Legend of the Five Rings/Characters

Crab Clan

 * And Then John Was a Zombie: Happens depressingly frequently to the Crab, as a result of their proximity to the Shadowlands and their duty to fight it. While some literally become zombies, succumbing to the Taint is common enough to Crab bushi that they actually have a berserker school for bushi who wish to die fighting the Shadowlands. The Kuni shugenja also fall to the Taint when researching the Shadowlands, either as a consequence of a ritual gone wrong or by being seduced by the power of the dark magic they're studying.
 * A Father to His Men: Hida expects this of his line. Anyone guided by him is an inspiring force on the battlefield for any of his clan, and will suffer wounds in sympathy for his fellow Crab.
 * The Berserker:
 * An actual career path for Crab Clan samurai, without the stigma it normally has in other fantasy cultures (at least, any more than what the Crab Clan normally get). Notably, one of their Champions, Hida Kuon, studied at this school as well.
 * The matriarchal Matsu family of the Lion Clan also has this as their "signature" school.
 * As do the (patriarchal) Moto family of the Unicorn.
 * CMOT Dibbler: The Yasuki Family of the Crab Clan
 * Cruel to Be Kind: The Crane will take the men that snap under the pressure of their duty, throw them in a cage, and starve them. When they do this, they also place a friend of the insane person outside of the cage, to share his pain and talk to him until he regains his senses. This is in contrast to the other clans who would either kill him, or make him commit seppuku.
 * Dumb Muscle: A stereotype of the Crab Clan, particularly the Hida family. Actually, it's not that they are uncultured and rude on purpose - they just don't think those things are as important as their Clan's main task is to guard the border between the empire and the Shadowlands.
 * Elves vs. Dwarves: The Crab prefer to use axes and clubs (which are better at cracking the hides of Oni), tend to live in fortresses, and are aligned with the element of Earth. They also don't care much for the niceties of Rokugani society. Guess what happens when they go up against the Crane?
 * The Hunter: The Kuni Witch-hunters specially train in hunting down blood mages, while the Toritaka rangers are the only school devoted to fighting ghosts.
 * Mighty Glacier: The Crab Clan, both individually and army tactics-wise. Though they also tend to be StoneWalls too.
 * Properly Paranoid:
 * Some monsters of the Shadowlands can infiltrate Rokugan fairly easily, using Rokugani social customs to their advantage (leaving your weapons at the door in a geisha house or bath house, for instance). Crab samurai generally forego said customs, and frequently lose honor for it, but occasionally save lives in the process.
 * There's also a certain Shugenja spell that detects if a person has been affected by the shadowland taint. Casting this spell on someone is generally one of the gravest offenses in Rokugan... except in the Crab clan, who see it as a healthy precaution.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: All the clans to some extent, but especially the Crab and the Lion.
 * Training from Hell: The Crab Clan's coming-of-age for all their samurai (including the priests and spellcasters) involves a solo mission into the Shadowlands, and they cannot return until they have slain a monster found there and returned with its head - thus taking the trope somewhat literally.
 * Twenty Bear Asses: When the Crab declare a Twenty Goblin Winter, anyone who can singlehandedly kill twenty goblins and bring back their heads from the Shadowlands is invited to join the clan, no questions asked.

Crane Clan

 * Actual Pacifist: The Asahina family. Their founder, Isawa Asahina, was part of the Phoenix clan; he snapped after the Crane intervened between the Lion and Phoenix, and went on a killing spree that ended when he nearly murdered Doji Kiriko of the Crane while she sat there and took it. Having a My God, What Have I Done? moment, he swore fealty to the Crane, and eventually was allowed to found his own family.
 * Bishonen:
 * Can't Argue with Elves: When a Doji Courtier reaches higher ranks it becomes dishonorable to disagree with him
 * By Rokugani law the winner of a duel is always right in whatever argument caused the duel. The Crane have the best duelists.
 * Elves vs. Dwarves: All the Crane need are pointy ears.
 * Honor Before Reason The Crane occasionally find a third option that is both honorable and reasonable.
 * Iaijutsu Practitioner - The Kakita Dueling School; as the seat of the Emerald Champion is decided through an iaijutsu tournament, the Emerald Champion is usually a Crane.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: A good reason why Kakita (blue) and Matsu (red) were never going to be friends. Stereotypical members of both families also follow this line, which explains a good portion of the Lion/Crane rivalry. It should also be worth noting that the Akodo family of the Lion Clan also has some Blue Oni traits, leading to understandable tension with the Matsu.
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money - Although it's important to note that when the Crane were actually running short on cash they lost a lot of influence. Strongly related to...
 * Screw the Rules, I Make Them - Because the Crane Clan is so influential in the courts it's not that uncommon for some families to take advantage of the clout.
 * What Exactly Is His Job? - At the start of the storyline, the Crane Clan's role in the setting was seemingly ironclad, but since has fallen to the wayside due to storyline victories in other clans. The Emperor traditionally married a Crane spouse, a tradition that came to an end with Toturi. The Crane Clan ran the economy, which became iffy in backstory when their money-oriented family joined the Crab, and was quietly dropped with the prominence of Mantis and Unicorn trade routes. The role they held on to the longest was that of running the courts, but they officially lost that role to the Scorpion in Hidden Emperor nearly ten years ago, with the Scorpion either maintaining or increasing their dominance since. Word of God now says the Crane is ambiguously responsible for Rokugan's culture, and has a high number of low-level functionaries around the courts, but the clan's lost much of its former strengths. Fortunately, this does not affect game mechanics or individual characters' cool storylines.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: A large number of members of the Crane Clan of both genders dye their hair white. Though they usually are honorable, there are some that obey only the letter of the law, not its spirit. Daigotsu pretty much plays it straight, despite not being Crane.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Women from the Doji family are legendary for being them, since their family (and Clan) founder is the supreme example of this trope. As a result, a majority of the Emperors, including the first one, took brides from this family, and having a Doji bride is a mark of high status. However, be warned that not a few turn out to be taking advantage of their family's reputation.

Dragon Clan

 * Bare-Fisted Monk: Dragon Clan Monks, which comprise most of the Togashi family. Non-Dragon Clan aligned monks, which are either members of the Brotherhood of Shinsei or the Order of the Spider, are more like Warrior Monks.
 * Breath Weapon: The tattooed monks can, in fact, breathe fire.
 * Dishing Out Dirt: The Tamori shugenja school are focused on applying Earth magic to battlefield purposes. Enemy armies tend to get ill-timed earthquakes, landslides, and flying rocks to the face.
 * Dual-Wielding: The Mirumoto family are the premiere dual-wielding swordsmen of Rokugan. They even give the Kakita run for their money as the best duelists.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: Togashi and his descendants also had this.
 * Magic Knight - the Tamori family of the Dragon Clan specialize in training shugenja who can both blow stuff up and slice people with swords.
 * Our Dragons Are Different - They have had Clan Champions that can actually turn into Dragons. (This is due in large part to the fact that prior to the Second Day of Thunder, ''.) In addition when Dragons were getting printed in the CCG, special text had to be added so that people understood that there was a difference between "Dragon" and "Dragon Clan".
 * Power Tattoo: The main difference between Dragon Clan monks and everyone else. They have tattoos powered by the divine blood of their founder, Togashi, or one of his descendants. Previously the (now absorbed into the Togashi) Hoshi and Hitomi families also had this.
 * Shirtless Scene - Just about all male monks, as their magic tattoos don't work when covered by clothing. Some female monks consider tattoos shirts.

Lion Clan

 * Amazon Brigade: the Matsu family's Lion's Pride.
 * Death Seeker: Dishonored Lion samurai often decide to become deathseekers instead of committing seppuku, in order to reclaim their honor while slaying the Clan's enemies. Happens so often that most Lion generals can field at least one unit of deathseekers as shock troops to break the enemy line (and nothing breaks the enemy line like angry berserkers who KNOW that they'll only return honor to their family by killing you and your fellows before you kill him). It's also worth noting that this is the Trope Namer.
 * Four-Star Badass: This is what the Akodo tend to end up becoming after many years' worth of success in battle.
 * Honor Before Reason Seriously. When the Emperor was possessed by the Dark God, about half of the Lion sided with him because unwavering loyalty to the throne is their thing.
 * Hot-Blooded: The Lion Clan's Matsu family, even ESPECIALLY the women, to the point where even other Lion consider them to be nigh-psychotic at times. And yet, the Matsu are NOT the Lion family that tends to have naturally red hair.
 * Knight Templar: Don't give the Lion a reason to hate you. They'll remember it for a few generations and wipe out your descendants at the first opportunity.
 * Lady Land: the Matsu family is strictly matriarchal. See Amazon Brigade.
 * The Medic:
 * The Kitsu shugenja almost never fight when the Lion are at war - they concentrate solely on using water magic to heal the soldiers, or bolstering their morale through use of ancestor magic.
 * As of 4th Edition, though, the Kitsu are more active on the battlefield.
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: All the clans to some extent, but especially the Crab and the Lion.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: A good reason why Kakita (blue) and Matsu (red) were never going to be friends. Stereotypical members of both families also follow this line, which explains a good portion of the Lion/Crane rivalry. It should also be worth noting that the Akodo family of the Lion Clan also has some Blue Oni traits, leading to understandable tension with the Matsu.
 * The Strategist: The Akodo and Ikoma families share this trope, though Akodo skew towards the leadership roles in addition.
 * Training from Hell: Although it's not always reflected in actual characters from the family, the Matsu gempukku (coming-of-age ceremony) is horrifically vicious in the fluff; among the things the young Matsu samurai must do to be considered an adult are: demonstrate adequate skill with 20 different kinds of weapons, withstand a heavy beating with wooden swords without uttering a sound, and fight off temptation by fasting and meditating while in a room filled with delicious food.
 * The Worf Effect: Has happened a lot to the Lion recently, particularly during the War of the Rich Frog and the Chagatai's Ambition storylines.
 * Zerg Rush: While the Akodo and Ikoma are renowned for the tactical approach to war, the Matsu go in this direction.

Mantis Clan

 * The Archer: the Tsuruchi family, who combine this with their Bounty Hunter tradition to be commando rangers.
 * Dual-Wielding: The Mirumoto of the Dragon Clan and the Yoritomo of the Mantis Clan both train with two weapons, but the Mantis specialize in Dual-Wielding "peasant" weapons such as tonfa and sai.
 * Greed: The weakness of the Mantis Clan. Because they're so likely to succumb, it gives an extra Character Point if you take the disadvantage of the same name.
 * Improvised Weapon: Befitting their swashbuckling nature the Yoritomi bushi school is pretty much dedicated to this.
 * Lady Land: While the men of the Moshi family are allowed to enter their familiy's signature school, they aren't expected to excel at it as well as the women will, and they can never expect to be leaders.
 * Money Fetish:
 * The original Mantis Clan built their reputation for being the best mercenary army that money can buy, and any criminal with a substantial reward on their head should worry about Tsuruchi arrows flying their way. Now that the Mantis are a Great Clan, they still are the most openly mercantile among the Clans, who usually view commerce and the pursuit of wealth as something beneath the status of a samurai. And Yoritomo courtiers use their wealth as the political equivalent of a blunt instrument.
 * Bear in mind that the Yoritomo Courtiers also use blunt instruments as political blunt instruments.
 * Pirate: The Mantis Clan, complete with lust for booty.
 * Screw the Rules, I Have Money: The primary tactic of Yoritomo courtiers - they try to bribe you first. If that doesn't work, then they put the pressure on with their hired goons.

Phoenix Clan

 * Actual Pacifist: Some Phoenix are willing to die rather than hurt someone else... although some many of their members are more of Technical Pacifists.
 * Badass Bookworm: Both the bushi and the shugenja of the Phoenix devote themselves to studying the elements and the Tao. That doesn't mean they can't beat the snot out of you, or summon the elements to do it for them. Particularly the Elemental Masters.
 * Blood Magic: The clan has had frequent flirtations with it over the storyline, despite the clan nearly dying because of its overuse.
 * Elemental Powers: The Phoenix are the only Clan with a shugenja school for each element, and whose shugenja aren't automatically weak in one element. They even apply this on a grand scale, with their four Elemental Legions, each mostly composed of warrior priests attuned to the same element - Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. Void Shugenja are (in the story) too rare and too few in number to field a whole legion.
 * Genius Bruiser: In first edition, Shiba bushi started with Intelligence at 4 (the human average in Rokugan is 2 and 5 is the maximum a normal human can achieve ; going further is reserved to legendary heroes, gods or Munchkins). It was later balanced out.
 * Holier Than Thou:
 * The Isawa, in spades. Bonus points for frequently engaging in the very activities they decry in others. Rather than trying to hide it, they proclaim that their "moral superiority" justifies it.
 * They also look down on the Crab for their constant war against the Shadowlands, which is easy to do when you live all the way across the empire from them.
 * Insufferable Genius: Most Isawa family characters, especially their leaders, are this trope personified. Their family founder was so arrogant a fallen god had to kneel in front of him to swear fealty for him to even consider helping out the Empire in their war for survival against Fu Leng.
 * Playing with Fire: The stereotypical Phoenix shugenja is more of a "burninate first, ask questions later" type. Hey, their Clan symbol is a Phoenix, after all...
 * Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Happens to a lot of Clans, but most often happens to the Phoenix, particularly since the Isawa consider themselves the ultimate authority on everything, and only take advice from others under extreme pressure.
 * Squishy Wizard: With 3 Shugenja families to one Bushi family, the Shiba have their hands full keeping their spellcasters alive. For their part, the shugenja, particularly the Isawa, tend to view their yojimbo as disposable.

Scorpion Clan

 * And I Must Scream:
 * The Scorpion value loyalty above all else. The customary way of punishing those who betray the clan and/or the Empire is to use magical rituals created by the Yogo to bind their souls to one of the Trees in Traitors Grove, a grove of trees on the grounds of Kyuuden Bayushi where the soul of the deceased is removed from the cycle of reincarnation and forced to endure an eternity of torment.
 * The Scorpion even did this to The Atoner recently, who admitted that nothing he could do would avert this fate.
 * Ax Crazy:
 * The Scorpion Clan are home to cunning politicians, cold killers, and actors who possess such absolute control over themselves that they can flawlessly adopt new identities. Oh, and the Dark Sword of Bitter Lies, a bunch of lunatic killers who couldn't follow a plan across the street, and are bound only by their loyalty to the clan.
 * To illustrate how insane a Bitter Lies swordsman is: if an enemy army sees a single Bitter Lies swordsman charging at them, the enemy army run away in fear.
 * Badass in a Nice Suit: One of the defining traits of the clan's art. The more distinctive the outfit, the deadlier the Scorpion associated.
 * Becoming the Mask:
 * A danger to the clan in general. They're intended to be the Emperor's killers, and villains ultimately loyal to the throne. They're often just in it for themselves.
 * More specifically a literal danger in the Shosuro family (see The Mole, below). This literally happened to the family's founder, who lost her identity to the point where Shosuro is called Bayushi's Daughter primarily because that's the one role everyone in the clan can agree she never held, and even her gender is up for debate.
 * Bishonen: especially members of the Bayushi family.
 * Blessed with Suck: One of the Scorpion ancestors is a cunning mastermind who can seamlessly blend into any environment... and who couldn't stand out if he tried anyway. Choosing him as a forebear gives your character great power to manipulate events, at the cost of any recognition for service.
 * Butt Monkey:
 * While nobody since Kachiko's been fully accepted by the clan, each successive daimyo has had it worse.
 * Yojiro retired due to pressure from traitors in the clan who felt he'd weakened the clan by betraying its ideals, despite the clan being the strongest it had been in decades under Yojiro, and enjoying both alliances and control of the courts. He died at the hands of a random Unicorn chump who killed him in a case of mistaken identity.
 * Sunetra was demoted for being unable to deal with the leader of the clan's traitors in a timely fashion, because said leader escaped purely through Deus Ex Machina. She became the Emperor's personal assassin, and ultimately died because she ignored the advice of every Scorpion leader in history, to stay and gloat over a foe she'd already hurt.
 * Paneki's entire career as leader was one fiasco after another, with him needing help to find his own wife, then attacking the Crab while having not only the skimpiest of motives, but having no plan whatsoever for dealing with the superior military forces of the Crab he'd provoke if his plan was successful, much less the utter failure it was eventually proven. He then presided over his clan during unprecedented famine, and was so distracted he didn't notice the Spider Clan moving into Rokugan. When the time came for an open vote to decide which clan champion died of the plague, the Scorpion voted overwhelmingly to off Paneki, with several players stating it was the only way they could see him getting a good story finally. Now risen as a zombie, it's quite likely Paneki will only be remembered as the father of Shoju reincarnated.
 * The Chessmaster: The hat of the Scorpion clan and a description that fits many Scorpion Clan Champions throughout the history of the Emerald Empire.
 * Combat Pragmatist: The Scorpion as a whole are this trope. In particular, Bayushi fighters are referred to as always having secret training with at least one ninja weapon for the sole purpose of this trope.
 * Creepy Souvenir: There's an ogre who collects the mons (banners) of all the samurai he's killed.
 * Curse:
 * The Yogo Curse runs through all Yogo family members and a significant percentage of non-Yogo Scorpion as well, ever since Fu Leng cursed Yogo, the family founder, during a battle in the early days of Rokugan. The curse is exceptionally devious: all bearers are doomed to betray someone (or something) they love at one point in their life. It could be as little as breaking your mother's favorite, irreplaceable heirloom vase, to as horrible as cheating on your spouse... and the ultimate betrayal so far: selling out your Clan to an evil god. As a result of this, Yogo samurai tend to be aloof and cold towards everybody to discourage developing feelings, and only samurai who have broken their curse are placed in positions of trust and authority in the family.
 * The whole reason the Yogo are part of the Scorpion Clan is because their champion convinced their founder to join on the grounds that he would never love the Scorpion. Which led to a very ironic situation where, one thousand years later Yogo Junzo, the Daimyo of the Yogo, due to his own fanatical loyalty to his Lord Bayushi Shoju, opened the First of the Twelve Black Scrolls and became an undead servant of Fu Leng, betraying the very Empire that Shoju tried to save, fufilling his own curse.
 * Cursed with Awesome: The Dark Sword of Bitter Lies students, for all their loyalty, tend to be fools and madmen. They're incredibly lucky because of this, however, and ridiculously good at killing major threats because of it.
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy: If your Scorpion character doesn't have hints of this, you're doing it wrong.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Official propaganda aside, the Scorpion losses during their coup were relatively light, consisting of the champion, his heir, and a decent but not crippling portion of their army, with the champion's wife, Bayushi Kachiko, forcibly married to the Emperor thereafter to the frustration of the rest of the remaining clans. For all intents and purposes, the Scorpion are now on the throne... except Kachiko's beloved son is dead. Cue Kachiko manipulating the Emperor into disgracing the entire family of the Lion general who stopped the Scorpion at the last minute, then allying with the Kolat to destroy the general's clan; poisoning the Emperor to within an inch of his life; and creating a corrupt copy of her son's father and unwitting killer, Crane champion Doji Hoturi, to lead the Crane into ruin in retaliation. Both Lion and Crane suffer to the point where, a mere five years after the coup, both clans are bordering on annihilation. In the Scorpion, Disproportionate Retribution is not a sign of insanity, but a virtue.
 * Femme Fatale: A common and acceptable career path for Scorpion women. Notably, Bayushi Kachiko.
 * I Am Not Left-Handed:
 * So common among Scorpion duelists that the Kitsuki of the Dragon actually attempt to list down who among the Scorpion are actually left-handed.
 * In fact, the meta version of this tactic applies to the clan's dealings at large-see the altered tale of the Scorpion and the Frog below.
 * I Did What I Had to Do: The whole reason the Scorpion clan exists. If the Lion is the right hand of the Emperor and the Crane is the left hand, the Scorpion is the "under-hand". That's not an Incredibly Lame Pun, that's what the clan actually call themselves.
 * Lightning Bruiser: the warriors of Bayushi school roll and keep two dice for Initiative, which means that they're nigh-inhumanly fast. And if an opponent misses them, they can strike back For Massive Damage or Attack Its Weak Point easily.
 * Malevolent Masked Men: All Scorpion samurai wear masks, a tradition stretching back to their founder, Bayushi. The masks serve as both a nod to their ancestors and as a reminder to the rest of Rokugan that a Scorpion cannot be trusted (which of course, the Scorpion find endlessly amusing considering how much power and responsibility they wield in the Empire).
 * Master of Illusion: The Scorpion have the Bayushi courtiers, who can lie to your face and convince everyone it's the truth; the Shosuro actors, who are capable of putting on an entirely new identity; the Shosuro ninja, who take stealth and invisibility to a whole new level; and the Soshi Air Shugenja, who can make illusions and sounds appear out of nowhere. This of course results in dealings with the Scorpion getting extremely well-scrutinized.
 * The Mole: The Shosuro have a renowned acting school, that tours the Empire putting on plays. The most famous graduates of these school become beloved celebrities with fans adulation and rich sponsors to make their life easy. The best graduates of this school are tasked to create (or takeover) an identity, often belonging to a different Clan, and spy and occasionally assassinate for the Scorpion.
 * Morality Pet:
 * The Scorpion Clan is extremely protective of the Monkey Clan.
 * Similarly, the Scorpion's alliance with the Dragon Clan is one of the few sacred cows in the game. Even the suggestion of breaking it can provoke flame wars, as both clans' players have exerted substantial effort to support each other over the past ten years. This came to a head when it was revealed during the Race for the Throne that a Scorpion victory meant they would turn the empire against whoever came in second, which turned out to be the Dragon. While some players snapped at both in trying to demand that the other take a dive to preserve the alliance, the general consensus that emerged was more of a "may the best clan win" respectful rivalry, with no few Scorpion players celebrating Dragon's ultimate victory.
 * Ninja:
 * You better believe these guys exist. The Scorpion Clan are their main employers. Of course, don't say that to the Scorpion themselves; everyone knows ninjas don't exist.
 * They're shinobi. Only those bastards from the Spider Clan are ninja. Or at least that's the defense the Scorpion use (even though the words mean the same thing).
 * The trope is also lampshaded in the most hilarious manner possible. The Scorpion actually do employ the black-pajama-wearing, shuriken-throwing, ninjato-wielding cliché ninja, in rather large numbers... as a distraction. Often, when assassinating someone, the Scorps will send several of these guys to engage in Crazy Ninja Hijinks while the actual shinobi (who has quite possibly been spending months as a geisha/courtesan/etc) performs the actual necessary wetwork. Having to do the whole "black pajama ninja" thing is actually called The Gauntlet by the Scorpions, and it's basically considered shinobi gempukku - if you can survive having to be sneaky while using the dumbest gear possible for a year, then you're ready to learn how to do it properly.
 * Perfect Poison - the Shosuro devote the entire garden of their castle to raising the plants and herbs necessary to produce this.
 * Poisoned Weapons:
 * People falling over dead days after dueling with a Scorpion, even if they won the duel, is not an unexpected occurrence.
 * The Clan sword:
 * First subverted. While all clan swords are empowered to be lethal if the wielder attempts to use it against the clan, the Scorpion sword is further enchanted to look... like just another Scorpion sword. And if you suspect that the Scorpion poisoned their sword before a duel, well, you can't outright say so without insulting the Scorpion, but you can suggest the duelists exchange weapons...
 * Played straight with the sword again, but in a different way. The clan sword, when not in use by champion or on loan to a Scorpion, is stored in a room with 99 exact duplicates. These duplicates shuffle themselves magically whenever nobody is looking at them, and touching one of them leads to a painful death. Only the true champion or their heir can safely tell the true sword from the copies.
 * Smug Snake:
 * For a clan of masterful blackmailers and killers that value loyalty above all else, they get shown up by other factions on their home turf with surprising regularity, and it was over ten years before they had a primary storyline that wasn't about a member betraying the clan.
 * The Fourth Edition of the RPG offers a possible justification for the Scorpion's inconsistent performance: The founder of the Scorpion made sure to include some completely incompetent individuals among his followers. Also, a core aspect of the Scorpion's philosophy is to be continually underestimated, something that becomes progressively more difficult if one's actual track record shows that your incredibly competent. Like everything in Rokugan, what matters most is perception. Win or lose, at the end of the day the Scorpion are able to say Just As Planned and hardly anyone else can say if the Scorpion suffered a setback or this is yet another Xanatos Gambit.
 * The Trickster - Soshi Air Shugenja are employed to create illusions, steal enemy secrets, and screw with people's heads.
 * Undying Loyalty - The Scorpion believe that loyalty is more important than any. Thing. Else! In fact, we are presented with the story of the Scorpion Clan Champion Bayushi Ujiro and his bodyguard Shunsen. Ujiro issued a challenge to the other Clan champions to determine which clan best understood the concept of loyalty. The challenge involved all the champions and their bodyguards performing an action to be set by Ujiro. If the bodyguards do not follow through with the command, that clan is disqualified. So, Ujiro gives Shunsen the command, "Kill me." He did, then commited suicide. The gathered Clan champions and bodyguards, shocked, conceded defeat. And then the Crane go and adapt the event for Winter, because that's just how the Crane are!
 * Xanatos Roulette: While they're often good at shortterm plans, the clan's jaundiced view of others tends to lead to this, most famously in the Scorpion Clan Coup, when the Xanatos Gambit fails due to  Simultaneously,   Notably, had any one of these efforts gone the other way, Shoju's primary plan would have succeeded.

Unicorn Clan

 * Amazon Brigade: The Otaku Battlemaidens (who later changed their names to "Utaku" to renew their vows to the Kami Shinjo, and also to avoid the implications of the word "Otaku" in Japanese)
 * Confusion Fu: Moto Chagatai's march for the throne during the winter.
 * Crippling Overspecialization:
 * While all clans are guilty of stereotyping, the Unicorn might as well be surgically attached to their steeds.
 * In the first edition of the RPG, the first technique of their bushi school gave a bonus to any roll made while on horseback. Difficult negotiation ? Crime scene to be combed through ? Brain surgery ? Saddle up !
 * Deathseeker: Not as famous as the Lion Clan
 * Lady Land: The Utaku Battle Maiden School is one of the very few outright women-only schools. It is commonly expected of the men to stay at home and raise the kids when they marry.
 * Nice to the Waiter: The Unicorn treat their peasant population much better than is usual for the Great Clans. They needed a solid, loyal base of manpower during their travels outside the Empire and that demanded that they forge a close bond with their underclass.
 * Redemption Quest: The Shinjo family has been on this ever since their family was infiltrated by the Kolat.

Shadowlands/Spider Clan

 * Exclusively Evil: The Shadowlands.
 * Black Magic: The powers of the Shadowlands.
 * Blood Magic: Maho, the art of magic practiced by the Bloodspeakers.
 * Body Horror: What the corruption of the Shadowlands does to its victims.
 * Cast from Hit Points: Maho needs blood to be cast. A simple prick of the finger isn't enough, every spell specifies how many hit point's worth of blood it needs... although it doesn't necessarily have to be the caster's blood...
 * The Corruption: The Shadowlands Taint, easy to get, nearly impossible to remove. Originally, the Taint functioned as The Virus, but after Daigotsu struck a deal with Empress Iweko I, the Taint could only afflict the willing.
 * Dark Chick: Most women who succumb to the Shadowlands Taint usually end up as this. Doji Nashiko, from the First Edition splatbook "Bearers of Jade" and the "Mirror, Mirror" adventure that managed to Squick out the system authors, is probably the best example. Eating people's faces with a nice cup of sake. Literally.
 * Evil Feels Good:
 * Some characters who succumb to the Shadowlands Taint end up... enjoying their new circumstances.
 * Also, a running joke among players is that one of the effects of the Taint on female samurai is major hotness upgrades.
 * Occasionally justified, as part of the seductive nature of the Taint is that it frees one from the incredibly restrictive societal rules, including taboos on everything from touching in public to showing any skin below the chin.
 * Evil Sorcerer: Iuchiban, Daigotsu, Kuni Yori, Asako Kinuye...heck, every maho-tsukai in existence counts.
 * Evil Versus Evil: While they like power and use a lot of maho, the Shadowlands natives and the maho-tsukai under Iuchiban don't like each other. In fact, Iuchiban actually took over the City of the Lost for a while before he was forced out. And then we have the events of Path of the Destroyer, where the Shadowlands emptied out because they were trying to escape from the invading armies of Kali-Ma's Destroyers. This culminated with a fight between Kali-Ma and
 * Face Heel Turn: Most characters who succumb to the Taint end up being totally evil, in some cases a 180 degree flip from their original personality-- meek, subservient characters have ended up being bloodthirsty killing machines, and honorable samurai turn into insane, cannibalistic monsters.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: Most of the Shadowlands creatures have these.
 * Hell Gate: The Festering Pit of Fu Leng and the Second Pit formed in the aftermath of Path of the Destroyer.
 * Hellish Horse: The mounts of the Dark Moto.
 * The Legions of Hell: The oni, ogres, goblins, zombies, and other Shadowlands minions.
 * The Mole: How the Spider Clan, Shadowlands-corrupted humans and followers of Daigotsu, infiltrated the Empire and established their power base. Also a tactic of the Kolat.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can:
 * The Dark God, Fu Leng, was only defeated the first time by sealing his soul into twelve scrolls of incredibly powerful magic. A thousand years later, these scrolls are being cracked open by shugenja like Yogo Junzo, or the Elemental Masters of the Phoenix... But that's all part of the plan.
 * The background setting includes several mentions to Iuchiban, an immortal, heartless sorcerer who managed to plunge the Empire into chaos before being stopped. Then, he got loose and did it again a few centuries later. The clans gathered together and sealed him into an inescapable prison. A few more centuries later, he got loose AGAIN.
 * Somebody Else's Problem:
 * The default attitude of most of the (non-Crab) Clans when it comes to the Shadowlands - it is a taboo topic for polite conversation (causing Honor losses when discussed improperly), and most samurai think the Crab exaggerate the threat of the Shadowlands to gain sympathy for their cause, get favorable treatment, and justify their lack of interest in courtly matters. This varies from time to time, depending on events in the background - for example, the Shadowlands is taken far more seriously in the aftermath of an invasion by the reincarnation of Fu Leng, while even the Crab's closest allies may be embarassed on their behalf when the Shadowlands has been quiet for some time.
 * This also varies depending on the character - Asahina priests, who are normally devout pacifists, will obliterate an enemy that shows the first sign of corruption.
 * The Undead: The Shadowlands generally love to have hordes of zombies. However, they do have sentient, non-mindless undead on their side, too.
 * Villainous Rescue: The conclusion of the Destroyer arc has Kali-ma's forces being stopped mainly by Spiders, lead by . In fact, since Spider decks won much in the Celestial Edition tournaments, this basically resulted in them being the only competent clan in the storyline.