestorm Legion, and the Legion of the Wave with the Tsunami Legion. They are trained in aligning their spirits with the Element of their Legion and draw strength from the magic of the shugenja.
The Isawa Temple Guardians protect countless temples and holy places throughout the Empire, and are welcome virtually everywhere. Their ability to hold back an attack is legendary.
The Isawa are the undisputed masters of elemental magic, producing more shugenja than any other. The Tensai stand out even among the Isawa prodigies. They focus on a single element, and the kami seem to dance at their command.
Among the Phoenix and the Dragonfly, a small sect of shugenja study the ancient art of kawaru—divination by casting sticks, small stones, or coins—and provide guidance. Some rise from obscurity to serve as court diviners. They are identified by the kawaru hexagrams embroidered on their robes.
An elite within the elite, the Mist Legion are part of the Hurricane Initiates of the Elemental Guard. They are marked by a small gray cloud worked into their school mon.
When an ishiken is tainted or corrupted—usually by the Shadowlands—the Void they wield may sometimes purge the corruption from them. This leaves them terribly scarred, outside and in: common consequences are fugue, amnesia, or loss of identity. These survivors become great enemies of the Shadowlands and other evils.
One of the oldest and most revered orders within the Shiba family, founded a few generations after the founding of the Empire, and bearing the name of the yojimbo Shiba Chikai, in memory of her sacrifice in her duty. The order produces the best yojimbo to protect the five members of the Council of Elemental Masters.
The Sapphire Legion protect Nikesake, the City of Treaties. Named for an old accord between the Phoenix and the Crane, they are the perfect sentries and yojimbo for courts.
Some of the Shiba train with the Asako loremasters to become historians of war, applying the lessons of history to military pursuits. Every Phoenix general keeps a Shiba Advisor on their staff.
Shiba swore to follow the Isawa family, and the Shiba family have acted as the defenders of the Isawa shugenja ever since. The Shiba bodyguards will die before they allow harm to come to their charges.