Legend of the Five Rings/Characters: Difference between revisions

* [[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]]:

** 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.

== Phoenix Clan ==

* [[Actual Pacifist]]: Some Phoenix are willing to die rather than hurt someone else... although <s>some</s> many of their members are more of [[Technical Pacifist|Technical Pacifists]].

* [[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.

** 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.

* [[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.

** 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''.

* [[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.

* [[Butt Monkey]]:

** While nobody since Kachiko's been fully accepted by the clan, each successive daimyo has had it worse.

** 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.

* [[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.

* 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.

* [[Redemption Quest]]: The Shinjo family has been on this ever since their family was infiltrated by the Kolat.

* [[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.

** 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 [[Because Destiny Says So|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. [[It Got Worse|A few more centuries later, he got loose AGAIN.]]