Unicorn

in Characters

The Clan of the Wind spent hundreds of years outside the Empire, returning in a glorious cavalry charge that shook the other clans to their core. The barbaric ways they adopted in their exile continue to shock and disgust the other clans, yet the Unicorn remain fierce in their duty and unwavering in their honor. Of all the clans, they are best suited to uncovering foreign manipulation and infiltration, for they faced innumerable horrors and traitors in their wandering years.   A thousand years ago, the Ki-Rin Clan rode out of Rokugan, seeking to discover enemies hiding beyond the Emerald Empire’s borders. Their journey was arduous, and they found many strange and powerful threats. In defeating each one, the clan learned, changing its fighting styles, magical practices, and even philosophy. To survive, it was forced to adapt—and overcome. After eight centuries of wandering, the Clan of the Wind returned to the Empire as the Unicorn Clan. They wear fur, speak foreign tongues, and wield strange weapons. Although they still revere the Kami Shinjo, they have drifted far from the traditions and ways of the Emerald Empire.   Shinjo’s descendants are known for their skill as riders, skirmishers, and messengers, and many are trained in foreign fighting techniques or schools of philosophy. People expect them to be worldly and gregarious, if perhaps a bit rough around the edges in polite Rokugani society, given that many members of the clan spend much of their lives ranging across the wilds in Unicorn lands and beyond.  

What does Bushidō mean to the Unicorn?

Compassion is the most significant tenet of Bushidō to the Unicorn Clan, for mutual understanding and cooperation was the key to the clan’s survival during its long journey across the wider world. On this journey, members of the Unicorn Clan met many people with a wide variety of beliefs, cultures, and values, and they became far more accustomed to coexistence with strange outsiders than are most Great Clan samurai.   The Unicorn Clan has had several centuries to acclimate to the Emerald Empire, to which it has returned, but the customs and culture they adopted during their travels remain a powerful force within the clan. These customs often clash with the Rokugani concept of Courtesy, and the Unicorn’s seeming dismissal of Rokugani politeness is one of the most contentious ways in which Shinjo’s clan differs from those of her siblings.